She pushed aside her need for physical contact. “Where are you from?”
“That obvious, huh?”
She grinned. “Most Oregonians don’t have an accent.”
Both brows rose again. “Sure you do. You just don’t hear it.”
She pulled her chin in. “Really?”
He laughed and the sound warmed her all over. “Yes, really.”
Bemused that she sounded as different to him as he did to her, she probed, “And you’re from…?”
“Long Island.”
“You’re a long way from home.”
His ebony eyes took on a faraway glaze. “Yes. A long way from home.”
The loneliness in his voice plucked at her. “Where are you staying?”
His gaze came back to her, those dark eyes alight with an unidentifiable emotion. “I’m not.”
Curiosity gripped her. “Where are you headed?”
He shrugged again.
A drifter. A twinge of sadness weaved through her curiosity. Did the pain she’d seen earlier drive him to keep moving, to drift through life? Looking at his tall, lean frame, she wondered when he’d eaten last. The familiar urge to help, to do something, rose within her.
“Could I make you lunch as a way of saying thanks?” She pointed to the gray two-story building at the north end of the park. “I live there.”
He stopped, tilted his head to one side, and studied her. She gave him a smile of encouragement and tried to slow the pounding of her heart. This man with his dark good looks and bad-boy image was just the kind of guy to turn her crank. But she wasn’t going to let her crank be turned again only to be left idling on the side of the road. Her smile stiffened.
“Don’t you know you shouldn’t talk to strangers, let alone invite them in?”
She barely stopped herself from rolling her eyes. She’d heard similar warnings from all the well-meaning people of Pineridge who thought she shouldn’t open her heart and home to the teens.
Granted, this man was far from a teenager. But he posed a threat on so many levels that she would be wise to heed the warning. Wisdom was something she was still working on. “I run a shelter. Inviting strangers in is part of what I do.”
“A shelter?”
“A teen shelter, to be exact.”
“Why?”
She sighed. The infernal question seemed to be at the top of everyone’s list of questions and asked in the same wary, derisive tone, though his held more edge to it. “The stigma of runaway teenagers is that they’re crazy and out of control. But they’re still just kids. Yeah, they’re rough and tough and act horribly at times. But deep down most are scared, confused and need help.”
“But why you?” He seemed genuinely interested.
It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him the unvarnished truth. Why she felt compelled to make him understand was a mystery. So instead she settled for her pat response. “I remember the anxiety and chaos of those teen years. If I can make a difference in someone’s life, I know I was put on this earth for a reason.”
“That’s admirable.”
His compliment pleased her, as did the almost wistful look on his handsome face.
“But woefully misguided.” His expression hardened. “Thank you for the offer, but I should be heading out.”
“Why are you in such a hurry, if you don’t know where you’re headed?”
He leaned toward her, his jet-black eyes probing and his decidedly masculine scent, full of leather and the outdoors, engulfing her senses. “You’re tenacious.”
Her spine stiffened and she lifted her chin. “Persistence is a virtue.”
Amusement danced in his gaze. “Patience is a virtue.”
Her cheeks flamed at being corrected. “I consider both to be virtues.”
That appealing half-grin flashed again. “Both are admirable traits.” His tone dropped to a deep and husky timbre that she found fully alluring. His accent rasped along her skin like a velvet caress. Her knees wobbled and knocked together. “We’ve established you have persistence, but do you have patience?”
Oh, yeah, she had patience. Hard-won and, at the moment, stretched taut.
Every instinct warned her that this man could endanger her vow to be self-sufficient with nothing more than his smile, let alone how his voice lulled her senses, and threatened to impair her judgment. He could make her want to lose herself in those dark eyes with one glance.
She didn’t need or want a man in her life. Never again would she allow herself to be vulnerable to the whims of a guy, to be used and abandoned, forgotten.
She stepped back, needing to put distance between them. She’d offered help. He’d said no. She needed to accept that. Time to stay focused and in control of her own responses.
“Be safe.” Her voice sounded breathless. And she didn’t like it.
This time there was no half-grin, but a full-blown, toe-curling smile that sent her blood zooming. He saluted and then sauntered to a low slung, shiny chrome-and-black motorcycle with the unmistakable winged insignia of a Harley.
He threw one long, lean leg over the seat, looking at home on the bike. He plucked a black, sleek-looking helmet from where it hung on the handlebars and put it on. A second later the bike came to life with a thundering rumble.
“Hey,” she yelled over the noise of the engine and stepped closer.
He gave her a questioning look.
“What’s your name?” She didn’t know why it was important, but she needed to know.
His eyes widened slightly, then a slow smile touched his lips. “Nick.”
His smile made her heart leap. He’d stormed into her life like a knight of old and performed a heroic deed, all the while putting her female senses into overdrive.
He flipped down the visor on the helmet and rolled away. She watched him turn the corner toward downtown Pineridge and then disappear from sight. It was a good thing he’d roared out of her life before she’d lost her head and done something embarrassing like drool.
“Well.” She stood rooted to the ground for a moment as her heart resumed its natural rhythm. She held the puppy up and stared into his sweet little brown eyes. The puppy licked at her face. She laughed and hugged him close. Gwen was going to just love the little guy.
“Well, little Nick, you want to come home with me?”
Nick Andrews couldn’t get the pretty blonde out of his head. The woman’s heart gleamed in her baby blues and every subtle and not-so-subtle expression that had crossed her face.
Oh, she had courage, he’d give her that. Not many women—let alone men—would have stood up to those punks. She cared for those street urchins. But she might as well have worn a sign that said “Heartache Welcome.”
She talked a good game, how they were just kids in need of some help. He didn’t believe it.
Thankfully she wasn’t his problem. No matter how attractive the package or how much he admired her spunk, he had enough to deal with. He wasn’t exposing his heart to the pain of loss again.
He gunned the engine and took the exit