protested automatically, then frowned. Molly wasn’t usually this cutting. Or this impatient with her children.
“Why else did you break up with him? I’m right. You know I am.”
“Yes, but only I’m allowed to slam him.”
“Okay. How about, ‘Mr. Gregory Hinshaw did not encourage you to explore your own life.’ Better?”
“Much.” Greg had been gentle, wonderful, but yeah, set in his ways was an understatement. Cemented in his ways, maybe.
“That works.”
“So the point is, don’t go overboard now that you’re free. Remember, the kids in college who partied their brains out and ended up puking in the street every weekend were the ones whose parents absolutely forbade them to touch alcohol. Ever.”
Darcy tapped her fingers on the rim of the sink. “I get it, Molly.”
“I’m just saying. I don’t want you to do something so out of character that you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
“But it can’t be completely out of character or why would I want to do it?”
“Because you’ve been bent too far in one direction, and now that pressure is released, you’re whipping too far over to the other side. Trust me. You want danger? Throw out a recyclable, or park in a handicapped space—something more in your risk league. Leave seducing strangers to women who can handle the fallout.”
Darcy growled loudly. Now Molly sounded like Dad and Greg. In stereo. Full volume. And unfortunately, even though she might be making perfect sense, out of sheer contrariness Darcy’s desire to make use of Garrett’s mighty spear tripled.
“Hey, you wanted me to talk you out of it.”
“Yeah, I did. I did want you to talk me out of it.” The legs in her kitchen window moved down a step. Darcy leaned over the sink to better admire their straight muscled length, raising her eyes slowly to where he kept the weaponry she was “soooo uncharacteristically” in the mood to test out. “But I’m pretty sure I just changed my mind.”
2
TYLER HOUSTON finished sanding the upper sill of a second-story window, climbed down and moved the ladder to the last one on that floor. For the third day in a row he’d lingered here after the other guys had gone. Partly because rather than being a professional painter like his coworkers, he was a soon-to-be college professor—and yes, he did like the sound of that—earning extra cash over the summer before he started teaching economics at UWM in the fall. The guys kidded him about his snail-speed painting, but after so many years of book study it was a refreshing break to work with his body again instead of just his mind.
As he’d said, that was partly why he stayed late. To catch up. But only partly.
The other “partly” had to do with the woman this house belonged to. He’d been attracted to plenty of women in his life. Some based purely on appearance, seen at a distance or seen up close. Some whose personality appealed and whose looks seemed to morph into loveliness the more he got to know them. But rarely the kind of punch-to-the-gut sizzle he experienced with this woman. Even his attraction to Annie Phillips, his supposed-to-be fiancée who’d busted his heart wide open a year ago, had taken hold of him slowly.
Hardly Mr. Smooth, he still could generally hold his end up in a conversation. He liked people, enjoyed finding out about them, listening to their stories, figuring out what made them tick. Around this woman, he’d been able only to comment moronically about paint. Compliment her color choice. Admire her house. Wax philosophical about wood stain and window glazing. Never even asked her name. Worse, he’d kept laughing nervously—he would not use the term giggle. Bad enough when she had on her sunglasses, but when she took them off and looked at him with those blue-gray eyes…
Of course she’d been completely cool, able to look at him directly, to speak coherently without giggling—er, nervous laughter. Periodically she’d toss her heavy dark hair back as if it annoyed her by continually creeping over her shoulders. Even that was sexy to him.
Earlier today, warmer even than yesterday once the cloud cover passed on to the east, she’d been sitting in her usual lounge chair—in jeans and a large man’s shirt that made him jealous of whoever had given it to her—reading a book and listening to an iPod. He’d managed to avoid looking at her for the most part, but his gaze was jerked over when she’d sat up abruptly, put the book down and started unbuttoning the shirt.
That got his attention. Then the shirt was tossed aside and he nearly gouged the wood of the sill he was scraping when she hiked up the tight, fiery-orange-red top underneath, yanked it over her head and flung it to the side as if it harbored bees.
While his tongue had lolled out of his mouth—figuratively speaking—she’d calmly picked up her book and settled back down.
He’d worked particularly slowly after that, at least until she disappeared back into the house a while earlier. Because underneath she wore a bikini top that she filled out like…like…
Poetic words failed him. “Like beautiful breasts in a bikini top,” was about as lyrical a description as he could manage.
Clearly he’d gone over the edge. Next he’d be like Katie, his younger sister, who claimed to have known the second she met Edwin, now her husband of two years, that he was the love of her life.
Uh-huh.
If Tyler were a different kind of scientist, he’d do research into why and how two people could produce such sparks. Or rather how one person could produce them in another, since he had no way of knowing if the ones he felt were reciprocated.
He started scraping the final window to what must be her bedroom, the sun still out but the air rapidly cooling toward evening. The last few days had been warm, though Milwaukee hung on to chilly nights until close to the start of summer. Last month he’d moved back here to his hometown and only a block away from Ms. Bikini in order to—
The corner of his eye caught movement beyond the old-fashioned slightly wavy glass.
Her. Coming into her bedroom. What was her name? He was dying to know. Something sexy and slightly old-fashioned, like Rosemary. She walked in and passed the window, still in those jeans, low-cut and tight, still in that bikini top, again under the man’s shirt, which flared open when she moved and which continued to make him jealous. Who had given it to her? Was she still involved with him?
Tyler really needed to pay attention to this window or he’d be here all night. And not the way he’d like to be, in Rosemary’s…er, company, but out here standing on a ladder with only a scraper for intimacy.
So he paid attention to the window. He really did. But his peripheral vision was working, too, and kept track of her. Then he had to glance right at her just once, to confirm if what he thought he’d seen was in fact what he thought he’d seen.
Because what he thought he’d seen was her shirt fluttering to the floor.
Yes.
The shirt.
On the floor.
Worse—no, better—no, worse—her hands were now at the fastenings of her jeans. He scraped extra
