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This second building was far newer than the first, built of sturdy cinder block. At first she thought it was a garage, but there was no bay for a truck.
Climbing from her car, she started to follow the driveway back to the modest front door of the trailer, but the high whining sound of some kind of machine caught her attention. She cocked her head to listen. The sound was coming from the cinder block structure, so she started in that direction.
A poured cement rectangle served as a porch. Chloe stepped onto it and peered through the dusty panes of glass, but she couldn’t see anyone. Lifting a hand, she rapped sharply on the door with her knuckles.
The whining motor stopped abruptly. Footsteps clomped across the floor, and the door was yanked open.
Thad was framed in the doorway. Despite the brisk April breeze outside, he was shirtless again. When he caught sight of her standing on the doorstep, his eyebrows rose in surprise. “Well, look what the breeze blew in. What brings you out this way?”
The warn greeting she had planned died in her throat. “I...I, uh, wanted to thank you for getting me out of the church.” She tried a smile.
“No big deal.” He grabbed a sweatshirt from the back of a nearby chair and pulled it over his head, shoving his arms through the cut-off sleeves and pulling it as far down his broad chest as it would go. “I’ve already been thanked. There was no need for you to drive all the way out here.”
Confusion at his attitude and a depth of hurt that she wouldn’t acknowledge cut into her. But she had driven out here, and she was determined to have her say.
“I don’t believe many people would have gone back into the church after me. You saved my life, and I’m here in person to thank you because I wanted to, not because I needed to.” Her gaze dropped to the ground, and she swept the toe of one polished pump restlessly across the concrete, sweeping away minute specks of mud. “You have no idea how many people have come into my office to tell me how proud they are that I managed to save so many files and records. They all tell me that was quick thinking, but the truth is, I was an idiot, staying in that building so long.”
Thad was silent, and when she finally looked up at him, a half smile flirted at one corner of his mouth. “I’d have to agree with that.”
Chloe smiled back, a bubble of happiness welling up inside her. “I still can’t believe I did that.”
“I can’t believe you did, either. I won’t repeat the words I said to myself while I was running back inside after you.”
She giggled. “I bet the sight of you hauling me out of there was pretty funny.”
Thad smiled with her. “I was too busy to notice if anyone was laughing.” Then he nodded, as if in approval. “I’m sure that quick thinking you’re so determined not to take credit for saved the church a tremendous amount of trouble. Just think what it would have been like to have to try to piece together all those records.”
She shuddered in mock dread. “That was all I could think of. I learned early to be practical. It isn’t a habit that goes away.”
He straightened away from the door frame and stepped outside with her. The stoop immediately seemed too small and crowded, though she moved to one side to give him space. Thad took a deep breath of the moist spring air and loudly exhaled it. “Ah, this is great. I needed a break.” Then he turned to pin her with a penetrating gaze again. “Why did you learn to be practical early? And what’s ‘early’ mean?”
Chloe shook her head, fondly recalling her childhood. “My father spent most of his life with his head in the clouds. Somebody had to be practical.”
“How about your mother? Didn’t she fill the bill?”
“My mother died when I was nine. Daddy wasn’t cut out for running a household, especially one with a child. He had a hard time remembering essential details like grocery shopping and paying bills. I think he simply had too many other thoughts in his head.”
“Being a pastor doesn’t leave room for parenting?” Thad appeared to be genuinely curious rather than critical.
“Daddy takes good care of those who need him in our congregation, even when they don’t realize they need him. I was part of his team, rather than one of his responsibilities, and I liked it that way.”
Thad had sobered at her last words. Now he looked away from her, squinting at the bright light dappling the woods beyond his garden. “Part of his team...that sounds cozy. My childhood was more of a solo flight.”
How did one respond to that? Chloe paused, searching for the right thing to say. But there was no right thing. The gossip she’d heard about him sprang into her head, that he’d run wild as a child, that his mother had entertained men on a regular basis, which was the church folks’ way of saying she slept around. Chloe stood in tongue-tied silence, and after a moment he glanced back at her, his expression mocking.
“Sorry if my upbringing offends your Christian sensibilities. Unfortunately, everybody doesn’t live by your high standards.”
“I’m not offended.” She felt color springing to her cheeks. “I was merely weighing my words. You have this prickly attitude that makes me afraid I’ll offend you. I was thinking that flying solo is a really tough way to grow up.”
“It is.” Thad exhaled, absently running a hand over his chest, but he didn’t volunteer anything more. “Sorry. I guess I’m a little defensive.”
A little? She almost laughed aloud. Thad waved his indifference to people’s opinion in their faces like a matador challenging a bull. But since he’d just apologized, she supposed it wasn’t the time to tell him so.
“So what are you working on now that you don’t have to remodel the church?” Perhaps a change of subject was for the best.
