Lightning Strikes. Colleen Collins

those eyes had been a turbulent brown—like a dirty, churning river during a winter deluge.

      Now they spilled light, the muddy brown shifting to a whiskey color.

      “Ralph’s number?” he repeated.

      “Od my desk.” Jerome had called her at work and left it. She’d jotted it on one of her sticky notes.

      Donovan headed toward the kitchen. “Is he listed?”

      She couldn’t remember Ralph’s last name. “My friend who sold me da bed has da numbbb—” she blew out an exasperated breath, tired of being so damn clogged up “—number.” There, she got the word out.

      “Got your friend’s number?”

      Blaine looked at those whiskey eyes. This was a man who took care of business, no matter what was churning inside of him. She could relate to that. “Sure,” she answered.

      A few minutes later, after talking briefly with Jerome, Donovan was punching in Ralph’s number on a kitchen wall phone, its blue color dull, its receiver scarred with what looked to be a burn mark. But old, usable things seemed to be Donovan’s style. The old, torn plaid recliner. Makeshift bookshelf, really a carefully arranged assortment of old cement bricks and two-by-fours.

      Donovan glanced at her where she sat perched on a plastic kitchen chair, which she’d guessed was formerly someone’s patio furniture. “I think he owes us one free delivery.”