by JoAnn Ross
Obviously put out, Lily’s companion cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’ve forgotten my manners. Mac Sullivan, Theodore Smith. Mac is doing some repairs on the building.”
“Jill told me she’d hired a handyman.” Theodore Smith ran a finger over a carefully trimmed mustache. “It’s such a delightfully archaic profession. I had no idea you people still existed.”
Connor, who could recognize an insult when he heard one, merely smiled. It was obvious that Smith mistakenly believed that having engaged Lily in conversation so soon after her arrival, he had a prior claim. “There are still a few of us around,” he said easily. “And what, exactly, is it you do, Mr. Smith?”
The man preened, reminding Connor of a rooster showing off for a barnyard of hens. “I work at Aldus.”
“I don’t believe I’ve heard of it.” Whatever it was, Connor was tempted to buy it tomorrow just so he could throw Theodore Smith out on his ass.
“It’s a men’s clothing store,” Lily said quickly as she sensed the building tension between the two men.
“One of the better ones in the city,” Theodore confirmed. “I sold a suit to Tom Cruise just last week and of course Aaron Spelling wouldn’t buy his shirts anywhere else.”
“I could always use some new shirts. Perhaps I’ll check your store out.”
Theodore’s arched glance raked over Connor’s comfortable, faded chambray shirt and worn jeans. “We’re quite expensive.”
“You don’t have layaway?”
When the salesman literally stiffened like a rod of steel, Lily decided that this ridiculous display of male posturing had gone on long enough.
“I’m sorry, Theodore—”
“Teddy,” he reminded her with a smooth, practiced smile.
Lily flashed a warm, apologetic smile of her own. “Teddy,” she agreed charmingly. “And as much as I’d love to continue our discussion regarding how the 70s retro look in fashion is being translated into decorating, I really must talk to Mac about a leak in my bathroom faucet.” Grabbing hold of Connor’s arm, she dragged him across the courtyard to a quiet, out-of-the-way spot beneath a leafy green tree.
“This has got to stop!” she insisted.
“What?” Frustration had etched a line between her pale brows. Connor reached out and smoothed it away.
Her fingers tightened on the plastic glass as the innocent touch caused an unwanted prickling beneath her skin. “You know very well what I’m talking about,” she shot back at him. “I’m talking about the way you keep looking at me.”
Heaven help her, his hand had moved to her hair. Ignoring her anger, he was sifting it idly through his fingers like grains of sand. “The way you keep touching me.”
The flare of temper in her tone and in her eyes only increased her appeal. “I like touching you,” Connor said simply. Honestly. He’d never been a man to apologize for his little indulgences. “I think I’ll do a lot more of it.”
They were close now. Close enough that she had to tilt her head back to meet his dark, laughing eyes. Close enough that she could feel his heat.
She watched, transfixed as he lowered his head, his intention clear. He was going to kiss her. And although Lily knew that she should move away—now!—she could only stand there, her heart pounding too fast and too hard, and wait for the inevitable.
7
HIS MOUTH WAS SO CLOSE Lily could all but taste it. Slowly, as if in a dream, she lifted her hand, raised it to his chest, but did not push him away.
“There you are!” The familiar voice, coming from behind her, shattered the suspended spell. With every atom of her body still on red alert, Lily blinked, turned and struggled to focus her mind on her friend.
“Oh, hell,” Cait said, belatedly realizing what she’d interrupted. “Talk about your bad timing. I’m sorry.”
Lily had never known that it was possible to feel relief and regret at the same time. “Actually, your timing’s perfect,” she said, turning her back on Connor.
Cait observed Lily’s heightened color, knew it had nothing to do with the blush she’d applied earlier and decided that things were definitely getting interesting around Bachelor Arms. Having recently fallen in love herself, she wanted everyone she cared about to share the blissful experience. Cait shot a regretful look Connor’s way, receiving a resigned shrug in return that assured her he was not a man to allow himself to be distracted. There’d be another time, Cait guessed. And soon.
