The 6'2'', 200 Lb. Challenge. Vivian Leiber

that fit nice and tight and a white T-shirt that faintly glowed.

      She was a beauty, tall and willowy, with the kind of curves that made a man expect to find a staple on her stomach and a month to call her very own. She had long blond hair that the summer had streaked and curled according to its whim; eyes the color of cornflowers, fringed with thick, sooty lashes. Her cheeks were touched by the summer sun; her pouty mouth painted a shiny cotton-candy pink.

      It was the mouth that entranced him, hypnotized him, made him want to... It didn’t matter, because when she started talking, she broke the magic spell she had cast on him.

      “The chief sent me,” she said briskly. “He wants me to get you healthy and back on board. I thought it was going to be an easy job. But this is awful.”

      She picked up several discarded, nearly empty cartons from the carry-out Chinese place the next town over. She wrinkled her nose.

      Gibson guessed the cartons were from a few days ago. Maybe a week.

      No more than two.

      Tops.

      “Yuck. No wonder he sent me,” she said, putting the cartons back on the floor and eyeing the pile of crumpled, dirty clothes on the sofa. “The chief thinks I’m going to fail, but I’m telling you, when Mimi Pickford sets her mind to something, she never, ever, ever fails. At least, not for long.”

      “Delighted to hear that,” he said flatly.

      “We’re going to have you up on your feet and back at the station house in no time.”

      “No, we’re not.”

      She narrowed her eyes at him and he knew what she saw.

      A week’s worth of beard that wasn’t his style, shaggy hair long overdue for a cut and a comb.

      No shirt, ’cause it hurt his arms too much to put one on—he noticed she stared at his chest just a fraction of a second too long.

      He looked down at himself.

      He still had his muscle tone, but he had forgotten to button the top of his jeans.

      He was sure he didn’t look like a hero.

      He looked like a burn.

      And the worst thing was, he didn’t care.

      She stepped cautiously over the piles of newspapers to the picture window that faced the street.

      “We’re going to start with a cleanup,” she said, purposefully ignoring his lack of enthusiasm. “A major cleanup.”

      She yanked at the blinds, throwing a sudden, explosive burst of sunlight into the room. Gibson shielded his face with his hands.

      “Pull that blind right back down!”

      He had been so mesmerized by her, so bewitched by her beauty, so hypnotized by the feminine smell of her, that he had nearly forgotten that he didn’t want light, didn’t want comfort, didn’t want cheerfulness. He certainly didn’t want visitors.

      And that included friends, co-workers, reporters, salespeople, minions from the governor’s office and anybody sent by the chief.

      Especially cheerful blondes.

      “Put that blind back down right now and get out of here!” he ordered, squinting at the light.

      If he could have gotten up from his chair, he would have picked her up bodily and thrown her right out onto the front lawn. And wiped the palms of his hands in satisfaction for a job well-done.

      As it was, he’d have to use his commanding voice—and his newly born lack of charm.

      “Get out!”

      He added a few words that he ordinarily wouldn’t have said in front of a lady, but she shrugged with as little concern as if he were a four-year-old testing out a potty mouth.

      “Why do you like it so dark in here?” she asked, gathering up the week’s worth of mail that had formed a mountain by the front door.

      “I like it because...it’s none of your business why I like it like this.”

      “Sunshine’s good for you.”

      “I don’t care if it’s good for me or worse than a cocaine addiction. And put that mail down.”

      She ignored him, crouching with her back to him as she sorted the mail into piles. Magazines and catalogs, bills and personal letters, and the junk mail ready to be thrown out. All the stuff that mail carriers slipped through the slot every afternoon.

      “Put that stuff down!”

      He’d abuse her verbally until she got tired, insulted, offended—or all three.

      Then she’d leave him alone.

      It had to work. She looked like the kind of woman to whom people were usually nice.

      And Gibson St. James didn’t feel nice.

      But as she turned away from him to bend over the pile of mail, a particularly loathsome oath just wouldn’t come out of his mouth.

      He sputtered, trying to form the vowels and consonants that made up his next invective.

      She had such a round, curved...

      You’re losing it, Gibson, he thought sourly.

      “What did you say you were doing here?”

      “I’m not a reporter, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she said over her shoulder. “And I’m not trying to sell you anything.”

      “You’re not from the Wisconsin Guaranteed Life, Home and Casualty Insurance Company?”

      “No.”

      “And you’re not asking me to be the spokesman for anything, especially insurance?”

      “No.”

      He narrowed his eyes.

      “Are you from the governor’s office?”

      “Why would anybody from the governor’s office be bothering you?”

      “They wanted to give me a medal,” he said flatly.

      “That’s great!” she cried out, turning to bless him with a brief smile before returning to her sorting of the mail.

      A man could die happy with that smile as the last image he saw.

      Gibson looked away abruptly.

      “I don’t want it,” he growled.

      “Well, aren’t you the huffy one!”

      She brought him a stack of magazines and catalogs. He noticed she smelled of vanilla and talc. A clean scent. But somehow more provocative than the perfumes worn by the bar girls in the honky-tonks up near the highway. Not that he’d ever liked their heavy, musky perfumes.

      “Figure out what you want to toss and what you want to keep,” she said briskly.

      He looked at the pile and shook his head. “You’ve got to leave.”

      “Fine,” she said. And for a moment, briefly, he thought she might go. “If you won’t do it yourself, we’ll do it together. Keep or toss?”

      She held up an old issue of Esquire.

      “Keep or toss?” she repeated.

      “Toss,” he said, sighing miserably. “So why are you here?”

      She dropped the Esquire on the floor and held up a mail-order catalog.

      “I want to be a firefighter,” she said. “Keep or toss?”

      “Toss. So why did the chief send you here? I’m the last person to talk to about being a firefighter.”

      She dropped the catalog on top of the Esquire.