Free All I Want Is You by Toni Blake Page B

of new attraction, chemistry—­and despite his best intentions, it drew him in.
    It’s okay, though. Her problems were her problems, not his. He wasn’t getting any further enmeshed in her life. So it was no big deal.
    Even if he kept thinking about her.
    Even if his gaze drifted to her house, her windows, too often.
    Even if he’d found himself keeping an eye out for her car, aware of when she came and went.
    Since he’d done those repairs for her a week ago, they’d exchanged a few waves, and they’d had one brief conversation on the sidewalk during which he’d asked if everything he’d fixed was holding up. She’d said yes and thanked him again.
    And hell if he didn’t find himself wishing he had another reason to see her again now. Something else to fix.
    Darkness had fallen when he looked up to see a late model BMW turn onto the city street, coming to a rough halt in front of Christy’s house. He couldn’t see into the car, but a few seconds later a door slammed and the Beamer accelerated roughly, screeching away. And then he made out her silhouette standing across the street from him, and though he couldn’t see her face, something in her posture gave the impression she might be a little shaken up.
    â€œRough night?” he called.
    â€œYou could say that.” Her voice sounded small.
    Quit noticing that part. “ At least you don’t have mice anymore,” he reminded her matter-­of-­factly. “And your toilet works.”
    â€œYou’re right. Thank you.” But she still sounded a little beaten, and—­hell—­it pulled at his heart more than he liked.
    So as she turned to head inside, without planning it, he heard himself say, “Want some ice cream?”
    She stopped, peered back toward him in the darkness. “Huh?”
    â€œI said—­do you want some ice cream? I was about to fix myself a bowl. Chocolate.” It was the truth, about planning to fix himself some—­but the sharing part came as a surprise, to him as much as her.
    â€œOkay,” she said, and it made him feel good that she sounded a little cheered by the invitation, reminding him that during life’s rough spots, sometimes it was the little things that kept you going.
    As he watched her walk toward him, he couldn’t deny how pretty she looked—­she wore a summery blue dress with white sandals and her cheeks appeared sun kissed, like maybe she’d been out in the bright, warm sun they’d had the last ­couple of days. A breeze lifted the blond locks from her shoulders as she ascended the steps onto his porch.
    Though it was only as Jack stood up and opened his front screen door for her that he realized—­she was coming into his house. Which contained an office filled with the latest, greatest computer and enough other high tech gadgetry and charts and paperwork that even a glimpse of it might tell her he was more than just a handyman.
    â€œKitchen’s that way,” he said, pointing and pretty much herding her in that direction before she could start sneaking peeks anywhere else.
    As he grabbed the carton of ice cream from the freezer and started scooping from it into two glass bowls, she commented on the new sink and faucet he’d put in and asked what else he’d done in the room. He pointed out other changes he’d made in the kitchen, and as they passed back through the living room, he took pride in showing her the hardwood staircase he’d refinished, and some beams he’d exposed by removing a dropped ceiling someone had put in, probably during the seventies.
    And he’d thought he’d done an admirable job of distracting her from the doorway to his office—­when something even much more damning came into view: a picture of his wife.

 
    â€œCuriouser and curiouser!”
    Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
    Chapter 5
    W ELL, SHE wasn’t still his