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  “What are you doing?” he asked, kneeling on the floor and staring at her over his shoulder. “You look as if you’re playing Twister!”

  “Getting . . . this,” she said. Twister? What in the world was that? She paused long enough to show him the hammer, then walked her hands back toward her feet while circling her feet around so she faced one corner. She tossed the hammer into the corner, and its weight held the underlay down—at least at that one spot. Then she collapsed onto her stomach, and found she could cover a much greater portion of the end by lying flat and stretching her arms as high as she could over her head. Wriggling, she positioned herself so that most of the edge lay flat under her, then gave Kirk a triumphant grin. “There,” she said. “That’s got it under control.”

  He was still staring at her. “I think the author of that how-to book missed a bet.”

  “Me, too. This is really quite comfortable. You were right to get the thickest, most expensive brand. Let me know when you’re ready for step two.” She closed her eyes.

  Kirk’s mouth went dry as he gazed at her. Maybe the carpet pad was under control, but he sure wasn’t. The sight of her cute bottom sticking up in the air as she walked around on her hands and feet, her hair dangling down like a silky black mop, had set up the kind of reaction in him that he was fast beginning to associate with her. Now, seeing her lying there with her eyes shut and that perky grin on her face, her hair still tumbled all around, her breasts plumped against the floor, her backside, in delicious profile in her tight jeans, he had to force himself to get back to work.

  “Well, damn,” he said as he wrestled with the rest of the recalcitrant stuff. When he arrived at the far end of the room, he discovered he had the same problem she’d had. As long as he stood on it, the pad stayed still—in that spot. The moment he moved to try to reach something with which to hold it down, it sneaked up behind him and flopped over his back. If he turned and flattened that section of it, the other corner curled over him. After a few minutes of futile fight, he, too, lay down. He faced Liss across the length of the floor and laughed at her startled expression.

  “Why not?” he said, resting his head on the heel of one hand. “You’re right. This seems to work. If we stay here a couple of weeks, the damn thing might behave. You game?” He dropped his head down and closed his eyes. “How do mothers feel about naps for big boys?”

  Liss giggled and hoped Mrs. Healey wouldn’t come in and catch them lying on the floor like idiots. She’d tell Lester Brown on both of them. “Why don’t we hook it on the little nails?” she asked, turning from him long enough to cast a wary glance at the line of tack strip behind her.

  “Because it would tear. Besides, the book said it had to be cut an inch shorter than the carpet on purpose, so it won’t reach the strips. Nope, it seems to me we’re stuck here. If either of us tries to stand, it’s going to roll up on us again. I only wish we were a little closer together. It seems a shame to waste an opportunity like this.” He patted the rubber. “You’re right. It is comfortable. Why don’t you slide on over here and we’ll get comfortable together?” His smile was full of teasing—she thought he was teasing. Her body, on the other hand, had a different idea. Her body wanted to take him seriously.

  “Come on,” he urged, patting the floor beside him again. “You have one of your corners pinned down, so it’ll be less trouble for you to move than for me.”

  She thought of all the trouble she could get into if she did as he asked. “I thought we were going to simply be friends.”

  His eyes widened. “You think I’m being unfriendly?”

  She shook her head, captivated by the power of his gaze, even though he was at least fourteen feet away. “No. I think maybe you’re being too friendly. I feel . . . safer with this much space between us.”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “And safer is better?”

  “I think so.”

  “What if I were to prove something different to you?”

  She laughed, feeling quite secure where she was-as long as he stayed where he was. “I don’t see how you can. As you said, it looks as if we’re stuck here.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.” He rolled toward her experimentally. The underlay curled along behind him like a big green comber on a Hawaiian shore.

  He turned over a second time, a third, a fourth, and then was gone, lost in the rolls of rubber. Liss laughed helplessly as he flailed exaggeratedly and beat at the stuff, shoving it off only to have it flop back down and cover him again. “Help,” he said, poking his head out. He was halfway across the room by now. “I’m being swallowed!”

