than his size. In Eddie’s case, it was his quiet intensity, she supposed, that seemed to infuse every molecule with his presence. Not to mention every molecule in her body. The book found, she glanced over, clearly saw four hundreds and a fifty in his outstretched hand.
“I said two-fifty for the first month, remember?”
“I know what you said. But you’ll find it’s real hard to argue with someone who won’t argue back.”
Irritation singed her last nerve. But at herself, not him. “I’m not a charity case, Mr. King.”
“The name’s Eddie. And what you are, is stubborn. Didn’t I just tell you you’ll get nowhere arguin’ with me?”
“Why?” she asked, just this side of flummoxed. First the man as good as says he has the hots for her, then he wants to throw away two hundred bucks. This was seriously messing with her entire belief system. “Why on earth would you voluntarily pay more than I asked?”
“I have my reasons,” he said. “Now you gonna take your money or not?”
She wrestled with her pride for about two seconds, then took the money. “Thanks.”
“See how easy that was?”
A quick glance caught the slight smile teasing that take-me-now mouth. Mala wrote out a receipt, annoyed to discover her hand was shaking, then handed it to him with the keys. “I’ll try to get up tomorrow sometime to clean—”
“I can clean my own bathtub,” Eddie said, slipping his wallet into his back pocket, then setting his empty coffee mug on the corner of her desk. “You have a nice night, now. I’ll see myself out.”
Mala sank into her desk chair after he left, only then noticing her answering machine was flashing. She really should get Caller ID one of these days, but right now it was ranked way on the bottom of a depressingly long to-do list. She halfheartedly punched the play button.
A hang up. Just as well, since she didn’t think she could conduct a logical conversation right now if she tried.
Eddie stomped up the stairs to the apartment, his forehead knit so tight, he thought it might stay that way. And he wasn’t breathing right, either. Doggone it—what had he been thinking? In the space of a half hour, he’d managed to break every single rule in his book, number one being, “Don’t get involved, bonehead.”
He batted open the door—nobody’d bothered to lock it, seeings as he was coming right back up, anyway—and went inside, jerking back the drapes and opening a living room window to air out the place some. Not that he hadn’t been in places that’d smelled a far sight worse….
Shoot, it must’ve embarrassed the life out of Mala, showing him the place in this condition. Women tended to get their drawers in a knot about stuff like that. And this one’s drawers, he imagined, thinking back to when he used to watch her scurrying from class to class, her arms always loaded with about a dozen books, had probably been knotted since she was three.
Those eyes of hers…damn, damn, damn. Fierce and questioning and scared and so incredibly honest, even behind that puny veil of control, it knocked him clear into next week.
Hell, Eddie was the last person to think about reassuring some woman he barely knew that things’d work out. About reassuring anybody. He didn’t much believe things did, for the most part. But he was at least used to dodging the crap life seemed determined to fling in his path. If Eddie didn’t like the way things were going, he could pretty much just up and walk away. Mala Koleski, though, wasn’t the type of person who could do that. Not with two kids, especially. He could tell that right off, and he admired her for it. Which was why Eddie couldn’t help thinking that here was someone who deserved whatever it was she wanted.
That she needed to know that.
Still, what the Sam Hill had come over him, getting all personal like that? And then, even worse, admitting he was attracted to her? Eddie rammed a hand through his sorry-looking hair, then just held it there, even though most of his brain cells had long since left the building. Sweet heavenly days, he’d never wanted to kiss a woman so bad in his life. And he sure had never wanted to take one in his arms and tuck her head against his chest and just…hold her.
He slipped off his jacket, threw it on the sofa, then went on back to the bedroom to make up the bed. It smelled much better in here, thank heaven. Like freshly washed linens.
And Mala.
With a groan of frustration, Eddie sank onto the edge of the bare mattress, scrubbing a hand across his face.
Okay, so he’d admitted his attraction because something told him it’d been a long time since anyone had let Mala Koleski Whatever-Her-Married-Name-Was know she was attractive. That a woman didn’t have to look like those emaciated Hollywood actresses for a man to get turned on. So he figured she should know that she was worth a man’s time and attention, doggone it. Even if he couldn’t be that man for more than about two minutes.
But that was okay, since he figured hell would freeze over before she’d take him up on his offer, such as it wasn’t. Women like her just didn’t do that, get involved with strays like him.
A weird, empty kind of feeling swelled inside him, vaguely familiar but definitely unwelcome. He got up, trying to shake it off, but it followed him right into the bathroom like an overloyal puppy.
“Go away,” he actually said out loud, but it didn’t. He looked over at the sink as he draped the thick, soft towels over the bar next to the john, saw the new bar of soap she’d left out for him.
The emptiness torqued into an sharp, nasty ache.
“You can’t,” he said to his reflection. “She can’t.”
He yanked open the cupboard door under the sink, found a whole mess of cleaning supplies. Dumping a thick layer of cleanser into the tub, he set to scrubbing it, thinking it’d been a long time since he’d entertained the idea of wanting something he couldn’t have.
Chapter 3
The Monday before Thanksgiving, Mala lay in bed, half-asleep, trying to fight off that itchy, icky feeling you get when Something Bad is about to happen.
“Mama! Guess what!”
She burrowed down farther into the pillows. “Unless there’s a van outside with balloons all over it,” she said, “go away.”
“Ma-ma!” Like Tigger, Carrie boing-boinged up the length of the bed, and it occurred to Mala that the only time her bed shook these days was when small children were jumping on it. Which, while a dispiriting thought, didn’t qualify as the Something Bad because that wasn’t something that was going to happen. It already had. “It’s a snow day!”
That, however, definitely made the short list. But after marshalling a few more brain cells, Mala decided that, nope, that wasn’t quite it, either.
Not that this wasn’t bad enough—if it were true—since that meant, being as the kids were already off for Thanksgiving Thursday and Friday…and Saturday and Sunday…she’d only have two kid-free days to do five days worth of work. Swiping her hair out of her face, Mala hiked herself up on one elbow, trying to get a bead on Carrie’s beaming, bobbing face. Her curls were
