Sweet Stuff Read Online Free Page A

either had enjoyed a modeling career. At any point in their lives. Though, with neither one of them clocking in at a day under sixty, who was to say that with less around the middle, and more on top of the head ... and, well, teeth in the mouth, they might have, at one time, turned a lady’s head.
    Then Jeffy wedged a fingerload of Skoal inside his mouth and Riley thought ... then again, possibly not .
    “I’m—I need to go direct them to—” She didn’t keep explaining. She just turned to make her escape. “Go on up and look around.”
    Quinn shifted so she could pass by him to head back down the stairs. He put a guiding hand on the small of her back as she took the first step, which sent a delicious shiver over her skin she had no business feeling. He is just being kind to the feeble, she reminded herself. She put her hand on the railing, just to be safe. As she started down the stairs, she felt a tickling little tug at the back of her head and almost lost her balance all over again when she instinctively swatted at it ... only to freeze momentarily when her hand come into contact with Quinn’s. She glanced back to find him holding a small palm frond that he’d apparently plucked from her hair. He gave her the briefest of smiles as he tucked it discreetly behind his back.
    Apparently her cheeks were never going to be any shade but flushed as long as she was around him. She managed to nod a quick thank-you before turning back to oversee the matter at hand.
    Mercifully, the task quickly enabled her to get her footing back—and hopefully her equilibrium—as she directed the two men to put the piano in the space she’d saved in the Florida room at the rear of the home.
    “What the heck happened to you, missy?” Jeffy asked, nodding toward her face.
    “Slight mishap with the foliage,” she said, which reminded her she still needed to clean up that mess. “Nothing to worry about. Here, this way,” she directed, not even so much as glancing back at the staircase. She could all but feel that half-amused smile heating up the back of her neck. “Right through there.”
    The two men put down protective runners on the hardwood flooring and rolled the piano—frame-packed on its side—into the house and carefully angled it through the arched doorway.
    Naturally, that was when Brutus’s up-to-then nonexistent protective instincts kicked in. He didn’t so much bark as emit a very loud woofing noise that came from somewhere deep inside his mutant-sized canine frame.
    “Good gravy. What on God’s green earth is that?” T-Bone paused in removing the packing from the piano legs to stare through the French doors at Brutus, who was staring directly back at T-Bone from his position on the other side of the dog-slobbered glass.
    The same glass she’d spent half the morning cleaning. Lovely. “That’s just ... my dog. Don’t worry. He’s fine.”
    “I don’t rightly know that it was his health that concerned me,” T-Bone replied. With one eye carefully still aimed in the general direction of the deck, he went back to work.
    “Must be like feeding a horse,” Jeffy commented around the lump in his cheek, less worried than his partner. Actually, he looked like he was trying to gauge how many of his family members he might be able to feed hunting with Brutus.
    “If you could just position it here, so it’s out of the direct sun, but facing the windows and the ocean view, that would be perfect,” Riley directed, trying to keep them—and herself—focused on the task at hand. She worked at setting the potted plants back to rights and sweeping up the dirt and plant detritus while they finished up.
    “You know it ain’t tuned or nothing,” T-Bone said. “We just deliver. You want to play it, you’ll have to get in touch with Marty and set up an appointment.”
    “Yes, thank you.” She didn’t need it to be in tune. It was just for show. She had specifically chosen some sheet music—Debussy’s First