“I just wanted to tell you that my beeper just went off,” she explained. “I’ve got to go to work.”
“I thought detectives worked regular hours.” Lily knew that Cait had recently received the promotion after apprehending an escaped serial rapist. Along with the boost in rank, the bust had earned her a coveted place on the L.A. Police Sex Crimes Unit.
“Mostly we do,” Cait agreed. “But a sixteen-year-old high school cheerleader was taken up to Griffith Park and raped by a bunch of fraternity guys from USC. Needless to say, she’s pretty shaken up. The examining physician thought it would be better if a woman detective interviewed her.”
“That’s horrible!” Lily knew such things happened. But like most people, she mostly thought of crime in the abstract. And although she honestly admired Cait’s career choice, she couldn’t imagine dealing with such depressing issues on a daily basis.
“True. Unfortunately, it’s not that uncommon.” Cait’s russet brows furrowed in a frown. Having recently come close to being raped and killed by the lowlife perp she’d had to shoot in the line of duty, she had firsthand knowledge of the terror the girl had experienced.
Reminding herself that she had a job to do, Cait shook off her momentary depression. “I just wanted to let you know I was leaving,” she said.
“I’ll see Lily home,” Connor said.
“That’s hardly necessary,” Lily argued. “Since my apartment is about sixty feet from here.”
“Ah, but you wanted to show me your leaking faucet,” he reminded her deftly.
“It can wait until morning.”
Connor decided that she was awfully cute when she stuck her chin out that way. She was soft in all the wonderful ways a woman should be soft—including being round with child—but beneath all that feminine delicacy, she possessed an underlying toughness that fascinated him even more.
“Don’t you want to stay at the party?” she asked, trying a different tack.
“I’m ready to leave.” A devilish light she’d already found too attractive for comfort brightened his dark eyes. “To tell the truth, as nice as everyone around Bachelor Arms seems to be, I keep getting the feeling I’ve landed on the set of “Melrose Place.”
“Besides, a dripping faucet always sounds louder at night. Since you’re sleeping for two these days, I don’t mind working after hours.”
“Really, Mac—”
Cait’s beeper sounded again, cutting Lily off in midcomplaint. “I’ll leave you two to settle things.” She’d been enjoying herself, watching the back and forth volleying as she might a tennis match. “Don’t be such a hard-ass,” she whispered as she hugged Lily.
To Connor she flashed her inimitable, dazzling smile. “It’s nice having a handyman who doesn’t punch a clock. I hope you’re planning to stay on.”
Considering himself lucky to have Cait in his corner, even as he wondered how long it would take her to decide to run a check on him, Connor returned her smile with a dashing grin of his own.
“I wasn’t planning to, at first. But I’ve changed my mind. The rent’s right and the scenery—” his gaze skimmed over Lily—”is absolutely stunning.”
Satisfied that things would continue to move along nicely without her, Cait headed off to the hospital.
“Nice lady,” Connor said as he and Lily watched her walk away.
Lily knew she was in deep, deep trouble when she experienced a prick of something that felt horribly like jealousy. “She’s also taken.”
He heard the edge, wondered if Lily could possibly be jealous and hoped like hell she was. “So I heard. Sloan Wyndham’s a lucky guy. So, when’s the big day?”
“I don’t know.” Lily shrugged. Marriage was not her favorite subject. “Hopefully not too soon. They haven’t known each other all that long.”
“I take it you’re not a fan of short engagements?”
“I just think people should get to know one another. Before they make any kind of lasting commitment.”
“So how long, exactly, does that take?”
“Does what take?”
“Getting to know one another.”
Lily’s eyes narrowed as she sensed the trap. “I suppose it depends on the couple.”
“I suppose it does,” Connor agreed. “Look at us, for example.”
“Us?” She arched a blond brow. “There isn’t any us.”
