won this first skirmish. But the war wasn’t over with yet.
This wasn’t the first time Wanda had tried to fix Chloe up, but it was definitely the worst. For the past few days, Chloe had heard all about Wanda’s grandson Steve. She’d seen all the pictures of his good-looking face and lean body standing tall and proud in a U.S. Marines dress-blues uniform. She’d smiled politely as Wanda had confessed that Steve was something of a ladies’ man, but that he was really only looking for the right woman, and then he’d settle down like his older married brothers.
Chloe wasn’t buying that. She’d recently broken up with a ladies’ man. She’d been blindly in love with Brad Teague, a handsome commodities broker. Her vision had been restored when she’d seen him kissing another woman and leading her up to his apartment.
Brad hadn’t shown a bit of remorse as he’d informed her that it wasn’t natural for a man to settle for just one woman.
She’d informed Brad that he could go jump into Lake Michigan.
Like Brad, Steve Kozlowski was good-looking, confident, sexy.
Like Brad, Steve judged a woman by her appearance. She’d seen the way Steve had looked at her when she’d walked into Wanda’s kitchen. He’d dismissed her as someone not worthy of his attention.
Which was just the way she wanted it.
She hadn’t anticipated the pity, however. That still stung. His expression as he’d helped her into his grandmother’s car had been downright humiliating.
“Are you cold? Would you like me to turn on the heater?” Steve asked her.
“I’m fine, thank you.” The evening was one of those perfect September examples of an autumn Chloe waited for all year. This was her favorite season—the crisp freshness to the air, the changing leaves, the toffee apples in the local market. Oh, yes, she was Fall’s Number-One Fan.
“So, Chloe, what made you decide to become a librarian?”
His question was voiced with a politeness that she felt covered an underlying lack of interest in the answer. So she was brief. “I like books. What made you decide to become a Marine?”
“I like blowing up things.”
She shot him a startled look.
He grinned at her. “Just checking to see if you were listening.”
Oh, she’d been listening, all right. And looking. Despite the fact that she shouldn’t. She shouldn’t have noticed the way tiny laugh lines webbed out from the corners of his green eyes, or the way his light blue T-shirt clung to his wide shoulders, or the way his lower lip was full and surprisingly pleasing to look at. Actually, all of him was extremely pleasing to look at—from the top of his dark, short-cropped hair to the soles of his size-eleven feet.
She knew his shoe size because Wanda had told her, while showing her a photo album filled with pictures of Steve, from a baby crawling around to a young man riding a bicycle.
While Chloe thought that Wanda was a real sweetie, she had no desire to jump into another relationship any time soon. She liked her life the way it was—quiet and secure.
There was nothing quiet about Steve. Even his voice held a powerful resonance, his tone that of someone accustomed to delivering orders and having them instantly obeyed.
“You need to turn right at the next light,” Chloe told him.
“I remember. I used to visit the branch library when I was a kid and would visit Busha.”
“You lived in this neighborhood?”
“We lived all over. We moved around a lot because my father was in the Marines.”
“That didn’t bother you?”
“Moving? No. The military is like a big family. Even though we might be going to a new state for a new billet, people went out of their way to make us feel welcome.”
Chloe wondered what that would be like, to be made to feel welcome. It wasn’t anything she’d ever experienced when she’d been growing up. Not after her parents had died when she was eight.
“How about you?” he asked. “Did you grow up around here?”
“Not in this neighborhood, but in Chicago, yes.”
“What about family?”
“I’m an only child. My parents died when I was young. I’ve got an aunt, but we’re not close.”
The only thing her aunt was close to was her chemistry lab and her experiments. Sometimes Chloe had a hard time believing that the emotionally stunted scientist could be related to Chloe’s warm and loving mother Marie Johnson. Marie had been outgoing and full of life. Her older sister, Janis, had been remote and cold.
Janis. The name had a sharp edge that had suited the woman, whose angular face looked as if all the human kindness had been sucked out of it.
“That’s got to be a rough deal, not having family,” Steve said. “I know mine drive me nuts sometimes, but I can’t imagine my life without them.”
Sometimes Chloe did try and imagine what her life would have been like had her parents lived. But doing so only reopened old wounds. There was little point in doing that. She had to deal with the cards life had handed her.
“We turn left up here. The library is on the corner.”
Steve nodded. “And looks just like it did the last time I was here.”
“There’s parking around the back. If you could just let me off at the staff entrance there, that would be great.” She reached down for two heavy tote bags and then tried to balance the plate of kolachkis.
“Hold on a minute.” Steve reached out to touch her arm, covered by the baggy sweater. “Where’s the fire?”
“What?”
“Let me park and I’ll help you carry that stuff in.”
“There’s no need for that…”
“Sure there is. I’m protecting my Busha’s kolachkis from going splat in the parking lot before anyone can enjoy them.”
He efficiently parked the huge boat of a car, and then came around to open the door for her. Chloe would have opened it herself but she was momentarily distracted by the way he walked—shoulders back, head held high. He radiated a powerful presence merely by putting one foot in front of the other.
“Here, let me take that.” Steve reached out and his fingers brushed against hers as he took the plate of kolachkis.
His touch created lightning, flashing up her arm as heat permeated her entire body. She could feel the magic of it, and it was so powerful that the breath was momentarily snatched from her lungs.
No, no, this wasn’t part of the plan. This wasn’t supposed to be happening!
Unfortunately, telling herself that had absolutely no effect.
