around her shoulders. Then he made a big mistake and looked into her big brown eyes. “I think you should wait out the storm here.”
“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ll stay out of your way.”
“I have a better idea. Why don’t you come up to the house and get out of those wet clothes?”
Her eyes rounded. “I’m fine right here.”
“Don’t look so frightened, I’m not going to attack you.”
She straightened. “I never thought you were. I just didn’t want to put you out.”
“It’s a little late for that,” he said as he took her elbow and guided her toward the door. “Come on, the rain has eased up a little.”
Together they headed for the house. By the time they reached the porch, they were both soaked again. Holt pushed open the back door and let her inside the mudroom.
“We better take off our boots, or Maria will have our heads for tracking up the kitchen.”
“Maria Silva?” Leah looked up from unlacing her boots. “She still works here?”
Holt nodded. “She cleans once a week, and prepares some of the meals.”
“Lucky you. She’s a great cook.”
“I can cook, but after a long day of work, it’s been nice not to have to.” He went into the main part of the house. He grabbed a towel—and the only thing available for her to change into—one of his flannel shirts. He returned to her.
“I don’t own a robe, so this is all I have. While your wet clothes are in the dryer put this on.”
“I don’t need to change.”
“You’re shivering. Do it or Zach will kick my butt for letting you catch cold.”
“Okay.” Leah took the shirt and followed him through the kitchen and down the hall.
He pointed to a closed door. “That’s a bathroom.” “If you want you can take a hot shower.”
Holt climbed the stairs to the second floor of the large ranch house. He definitely didn’t need a hot one, he thought as he went into the master bedroom that once belonged to his father. The large sleigh bed was a dark mahogany covered in a multicolored quilt. The small print wallpaper had faded over the years. A braided rug partly covered the hardwood floor that Maria kept polished to a high gloss.
There weren’t any pictures of family and none of him, even as a boy. Holt tried to push aside the memories of a man who wanted nothing to do with his son. His only child.
There were three other bedrooms on the second floor, but Holt told himself the reason he stayed in this room was because of the connecting bath. He began stripping off his clothes and heard the water go on downstairs. Great, that was all he needed, the image of a naked Leah Keenan in his bathroom. He got in the shower and turned on the faucet to cold.
But ten minutes later, he went downstairs and found Leah in the kitchen. He swallowed hard. She was dressed only in his shirt. Her face was scrubbed clean and the blond hair pooled wet against her shoulders was beginning to curl.
“Hi,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind, I fixed some coffee.”
She’d made herself at home. “Sounds good,” he told her. “I take it you know your way around here.”
Leah sipped from her cup. “I’m sorry, it’s just that while I was in high school, I used to spend a lot of time here taking pictures.”
He tried not to look at her legs, but it was impossible not to, even for a saint and he wasn’t anywhere close to being a saint. Her smooth, shapely calves and trim thighs made his mouth water as the edge of his plaid shirt cut off any more view. He took a gulp of the hot coffee, nearly scalding his throat.
He went to the refrigerator and pulled open the door to the cool air. “How about some lunch?”
She came up beside him, too close and smelling of his soap. “Only if you’ll allow me to fix it.”
Holt stepped back. “Sure. There are cold cuts in the meat bin. I’ll get the bread.”
She touched his arm to stop him. “I can do it. Please, Holt, go and sit down.”
He nodded, went to the large oval table, pulled out a chair and sat. He couldn’t help but watch as she moved efficiently around the kitchen. She laid out the bread on the white-tiled countertop, and layered the cooked ham on top, then added lettuce and tomato. He was handling things just fine until she went to the maple cabinets and reached up for plates. That was when the shirt rose high, exposing the back of her smooth rounded thighs.
Damn. He glanced away. A man could only take so much. Suddenly the back door slammed and in seconds Zach appeared in the kitchen.
The old foreman glanced around the room. His hazel eyes sparkling as he grinned. “Well, if this doesn’t look cozy.”
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