Nora Roberts - Times Change

“What in the hell are you doing?”

Jacob glanced up. Spread all over the table in front of him were the various parts of the toaster and a carpet of crumbs. He’d found a screwdriver in a drawer and was having the time of his life.

“It needs to be fixed.”

“Yes, but—”

“Do you like your bread burned?”

She narrowed her eyes. His fingers, long, lean and clever, skimmed over screws. “Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Maybe.” He smiled, wondering what she would say if he told her he could dismantle an X-25 primary unit in under an hour. “Don’t you trust me?”

“No.” She turned to put on the kettle. “But I don’t suppose you can make it any worse than it already is.” Friendly, she reminded herself. She would be friendly and casual, then move in for the kill. “Want some tea?”

“Sure.” With the screwdriver in his hand, he watched her walk from stove to cupboard and back to stove. Grace, he thought, when combined with strength, was an appealing combination. She had a way of shifting her weight so that her whole body flowed into the movement. Yet there was a control about her, the kind of discipline seen in athletes and dancers. And it wasn’t genderless, but innately and completely female.

When the nerves at the back of her neck began to prickle, she glanced over her shoulder. “Problem?”

“No. I like to watch you.”

Because she didn’t have a ready response for that, she poured the tea. “Want a cupcake?”

“Okay.”

She tossed him a little chocolate cake wrapped in clear paper. “If you want something more elaborate for lunch, you’re on your own.” She brought the cups to the table, then sat across from him. “How are you with plumbing?”

“Excuse me?”

“The faucet in the tub leaks.” Sunny tore the paper from her cupcake. “My solution’s been to put a wash-rag on the drain to muffle the noise at night, but if you’re handy there’s probably a wrench around somewhere.” She took the first bite, closing her eyes to better enjoy the taste. “We could consider it a tradeoff for your meals.”

“I can take a look.” He was still holding the screwdriver, but he was more interested in the way she gently licked icing from the cake. It had never occurred to him that eating could be quite so sexy. “Do you live alone?”

She lifted a brow, then nipped at the cake again. “Obviously.”

“When you’re not here.”

“Most of the time.” She sucked chocolate from her finger and had his stomach clenching. “I like living alone, not having to check with anyone if I want to eat at ten or go dancing at midnight. Do you?”

“What?”

“Live alone?”

“Yes. My work takes up most of my time.”

“Physics, right? Too bad.” She settled back with her tea. The idea of him being a spy was beginning to sound absurd. And, to give him his due, she decided, he wasn’t as crazy as she’d initially believed. Eccentric, she thought. If there was one thing Sunny understood, it was eccentricity. She’d lived with it all of her life. “So you really like splitting atoms, or whatever it is you guys do?”

“Something like that.”

“What’s your stand on nuclear reactors?”

He nearly laughed, but then he remembered where he was. “Nuclear fission is like trying to dispose of a mouse with a rocket launcher. Dangerous and unnecessary.”

“My mother would love you, but that doesn’t sound very physicist-like.”

“Not all scientists agree.” Knowing he was on unsteady ground, he went back to the toaster. “Tell me about your sister.”

“Libby? Why?”

“I have an interest in her, since she has my brother.”

“She isn’t exactly holding him for ransom,” Sunny said dryly. “In fact, he rushed her down the aisle so fast, she barely had time to say ‘I do.’”

“What aisle?”

“It’s a figure of speech, J.T.” She spoke slowly now, and with a sigh. “When people get married, they, you know, go down the aisle.”

“Oh, right.” He thought that over as he fiddled with the toaster. “You’re saying that the marriage was Cal’s idea.”

“I don’t know whose idea it was, if that matters, but he was certainly enthusiastic.” Her fingers began to drum as her annoyance grew. “I get the impression you think Libby pushed Cal into something here, or that she, I don’t know, used feminine wiles to trap him.”

“Does she have them?”

After she finished choking on her tea, Sunny took a long breath. “This may be tough for you to understand, Hornblower, but Cal and Libby love each other. You’ve heard of love, haven’t you? Or doesn’t it compute?”

“I’ve heard of the concept,” he said, mildly enough. It was intriguing to watch her temper rise—as it did with very little provocation. Her eyes darkened, her skin flushed, her chin lifted. Attractive when composed, she was simply devastating when aroused. He wouldn’t have been human if he hadn’t considered how interesting it would be to arouse her in other, more rewarding ways. “I haven’t experienced it myself, but I have an open mind.”

“That’s big of you,” she muttered. Rising, she stuffed her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and stalked to the window. Lord, he was a prize. If she managed to keep from murdering him before Cal and Libby got back, it would be a miracle.

“Have you?”

“Have I what?”

“Been in love,” he said, running the staff of the screwdriver through his fingers.

She sent him a particularly vicious look. “Keep out of my personal life.”

“I’m sorry.” He wasn’t, not a bit. He was as determined to make her look like a fool as she was to make him sound like one. “It’s just that you sounded so knowledgeable on the subject I assumed you’d had quite a bit of experience. Yet you’re not matched—married—are you?”

Whether he’d aimed or just shot from the hip, he’d hit the target dead-on. She hadn’t been in love, though she’d tried to be several times. Self-doubt only fanned the flames of anger.

“Just because a person hasn’t been in love doesn’t mean he or she can’t appreciate its value.” She whirled back, hating the fact that she’d been put on the defensive and determined to turn the conversation around. “The fact that I’m not married is purely a personal choice.”

“I see.”

The way he said it had her teeth snapping together. “And this has nothing to do with me. We’re talking about Libby and Cal.”

“I thought we were talking about love as a concept.”

“Talking about love with a heartless clod is a waste of time, and I never waste mine.” She balled a hand on her hip. “But we both have an interest in Libby and Cal, so we’ll clear it up.”

“All right.” He tapped the screwdriver on the edge of the table. He didn’t need a computer to tell him what a clod was. It was just one more thing she would have to pay for before this was over. “Clear it up.”

“You automatically assume that my sister, being a woman, lured your brother, being only a man, into marriage. What an incredibly outdated theory.”

His fingers paused in the act of reattaching the toaster’s coil. “Is it?”

“Incredibly outdated, chauvinistic and stupid. The idea that all women want is marriage and a house with a picket fence went out with the poodle skirt.”

Though he wondered who in his right mind would put skirts on poodles, there was something more important to touch on. “Stupid?” he repeated.

“Idiotic.” Legs spread, jaw firm, she baited him. “Only a true idiot would be alive today with that kind of neanderthal attitude. Maybe the last few decades have passed you by, pal, but things have changed.” She was on a roll now, a slender steamroller with right on her side. “Women have choices today, options, alternatives. An enlightened few even figure that, because they do, men benefit from the same expanding horizons. Except, of course, men like you, who are mired in their own self-importance.”