“Of course there is.” He put his arm around her shoulder and began walking toward her apartment. Unwilling to draw attention to them by resisting, Lily had no choice but to go along. “There’s been an us since I pulled you out of that surf and wondered what would happen, if, having saved your life, I simply kept you. All for myself.”
“That’s ridiculous!” She pulled away and stared up at him.
“It sounds pretty remarkable,” Connor agreed. He ran a thumb down her flushed cheek, following the movement with his eyes. “But that’s how I felt.
“Which brings me back to my point. I knew, from nearly that first moment, that I wanted you. Which also proves that arbitrary time lines don’t work when you’re talking about relationships between men and women.”
His thumb felt like feathers against her skin. Soft and inviting. She jerked her head back, away from his weakening touch. “Discounting the fact that your statement about keeping me was blatantly chauvinistic, even if you honestly felt that way, it doesn’t count.”
Once again he was witness to that steely strength he found fascinating. “Why not?”
“Wanting is easy.” Her stomach knotted with fear. And, more frightening yet, longing. “Too easy.”
Because the urge to touch her again was nearly irresistible, Connor slipped his hands into his pockets, rocked back on his heels and gave her a slow, considering look.
Refusing to flinch under his intense study, Lily met his gaze and let him look, hoping as she did so that he couldn’t tell her heart was hammering.
Reminding himself yet again that he’d always preferred a challenge, Connor decided that some things—some women—were worth whatever time it took to win them.
“Point taken,” he said finally.
Lily let out a slow long breath she’d not even been aware of holding.
However, if she’d thought Connor was about to throw in the towel, she would have been wrong. Instead, he linked their hands together, the same easy, affectionate way he had at the beach.
“Now, why don’t you show me that leaky faucet?”
Her scent had lingered in the bathroom after her shower. Although the floral perfume distracted him, Connor easily detected the problem with the faucet.
“You need a new washer.” He observed the steady drip that had left a yellow ring at the bottom of the basin. “I’ve got one in my tool box; I’ll be right back.”
Flashing her another of those self-assured grins that both annoyed and attracted her, he left the apartment. His own apartment, Jill had revealed, was across the courtyard.
In the brief time he was gone, Lily ran a brush through her hair, freshened up her lipstick and spritzed some Anaïs Anaïs cologne at her throat and wrists.
She wasn’t really fixing herself up for him, Lily assured herself as she rubbed at a spot of rose lipstick on her front tooth. Not really.
Of course she was. Sighing, she blamed her uncommon feeling on raging hormones. After all, everyone knew expectant mothers were often overly emotional. The havoc Mac was wreaking on her nerve endings was simply a result of her pregnancy.
Connor noticed the primping the minute he returned. Taking it as an encouraging sign, he didn’t comment. Instead, he went right to work, replacing the worn washer in minutes.
“I’m impressed.” Lily watched him turn the water on and off again. This time there was no annoying drip. She was also surprised. There was no way she would have taken Mac Sullivan to be a real handyman.
“It wasn’t difficult.” He tossed the ragged washer into a wicker wastebasket.
“I wouldn’t have known how to do it.” Back home, on the farm, her father had taken care of household repairs. After her marriage, whenever work needed to be done around their white colonial home, Junior had instructed her to call a repairman.
“Actually, it’s a snap. Next time, I’ll teach you.”
Realizing that the days of being able to pay people to do work she should be able to do herself were past, Lily overlooked the fact that his words underlined his remark to Cait that he didn’t have plans to leave Bachelor Arms any time soon and decided to take him up on his offer.
“Where did you learn to be so handy?” she asked, curious about this man who seemed determined to infiltrate himself into her life.
“My dad ran a construction company.” Connor neglected mentioning that Mackay construction, started by his great-grandfather, was a worldwide commercial enterprise and a Fortune 500 company. “I used to work for him after school. And summers, when I was home from college.”
