Patricia Coughlin - Tall, Dark And Difficult

“Let me worry about that,” she ordered, thinking he was probably right. For all his professional skills and accomplishments, he was not very good at making friends. Not if his guarded, taciturn demeanor with her was any indication. No wonder he tended to “keep to himself,” as he put it. Well, Devora wouldn’t have let that happen, and neither would Rose.

She folded her arms and grinned at him. “It’s settled. We’ll work out the details later,” she added as she caught sight of the delivery truck pulling up outside. “Right now, you’ll have to excuse me.”

She moved toward the door.

“No.”

The adamancy in his tone caused Rose to glance over her shoulder as she opened the door.

He smiled stiffly. “That is, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll hang around and—” He cleared his throat. “Browse a little, after all.”

“Fine. Good morning, Charlie,” she said to the deliveryman, whose uniform of brown shirt and shorts revealed a pair of great masculine legs. Charlie was young and adorable. Too young and adorable to be seriously interesting to a grown woman, but he had great legs just the same. Rose shipped and received packages daily, and the mild flirtation that enlivened her dealings with Charlie had more to do with keeping skills sharp than real attraction on either side.

“Am I ever glad to see you,” she said, eyeing his push cart loaded with boxes.

“Me? Or my boxes of chintz?”

“My boxes of chintz,” she corrected, trailing along like an overeager puppy in her attempt to read the return address labels as he moved past her. “Is it really? Are you sure?”

“Yep.” He parked the cart and began lifting the boxes onto the counter for her. “Unless you’re expecting another delivery from…” He squinted at the return address. “Biddley-on-Kenn. Hell, no wonder they call it Merry Olde England—they all live in circus towns.”

She gave a small whoop of excitement. “It is my chintz. Charlie, you’re wonderful.”

“You don’t know how wonderful. The schedule had me coming by here late this afternoon, but I switched my entire route around for you.”

“Can I help it if I’m irresistible?”

“Actually, I figured since you’ve been harassing me about this stuff daily—”

“I have not harassed you,” she admonished, her fingers itching to tear open the boxes and get at the fine bone china that a British dealer had sworn on the Magna Carta would be there three weeks ago. Some pieces were earmarked for specific customers; others were for the shop; a precious two were destined for her personal collection.

“You don’t call chasing my truck down the street ‘harassment’?”

“Charlie, you wish I’d chase you,” she retorted absently.

The deliveryman grinned. “You bet I do. I wouldn’t be hard to catch, I promise you that, Rosie.”

Jerk, thought Griff, surreptitiously monitoring the interplay.

Rose Davenport had thrown him a curve at first, but the longer he spent in her presence, the easier it was to understand why, in spite of the vast difference in age, she and Devora had hit it off. As Devora might have put it, “Water seeks its own level.” Beneath those smoldering green eyes and that just-begging-to-be-kissed mouth of hers, Rose Davenport definitely harbored the same streak of insanity that had afflicted his great-aunt.

A flaky, clutter-collecting, overly friendly junk addict if he’d ever seen one. Her shop might not be quite as over-stuffed and smothering as Devora’s place, but she hadn’t been at it as long. Give her time, and she’d give Devora some real competition.

Peering at the shopkeeper over a vase the color of moldy roses, he tried to imagine her thirty years older, wearing white gloves and a blouse buttoned high at the neck, instead of that pale yellow dress that hung nearly to her ankles. By all rights the dress should have made her appear dowdy, and concealed the fact that she had a slim waist, perfectly rounded hips and very nice, very long legs. It didn’t. Taking advantage of her preoccupation with the delivery guy, Griff gave the dress his complete attention and decided it was because of the way the material molded itself to her body. Every distracting inch of it.

A sundress. He was no expert on women’s clothing, but he’d removed enough of it over the years to learn the basics, and he was pretty sure that was the name for what she was wearing. Whatever it was called, it was screwing up his attempt to picture Rose Davenport with a brooch at her throat.

The woman had a sexy throat. He’d give her that much. Her shoulders weren’t bad, either. Smooth and suntanned, and the crisscrossed straps of her dress presented a clear-cut invitation for a man to slide his fingers underneath and slowly, slowly peel them down. An invitation he’d bet wasn’t lost on the deliveryman with the salivating grin any more than it was lost on Griff.

His head ached, his leg was throbbing, and being trapped with so much old stuff was making him feel weird. Light-headed, he thought furiously. It was the dust, he told himself, refusing to be dizzy. The fact that he didn’t actually see any dust was inconsequential. Everyone knew antiques attracted dust. Salt and pepper, pretzels and beer, antiques and dust. Just one more reason he didn’t want to be here, looking at shelf after shelf of useless junk when he didn’t even know what the hell he was looking for.

Liar. He knew exactly what he had come looking for, exactly what it was he wanted from Rose Davenport. He wanted her help. The problem was asking for it. He was no good at asking for help. In fact, he flat out hated it. Almost as much as he hated needing it in the first place. Being needy was even worse.

And he ought to know. In the past year he’d been forced to accept more help from more people than most men do in a lifetime. Doctors. Physical therapists. Even neighbors. And shrinks, don’t forget the shrinks. Without their “help,” he wouldn’t have done such a bang-up job of adapting and adjusting and accepting the fact that life as he knew it was over. Kaput. Finished. And the fact that his old life was the only life he had any interest in living? Why, that was just one of those inconvenient, lingering, post-accident stages that they insisted he would emerge from. One of these days.

But not today.

Today, this moment, it all added up to one thing; a burning urge to toss the chatty deliveryman out on his behind and get on with it. The other guy might be younger and fitter and faster, but Griff could feel a bigger chip on his shoulder and had been spoiling for a fight longer. That gave him the edge. The only thing holding him back from wiping the grin off Charlie’s face was the look on Rose’s. Pure ecstasy.

The way her eyes had lit up the second she saw the truck, you’d have thought it was Ed McMahon walking in with the grand prize check in his hand. Griff might not appreciate the appeal of a package jockey in shorts, but clearly Rose did—and he wasn’t about to risk ticking her off.

On the contrary, he was going to say and do whatever was necessary to stay in her good graces, until he found out what he needed to know. For starters, that meant keeping his thoughts about almost everything, especially his plans for the house, to himself. It also precluded telling her outright that throwing a party for him was a waste of time since he wouldn’t be hanging around long enough to make friends. And above all, it meant not slipping up and referring to her junk as junk.

With that in mind, Griff picked up a battered metal watering can and tried to look fascinated.

The Jerk held out his clipboard. “Care to sign your life away?” he asked Rose in a tone that made it clear it wasn’t only her signature he was after.