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Somehow, Steve figured pointing out that she wasn’t exactly dressed like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company wouldn’t go over so good. “Hey—that guy was about to take advantage of you!”
“And you don’t think I knew that?” One hand swiped back a feather. Underneath five-pound eyelashes, heat smoldered. And what was with that accent? “I knew what the taxi should cost.”
“Then why—?”
Oh, he’d seen that look before. His mother was a master at it.
“Look, Mr. Liebowicz—”
Steve shook his head. “Koleski. Steve Koleski. Mr. L. had to go to the store. I was doing some electrical work for him.”
A flicker of what Steve could only assume was relief passed over her features before she wagged one hand, dismissing his unwanted explanation. “Look, Mr. Koleski, it was no easy feat finding a taxi willing to come all the way out here, so when I finally got this one, I would have bloody well promised the man my firstborn child if it meant getting me where I wanted to go. But I’m not stupid, believe it or not. The plan was, I’d pretend to agree with this man’s ridiculous fee, wait until I was here, then tell him he was full of it.”
The laugh fairly burst from his lungs. “Full of it?”
She glared at him for a millisecond before twirling around, unsteadily, then taking off toward the house, feathers bobbing, fanny twitching.
“Hey!” Steve bounded after her and up the porch steps just as she made a grab for the listing shopping bag, inertia propelling him into her as she attempted to shoulder her way inside. Bodies and bags tangled for a sizzling two or three seconds, during which Steve found himself seriously reconsidering his earlier position on women and loneliness and aggravation.
“Do you mind?” she said, wrenching herself, and the bags, inside.
“I was only trying to help, for the love of Mike! Why on earth are you so fired up about this?”
The woman’s gaze glanced off his, as fleeting as an electric spark, before she twisted around and noticed the dogs. With a soft oh!, she dropped the bags and fell to her knees in one motion, burying herself in unbridled canine euphoria.
Steve, on the other hand, was doing well to simply catch his breath.
“Oh! Aren’t you the most wonderful things!” she said to the panting, licking creatures, laughing as each one in turn tried to crawl into her lap. After a moment, she hauled herself back up, wiping dog spit off her face with the heel of her hand as she took in the high-ceilinged entryway, the sunlight-drenched living room off to the left. She wasn’t exactly smiling as much as she simply seemed…pleased.
“So—Mr. Liebowicz isn’t here?” she suddenly said, not looking at him.
“Uh…no.” At some point, he was going to have to figure out why watching this overly cosmeticized, perfume-marinated, smart-mouthed stranger wallowing in dog slobber was doing all the wrong things to his libido. “He had to go to the store. He didn’t expect you until later.”
She shrugged, but there seemed to be something oddly nervous about the gesture. “I wasn’t sure, when I talked with him, what my…schedule would be like.” She hesitated, as if about to say something else, then turned, picked up the bags again. “Do you know where my room is?”
Eyes locked. Bad move.
Bad, bad move.
“Uh, yeah,” Steve said at last. “Upstairs.”
She nodded, then clomped up the stairs, chattering to the dogs. Steve followed, frowning at the sea of undulating dog butts in front of him. “First door to your left,” he said when she paused at the landing. “What did you say your name was?”
“Lisa Stone,” she said after a beat or two, then disappeared inside the room, followed by her entourage. “Oh…were you working in here?”
“Oh, right.” Steve hustled inside the room and squatted to gather up his things, clanking them into the metal toolbox. “I’d just finished up when you knocked on the door. Since it sounded urgent—” he glanced up at her, fighting the urge to grin, not fighting the urge to tease “—I figured cleaning up could wait.”
A blush swept up her neck. Then that generous mouth stretched into a breath-stealing smile that was completely at odds with the globbed-on makeup and the awful perfume and the hideous shoes. And something snapped between them. What, he didn’t know, didn’t want to know, but damned if the tension didn’t just evaporate.
“I, um, didn’t realize I had to go until I got into the taxi.”
One kind of tension, anyway. Another kind—more insidious and five times more deadly—mushroomed between them so fast he nearly choked.
Ordering everything to back off, cool down, and generally get a grip, he stood, letting the grin win out. “Bet that was the longest ride of your life, huh?”
