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Her smile became a grin. “I’m pregnant. I eat what I want, when I want. It’s the only perk.”
Though she thought he might have criticized her for that, Ben Crowe actually laughed, and a strange bubble of delight rose in Gwen’s stomach. She told herself to ignore it, but it was hard not to be proud of yourself when you made such a surly man laugh. When he joined them in the kitchen and quietly, almost formally asked if he could assist with the dinner preparations, making him laugh again started to feel like a goal.
So she faced him and gave him her most genuine smile. “Do you like lettuce and tomato on your hamburger?”
He nodded. “Yes.”
“Well, there’s a tomato in the refrigerator and a head of lettuce. You could wash those,” she said, then shifted her tone until it was serious, almost melodramatic. “But you would have to take off your jacket. Maybe even your tie.”
It was the first time in her life Gwen had ever seen a man blush, and though she found his embarrassment endearing, it also puzzled her. Either he didn’t know how to handle someone teasing him, or he was so unfamiliar with cooking that he didn’t realize he needed to remove his coat.
“But Nathan and I can do that,” she said quickly, hoping to make up for embarrassing him so he wouldn’t get uncomfortable and change his mind about staying.
He shook his head and shrugged out of the black suit coat. “I’ll do it,” he said firmly.
Gwen decided to let the subject drop and went out to the deck to check on the hamburgers. “How’s it going out here?” she asked Nathan.
Spatula in hand, he grinned up at her. “Really good.”
Seeing how happy he was, Gwen ruffled his hair. “We should make a standing arrangement that you’ll eat dinner with me every day so that I’ll have help with the dishes.”
Nathan nodded.
Gwen felt her bubble of excitement again, then Ben appeared at the sliding glass door leading to the deck. With his jacket gone and the sleeves of his white shirt rolled to his elbows, he added a dimension to his good looks that Gwen had all but forgotten existed. Sex appeal. Her merry bubble of excitement instantly transformed into a shiver of awareness.
“You cold?” Nathan asked.
Ben only continued to look at her, and she dropped the oven mitt she had just used to open the grill lid.
This was not good.
“Should I turn them over?” Nathan asked, still trying to get her attention.
But Gwen was lost. It occurred to her that maybe Ben Crowe wasn’t as angry and intense as she thought. No one else in the town had a problem with him. Everybody else let him keep to himself without question or qualm. Yet she nitpicked at everything he did. With him standing on the other side of her sliding glass doors, holding a plate of sliced tomatoes, staring at her as if he couldn’t get himself to stop, Gwen suddenly knew why they didn’t seem to get along and she squeezed her eyes shut.
He found her as attractive as she found him.
And he was fighting it every bit as hard as she was fighting it.
If it hadn’t been for Nathan, dinner might have been eaten in complete silence. Luckily, neither Gwen nor Ben had trouble talking to Nathan. Luckily, Nathan didn’t seem to notice that the adults were so uncomfortable with each other they were using him to pass the salt so they didn’t have to speak directly to each other.
Being a gentleman, Ben helped with the dishes. The gesture reinforced that Ben Crowe was a very good man, but, unfortunately, it also reaffirmed the sexual attraction Gwen felt sizzling between them. She couldn’t stop noticing that he wasn’t merely a handsome man, he was a well-built man. She’d never seen him in a dress shirt and trousers, only a work shirt, vest and jeans. As he walked around her kitchen, putting away dishes and storing leftover food, his lighter weight apparel showed off his broad shoulders and his back which tapered into a trim waist. When Gwen realized that, she recognized her eyes were moving toward territory that was definitely off limits, and she refused to let herself even glance in his direction anymore.
When he shipped Nathan upstairs to get his jacket, Gwen also deduced that Ben had offered to help with the dishes so they would be too busy to be awkward around each other. Without the distraction of Nathan or the dishes, a thick silence stretched between them. Both tried to talk, neither could think of anything to say, and the peeks they stole at each other were so obvious and so telling, Gwen wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.
She nearly breathed a sigh of relief when Nathan jogged down the steps. “I’m ready,” he called, darting toward the door.