He glanced behind him into his wood shop. “I have several other things lined up to start on, but today I was just hacking around with some different techniques.” He grimaced. “I don’t imagine the church will want me to finish that job now.” He chuckled, inviting her to laugh with him.
It was good to see him lighthearted. She chuckled, too, but after a moment the laughter died away and she was left replaying those frantic, fearful moments when she’d thought they weren’t going to make it out of the church in time. Thad was holding her gaze with his. His face sobered, and she knew he was sharing the memories.
“Thank you,” she whispered as her lower lip began to tremble. If he hadn’t come after her, she wouldn’t be here now, feeling the heat from his body—
“Don’t think about it.” Thad raised one hand and covered her mouth with his palm, pressing firmly for a moment. “We made it. That’s all that counts.” Then he dropped his hand, reaching for her palm and lacing his fingers through hers.
She stared at their joined hands. His curled around her fingers, almost hiding them. His skin was hot and dry, the palm tough from the work he did. The very center was wet where it had pressed against her lips, and a strange sensation tickled the pit of her stomach as a mental image of those lips sliding onto hers slipped into her head.
“So. Did you drive out here just to thank me, or do you have something else to do in the area?” Thad was speaking to her but he wasn’t looking at her eyes. Instead, his gaze was fixed on her lips. Sensation magnified. She was conscious of her breath rushing in and out over those lips, of a quivering excitement in the muscles of her stomach. Belatedly she remembered that she had come only to thank him, that her father would be expecting her for dinner any moment.
“I have to leave.” Her voice sounded strange to her, low and strangled, but he must not have noticed. He stepped off the stoop, her hand still firmly gripped in his, and led her toward her car.
In her mind she could still feel the rough, warm press of his palm across her lips. She’d wanted desperately to lick them, to taste him so she could carry the taste with her when she left. But a combination of shyness and common sense had held her back, and she knew she would have been asking for trouble.
And of course, the last thing she wanted was trouble. Thad Shippen was trouble with a capital T and if she had any sense she’d get out of here right now. She’d done her duty and proffered her thanks. Her obligation was ended.
Too bad her fascination wasn’t.
When Thad stopped beside the driver’s door of her car she looked around, surprised. She wasn’t entirely sure how she’d gotten here, but she had the awful suspicion that she might have floated. All she could think about was the way his hand cradled her much smaller one; the rough, callused warmth of his fingers where they were linked with hers; the way that hand and its mate would feel exploring her smooth, sensitive skin.
She couldn’t look at Thad, afraid he might read her thoughts. Then her flustered senses jangled a warning, and she did glance up at him. He was smiling down at her as he lifted her hand to his lips. His lips. She was riveted by the sight of those chiseled male lips forming a kiss. Then he lightly pressed his mouth to the very tip of her middle finger. She wanted to jerk away—no, she wanted him to keep touching her like that. Never in her life had she been around a man who drew her as this man did. As she stared at him, she felt her heartbeat speed up. The tip of his tongue whisked across her fingertip, moistening the pad, and her breath caught in her throat, then rushed out on a sigh. Her knees felt weak. At the apex of her thighs, a warm throbbing awoke. She longed to press her body against his and...and what, Chloe?
Thad raised his other hand and gently lifted her chin with his index finger. She raised her eyes to his and found in them an answer to her longing.
“Would you like to stay for a while?” His voice was a low growl that made her toes curl inside her shoes.
She knew what he meant, and she knew that she shouldn’t be giving this man the impression that she was the kind of girl who would—would stay. She shook her head. “I can’t.”
Thad smiled as if he’d expected her answer. “Then you’d better get out of here while you still have a choice, sweet thing.” He dropped his hands away from her and stepped back, hooking his thumbs in the back pockets of his jeans.
Chloe stood dumbly for a minute, then mentally shook herself and reached for the handle of her car door. She wasn’t interested in a fling with Thad Shippen. There was a big difference between thinking someone was attractive and deciding to engage in premarital se—oh, my goodness! Chloe’s eyes widened. Her gaze had wandered down his body involuntarily until it reached the faded blue jeans that fit him like a second skin. The bulge distending the zipper shocked her silly, leaving no doubt in her mind what he was thinking. Her gaze flew back to his face and she could see the smirk beginning.
“Like what you see?” Thad was openly laughing now.
Hastily she yanked open the door and slid into her car, slipping it into gear and reversing out of his driveway. As she drove away, she tried to work up outrage, anger, disgust...but all she could think was that if he had taken her inside that trailer she’d be learning right now what would assuage this anxious yearning within her.
Three
Every time he came through town the following week, she was in his way. He couldn’t avoid her if he tried.
At least, that’s what he told himself as he drove at a snail’s pace past the storefront on Main Street where the church had set up a temporary office in the donated space. He tapped his brake, slowing a little more. She’d been seated at her desk all morning, intent on some sheaf of papers. Sure would be nice if she’d get up and sashay over to the filing cabinet so he could watch her.
