paranoia you have regarding women? I can’t figure out why you think you’re such an irresistible dish that you have to warn off total strangers. As a “country girl” I’ve seen plenty of beef on the hoof and, believe me, you’re over-pricing yourself.’
He snapped the repaired fuse back into place and depressed the trip-switch before he backed out of the cupboard, forcing her to retreat. ‘That smart mouth of yours is going to get you into trouble one day.’
They were back to mouths again. Now he had turned and was looking at hers and she tightened it deliberately, knowing that her full lower lip tended to give a false impression of sultriness.
‘Is that a threat?’ She bristled under the insolent black stare.
‘More in the nature of kindly advice.’
‘Kindly!’ she snorted. ‘You?’
‘Don’t try and provoke me more than you already have, Miss Tremaine,’ he drawled in that aggravatingly warm voice that was so at odds with his manner. ‘I suppose I’d better check that everything is working…’
Before she realised what he had meant he was up the stairs and heading towards her half-open door. His boast about moving fast hadn’t been idle. Frantically trying to remember whether she had tidied everything away after putting Ivan to bed, Anne flew up after him, and nipped in front just in time to bar his entry with one slender arm across the doorway.
‘The lights are on so obviously everything’s OK,’ she said breathlessly, trying to act casually as his mo- mentum brought his chest up against her restraining arm. He froze and she smiled brilliantly at him. ‘Thank you ever so much for your help,’ she gushed. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
He was looking at her oddly, through thoughtfully narrowed eyes, and she instantly realised that she was overdoing the gratitude. After the scathing comments she had just flung at him he was bound to be suspicious of such a sudden volte face. ‘You can go back to—er—whatever you were doing now,’ she urged more calmly. ‘I don’t want to put you to any more trouble…’
To her dismay he shrugged. ‘No trouble.’ He leaned forward as he spoke and she felt the straining pressure of that deep chest against her upper arm.
‘No, really, there’s no need!’ she squeaked desperately as he lifted a big hand and effortlessly brushed her re- straining limb aside.
Three steps into the room he stopped, crossing his hands over his chest as he slowly surveyed the territory. Coming up beside him, Anne was relieved to see that there was nothing untoward in the scene. Relief brought back her courage. ‘Satisfied?’ she demanded defiantly.
‘At the very least, from your state of guilty panic, I expected to find an orgy going on in here,’ he mur- mured, confirming her opinion of his acumen. Worse than a nosy neighbour was a suspicious one who could read your mind like a book!
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’
‘Oh, you haven’t disappointed me, Miss Tremaine. My expectations of you aren’t high enough for that to be possible. I expect the worst, and if you don’t oblige then I can only be pleasantly surprised.’
‘What a ghastly philosophy of life!’ Anne stared at him disapprovingly. ‘No wonder you’re so bad-tempered. So would I be if I went around in a constant state of gloomy pessimism.’
‘Yes, I can see that you’re one of life’s noisy optimists,’ he said drily. ‘Relentlessly determined to enjoy yourself at all costs.’
‘Only a pessimist could make optimism sound depressing,’ was Anne’s tart reply. ‘And one person’s noise is music to another person’s ears.’
‘I’m a realist, not a pessimist, but we won’t get into an argument about it.’
‘Why not? Afraid you’d lose?’
‘I have better things to do with my time than argue semantics with starry-eyed Lolitas—’
‘Lolita! I’ll have you know I’m twenty—’ She stopped herself just in time and added haughtily, ‘I’m older than I look and I was never starry-eyed. Now that you’ve assured yourself you’re not missing out on an orgy, perhaps you’ll finally go back to where you belong.’
He gave her a small, ironic inclination of his head. ‘Ah, would that I knew where that was…’
She almost softened, intrigued by that weary, cryptic murmur, except that she saw the deep, hooded gleam in his eyes and suddenly knew that he was playing on her compassion deliberately, slyly proving his point about her unsophisticated gullibility.
‘Try hell,’ she said sweetly. ‘I’m sure people often direct you that way.’
A startled stillness gripped his expression, then he threw back his head and laughed, the warm sound rising richly to the high, sloping rafters. His eyes slitted and all the brooding lines of his face seemed to lift with the upward curve of his mouth. She had certainly been right about his handsomeness when he wasn’t scowling. Suddenly his cynical suspicion of a strange woman invading his personal space didn’t seem quite so untenable.
‘I don’t know what you’re laughing at—it wasn’t a compliment,’ she pointed out. ‘You know, for someone so inordinately keen to be left alone you’re singularly difficult to get rid of!’
His laughter ended as abruptly as it had begun and he gave her a slow, measuring look as he began to saunter towards the door in his own sweet time. ‘Such big, pompous words for such a little country girl.’
‘Size and geographical origin has nothing whatever to do with intelligence,’ she said icily. ‘And I’m a woman, not a girl.’
‘That remains to be seen.’
‘But not by you!’
This time she got to shut the door smartly in his face, although her satisfaction was somewhat dimmed by the memory of that last, grimly taunting smile.
It seemed to say that Hunter Lewis would see whatever he wanted to see, whenever he damned well wanted to see it.
She would just have to keep well out of his way and make sure he never got the opportunity.
‘I THINK they should call it disorientation week!’ Anne groaned as she collapsed with her small backpack on to a seat in the university quad.
‘Decided to give up and go home to the farm?’ grinned the plump blonde already sitting there as she carefully added a dollop of cream from her doughnut to a paper cup of coffee.
‘Are you kidding? I’m having a great time!’ Anne rallied. ‘It’s just taking me longer than I thought to find my way around this maze.’
She stretched out her legs in their age-softened jeans, enjoying the cool breeze playing about the loose neckline of the white shirt that Mike had grown out of six months ago. It had been part of the dress uniform at her brother’s
