"You gonna be okay?"

"Do you mind?"

"Mind what?"

"Clothes. Please," she says, wrinkling her brow crossly and pointedly looking away from me.

Oh this is good.

This is real good.

You know how they always say people will surprise you in ways you don't expect? Well, what I love is when someone is exactly who you think they're going to be. And Ms. Holy Roller here is every f.u.c.king inch what I expected when Dad let me know she and her folks were coming to town.

Prim, proper, high-strung. A little f.u.c.king cross around her neck, because of course there is.

But then, that's where the expected stops, and the unexpected comes up to slap me in the face. The uptightness? The prudish behavior? Yeah, those I expected from the daughter of the deep-south Georgia preacher.

The rest of it, I was not.

There's the fact that she's stunning. There's the fact that her white sundress fits probably a bit too well - more than I'm betting she thinks it does. There's that long blonde hair, glowing around her face from the sun coming in through the dingy hallway window. Pouty lips, big blue eyes that I'm sure are pretty when they aren't scowling.

s.h.i.t.

On the one hand, preacher girl is everything I expected. But on the other?

On the other hand, she's f.u.c.king hot, and that I was not expecting.

Not by a d.a.m.n mile.

She whirls back away from me, crossing her hands over her chest. But that sunlight coming in also happens to be shining right through that white dress, giving me more of a glimpse than I'm betting she wants to.

I decide to keep the little gem to myself.

"Um, please?"

I shake my head, dragging my eyes up from checking out the way the light comes through that dress between her thighs to the back of her I'm sure still scowling face.

"Yes?"

"Look, I just need the key, and could you please put some clothes on?!" she says with a shrillness to her voice.

I grin. "What's that? Sorry, you know it's impolite to talk looking away from someone when you're addressing them."

"You aren't wearing pants," she says, her voice quavering.

She actually sounds upset.

"It's just a d.i.c.k, sweetheart."

"Mr. Hammond! Please!" she says tightly.

I grin, shaking my head. "Okay, okay, chill."

I frown, turning and grabbing a pair of jeans off the back of my office chair.

Jesus, f.u.c.k.

The pounding in my head that's been momentarily forgotten by opening my eyes to this angel standing over me comes roaring back. For a minute, I scrunch my face up, trying to remember why the h.e.l.l I'm naked, and sleeping it off on my d.a.m.n office sofa instead of my apartment upstairs.

The still-beer-damp jeans remind me as I yank them on.

Right, the bar fight.

The boiling point of townies, the insanely drunk bachelorette party of out-of-towners, and the even more drunk groom that showed up to see his fiancee slow dancing to Whitesnake with Mikey Sullivan who works down on the docks.

Somehow this led to me getting punched in the face, and after that, it's a bit of a blur.

I vaguely remember the close up of the bar, saying f.u.c.k it to cleaning up the place post-fight, and getting rip-s.h.i.t drunk with Jade instead.

Jade, who's probably still crashed upstairs in my place actually. One, because no wasted employee of mine is going to take the s.h.i.tty sofa while I sleep upstairs, and two, because I'm pretty positive I couldn't make it up the stairs last night if I f.u.c.king tried.

"Are you decent yet?"

I roll my eyes as I b.u.t.ton my jeans. "It is my house you know."

"It's a bar."

"Well it's my bar."

Church girl is starting to get annoying and I decide I'm not done messing with her.

"Sure you don't want to look?"

I turn and pointedly reach out and poke her a.s.s with a rigid finger.

She shrieks, and I start to laugh before I wince and grab my forehead.

f.u.c.king hangover.

"Okay, fine. I'm decent."

She turns, cautiously, her face bright red and her eyes wild as she glares daggers at me.

So this is the Evangeline Ellis I'm going to be working with over the next few months. Working with, because of course Dad roped me into working on this outreach center project he's putting up in some of the old factory s.p.a.ces over in Lynn.

Evangeline's eyes dip to my bare chest as she fingers the cross on her neck, her cheeks getting redder before she looks pointedly at my face and sticks her open hand out.

"Key, please?"

"Sure you don't want a peek?" I grin, nodding down at my jeans.

"Quite," she says icily.

"Suit yourself." I make a point of making sure my arm brushes hers as I move past her out of the office, grinning when she flinches away from me.

"Um, where are you going?"

"You want the key?"

She says nothing as she follows me down the hallway. I wince as I step out into the bar area and glance at the place.

Jesus f.u.c.k, what a wreck. No wonder I got drunk instead of cleaning this place up last night. That is the last time I let Mikey Sullivan and his s.h.i.thead cousin drink Jgermeister in here.

I glance back at Evangeline as I step behind the bar. Jesus she looks out of place. The blonde hair, the white dress, the silver cross. With that dim light from the hallway window still hitting her from behind, she almost looks angelic.

There's no place for angels in a place like this.

She's young, too. Not like, young young, but younger than me, that's for sure. Or maybe that's a perspective thing. Turning thirty was a b.i.t.c.h, I'll say that.

The other thing is, she might be all church-mousy in those furtive movements, all p.i.s.s and vinegar with that uptight att.i.tude, but it's doing a real bad job of hiding the obvious.

Church girl is hot.

"Shouldn't you be dressed differently?"

She frowns. "How should I be dressed?"

"I dunno, ankle-length skirts, a bonnet maybe?"

"You know I'm not Amish, right?"

"You're not?"

She rolls her eyes. "No."

"Remind me what you guys are again? Some kind of cult thing?"

"Grace Church of Salvation and Divine Retribution is not a cult."

I scratch the stubble of my chin as I stare at her. "Right, yeah, no, that sounds totally on the level."

She narrows her eyes at me and I grin. "Sorry, I just didn't expect you to be dressed like that I guess."

"Like what?"

"Hot."

The word catches her off-guard, and her eyes go wide, her face blushing just like it did back in my office when I gave her the full monty.

"I am not."

"Trust me, you are. You look hot in that dress."

Her face going a bright red pink color as she huffs.

"That's a compliment, you know."

"I know you're trying to be crude, not complimentary."

I whistle. "Huh, so you're going to dress hot, but you're not going to be okay with a guy telling you you look hot."

"Stop saying that."

"Stop dressing hot."

She glares at me again, and I grin right back, savoring the moment. The light from the hallway window is still coming in from behind her, so truth be told, I'm also still savoring taking in the clean outline of her legs underneath that sundress, too.

"I'm sorry, but I'm kind of in a rush."

"All in good time, all in good time." I wave her off as I step behind the bar. "Don't worry, the house'll still be there when you get there. Probably."

I reach behind the register for the familiar bottle of Tylenol. I do want to keep ogling this chick, but I also sort of want to die with this hangover ripping through me. I pop four pills into my mouth and reach for the low-boy fridge behind the bar, grabbing a beer.

Thank G.o.d for hair of the dog.

Evangeline makes this disgusted scoffing noise as she sees what I'm doing, and I grin.

"You want one?" I turn to see her scowling at me.

"What? No!"

"Suit yourself."

"It's nine in the morning!"

"Tell me about it." I swig back the beer, swallowing the Tylenol. I glance back and see that she's looking at me expectantly.

"Right, right. The key."

"Yes, please."

"Jeez, you just had to ask."

Her eyes narrow, and I grin, stretching one arm across my bare chest and then the other and cracking my neck. I open the register and grab the key to Dad's rental place from the side drawer before turning and holding it out to her across the bar.

She sighs heavily as she steps forward and reaches for it, but I yank it back right before she does.

"Sure I can't convince you to come back to bed with me?"