“I’m thirty years old, I own a construction firm. I love motorcycles, mutts and Louis Armstrong.”
She squinted at him. “Harmless, huh?”
The devil himself couldn’t have grinned any wider. “I didn’t say that.”
She caught the gasp before it could escape her parted lips. “Look, again, I really do apologize, but I think it’s best if you find another place.”
“That’s not possible.” All humor evaporated from his voice. “It’s summer. Santa Flora’s packed with tourists. No apartments, no hotels, no nothing.”
“You could stay outside the city,” she offered.
“No, I can’t. I have to be here in town. My job starts Monday and I need to be close to the site.”
She stopped and looked at him, desperation making her clutch at improbabilities. “Maybe you could find a camper? Or a large van?”
He turned and pointed to the parking lot where his motorcycle sat parked under a large oak. “That’s the only transportation I own.”
“How about friends?” she asked. “Family maybe?”
His jaw tightened. “No.”
Her hands on her hips, she stared at him. He stared back. They were like two gunslingers waiting for the other to back down.
Her grandma’s clock chimed. Eleven o’clock.
“I have clients coming,” she said, her gaze locked with his.
“And I have a signed and very legal lease agreement.”
Ohhh, she really despised people who stated the obvious. Her grandmother was going to hear about this. The bell over the front door rang and her “appointments” came sashaying through the door in a cloud of bleached-blond hair and siliconed curves.
With practiced professionalism and a forced smile, Maggie asked Nick to excuse her, then greeted the two women and ushered them into the video room. When she returned, Nick hadn’t moved an inch. Which didn’t surprise her.
“Maybe you could come back this afternoon,” she began.
“Sure, no problem. If you just hand over those keys, I can get settled and meet you back here by—”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Maggie, I’m not going anywhere.” He dropped his helmet on her desk with a thud. “I start the most important job of my career on Monday, and I’m not going to be living out of a cardboard box while you work out your fears of cohabitation.”
Soft giggles twittered from the other room. Her buxom clients were getting restless. She needed to get to work. She tipped up her chin in the universal symbol for “So, you wanna go a couple of rounds?”
Okay. If he was going to act like a jackass, she’d just treat him like one.
A half hour later, the storefront air heavy with expensive perfume, Nick wished he’d done as Maggie had asked: left and come back later. That damn stubborn streak of his had landed him in the middle of a circus—forced into service by one sexy little ring-master.
Because Maggie’s tripod hadn’t arrived yet, she’d dropped the video camera on his shoulder and told him to hold it steady while she conducted the interviews with the Baywatch twins.
Obviously, she saw him as labor, pure and simple. No shock there. From the moment she’d pinned him with that liquid-blue gaze of hers, the assumptions about who he was and what side of the tracks he’d crossed over had read crystal clear. He was used to that look—the one that declared “I bet his brains are in his biceps.”
Little did Miss Librarian know. And Maggie Conner could sure put on the librarian routine. Hell, she even dressed like one—simple, no frills—in tan pants and a blue blouse. But her bossy attitude and husky voice told an altogether different story. Not to mention her petite figure. Which was all curves.
And there was nothing Nick Kaplan liked better than riding risky curves. On his bike or off.
But this road was off-limits.
He could tell that the dark-haired beauty was one of those girls with a bookful of rules—strings, home and hearth commitments and all that. Hell, she was a professional matchmaker. He didn’t mess with people who believed in love, no matter how strong the attraction. Especially not now.
Three weeks ago he’d won the bid of a lifetime—the bid that had brought him here. The bid that would catapult him into the leagues of the big boys of the contracting world. He didn’t need distractions. He just needed a room.
“I like Mexican food, fruit smoothies and going to the beach,” one of the Baywatch twins said into the video camera.
“And what kind of man are you looking for, Heather?” Maggie asked. Maggie sat on a chair just below the camera so it would look as if Heather was speaking directly into the lens.
“I’m looking for a sweet, sensitive man,” Heather practically cooed. “A man who wants to come home to a good woman every night.”
Nick snorted. His reluctant roommate was casting her line into a pond of sitting ducks. A pond he, himself, was never going to swim in. He enjoyed his freedom way too much. When you knew firsthand how it felt to be stifled, held back and restricted, nothing and no one was incentive enough to let your wings get clipped.
“He should be very intelligent,” Heather said.
On the sidelines, the second blonde nodded her agreement. “And smart, too.”
Nick coughed to cover his laughter.
Maggie glanced over her shoulder, her eyes narrowed in warning. He winked at her and she blushed, turning right back around. But the image of her was already burned in his mind. Hair pulled off her flawless face in a bun style, full, pale-pink lips and large, bright eyes in the exact shade of a Montana sky first thing in the morning.
He remembered that sky well. A few years back, he’d been traveling to Iowa for a job and he’d stopped his motorcycle on the side of the road and stared at it for a good hour. Prettiest sight he’d ever seen.
“And of course, he’s got to know how to dress,” Heather continued.
Nick stifled a groan. This was ridiculous. This wasn’t how two people got together. Videotapes and a grocery list of attributes. Chemistry was chemistry. Man and woman. Heat and passion and sparks—there was no getting around that. And no way to tell whether you had it until you were face-to-face, not video screen to wishful thinker. But, hey, it wasn’t any of his business. He just wanted those keys and a couple of good nights’ rest.
“And I like to read,” Heather said. “So it would be great if he could read, too.”
It felt as though a week had gone by when Maggie finally thanked the Baywatch twins and walked them to the door.
But she wasted no time in rushing back into the video room and scolding him. “Well?” she demanded, looking like a grenade whose pin had been pulled.
“Well, what?” he asked as he removed the videotape from the camera and handed it to her. “What did I do?”
“You were laughing at my clients.”
“I didn’t laugh at them,” he said, curbing a chuckle. “Now, can we talk keys?”
She ignored his request completely. “Oh, please. Do you really expect me to believe that coughing spasm was some preliminary sign of bronchitis?”
“Listen, sweetheart, I thought that their requirements for the perfect guy were anything but funny.” He put the camera back in its case and zipped it up. “That woman had a list. Like she was going shopping.”
“We