Working on a Full House (18 page)

The mere idea pushed a flash of excitement through her. But Valerie slid a finger along the wood grain in her breakfast nook table and ordered herself to stay grounded. It was far more possible all the electrical buzzes were coming from herself alone. She was so darn attracted to him.

On the other hand...

He came back to the table holding a box of tea bags. "I actually found them all by myself," he said proudly, and held the box down to her. "Take your pick."

The nearness of his body made Valerie feel too warm, but she looked down into the box of tea bags and determinedly quelled the sensation. "Uh...how about Vanilla Dreams?"

"You want sugar? Cream?"

"Just plain, thanks."

"Just plain it is." He took the tea bag from her and sauntered back to the stove.

Valerie sucked in her lips and allowed herself to wonder about the other hand. Could Roy have a thing for her? He'd driven out here, hadn't he? He'd been thrilled to stay for dinner. He called her every night. Couldn't that mean he was into her?

Valerie's lips twisted as she watched Roy set up the tea. It sure sounded good — but, so what? Peter had practically moved in, but it hadn't fazed him one bit to move out again. Actions didn't always speak louder than words.

Unaware of her private musings, Roy came back with her tea. Sliding into the seat opposite hers, he folded his forearms on the table. "So...this wasn't so bad, huh?"

Valerie cocked her head. "You mean having you over, sharing a meal?"

"That's right." His expression turned mildly challenging. "It wasn't so bad."

"No," she had to admit. "It wasn't so bad." It had been good, actually. Maybe too good.

His head tilted. "Then I'm invited back tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow?" she laughed, but felt excited that he wished to return. "How long were you planning to stay in town?"

His lashes lowered partway. "I'm going back to Vegas tomorrow evening."

"Oh." Valerie's excitement turned quickly to disappointment. He'd only planned to stay one day?

One night?

Her disappointment expanded. Dismayingly. Had she already started to count on him? They were barely even friends.

Meanwhile, her pride produced a smile. "Okay, then. So you're only staying in Palmwood overnight."

"This time."

Valerie nodded and sucked in her lower lip. This wouldn't be the last occasion on which he dropped in to check up on her. So whatever she did now would set a precedent, a tenor for all the visits he'd just warned her were to come. She had to think about that. Hard.

Sending him to a hotel for one measly night might transmit the wrong message, that she was thinking along sexual lines. Given how far she'd surrendered thus far, there'd be no reason to kick him out of her house other than a worry over the sexual element. But she didn't want Roy to guess she was even thinking about sex, because if he wasn't...? God, that would be embarrassing!

"Well." She dipped her tea bag up and down in her cup. "What I said before, about staying in a hotel — I was ticked off when I said it."

"Um...yeah. I gathered as much."

Valerie glanced over at him. His face revealed nothing. Did he even care if she invited him to stay the night? Heck, maybe it was all the same to him.

Valerie lifted a shoulder. "Going to a hotel would be silly. If you insist on taking care of the baby, unborn as it may be, you might as well stay here."

He went still. It was only for an instant, the barest sliver of time, almost not enough to notice, except that Valerie
did
notice. Then he moved, leaning back in his seat and giving Valerie a cool nod. "Fine," he said. "Thanks."

Why had he stilled like that? Meanwhile, her face flushed as she struggled to sound off-hand. "I do have that guest suite. If ever there was a time it should be used, it's got to be now."

"Right." Roy gave another sober nod.

"There's no good reason to spend money on a hotel room." Valerie willed her face to stop blushing, but doubted it worked.

"No. No good reason." Roy did not appear to notice her embarrassment as he suddenly leaned forward over the table. "And in the morning, let's go over what I can do for you. You know, in the way of errands and such."

"Oh." Valerie blinked. She still couldn't see the wolf doing her laundry, but it appeared useless to argue. "Sure."

