“He doesn’t sleep in the house,” she protested.

“That’s not what I mean. Did you do a background check?”

She put her hands on her hips and stared up at him. “I’ll get my attorneys right on it, after they settle the claim for damages to my new yacht.”

He thought for a minute and then he chuckled. “You’re unpredictable,” he said. “Just when I think I’ve got you pegged, you do something out of character.”

“It’s part of my deadly charm,” she said without smiling.

He cocked his head and looked down at her. “Speaking of deadly charm,” he said with a bite in his deep voice,” how did the date with McGuire go?”

“How did yours with the widow go?” she shot right back.

He lifted an eyebrow. He smiled, very slowly. “How do you think it went?” he asked in a slow drawl with a world of sensual knowledge in his pale brown eyes.

Mina’s high cheekbones colored, and she dragged her gaze down to his chest. Another mistake, because it was broad and masculine and there was thick, dark hair peeking out of the top of his shirt, where it was unbuttoned down to his collarbone.

He frowned. She was so unlike women he’d known. She kept to herself. Bart had mentioned that she really didn’t date anybody. She stayed home. He recalled what he knew of her childhood, her trauma with her mother’s lovers. Intimacy would be difficult for a woman who’d been through what she had. An indifferent or selfish partner would destroy what little self-esteem she had left.

An innocent, he thought, his mind whirling with odd, unacceptable ideas. She wasn’t beautiful. But that hair, that exquisite hair hanging like a brownish-blond flag at her back, those pert little breasts that were visible under the sweater she wore, her sweetly curving hips. He felt his body responding to those images and he fought to keep it under control.

“WHERE DID YOU get apples in March?” she asked when the silence became too full of tension.

“There’s a whole food market that just opened in Catelow,” he said, his voice sounding oddly strained. “Bart went shopping. He likes organic.”

“Me, too.” She’d heard about the market. She’d have to check it out. She turned and looked at the pretty red apples in their small barrel. “These are nice,” she said.

He came up behind her. Close. Too close. She could feel the heat of his tall body, smell the faint cologne that clung to him.

She was breathing oddly. Her heart began to race. She was nervous and couldn’t hide it. She’d never had such a reaction to a man. He was a rounder, they said. Would he know?

Of course he knew. He could almost feel her heart beat. She smelled of wildflowers and flour. Without realizing why, his big, lean hands slid around her waist and pulled her back into his body.

“How long does it take, to make a piecrust like those?” he asked, for something to say.