Treasure Me

The angel in the army jacket swung around on her barstool and gave Hugh a look that needed no interpretation. Pure unadulterated loathing. He was out to steal her new digs in town. Evidently, she wasn’t pleased.

Which was her tough luck. He needed a base of operations. It might take weeks to write an exposé about Anthony Perini’s misuse of the money pouring into the websites for his daughter’s medical bills. Those bills no longer existed. The dirt Hugh planned to dig up would make for journalistic greatness. Best of all, he’d get reinstated at the Akron Register.

He shrugged off her ire when Finney Smith, who’d presumably heard his voice, barreled from the kitchen and hurried around the counter.

“Hugh! What are you doing here?” The cook caught him in a bear hug, greasy apron and all. “Why didn’t you tell us you were coming? Are you writing another article about Blossom? Oh, wait until Mary and Anthony find out you’re back!”

Her excitement barely registered. The angel, with her white-blonde hair and eyes he’d swear were violet, hadn’t stopped glaring at him. Then she spoke.

“Wait a second. You’re that Hugh? The journalist from the Akron newspaper?”

Of course she knew who he was. The article he’d written about Blossom had been circulated far and wide. But the angel wasn’t a local. He’d met nearly everyone in town last summer when he wrote the article. Not this woman. She was stunning, if bizarrely dressed in a combat coat that must have pulled duty in WWII. She was the kind of long-legged beauty whose thighs could put a man in a hip-hugging lock sure to send him into bliss.

You need to give your gonads a rest, remember?

“Hugh Shaeffer.” He stuck out his hand, which she ignored. “I’m sorry about taking the apartment.”

“You’re not sorry. You look pleased, asshole.”

“Nice mouth.” Nice lips, actually—her language he could do without.