I’d love to have you as my guest.”
“You’re not going to offer to show me your stick are you?”
Evan laughed. “No, not yet.”
He spared a few minutes to radio his foreman to come get the cow back inside the fence. Then have his men repair the broken section. It had been a long time since he’d met a woman he could spar with verbally. Most of the hometown girls never stood up to him. He caught up with Lydia arguing with the tow-truck driver, Boz Stillman.
“Listen, lady. It’s going to take weeks—two, maybe three, to repair your car. Why don’t you just let me take it to the junkyard and have your insurance carrier reimburse you?” Boz demanded.
“The car is still in working condition. I don’t want it totaled,” Lydia said.
“Do you have insurance?” Evan asked. Her insistence about repairing her car told him she might not be covered. He glanced toward the car and found Boz’s helper unloading a fortune’s worth of designer luggage from the trunk.
“No,” she said, quietly.
“Boz, tow the car in and make the repairs to it.”
“Um…Evan, may I speak with you for a minute?” Lydia asked. Her voice was soft and sweet, not a bit at odds with the woman who’d clung to him when his dogs had been licking her.
“Sure. Give us a minute, Boz.”
Boz walked away mumbling about women with more looks than sense. Lydia shifted her weight from foot to foot and stared off at the red-and-blue flashing lights of the squad car.
“What did you want to discuss?”
“This is kind of hard to say,” Lydia hedged.
“Spit it out,” he said, unable to believe she had trouble saying what was on her mind.
“I don’t have any money right now.”
“Don’t you have credit cards?” She seemed like the type who’d have a wallet full of gold cards.
“No. I don’t like to use them,” she said, staring at the ground.
“Let me pay for the repairs. It’s the least I can do since my cow caused the accident.”
“No. You’re already paying me back by letting me stay at your house tonight. Maybe I can find a job and earn some cash to pay for the repairs. This car looks like it’s going to take some time to fix.”
“I’ll pay Boz for the repairs when he’s finished and then you can send me a check from your relative’s house when you get there.”
“My aunt is out of town. I’m house-sitting for her.”
Of course, he thought. Because he’d been thinking that he could spar with her and enjoy the tinges of arousal racing through his veins until she left, it looked like she was going to have to stay.
“What’s your career?”
“I don’t have one. I do a lot of work with charities.”
Great, no marketable skills. He sighed. She appealed to him, he should be getting farther away from her, but instead…
“I have some filing that needs to be done at the office. You can work for me until your car is ready. I’ll pay for your repairs and give you room and board. Sound good?”
“Don’t you have to get some sort of approval for that?”
Yes, but that was his worry not hers. “Don’t you ever stop arguing?”
She grinned at him, looking like an impish fairy for a brief moment. “No, I don’t.”
“Somehow I suspected that.”
“I really appreciate all you’re doing for me.”
“No problem. Let me get your luggage loaded in the back of the truck and we’ll head home.”
“Don’t you need to stay here?”
“Nah, my deputy needs the experience of writing up paperwork.”
Despite her evasive answers, he wanted her like hell on fire. Damn, he should have let her go to the motel, but he couldn’t let her stay in a lonely motel room. As ridiculous as it seemed, he wanted to watch over her while she slept.
Lydia woke in a dark room. The deep and steady sound of someone else’s breathing alarmed her. Where was she?
The window was open and the curtain billowed gently in the breeze. There were foreign sounds, cicadas, grasshoppers and the lowing of cows filling the air. Not like Manhattan.
The pillow beneath her head was firm, not the cloud-like softness of her own goose-down pillow. The sheets were cotton, and she seemed to be wearing some sort of sleep shirt with buttons.
She sat up, trying to identify the other person in the room. A familiar scent assailed her. Woodsy and masculine. An aftershave that was familiar to her but not her father’s.
“Lydia? Are you awake?”
The sheriff, Evan. The events of the night rushed back to her. She’d been in a wreck and instead of doing the smart thing and telling the truth, she’d concocted a story to cover herself. And not much of one at that.
For the first time since her father had made public his intention to buy her a husband six months ago she felt free.
She shrugged aside the feelings of melancholy and vulnerability and savored instead her newfound freedom.
The neon glow of the clock on the nightstand said six-fifteen. The second time she’d wakened, she thought. The first time he’d awakened her, and it had been vague and annoying because she was so tired.
This man wanted nothing from her. He didn’t care that she had a large sum of money tied to her. His concern for her safety came from the genuine goodness inside him. He was a tough-looking character, but he had a good heart. She’d noticed that not only in the way he’d dealt with her, but also in how he interacted with the other professionals at the accident scene.
“Yes, Sheriff, I am.”
He made a tsking sound and walked over to the bed. A click and then the bedside light was on. “I thought we agreed you’d call me Evan?”
He looked rumpled and sleepy, and she wanted to open her arms, pull back the covers and invite him to rest his weary body next to hers. Some deep primal instinct made her want to comfort him. “You’re right—Evan.”
“That’s better,” he said, caressing her cheek.
His touch sent shivers of awareness coursing through her veins. The electric pulses were the forerunners of desire, Lydia thought, with no small shock. She’d never felt desire before this evening. Never wanted a man to linger when he caressed or kissed her. She enjoyed the touch and resented its loss when Evan
