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type to bite anyone, but he tended to be just aloof enough with strangers that he could seem unfriendly and big and toothy.
    I followed Rex’s path up the hill, stepped over the forest of weeds and onto the front stoop. It was dark and quiet inside, so I knocked lightly. No answer. I knocked a little louder but still nothing.
    Rex had trotted around to the side of the house to explore. I doubled down on my nosy neighbor character by tilting my head just slightly to the side to see in through the big window. Something about the scene inside made my throat ache. The house was dilapidated on the outside, but the inside looked even sorrier. A single mattress had been pushed into a corner of the floor with only a sheet and single pillow on top. In late autumn, the nights on Rockwood Beach were far too cold to be without a blanket. I leaned over even farther. There was a microwave on the counter sitting next to a hot plate and an ice chest. An open box of macaroni and cheese sat on top of the microwave. The only piece of furniture was an old frayed beach chaise.
    Rex’s sharp bark startled me. I pulled my gaze from the sorrowful looking interior and gasped when, in the window, I caught the reflection of a shirtless man standing behind me. The width of the shoulders left me with no doubt that I was about to meet my new neighbor.
    I spun around. And as startled as I’d been to have him walk up behind me and catch me snooping in his window, the look on his face was one you’d expect from someone who had just run into a ghost or a long lost friend from the past.
    “I’m so sorry.” I lifted the basket. “Just dropping these by to welcome you to the neighborhood.” I was talking fast, and to my ears, it sounded just a little too twittery, like a nervous bird.
    He stood stock-still, casting his huge shadow over me. The only movement I detected was the rise and fall of his massive chest and, beneath his beard, his throat rolled as he took a deep, hard swallow. Tattoos covered most of his upper torso, a torso that straddled the line between menacing and lethal. The shorts, shoes and sheen of sweat made it obvious he’d been running. His light brown eyes stared out from beneath thick, dark lashes. His dark blond hair was pulled back from his face, a face that was half covered in a beard but that couldn’t be described as anything but handsome. In fact, his straight nose, intense gaze and physique was the stuff that Hollywood legends were made of.
    It seemed he was struggling to find words.
    “I’m feeling just a little awkward.” I restarted the conversation again, hoping to save the whole thing from being a completely humiliating disaster. I pointed back to the window with my thumb. “I was just peeking inside to see if anyone was home.” The pink blush that covered my cheeks whenever I lied, my Pinocchio’s nose, as my mom called it, warmed my face. I shook my head and continued with the one-sided conversation. “That’s a lie. I was being nosy.”
    He hadn’t said a word, but he stared at me as if I was something he’d just conjured up in a daydream. I lifted the basket. “I’ll just give you these and slip away in utter embarrassment.”
    Rex broke the weird silence that followed with another bark. Then my normally standoffish dog walked over and stuck his head directly under the man’s hand and pushed against it. The nudge seemed to knock the man from the trance he’d been in.
    He patted my dog on the neck. “Hey, Rex.”
    “You know my dog’s name?”
    He straightened. There was another swallow before he spoke, almost as if my voice was enough to render him speechless. He was the six foot plus block of chiseled steel, but I seemed to be the intimidating person standing on the stoop.
    His gaze dropped behind the same incredible fan of dark lashes as he continued to pat Rex. It seemed he preferred to look at my dog than me when talking. “I can hear you when you’re telling him not to terrorize the