"This is going to work," Roy said, and leaned back again. "It's going to work just fine." And then, damn him, he gave her one of his slow, almost shy — and completely devastating — smiles. "Thank you, Valerie."

~~~

He was in.

Roy lay under the pretty striped sheets of Valerie's guest bed with his hands behind his head. Yeah, he was in; he'd gotten his way about staying at Valerie's house. Meanwhile Kenny hadn't squawked about having to find a hotel room when Roy had called him an hour ago. On the contrary, cheerleader Kenny had seemed happy to do so.

But Roy's 'in' situation wasn't turning out to feel like much of a triumph.

He rubbed his teeth slantwise and gazed at the smoothly painted ceiling above. She'd invited him to stay. She'd said,
there's no good reason to spend money on a hotel room
.

No good reason? Did she think he was a eunuch? Did she think none of his touches, none of his gazes had meant a thing? Did she think he was supposed to lie here, aching, when there were about a million watts of electricity between them?

Roy ground his teeth in earnest. Clearly, she didn't see him as a threat. No, strike that. She didn't see him as a
contender
.

Visions of the house came back to Roy, of the careful interior decoration, of the loving touches. Now, however, he saw it all in a different light. She'd built this house, taken this care, long before she'd ever met him.

She'd created this home for a different man. She'd prepared this nest for a different egg.

Roy narrowed his eyes at the innocent ceiling. The fact that he was lying here in the
guest
suite couldn't have made the point more clear. She might be physically attracted to him, but she wasn't considering him a candidate for lifelong mate — or even interim bed partner.

Well. Shrugging off a dismaying shimmer of fear, Roy drew in a deep breath. He was simply going to have to work on changing that perception of hers, then, wasn't he?

He
was
a contender. In fact, he was the
only
contender. He was the father of the child growing in her belly and he was going to be the man living in her house. He was her husband, for crissake.

Roy would simply have to see to it that Valerie forgot all about any previous fellows. He'd end up the man sleeping in her bed.

Which meant that Valerie was right about at least one thing. There
would
be no sense spending money on hotel rooms.

With a huff, Roy made a determined effort to dismiss the distinct possibility of defeat. Then he turned over to get some sleep.

~~~

In the motel room with the polka dot bedspread and the stained lampshades, Kenny closed up his cell phone. He couldn't help grinning. Roy was sounding, for Roy, very happy and excited. Yes, the ultra-cool, utterly unflappable Roy hadn't sounded very cool or unflapped at all. More like buzzingly stimulated and terribly nervous. Kenny chuckled and tossed his phone onto a desk.

It was past midnight, but he hadn't bothered to undress or get ready for bed in the room he'd rented after his solitary meal at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. He was too buzzed, himself.

Cherise
. That's what Roy had told Kenny was her name. Cherise Winter. Looking like a long, cinnamon drink of milk, sounding like a sharp bite of whiskey, and giving off the vibrations of a well-tuned Lamborghini, Cherise Winter, nurse practitioner, allegedly ball-breaking best friend of Valerie Beaujovais, had in one masterly, if unwitting, sweep stolen his heart.

Smiling, Kenny paced to the window and drew aside the curtain. He sighed dreamily at the cars parked in the lot. Cherise Winter was everything he hadn't even realized he'd ever fantasized in a woman. Cool, collected, disciplined. Positively regal.

And yet — and yet — something other. Something more. Something tantalizingly out of reach, just under the surface.

She was utterly compelling.

Kenny let the curtain drop. He paced back toward the desk where he fiddled with the motel's stationery pad. He was well aware of the reckless direction of his thoughts. Oh yes, he'd been down this path before — perhaps too many times before. In fact, he'd promised himself he wouldn't go here again. Fall in love, get foolish, and end up on his knees proposing happily-ever-after to some female.

Three marriages, and three divorces, were quite enough for any one human being — particularly when they'd all happened by the age of thirty-five.

Kenny's lips curved happily, though, as he turned the stationery pad this way and that. Oh, sure he'd promised himself he wasn't going to take the plunge again, but that was the kind of promise meant to be broken. Who could limit the rocks and rolls he was going to take on the adventure ride of life? The game involved taking risks, and occasionally doing something stupid.

If anyone was worth doing something stupid over, it had to be the gorgeous creature Kenny had met that evening.

