the air-conditioning on yet because the nights were still cool. All the measuring and sawing was making her hot, Nina decided.
“Now that I’ve found your room, I’m going to go get the rest of the wood.” Navarro backed away from her and Nina realized she probably looked sweaty and dirty.
“Thank you, Crockett.”
He hesitated, then left. Nina took a deep breath, then jumped to her feet to cross to the mirror. Yes, sweaty and messy. “How did they make it in the good ol’ days without air-conditioning? I’m going to fry my Delaware skin.” Taking a damp rag, she swept it over her, then reached for some peach gloss to touch to her lips.
She was taking a few swipes at her hair in an effort to tame it when the cowboy strode in, carrying the lumber. Her gaze met his and she dropped the brush, embarrassed to be caught primping.
He grinned at her. “Nice.”
That evil blooming of her skin she’d felt moments before now blushed over her body in a heat wave no air conditioner would cool. She raised her chin. “You can set the wood down there.”
His grin widened to wolfish. “You are a snappy little peach, I’ll grant you that.”
She couldn’t take her eyes off him as he smoothly bent to rest the wood on the floor. His jeans fit so tightly, his butt looked so—
Glancing up, he caught her staring—and laughed.
“I’ve never seen a cowboy up this close,” she said.
“Really? I’ve never seen a…what are you, anyway?”
“Librarian,” Nina said, her chin rising, knowing already what he was going to say. “And I should warn you, I’ve heard every bad line about librarians you could possibly dream—”
“Now, I’ve heard that there are two kinds of librarians,” the cowboy said, leaning up against the wall, his boots crossed, his arms tucked over his chest. His grin was too wide and too playful, and she longed to smack it off his face.
“Well, there is really only one kind of librarian,” she said. “Serious.”
“I heard there was also the skank variety.”
She dropped the measuring tape she’d picked up. “‘Skank variety’?”
“Yeah.” He grinned. “She hovers in her book stacks, waiting for the right victim to come along so she can read him the Kama Sutra—well, ‘read’ would be the incorrect verb, I guess. And then—” he lowered his voice “—and then she seduces him in the basement, where he is never heard from again. Skank librarian.” He shrugged. “That’s where the haunted library story comes from. Haunted, you see, because it was the librarian who, like a black widow spider, kills her lover after they—”
“That is ridiculous! And so…chauvinistic!”
He laughed. “Bet you thought I was gonna repeat the stereotype about the dowdy librarian who gets set free sexually by the mystery male who somehow knows he’s latched on to the one hottie card-catalogette in town who’s wearing a thong and bustier under her gray, frumpy suit. Personally, I always thought the skank librarian was more likely. Scary, but likely.”
She ground her teeth. “Actually, I fall under the only heading of librarian I know. Hard-working, sincere, interested, capable—”
His wink stopped her. “I’m just playing around with you.”
Skank librarian, indeed. She thought about her sister and her sister’s reputation, which was nonexistent now. It was up to her to set a good example and to be the most upright Cakes she could be.
“I shouldn’t be playing around with you, probably,” he said. “You broke your bed. You might be dangerous.” He pulled a huge jackknife from his pocket and began marking off sections on the wood.
“Oh, yeah.” Nina sank onto a chair. “You’re in big danger from me.”
“Well, there’s danger. And then there’s danger. That’s what I always say.”
“Profound.”
He glanced up at her. “Yeah. Maybe not by a librarian’s standards. But it works for me.”
She sighed. “So, I guess you wouldn’t be brandishing a knife that big if you didn’t want it commented on.”
He gave her a devilish wink. “I’m not packing small anything, peachy.”
She rolled her eyes. “Of course not.”
“So, tell me about your sister.”
“No.”
He marked some notches. “Okay.”
“Tell me about your brother who wears the hat on his face.”
“Why? You dig him?”
She laughed. “Dig? How can I dig a guy whose face I haven’t seen?”
He looked at her, his eyes full of mischief. She wondered about that face and those eyes. What would she read in those eyes if she and he were alone together on a moonlit night—
“Maybe a face isn’t what’s important about a man.”
She raised her brows. “Then what is?”
He stuck his knife in the floor and lifted a handsaw to the wood. “The size of his…knife.” The look on her face made him laugh. “Fooled ya. You thought I was going to say something else.”
“I did not!”
“Whatever.”
“I won’t bother to return fire. But I could, with everything I’ve heard about cowboys since I’ve been here.”
“Hardworking, sincere, interested, capable—”
“That’s not what my sister would say,” Nina said. “She would probably say loose, loser, dishonest and wish-I’d-never-met-him.”
“Hey, that’s my bro—”
She stared at him. “Yes? Your what?”
He shook his head. “This is all wrong.”
“Why?”
“Because.” He stood, looking at her thoughtfully. “My name is Navarro Jefferson.”
Her heart started a slow thud. “Jefferson?”
“Jefferson. I’m Last’s older brother.”
“I see.” She backed away from him, turning her face. “Thank you for carrying up the lumber,” she said pointedly. “You can go now.”
“I could, but I think you’ve marked this wrong,” he said, kneeling to look at the pencil markings on the slat. “What happened to
