I know. Look, you’ve put in an eight-hour day, right? Mrs. Bailey tells me you’re a waitress and I know that’s hard work. I’ve done my share of slinging hash for tips and minimum wage. There are no strings attached if I haul in a few boxes for you, honest.” Holding the heavy container, he waited while she studied his face. He could almost see the wheels turning while she tried to figure out whether or not to believe him.
Molly didn’t want to set a precedent on the first day sharing this house with him, allowing him to think she was some helpless female who’d be ever so grateful for his heavy-handed help. She’d let him, this time, but she’d set some ground rules.
“What else did Mrs. Bailey tell you about me?” she asked, picking up a second box and heading for the back door. Maybe she’d have to have a little chat with her landlady about being less than pleased at being Topic A with her other tenants. Molly hadn’t been crazy about living in the large three-story apartment complex she was vacating, but at least a person could remain anonymous there if she wished. And she definitely wished.
Devin waited until she unlocked the door, then followed her into the kitchen and set the box on the counter where she indicated. “Not much, just that you waitressed at the Pan Handle with her daughter. Is the food good there?”
He was pretty adept at controlling the conversation, she decided. “Since I eat more than half my meals there, I must think so.”
“I’ll have to try it sometime,” Devin answered, following her back out to the car.
Molly waited until every box, bundle and bag was inside her new kitchen before turning to him. “Thanks. I appreciate your help.” She turned aside and began measuring shelf paper she’d brought along, obviously dismissing him.
“Where do you want to stack these canned goods?” he asked, poking around in a sack.
He was either obtuse or being deliberately annoying. Molly stopped and drew in a deep, calming breath. She checked her watch, then looked up at him. “Look, I’ve been on the move since six this morning and it’s nearly eight. It’s been a long day and I really want to get this done tonight. So, if you don’t mind…”
“It’ll go much faster if we do it together. I moved my stuff in earlier and it takes forever if you work alone.” Devin wasn’t sure why he wanted to help her. Maybe it was because he was a nice guy. Or maybe it was because she looked dead on her feet and he knew how that felt. More likely it was because she attracted him and it had been a long while since anyone had.
Scissors in hand, Molly studied him. He wore a V-neck black T-shirt and tan shorts, a generous sprinkling of dark hair visible on his muscular legs and what she could see of his chest. She’d never been especially drawn to obviously virile-looking men. Why then did this one interest her despite her usual reluctance? “Are you always this insistent?”
Grinning, he shrugged. “Sometimes even more so.” Damn but he had a dynamite smile. He was wearing her down and she was too tired to argue. “Just my luck.” She indicated the long cupboard at the far end. “Cans in there, if you insist.”
Chalk up one for our side, Devin thought as he opened the pantry cupboard. “Any particular order? Want them alphabetized or arranged by category, like fruits one side, vegetables opposite?”
Though he had his back to her, Molly sent him an incredulous look. “You’ve got to be kidding? Do you honestly do that in your kitchen?”
Still smiling, he began unpacking cans. “Yeah, but it’s real easy at my place. I have two cans of soup and one box of microwave popcorn.” He studied the can he held. “Spaghetti sauce. Funny, I’d have bet you made your own sauce from scratch.” His mother always had, even while raising six kids and working full-time.
Carefully, Molly stretched to fit the shelf paper she’d cut in place. “Fast and easy, that’s my style. Actually, I’ve never mastered the fine art of cooking. Growing up, my mom cooked, then at college, our landlady was a terrific cook.” And when she’d married Lee, he’d tasted one or two of her efforts and hired a cook, but she decided not to mention that. “Today, with all the shortcuts available, you can eat really well and not know how to do much besides read the labels.”
He glanced over, taking in those incredibly long, sleek legs. “Yeah, but I thought all women knew how to cook, like it was in the genes or something.”
“Sorry to explode that little myth.”
Devin finished emptying one sack and went searching for another from where they were stacked on the floor while Molly went to work on the second shelf.
“Where in California are you from?” she asked. All right, so she was a little curious about him.
“The L.A. area.” He unloaded boxes of crackers, pancake mix, pasta. “How about you? Are you a native? It seems everyone I talk to in Arizona was born somewhere else.”
“Not me. Born and raised in Phoenix.”
“Never lived anywhere else?” He found that hard to believe. She didn’t look small-town and, by Los Angeles standards, Phoenix was almost backwoods.
“I lived in Tucson during my college years. And, for a while, in Colorado.”
He caught the change in her tone at the mention of Colorado, the reluctance. “Not a happy time?”
Her head swiveled to him. He was too quick, a man who actually listened, not just to words but to voice inflections. It was unnerving. “No, it wasn’t.”
Molly was grateful that he apparently decided to let that alone. They worked in silence for awhile, until she finished papering the shelves and bent to retrieve the dishes she’d carefully wrapped last night. She stretched to reach the top shelf while her sore muscles protested, but she ignored them, as usual. When there was work to be done, Molly just did it.
She’d almost forgotten he was there when he spoke up. “Are you just off a divorce?”
Surprise and irritation warred for dominance in her blue eyes. “What makes you ask that?”
Devin shrugged. “You’re skittish, kind of secretive, touchy. And you have a sad expression around your eyes when you think no one’s watching you.”
Stopping with a dinner platter in her hand, Molly frowned. “What are you, a psychiatrist?”
He had the decency to look sheepish. “Worse. I’m a writer.”
“Figures. Well, save your psychoanalysis for your characters.”
“I’m right then. You’ve just gone through a bad divorce.”
“Your vibes are a little off. It’s been three years.”
“Whoa! Three years and you’re still so testy. Must have been bad.”
Molly had had enough. “Let’s turn the tables here. What about you? Are you married? Have you ever been? Divorced? Children? How is it that you’re probably at least thirty and still renting furnished apartments? Bad relationships or just bad judgment? And how do you enjoy the third degree?” Letting out a whoosh of air, she ran out of steam. Turning aside and brushing back a lock of hair that had come loose from her ponytail, she set the platter on the counter with unsteady hands. “Oh, Lord. I’m sorry. I have no right
