Weddings Collection. Кэрол Мортимер

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СКАЧАТЬ was a man, she thought, who didn’t do things by half measures. A man who believed in sticking to something until it was finished. A man who gave of himself.

      Abruptly June reined herself in before she could get too carried away. Her mother had probably felt the same way about her father. According to her grandmother, Wayne Yearling had had a golden tongue and could have charmed birds right out of their trees even with a cat strolling nearby. She’d heard her father had promised her mother the moon. Utterly enamored, Rose Hatcher had broken her engagement to the man she was about to marry and had run off with Wayne, only to return nine months later with a newborn in her arms and an unemployed husband at her side. Ursula had taken them in, then signed the papers to the deed that gave them title to the farm. A farm that her father had failed to make thrive.

      Kevin’s not promising you the moon, she told herself. He’s just being helpful.

      There was no comparison between Kevin and her father. Besides, Kevin was adding color to her house, not her life, she insisted silently. He wasn’t turning her head with compliments or empty words. If she felt special around him, well, it was nothing that he had set out to do, nothing he’d calculated on. After all, he had no way of knowing just how sexy he looked with white paint sprinkled along the dark hairs of his chest.

      She was getting carried away again, June admonished herself. She nodded at his latest handiwork. “You really don’t have to do this, you know.”

      He didn’t see it that way. He needed to keep busy. “Might as well do something productive while I’m here. Lily made it clear in no uncertain terms that she was going to handle her own wedding arrangements. Something about serving my head on a platter if I got in the way had been bandied about.” He grinned. His sister was a despot when it came to planning parties. Even the tea parties she’d held as a child had been carefully orchestrated. That should have been his first clue that he had not so benevolent a dictator on his hands. “I’m not even sure if Max is allowed to give her any input.”

      “I can’t see Max hanging around, waiting to be ‘allowed’ to do anything.” If Max was on the sidelines, it was because he wanted to be there. “My brother’s quiet, but he’s not the kind of man who lets himself be steamrolled over.” June tilted her head to the side, as if seeing him for the first time. Or at least exploring a new notion for the first time. “You kind of remind me of him. Except that you’re a lot handier than Max ever was.” Max didn’t know his way around cars beyond the basics and, as far as carpentry went, she wouldn’t have wanted to live in a house that he had single-handedly restored.

      “I remind everyone of their big brother,” Kevin told her.

      “I didn’t mean that.” June looked at him pointedly. “I don’t think of you as a big brother.”

      His eyes held hers. Desire raised its head. “You should.”

      There were only inches between them. She wanted there to be less. “Why?”

      He took the first step. And it was to back away. The moment evaporated. “Because otherwise you’ve got a half-naked man running around your property with a paintbrush. People’ll talk.”

      She laughed shortly. “People around here always talk. It’s their biggest hobby. Cable finally came in a couple of years ago, but it’s not all that reliable and besides—” she gestured around “—this is the longest running story in the area.”

      He thought she meant the farm. Which brought the circle back to her. “You?”

      She shook her head. “The town.” She thought about what people had said about her when she was younger. “I’m just the no-account’s youngest daughter.” Some hadn’t known what to make of her when she grew older and preferred motor oil to perfume. “The odd one who liked to tinker with engines instead of men.” She shrugged. “It’s a lot safer that way. For the most part, you can figure your way around an engine.” Humor curved her mouth, but only partially so as she looked at him. “Men now are a whole different story.”

      He combed the flecks of paint off his chest with his fingers, aware that she was watching his every move. In a moment of truth, he admitted something he didn’t generally talk about. “Funny, I always felt that way about women. Lot more mysteries there than what it take to make an engine purr.”

      His choice of words caught her attention. “You’ve tried your hand at making women purr?”

      He’d only meant it as an expression. “Not me. Until he got married, that was always Jimmy’s department. I wouldn’t know where to start.”

      She didn’t know whether he was being coy, or completely unaware of the effect he had on women. On her. “Seems to me, kissing would be a good place for you to start. The way you kiss, you could knock the socks off a barefoot woman.”

      “Really?” He looked at her quizzically.

      “Really,” she affirmed.

      “I had no idea that you were that experienced.”

      She shrugged loftily. “I’ve had my share.” It was a lie, but not one she’d admit readily. “Besides, you don’t have to live in a major city to know a skyscraper when you come across one.”

      He was flattered despite himself and laughed. “You’re something else again, June.”

      “Am I?” She was playing with fire and she knew it, but she couldn’t seem to shake herself loose of the heat that was taking hold of her. Drawing her in. “Just what else would you say I was?”

      A temptress. A temptress in blue jeans. He tore himself away from the thought and the pervading feeling it generated.

      “Well, under those baggy overalls and that shapeless work shirt, and that smudge on your nose—” he paused to wipe it away with his thumb “—is a beautiful woman just waiting to happen.”

      Because there were still traces of the smudge left, he wiped at it again, more slowly this time, and succeeded in arousing himself even more.

      He could feel his heart beating harder, far harder than when he’d been on the roof, in danger of sliding off and splitting his head open. There the danger had been one-sided. Here it came at him from many fronts.

      She cocked her head, her eyes never leaving his mouth. “Maybe I’ve already happened,” she said softly.

      “Maybe,” he agreed, just before he brought his lips down to hers.

      And very nearly sealed both their fates.

      Like the numbers on the Richter scale, which increased by a thousandfold with each numeric elevation, each kiss seemed to be a thousandfold more potent, more powerful than its predecessor. He felt as if his very world was being rocked.

      And in a way it was, because he began entertaining thoughts on a regular basis that would have had no place in his life a few months ago.

      That shouldn’t have a place in his life now, not when it came to June.

      With a few more years between them, she could have easily been his daughter. He wasn’t supposed to be having sexual thoughts about someone like that. What the hell was wrong with him?

      Putting his hands on her shoulders, Kevin physically moved her back СКАЧАТЬ