Obviously grateful, Ben followed him, and, relieved to have them going, Gwen followed Ben. But when the energetic nine-year-old slipped beneath Ben’s arm and out the door, suddenly Ben and Gwen found themselves face-to-face and alone again.
“Thank you for staying,” Gwen said, and made the mistake of looking up into his eyes. Lord, he had gorgeous eyes. Nearly black and as bright as stars, they looked down at her, pinning her into immobility.
“I appreciated dinner,” he said quietly. “And also appreciated your being so good to Nathan.”
“He’s a wonderful boy,” she agreed softly.
Ben’s gaze fell to her mouth, then returned to her eyes, and Gwen watched him swallow hard. For a fleeting second she feared that he would kiss her, then realized she wished that he would. What would it feel like to have that beautiful mouth pressed to hers?
Ben cleared his throat. “I’ve sort of taken him under my wing, so if he gives you trouble, call me.”
Gwen shook her head. “He’s no trouble,” she said. But you are, she thought, then realized that wasn’t true. This man couldn’t hurt her if she didn’t let him. If she got control of these odd, runaway feelings right now, there would be no problem between them. She took a step back, away from him, clearly telling him she didn’t want to be kissed.
He rubbed his hand across the back of his neck. “Thank you for dinner,” he said, being formal again. “Make sure your door is locked,” he added before he walked outside. He closed her door with a secure tug, and then the only sound Gwen heard was silence.
She listened to the engine of his truck start, listened as the noise spiraled into nothing as he drove away, then squeezed her eyes shut and groaned. What the hell was happening to her? How could she have been so stupid as to stare in his eyes like a lovesick puppy?
For heaven’s sake, how could she even be looking at another man when she wasn’t over the last one yet?
Besides, she was pregnant. She was fat. She didn’t even really walk anymore, she waddled. Just like with the cookies, the only person she was fooling was herself if she thought a gorgeous man like Ben Crowe would find her attractive in this condition!
Ben couldn’t have disagreed more. Driving Nathan home that night he realized that the thing that struck him about her was how happy she was. She seemed to blossom around Nathan, which proved she would be a wonderful mother. But even before Nathan entered the picture Ben had noticed that Gwen…well, glowed. Yesterday it was so obvious he couldn’t miss it. And tonight she virtually radiated light and energy.
He would have berated himself for staring at her all evening like some lovesick teenager, except when he saw her staring at him through the sliding glass doors, he realized she found him attractive, too. At first that had been nothing but good for his ego, then Ben reminded himself of his thoughts from the day before. Being attracted to an already pregnant woman wasn’t something to play around with.
The next morning, bundled in denim and shielding his eyes from the sun with a Stetson as he rode the fence to spend some time outdoors—since he’d wasted the previous day in offices with lawyers, accountants and brokers—Ben decided that Gwen’s pregnancy was the bottom line to everything. Since he hadn’t been overwhelmingly attracted to a woman like this in years, and the biggest difference between Gwen and all the other women he met was her pregnancy, he figured that silly glow of hers was the real culprit, not an actual attraction.
He even felt fortified enough to knock on her door and walk right into her house that evening when he arrived to pick up Nathan. But when he saw her lying on the sofa, looking exhausted—completely without glow—and still thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world, he knew he was going to have to rethink this whole deal.
“What’s up?” he asked, sitting on the edge of the sofa beside her tummy, so he could get a better look at her face.
“I’m fine,” she said, obviously exasperated. “I told you before, I’m pregnant, not sick.”
“Where’s Nathan?”
“He’s making dinner.”
“He is?” Ben asked, his voice resonating with fear at the combination of a nine-year-old, boiling water and fire.
“Relax,” she said. “It’s only cold cereal from a box, but at this point that’s all I have the energy to eat. He told me he can get something at home with his foster parents.”
“I’ll see that he gets dinner,” Ben said, then rose from the couch. “And you’re eating something more than cold cereal.”
“Cold cereal is fine.”