The guy behind him honked his horn impatiently, and at the sound of the horn blaring, Chloe glanced up from what she was doing at the desk that looked out toward the street.
Quickly he slouched down in the rental truck, turning his face away. He hoped she hadn’t seen him. She was liable to think he was watching her or something. It wasn’t his fault that he’d had to make four trips to the hardware store this morning. And it sure wasn’t his fault that the hardware store was two doors down from where she was working.
No, he didn’t want her to get the wrong impression. He found her attractive, but she wasn’t his type. No, his type wasn’t afraid to show off feminine charms. He liked women with bold eyes and tight clothes, women who knew the score and the rules of the game. Jean had been the only exception to that, and she’d fooled him when he’d first met her...a nice girl posing as a party babe.
Still, he’d been interested when he first laid eyes on Chloe through that window at the old church. Very interested. She’d been watching him, and when she’d seen him looking back, she’d become all flustered and turned five shades of pretty pink.
Pretty. It was a good word for her. Chloe was pretty in an old-fashioned, quietly elegant, peaches-and-cream way that was rarely seen anymore, a ladylike prettiness that was distinctly less than fashionable in today’s world of carefully rumpled, clumpy-shoes-and-shapeless-clothes glamour. If there was one thing Thad knew about, it was women. Courtesy of his mother, he’d been raised around women who spent big bucks and long hours trying to achieve beauty.
He could spot mascara at fifty yards and knew exactly how much time and mousse it took to create a headful of tousled curls that invited a man to dream about what they’d look like spilled across a pillow while he ravished their owner. He knew what a petite size in women’s clothing was and if a perfume was musk or floral based, whether nail polish was frosted or crème and when a woman was wearing a push-up bra to help enhance what Mother Nature had skimped on.
Mother Nature hadn’t skimped on Chloe, he remembered. Beneath those modestly buttoned blouses she wore with her prim suits was the figure of a goddess. The day she’d come to see him, she’d left her suit jacket in the car. He’d been so distracted by the firm mounds beneath the ivory silk of her short-sleeved blouse, he’d barely heard half of what she’d said.
For a few insane moments, he’d actually contemplated asking her out. But a few minutes into that fantasy, he’d come to his senses. Chloe was a sweet, sheltered, minister’s daughter. And not just any minister, either, but the one who had conducted his wife’s funeral service. She also was modest and courteous and kind to everybody—kind enough to make a big deal out of him saving her life, when she had to know her father would have thanked him already.
He, on the other hand, had never been sweet or sheltered, and he seriously doubted any woman anywhere would consider him modest, courteous or kind. A sudden vision of Chloe’s face when he’d kissed her palm sailed into his head and with no more encouragement than that, his body began to respond as strongly as it had when she’d been standing right in front of him, confusion and arousal clouding her wide eyes. He’d wanted to pull up her modest skirts right there and bare every long, silky inch of her to his seeking hands—and the knowledge that he couldn’t had frustrated him in a way he hadn’t experienced in years. It had been rude and cruel to tease her like he had, but he’d wanted to shock her into leaving before he gave in to the inner voice shouting at him to haul her out of her car and into the trailer.
He could still see the way her pupils had dilated in shock as she’d realized she was looking at a fully aroused man. And she had been shocked, no question about it. It was just one more difference between them. Most of the women he knew would have laughed and snuggled right up.
Hell, he’d been raised watching his mother do exactly that. Chloe was the antithesis of his mother, genteel rather than coarse. He sensed that beneath her sedate surface there might be a smouldering ember waiting to burst into flame, but unlike his mother, she wouldn’t allow the nearest man to feed her fire. No, Little Miss Miller would undoubtedly wait for Mr. Deadly Dull But Approved by Daddy and get a ring on her finger before she let anyone close enough to get warm. She and his mother couldn’t be less alike.
But as he circled around through the high school parking lot and turned the rental truck back down Main Street one more time, he had to admit that in one way, Chloe and his mother did share something in common. Chloe was kind to everyone. That had been one of the first things he’d noticed about her. Just like his mother. She might have been easy with her favors before she’d gotten old and ill, but she’d always had a big heart.
She’d do anything for a friend who needed her, anything for him. He might have had a mother who liked the male of the species a mite too much, but he’d been loved.
As he drove past the temporary church office yet again, a car swung out of a parking space just ahead of him.
Fate.
He’d always been one to step right up when Lady Luck called. That empty parking space was a clear directive. He was supposed to stop and talk to Chloe. In fact, maybe he was even supposed to ask her out.
He considered the idea for a moment, pretending it was the first time it had occurred to him. Maybe she wasn’t normally his type nor he hers, but what the heck.
Why else would that parking spot have opened up at that exact moment in time?
He sensed the exact moment she saw him. He didn’t know why, but as he stepped out of the truck and popped a quarter into the meter, he knew she was watching him. He felt her... awareness of him as clearly as if she’d made eye contact.
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