she said. “Started up every time all afternoon.”
“Probably needs a tune-up, anyway,” he told her.
“It just had one, thanks.” She opened the door and walked inside, determined not to stand around in a too-narrow hallway with a man whose touch had the ability to start small electrical fires in her bloodstream.
Brian followed her in, still carrying the groceries. She’d let him inside, thank him for his help and then send him the heck out of there, fast.
He set the bags down on the bar counter separating the kitchen from the living room, then turned slowly to admire her place. It looked like her, he told himself. Soft, feminine. White lace curtains at the front windows splintered the afternoon sunshine into frothy patterns that lay across the wood floors in snowflake patterns. Overstuffed chairs and a love seat were pulled up to a round coffee table strewn with books and magazines. Pictures of country lanes and lighthouses dotted the walls, and the faint, sweet scent of lavender flavored the air.
“It’s nice,” he said after a long moment, and turned to look at her. Her soft brown hair fell straight to her shoulders, then curved under at the ends. A few wispy bangs feathered her forehead and her liquid chocolate eyes looked at him warily. Irritation fluttered through him. He still saw disinterest and a cool distance in her eyes every time she looked at him. After a month of living in such close quarters, you’d think she’d at least let her guard down a little.
Hell, he was a marine.
One of the good guys. Though he doubted that meant a thing to her.
He hid a smile as he realised she was standing in her kitchen, barricaded behind the counter. As far from him as she could possibly get.
“Thanks,” she said quietly. “Look, I appreciate the help, but I—”
“You’re busy,” he finished for her. “I know.” He wasn’t surprised she was giving him the bum’s rush. Though she was always polite, she’d made it clear she didn’t want to get to know him as well as he’d like to know her.
And maybe that was a good thing. He didn’t like complications. And starting up an affair with a woman who lived right across the hall from him would definitely be complicated.
Then again, he thought with another quick look up and down her small, but curvy body, she just might be worth it.
She cleared her throat, and he blinked.
“Thank you…?” she said pointedly. “And goodbye…?”
“Right,” Brian said, nodding. But before he left, there was one thing he wanted to know. Moving a bit closer, he leaned both elbows on the faux butcher-block countertop, locked his gaze with hers and asked, “What exactly is it you don’t like about me?”
She looked startled by the question. Sliding her hands into the back pockets of her tight, faded jeans, she cocked her head to one side and said, “I never said I didn’t like you.”
“You didn’t have to,” he assured her.
She took a deep breath and sighed it out. “I don’t even know you.”
He gave her a small smile. “We could fix that.”
“No, thanks.” A quick shake of her head emphasized that statement.
“See what I mean?”
She frowned at him. “Now I’ve got a question for you, Sergeant Haley.”
“Gunnery Sergeant,” he corrected her.
“Whatever.”
“Shoot.”
Both of her eyebrows lifted, and she pursed her lips as if she was actually considering doing just that. A look like that could give a man pause.
After a long moment she asked, “Why are you trying so hard to make me like you?”
“I’m not trying to—”
“You replaced the fixture in the hallway,” she said, interrupting his futile attempts to deny her accusation.
Brian had to defend that one. “The landlord wasn’t going to do it anytime soon, and that hallway was like the black hole of Calcutta at night.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, and pulled her hands free of her pockets only to fold her arms across her chest. One foot started tapping against the kitchen floor.
He glanced at it, shrugged and said, “I guess I’m just a small-town kind of guy. Helpful, neighborly.”
She smirked at him. “You told me you were from Chicago.”
“My neighborhood was small.”
She shook her head in exasperation. “You fixed my doorbell without being asked.”
“Faulty wiring can cause a fire.” He smiled again. No response. So shoot him for being a nice guy.
“Heck, you even washed my car yesterday.”
“It was no trouble. I was washing mine, and yours looked as though it could use a bath.” Actually, in his opinion her dented, ancient, VW Bug looked as if it needed burying, but now didn’t seem the time to say so.
“That’s not the point.”
“What is the point, Kathy?” he asked, straightening up from the counter and looking down into brown eyes that had haunted more than a few of his dreams lately. “We’re the only two renters in this building younger than sixty. Why can’t we be sociable?”
She ignored the latter question and answered the former with a question of her own. “The point is, I don’t get it,” she snapped. “I’ve made it fairly obvious that I’m not interested, but you keep trying. Why?”
He’d asked himself that question often in the past four weeks, and he’d yet to come up with an answer. So instead of admitting that, he asked a question of his own.
“Is there any reason we can’t be friends?”
She smiled and shook her head. “Boy, you’re stubborn.”
“Marines don’t surrender without a fight.”
“There’s always a first time.”
“You haven’t know many marines, have you?” he asked.
“You’re my first.”
Now, he liked the sound of that.
Before he could say so, though, she stepped past him, and their arms brushed. Another lightninglike flash of heat shot through him, just as it had earlier today. She felt it, too. He saw it in her eyes, heard it in her soft intake of breath.
He reached out and laid one hand on her forearm. The heat sizzled between them until she took his hand and lifted it off.
Looking
