скачать книгу бесплатно
How in the hell had his life come to this?
The question required no searching thought when the simple answer was right downstairs putting on the brew.
He rummaged in the small pile of laundry he’d kicked into the bathroom the other day to keep the mess from being caught on tape. His clothes smelled of God-knew-what, but he pulled them on anyway, then went downstairs to face Leandra and her coffee.
But when he got there, the coffeepot still sat piteously empty.
“Thought you were putting on the java.”
“I was. Am.” She closed the refrigerator door with a soft rattle of bottles. “I can’t find the coffee.”
He opened the cupboard above the maker and pulled out the can. “Suppose you’re used to some fancy brand you grind yourself.”
She made a face but didn’t answer. Which probably was her answer.
Evan knew good and well that Jake—his good buddy Jake—liked his coffee expensive and ground only moments before it was brewed.
Why would Jake’s wife be any different?
Ex-wife, an internal voice reminded him. For all the good it did.
Evan was a fool. That’s what he was. Pure and simple.
And God didn’t protect fools by the name of Evan Taggart.
Punishment was the course, there. Punishment in the form of a golden-haired wisp whom he still didn’t have the good sense to say no to.
Now that sprite in question was eyeing him through the brown eyes that had always seemed too large for her heart-shaped face.
He dumped his simple, grocery-bought coffee into a fresh filter and shoved it into the coffeemaker. “You going to drink some of this?”
“If you’re offering.”
He pulled out the filter, added another scoop of ground coffee, and pushed it back in place. Before he could reach for the empty coffee carafe, she’d plucked it out of the sink and was rinsing and refilling it with water.
Their fingers brushed when she handed it to him.
He sloshed the water into the machine and hit the power button, not looking at her. A reassuring gurgle answered him. “I’m grabbing a shower before that peeping Tom comes back.”
“Ted’s not a pervert,” she called after him as he practically bolted from the room. “He’s doing what Marian told him to do.”
“Then maybe Marian’s the one who’s twisted,” Evan called back, heading up the stairs.
What had he been thinking when he’d agreed to be part of that stupid show?
What had she been thinking to approach Evan Taggart about WITS?
Leandra pushed her fingers through her hair, pressing the tips against her skull as if the pressure could relieve the throbbing ache inside. She’d figured that following the life of a good-looking veterinarian would be just the ticket for the show that had been her home for the past eighteen months. She’d figured that veterinarian would be her ex-husband, Jake Stallings, who, despite their divorced status, was usually willing to do most anything that Leandra asked of him.
Jake was everything that her boss, Marian Hughes, loved. Charismatic. Handsome. A veterinarian to a whole host of pampered celebrity pets.
But for reasons known only to Jake, he’d refused her request and reminded her instead about his friend from college.
Evan Taggart.
Evan, who wasn’t only Jake’s old friend, considering Leandra had known him since they were tots. He’d been as much a thorn in Leandra’s youth as he had been a friend, and he was the one who’d introduced Leandra to Jake when he’d brought his college mate home one weekend.
Huffing out a breath, remembering that she hadn’t even brushed her teeth when she’d made her mad dash over to Evan’s, she went to her purse and rummaged inside for her cosmetic case.
She could hear water rumbling in the old horse’s pipes and tried not to think too much about Evan upstairs in his shower.
It was bad enough to have seen him upstairs covered to the waist in a rumpled sheet.
She’d found herself wondering just what he’d had under that sheet. That, in itself was pretty darned disturbing.
She shook her head, trying to eradicate the image and yanked open the little case. She found her travel toothbrush and squirted toothpaste on it, then brushed her teeth at the kitchen sink, washed her face and streaked some water through her hair.
She had a pair of jeans and a shirt inside her bag, too, but she wasn’t going to change into them until she’d had her own shower.
Which she would have back at her cousin Sarah’s place, where she was staying for the duration of the WITS shoot.
She certainly wasn’t going to ask Evan if she could cop a soak in his bathroom. The man had made it more than plain that he considered every moment they spent together an intrusion in his life.
She still wasn’t certain what had made him agree to participate in the first place. Sure, they were friends from way back, and he and Jake were still buddies, but Evan’s consent had been a surprise to her. A pleasant surprise, even. That is, until she’d arrived with her crew the week before and came face-to-face with how disagreeable Evan could be—disagreeable and disturbing.
But she was pretty desperate to have this shoot go well. If it did—no, once it did—she’d finally get out from under Marian’s thumb and produce her own projects. And they wouldn’t involve any shirtless hometown veterinarians, either.
The pipes overhead gave an ominous groan. Leandra looked up at the ceiling, half expecting the pipes to burst right then and there. But the ceiling—plain white with not a speck of dirt or a cobweb in sight—remained intact until the demand ceased and the pipes went silent. Rather than be caught gawking at Evan’s spotlessly clean white walls, she hurriedly rummaged around in his refrigerator and cupboards and had the makings of breakfast well underway when he came back downstairs a while later.
“Smells good.” He walked across to the waiting coffee.
She wasn’t sure if he meant his coffee or the bacon and eggs. “Mmm.” She flipped the omelet with a toss of the pan and picked up her own mug of coffee, watching him over the rim.
At least he’d put on a shirt, even if it was just a white T-shirt that hugged every muscle from which good genes and an active lifestyle had graced him.
His jeans looked the same as the other pair he’d just had on. Except this pair was clean.
When it came down to it, all of Evan Taggart’s jeans looked pretty much the same.
