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top ten, Abby thought as she wiggled the window to see if she’d loosened it enough to—
    “Yes!” she squealed when it slid open, and she did a silent happy dance that included several fist pumps and a lot of booty shaking.
    Feeling pretty darn proud of herself, she scanned the dim lot once more to make sure she was alone—not that she was breaking in so much as taking a peek around.
    Walking away from the Pungent Barrel project wasn’t an option. Not anymore. She had been living a half-life since the day Richard left. And just when she thought she’d been given a break, had finally let her guard down enough to allow for something amazing, something more, Richard had once again crapped all over her plans. Then her brothers and their insistent meddling had smeared it all around.
    Well, she was done allowing people to mess with her life, even when it was done lovingly and with her best interests at heart. If the Hamptons wanted a resourceful, savvy, take-charge person to head this project, then Abby was going to give it to them.
    Starting tonight.
    Step one: gather inside information.
    In order to get Babs in her corner, Abby needed to walk the space, measure the layout, see what had been done by the previous designers so she could come up with accurate blueprints, an exact budget, and a complete design package to present.
    Which meant she had to get inside.
    Flashlight between her teeth, she stuck her head through the window and wrinkled her nose. The heavy scent of damp cork and fermented air blasted her as she leaned farther inside to glance at the floor. It wasn’t very far down. Then again she wasn’t very tall, a fact that ticked her off—especially tonight.
    Dropping her purse inside first, she looked over her shoulder and did a thorough sweep of the area for any bypassers. When the coast was clear, she tugged her skirt up around her waist and slipped one leg through the opening, then the other, until she was sitting on the sill. Turning around, she shimmied her way down, clutching the ledge with her arms. Unable to shimmy any more, she took a final breath and dropped to the floor—with a loud thud.
    Her flashlight flew across the room, her tailbone smarted from the nasty collision with the concrete floor, and she was pretty sure she was going to be sick from the jarring impact.
    “Do you know how many nights I fell asleep dreaming about how you’d look sneaking out your window, only to wake up with a woody?” a smug, annoyingly male voice said from somewhere inside the building. Somewhere close enough that she could smell his cologne. “Never once, in all those years, did I picture it like that.”
    Yup, definitely going to be sick.
    “What are you doing here, Jack?” Because really, Tanner catching her sprawled out on the floor, with her skirt to her ears, easily catapulted this day into the top five. Scrambling to her feet, the cool air whooshing past her southern region, she yanked her skirt down and tried to glare at him—only it was too dark to see where he was.
    “You mean besides getting a glimpse of the sexiest panties in town?”
    “Says the man who’s seen everyone’s panties in town,” she mumbled, squinting harder. “Plus, it’s too dark to see.”
    Just to be safe, she tugged at the bottom of her skirt again and, since she was already there, batted away what felt like wet clumps of sawdust. She also batted away Tanner’s hands, which were giving a valiant effort of dusting off her backside.
    “Just trying to help,” he laughed, but didn’t move his hands, except to slide them up to gently grip her hips. “And I have excellent night vision. It comes from years of playing night games.”
    “The NFL uses stadium lights, Jack.” She tried to back up, get some distance between them, because he was so close she could smell him. Feel her brain cloud over and her hormones kick in.
    “Did you know that, besides my mom, you’re the only one who ever called me Jack?”
    Something