Something like startled delight lit up her eyes before she laughed, and if he thought the smile knocked him for a loop, the laugh just about sent him into another realm entirely.
Psst. And she likes dogs, too.
Right. And maybe he should check his head for faulty wiring. For one thing, he had no idea who this woman was, where she was from, why she was here, or when she was leaving. For all he knew she was married. Or had a boyfriend. Or was on the lam.
And the perfume was making him dizzy.
And—and—for another thing, his life was more crowded than a Tokyo subway. He had kids to raise. Crises to avert. Gardens to tend and chickens to feed and about a million photos to develop and wounds to help heal.
If his heart were a neon sign, it would be flashing NO VACANCY.
Lisa was holding out her hand. “I do apologize for my earlier behavior. I get cranky when I’m overtired.” And Steve, not wanting to be rude, heaven knows, took her hand into his, grateful that—their brief, earlier tango notwithstanding—electricity didn’t shoot up his arm from her touch. That only happened in those books his sister used to hide in her sweater drawer, anyway. But it had been a long time since he’d held a woman’s hand in his, and he had to admit, it felt pretty damn good. Warm and soft and all that nice stuff.
And, boy, did he like that smile.
And, boy, did he have to get the hell out of there.
“I thought I heard voices!” Panting a little, Mr. L. came into the room, extending a knotted hand. “Miss Stone, yes?”
Lisa nodded, the feathers wafting around her face. One of those non-hairdos, like whatsername wore in You’ve Got Mail. “Thank you for taking me on such short notice,” she said.
“It was my pleasure. The room will be suitable, I hope?”
“Oh…” She looked around the sunny, airy room, nodding enthusiastically. “It will be perfect.”
“And you won’t mind my music students?”
“Oh, no! Not at all! I adore music, almost any kind, really…”
Well, all this was just too copasetic for words, but Steve had other things to do with his life than just stand around and watch Lisa Stone grin.
He picked up his toolbox, muttering, “I’ll just be going, then,” while backing out of the room, only to startle the be-jesus out of himself when he banged the box on the doorjamb. Chagrined, he steadied the box, then turned to leave before he gave any further demonstration of his poise and grace.
“Mr. Koleski?” he heard behind him. Now, he knew damn well what would be there, when he turned around, waiting to trap him…yup. There it was. That smile. And a wistfulness—that’s what it was, he realized—that prevented the smile from fully reaching her eyes. She speared her hand through her hair, then said softly, “Thank you for playing the White Knight earlier.”
He cocked his head. “Even though you didn’t need it.”
An eyebrow lifted. “But that wasn’t the point, was it?”
Oh, hell. No, that wasn’t the point. Nor did he have any intention of trying to figure out too hard about what the point was, because he doubted he was going to like what he came up with.
“Hope you enjoy your stay,” he muttered, then left before she had a chance to toss another one of those smiles his way.
She’d shooed the sweet old man out of her room shortly after Steve’s exit, citing the need to unpack and rest. And shower, rid her skin of that horrendous perfume that had seemed innocuous enough in the department store. Instead, her thoughts spinning, she simply sat on the edge of the double bed, fingers skimming the hobnailed bedspread, and stared out the second-story window at the profusion of flowering fruit trees in Mr. Liebowicz’s tiny backyard. It had been spring then, as well, she remembered, when she’d last visited the Detroit area with her parents, more than twenty years ago—
On a moan, she cupped her face in her hands. Never, ever before had she done something so…so illogical. Crazy. Rash.
Her hands dropped to her lap.
Exhilarating.
Not that her sense of responsibility had completely deserted her. Once safely away from the airport, she’d made the driver stop somewhere so she could call and leave a message on her grandmother’s private voice mail—Carpathia might be small, but technology-wise, it was cutting edge—telling her she was safe and not to blame Gyula, who had been undoubtedly tearing apart the airport by that point, and that if Baba needed her, to contact her via e-mail.
She spotted the phone jack on the opposite wall where she could plug in her modem. So she could check her e-mail anytime she liked….
