to gut this room and completely remodel it, but my dad refused to hear of it,” Nick confided. “He used to say that, if it was good enough for his father, it was good enough for him.”
“Your mother has my heartfelt sympathy,” Gina said.
“Oh, she took care of the problem,” he said. “When they retired and moved to Florida, she gave the house to me, and I don’t mind. I mean, Dad was right in a way. My great-grandmother used to prepare meals here with no trouble.”
“Your great-grandmother also didn’t have penicillin,” she shot back. “That doesn’t mean she was better off.”
“Does that mean you don’t like it?” Nick glanced around, and Gina’s heart constricted at his uncertain expression. Poor man, he probably couldn’t afford to even replace the World War II–era appliances, let alone remodel the whole room. It was hardly kind for her to make him feel bad about it.
“It’ll do just fine for the short time I’ll be here.” I hope, she added mentally with a jaundiced look at the ancient gas stove.
“Where is my room?” she asked. “And may I borrow a pair of your pajamas?”
Nick felt his entire body clench at the thought of her intense femininity actually inside his clothes.
Down, Balfour. You give her even a clue as to what you’re thinking, and she’ll be out of here so fast you won’t even see her go.
“Sorry, I don’t use pajamas,” he said. “How about a T-shirt instead?”
Gina swallowed at the captivating thought of his body sprawled out on his bed wearing nothing at all.
“That’s fine.” Her voice sounded odd to her, and she rushed on, hoping he hadn’t noticed. “I think I’ll go to bed now. I know it isn’t all that late, but I’ve been driving since six this morning, and traveling always makes me tired.”
Gina winced as her breathless babble echoed in her ears.
To her relief Nick didn’t seem to notice.
“I’ll get you a T-shirt then. Your room is through there.” He pointed to a hallway behind her. “And sheets for your bed are in the linen closet in the bathroom.”
“Just leave the shirt on the kitchen table,” Gina told him, and then beat a hasty retreat to her room. She desperately needed some time alone to regain her normal equilibrium. Exploring life’s possibilities was a lot more nerve-racking than she would have thought.
Chapter Three
Gina rolled over and opened her sleep-fogged eyes to find herself staring at a mustard-yellow wall. She frowned slightly, trying to figure out why a motel chain would paint anything such an unappetizing shade.
Not a motel! She jackknifed up as she suddenly remembered that she was in Nick Balfour’s house. Her breath escaped in a relieved whoosh as she studied the chair she’d wedged under the knob of her bedroom door. It hadn’t moved an inch. She’d been almost certain she could trust Nick, since both the waitress and the sheriff had vouched for him, but it was still nice to know she’d been right. Particularly since her judgment of people and their motives certainly hadn’t been all that great to date.
She picked up her watch from the bedside table and checked the time.
Eight-fifteen. Was she late or early? She frowned slightly. She had no idea what kind of schedule a housekeeper normally kept. Nor, she suspected, did Nick Balfour.
Nick Balfour. Gina closed her eyes to better concentrate on the mental picture forming in her mind. She imagined that he was staring down at her with a look of intense interest on his rugged face. His dark hair was slightly rumpled as if he’d been running his fingers through it, and his pale gray eyes burned with desire.
A flush washed over her body, shortening her breathing. The man should come with a consumer-warning label attached.
Not that she needed one, she assured herself. She didn’t want the complications an intimate relationship would bring. She didn’t have the time or the energy to deal with them. She had to be back in Illinois by January seventeenth. But until then she was free. Free to try to learn some of the things that her girlfriends seemed to have been born knowing.
And it was certainly past time for her to indulge in a little experimentation, she thought, as she retrieved her underwear from the radiator where she’d draped them last night after washing them out in the bathroom sink.
She could count on one hand the number of dates she’d had in the past four years. And her social life before that hadn’t exactly been anything to write home about.
A kick of excitement twisted through her at the thought of doing a little experimenting with Nick. Always provided he looked as good in the clear light of day as he had last night. She tried to dampen her expectations.
Gina winced as she slipped into her plain cotton underwear. They were cold, clammy and still slightly damp. First item on the agenda was to buy herself some clothes, she thought, mentally marking her to-do list.
She finished dressing, quietly removed the chair from in front of her door, eased it open and paused to listen. It was funereally quiet. Either Nick was normally a silent man or he was still asleep.
Not still asleep, she realized as she peered into the kitchen and saw him standing in front of the sink, staring out the window at the overgrown garden.
Compulsively, her eyes traced over the width of his shoulders, which this morning were covered by a pale blue denim shirt with the cuffs turned back. Her mouth dried as she studied the dark hair that covered his left arm, and her fingers tingled as she tried to imagine what his firmly muscled flesh would feel like beneath her exploring hands. Savoring the freedom to study him unawares, she let her gaze slowly slip over his flat hips and then down the long length of his khaki-covered legs. He was so gratifyingly tall. She could actually wear heels and not tower above him. She had a brief vision of herself in a slinky black cocktail dress and thin, strappy heels, being held in his arms as they slowly danced around a moonlit terrace.
And like every other tall man she’d ever known, he probably preferred women built like Tinkerbell, she thought ruefully.
“Good morning.” She tossed the greeting at his back.
He spun around as if startled to discover another person in the house with him.
Gina barely suppressed a wince. Instead of eagerly waiting for her to wake up, he seemed to have forgotten her existence. And to think she’d barricaded her door against him. The thought rankled. Just once she’d like a man to look at her and be consumed with good old-fashioned lust. Just once. Instead, she got a man who seemed to be desperately trying to remember where he knew her from.
Nick stared at her, caught off guard by the depth of desire that swept through him at the sight of her hovering in the doorway. His eyes lingered on the soft length of her chestnut hair, which barely brushed her shoulders. It looked shiny and silky. His palms itched to stroke it. To thread his fingers through it. To take a handful of it and to bury his face in it, and drink in the very faint floral fragrance he remembered from last night.
And as for what he wanted to do to the rest of her… His eyes slipped lower, lingering on the thrust of her breasts. She was eminently touchable. And even better, she was tall enough that he wouldn’t get a crick in his neck trying to kiss her. She would fit perfectly in his arms.
But not in his life, he reminded himself. He already had a very demanding mistress, medicine. He simply didn’t have the time to dance attendance on a woman.
Mentally he winced as he remembered the tantrums he’d had to endure, the one and only time he’d been stupid enough to try to balance the demands of his profession and a relationship. The vitriolic arguments and recriminations every time he’d been late had turned his life into a minefield. It was not an experience he cared to repeat. It had been a bitterly learned lesson, but at