He snorted a laugh. “Not hardly. Have you ever read one of those labels? You’re eating sugarcoated sugar.”
The words were barely out of Ben’s mouth before Gwen gasped as if in pain. He fell to the sofa again. “What’s wrong?” he asked urgently.
She gritted her teeth from the discomfort, but said, “It’s nothing.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Ben said, rising from the couch. “Nathan, give me a hand here. I’m taking Mrs. Parker to the doctor.”
With surprising strength, Gwen caught his hand and tugged him down to the sofa again. “You are not taking me to the doctor.”
Leaning over so that he nearly pressed his nose to her nose, he disagreed. “Guess again.”
“The baby is moving. That’s all. Sometimes when he does it I get heartburn. Other times, like now, it just hurts like the dickens. It all depends on what he sits on.”
She said the words quietly, softly, and very, very slowly and with every puff of breath that came from her mouth he realized how close they were. If he thought he’d been on the verge of kissing her the night before, he was in even worse shape tonight. First, she looked tired and alone. That right there deserved a kiss. Add her natural beauty to that and Ben found himself losing the battle.
“I still think I should take you to the doctor,” he whispered, his voice shivery and hoarse because he realized he was bending closer and closer, so near her mouth now that his lips were almost touching hers.
He’d never felt so drawn to kiss anyone. Not because she was attractive, not because he was attracted to her, but because it felt right. She wasn’t merely beautiful, she was sweet, and he wanted to taste some of that sweetness. He could feel himself being pulled toward her, confirmation, almost, that this was something he couldn’t control.
But in the last second before their mouths would have touched, she said, “No.”
Chapter Three
“No.”
“No?” He didn’t know if she’d said no to the kiss or no to going to the doctor. But he did know that he couldn’t remember the last time anyone argued with him, and he nearly tripped himself when he bounced off the couch. “What do you mean, no?”
“Ben,” she said patiently. “I gained twenty pounds in seven months…actually more like five months because I didn’t gain anything the first two months. Picture my small frame suddenly getting twenty pounds, most of it in my middle.”
He could. Clearly. He could see her standing in front of a mirror, wearing something soft and filmy, looking feminine and motherly and absolutely gorgeous. That’s what bothered him. He could easily envision how she would do anything, from the simple to the sublime, as if he’d known her for years instead of weeks.
“I’m not sick. I’m tired. I do not need to see a doctor. I need a few minutes of rest, that’s all.”
When she put it like that, Ben believed her. But she wasn’t completely out of the woods with him yet. “All right, you’re not sick,” he conceded gruffly, trying like hell to stifle the image she’d unwittingly forced him to create in his head. “But what you told me proves you need a good dinner.”
She sighed. “I’m too tired to make a good dinner.”
“No problem. Nathan and I will make one for you,” he said, and turned toward her kitchen. “What would you like?”
“Steak and french fries,” she said with a laugh. “But you don’t have to make me dinner.”
Walking to the door, he said, “You’re not eating cold cereal. If you want steak, I’ll make steak.”
“I was teasing,” she called after him. “If you insist on cooking, you don’t have to go to that much trouble.”
He stopped, faced her and skewered her with a look. “Let’s get one thing straight. I never do anything I don’t want to do, so if I volunteer to do something it’s not trouble.”
With that he left the living room, crossed the small entryway at the foot of the steps and went into her kitchen. “Nate, we need to make steak and french fries for supper. Do you have any idea where we can find those things?”
He nodded eagerly. “Sure, there’s a freezer in the basement. She even has frozen fries.”
“Great. You go get those and I’ll start the grill.”
With Nate’s help dinner was ready in a little over half an hour. Just as Ben was preparing to put a tray together for Gwen, she entered the kitchen.
“This smells wonderful,” she said.
Ben studied her critically. Her cheeks had color. Her energy appeared to have returned. She was smiling. “I knew a good meal would revive you. Just smelling it put color back in your face.”
“I was tired,” Gwen said. “It’s not a crime. I’ll bet even you get tired, Ben Crowe.”