  “Stay right where you are.” She gingerly got to her feet and walked toward the doorway. The sticky rubber followed her, all but the corner that was pinned and the center where Kirk lay wrapped. “I’ll go and get some heavy things to put on the ends. Don’t move, or we’ll have to start all over again.”

  She was back in minutes, to find him where she had left him, holding one arm erect to protect himself from the loose corner she’d left, the other fending off the rest of the roll. Pushing the corner flap ahead of her with one hand and taking long strides, Liss flattened the pad out before her. Once it lay properly again, she set a can of pumpkin on it, then followed along toward the hammer, setting down other heavy cans as she went.

  “Okay,” she said, “while I get some more cans, you roll back to your end and I’ll get it pinned down, too.”

  Instead, he snaked out a hand and caught her ankle, stopping her in her tracks. “Hey,” he said. “I was heading over here for a reason, remember? You go back there and lie down again and wait for me.”

  She stared down at his hand. It was so large, it wrapped easily around her ankle. Slowly, he slid it up her calf as far as he could push the leg of her jeans. All the while his smoldering gaze was on her face, watching her reaction. “You have silky skin to go with your silky hair,” he said softly. “Come on down here with me. Lie beside me and we’ll roll over a time or two and no will ever know we’re in here. I bet you’re never been kissed inside a roll of carpet underlay.”

  Liss tried to be serious and failed utterly. The picture his words painted was too ridiculous. She laughed. “That’s a bet you’d win.”

  “Then why not try it?” He sat up quickly, thrusting aside the floppy rubber, and clasped her hand. He tugged until she fell half on top of him, half on top of the roll. “You might like it. Friends do things like this, you know.”

  She shook her head and tried to scramble away, but the waffle texture caught at her socks and her knees and her elbows, while Kirk caught her around the waist, holding her easily. Still laughing, she subsided as the underlay flopped over them several times, then settled down, cocooning them in a private, green-tinged world.

  He touched the scar on her chin as he gazed at her with sleepy, hooded eyes, his mouth only centimeters from hers and curved into a smile that snatched her breath away.

  Slowly she lifted a hand and curved it around his jaw, discovering hard, strong bones under his skin and the short stubble of his beard. Excitement skittered along her nerves as he clenched his teeth and drew in a sharp breath, obviously affected by her touch.

  “I’ve never had a friend like you before,” she said, her voice tremulous and throaty as she wavered on the brink of laughter.

  “And I’m feeling very . . . friendly, Liss.” His voice was husky and his breath brushed her cheek when he drew her even closer. “I was attracted to you the first time I saw you standing in front of your house, with your hair all wind tossed and your skirt blown tight against your backside and those ridiculous, high-heeled city girl shoes making your legs look like a million dollars.” He ran one hand down over her hip, defining the shape of her thigh. “And then you arrived here, and it got stronger. It hasn’t quit any since. Kiss me.”

  She didn’t say no.

  His first kiss was a mere brushing of his lips over hers. Even that tentative skimming touch sent her pulse rate into overdrive, and she shivered.
He closed his eyes and kissed her again, and this time she placed a hand on the back of his head, holding him to her. She parted her lips for him, admitting his tongue and meeting it with her own. When he drew back, her vision was blurred, but not so far gone that she couldn’t see the bemused, questioning gaze he turned on her.

  A smile curved his chiseled mouth. “You were right to recommend friendship. I really like your style.”

  “I . . . like yours, too,” she whispered, and suddenly what had started as a lighthearted game became deadly serious. Her heart pounded hard in her chest as Kirk’s smile faded and his eyes grew dark with desire. She clenched her hands in his shirtfront, trembling against him as he took her mouth in a deep, searching kiss. He must have found what he was looking for, because he made a soft, pleased sound in his throat. Tangling his hand in her hair, he tilted her head back and kissed her scar again, then her throat, her ears, her eyelids, before returning to her mouth.

