Out of Eden. Beth Ciotta

people, this town, would be his salvation. At least that was the plan. Reconnect with your roots, reconnect with your soul.

      As for Kylie…he couldn’t get over how much she’d changed. He’d seen her briefly at her dad’s funeral eleven years ago, but they’d both been preoccupied. Mostly, he remembered her as the gawky, skinny kid who’d shadowed her big brother. Spenser used to run her off with a smile and teasing words. Spense loved his sister, but he was a daredevil and she was an angel. Spunky, but sweet. Kitten, he called her.

      Jack tempered a smile, flashing on the episode that made it impossible for him to think of her as Kitten. An episode he’d sworn to a then fourteen-year-old Kylie he would never reveal to her brother. A promise he’d kept.

      He glanced down at the woman in his arms, recognizing the big chocolate eyes and thick wild hair and little else. He was keenly aware of her compact curves and her quirky, pretty features. No wonder Ashe was sniffing. Kylie was an interesting package.

      She pushed at his shoulder. “I can walk.”

      “Whatever you say, Tiger.” He set her on her stocking feet but kept his arm around her waist in case she faltered. She did.

      “I don’t get it,” she lamented as he escorted her outside and onto the sidewalk. “I can usually hold my liquor.”

      “You usually drink beer,” Faye said.

      “I wouldn’t reference the usual just now,” Jack told Kylie’s eccentric friend, though the harm was already done. He shook his head as the youngest McGraw launched into another gripe about routine.

      “I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Faye told Jack. “Except the obvious, of course.” The bleached-blonde unlocked the passenger side of a cherry-red minivan.

      He’d never imagined the girl who dressed like a retro pop star would drive a minivan. He’d never imagined her as a mother, either, but the toys and books scattered in the backseat along with the Spider-Man sun shield confirmed what he’d heard. Faye Tyler, formally Powell, was married with children. Children she’d named after nineties musical icons.

      Jack helped Kylie, who continued to vent, into the van while Faye answered her ringing cell. “What do you mean Sting threw up? Does he have a fever? He what? Where were you when… Yes, I know you can’t stomach vomit, Stan. For crying out loud. Okay. Yes. Yes. Be right there.” She tossed her phone in her purse, looked at her friend, then Jack. “There’s a bit of a crisis at home.”

      “Is Sting okay?” Kylie asked, struggling to fasten her seat belt.

      “He got into the freezer—don’t ask how—and ate an entire tub of double-fudge ice cream. He’ll be fine, which is more than I can say for my husband when I get hold of him.”

      Jack remembered Stan Tyler. A short but solid man, former captain of the high school wrestling team. He didn’t figure Faye could take him, but it would be fun to watch her try, especially since he knew Stan would cut off his hand before raising it to a lady. “You live in the converted carriage house next to the B and B, right?”

      “Right,” she said. “And Kylie lives in the opposite direction in the boonies. Do you think—”

      “Sure.” He unbuckled the seat belt Kylie had just managed to fasten. “Come on, Tiger.”

      “Stop calling me that.” She batted away his hands and glared at him through her oval, plastic-rimmed glasses. No-nonsense glasses, black, like her no-nonsense clothes—cropped, wide-legged pants and a loose-fitting blouse. He thought about the no-nonsense shoes she’d given away and decided she must’ve gone out on the town straight from work. “And I don’t need a ride home. From you, I mean. Max lives out my way.”

      “Max plays cards from six until eight,” Faye said as she scurried to the driver’s side. “He’s got another forty-five minutes to go. He’s not going to break away early for anything other than a four-alarm fire.”

      “I’ll wait.” Shoeless, Kylie strode unsteadily toward Boone’s Bar and Grill.

      “Stop where you are. Hello? Splinters! Broken glass!” Faye snapped, clearly in mother mode. “Jack?”

      “Yes, ma’am.” He stepped in and hauled Kylie over his shoulder. “Drive safe, Faye. Best to Stan.”

      She saluted and pulled away from the curb.

      Kylie kicked like a swimmer on speed. “Put me down, darn you!”

      He pressed the lock release on his key fob as he reached his Chrysler Aspen. The new SUV would serve as his personal and professional wheels. Though he didn’t have a weak stomach like Stan, he hoped Kylie didn’t hurl on his new leather seats.

      “I’m serious, Jack. Don’t make me hurt you.”

      He quirked an amused brow. “You wouldn’t assault an officer of the law, would you, Miss McGraw?”

      “Would you throw me in jail?”

      “No.”

      “Dang. What’s a girl gotta do to get tossed in the clink?” she asked as he poured her into the passenger seat.

      “Why are you determined to spend the night in jail?”

      “Because it would set this birthday apart from all the others.”

      “I can think of more pleasurable distinctions,” he said while buckling her in.

      She nabbed his shirt collar and got in his face. Her hair tumbled free of the ponytail, overwhelming her delicate face and ramping her sexuality ten points. “You offering up a distinctive pleasure, Jack?”

      Kylie, flirting? The kid who got tongue-tied when Spense teased her about boys?

      Only she isn’t a kid anymore.

      Jack held her sultry gaze, breathed in her flowery scent and cursed an unexpected boner.

      “Touch her,” he could hear Spenser saying, “and I’ll kick your ass.”

      He wouldn’t blame his friend for trying. He’d threatened to do the same to Ashe Davis, a serial womanizer. This was Kylie, for Christ’s sake. Sweet. Naive. Drunk.

      She licked her lush lower lip. “Well?”

      “Let’s not go there, Tiger.”

      “Too bad for you. I’m a yoga geek.” She raised one brow. “You know what that means.”

      “Flexible?”

      “Like Gumby.”

      The retro green guy that could bend every which way and back.

      Christ.

      He shut her door, rounded the Aspen and claimed the driver’s seat. “Where am I headed?”

      “Route 50, a half a mile past Max’s place. Do you remember where Max lives?”

      Flicking on his headlights, he eased onto Adams Street and headed north. “The boonies.” A twenty-minute drive from town, midway between Eden and Kokomo. Corn and soybean fields. Patches of woods. Pig farms. Pastures of grazing cows and horses. Sporadic century-old farmhouses and the occasional contemporary modular home. A wide-open area where the nearest neighbor lived a mile or a half mile away. He shot her a look. “You live alone out there?”

      She smirked. “I’m single, if that’s what you’re asking.”

      “I’m asking if you live alone. No roommate?”

      “I like my privacy.”

      “You could live alone here in town.”

      “I like the solitude.”

      He couldn’t argue with that. He’d rented a home on the outskirts of town, an old two-story brick house on two acres of land. He, too, liked the idea of solitude. Peace and quiet. The exact opposite of what he’d had when