Rand felt like he’d just been through a tornado. Had he really agreed to let a pregnant woman build his bookcases? But she was damn persuasive. He could see now why Clark had caved in to her—and why he’d acted so guilty and made such a quick escape.
“I’ll carry the ladder,” he said firmly. “Then I’ll climb it for you.”
“That’s not really necessary,” she said with equal firmness. “The ladder isn’t heavy, and I’ve been climbing it since before I could walk.”
“But your equilibrium has changed.”
“I’ve adjusted.”
Rand didn’t argue. He’d learned over the years that arguing with a woman was fruitless. He simply walked outside with her and grabbed the ladder.
“I can get that,” she insisted, standing with her arms folded stubbornly. She stood right in his way, so that he couldn’t slide the ladder out of its rack without physically picking her up and moving her. With a shrug he stepped back and let her slide the ladder off the truck. She didn’t seem to be straining, so he let her carry it, though he was bewildered by her behavior.
His mother had been single through most of his childhood—her second husband hadn’t stuck around much longer than Rand’s own father. So Rand had helped raise his three half sisters and spent most of his formative years as the only male in the family.
But females were still an alien species to him. He’d tried to understand them, really he had. But usually when he engaged them in conversation, they either stared blankly at him or talked a mile a minute about something that made no sense to him.
Even his sisters fell into that category. There just didn’t seem to be a connection between the functioning of the female brain and his own.
He hovered as Susan set up the ladder. “You’re sure you don’t want me to—”
“I can do it,” she said with a confident smile. “I’m only going up two steps. It’s not like I’m scaling the Sears Tower.” And for no good reason, she smiled. That smile totally blew him away. It lit up her whole face, making him wonder what her hair would look like down, free from the no-nonsense ponytail.
Whoa. Rand put the skids on that line of thought. Susan Kilgore was attractive—he’d have to be dead not to notice. But she obviously belonged to another man, so there was no chance of any chemistry between them. Not that he’d want that. He had a book to write, and he wanted no distractions.
Those eyes could distract the Devil himself….
“I’m nearby if you need anything.” He moved closer to his desk, but his work held no interest when another, more alluring view tempted him.
She climbed the ladder sideways so her full stomach didn’t get in the way, and she seemed completely comfortable—no wobbling.
He wished she’d let him help. The idea of building something with this woman, working side by side with her, was oddly appealing.
That was bizarre, he thought as he flipped through a stack of Web pages he’d printed out and stacked them by subject matter. He’d spent a great deal of time with females and had certainly done his share of dating. He appreciated the female form—in all its variations, apparently, given his physical reaction to Susan. But he was always happiest if he could take a woman to a movie or concert where they didn’t have to talk. Even better if they could just cut to the chase and go to bed. Lately he hadn’t even bothered. His liaisons never lasted, and the awkward gropings in the dark that had once satisfied his libido now left him unfulfilled.
He realized he was a dinosaur. Men these days talked to their women. They engaged in deep, meaningful conversations about their relationship, and if they couldn’t, they went to therapy. Even Clark, who’d been the most macho member of the Georgia Tech football team a few years back, often spent hours at a time talking with Deirdre, his girlfriend. When Rand asked Clark what they talked about, Clark just shrugged and said, “Everything under the sun.” And he got a stupid smile on his face.
“Rand?”
He was at her side in an instant. “Is something wrong?”
“I just thought, since you want to help, you could hold the tape measure for me.”
“Oh. Sure.” Their fingers brushed as she handed him her industrial-sized metal tape measure. He kept a wary eye on her while she stretched the tape this way and that and recorded the measurements on a pocket computer.
What was that scent she wore? Vanilla? Peaches? He’d never been very good at telling one girly smell apart from another.
She moved with incredible grace for a pregnant woman. The fact that she was moving at all amazed him. When his sisters had been in their last trimester, they’d hardly been able to make it from the couch to the kitchen.
“I’m not keeping you from something, am I?” Susan asked. “Clark said you were working on some important medical textbook.”
He didn’t really want to talk about his work. The minute he mentioned to a woman what he really did for a living, her eyes glazed over.
“What kind of doctor are you, anyway?” she continued, oblivious to his reticence.
“I’m a dermatologist,” he admitted. Dermatology had to be one of the least glamorous medical disciplines, right up there with urology.
“But I don’t see patients anymore,” he said. “I work strictly in the lab doing research.”
“On what?” she wanted to know.
“Not a cure for cancer or anything so glamorous. I’m studying allergic skin rashes.” Which was where most people’s curiosity came to an abrupt halt—unless they happened to be the victim of a troublesome rash, in which case he got more details about it than he ever cared to know.
Susan didn’t vary from the norm. “Someone’s got to study rashes, I suppose.” She returned her attention to her work.
Another scintillating conversation. Why did he have such a hard time with this? Not that it really mattered. He might be attracted to Susan—and let’s face it, he was, regardless of her state of pregnancy—but she was completely out of reach.
SUSAN ARRIVED AT Rand’s house early the next morning, eager to get to work. As she climbed out of her truck, her stomach seemed suddenly huge to her, straining against her striped overalls. Had she grown overnight? She found herself wishing she could wear one of those cute little Empire-waist maternity dresses she’d seen in the window at a shop downtown. Wearing those breezy floral fabrics, lined with delicate lace, even a woman the size of a small hippopotamus could feel feminine.
In her overalls, Susan just felt fat and ungainly. It hadn’t really bothered her before now.
Rand opened the front door before she could even knock. He wore a pristine white lab coat, open at the front to reveal a blue shirt and silk tie, making Susan more positive than ever that scientists weren’t as nerdy as their stereotypes suggested. And he carried a fragrant cup of coffee, making her despise him.
She wanted coffee, damn it.
“Good
