All he said was very nice.

But at the last part, my heart stopped beating.

“Ohmigod, I’m so not ready for sex with Axl. We have to turn back,” I breathed.

Brett looked to the ceiling of the town car.

“What?” I asked.

He again turned to me. “He’s not gonna jump you on his front doorstep. Stop making excuses.”

I clamped my mouth shut.

“You can do this,” he repeated.

I drew in a very, very big breath.

“Hattie, you want to do this.”

I so did.

It also scared me to death.

I nodded.

“Good girl,” he muttered.

Ugh.

“Are you this heavy-handed with your sisters?” I demanded.

He got a look on his face I didn’t like before he wiped it and said, “Why do you think they live in Alaska?”

That wasn’t the truth.

I thought I read his look, which was why I said, “You miss them.”

“My sisters and me are tight. My brother …”

Unsaid: not so much.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“Here. In Denver.”

“Oh,” I muttered. Then in a normal voice, “I don’t have siblings.”

“You do now. We ain’t blood, but you made up with four of them today, and the other one is sitting right beside you.”

Uh-oh.

I might cry again.

To avoid that, I snapped, “It’s getting to be freakish how sweet you are.”

“I’d put that notion out of your head by offering you a Go to Work with Brett Day, but I like you think that. So we’ll let it lie.”

I smiled at him, the smile faltered, and I admitted, “I’m scared.”

“I know you are,” he said gently. “Why do you think we’re going to Pantera right now? I can’t let my girl crawl back into her head and not get what she wants.”

No, we couldn’t have that.

“I’d like to meet your sisters,” I said.

“They come visit, I’ll set that up.”

“Brett?”

“Right here.”

“Thanks for not letting me blow it again.”

It was him who was now smiling.

“Anytime.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

Worth It

HATTIE

Okay.

I didn’t know what happened to me on the long, long walk from Brett’s town car to Axl’s front door (it actually wasn’t that long, it was pretty short, it just felt that way).

But whatever it was, it happened.

And it did about the time I got over my surprise Axl lived in a cool, gray-painted-with-white-trim bungalow in Baker Historic District.

I thought condo (like Mag) or loft (like Boone).

Nope.

House.

Nice house, smallish, no yard, all of the limited space around it landscaped, great ’hood.

But I got over that mostly because I had to get over it.

This was happening at nearly 3:00 in the morning.

And first, I couldn’t mess it up.

But second, it hit me to wonder how I’d messed it up.

Axl had been correct in what he’d said to me at my studio, but he hadn’t been nice about it.

And the creepy call came right after that.

So, of course I wouldn’t call him.

He’d just been mean to me!

And I was a grown-ass woman, and I might just be coming into my own with that, like, that very day.

But I was entitled to do whatever I wanted or call whoever I wanted when I found myself with a possible-which-turned-into-a-probable crisis.

Or anytime at all.

And Axl might know that if he let me speak.

He was always interrupting me.

So, when I hit his doorbell, all of that was on my mind.

Yes, I got the kind of man he was and what he was to me (even if he actually wasn’t) would make it seem like he should be my first call.

But if this was going to work, he’d have to listen to me so he’d understand why he wasn’t.

So this was on my mind when he opened the door.

Then nothing was on my mind because he opened the door in a pair of gray cotton jersey sleep pants with a wide navy elastic band that rode low on his hips.

And nothing else.

He had dark chest hair, not much, just enough, that trailed down to a dense line low on his flat stomach that led into the waistband of his pants.

His chest was magnificent.

His chest deserved sonnets.

The sight of his chest might make me pass out.

I couldn’t even think of that line of hair that led into his pants or I might lapse into a coma.

I looked up into his semi-sleepy, ice-blue eyes.

Nope.

Not pass out.

Orgasm.

“Hattie? Is everything okay?” his semi-sleep-roughened voice asked.

What was I doing here again?

His gaze went beyond me to the curb.

His stubbled jaw hardened.

Oh, right.

That was what I was doing.

“We’re going to talk,” I declared, turned to give Brett a low wave, a signal I was heading in and a moment for me to pull it together because I could do this.

And I was going to do this.

Brett was being Brett, thus he told me he’d wait at the curb for me to text all was well and Axl was on duty, or for me to come back out so he could take me home.

Yes, at 3:00 at night.

Totally a nice guy.

Seeing as I could do this, and I was going to, I pushed through Axl to get into his house.

I only took a few steps in because there was a light coming from the back, through a door to a room on the right, but the space I was in was dark, the shades were closed, and I didn’t want to mess up before I started by running into furniture or breaking a lamp.

I watched Axl standing at the door, looking out of it like I was still there, then he did a head gesture I couldn’t decipher in my current panicked, anxious, scared, mildly turned-on state, and he closed the door.

Then he moved.

A lamp switched on.

In full light, him and his chest and eyes and those sleep pants …

Not to mention that line of hair.

Gah!

“Ha—” he started.

I put up a hand instantly. “No. Nope. Unh-unh. This time, I get to do the talking and you get to listen, but what you don’t get to do is interrupt.”

He did that man stance with hands on hips that I didn’t understand if its purpose was to take up as much room as manly possible or just have something to do with his hands.