his arms, and leaned against the table. Phoebe had flittered and fluttered from one end of the kitchen to the other, murmuring nonstop nonsense that went in one ear and out the other as he pondered her feverish activity and tried to see beneath all the flash and distraction she threw his way. Yawning, Bird floated in her wake, a small, sputtering tugboat.
Knowing Phoebe would continue in perpetual maotion until she dropped in a heap, he’d finally peeled himself away from the table and moseyed over to her. He’d taken both her hands in his, stopping her agitated motions. The tension in her body radiated to him as her fingers trembled in his.
“Stop it, Phoebe. You haven’t made a lick of sense for the last five minutes. I know you want something. Whatever it is can wait. I’m plumb tuckered out, and I’ve been working since before sun-up. Here’s how we’re going to play. First, we’re all going to have a bite to eat. Maybe you want to give your daughter a bath and settle her down for the night. Then we’ll see what’s what.”
“Right.” She’d jerked her hands from his, spun away from him and stuffed her hands deep into her shorts pockets.
Too late. He’d seen the bitten-to-the-quick nails earlier. His gaze lingered on the hidden shape of her balled fists and he frowned. “Thought you quit chewing your fingernails when you were thirteen and started wearing Kiss Me Crazy Red nail polish?”
She’d flushed, stuttered into speech. “Bird and I’ll figure out something to cook while you clean up from work. We’ll eat. Bird will take a bath. That’s what you said? Did I get it right?”
“Yep.” He’d scratched his chin and tried to forget the ragged fingernails, their vulnerability striking at something inside him that he’d rather ignore. “See what you can find in the fridge. A sandwich. Anything will do. Like I said, I don’t need much.”
“Right,” she’d muttered, letting her annoyance show.
He’d have to be dumb as a box of rocks to miss her annoyance. Nobody’d ever accused him of that.
He was secretly relieved, because an annoyed Phoebe was a million times better than a desperate, panicked one. “Oh, excellent, Phoebe. You’ve become a woman of few words. No long arguments. The world must be coming to an end.” He lifted one eyebrow and sauntered out He’d known without looking back that she’d watched him until he was out of sight. She always had.
Back then, when he was a teenager, truth to tell, he’d liked knowing she watched him. Liked seeing that shy pink rip over her face when he caught her looking.
Knowing her eyes were on him, he’d felt his pulse thump with an extra beat and been annoyed with himself. Thinking about that unwanted pulse thump, he’d stayed under the drumming lash of the shower until the water ran cold.
They’d eaten scrambled eggs with green peppers and onions and bacon, Phoebe chewing and swallowing with exaggerated pleasure, her hands in dizzying motion.
And then, balancing plates along her arm, she’d cleared the table and disappeared to bathe Bird while he cleaned up the kitchen. Phoebe had managed to use three of his new pans for her eggs. One for bacon, one for eggs, and one to sauté peppers and onions.
He would have used one pan. But that was Phoebe, turning everything topsy-turvy in a flurry of energy. He had to admit her cooking was better than his. Reflecting on this familiar but unknown Phoebe, he scrubbed and polished his pans, hung them back up on the rack, all facing in the same direction, and waited for her to finish putting Bird to bed.
He’d made a pallet of blankets and pillows for them in one of the empty bedrooms after opening the windows and turning on the ceiling fans. The stale, warm air of the closed rooms had moved sluggishly with the circling blades. He hoped the room would cool down as the night wore on.
For himself, he’d been in no hurry to install air-conditioning. He liked the rich earthiness of Florida’s heat and humidity, but he wondered how Phoebe and Bird would manage with nothing more than the lazy pass of ceiling fans to cool them.
Outside the screened windows of the kitchen, he sensed the stirring of a breeze, heavy with heat, heard the tree frogs chirping in a mad chorus of another kind of heat. Outside in the darkness the air was pungent with the smell of summer and desire.
Inside, though, the air was honeyed with Phoebe.
He’d forgotten how pervasive the scents and sounds of a woman were. And Phoebe? Ah, Phoebe left a trail of sweet-smelling fragrance in his shower, down his halls, a hint of apples and oranges that had him breathing deeply in the solitude of his kitchen, and the sudden hunger gripping him owed nothing at all to the shining pots and pans around him.
The murmuring of their voices, the giggles, all the disruptive, intrusive sounds flowed over him, swamped him with sensations. Crowded him. Made him want to hightail it out of his own house. Nothing new there. Phoebe had always crowded him.
“Hell,” he muttered, looking out the curtainless windows to the dark surrounding his house, a darkness that pressed in on him like the presence of Phoebe and her Bird.
Near the hall, a scarf, light and sheer, moved with some vagrant drift of air against his polished kitchen floor. The shimmering shape, all gold and red, seemed alive. As he stooped and picked up the scarf, the slippery material slid over the back of his hand. Lifting it to his nose, he breathed in the fragrance of Phoebe. More than bottled perfume, it was the scent of her, the very essence of her it seemed. The fabric caught against his end-of-the-day stubble, and he spread the scarf across the stool. That flimsy red thing she’d stuffed under Bird’s clothes in the suitcase was enough to leave a man sleepless for a month. In an instant, before he could stop the thought, he’d pictured her in that tiny piece of fabric, her legs gleaming against the brilliant red, her hips curving under that blaze of shimmery material.
Feminine stuff, all these scents and sounds. Seductive, the silky, slippery textures of Phoebe’s life.
He felt those invisible threads pulling tight around his chest, making his breathing shallow.
He didn’t want those pictures of Phoebe in his head, in his dreams.
But something had driven her to his house.
He didn’t want her here.
Not in his house, and for damned sure not in his well-ordered life. That was the bottom line. His life was finally under control, everything the way he liked it, thank you, ma’am. Bills paid. Business clicking along. Shoot, he didn’t want to think about air-conditioning and whether or not he had acceptable food in his fridge. He didn’t want to think about Phoebe’s daughter’s big eyes staring at him with awe.
He raked his hands through his hair, flicking the ends out of his eyes. Passing the stool where he’d placed her scarf, he let his fingers trail once more down that soft material. He didn’t want all this. Silky scarves. Noise. Faintly perfumed air.
And Phoebe.
Lord knew he didn’t want Phoebe Chapman—No. McAllister. He didn’t want Phoebe by any name in his house, in his life.
But there was that little girl. Frances Bird.
He flattened his hand against the windowpane above the screen and the dark beyond it. Even to get rid of Phoebe, could he ignore that skinny kid with the big eyes that reminded him of Phoebe at that age? That kid who twinkled and dimpled and sparkled up at him like he was something special?
