His frown morphed to a scowl as he eyed the pasta like she’d laced it with strychnine. “Why?”

Suzanne kept smiling. “Because we’re neighbors, because we’re a long way from anywhere, and because it’s the festive season.”

He shifted warily, and Suzanne’s gaze dropped to his feet, bare against the wooden boards, and her belly did a cartwheel. Why she found his feet sexy—apart from their obvious size—she had no idea. Basically, this man and her body’s response to him were a complete and utter mystery.

She was blaming long-term exposure to paint thinners.

“I thought we’d agreed you were going to stay over there, and I was going to stay over here?”

“It’s the festive season,” Suzanne repeated, resisting the urge to grit her teeth again.

Grady pointed to his face. “Does this look like a face that gives a rat’s ass about that?”

Nope, it did not. His face was not lit with the festive spirit. Burl had said this was a tough time of year for Grady, and there was that shrapnel wound. Had something tragic happened when he’d been on tour one Christmas?

Whatever his problem with the season, Suzanne realized as he stood stubbornly in his doorway making no move to admit her, she was going to have to give him an acceptable reason for him to admit her, because neighborly wasn’t going to work.

“I have a…proposal I think you’ll be interested in.”

His eyebrows rose fleetingly before he was frowning again. “I already told you, I’m not in the market for a wife. Or a bed warmer.”

The outrage she’d felt that first day they’d met surged again, heating her blood. The man really had an ego the size of Colorado. “It’s not that kind of proposal. Nor is it a proposition.”

He folded his arms like she was trying his patience, but it didn’t stop the funny hitch in her breath as the T-shirt stretched very nicely across his biceps. “Fine…why don’t you enlighten me?”

Suzanne looked over his shoulder, where she could see high ceiling beams and the flicker of a flame in a fireplace. It looked cozy and inviting. Shame Rancher Surly was guarding it. “Could we maybe talk inside like two reasonable adults?”

“Nope.”

She bugged her eyes at him. Jesus, he really didn’t quit, did he? “You like being a hard-ass?” The fact that he was going to make her state her business while freezing her butt off on his doorstep was not endearing her to him.

A nerve ticked in his jaw. “What do you want, Suzanne?” His voice was hard, but there was a degree of weariness to it. Or maybe that was exasperation.

“I need a favor.” She cleared her throat.

“No.”

He went to shut the door, but Suzanne stopped it with her hand holding the wine bottle. For crying out loud, anyone would think she was about to ask him for a kidney.

“Please,” she said as their eyes met and locked, his the stormy green of an approaching tornado. “If you help me, I’ll hand over the paintings.”