He shrugged. “I remember one time, when I was younger, I did get a little tired,” he teased. “But the next day I came down with the flu, so we never really knew if I was tired or if that fluke day was actually just the beginning of my illness.”
“Oh, yeah, right,” Gwen said, sitting at one of the place settings Nathan had arranged at the table.
“Seriously,” Ben said as he served the steak, “you do look much better, and I’m sure you’ll feel better once you eat.”
“Yeah,” Nathan agreed, climbing onto the chair beside her. “You look better.”
Ben was abundantly relieved Nathan had taken the seat beside Gwen until he realized that sitting across from her would put them face-to-face. But as they ate, and as he watched her become more animated and more energetic, Ben was glad he could see her. He believed her when she said she was tired. He also believed that having a baby move inside you could cause pain. Still, it was good to have all that confirmed by the return of her high spirits and stamina.
As she and Nathan washed the dishes, Ben cleared the table, continuing to covertly watch her. Seeing her stretching to put the first glass on the appropriate shelf, he said, “Stack those below the cupboard and I’ll store them.”
“Nonsense,” she said with a laugh. “I can reach.”
“I know,” Ben agreed, finally comprehending that the way to get this woman’s cooperation wasn’t through quibbling. If you argued with her, she tried to prove you wrong. So the best thing to do was to pretend to agree, then point her in the right direction. “It’s faster if you make a stack to put away all at once, because you eliminate steps.”
“What are you? Some kind of efficiency expert?”
“What’s an efficiency expert?” Nathan asked.
“Someone who tells other people what to do,” Gwen said curtly.
“Someone who finds a better way to do things,” Ben contradicted, but he laughed. Because laughter was another way to reach this woman. After spending two days with her, he recognized she liked to laugh, and she liked seeing other people laugh. So if that’s what it took to swing her thinking around in the way he wanted it to go, that’s what he would do.
She turned to place a dish in the cupboard, but as she reached up he caught the plate. He didn’t take it out of her hand, just guided it to the countertop, and when she released it, he directed her hand to get the next one.
She gave him a curious look, but he didn’t stop long enough for her to realize he was monitoring her every move. He walked to the stove to wipe it clean, surreptitiously observing her from his peripheral vision. When she started to put another plate into the cupboard out of habit, he simply stepped beside her, seized the plate and guided it to the stack beside the dish drainer.
“Are you this annoying with everyone?” she asked, her eyes narrowing as she glared at him.
“Absolutely,” he said, but again he didn’t linger. Since the plate was on the pile and she was reaching for another dish, he walked away, busying himself with straightening her tablecloth. Once she and Nathan had finished washing and drying the few dishes and utensils used for their dinner, but before she got the chance to hoist them to the shelves above her, Ben shifted her attention to the table.
“Would you arrange those flowers?” he asked. “I think I messed them up when I returned the centerpiece to its place.”
Though he thought she might have questioned that, she looked at the centerpiece, giving Ben enough time to quickly stash her stacks of dishes and glasses into the cupboard. By the time she turned and said, “How can you mess up a bunch of wildflowers?” he had everything put away.
“My mistake,” he said. “Come on, Nathan, let’s go.”
Because she hadn’t noticed that he had more or less manipulated her out of disagreeing about who would do what in the kitchen, Ben knew he had been successful. He also knew that dinner and company had boosted her spirits. He had not intended to get involved with her, but, really, somebody had to. Not because she was an invalid, but because she was alone. A million and ten things could happen to her and no one would be around to even discover her, let alone rescue her. So if Ben made himself and Nathan her protectors for the next few months, he wasn’t doing anything but being a good neighbor. Besides, he was her landlord. He had a responsibility to make sure she was safe while she was on his property.
“I’ll bring Nathan around at eight tomorrow morning,” he announced as he grabbed his coat from a peg by the door and urged Nathan to do the same.
Gwen gasped. “No, you won’t! It’s one thing to have him come over after school, but a boy needs his Saturday to play. He doesn’t need to be baby-sitting me. I told you. I’m perfectly fine.”
