Tennessee Rescue. Carolyn McSparren

Seth had, she’d have sent him flying with a big red handprint on his cheek.

      And possibly found herself facing a stalker who wore a uniform and carried a gun.

      She sank onto the front step of her porch and leaned against one of the columns that held it up. The guy had majorly overstepped his boundaries.

      Even if it was the best kiss she’d ever experienced in her entire life. Not that she’d kissed that many males, but she hadn’t been a nun either.

      It was just a kiss! she reminded herself.

      Emma looked across the street. She could see him pacing back and forth, silhouetted against the front window of his house. She went back into her hall, turned off the lights and shut the front door with its big oval pier glass. He wasn’t going to watch her pace up and down or keep track of her by the lights that went on throughout the house, from living room to bedroom. She’d undress in the dark.

      Tomorrow when she met him at the co-op—assuming he showed up—she would be completely casual, never mention the kiss and dial them back to square one. Acquaintances. Period. She needed him for the skunks. She definitely did not need him as a male person who raised her blood pressure.

      * * *

      HE HAD LOST his mind.

      In two days this woman had put him in the position of breaking rules he was pledged to adhere to. Not just adhere to, but enforce.

      And grabbing her up and kissing her like that? She’d be well within her rights to call the police and have him arrested for assault by an authority figure.

      Not that she’d left him much authority. She hadn’t asked him to help her build an outdoor run for the skunks. He’d come up with the idea himself. Now he was committed to a fairly complicated project, one she’d already told him she either couldn’t or wouldn’t participate in.

      She’d intimated that she’d sworn off the entire sex for the foreseeable future. As if he had all the time in the world outside his job to play nursemaid to skunks. Why hadn’t she adopted a couple of baby squirrels? Or even a raccoon? He could justify helping her in that case.

      Tomorrow morning, he had to meet her as though they’d never shared that blockbuster of a kiss. Casual. Professional. Acquaintances. Neighbors. Nothing more.

      He could handle that.

      In his dreams.

      Then again, what was the use? How long before her fancy, rich lawyer fiancé showed up in a brand-new Mercedes, gave her a big diamond and swept her off to marry him? From her phone conversation with The Jerk—he thought of him in capital letters—the guy was having an affair with a married woman while he was engaged to Emma. Talk about nuts! But with his fortune and social position... No woman would choose Seth Logan over him. If, as Emma said, he was aiming to go into politics at some point, she’d make a smashing senator’s wife. Or governor’s, for that matter.

      Seth had enough experience with domestic disputes to know that in almost every case infidelity was not a deal breaker. All too often, women kept going back to the guy who gave them a broken jaw or a broken heart. His mother had gone back to his alcoholic father again and again, offered him support and forgiveness and her belief that he would stay sober. She’d written him off and divorced him only after Sarah was drowned. She couldn’t go on living with Everett, her husband, knowing it was his fault Sarah had died.

      She barely took her eyes off Seth in the months following Sarah’s drowning. She knew how deeply he blamed his father. Watching him was as much for Seth’s benefit as her own. She’d continued to look at Seth even when he couldn’t bear to look at himself. She was afraid of what he’d do if his father showed up drunk and maudlin, making excuses, casting blame...

      She’d been right to worry. At fourteen Seth was taller, broader and stronger than his father. Besides, his liver was healthy. He doubted dear old Dad’s was. He’d had to avoid the bastard so he wouldn’t put him in the hospital. Or the morgue.

      The only thing that saved Everett Logan from his son’s wrath was that Seth hated himself more than he did his father. If he hadn’t been able to hide out in the woods for days at a time, he might well have followed Sarah into the lake.

      He couldn’t do that to his mother. So he’d nursed his anger and avoided his father. He could thank his father for forcing him to love the outdoors, not that the old man had intended to point him to his career path. Seth only knew he could breathe in the woods.

      Poor Earl. He knew about Seth’s family and how close to the surface Seth’s temper ran when faced with dangerous jackasses like that party boat group. When Seth realized those people on the boat weren’t wearing life jackets, it was touch and go whether he could keep his temper or whether he’d tie the idiot captain to his anchor and toss him overboard.

      Thank God he’d had Earl there to help him maintain control. He thought he’d managed to stay calm, but that big woman who’d caught his expression had looked scared.

      Maybe the alternative was to force the entire party to stare at pictures of bodies pulled from that lake, the quiet little lake that could kick up whitecaps in a strong wind and upend half the boats in the water.

      As he climbed into bed, he was sure he’d lie awake thinking about Emma with The Jerk. In reality he spent the night dreaming of her instead.

      And dreaming of inventive ways to barbecue that Trip guy. Slowly.