“If you’re a thief, I think it’s only fair to tell you that I don’t hide my precious jewels in the plumbing.”
“Smart-”
“What was that?” she asked mischievously, propping her shoulder against the bathroom door.
“Never mind.”
“I’m sure there’s a logical explanation for why you’re stretched out on my bathroom floor with your head under the sink.”
“Ruby said you’ve been complaining about a leak down here.”
“I have, but I thought she’d get a professional plumber to fix it.”
He slid out far enough to peer up at her with a perturbed expression. “You’re too picky-did anyone ever tell you that? I’m repairing your sink, all right?” He ducked his head back into the cabinet.
“Well, I should hope so. The drip ruined a bag of cotton balls.”
“Yeah, I found a few soggy refugees.”
“What’s that smell?”
“Remember the bottle of disinfectant you had stored down here?”
“You didn’t?”
“I did, but it wasn’t my fault, because the lid wasn’t screwed on tight enough. And what are you complaining about? You’re not down here breathing the stuff.”
Since he couldn’t see her, Rana treated herself to a visual feast of his body. He was wearing denim cutoffs again, which seemed to be his uniform for the summer. His shirt had once been a sport shirt, but the plaid had faded until the pattern blurred together in spots. The sleeves had been cut out long ago. Now loose threads clung to the sweat- damp, tanned skin of his biceps. He had left the shirt unbuttoned. The sides had fallen open, leaving his chest bare.
Rana swallowed with difficulty. His arms were stretched above his head. Each time he moved, the muscles of his chest plumped up. His flat stomach was concave beneath his rib cage. His navel lay within a tantalizing nest of dense, dark hair.
A good two inches beneath it was the snap of his cutoffs. They were faded and threadbare and conformed softly to the shape of his lower body. Rana couldn’t draw her eyes away from the spot where his thighs came together. His knees were raised. In the narrow strip of his lap, there lay a wrench.
“Ana?”
She jumped guiltily and yanked her eyes back to the opening beneath the sink.
“Yes?”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
Could he detect her breathlessness? Why was she breathless in the first place? She had seen men, models, wearing next to nothing. Remember that swimsuit layout in Bazaar, the one that was photographed in Jamaica? her rational self asked her. Yes, she remembered those long-limbed, teak- colored, gorgeous male models with whom she had assumed such intimate-looking poses. But none of them, no male body, had ever stirred her senses the way Trent Gamblin did.
“Hand me that wrench, will you, please?”
“The wrench?”
“Yeah, both my hands are occupied. See it there?”
She saw it, all right, resting right against the fly of his cutoffs.
“Ana?”
“What?”
“Did you succumb to the fumes of the disinfectant?”
“No, I… uh…“ She dropped to her knees beside him and extended her hand. It was shaking. She clenched her fist. Just pick up the damn wrench, pass it to him, and stop being such a ninny, she admonished herself. She thrust her hand forward, but a second before she grasped the wrench, she closed her eyes.
That proved to be a mistake. She miscalculated her reach, overshot her mark, touched the bare skin of his belly, and missed the wrench. A certain amount of desperate groping was required before she located it.
Trent became perfectly still, but a tremor shimmied through his body. Rana clutched the wrench and poked it into the cabinet.
“Here.”
Clumsily he took the wrench from her. She withdrew her hand so quickly, it might have just escaped the jaws of a man-eating lion.
“Thanks.” His voice was husky.
“You’re welcome.” Her voice was husky too.
“I’ll be finished here in a sec.”
“No hurry.” Blindly she scrambled to her feet. “I have some… uh… things to… I went… the art store.” Before she could make an even greater fool of herself, she fled the bathroom.
She was all thumbs as she unloaded the sack of art supplies. He would think… he would think… heaven only knew what he would think.
He’s so…full.
Would he think she had touched him on purpose?
Maybe you touched something else.
It had been an accident.
No, that couldn’t have been anything else. You touched… Oh, Lord.
It could have happened to anybody.
about her life. But she wasn’t convinced that Trent Gamblin didn’t have something to do with it.
Even when she heard him enter the room, she kept her back turned.
“All done,” he said.
“Good. Thank you.”
“Ana?”
“What?”
She felt him move up behind her. She closed her eyes, not wanting his smell to be so achingly familiar, not wanting to feel the warmth emanating from him. She felt his hand on her shoulder, tentative at first, then firmer.
“Ana” he whispered softly, his breath moving her hair.
It would be so easy. So easy to comply with the urging of his hand and lean back against him. So easy to lay her head on his hard chest. So easy to turn to him and run her hands down his arms, to lift her lips to meet his.
So easy… and so foolhardy.
She immediately squelched the desire rising within her and turned around. “I appreciate your help, Trent,” she said curtly, “but as you can see, I’m awfully busy.”
He stared at her, stunned by her formal tone and frigid expression. How could she not… His whole body was on fire. And she was pretending it hadn’t happened. What the hell was this He had a good imagination, but it wasn’t that vivid, dammit.
He’d felt that fragile hand of hers touching him and he’d almost exploded. He wanted her. Bad. But if she could act as if nothing had happened, then he damn sure could!
“So sorry to have bothered you, Miss Ramsey. The next time I spend almost an entire afternoon repairing your sink, I’ll try to be done with it and out of your way by the time you get home.”
He reached the door in three angry strides and slammed it shut behind him.
Dinner that night was a tedious affair. Trent had dreaded it, and had almost informed his aunt that he would be going out. He was tired of this self-imposed exile. He longed for one of his raunchy and raucous Houston haunts. A good meal. A good deal to drink. A good and sexy female into whom to empty his frustration.
He needed a woman in the most elemental way. One who didn’t make him think. One who cooed over him, laid her hands on him, and didn’t pretend later that she hadn’t. One who flattered him and whispered outrageously suggestive things in his ear. He didn’t want intellect or companionship or-heaven forbid-friendship. He wanted sex. Period.
But Ruby had told him that she was making his favorite meal, stuffed pork chops, and he would have been a real heel to run out on her after that. So here he was, sitting in the shuttered, candlelit dining room, staring across the table at Ana, who looked as coolly remote as he was hotly sullen.
Ruby sensed the hostile undercurrents, though she couldn’t imagine what had happened between the two young people. By the time dinner was over, she was distressed, and badly wanted a cup of her “herbal” tea. To keep Miss Ramsey from retreating upstairs, she asked her to brew the tea for her. And to keep Trent from doing the same, she complained about the thermostat on the air-conditioner and asked him to check it.
The three of them met in the parlor and settled down to watch a movie on television. Trent saw little of it. His eyes kept straying toward the woman curled up in the easy chair, watching the television screen through blue-tinted glasses that aggravated the hell out of him. Why couldn’t she wear clear eyeglasses, like any normal woman? Or, better yet, contact lenses?