Lily liked the fact that, like her, Mac came from blue-collar roots. “You said owned. Is he retired?”
“He died last summer.” An avid outdoorsman, Darren Mackay had been hiking in Patagonia when he’d keeled over from a heart attack. Although Connor missed his father horribly, there was a certain measure of comfort in knowing that he’d died quickly, doing what he loved best.
“I’m sorry.” From the pain that briefly shadowed his expressive dark eyes, Lily realized that Mac was still hurting. Which was another thing they had in common.
If she was keeping score.
Which she wasn’t.
Not really.
Oh hell. Of course she was.
Hormones, Lily hoped again.
“And your mother?”
Connor’s smile was quick and warm, revealing open affection. “Still living in San Francisco. She gardens. And takes cooking lessons, which she tries out on me.”
His smile widened to that full-fledged grin Lily was beginning to like far too much for comfort. “Her latest passion is Indian food, which means I’ve been eating a lot of curry lately. While being grilled on when I’m going to make her a grandmother.”
His friendly gaze drifted to her stomach. “I’ll bet your parents are counting the days.”
Lily felt the familiar pang and realized the loss still hurt. And probably always would. “They both died last summer, too. In a car crash.”
“I’m sorry. Any brothers or sisters?”
“No. But Blythe and Cait have always seemed like sisters.”
“Cait seems pretty great,” he acknowledged. “Blythe, too.”
“They’re both very special.” Even if Cait was determined to play matchmaker. “So, were you representing your family’s construction company when we met the other day?”
Connor hated lying. And, although he’d be the first to admit that he possessed a competitive streak a mile wide, he’d be more than willing to forego what was turning out to be a ridiculous bet, if he thought coming clean about his deception would gain a few points with Lily.
The problem was, she’d already professed her dislike of rich men in general and Connor Mackay in particular. That being the case, Connor quickly decided that he had no choice but to go along with the masquerade. For now.
“I wasn’t really all that interested in taking over the company,” he said.
“Oh.” Lily was a little disappointed, then reminded herself that she hadn’t exactly rushed back to Iowa to take up farming after her parents’ death, either. “So what do you d
o?”
He shrugged. “A little of this. A little of that.” It was the truth, so far as it went.
Frustrated, but loath to reveal too much interest, Lily was trying to come up with another tack when he turned the conversation around. “So, what about you?”
“Me?”
“What do you do?”
“Right now I’m answering the phone for Gage Remington. He’s a private detective.”
“Sounds exciting.”
“That’s what I said when he offered me the job. But Gage assures me it’s mostly boring routine.” She frowned, thinking that there was nothing routine about investigating her in-laws.
Connor watched the emotions move across her face in waves. Worry, anticipation, resolve. “Should you be working,” he asked, genuinely concerned for her welfare, “this close to term?”
“There you go again. Behaving as if I’m made of glass.”
“On the contrary.” His eyes met hers and held. Lily detected a glint of humor in them. Humor and something far more unsettling. “I’m all too aware that you’re made of silky, fragrant flesh, Lily.” He leaned toward her, slid his hand beneath the lace sleeve of her gauze dress and ran his fingers slowly up her arm.
His tantalizing touch heated her blood. A mist settled over her mind. Which was why, Lily would tell herself later, she didn’t protest when he gathered her into his arms.
“You never told me what you were doing here in the first place,” she reminded him. Although she let her arms go around him, Lily didn’t cling.
“At Bachelor Arms?” He was fascinated by her full ripe mouth.
“No.” The way he was looking at her mouth was making her knees weak. “I meant, what you’re doing here in Los Angeles.”
He slid his hand beneath her hair. It bothered him, lying to her at the same time he was trying to seduce her. “I told you, the other day on the beach, that I was here about a job.” Another half truth.
Beguiled by his gently stroking fingers, Lily rested her cheek against his chest. “Did you get it?” The mist surrounding her mind was growing thicker. Warmer.