Page 4 of The Hometown Legend

That thought sent a sensation up between her legs.

She kind ofdidwant sex. That was the thing. If only she hadn’t had sex because she had some kind of intense commitment to her virtue. But no. It was because she was a coward.

She needed to add sex to her list.

“I hope you’re not busy tonight,” Fia said. “With mystery men or otherwise.”

“Oh. Sorry. I have two online dates, and I thought I would try to make it to both of them in a series of increasingly slapstick events.” At least that had happened in a book she’d read recently.

Fia gave her the side-eye. “So you aren’t busy?”

“No, I’m not busy,” she said. The idea of her havingonedate was hilarious, let alone two.

“Well, we have a very last-minute rental request, and since the house up on the ridge got vacated last month, and we haven’t had any other inquiries, I want to accommodate.”

“Okay. Is it clean?” she asked.

“I had it cleaned when Sandra moved out, but it could probably use a once-over.” Their tenant had been clean and quiet, but dust did tend to accumulate.

Rory tried not to ponder all the dust she’d likely accumulated by sitting around doing so little with her life.

“Yeah. Sure. I can do that.”

“Great. Sorry to throw that on you.”

“Oh, no. I’m practicing. For my new job,” she said, testing the waters softly with that subject.

“Yeah. Well, then I’m giving you more work experience. Which I would try to avoid doing so that you wouldn’t leave me, but you already secured a new position.”

“I need to leave,” said Rory.

Fia looked at her for a long moment. “I know you do. As much as I need to stay.”

“This place is in your blood. I get that.”

“Yes, it is. And more than that, I feel like... I was made to feel like this place couldn’t be mine. Like I wasn’t going to be able to make it work. And I have. I’ll never leave it. No matter what.”

“And I love that for you. This is the best part of my being here. But I’m just going to die a spinster with ten cats if I don’t do something.”

“You don’t have a cat,” Fia pointed out.

“Not yet. But there’s still time.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being a spinster.”

Rory cringed. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t meanyou. Besides, you have...”

Fia scowled. “Don’tsay Landry.”

“I didn’t.” She had been thinking it, though. The thing about Fia was that she had a legend. The legend of her and Landry King. And why they hated each other so much. What had passed between them all those years ago?

Rory didn’t have a legend. There was nothing about her that was interesting.

She knew Fia hated to be the subject of all those rumors, but Rory knew for certain that it was worse to be uninteresting.

“You know the person moving into the house,” Fia said, making a clear and obvious decision to change the subject now that Landry King’s name had been introduced.

“I do?”

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