She tried to prevent any irritation from creeping into her voice. “Apparently you failed to open the damper before starting the fire.”
He straightened and leveled an appraising look at her. Was she challenging him? Accusing him? He did not know how to read her. “I’ve lit more than my share of fires in various fireplaces. I can assure you that I know enough to check. The damper was open.” With that, he turned toward the kitchen and the coffee he had left there.
He glanced back at the fireplace just in time to see her kneel down in front of the hearth and reach for the lever that controlled the damper. A little flicker of satisfaction settled inside him as the sheepish expression covered her face when she looked up and saw him watching her. She brushed her hands against her jeans, then slowly walked across the living room to the kitchen.
Dylan cocked his head and arched an eyebrow. “Well?” He saw the crimson tinge of embarrassment spread across her cheeks. She glanced at the floor before regaining eye contact with him.
“You…uh…you were right. The damper is open. I…uh…well, apparently there’s something else blocking the chimney.”
His sharply clipped words carried an edge of sarcasm. “That’s a safe guess.”
He continued to stare at her, waiting for her to make the next move. She had accused him of not knowing enough to check the damper and doubted his word when he told her it was open, even to the point of checking it for herself. She had no option other than admitting that he had not been responsible for the fiasco.
The entire morning he had been on the receiving end of her disapproval and skepticism. Now that he had finally gained the upper hand over the circumstances, he wasn’t sure he wanted to let her off the hook quite so easily. Things were finally starting to feel a little more comfortable and familiar. He suppressed a grin and settled into the game. It was an interesting situation packed with lots of possibilities. So why was he still feeling a little uneasy…and a lot unsure?
He tried to maintain a stern expression, but it wasn’t easy. Even though his feelings about her were very confused, they certainly were not hostile. He took a quick inventory of the physical attributes of this very enticing woman. A band tightened across his chest, and the heat of desire churned deep inside him. His feelings were definitely not hostile…quite the contrary.
She squirmed uncomfortably for a moment, then visibly pulled her composure together. She squared her shoulders and aimed an unflinching stare at him. “You’re not going to make this easy for me, are you?”
He purposely widened his eyes in feigned innocence. “Make what easy for you?” Justin had told him about his sister hating to admit being wrong, that she was very stubborn in that regard. For reasons he could not clearly define, he was enjoying her being on the spot for a change rather than him. It was an interesting moment of pointed banter with the delightful Jessica McGuire.
She took in a calming breath, then loudly expelled it. An edge of irritation clung to her words. “All right!” She took another calming breath. “You were right and I was wrong. The damper was open.” She glared at him with as much of a challenge in her eyes as in her voice. “There—are you satisfied now?”
He flashed her a dazzling smile, freely allowing the sound of victory to fill his voice. “That wasn’t really so difficult, was it?”
“Yes, it was!” Her angry retort quickly turned to an awkward moment as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other. She rubbed her hand across the back of her neck and glanced at the floor. Her words were soft, her voice a whisper. “I just assumed—”
“You assumed…what? That I’m a hopelessly inept jerk who isn’t capable of handling the most basic task?” He saw the embarrassment color her cheeks again and he immediately regretted the harshness of his words, regardless of how true they had been.
She tried to recover the upper hand. “You have to admit that your lifestyle certainly doesn’t lend itself to—”
“Perhaps my ‘lifestyle’ isn’t what you think it is.” He clenched his jaw in an attempt to bite off his anger. “True, I’ve spent the past few years more or less wandering around…” The sadness and despair that suddenly welled inside him forced an end to his comments.
He turned the word over in his mind. Lifestyle. He had no purpose in life or even any goals. Always a party to go to, but no one special with whom to share the joys or the sorrows…especially the sorrows. That was not a lifestyle—it was loneliness.
He had always envied Justin, who seemed to have everything he didn’t. Even though Justin was divorced, he had family and was very close to his sister. He had a career he loved, a home and close friends. He had roots, something that was important to him. And Jessica—she was a very together lady. They had everything that mattered. They had what he very much wanted.
What little family Dylan started with had long ago been taken away. He was an only child. His father had deserted the family when he was ten years old. He eventually learned that his father had died five years later. His mother died within two weeks of the time he had been left literally at the altar on his wedding day. It seemed that those closest to him had deserted him. It was a lesson he had learned the hard way—if you allow someone into your heart or to touch your place of vulnerability you will end up being hurt. Close emotional attachments weren’t for him, but he truly envied Justin and Jessica.
Dylan turned away before his moment of melancholy became obvious to Jessica. It was just the type of vulnerability he did not want to show to this woman who had already developed some very definite opinions of him. He grabbed the empty coffee mug from the kitchen counter, filled it and handed it to her. He forced an upbeat attitude to his tone. “You never answered me about cream or sugar.”
“Just black.” She reached out to take the mug from his hand. Their fingers touched for an instant, the warmth much more than what was being generated by the coffee. Her gaze locked with his, held there as if by some force beyond her control. Her breath froze in her lungs. She finally managed to look away, but it did not still the pounding of her heart.
He carried his coffee mug to the living room, taking a swallow as he walked. He desperately wanted to smooth out the tension that permeated the air. Then an incident from his youth popped into his mind. He couldn’t stop the chuckle that accompanied it.
She stared at him, her expression part curiosity and part irritation. “This entire morning has been a disaster. Just what is it that you find so funny?”
He took another sip of his coffee and settled into a comfortable chair. “The disaster with the fireplace reminded me of something that happened a long time ago, when I was about fifteen years old.” Another soft chuckle escaped his throat as the recollection from his past settled over him.
“My mother and I lived in an old house that had a fireplace left over from a time before the furnace had been installed. She was down the block playing cards with the neighbors. I decided it was a perfect evening to invite my girlfriend over on the pretext of our studying together. I planned to build this romantic fire in the fireplace the way I’d seen in movies.”
“At fifteen years old you were planning romantic evenings?”
He shot her a sly sidelong glance. “Fifteen-year-old hormones are difficult to argue with.” He allowed a quiet moment of reflection as the memory of simpler times warmed his consciousness.
“I had wood, newspapers and matches, all
