The Mackades Collection (Books 1-4). Nora Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ had a talent for putting something together.”

      “It’s more than that. It’s bringing something to life. You must be proud.”

      He was, he realized, moved, and just a little embarrassed. “It’s a job. Hammer and nails and a good eye.”

      She angled her head, and he watched the sun beam through the window and glow golden on her hair. His mouth watered, then went bone dry.

      “You’re the last man I’d expect to be modest about anything. You must have killed yourself to get so much accomplished in so little time.”

      “It was mostly cosmetic in here.”

      “You’ve done something,” she murmured, and looked around, turning a slow, graceful circle. “You’ve really done something.”

      Before he could comment, she was on her hands and knees, running her hands over the floor.

      “It’s like glass.” She all but crooned over the golden planks. “Oh, look at the grain in this wood! What did you use? How many coats?” When he didn’t answer, she tossed her head and sat back on her heels. The dazzled smile faded when he only stared at her. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

      “Stand up.”

      His voice was raw. As she rose to her feet, he kept his distance. He didn’t dare touch her now. If he did, he’d simply never be able to stop.

      “You look right in here. You should see yourself, how right you look. You’re as polished and perfect as this room. I want you so much I can’t see anything else but you.”

      Her heart did a long, unsteady cartwheel in her chest. “You’re going to make me stutter again, Rafe.” She had to make a conscious effort to pump air in and out of her lungs.

      “How long are you going to make me wait?” he demanded. “We’re not kids. We know what we feel and what we want.”

      “That’s exactly the point. We’re not kids, and we should be adult enough to be sensible.”

      “Sensible’s for old lady’s shoes. Sex may have to be responsible, but it sure as hell doesn’t have to be sensible.”

      The thought of wicked, completely insensible sex with him numbed every nerve ending in her body. “I don’t know how to handle you. I don’t know how to handle the way you make me feel. I’m usually good at handling things. I guess we need to talk about this.”

      “I guess you need to. I just said what I needed to say.” Unbelievably frustrated, irrationally angry at his own helpless response to her, he turned to the window. “Your truck’s here. I’ve got work upstairs. Put the stuff wherever the hell you want it.”

      “Rafe—”

      He stopped her, froze her before her hand could reach his arm. “You wouldn’t want to touch me right now.” His voice was quiet, very controlled. “It’d be a mistake. You don’t like to make them.”

      “That’s not fair.”

      “What the hell makes you think I’m fair?” His eyes slashed her to ribbons. “Ask anybody who knows me. Your check’s on the mantel.”

      With her own temper sizzling, she stomped into the hall after him. “MacKade.”

      He stopped on the steps, turned back. “Yeah?”

      “I’m not interested in what anyone else thinks or says. If I were, you’d never have gotten within three feet of me.”

      She glanced up as an interested laborer poked his head into the stairway. “Beat it,” she snapped, and had Rafe’s lips twitching reluctantly. “I make up my own mind, in my own time,” she continued and turned on her heel to open the front door for the movers. “You ask anybody.”

      When she looked back, he was gone, like one of his ghosts.

      Nearly blew it, Rafe thought later. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d reacted that way. Anger and demands weren’t his usual style with women. Maybe that, he mused as he troweled drywall compound on a seam, was the problem.

      Women had always come easily.

      He liked them, always had. The way they looked, thought, smelled, spoke. Soft, warm, fragrant, they were one of the more interesting aspects of life. Frowning, he slapped on more compound, smoothed it.

      Women were important. He enjoyed cultivating them, the companionship they offered. And the sex, he acknowledged with a thin smile, he enjoyed that, too.

      Hell, he was human.

      Houses were important, he reflected, coating another seam of drywall. Repairing them was satisfying, using your own hands and sweat to turn them into something that lasted. And the money that came from the end result was satisfying, too.

      A man had to eat.

      But there’d never been a single house that was specifically important, as this one had come to be.

      And there’d never been a single woman who was specifically important, as Regan had now become.

      And he calculated that she would slice him into dog meat if she knew he was comparing her to stone and wood.

      He doubted she would understand that it was the first time in his life he’d ever focused on something, and someone, so entirely.

      The house had haunted him for a lifetime. He hadn’t set eyes on her a month before. Yet they were both in his blood. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he told her that he couldn’t see anything but her. She was haunting him, just as the restless ghosts haunted these rooms and hallways.

      Seeing her there that morning had turned him on his head, set his hormones raging, and he’d fumbled. He supposed he could make up ground. But this was the first time he could remember being tackled by emotion—emotion double-teamed with desire—and he wasn’t at all sure of his moves.

      Back off, MacKade, he told himself, and scooped more compound out of the bucket. She wants room, give her room. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have time—or as though she were some sort of life-altering encounter. Maybe she was unique, maybe she was more intriguing than he’d counted on. But she was still just a woman.

      He heard the weeping, felt the stir of chilled air. With barely a hesitation, he leveled his seam.

      “Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” he muttered. “You might as well get used to company, ’cause I’m not going anywhere.”

      A door slammed. It amused him now, these endless little dramas. Footsteps and creaks, whispers and weeping. It was almost as though he were part of it all. A caretaker, he decided. Making the house livable for those who could never leave.

      He thought it was too bad none of the permanent residents ever made an appearance. It would be quite an experience to see, as well as hear. An involuntary shudder worked up his back, as if fingers had trailed along his spine.

      And feel, he thought.

      Footsteps echoed down the hall outside СКАЧАТЬ