Cross My Heart (A Contemporary Romance Novel)

a lifeline. And he was painfully, impossibly hard.
    He forced himself to go inside his house, where he showered and slept for ten straight hours. When he woke up he told himself his reaction to his gorgeous new neighbor had been a combination of eleven months of celibacy and exhaustion brought on by his schedule at the hospital.
    Except that it happened every time he saw her.
    He’d never spoken to her, not even a casual hello. He’d learned her name when a package for her had been delivered to him by mistake, but she wasn’t home when he left it outside her door.
    He assumed she was a musician, because she left the house most mornings with a guitar case slung over her shoulder. He knew she was social, with friends dropping by often, especially on the weekends. She smiled and laughed a lot, as if she enjoyed life.
    The universe had sent his polar opposite to live next door to him, encased in the most beautiful body he’d ever laid eyes on.
    “So who is she?” he asked his daughter as they got out of the car.
    “Only lead guitarist for the Red Mollies, one of the greatest all-girl bands in the entire history of rock and roll. At least until they broke up a few years ago.”
    Well, that explained why he’d never heard of her. His knowledge of music was pretty much nonexistent.
    Claire continued chatting about her idol as they made their way into the house, and he tried to remember the last time he’d actually seen his daughter excited about something. Instead of disappearing upstairs with her suitcase she actually stayed with him in the kitchen while he got dinner started. He couldn’t think of the last time that had happened, either.
    “They’re doing a reunion tour this fall, and everyone’s hoping they get back together.” She leaned against the sink and looked out the window, staring at Jenna’s house. “What’s she like? I bet she’s really cool.”
    “I don’t know. We’ve never talked.”
    “Why not?”
    He shrugged as he chopped cucumbers for the salad. “There’s never been a reason for us to. And I don’t think we have much in common.”
    He’d told himself that before. Every time he saw her, in fact, because his visceral reaction to her was so strong he was always tempted—for the most primitive male reasons—to find some excuse to talk to her.
    Claire turned away from the window and huffed out an angry breath. “God, that’s so like you.”
    He frowned at her. “What is?”
    “You’re so judgmental. You decided what Jenna’s like without even knowing her. Maybe she’s really nice. Maybe you have tons of stuff in common.”
    Michael added the cucumbers to the greens and started slicing radishes. “Claire, you just told me she’s a rock musician. I’m a cardiac surgeon. We don’t exactly travel in the same circles.”
    “Do you even know how snobby that sounds?”
    He’d grown up in a rough part of Chicago and made it through school on scholarships and loans, so he didn’t think he could qualify as a snob. But since he rarely talked about his childhood with Claire he didn’t bother making that point.
    “I don’t think cardiac surgeons are better than rock musicians. Just different.”
    “What’s wrong with different? Are you saying you can only hang out with other cardiac surgeons? What are there, like, twenty of you in the entire state of Iowa? Way to be broad-minded, Dad.”
    Of course that wasn’t what he meant. But as usual with Claire, the conversation had gotten twisted around somehow, to the point where he wasn’t sure what they were talking about anymore.
    The one thing he was sure of was that Claire didn’t want to be here, with him.
    He sighed. “Why don’t you go upstairs and unpack? Dinner will be ready in an hour.”
    She shrugged irritably. “Whatever.”
    She grabbed her suitcase and left the kitchen. Michael added the radishes to the salad and started slicing carrots, listening to Claire climb the stairs and slam the door to her room.
    He laid the knife on the cutting board and took a deep breath.
    There was no reason to be disappointed that this visit had started off exactly like the last one. What did he expect? That all of a sudden, his daughter would turn from a sullen teenager into a rational human being? Someone he could actually talk to? Someone who didn’t seem like such an alien creature, with feelings and reactions he didn’t understand?
    It had been so much easier when she was younger. When Claire turned six, the only thing she