different, in a gingerbread-house way.”
She sniffed. “And I’m the wicked witch.”
“Well, you said it, not me.”
Erin grabbed her paintbrush and brandished it. “I’ll polka-dot you.”
Another rusty chuckle, and he backed away.
“I put a roast in the Crock-Pot.” Now or never. “Will you have dinner with me?” He’d taken care of his own meals since those first few days.
He went still, in that way he could, his blue eyes unreadable. The moment stretched. Erin suddenly realized that the brush was dripping down her front and she hastily moved it over the can.
Pride had her shrugging and turning back to the window. “Or not.”
“No.” Cole cleared his throat. “I mean, yeah, that’d be great. I’m...not much of a cook.”
Having seen the frozen meals he bought each time they’d gone to the grocery store together, she wasn’t surprised.
Without looking at him, she said, “Give me half an hour or so after we knock off for the day. I want to shower and put some biscuits in the oven.”
“Thanks.” He sounded hoarse.
Erin didn’t look back, even though she knew he was walking away. Usually, she couldn’t resist any chance to watch him when he wouldn’t notice. He was just so damn beautiful, whether in motion or at rest.
By the time she tapped the lid back on the can a couple of hours later, she expected to be exhausted. To her astonishment, there was still some spring to her step. Maybe she was regaining her strength.
She’d brought some plastic bags out to the garage, and now used one of them to wrap the brush. This seemed to work, saving her from having to clean it every evening. She’d seen Cole using the hose to do something to the spraying assembly, which they’d rented. She’d learned some creative new profanities from him every time the nozzle plugged up. Thank goodness he growled them almost under his breath, or he might have shocked a few neighbors.
Erin could tell that a young family lived three doors down, judging by the small bike with pink streamers on the handles and the big plastic tricycle often left lying on the lawn. Kids seemed to live in the house on the corner, too. Presumably, there were other neighbors younger than eighty, but she hadn’t seen them. She’d bet the folks within a four-block radius could fill a good-sized retirement home, if they were all willing to give up mowing their lawns and walking arthritic pets. Nanna had been happy here partly because she had lifelong friends. Even the neighbors she disliked were part of the landscape of her life. She could tell stories about every one of them. Erin knew all the older folks, but hadn’t yet tried to make herself part of the neighborhood.
Yesterday afternoon, she’d heard a mower fire up and looked over to see Mr. Zatloka across the street wrap his knobby hands around the handle of his mower and totter forward. She’d heard him mow before but hadn’t seen him. Would he let her do it for him? She knew the answer. A young lady—no, that would offend his masculine pride.
Even as she was hesitating about trying, anyway, Cole trotted across the street, spoke briefly to Mr. Zatloka and took over. In twenty minutes, he mowed the Zatlokas’ entire lawn. He dumped the clippings in Erin’s yard waste bin—she’d seen Mr. Zatloka put theirs in the garbage can—and wheeled the mower into the garage. He and the elderly man laughed about something, and then Cole returned to work on her house.
His kindness was the reason she’d decided to ask him to dinner again. Maybe she was being foolish, but she wanted to know him better. Be friends. Not anything more.
One dangerous habit was enough.
* * *
ERIN HAD LONG since disappeared into the house by the time Cole showered, changed clothes and made his way from the apartment to her front door.
They’d worked longer than they should have. He’d suddenly become aware that the quality of the light had changed and he was having trouble seeing. Now, full night had descended.
Seeing the porch light left on for him stirred uncomfortable feelings. He should’ve politely thanked her and headed out for fast food and a visit to the library.
Erin had hired him for a dirty job, but it seemed she wanted something else. Cole didn’t get it, didn’t trust the lures she kept throwing out.
Did she just want him in her bed? If it was completely uncomplicated, there was nothing he’d like better. He wasn’t having a dry spell; he’d had a dry decade. But he had trouble believing Erin was a woman who’d have sex with an ex-con only to scratch an itch. However, raising the subject would make her wary of him.
He bounded up the new porch steps, liking their solidity beneath his weight and the nonslip treads they’d applied. They’d keep her from taking a tumble some icy day in winter, when he was long gone.
Uncurling his fingers to ring her doorbell, Cole discovered his palms were sweaty.
Should have said no.
From within, she called, “Door’s unlocked.”
It was. Once he’d opened it, he hesitated before crossing the threshold. The act felt momentous, even dangerous. He hadn’t been inside a house, any house, since the police cuffed him. Wasn’t welcome at his father’s home—he couldn’t think of it as his—or his sister’s.
“I’m in the kitchen,” Erin added.
He followed the sound of her voice and the fabulous smell of meat cooking, glancing into a living room lit by a single lamp and then a dark dining room. She was right. The place was seriously dated. Was the wiring safe?
The kitchen looked 1940s. Truly ancient linoleum, metal-edged counters, not enough cabinets, a small wooden table with two chairs in the middle of the extensive space.
“The stove isn’t bad, but the refrigerator—” He stopped himself.
Looking over her shoulder as she pulled a cookie sheet covered with golden-brown biscuits from the oven, Erin wrinkled her nose. “Is an antique. I know. I’ve been here something like two months, and I’ve had to defrost the freezer twice. And chip out ice creeping down into the refrigerator compartment.”
“Why haven’t you replaced it?”
She straightened. “I don’t know. It works.” Her shoulders sagged. “It seems wrong just to throw it away.”
He already knew her sentimental side, but discovered it went deeper than he’d realized. “It makes you think of your grandmother.”
“I guess so.” She sighed and turned her back to him as she used a spatula to deftly lift the biscuits off the cookie sheet and into a basket.
He watched her, staggered by how beautiful she was. Usually, he tried not to notice, but now her cheeks were pink from the oven heat; she was clean and her red-gold hair was shiny, bundled at the back of her head with some stretchy thing holding it in place. Above the collar of her T-shirt, her neck showed, long, slender, pale. Were those faint freckles on her nape?
Cole caught himself taking a step to close the distance between them. No.
He rolled his shoulders and backed up. “Anything I can do?”
“Um...” She looked vaguely around. “Get yourself something to drink. I’ll take milk, if you don’t mind pouring.”
His stomach growled, although if he’d had a choice... His hunger for the meal wasn’t the first he would have satisfied. In fact, he managed to keep his back mostly turned to her as he poured milk for them both and set the glasses on the table, then took a seat so she wouldn’t see that he was aroused.
It was the setting, he tried to convince himself. Sexy woman in snug jeans cooking for him. Didn’t explain why he’d been so damn tempted earlier to lift her off the ladder, strip her and lay her