  Liss tingled all over—from her palms, spread across his chest, to her legs, tangled with his; to her belly, where his hard arousal pressed.

  Even when the kisses stopped and they lay there enveloped in their small, secret world, breathing raggedly as they gazed into each other’s eyes, it took her several moments to be able to whisper, “Was this in your how-to book?”

  “There are no instruction books for what’s happening,” he said hoarsely. “You send me right out of control.”

  His words, the expression in his eyes, the tone of his voice, frightened her more than anything ever had in her entire life. Her heart raced. Her breathing grew labored. She put her hand on his chin and held him away. She didn’t like the idea of his being out of control, not when she was so close to being the same.

  “No, stop,” she said. “Let’s stick with being friends. The usual kind. Don’t, please,” she added when he tried to kiss her again. “Don’t play your seduction games with me! I’ve been out of circulation a long time. I don’t know the rules anymore.” Moreover, she’d never learned any rules that could help her with a man like this, one who showed and said so positively what he wanted, what he expected of her. One who would, and did, demand equal participation.

  He drew her hand to his lips and kissed her palm, then held it against his chest. “This is no seduction game, Liss,” he said tautly. “This is basic man-woman stuff and the rules haven’t changed any. You know them as well as I do, but if you want them spelled out for you, I’ll oblige. What we have here is more than a simple attraction I can walk away from. I don’t merely want a few kisses and some laughs. I want you.”

  Again, he’d shocked her by being blunt. This time, though, she refused to retreat. “No,” she said firmly.

  “No, what?” he asked quietly. “I haven’t asked for anything.” He paused. “Yet.”

  Liss shook her head to clear the dizziness, then reached up both arms to push the underlay back, giving her more light and air. The dizzy sensation remained. He hadn’t asked anything. He’d simply made a statement. He wanted her. His steady gaze had told her it was true even before he’d said the words. She tried to shift her body away from his, away from the other, more potent evidence.

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends, though, “ he said. “It means we have a much more important reason for being friends.”

  “Don’t,” she said, then cleared her throat and added with greater conviction. “Don’t want me, Kirk. I didn’t come here looking for anything like this.”

  He helped her hold the floppy rubber stuff back, his gaze never leaving her face. “I know that. I wasn’t expecting it either, but now that it’s happening, why should we deny it?”

  She wondered what he’d say if he knew that nothing remotely like this had happened to her before, that no man, not even her husband, had had the power to turn her to molten liquid inside the way he did. She wondered if he could tell that she wanted him just as much as he obviously wanted her. His eyes were dark, unreadable, and she had no idea what he was thinking, but then she stopped trying to figure it out because he was kissing her again with her full cooperation as the underlay enveloped them once more.

  Minutes later, she said, gasping for breath, “I don’t think friends should do things like this to each other.”

  “Of course they should,” he said, his voice a low growl. ‘When they want each other the way we do. “ And Lord, did he want her! Kirk thought. He wanted her now. He wanted her bad. He wanted her close. He slid his hand from her nape to her back, then her waist, pulling her in against him again. He saw from the glow in her eyes that she liked what she felt and had wants of her own, though they might be buried under her natural caution. He could understand that, knowing she’d been hurt, knowing it must be hard to trust again.

  “Believe me, Liss, I see how this complicates things, but there’s not a hell of a lot I could do about it if I wanted to, and I don’t want it to stop. Every time I see you, bang! there it is again. It isn’t something that’s going to go away, and whatever it is, we’d be a hell of a lot more comfortable discussing it in bed.”

  “No!” Liss shoved her hands against his chest, struggling not to succumb to the desire that urged her to listen to him, to give in to him, to her own needs. “Whatever it is, it will go away if we simply leave it alone, let it die a natural death. We have to share this house, but it doesn’t mean we have to share a bed. You have plenty of others you can get that from and—”

  “Dammit, I thought we’d disposed of that topic! What if I don’t want it from anybody else? What if you are—” He broke off, then went on, leaving her wondering what he’d been about to say.