Sophie blew out a sigh. She truly loved her country, as well as the power for good her position gave her. It wasn’t that she wanted to give up what she had. She didn’t. It was just…just that, somewhere along the way, she’d lost herself in the process. And then had come Jason Broadhurst’s proposal, which had muddled everything even more.
Not that there was anything wrong with Jason. Quite the contrary. In fact, he and Sophie served on the boards of several charities together, so she knew his sympathies even lay in the same direction as hers. And she truly ached for the loss of his wife so soon after their son’s birth two years ago.
And, frankly, Jason’s offer was by far the best she’d ever had. Oh, to be sure, there’d been suitors aplenty, from the time she was sixteen. But she wasn’t a fool: her mirror told her, quite bluntly, that most men were only enamored of her position or money, or both. At least she and Jason got on together well enough. And she had to respect his honesty in proposing the alliance.
But it still came down to the same thing, didn’t it? Men had pursued her because she was royal, because she was wealthy, or because she was convenient, but not one man had ever pursued her because he loved her.
Her future loomed in front of her, both a yawning void and a mountain of “musts”—her appointment as Director of the World Relief Fund was all but assured, a responsibility she both anticipated and dreaded—and she blinked back tears of what she realized were stark terror. She would do what she had to do, she knew that. Her sense of responsibility was far too ingrained for her to do otherwise. But what if this didn’t work, this stealing of a few weeks for herself? What if, at the end, she was still as conflicted as she was right now? What if she couldn’t reconcile her needs with those of the people who depended on her?
Shoving aside whatever this anxiety was, Sophie forced herself to stand and begin to put away her few new belongings in the paper-lined chest of drawers that smelled faintly of lavender sachet, her gaze flitting around the simply furnished room. She’d be anonymous here. And what could be safer than staying with an elderly gentleman?
An elderly gentlemen who hired handsome, protective, all-American male electricians?
Ah. She’d wondered how long she’d be able to stave that one off.
My goodness, she’d had quite a reaction to Steve Koleski, hadn’t she? But why? Why now? And, for heaven’s sake, why him? It wasn’t as if she’d been locked in a convent her entire life.
Exactly.
Well…what did she see in him?
Green eyes flecked with gold and mischief, that’s what, his short-cropped hair the innocent blond of a child’s, a startling contrast to tanned skin stretched taut over lean, sharp features that were anything but childlike. An expressive mouth that a woman—well, this woman, at least—ached to touch, just to see if it was as soft and smooth as it looked. To see if it was real. A mouth that twitched, she noticed, just before it burst into a rather endearingly slanted smile.
She saw—felt—kindness. Protectiveness. Trustworthiness.
All nicely packaged in enough muscles to make one’s mouth go dry.
Twirling a hunk of her butchered hair around her finger, she stared outside at the little flower garden below, her brows tightly drawn. What was it about the man that produced that tingling sensation in the odd body part whenever he grinned at her? Lust? Perhaps. After all, she didn’t suppose she was immune to the things like that, strange and unfamiliar though they might be. But it was more than that. It was…she bit her lip in concentration, then let out a sigh. It was more like…excitement. Anticipation. The sudden, euphoric feeling a child gets when she sees a bicycle in a shop window and realizes she wants it more than anything in the world.
Except it was like wanting the plain, sturdy, reliable three-speed model instead of the flashy ten-speed.
Oh. Oh…dear.
She grabbed the tote, unloading the paperbacks onto the nightstand, her eyes burning.
Popular opinion to the contrary, being a princess didn’t mean she could do whatever she wanted, even in disguise. In fact, just the opposite was true. She couldn’t even take that nice, reliable three-speed out of the window, could she? Not even for an innocent—yes, innocent—little test drive?
No. She didn’t think so.
She heaved another sigh, stacked the books on the nightstand, then dropped onto the bed, looked up at the light fixture Steve Koleski had just fixed.
There went the tingling again.
She sat up again to yank off the blasted shoes, tossing them across the room. Rubbing one aching instep, she fought—with remarkably little success—the memory of how Steve had smelled when they’d tangled in the doorway, all spicy-musky and just plain good, and how she’d let her ego out of its cage just long enough to let herself think that, just maybe, he was flirting with her. But in a slightly panicked kind of way, as though he wanted to but thought he shouldn’t, for whatever reason.
