Worsening my already foul mood, the woman who runs the bookstore and carries a major torch for Barrons had arrived. Stunning, voluptuous, in her early fifties, Fiona doesn’t like me at all. I suspect if she knew Barrons kissed me last week she’d like me even less. I was nearly unconscious when he did it, but I remember. It’s been impossible to forget.

When she looked up from the numbers she was punching in on her cell phone, I decided maybe she did know. Her eyes were venomous, her mouth a moue fanned by delicate wrinkles. With each quick, shallow inhalation, her lacy blouse trembled over her full bosom, as if she’d just dashed somewhere in a great hurry, or was suffering great distress. “What was Jericho doing here today?” she asked in a pinched tone. “It’s Sunday. He’s not supposed to be here on Sunday. I can’t imagine any reason for him to stop by.” She scanned me from head to toe, looking, I think, for signs of a recent tryst: tousled hair, perhaps a missed button on my blouse, or panties overlooked in the haste of dressing, left bunched in the leg of my jeans. I did that once. Alina saved me before Mom caught me.

I almost laughed. A tryst with Barrons? Get real.

“What are you doing here?” I countered. No more good little soldier. The bookstore was closed and neither of them should have been here, raining on my already rainy parade.

“I was on my way to the butcher when I saw Jericho stepping out,” she said tightly. “How long was he here? Where were you just now? What were the two of you doing before I came?” Jealousy so vibrantly colored her words I expected her breath to come out in little green puffs. As if conjured by the unspoken accusation that we’d been doing the dirty, a vision of Jericho Barrons naked—dark, despotic, and probably flat-out ferocious in bed—flashed through my mind.