As she looked out the window now, she could see him wiping his forehead with his forearm. Unaware of her, he turned, his back to her as he shoveled more concrete around the support. He made the task look effortless, but beneath the gray T-shirt straining against his shoulders, strong muscles flexed and shifted with his every move.
It took little imagination for her to picture how beautifully developed those corded muscles were. The cotton and denim he wore molded to him, betraying a body formed as perfectly as the Greek sculptures she’d once studied with such dedication. She’d even created those compelling lines herself in art classes with handfuls of clay, shaping, perfecting, struggling to get every line and curve right. The human body had fascinated her. Its movement. Its expressions.
Nick had fascinated her, too, and by the time she had entered college he had become her own standard of perfection. As she’d worked the clay, she had imagined the feel of those muscles beneath her hands, the strength in them, the smoothness of his skin. She had imagined the corrugated plane of his belly, the leanness of his hips, and how it would feel to be held against his very solid chest.
Watching his biceps bunch as he lifted more cement, she wondered the same thing now.
The breath she released sounded faintly like a sigh.
The one she drew caught, her eyes widening as she realized she was remembering how she’d once fantasized about him. Conscious of the fact that she was doing it again, she jumped back from the sink.
The ceiling fan rotated slowly overhead. Turning it up a notch against the lingering heat of the day, she headed for the refrigerator and pulled out a can of diet cola. With the cold can pressed to the skin above the U of her pink T-shirt, she swallowed a flash of disbelief and guilt and tried to decide between grilled chicken breast or a hamburger for dinner. It was nearly eight o’clock. If she didn’t fix herself something decent to eat soon, she’d wind up doing what she’d done last night and settle for an apple and Oreos.
The disconcerted sensation that had jerked her from the window eased with the diversion. What replaced it was an equally discomfiting sense of obligation. She still needed to talk to Nick. To thank him.
Since putting it off would only give her more time to dread it, she grabbed another can of cola and closed the fridge with her hip. He might not be interested in talking to her, and she still thought him terrible for what he’d done to her sister all those years ago, but she couldn’t ignore the need to return his thoughtfulness. Not just for leaving the sawhorses. But for what he was doing now—pushing himself so an elderly lady could return to her home.
The metallic clank of colliding metal greeted her as she walked onto the porch outside the dining-room doors. Beyond the gap in the porch railing, she saw Nick turn from where he’d just tossed the shovel and a hoe into the wheelbarrow. A dusting of fine gray powder coated his work boots, his worn jeans sported a frayed hole above one knee, and a streak of something dark bisected the Manhattan Athletic Club logo on his faded gray T-shirt.
She was wondering if he’d belonged to the prestigious-sounding club when he’d lived in New York when his eyes, blue as lasers, locked on hers.
Caution immediately clouded his face.
“You look thirsty.” Aware of the faint flutter of nerves in her stomach, she walked to the edge of the porch, her sneakers silent on the wide yellow boards. She held out a can of cola. “I noticed that your water bottle is empty,” she said, nodding toward the clear plastic container on the strip of lawn between them and the driveway. “I hope you don’t mind diet. It’s all I have.”
Warily eyeing the can she held, he walked over to where she stood in the center of the gap.
She was thinking about telling him she hadn’t poisoned it when he reached up.
“Diet’s fine. Thanks,” he murmured, taking what she offered.
“Are you about finished for the day?”
“Just about. I just need to wash out the wheelbarrow and clean up the tools.” He popped the top on the can, the sound sharp against the evening stillness. The sun skimmed the treetops, slanting long shadows in what was left of the hour before dark. “The footings didn’t take as long to put in as I thought they would. If I’d brought lumber with me, I could have started framing the ramp tonight.”
From the self-deprecating frown that creased his brow as he raised the can to his mouth, it was apparent that he wished he had realized how quickly the work would go. The hour he could have put into the project now would have put him that much closer to getting the job finished.
Not wanting to hold him up now, she figured it best to do what she needed to do so he could leave. “I just wanted to thank you,” she said, watching him tip back the can and swallow. “For leaving the sawhorses,” she explained. “That was very kind of you. But especially for what you’re doing for Grandma. It can’t be easy working all day then coming out to do this.”
He’d drained half the can before he lowered it. Contemplating its pull ring, he muttered, “It’s not a problem.”
“I appreciate it, anyway.”
“Then, you’re welcome.”
“Did you have dinner before you came here?”
The question was out before she realized she was going to ask it, much less have time to consider where it would lead.
Nick looked caught off guard by it, too.
“Uh…no,” he murmured, glancing at his watch as if he might have been putting off knowing exactly what time it was. “I didn’t want to waste the daylight.”
Amy’s conscience tugged hard.
“I was just getting ready to grill a hamburger,” she said, aware of exactly why he hadn’t wanted to waste it. He wanted to help an old woman go home. The very least she could do was repay his kindness. On behalf of her grandmother, of course. “If you don’t mind staying, I’ll make one for you, too. I can have dinner ready by the time you get your things cleaned up.”
For a moment, Nick said nothing. He just stood with the can of cola dangling at his side while he considered the wariness in Amy’s eyes, along with the delicate curve of her jaw, her throat. She did nothing to call particular attention to herself. Her makeup, if she was even wearing any, was minimal. Her clothes were loose and practical. Yet her tousled hair fairly begged a man to sink his fingers into it, her lush ripe mouth taunted him with its fullness and her willowy little body was as tempting as sin itself.
If you don’t mind staying, she’d said. He would have laughed at the irony of the suggestion had he been in the mood to find anything even slightly amusing about being there to begin with.
In the past couple of hours, he’d done what would have taken some men twice as long to accomplish just so he could get away from her. It seemed as if every time he’d looked up, he’d caught sight of her as she’d worked by the open kitchen window above the sink. And each time he’d seen her, he’d found himself having to try that much harder to shove her out of his thoughts.
The first time he’d noticed her, she had been reaching to take down the little stained glass birds that had hung along the top of the window. Her waist-length top had ridden up, exposing the strip of flesh between the waistband of her ragged cutoffs and the band of her bra. He hadn’t known which he’d found
