Page 10

J auntily whistling “Under my Thumb,” Ginny wrapped her thumb around her trowel and stabbed it at the base of a particularly stubborn dandelion. She was just about to yank it out when she was hit with a yawn so massive she had no choice but to rock back on her haunches in the grass and let it pass.

The ear plugs Grant had gotten for her from the stunt guys at the movie studio had been surprisingly effective for dealing with the blasting speakers, but sleeping with them in had felt weird.

She very much looked forward to a quiet, ear-plug free sleep, and was happy to see the sun beginning to lower in the sky.

But first, she needed to get “weed the front beds” crossed off her to-do list.

She’d just renewed her grip on the trowel and aimed it toward the dandelion when a wave of dirt spattered the side of her face.

“Mick, stop that digging. A Shasta daisy is not a weed!” With a gentle but firm push, she moved the dog out of the flower bed, only to have Angie waddle in and plop down on top of the baby Hosta she just divided off from its parent plant, smashing it. “Angie!”

Getting up, she fished in her jeans pocket for three dog treats. She waved them in front of her new friends’ ever-sniffing noses as she led them toward the gate that opened into their yard.

“You’re very sweet,” she said as she closed them in, “but don’t ever start a landscaping business.”

She’d just knelt back down and taken up her trowel for the third time when a black Ford 150 pulled up to her house.

Now what? Sighing with fatigue and frustration at the latest interruption, she set the trowel down and stood, dusting her shins and hands in the process.

She walked toward the street, remembering with fond annoyance how quiet and peaceful her home was before Nico showed up, threatening to ruin her life.

As she neared the truck, the driver’s side door began to open. From the depths of the cab came a deep male voice she recognized only too well. “Good evening.”

She intended not to give him so much as a glance, but she couldn’t help a quick once-over as he got out of the vehicle.

He looked like a completely different person in acid-washed jeans, a slate-grey, long-sleeved cotton tee, and some type of faded work boots.

The tee struggled just the right amount to cover his chest and upper arms, and the jeans were loose everywhere but his narrow hips—just the way she liked them.

Still, she reminded herself without much difficulty, he was the exact same disagreeable person in casual clothes as he was strutting about in a fitted Armani. She gave a dismissive wave as she headed back toward the house. “Bye.”

“I'm here to apologize and do you a favor,” he said in a rush.

Her stride didn't change. “Riiiiight.”

He called after her. “I shouldn’t have done all that with the dogs and the music. I was acting like a bully.”

This admission was sufficient to get Ginny to stop and look at him, if only to let him know he hadn’t quite hit the mark. “You are a bully.”

“I'm not, really, not under ordinary circumstances. But I let my emotions get the better of me this time, and I'm sorry.”

“Whatever. Fine. Feel better about yourself. Bye.”

He rushed on as she resumed her steps. “I wanted to let you know that I won’t be getting the electrical wires fixed, and also, I’m taking the dogs off your hands.”

Ginny sucked back into her lungs the breath she’d just released.

Imagining Mick, Jack, and Angie disappearing forever made her already tired head go even fuzzier with anxiety.

Sure, she’d only had them a few days, but the four of them had bonded.

They were part of her life now. She turned back around. “Take the dogs?”

Yep,” he said, sounding as if he expected praise for accomplishing some admirable feat. “I’ve been on the phone all morning, and you’ll be happy to know I found three great rescues. They’ll be split up, but they’ll be well taken care of the rest of their days.”

She looked over at the dogs, all three of whom had squished themselves against the section of fence nearest her. They jostled and snorted at each other as their tails wagged in hope-filled unison that she would soon pay them some attention. Split up? “But I’m taking care of them.”

“By city code, they can’t stay on an empty lot. There needs to be a house and a proper owner.”

“But that’s what I'm saying—I have a house and I’ll be their owner.

” She wished she hadn’t just put the dogs inside the fence.

She’d rather he’d found them the way they usually were now—right beside her.

By day, they mostly stayed outside, but at night they retreated to their self-appointed places on the living room rug and snored like mountain trolls.

“It’s a matter of opinion as to whether you even have a h?—”

“Whatever,” she said, cutting him off before he could say the word ‘house.’ Getting into another useless fight about the property wasn’t going to help her hold onto her three new friends. “I’m saying, I’ll be their owner.”

“Well…”

She cocked her head at him, eyebrows raised and mouth taut. “This is your chance to prove you’re not a bully.”

“How about we make a trade?”

Ginny rolled her eyes, sensing his game. “Do not say for the house.”

“No, no. I'm not that big of an idiot. But how about a chat? Just to get to know each other a little bit?”

“Nothing you can say would make a difference.”

“Probably not, but I’m a businessman, and doing business means understanding where the other person is coming from. So…I was wondering about…dinner?”

She shook her head in disbelief. “You really think the offer of a meal will trick me into leaving my property so that you can send some goons in here to claim it?”

“Actually,” he said, lifting and lowering his shoulders in a sheepish, embarrassed sort of shrug that looked disturbingly boyish and attractive on him. “I kind of brought dinner?”

“Brought it?” That struck Ginny as presumptuous, but then, Nico was nothing if not presumptuous. Still, his shrug had been so endearing, she’d almost said yes without thinking. Fortunately, she understood his true motive in all of this. “You’re not welcome inside my house either.”

He rocked back slightly on his heels. “Yeah, I figured that too. That’s why I brought an outside dinner.

” He pointed back toward the truck. “There’s a portable fire pit and…

” Ginny hadn’t noticed, but all this time he’d been hiding his left hand behind his back.

He pulled it out now to reveal a pack of veggie hot dogs. “…I’ve got these.”

Despite her complete mistrust of the man, Ginny laughed. She’d offered to tame him with veggie dogs, and here he was offering to tame himself with them.

