even seen her! And then you dare show up here, wearing a pair of perverted rabbits, and of course you pick a time when they aren’t even here!”
Nathan was standing still in front of her, body tense, his features stony. Erin closed her mouth, then her eyes. There was silence for a long moment, but she kept her eyes closed, hoping the scene would just vanish and she’d wake up sweating in her bed. This had to be a nightmare.
At last he spoke.
“Perverted rabbits?”
She let out a heavy breath. Obviously, and perhaps unfortunately, her speech hadn’t hurt his feelings. His voice reflected no emotion other than amusement. Nothing she had said meant anything to him. Of course not. If the man had feelings, he wouldn’t behave the way he did towards his own family.
But she had no right to betray Sally’s feelings like that. Her sister-in-law never complained about her brother’s behavior or questioned the validity of his excuses.
She felt something touch her shoulders and realized he had draped his shirt over them. Defeated, she accepted the gesture, and put her arms one at a time in the sleeves, but gave up trying to fasten the buttons while still holding the towel in place.
“Are we discussing the moral message of my socks now?”
The humor in his voice tugged at her mouth, threatening to pull up its corners. She resisted. He would not charm his way around her even if he did everyone else.
“Actually, Erin, you know nothing about me, or my rabbits. And, you know, I believe those creatures are engaging in perfectly normal conduct for the rabbit species.” He began buttoning the shirt for her, without, she conceded, even so much as brushing a finger against her body.
“Nothing perverted about them. There,” he added, fastening the last button. “You’re decent now, Librarian.”
“Right.” She couldn’t believe she had allowed him to dress her like a child. This night had to be the weirdest one of her life. Shaking her head in disbelief, she turned the doorknob. Once again, he stopped her, this time with his fingers circling her wrist.
“You were in my room before I went to sleep, weren’t you? You saw my socks when I was getting undressed.”
She nodded.
“Did you enjoy the show?”
“I was hiding under the bed,” she snapped. “I didn’t see anything except those darn socks!”
“Too bad,” he muttered, “I’ll have to give you a repeat performance some time.” He released her wrist, only to put a finger to her cheek and turn her head so their eyes met. His smile was wicked. “Next time I strip for you, I’ll put more feeling into it.”
Once again, Erin opened her mouth, only to close it again, firmly banishing the tempting mental images to the basement of her mind. He reached towards her again and she jumped. Raising an eyebrow, Nathan reached past her to the door and pulled it open.
“Goodnight, Miss Librarian,” he murmured. “It’s been a pleasure. I’ll take a rain check on that kiss.”
Erin’s anger surged again as she escaped from his room. His door shut quietly behind her a second before she slammed her own door shut and collapsed on the bed.
What a bastard! She slapped her pillow a few times, then grabbed her hairbrush and brushed her hair into shape with quick, angry movements. What an unfeeling bastard! He didn’t care how he hurt his little sister. And grinning all the time, as if this was all one big joke. She threw the hairbrush on the nightstand, the towel across a chair, and crawled into bed. Grateful for its warmth and softness, she pulled the covers up to her chin.
As her anger slowly subsided, that insistent voice in her head reclaimed center stage. Never before had she experienced such an instant attraction to a man. And that to someone she had disliked from afar for years. She groaned, and pulled the covers over her head as she began to wonder what would have happened if she had agreed to that kiss. The kiss that might have happened, she admitted, if he hadn’t roused her fury with that conceited crack about babes.
With a sinking feeling, she refused to let herself wonder. They had not kissed. They never would. Nathan Chase would be gone in the morning, and good riddance.
She turned on her side and punched her pillow into submission, then closed her eyes, determined to put the whole ridiculous episode behind her. He would be gone by the time she woke up and who knew when she would see him again? With any luck she would wake up thinking he was just a dream.
A bad dream.
CHAPTER TWO
COFFEE.
Erin’s nose twitched as she trudged barefoot and yawning out of her room. She smelled coffee. Yes, this was the smell of coffee, a drug she could absolutely use right now. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. The night had been filled with fragmented dreams as she’d hovered in the twilight zone between sleep and insomnia.
Coffee. The seductive aroma was irresistible. Her nose leading the way, she padded down the stairs.
It wasn’t until she was almost at the bottom of the stairs that she realized the smell of coffee indicated the presence of another person in the house. That other person could only be Nathan. She glanced at her wrist, then slapped the banister in annoyance. Her watch must still be in the bathroom where she had left it before taking that shower last night. A late sleeper, she considered it sacrilege to rise earlier than nine on a Sunday morning, and, considering how late she’d gone to bed last night, it must be close to noon now.
Nathan should be long gone, not sitting in the kitchen drinking the Colombian nectar of the gods.
For a moment she considered going back upstairs to get dressed, but rejected the idea. After all, she was the one house-sitting; he was the overnight guest. And it was not as if her practical cotton nightgowns came close to being seductive.
Coffee.
First coffee, then think.
The morning sun streamed in through the large kitchen window, reflecting off the spotless countertops. She stopped short and stared in disbelief. Spotless they had not been the previous evening. Who had done the dishes? Three days’ worth of dishes? She squinted against the light and looked around. Nathan was sitting in the corner seat, her seat, she thought in annoyance—reading the morning paper, her paper, over a cup of coffee. His coffee, she acknowledged reluctantly.
“Morning,” she mumbled in response to his cheerful greeting and quickly fetched orange juice from the fridge and popped bread in the toaster. She helped herself to a cup of the coffee and gulped half of it down while she made her breakfast and sat down at the table opposite Nathan.
The caffeine didn’t take long to kick in, and as the fog in her mind began to lift she noticed from the corner of her eye that he had put his paper away and was scrutinizing her.
She still hadn’t looked directly at his face. Last night the room had been lit only by moonlight, his face cast in shadows. She knew the shape of his features, the glint of eyes and teeth, the waves of hair, and the silhouette of his body, but she found herself reluctant to look at him in the light of day, to complete the
