Noah raised his fist ready to knock and then shoved it back in his pocket. He walked away, shaking his head. He was an idiot. And in this case, he didn’t know exactly what idiotic thing he’d done or said, but it had been enough to get Cat to stop flirting with him and become desperate to get away from him.

He paced back to the trailer door. He could hear the TV on inside. Or was that voices? Maybe she had someone in there with her. Maybe she had a boyfriend, and he’d been misreading everything since Day One… or whatever day he’d decided he wasn’t going to keep fighting this attraction to her.

Maybe it wasn’t a boyfriend. Maybe it was a hookup.

Oh, god. He paced to the back of the trailer. Was he coming here for a hookup? Or was this something more? Why would Cat be up for something more? She had a life in New York. She had a TV show. A glamorous, busy schedule that didn’t leave room for a torrid, long-distance affair with a boring Connecticut city manager or being a stepmother to a 12-year-old.

Noah tripped over a cable running beneath two trailers. Well that had mentally escalated quickly. He rubbed the back of his neck. He went from thinking about having sex with Cat to thinking about having a life with Cat.

See? His inner conscience blared at him. He wasn’t cut out for flings or one-night stands. He was a boring, monogamous guy who just wanted to settle down and build a boring, stable, predictable life around himself.

Definitely an idiot. He needed to leave. Thank God he hadn’t humiliated himself by knocking. Noah wasn’t exactly sure what he’d planned to do once she’d answered. Demand to know why she got weird at the dinner? Start taking his clothes off in hopes that she’d follow his lead? Break into a dissertation on all the reasons they would be better off not having sex?

He hated that he went stone hard the second he thought “sex” and “Cat” in the same sentence. He was no better than a teenager.

Yeah, he was going home to take a cold shower and let this thing die a natural, uncomplicated death.

“You’re wearing a ditch in the asphalt.” Cat’s calm observation came from where she leaned against the doorway of her trailer.

“Oh, I was just uh…” What? Inspecting the parking lot? Looking for permits?

“You might as well come in, Noah, before you freeze to death trying to come up with a lie.”