if you think she’s worth the effort.”
“Naw, I’ll take your word for it.” The stranger slid back into the car. “Maybe I’ll head on down to Bakersfield. There’s always a lot of action in the singles’ bars. I’ll find somebody to hit on.”
“Good luck.” The sleek engine purred to life and Kris waved the driver off, knowing it was the women this jerk planned to hit on who he’d rather be wishing good luck.
“Don’t you realize you have put me in an absolutely untenable position?” Face still flaming with mortification, Joanna railed at her mother, who appeared frustratingly unconcerned as she fried chicken for dinner. Sometimes Agnes carried her bizarre behavior too far. Much too far, and at Joanna’s expense.
“It seems to me the important thing is to get the property rented. I’m sure that’s what Alexander would have wanted.”
“My father would not have wanted me portrayed as a lonely old maid who has to advertise in order to meet a man.” Joanna didn’t know how she would ever be able to face Kris Slavik again, much less the next prospective renter who showed up at the property.
“Well, you certainly haven’t met very many interesting men in the usual way.” Agnes made a disparaging snort, ignoring the potatoes boiling away on the stove and in jeopardy of burning. “The last young man who asked you out seemed quite strange. Didn’t he believe in shaving?”
Joanna switched off the burner and moved the pot to a cooler spot on the stove. That episode had occurred five years ago and wasn’t worth comment. She’d dated a fellow teacher’s brother as a favor, nothing more. And Joanna had been more than happy to see the end of an incredibly boring evening spent in his company.
“Hey, Mom, you gonna go out with that new guy?” Tyler slipped a couple of cookies from the cookie jar and stuffed one in his mouth. “Bet he could afford to take you to the City Hotel over at Columbia for dinner. That’s where Pete’s mom always makes his dad take her for anniversaries ’n stuff like that.”
“I’m not planning to go anywhere with Mr. Slavik. Or with any other man who rents the property because of that ridiculous ad your grandmother wrote.”
“Tyler, dear, don’t spoil your supper,” Agnes said, ignoring Joanna’s distress along with the potatoes. “It’s almost ready.”
“But, Grandma, I’m starved. All I had after football practice was a sandwich.”
Agnes smiled benignly and turned the chicken one more time. “It won’t be long now, dear.”
They weren’t paying any attention to her. Both Joanna’s mother and son were far more interested in dinner than in how on earth she was going to handle a man who expected her to be available for who knew what kind of a relationship.
Her mother had pulled some dumb stunts in her life—like the time she’d tied Tyler’s sack lunch to his belt so tightly for a third-grade field trip that he couldn’t get it off and had to beg his friends for handouts so he wouldn’t go hungry. But this stunt took the cake!
First thing in the morning Joanna was going to cancel that damn ad!
But before that, right after dinner, she was going to make her position quite clear to Mr. Slavik. If he decided to stick around, he’d do so as a tenant. If that didn’t suit him, she’d be more that happy to refund his money.
As night stole the blue from the sky, the sharp taste of embarrassment still filled Joanna’s throat. She swallowed the unpleasant flavor and headed across the road to face Kris Slavik again. It wasn’t her fault her mother had rewritten the ad. Joanna simply had to make clear to her would-be tenant that she was not available for the marriage mart. She’d refund his money, and that would be that.
She sighed. Except she would still have an empty office building to rent and no prospects in sight— including the guy who had promised to show up that evening.
From inside one of the offices a rectangle of light spilled through the open door onto the parking lot. On the porch, a silhouetted figure sat on a redwood bench in the shadows beside the door.
“Mr. Slavik?”
“I’m here.” He unfolded himself, and she was struck again by his tall, lean figure as he stood.
“I’ve come to apologize.”
“There’s no need. Assuming you’ll start calling me Kris. I always get the feeling someone is looking for my father when they call me Mr. Slavik.”
She smiled. He did have a nice voice, one that made her think of quiet winter evenings in front of a fire. Or soft pillow talk.
Mentally, she pushed the thought aside. “My mother did something nearly unforgivable by changing the ad I’d written for the newspaper. I’m truly sorry if she misled you, and I’d be happy to refund all of your money and tear up the lease you’ve signed.”
As Joanna spoke, he strolled lazily off the porch and stood close to her. There was a clean, masculine scent about him. Not artificial, like a shaving lotion, but natural, with a slight touch of musk. In the warm September air it seemed to hover about her in a tempting caress.
“Your eyes are blue, aren’t they?” he asked, his voice a low murmur that didn’t disturb the soft sounds of the night.
“Yes.” It was too dark for him to see that now. With a good deal of pleasure, she realized he must have remembered her eye color from their earlier meeting.
“Did you know your eyes each have about a hundred and thirty million light-sensitive cells in them?”
She blinked at the unexpected comment. “No, I guess that piece of information hasn’t ever come my way before.”
“I’m afraid I’m addicted to bits of trivia that are not necessarily useful.”
“Not everything we learn has to have a practical application,” she assured him.
“Hmm, I’m not sure my parents would agree with you.”
“There are the great poets—Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Longfellow, to mention just a few. Knowing their words isn’t exactly useful, but our lives are richer for them. The same thing is true for great works of art.”
The way he looked at her was very intense, as though he wanted to identify every single cell he’d talked about, as well as hear her words with exceptional clarity. “I can see the reflection of the stars in your eyes, like diamonds sparkling in deep pools. Did you know that the light I see has to travel hundreds of thousands of miles before it can reflect back to me?”
She swallowed thickly. “I’ve never thought about it before.” Nor had the knowledge seemed quite so important.
“Neither had I.”
She felt herself leaning toward him, impossibly closer, when she knew she should be running as fast as her feet could take her in the opposite direction. She was mesmerized by the compelling note in his voice, the insistent timbre that vibrated not only in her ears but also in a heart that had been lonely for a good many years.
Calling upon a wealth of willpower, she said, “About the rental—”
“I’d like to stay. If you don’t mind.”
She minded, all right. Instinctively she knew this man, who couldn’t seem to find a matching pair of socks and who paid his bills in cash, was a threat to her comfortable status quo. She didn’t want him disrupting her life. But that was exactly what he was going to do.
And because she desperately needed his rent money, she could do nothing to change the fates that were bearing down on her like a high mountain avalanche. In her heart, she knew she’d need more than luck to escape without serious injury. Or heartbreak.
“This