  “ I knew before we even got to the lawyer’s office that this could happen if we had a chance to be together. Then, because I didn’t know what Brose’s will would mean to both of us, I tried to ignore it because I live here and you lived there. But now, Liss, we both live here. And we share these feelings. Why, then, shouldn’t we share a bed?”

  “Kirk . . . “ She bit her lip, reminding herself of what he’d said as they’d watched the sunset Monday afternoon. There were no women in his life at his invitation. Yet doubts still assailed her. “ I think we should at least try friendship first.”

  “We can,” he said. “We will. Friendship,” he whispered roughly, “and this.” She sighed and buried her hands in his hair, pulling his head down for her kiss.

  Chapter Six

  The waffle like underlay cushioned Liss’s back. Kirk’s hardness pressed boldly into her as he lifted himself over her, pinning her beneath his weight. The scent of new rubber filled the air, not quite overriding the scent of his skin. Liss knew she should move away, knew she should fight off the numbing desire that weakened her muscles, addled her brain, mesmerized her and kept her right where she was, her arms around his neck, her legs entwined with his. She wanted to deny that she felt as strongly as he did, but she couldn’t, not even to herself. Her heart hammered hard and heavily as she dragged her mouth free of his so she could explore the texture and taste of his throat. His voice, low, intense, spoke in her ear, asking, promising, praising. She ached with a terrible intensity for release of the coiling heat that his words, the feel of his body, the scent of his skin, had fired within her. He slid a hand slowly, sensuously from her back to her front, under her shirt, and cupped a breast in his palm. Her nipple sprang erect and she gasped, a sound he captured and contained within the depths of his kiss.

  She leaned into his kiss, wrapping her arms around his torso and opening her mouth at his insistent probing. He shifted sideways, undoing her bra and sliding her shirt up. Her entire body quivered at the touch of his fingers on her naked stomach, then her breast. When he captured the hard nipple between his fingers, tugging on it, she moaned; when he bent his head and took her in his mouth, she let her breath out in a silent sob. He reached down and took one of her knees, drawing her leg up, pulling her tight, tighter to his loins. As his hips thrust suggestively, she went hot all over and released a soft, agonized cry of yearn
ing and surrender.

  “Harrumph!”

  For a moment, neither Kirk nor Liss knew what the sound had been, what it meant, why it was intruding into the sensual heat of their desire. Then, when it was repeated, louder, Liss knew. With a choked gasp, she broke free of Kirk’s arms, pulled her shirt down, shoved the rolls of underlay back, scrambled to her feet. She stared in horror at Mrs. Healey, who stood in the doorway, hands on her ample hips, cane dangling from one fist.

  “Working hard, I see,” she said, pinning Liss under her cold gaze until Kirk, too, arose from the floor, pushing at the pad as it coiled and writhed around him.

  “The, uh, underlay wouldn’t lie down,” Liss said unnecessarily, then wished she hadn’t even tried to make excuses. Mrs. Healey simply poked her nose in the air and looked at her down it.

  “But you, of course, would?” she said with a sniff. “And with anybody, by the looks of it. Anywhere. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, young woman! A widow, a mother, participating in such disgusting, animalistic behavior! Have you no respect for your husband’s memory? No respect for the sensibilities of your innocent children, either of whom could have walked in at any moment? You—”

  “Now just one minute,” Liss said warningly, “my children are upst—”

  Mrs. Healey, however, once started, was not about to be silenced. “No! You wait just a minute, young lady! I’m not finished. Take my warning,” she went on, waving her cane at Liss. “I won’t tolerate any funny business between you two. Ambrose put me here as chaperone for a good reason. I’m a God-fearing, churchgoing woman, and as long as I live here, there’ll be no immoral conduct between you two or anyone else in this house.”