in no mood to be alone.
Too much to think about. Too many questions with no answers that she’d just as soon put off asking as long as she could. Which wasn’t like her at all.
But then, nothing about this whole messy business was typical of the practical, unflappable woman she’d always been. While finishing high school, holding down a part-time job and later, a full-time one, all the while taking care of her siblings, Mariah had dealt with every childhood disaster imaginable.
Of course, she’d had her own method of dealing with stress in those days. Digging. Planting and transplanting. There were too many things in her life she couldn’t change, so she changed the things she could. Rearranging furniture had never given her half the satisfaction that rearranging shrubbery had. She had the greenest thumbs in Muddy Landing—every body said so—but Basil had once told her that all she had to do was step outside the back door with a certain look on her face, and every shrub in the yard flinched.
Lately, she’d had to make do with yoga.
“Well…good night, Gus. And thank you for my supper and the room. And all the rest. Naturally, I’ll mail you a check just as soon as—”
“Yeah, sure,” was the gruff response.
The man was a bear. If it weren’t for those remarkably beautiful eyes of his, he wouldn’t even rate a second glance, she told herself, stung by the fact that he could obviously hardly wait to get away.
Oh, yes, he would, too. In spite of surface appearances, the man radiated authority. He was intensely masculine. And while some women might be put off by the beard and all that shaggy black hair, with those wide shoulders and narrow hips, and those strong, amazingly gentle hands, he most definitely rated a second look.
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