of his name and which she followed with her favorite word, “Pawk.”
He smiled and ruffled her hair. “Maybe later,” he told her, then, “Mmm, that coffee smells great.”
“You know where the mugs are,” Paige said. She dug his keys out of her purse and set them on the counter. “I completely forgot we’d switched vehicles last night.”
“Not a problem,” he assured her, reaching around her to open the cupboard door.
As he did, he caught a whiff of her scent. It was subtle, with just the slightest hint of vanilla, which made him think it was probably a lotion rather than perfume. Of course, that brought to mind images of Paige smoothing lotion over her naked skin, running her hands up her long legs, down her slender arms, over her—
“Scrambled?”
The question jolted Zach out of his fantasy. “What?”
“Your eggs.” She continued breaking them into a bowl. “Do you like them scrambled?”
“Sure,” he said and filled his mug from the pot.
She splashed some milk into the bowl with the eggs, added a dash of salt and pepper and picked up the whisk.
Zach sipped his coffee.
Paige poured the mixture into a frying pan. “Did you bring in a cleaning crew after I went up to bed last night?”
“Not necessary,” he said. “It looked a lot worse than it was.”
“Forgive me if I’m a little skeptical about that.”
He grinned. “Okay, it was pretty bad, but my mother taught me to always pick up after myself.”
“Well, it was a pleasant surprise to wake up this morning and not have to face the chaos I saw last night.”
“If you were impressed with a little tidying, you should see what I can do with a bed.”
The inadvertent innuendo cracked between them, sizzling in the air like the eggs in the pan.
Paige’s cheeks turned pink, confirming that she had taken the same mental detour he had. And he found himself wondering if her thoughts had drifted in that direction even half as often as his had. And if they had—if they were both feeling this tug of attraction—what the heck were they going to do about it?
Nothing. He answered his own question firmly. Definitively.
He cleared his throat. “I meant that I can make up a bed so tight that a quarter tossed down on the middle of the mattress will bounce six inches,” he explained.
Paige just nodded and kept her focus on the eggs in the pan, while he tried to block out the mental image of bouncing on a mattress with her. Because how completely inappropriate was that? And why did he, even knowing it was completely inappropriate, find the idea so damned appealing?
He pushed the thought out of his mind and asked, “Can I help you with anything?”
“You can butter the toast,” she said, just as it popped out of the toaster.
Zach was grateful for the task because it gave him something to do with his hands so that he couldn’t give in to the urge to reach for her and determine once and for all if the attraction he felt was mutual.
Unfortunately, the task didn’t keep his mind as occupied as his hands, and his thoughts continued to wander. And although he couldn’t deny that several of those thoughts touched upon plans for getting Paige naked, he found himself simply enjoying the morning routine. Working with Paige to put breakfast on the table, retrieving the sippy cup Emma kept throwing to the ground, dodging the bits of toast and egg that she threw at him, then helping Paige tidy up the kitchen again when they’d finished their meal.
Their conversation was easy—although they were both careful not to make any mention of Emma’s paternity—and he found himself relaxing in her company. Not that he was completely relaxed—how could he be when he was so keenly aware of her presence, her every movement and every breath?
No doubt about it—twenty-three months was a long time for a man to go without the pleasures of female companionship, yet he hadn’t been aware of how very long it had been, and he certainly hadn’t felt so acutely deprived until he met Paige. Which meant that he didn’t want sex as much as he wanted Paige.
And that, he knew, was a big complication.
After the kitchen was cleaned, Paige left Zach with another cup of coffee while she took Emma upstairs to get her washed up and changed. When they came back down again, he pushed away from the table.
“I have to check out of Hadfield House,” he said. “The clerk wasn’t at the desk when I left this morning.”
“You’re leaving?” Paige wasn’t sure why she was surprised or why his words caused something that felt like a pang of disappointment. After all, ever since he’d shown up at her door she’d been hoping he would turn around and leave again. But she’d started to get used to having him around; she’d started to believe he actually planned to stay. Of course, she should have realized that as soon as she began to count on someone, it was a cue for him to leave.
“Just leaving the B and B,” he told her. “When I first checked in, I didn’t know how long I would be staying and the clerk didn’t think to mention that they were booked for the holiday weekend.”
“So where are you going?”
“I’ll try one of the hotels in town.”
So he wasn’t leaving town after all, she realized, strangely relieved by that fact. Maybe he would turn out to be a man that she—that Emma, she hastily amended—could count on. Still, Paige hesitated a moment before she said, “There’s a spare room here.”
Zach paused with his hand on the door. “Are you just sharing information or offering to let me stay with you?”
She hadn’t intended to invite him to stay, but she felt guilty for attempting to thwart his every effort. Or maybe she felt that she owed him because he’d been so great with Megan the day before, not to mention that he’d cleaned up her house.
Yes, he’d been at least partially responsible for the mess in the first place, but his efforts were commendable. And he really did seem to want to get to know Emma and to be willing to take things slowly for the little girl’s sake, and Paige found that she couldn’t—in good conscience—continue to stand in his way.
Whatever her reasons, she simply shrugged, as if her offer wasn’t a big deal. “You seem intent on hanging around here most of the time anyway.”
“I’d be more than happy to get out of your hair, but you panic any time Emma is even out of your sight.”
She couldn’t deny it was true. “I don’t know you well enough to trust you yet,” she reminded him. “Maybe staying under the same roof will change that.”
“Then I’ll accept the offer,” he said. “Because I know you have no reason to want to help me and all kinds of reasons not to.”
“I’m
