* * * *
She was smart, but her heart was a moron. That was the only explanation for the way it started pumping at high speed and depleting her oxygen stores when she opened her front door to Paul Monroe at 3:25 Sunday afternoon.
This morning she’d pored over real estate ads in the Tribune. This afternoon she’d attended open houses. She’d studied the market for months, honing her prerequisites in a house, her must-haves and should-haves. This, her first foray into inspecting houses, constituted the next step. After several Sundays sampling the market, she would target specific areas. Then would come the nitty-gritty of offers, contracts and mortgages.
Once she completed that, it would be time for the next step. She slipped off her shoes, tucked her feet under her on the couch. She wanted a husband, a family. Just turned thirty in July, she had time. It wasn’t as if her biological clock were about to expire. But she didn’t want to let that pass her by. She saw the life her brother was creating with his wife and children and, although she wouldn’t want a carbon copy, there were elements she longed for.
Setting up the business had been first; it was progressing well. Then a house. Once she’d accomplished that, she’d be ready for the next step. She’d be ready to look for the right kind of man.
Gray eyes flecked with green smiled into her imagination. She glowered at them, and the startlingly clear memory of the man they went with.
Paul Monroe was not her idea of the right kind of man.
But he is some kind of man, commented a previously unheard-from voice inside her. The voice had backing from a hundred-thousand nerve endings that retained vivid memories.
Damn. She thunked her feet down on the floor. Damn.
All right, maybe she did find him physically attractive. Really, it couldn’t be called more than that after one kiss. One kiss, in the moonlight, on a deserted beach. A fluke. It had to be. Because, heaven knows, nothing in his haphazard approach to life or business agreed with her ideas.
She picked up one of the real estate listings from the pile on the coffee table while the TV wrapped up the Bears game she’d mostly missed. For now, what she had to do was consider the information on the houses she’d seen. With her shoes kicked off and a soft drink at hand, she would concentrate on comparing cost per square foot and making notes of her impressions. She settled back.
The doorbell sounded.
Barefoot, she carried the listing sheet and her pen to the front door. She nearly dropped them both.
“Paul!”
She’d missed him. The realization hit hard.
Afternoon sun bronzed his breeze-ruffled hair and seemed to add a special glint to gray eyes flecked with green fire. He wore a blue shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, a lightweight insulated vest in green and jeans that had been worn to a state that looked as soft as she knew they’d feel. She felt her cheeks burn at the realization that she’d been thinking about touching his jeans—with him in them.
“Hi. How ’bout those Bears, huh?” Without waiting for her to invite him in, he walked right past her. “I like the running game this year, don’t you?”
“What are you doing here?” She’d trailed him into the living room. His intent gaze took in her house as if he thought he’d be tested on it. The absurd urge to tell him she’d bought this furniture to go into an eventual family room and she had her eye on an elegant couch bubbled to her lips, but she turned it sternly back.
“I came to get you. You look great.”
At his warm tone, she glanced down to see if she’d been transformed, like Cinderella going to the ball. No, she still had on a surplice-wrap top in a soft raspberry color, tucked into the gathered denim skirt. Her simple leather belt matched her discarded loafers and she wore plain gold hoops in her ears as her only jewelry. In deference to the warm weather she hadn’t even worn hose. Clean and comfortable was about the most that could be said for the outfit.
“Get me?” She ought to be taking better control of this conversation.
“Yeah. You’d better put a jacket on. It’s going to get cool tonight. I think Indian summer’s about to come to a screeching halt.”
“What are you talking about?”
He glanced up from turning off her TV, and she saw the devilment in his eyes. The only thought her brain could form was the refrain she had come to associate with Paul Monroe: Uh-oh.
“The weather.”
“What?”
“That’s what I’m talking about—the weather.” He scooped up her navy cardigan sweater from the arm of the couch and her purse from the floor and held them out to her. Numbly, she accepted them. But she also shook her head, and that helped clear some of the cobwebs.
“Paul, we didn’t make any arrangements to see each other today, and I have things I need to get done—”
“What you need is a jack-o’-lantern, and I intend to see to it. C’mon, you’d better put your shoes on, too.”
“No.”
He looked at her bare feet, over to her loafers, then at her face. “I don’t know, Bette, I think your feet’ll get awfully cold, but if you don’t want to wear shoes . . .”
“Not no to the shoes. No to leaving with you.” There, that sounded firm enough. So why did she feel so rotten? Had those glints of light in his eyes dimmed?
“I thought you’d like a pumpkin.” His tone was matter-of-fact, but she felt as if she’d just kicked his puppy.
“I would like a pumpkin, but—”
“Good, I know a great pumpkin farm not too far from here.”