Well-worn and sexy as hell on him.
Drat it all.
She buried her nose a little deeper in her coffee mug and reached for the spatula again.
Now was not the time for her libido to kick back to life after years of lying unconscious.
As far as Leandra was concerned, she preferred the unconscious state. Life was a lot less complicated that way.
She tipped the omelet onto a plate, drizzled hollandaise over it, then added toast and several slices of bacon and held it out to him.
He stared at the plate as if he’d never before focused those brilliant blue eyes of his on such a thing. “Jake always said you weren’t much one for cooking.”
“Is that going to keep you from eating it?” She gently waggled the plate. “It’s only bacon and eggs.”
“Fancy eggs.” He lifted the plate out of her hand and set it on the square oak table that he’d shoved against one wall of the kitchen. Presumably to make room for the modern playpen that took up a good portion of the center of the kitchen. The playpen was currently empty, but Leandra knew it was for babies that weren’t of the human variety. A few days earlier, it had contained a lamb. “You made enough for yourself, I hope,” he added when she just stood there like a bump.
Spurred, she began dishing up her own plate. “Girl’s gotta eat.” She settled herself across the table from him. “Hope you don’t mind that I made myself at home.”
The corner of his lips twitched. He angled a look at her from beneath long eyelashes that were practically pornographic. “I’m eating, aren’t I?”
He certainly was.
She watched him bite off a corner of toast and looked down at her own plate. Who needed a jacket in September when she was steaming from the inside out? She gulped down a mouthful of coffee and coughed at the intense heat.
“You okay?”
“Fine,” she lied a little hoarsely. “And I am sorry about Ted busting in on you this morning. If that had been on Marian’s schedule, I’d have talked her out of it.”
“Marian’s your boss. How would you plan to do that?”
“The same way I’ve talked her out of a few other ideas. How long was Ted here filming you?”
“Long enough to be satisfied when he left.”
Leandra couldn’t deny the truth of that. The guy had been perfectly agreeable about leaving. Which could mean that he’d gotten whatever shots Marian had been after. “At least you were alone.”
He gave her a measuring look. “Oh?”
She was appalled at the way her stomach dropped. She hadn’t stopped to consider the fact that Ted had clearly been filming for more than a few seconds. Had Evan had company who’d absented herself before Leandra came riding to her supposed rescue? “Weren’t you?”
His expression didn’t change and her nerves tightened even more. “Yes,” he finally said. “The only ones upstairs who didn’t belong there were you and your cameraman. And a helluva sight he was to wake up to. So how did you know he was here?”
Relief loosened her tongue. “Marian told me when we were speaking this morning.”
“You talk to your boss before four every morning?” He made it sound like an accusation.
“I do when she’s calling from the East Coast, where she’s filming another project, and is a few hours ahead of me.”
“That why you’re still in your pajamas? You jump out of bed to come rescue me, Leandra?”
Her cheeks went hot again. The truth of it was, once she’d heard that Marian had set Ted, unscheduled, upon Evan, she had pictured just that. Which was ridiculous. “You’re the least rescue-needing man I know,” she said truthfully. “And this outfit doesn’t have to be pajamas. It’s pants and a shirt.”
“Right.”
She decided not to argue the point. After all, she was sitting there in her pj’s.
“So, where did you learn to cook? I know it wasn’t at your mother’s knee. I remember Emily moaning about the fact that you were always too antsy to stand still long enough to listen to anything that concerned the kitchen.”
“There’s the problem working with someone you knew while growing up.” She wasn’t exactly thrilled with the notion that Evan knew so much about her.
“Well, if I hadn’t known you growing up, do you think I’d have agreed to this damn situation?” He raked his hair back with long fingers. The short strands were still damp from his shower, and they stood out in gleaming blue-black spikes. “Tell me again why this show is so important to you?”
“All of the stories we’ve done for WITS are important to me.”
His sharp focus didn’t budge from her face.
“Well, okay, the series focusing on you is a little more important. Do you have to debate every single thing I say?”
“Not every thing. The breakfast was good.”
“Small mercies,” she murmured.
“Which you didn’t explain, by the way.”
“Nuking bacon and tossing together an omelet doesn’t require an advanced degree.”
He dragged his toast through the hollandaise sauce. “This sauce stuff didn’t come out of a mix.”
She shrugged. “Just more butter and eggs and a little lemon juice. No big deal. What’s with all the lemons you have in your fridge, anyway?”
“My folks shipped them back while on vacation in Florida. And no changing the subject.”
“I learned a few tricks when I was in France.”
He went still for a moment.
France. Where she and Jake had gone on their honeymoon. And where Leandra had returned four years ago after their divorce. After they’d lost Emi.
Fortunately, Evan broke the tight silence when Leandra found herself unable to do so.
“Guess if you’re going to finally learn to cook, France is one place to do it.”
“I didn’t take a class. I just picked up a few things from Eduard.”
Evan’s eyebrows rose. “Ed-wa-ahrd?”
“Don’t give me that look.”
“What look? You’re a grown woman, Leandra. Free to take up with some French guy if you so please.”
She rose, gathering their plates to take to the sink. She wished she’d never brought up the topic of France.
“Does Jake know you met some guy over there?”
The plates clattered against the sink as she set them down. She flipped on the water and it splashed hard against the dishes, spattering the front of her T-shirt. “There’s nothing for Jake to know. We’re divorced, remember? We have been for several years now.”
“Yet you still went to him about doing this show before you came to me.”
