Marin Thomas - Ryan's Renovation

“Maybe you’d better break out a window upstairs and drop the stuff into the yard,” Leon suggested, then returned to the basement.

Two hours later, drenched in sweat and arms burning with exertion, Ryan wanted to quit. A half hour on the treadmill and a twenty-minute workout on the Bowflex machine three times a week hadn’t prepared him for pulling up carpet, dismantling light fixtures and shoving mattresses through windows. Adding to his misery was the fact that he couldn’t get Anna’s face—her big nose, her blue eyes, her strong jaw—out of his ever-loving mind.

Wishing he’d thought to bring along a bottle of water, he rested his hands on his knees and sucked in large gulps of air. After a minute, the pinched feeling eased in his lungs and he returned to the first floor.

Time crawled as he joined Eryk in the garage and carried load after load to the front yard. Hefting an old car tire onto his shoulder, he wondered whether the old man would call a halt to this life lesson if Ryan collapsed from physical exhaustion. There was always a possibility…. He heaved a second tire onto his other shoulder and staggered along the driveway.

“BOSS SHOW UP?” Leon took a seat at the table in the break room. After the men called it quits, Leon stole a cup of coffee and a few minutes of tranquillity before heading home to a houseful of extended relatives.

Anna placed the creamer from the fridge next to Leon’s elbow. “Bobby came in at noon, stayed an hour, then claimed he had a personal matter to attend to and left.” She allowed Leon one minute of peace and quiet, then demanded, “Well?”

“Well, what?”

How did Helga put up with the man? Climbing all 102 floors of the Empire State Building would be less taxing than extracting information from Leon. “Ryan. Did he say where he lives?”

Ignoring the question, Leon winced. “I’ve got the knees of an eighty-year-old.”

Guilt pricked Anna for badgering the poor man when he was obviously worn out. She fetched two ice packs from the freezer. While Leon adjusted the packs over his knees, Anna’s thoughts drifted to Ryan.

The new employee had been on her mind all afternoon. Leon, Eryk and Ryan had returned to the station for lunch, but she’d been tied up on the phone with the company’s CPA and hadn’t had the opportunity to ask the anyone how things were going.

She blamed her preoccupation with Ryan, not because he was a new employee, but that he was handsome and exciting in a mysterious way. Of course, she didn’t believe for a minute anything would develop between them, but a girl could dream, couldn’t she?

Dreams don’t come true. Life had taught her that lesson more than once.

Ignoring the voice in her head, Anna badgered, “C’mon, Leon, Ryan must have said something about himself.”

“He’s not much of a talker.”

“You mean Ryan was unsociable? Rude?”

“No. Just quiet.”

“He doesn’t appreciate us, does he?”

“Leave him be, Anna. If he don’t want to fit in around here, he don’t have to.”

“But I wanted—”

“Everyone to get along.” Slurp. “Always watching out for the strays, aren’t you?” Leon shoved his chair back, but Anna pressed her hand against his shoulder.

“Keep the ice on your knees.” She grabbed the coffeepot and topped off his cup, then added a dollop of nonfat dairy creamer.

“A man can’t even enjoy a coffee with real cream,” he complained.

After Leon was diagnosed with high cholesterol a year ago, Leon’s wife had enlisted Anna’s aid in monitoring her husband’s fat intake at work. “Helga would have my head if I let you have real cream.”

“Helga should pick on someone her own size.” Leon grinned and Anna laughed. Two inches shorter than Anna, his wife weighed in at a whopping one hundred eighty. And Leon was hopelessly in love with every one of those pounds. Sometimes Anna wondered if she’d ever find a man who’d love her to distraction the way Leon loved Helga.

Leon scratched the top of his bald noggin. “Jones mentioned he was divorced.”

“Oh.” Not sure why the news unsettled her, she asked, “Any children?” Before Leon answered, the bell in the office jangled. “Probably Bobby.” Anna was halfway across the room when the door flew open.

Ryan froze midstride, mouth tight at the corners. His habit of scowling when their gazes connected annoyed Anna. Didn’t he realize a person used more facial muscles to frown than to smile?

Feeling mischievous, she flashed a wide grin. “Hello, Ryan. Forget your lunch box?” Or your manners, perhaps?

Shifting his scowl to Leon and then back to Anna, he muttered, “I walked off with these.” He held out a pair of work gloves. An oil smudge marked the side of his jaw. A tree twig poked out of the top of his mussed hair and flecks of dirt dusted his cheeks and nose.

Her attention bounced between the gloves and the lines of exhaustion etched in his face. His cranky expression prevented her from offering one of her special sympathy hugs.

A throat cleared. “Think I’ll head home.” Leon placed his mug in the sink, grabbed his lunch box and nodded goodbye on his way out.

The faint trace of Ryan’s aftershave drifted beneath Anna’s big nose. She hated everything about her nose except one thing—it was a good sniffer. Mixed with the sexy, sophisticated scent of Ryan’s cologne was the tang of sweat and hardworking male. An odor her nose insisted wasn’t unappealing.

“You could have brought in the gloves tomorrow.”

Ryan’s plan to sneak in and out of the station without anyone the wiser had bombed big-time. He cursed himself for wanting to return the gloves when he could have stuffed them into a mailing envelope, instead.

“Are you feeling all right?” The touch of her feminine hand on his arm made his flesh prickle.

“I’m fine.” What the hell was wrong with him? He’d known women more beautiful than Anna and hadn’t reacted physically to them. That was before 9/11. Before you crawled into your cave and swore off the opposite sex. What could he say other than the truth—he’d returned the gloves because he had no intention of showing up for work tomorrow. He tossed the gloves onto the table, then stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his jeans, where they wouldn’t be tempted to finger the blond hair that feathered across Anna’s forehead.

“Did anything happen this afternoon?” she inquired.

Yeah. You happened—Ms. Anastazia Persistence Nowakowski.

When her gaze softened with concern, he battled the urge to confide in her—as if a mere stranger could make sense of the feelings at war within him. He’d arrived at the station this morning, ready to do his grandfather’s bidding, prepared to feel uncomfortable working with strangers. But he hadn’t anticipated being blindsided by Anna. By her perpetually happy demeanor. By her compelling face. By her nonstop chatter.

She irritated the hell out of him.

He wasn’t angry with her for awakening his long-dead libido. He was angry because he sensed something about her…something that warned him that if he wasn’t careful she’d worm her way inside him to the place he’d promised he’d never, ever allow another woman access to.

The best way to prevent that from happening was to keep his distance. And Anna was the kind of woman who stepped over boundaries. Knocked down Do Not Enter signposts. And ripped up Keep Out posters. He had no choice but to quit.

“Ryan?”

“Everything’s fine.” Or would be as soon as he got the hell out.

“Oh, good.”

At her relieved smile, his chest expanded with gentle yearning. Anna was full of life, compassion and caring. And he was full of…nothing.

“You’d tell me if a problem surfaced, wouldn’t you?” She fluttered a hand in front of her face. “If I can’t fix it, then Bobby will.” She moved to the counter. “Let me get you a cup of coffee.”