But in a stunning defiance of physics, he usually had a way of moving all those mouthwatering muscles with an easy, male, fluid grace that would make an extreme fighter jealous. At six feet three inches, he was built like a linebacker. Nothing rippled Sawyer’s implacable calm or got past that tough exterior. He didn’t appear to have the same reaction to her, of course. He was in uniform, gun at his hip, expression dialed to Dirty Harry, and just looking at him had something pinging low in Chloe’s belly. She was still sucking in a pained breath when the back door opened.

Then, still sitting on the counter, she tugged the legs of her sweat bottoms up to her knees, cringing in pain as she began to apply the antiseptic to the two long gashes on each of her calves. When she was done, she carefully poured the cream into a sterile bottle.

Out the window, waves pounded the rocky shore in the purple light of dawn as she yawned again and stirred the softened beeswax and lanolin together with the lavender oil. Probably she could work harder on the friend thing…

Progress, right? And the fact that Chloe had been gone for four of the past seven days working at a five-star-hotel spa in Arizona instead of here in Washington didn’t count.Ĭhloe looked down at the organic lavender oil she’d just “borrowed” from Tara’s stash for her cream and winced. Well, okay, so they were still working on the friends part, but they hadn’t fought all week. They’d renovated, turned the place into a thriving B&B, and now Chloe, Tara, and Maddie were real sisters instead of strangers. With absolutely no knowledge of what to do with it. Then she and the half-sisters she’d never really known had inherited a dilapidated, falling-down-on-its-axis beach inn. Only a year ago, she’d been free as a bird, roaming happily from spa to spa at will, with no real ties. The fact that her days were centering around work instead of play had her shaking her head with a rueful smile. Later in the afternoon, she’d be doing her esthetician thing at a high-end spa in Seattle, but first she had to put in some time here in Lucky Harbor at the B&B that she ran with her sisters. Given how loudly she lived her life, the silence was a nice start to the day.Įspecially today, which promised to get crazy quickly, though not much could out-crazy last night. The quiet in the kitchen soothed her as she mixed ingredients together for her natural antibacterial cream. Then, gathering what she needed, she hopped up onto the counter-hissing in pain from her throbbing legs. With a wide yawn, she started the coffee. It wasn’t often that Chloe Traeger beat her sisters into the kitchen in the morning, but with Tara and Maddie currently sleeping with the town’s two hottest hotties, it’d been only a matter of time.Īnd in the name of fairness, Chloe hadn’t actually gotten to bed yet, but that was just a technicality. “If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.”

Head Over Heels by Jill Shalvis