haughty look Kayla gave Jack made him feel like something that had crawled out from under a rock. It was January and the weather outside was beyond chilly, it was downright frigid—but even so, the expression in Kayla’s blue eyes lowered the already cool temperature in his apartment by about twenty degrees. She had classy features, icy eyes and a passionate voice, not to mention pretty damn good legs. She was fire, coated with ice, and she didn’t seem the least bit impressed with him; that alone made her stand out among the women he knew.
Okay, so he wasn’t exactly looking his best, but at least his gray running shorts accommodated the cast on his right leg. His sweatshirt had Northwestern University Wildcats emblazoned across the chest, bracketed by the spaghetti sauce he’d spilled on it when he’d tried carrying a plate of spaghetti from the kitchen to the living room earlier. Should he tell her that he looked better cleaned up?
As he watched her, Kayla efficiently disengaged the wooden crutch from the wall and handed it to him. “Here. I think you might need this.”
The crutch seemed to mock him, underscoring his temporary lack of independence. Irritably taking it from her, he demanded, “So why did you bring your kid with you?”
The kid—who, after her first ear-piercing screams, had been remarkably quiet up to this point—promptly burst into tears again and hid her face in the crook of her mother’s neck, making Jack feel like an even worse heel.
“All I did was ask a simple question—” he began.
“You’s mean!” the little girl shouted from the safety of her mother’s arms.
“Shhh, sweetie, it’ll be okay,” Kayla murmured in a soothing voice. “This is Mr. Elliott, and he’s not as bad as he seems.”
“Gee, thanks,” Jack muttered.
“If you’ll just give me the list, Mr. Elliott, I’ll get to work,” Kayla briskly stated.
Jack stared at her blankly. “The list?”
“The list of errands you want me to run.”
He took exception to her maternal tone of voice. “Listen, I already have a mother, I don’t need—”
“It’s my understanding that you’ve already driven your mother to distraction,” she interrupted him to say. “That’s why your uncle hired me.”
Jack glared at her. “Okay, so I don’t like people fussing over me.”
“I’ll remember that. Your uncle felt that you would prefer someone objective assisting you rather than being ‘fussed over’ as you put it.”
Actually what Jack’s uncle had said was “My nephew is impossible! If you can handle him, you can manage anything and I can assure you that I’ll throw more work your way than you’ll know what to do with.” As a member of the Chicago Board of Trade, Mr. Enteman could throw a lot of work her way with other traders who were too busy to handle the details of their daily lives. This could be the break she and Diane were waiting for, their first big account.
Meanwhile, Jack was reconsidering his position. He supposed there were worse things than being waited on hand and foot by a beautiful woman like Kayla. He’d noticed that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring. Which meant what? That she was divorced? Available?
“We got off on the wrong foot here, no pun intended,” he said, fitting the padded handle of the crutch under his arm. “What do you say we start over again? How about telling me your daughter’s name?”
“It’s Ashley.”
“Hey, Ashley, I’m sorry I was yelling before,” Jack said in his most charming voice, the one he’d been told on more than one occasion could charm the wings off an angel.
But his charm apparently didn’t work on little girls, since Ashley refused to even look at him, just burrowing her face even further into her mother’s shoulder.
Not that Jack should complain, since the kid’s actions did manage to shift the neckline of the black angora sweater Kayla was wearing so that it displayed the intriguing hollows of her collarbone and the soft curve of a shoulder. A flickering flame of awareness teased his senses and warmed his appetite.
His gaze leisurely traveled upward, from the creamy skin of her throat over a chin that looked like it could be stubborn, to her lips.... Very nice lips. Her cheeks were flushed, with anger or attraction? When his eyes finally reached hers, he got his answer—she met his perusal head-on. She was looking at him as if he were a low-life and she a queen. Jack wasn’t sure whether to be insulted or intrigued.
Women had always found him attractive—he wasn’t conceited about it, he was simply accustomed to it. He had gray eyes and a way with women; both were mere facts. Over the years there were plenty of women who’d found him to be irresistible.
But not this one. This one was eyeing him with complete indifference and just a twinge of impatience. Jack saw no hint of attraction in Kayla’s blue eyes, not a smidgen of sympathy at his being laid up with a broken leg. Maybe it was time to bring up the fact that he was a firefighter—that usually got women’s attention.
“Did my uncle tell you that I was injured in the line of duty?” Jack asked her.
“No.”
Didn’t the woman have any curiosity? he irritably wondered. “I’m a firefighter.”
“That’s nice.”
Nice? Nice?! That’s it? Okay, so swinging his crutch at her had not made the best of first impressions. But he could make up for that. “Look, why don’t you and your daughter sit down while I write up the list. As you can see, it takes me a while to get around.” He’d never had to use the sympathy angle before, but hey—if it worked...
It didn’t.
“You moved fast enough swinging that crutch of yours,” Kayla replied.
Ah, so she wasn’t going to make this easy on him, was she? Okay. That was fine by Jack. He hadn’t had a challenge like this in years. Well, actually, he’d never had a challenge quite like this, but he was man enough to rise to the occasion.
And the way her angora sweater clung to her curves did indeed make a certain part of his anatomy rise. She was tall, only about four or five inches shorter than his own six feet. And she wasn’t wearing heels. In fact, she was wearing practical-looking black flats.
“In those clothes, you don’t look old enough to have a daughter,” he murmured.
Kayla narrowed her eyes at him. She knew damn well he was practicing his charm on her. She also knew that he was aggravated it wasn’t working. Good. It served him right—for scaring the heck out of her, swinging his crutch at her and nearly decapitating her.
It didn’t matter that he had the most intriguing eyes she’d ever seen—a blend of blue and gray. They were like smoke. In contrast, his dark lashes and eyebrows were a commanding combination. His hair was equally dark and somewhat on the wild side, which she had a feeling matched his own personality. Somewhat on the wild side.
He had the powerful build of a man who was used to physical activity. His shoulders were exceptionally broad, straining