Not that Kenny was about to propose marriage again, no matter how wildly he fell in love. He just wanted to...get through to her. See what happened when she lost her veneer of control.

Kenny slid the stationery pad against the base of the lamp and whirled to pace across the room. There was only one point that worried him. She'd promised to meet him Friday night, three days from now. Had he been a complete idiot to believe her?

In front of the TV now, Kenny picked up the remote, while seeing in his mind Cherise's cool smile.

What she'd pulled was a classic bum's rush. She'd used his yearning against him, asked him to believe his impression she was secretly attracted. He'd
thought
she was. The way she'd almost smiled at his jokes, the way she'd let him stand inside her bubble, the way she'd seemed to want to know what he was going to do next. Right up until the end he'd thought she was looking for an excuse to give in to him.

But then something had changed. Her playful resistance had turned cutting. Almost spiteful.

Shaking his head, Kenny put the remote on top of the TV. He couldn't imagine why she might hate him, but neither could he imagine her actually showing up at Norman's Art Supply on Friday night. The odds were solidly against it. Except for one thing...

That kiss.

Kenny's mouth curved into a pleased smile. Yes, that mini-fireworks of a kiss. One sixteenth of a second of pure heaven.

If Cherise had felt that kiss half as much as he had, she'd meet him on Friday night.

Still grinning, Kenny drew his sweater vest over his head, then set to work on the buttons of his shirt. He had nothing to worry about. She'd be there.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Roy was already in the kitchen and dressed by the time Valerie came downstairs the next morning. Fortunately, she'd braced herself for his presence. A man as determined as this one wasn't going to sleep in.

All the same, it was jarring to see him there, quietly turning on the flame under the teakettle. He was wearing tan chinos and a shirt of soft material, something that hinted at his very male muscles. He looked like an exotic, and rather dangerous, pet.

"Good morning." She did her best to produce a banal smile.

Roy turned around. Their eyes met. She didn't know how he did it — or even
if
he did it, but she suddenly felt an intimacy in the situation. As if his spending the night had been
spending the night
.

"Good morning." He smiled.

His smile made heat splash beneath her clothes, but she still wasn't sure if he was actively doing something, or if it was just her imagination. Valerie swallowed privately. "Finding everything okay?"

"Yep." He turned back to adjust the flame under the teakettle. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"Oh, just toast. I'll fix it myself."

To her relief, he didn't argue. Valerie set about getting a piece of bread and dropping it into the toaster. Meanwhile she was aware of Roy drawing a box of cereal out of the pantry and turning it to look at the side label.

It was like they were living together.

Roy took out the cereal and poured a bowl for himself at the breakfast nook table. Valerie finished making her toast. She tried her very best to present an easy, casual front because, hey, this was no big deal, sharing breakfast with this enormously attractive man. She put her toast on a plate and took a seat opposite his. She forced herself to take a bite. Roy had been right about one thing. Her stomach was happier if she kept some food in it.

"I started a grocery list," Roy said.

"Really, Roy. I can take care of getting my own groceries."

He gave her an amused look. "You can go over the list and add or change — to make sure you get what you actually want and need. Or you can let me guess. But I'm going to buy you groceries."

Valerie sighed deeply.

"And I noticed you need a new washer in the powder room sink. I might as well take care of that for you, too."

Valerie raised her eyebrows. "You know how?"

"Sure." He concentrated on his cereal, shoveling it in the way men do. In between bites, he said, "But I'll need a key to the house, so I can lock it up when I go shopping and then be able to get in again."

A key to the house. Valerie's eyes narrowed but Roy continued muscularly shoveling corn flakes, as if he hadn't asked for anything out of the ordinary.

"Sure, I'll lend you a key," she agreed slowly. "But I'll need it back before you return to Las Vegas."

"Mm hm." He seemed unperturbed by her stipulation. "No problem. I'll want to get out of town before rush hour, so..." He tapped his spoon on the edge of his bowl. "It makes sense to give you the key on my way out of town. Hey. I could drop by your office."