At the sight of their favorite treat, the dogs abandoned Ginny and ran toward the spot of fence nearest Nico, where they began a chorus of hopeful barking.

Nico smiled at them as he shifted the pack of veggie dogs in his hand to reveal a second full pack behind the first. “Don’t worry.

I didn’t forget you guys,” he said, walking over and patting their bobbing heads from over the fence.

The move forced Ginny to appreciate not only his interest in the dogs, but the sexy, ambling way his hips shifted when he walked.

“Hold up,” Ginny said as she closed the distance between them. “This was your plan all along, wasn’t it? To scare me into thinking you were going to take the dogs unless I agreed to dinner? Is tricking people how you do business? Do I have a flashing neon sign over my head that says ‘Sucker’?”

He squeezed his eyes into a grimace like a little kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

“I figured you wanted to keep them, but I really did line up some rescue options in case you didn’t.

Either way, I wanted to make sure they ended up better off than when I found them.

” When she said nothing, he stopped petting Mick and swiveled to face her.

“Look, I just think it makes sense for us to at least talk about this situation. You don’t really know where I’m coming from, and I certainly don't know where you’re coming from. What can it hurt?”

She’d never stood this close to his chiseled jaw and genial smile before, and she suddenly wished she had a ladder to climb and a shutter to paint.

Keeping her gaze trained on the canines, whose own eyes hadn’t left the veggie dogs since the moment they’d materialized in Nico’s hand, she thought about his offer.

There didn’t seem to be a good reason to refuse, especially given how nice he was being.

And he had apologized. Since she was home, she could end the dinner at any moment by simply going inside.

“Well, I’ve got plenty of frozen meals, but I am fresh out of veggie dogs.

” She spoke to her furry friends. “What do you say, guys? Quick cook-out with the Evil Real Estate Baron?” They whimpered in agreement.

She turned to Nico. “We consent to one speedy and fully outdoor dinner.”

“Deal,” he said, and offered his hand.

Ginny placed her slim, dirt-coated hand into his large, clean, warm one, and they shook on it.

She’d intended to return his grip with extra firmness.

Being a house cleaning DIY’er was basically like working out all day every day.

He wouldn’t be the first man surprised to find his fingers crushed by the hand of such a petite woman.

But looking up at him, she suddenly became aware that his brown eyes were shot generously with gray, and that he smelled like a productive afternoon in the boardroom followed by an evening walk on the beach.

Her uncooperative fingers went so limp he must have thought he was shaking hands with cooked spaghetti.

“Didn’t want to get dirt on you,” she said, yanking her hand away and wiping it on her shirt as a way of covering her embarrassment.

“No worries,” he said, and his smile seemed genuine, even relieved. He took a few steps backward toward the truck. “It’s going to take me a few minutes to get things set up, so feel free to do whatever you were doing before I got here. I’ll let you know when things are ready.”

“Do we need anything from the kitchen?”

“I think I’ve got it all.”

After Ginny pulled the dandelion, put away her gardening tools, and gave her hands and face a quick wash at the kitchen sink, she heard Nico yell a cheery, “Ready!” from the front yard.

To avoid giving him the slightest impression that she had any desire to look nice for him, she remained in her dirty jeans and worn white T-shirt.

Its neck was so stretched out it would have fit a walrus.

But the March evening was forecast to hit a low in the mid-fifties and, with the sun heading down, it was already growing chilly.

A cardigan she’d recently picked up at a Goodwill lay drooped over the back of a kitchen chair.

Oversized and fuzzy, it’s gloriously hideous combination of army green, grey, and pumpkin orange stripes was sure to un-impress him.

She slipped it on as she headed out the door.

Near the end of the narrow front walk, Nico had set up the portable fire pit. One of those pre-made fire logs was already crackling and giving off a pleasant glow.

He jabbed at the log with a metal poker but looked up as she neared him. “Hi! Pick whichever seat you like.”

On either side of the walk, two bright white, plastic garden chairs squatted in the grass, facing the fire and the street.

A small, low table sat between them. The chairs were identical, but she didn’t care to sit in either one of them.

With only the narrow sidewalk between them, they were simply too close together.

She needed to keep her wits about her around this guy.

Exhausted from several days of poor sleep, she could only imagine what breathing in his cologne all evening might do to the linearity of her thinking.

Fortunately, the solution was easy. She grabbed the righthand chair and dragged it a couple feet further to the right.

Glancing up, she noticed Nico frowning. What did it matter to him where she sat? Did he need to control that, too? Did he know his proximity was influencing her and he planned to use that to take her house from her?

“Uh, that’s probably not the best idea,” he said.

She started to lower herself into the repositioned chair. “I think it’s a great idea.”

“Okay, but—” he began, but was interrupted by her screech.

The moment her rear end hit the plastic, the back legs of the chair started sinking into the ground. Ginny toppled backwards in slow motion, arms circling for a stabilizing purchase that didn’t exist.

Mere millimeters before the back of her head was rudely introduced to the lawn, her downward acceleration came to an abrupt halt.

Nico had managed to race behind her and grab hold of the back of the chair with both hands.

Flat on her back and with her knees aimed toward the Big Dipper, the sensation was simultaneously awkward and soothing, as if she were being rocked in a comfortable—but somewhat compromising—cradle.

She didn't focus on that sensation for very long, though, as her attention was immediately absorbed by Nico’s face, now hovering directly over hers.

Her upside-down vantage was especially useful for appreciating his rock-hewn jaw, which contrasted nicely with his pillow-soft lips.

It also was not lost on her that the flickering firelight was creating coppery highlights in the dark brown locks curling over the edges of his ears.

And despite her best efforts to distance herself from his enticing scent, she now had no choice but to breathe him into her gasping lungs.

“I’ve got you,” he said as their gazes held.