Delilah hadn’t meant to watch him. It wasn’t planned, not in the way she usually planned things — like how she packed her swimsuit in the front of her bag so her mother’s best friend could see how grown up she’d become, or how she always wore lipstick that looked effortless but took ten minutes to apply. But this, standing at the upstairs guest room window of the lakeside cottage and staring at a man twice her age while he crouched over a motorcycle engine in the driveway, this wasn’t planned. This was instinct. Like breath. Like heat spreading low in her belly and dragging her hand beneath the elastic of her bikini bottoms when he leaned back on his heels and wiped sweat from his brow with his forearm.
She didn’t know his name at first. All she knew was that he was staying in the guestho
