of superlative? He scowled, then glanced from the baseball to her cool glare—and the faint bruise growing beneath her eye. “Oh. And. And I apologize,” he ventured. “I’m sorry. Truly sorry.”
Her expression softened slightly, and he bit back a massive sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she said. “Apology accepted. And maybe next time you could close my door before you begin your game?”
“Um,” he murmured, letting his gaze drift over her body, taking in the buttons of her suit. They looked as if he could undo them in just a few seconds. Somewhere beneath that drab fabric was a woman’s body, and from what he could see, it didn’t deserve to be trussed up in such a conservative outfit. Pete clenched his fists and pushed the idea aside, returning his gaze to her face.
Nora rubbed her eye, then sucked in a sharp breath. As she tried to stand, he gently pushed her back down. “Here,” he said, carefully pulling her fingers back. “Let me look at it.”
“Am I bleeding?”
He stared into her eyes, such incredibly blue eyes. Why had he never noticed her eyes before? Wide and innocent eyes. Tantalizing. Alluring. A host of adjectives tumbled through his mind. A man could lose himself in those eyes. For a moment, he couldn’t concentrate on anything else but the way her lashes fluttered, the way her honey-blond hair fell across her forehead; the soft pulse point just below her jaw that would feel so warm beneath his lips. She cleared her throat again, yanking him back to reality once more.
“No, you’re not bleeding,” he said. “It’s not so bad. Just a little black and blue. You can hardly see it.”
“Black and blue?” Nora moaned. “That can’t be.”
He shrugged, then stared at it more closely, probing at the bruise with a gentle touch. “You can put some of that makeup stuff on it, and no one will notice.”
“But—but I can’t have a black eye!”
A sharp laugh slipped from his throat before he could stop it. “Why? Do you have some hot date tonight?” When he saw the flush of embarrassment creep up her cheeks, he cursed himself soundly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have laughed.”
“No, you shouldn’t have,” she murmured. “It was very rude.”
“I just never think of you…I mean, Prudence…Well, you know what I mean. I never think of Prudence as having much of a social life, beyond quilting bees and pinochle club.”
“I’m not Prudence,” she said in a soft voice, the hurt evident beneath the surface. “And—and maybe I do have a date tonight. Would that be so hard to believe?”
He let his palm rest on her cheek for a moment before he sat back on his heels. “Well, you’re going to have a nice shiner, Nora Pierce, if you don’t put some ice on that eye.” Pete reached out and took her hand, then helped her to her feet. “I’ll get something from the fridge. Why don’t you sit down? And don’t rub it. I’ll be right back.”
Nora nodded and managed a grateful smile, as he strode out of her office. The boys were gathered in a small group, ready to mount a rescue mission. But he waved as he passed, tossing them the ball. “She’s fine,” he said. “Carry on. I’m going to get some ice. I hit her in the eye.”
Fear froze the expressions of his co-workers, and they quickly scattered, heading back to work before they might be implicated in the injury of Prudence Trueheart. Pete grabbed the closest thing he could find to an ice pack from the refrigerator and hurried back to Nora’s office.
He found her leaning back in her chair, her eyes closed and her slender legs stretched out in front of her, crossed at the ankles.
“Here,” he murmured, bending over her, bracing his hand on the arm of her chair. “This should help.”
Nora opened her eyes and looked at the small package he offered. “That’s a frozen burrito.”
Pete shrugged. “Someone forgot to fill the ice trays.”
She took the burrito from his hand and carefully placed it over her eye. “Another breach of office etiquette—actually, two. Stolen food and empty ice trays.”
He covered her hand with his and adjusted the burrito over the bruise. An errant strand of hair slipped from the knot at her nape and brushed the back of his hand. He was acutely aware of how soft it felt. It probably smelled good, too. “Yeah, I guess that memo you put up must have fallen off the refrigerator already.”
“You tore it down, didn’t you,” Nora accused.
“Not me,” he lied. “But you have to admit, sometimes you are a little…”
“Pushy?” she asked. “Overbearing?”
“I was going to say ‘prissy,”’ he replied, stepping back before he was tempted to run his fingers through her hair and scatter the pins that held it in place. Actually, he was going to say “autocratic and oppressive.” But the vulnerability he saw in her eyes made him amend his opinion. Suddenly, he much preferred Nora Pierce’s gratitude to her disapproval. “Sports guys don’t like rules. The only thing that should have rules is a game.”
“Civilized society needs proper etiquette,” she countered. “If we have to live together, we have to respect each other. Good etiquette is a measure of that respect.”
“And twenty-seven rules posted on an office refrigerator tend to make us a little crazy.”
She sighed softly, tipping her head back and closing her eyes. “I don’t mean to make you crazy. I was just trying to be…helpful.”
His attention dropped to her mouth again, and he fought the impulse to lean closer and kiss away the traces of hurt he heard in her voice. He’d always assumed she was such a hard and calculating woman, an imperious force with a steel spine and ice water running through her veins. But in truth, Nora Pierce wasn’t at all like Prudence Trueheart. Sure, she was a little uptight and overly concerned with propriety. But beneath the stuffy facade, she was soft and vulnerable and incredibly irresistible.
“Maybe I could take you out to lunch,” he said. “By way of an apology.”
She sat up straight and pulled the burrito from her eye, regarding him with a suspicious expression. “Lunch?”
“Yeah, why not? That’s not against the rules, is it? Or didn’t I ask the right way. Should I have called first? Or maybe written you a note? I suppose I could have sent an engraved invitation, but my engraver is broken.”
Nora shook her head, the barest hint of a smile touching her lips. “I—I don’t think lunch would be such a good idea. After all, we work together. People might talk.”
Though it was a reputation built more on rumor than fact, Pete was known at the Herald as the resident Casanova, a fact that obviously hadn’t escaped Prudence’s notice. He didn’t put much effort into attracting women, but he always seemed to have at least two or three beautiful ladies on a string. Yet, over the past year, he’d found himself increasingly disenchanted with the women he dated—and the reputation he’d cultivated. Unfortunately, the reputation seemed to stick, and his personal life had become tasty fodder for the office gossips.
It wasn’t that he didn’t like women
