Nora Roberts: Best Laid Plans

"I don't make mistakes on the job." She went back to tightening the lug nuts. He was right. Because it embarrassed her, she refused to admit it out loud. "Check the records."

She stood, and was more annoyed than surprised when he turned her around to face him. It didn't bother her to be close. It bothered her to feel close. "How many do you make off the job?"

"Not many." She should move away. The warning flashed in and out of her mind as her throat went dry. They were standing toe-to-toe. She could see the light sheen of dampness on his face and throat, just as she could see, whether she wanted to or not, the flicker of desire in his eyes.

"I don't like to argue with a woman who's holding a tire iron." He took it from her and leaned it against the bumper. Her hands curled into fists at her sides, but it was nerves, pure nerves, and had nothing to do with anger.

"I've got an inspector coming this afternoon."

"At two-thirty." He took her hand, turning the wrist up to glance at her watch. "You've got some time."

"Not my own," she said evenly. "I'm on Thorn-way's clock."

"Conscientious." He looked down at the bald tire. "Mostly."

It was uncomfortable and unnerving to feel her heart thud against her ribs. As if she'd been running, Abra thought. She didn't want to admit that she'd been running since she'd first laid eyes on him.

"If you've got something you want to say, say it. I've got work to do."

"Can't think of a thing at the moment." But he still held her hand. His thumb lightly grazed the underside of her wrist, where her pulse beat hard and steady. "Can you?"

"No." She started to move past him and found herself brought up firmly against his chest. She'd always been lousy at chess, she thought, flustered. Never looking past the immediate move to the future consequences. It took more effort than it should have to keep her voice steady. "What's your problem, Cody?"

"I don't know." He was every bit as intrigued as she. "There's one way to find out." His free hand was on her face now, not resting there but holding her still. "Do you mind?" Even as he spoke, his lips lowered toward hers.

She wasn't sure what made her pull back at the last moment-or what made her able to pull back. She lifted a hand to his chest and pressed firmly, even as she tasted the warmth of his breath on her lips. "Yes," she said, and was amazed to realize that it was a lie. She wouldn't have minded. In fact, she'd wanted the feel and taste of his mouth on hers.

There was only an inch separating them, perhaps less. He felt, unexpectedly, a churning, a tug, a heat that drew together and centered in his gut. It was more than curiosity, he realized, and he found himself not entirely comfortable with the knowledge. When he stepped back, it was as much for his own sake as anything.

"I shouldn't have asked," he said easily. "Next time I won't."

She'd start trembling in a moment. It stunned her to realize that any second her system was going to betray her and shudder and quake. Again, not from anger. She held it off through sheer will and bent to the ruined tire. "Go find someone else to play with, Cody."

"I don't think so." He took the tire from her and stored it in the rear of the car. Before she could see to it herself, he had lowered the jack and stored that, as well.

Taking slow, steadying breaths, she walked around to her door. A tractor-trailer rattled by, and the force of the air it displaced hit her like a wall. She braced herself against it, as she had braced herself against him. Her palms were sweaty. Carefully she rubbed them against the thighs of her jeans before settling inside and turning the key.

"You don't strike me as the kind of man who keeps knocking at a door when no one answers."

"You're right." He leaned back again as she pulled onto the road. "After a while I just open it myself," With a friendly grin, he turned the radio up again.

The inspector had come early. Abra swore about it but couldn't do much else, since the wiring passed. She walked through the building, which was already taking shape, and climbed to the second and third floors to supervise the insulating and the first delivery of drywall. It was moving like clockwork, and she should have been more than satisfied.

All she could think of was how she had felt standing on the shoulder of the road with Cody's lips an inch from hers.

She was an engineer, not a romantic, she reminded herself as she stood on a platform twenty feet up and unrolled a drawing. The cooling system, she thought as she went over the specs again. That was going to take enough of her time and energy over the next few days. She didn't have the time or the inclination to stand around and wonder what it would have been like to kiss Cody Johnson.

Hot. Hot and exciting. No woman could look at that mouth and not see the kind of damage it could do to the nervous system. It had already jangled hers, and without even making contact. He probably knew it. Men like him always knew what kind of effect they had on a woman. They could hardly be blamed for it, but they could-and should-be avoided.

With another oath, she rolled up the drawings. She wouldn't think about him or what would have happened if she'd said yes instead of no. Or if she'd said nothing at all and had moved on instinct rather than brainpower.

There were the elevators to consider. It wouldn't be long before they'd be going in. She'd worked hard and long with another engineer on the design. What was now on paper would be reality soon enough, running up and down the walls, glass glittering as they rose and fell without a sound.

Some men could do that-make your heart rise and fall, make your pulse hammer though it couldn't be heard by anyone but you. No matter how you tried, how you pretended it wasn't happening, inside you'd be shooting up and shooting down so fast that a crash was inevitable. No matter how clever you were with a calculator, you could never quite fix the kinks in the system.

Damn him. Damn him for that-for taking that one step beyond and making her vulnerable. She couldn't forget the way her hand had felt in his, the way his eyes had looked when his face had been that close. So now she would wonder. The blame for that was his. She'd do well to remember that.

Glancing down, she saw him on the first floor, talking with Charlie Gray. Cody was gesturing toward the rear wall, where the side of the mountain sloped in to become part of the building-or the building to become part of the mountain. There would be long panes of glass there to form the ceiling, curved glass that would blend the line from the rock to the dome. She'd already decided it would be ostentatious and impractical, but as she'd been told, it was her job to make it work, not to approve.

Cody shook his head at something Gray told him, and his voice rose a little, enough to carry but not enough to make the words clear. Annoyance was there. It pleased her.

Let him be annoyed, she thought. Let him go back east and be annoyed where he would be out of her way.

She started down, using the temporary stairs. She had the progress on the health club to check out, and the excavation work on the first set of cabanas. As long as they could keep one job overlapping the next, they'd be all right. Tim should have been there, overseeing the scheduling. Abra moved a shoulder to work out a kink. It was better that he wasn't, that he had left the responsibility to her. He had a way of irritating the men when he showed up on the site in his expensive suits.

Just as she checked her watch, she heard a shout from above. She had enough time to see the metal stud falling tpward her before she was grabbed by the waist and dragged aside.

The stud landed inches from her feet, spewing up dust and clattering. Hard hat or no, she'd have been taking a trip to the hospital now if she'd been under it.