But then…even if he was attracted to her, he wasn’t attracted to her, but to the blowsy blond product of a weary princess’s brush with hysteria. In two weeks, perhaps less, Lisa Stone would vanish into the same nothingness whence she’d been spawned.
And Princess Sophie would resume her tidy, orderly, dull life, one which held no place for ingenuous, handsome, protective American electricians.
She flopped onto her side, her head propped in the palm of her hand, just as the sun shifted enough to glance off something shiny peeking out from underneath the dresser. Curiosity lured her off the bed, then across the floor to pick up what turned out to be a screwdriver. Steven Koleski’s screwdriver, no doubt.
For the briefest of moments, she was tempted to stab herself with it.
Fortunately, things seemed remarkably more clear the next morning. Plainly, her reaction to Steven the day before had been due to nothing more than an adrenaline overload, a sense of danger heightening her sensory awareness. What she’d felt hadn’t been attraction—on any level—but simply reaction. Stimulus/response, nothing more.
However, in all the excitement of actually carrying out her harebrained plan, she’d forgotten a fundamental fact of life in a small town: strangers’ appearances begat curiosity. So it behooved her to offer some sort of explanation in order to prevent inevitable, and tiresome, speculation.
At least, as far as the people in her “real” life were concerned, she was accounted for. Perhaps few of them understood, much less approved of, her actions, but nobody was worrying about her well-being. Her physical well-being, at least. Her mental state was something else again.
As far as those in her temporary hideaway went, however, best to tell just as much of the truth to satisfy inquiring minds and hopefully bore the nosy into forgetting all about her. And she figured she might as well start with her host, who, in his position as the town’s music teacher, undoubtedly had a direct feed into the main gossip artery.
Sophie found Mr. Liebowicz deadheading early roses in his sun-speckled, lushly planted back garden, laughably quaint in bright red plastic clogs and a big-brimmed straw hat secured with a cord underneath his flabby chins.
“Oh! Good morning, my dear,” the old man said with a short wave. “Are you ready for breakfast?”
“No, no…no hurry.” She tucked her thumbs in the pockets of her white cotton Capri pants, inhaled the perfumed, early morning air. “I’m rarely hungry this early. Besides—” she grinned “—you weren’t supposed to feed me last night.”
“I was doing the roast anyway, it was no trouble.” He took his clippers to a climbing rose spanning a latticework archway. “But whenever you’re ready, just let me know.”
Still not sure how best to broach her subject, Sophie reached out to cup an exquisite rosebud the color of fresh butter. “You coax life from the ground every bit as well as you coax music from your violin.”
That merited her a bright, surprised grin from underneath the enormous hat. “You are very kind, my dear,” Mr. Liebowicz said. “But how did you know it was I who was playing?”
She shrugged. “You had several students yesterday. It wasn’t difficult to tell when the teacher was demonstrating for the student.”
The old man sighed, eyeing his liver-spotted hands. “These poor old things aren’t very reliable these days, I’m afraid. But I suppose they still have their moments.”
Sophie laughed, then bent to smell another rose, this one fully open, an intense, deep pink tinged with coral. “I’m sure you must be dying to know why I landed on your doorstep yesterday,” she said quietly.
A finch warbled overhead. Then: “As someone forced from my own home in Poland fifty years ago by a certain German dictator’s policies, I understand that people often have valid reasons for keeping secrets. But I will admit wondering about your accent…?”
Smiling, she straightened, then folded her arms across a light blue cotton sweater, watching Mr. Liebowicz clip and prune and coddle his precious flowers. “I was raised in Europe,” she said, remembering her vow to herself to lie as little as possible. “But my father was English. As was my schooling.”
“I see.” He turned to her, his expression partially muted by the hat’s shadow. “But—” his thin lips twitched into a kindly smile “—nobody comes to Spruce Lake without a reason, Miss Stone. We have no tourist attractions, no views to speak of, nothing to lure someone seeking excitement, or even diversion. Nothing except…sanctuary, perhaps?”
All she could do was stare at him.
