Baby Chase. Hannah Bernard

I’ll take a rain check on that kiss.”

      Erin’s anger surged again as she escaped from his room. His door shut quietly behind her a second before she slammed her own door shut and collapsed on the bed.

      What a bastard! She slapped her pillow a few times, then grabbed her hairbrush and brushed her hair into shape with quick, angry movements. What an unfeeling bastard! He didn’t care how he hurt his little sister. And grinning all the time, as if this was all one big joke. She threw the hairbrush on the nightstand, the towel across a chair, and crawled into bed. Grateful for its warmth and softness, she pulled the covers up to her chin.

      As her anger slowly subsided, that insistent voice in her head reclaimed center stage. Never before had she experienced such an instant attraction to a man. And that to someone she had disliked from afar for years. She groaned, and pulled the covers over her head as she began to wonder what would have happened if she had agreed to that kiss. The kiss that might have happened, she admitted, if he hadn’t roused her fury with that conceited crack about babes.

      With a sinking feeling, she refused to let herself wonder. They had not kissed. They never would. Nathan Chase would be gone in the morning, and good riddance.

      She turned on her side and punched her pillow into submission, then closed her eyes, determined to put the whole ridiculous episode behind her. He would be gone by the time she woke up and who knew when she would see him again? With any luck she would wake up thinking he was just a dream.

      A bad dream.

      CHAPTER TWO

      COFFEE.

      Erin’s nose twitched as she trudged barefoot and yawning out of her room. She smelled coffee. Yes, this was the smell of coffee, a drug she could absolutely use right now. She rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. The night had been filled with fragmented dreams as she’d hovered in the twilight zone between sleep and insomnia.

      Coffee. The seductive aroma was irresistible. Her nose leading the way, she padded down the stairs.

      It wasn’t until she was almost at the bottom of the stairs that she realized the smell of coffee indicated the presence of another person in the house. That other person could only be Nathan. She glanced at her wrist, then slapped the banister in annoyance. Her watch must still be in the bathroom where she had left it before taking that shower last night. A late sleeper, she considered it sacrilege to rise earlier than nine on a Sunday morning, and, considering how late she’d gone to bed last night, it must be close to noon now.

      Nathan should be long gone, not sitting in the kitchen drinking the Colombian nectar of the gods.

      For a moment she considered going back upstairs to get dressed, but rejected the idea. After all, she was the one house-sitting; he was the overnight guest. And it was not as if her practical cotton nightgowns came close to being seductive.

      Coffee.

      First coffee, then think.

      The morning sun streamed in through the large kitchen window, reflecting off the spotless countertops. She stopped short and stared in disbelief. Spotless they had not been the previous evening. Who had done the dishes? Three days’ worth of dishes? She squinted against the light and looked around. Nathan was sitting in the corner seat, her seat, she thought in annoyance—reading the morning paper, her paper, over a cup of coffee. His coffee, she acknowledged reluctantly.

      “Morning,” she mumbled in response to his cheerful greeting and quickly fetched orange juice from the fridge and popped bread in the toaster. She helped herself to a cup of the coffee and gulped half of it down while she made her breakfast and sat down at the table opposite Nathan.

      The caffeine didn’t take long to kick in, and as the fog in her mind began to lift she noticed from the corner of her eye that he had put his paper away and was scrutinizing her.

      She still hadn’t looked directly at his face. Last night the room had been lit only by moonlight, his face cast in shadows. She knew the shape of his features, the glint of eyes and teeth, the waves of hair, and the silhouette of his body, but she found herself reluctant to look at him in the light of day, to complete the picture.

      “I wondered this morning if you had been a dream,” Nathan murmured, laughter edging his voice. “It was you last night, wasn’t it? On the roof? Wearing a skimpy blue towel?”

      “The towel was yellow!” she corrected, stung for some reason. So much for an unforgettable experience.

      He laughed. “You’re right. The other towel was blue. The one you so graciously gave to me.” He looked her up and down. “Anyway, my shirt becomes you even better than the towel did.”

      Erin blinked and looked down at herself. She wasn’t wearing one of her nightgowns after all; she was still wearing Nathan’s shirt, the one he had dressed her in last night.

      Heat flushed her cheeks. Her hands went to the buttons of the shirt, as if to return it right away, but her brain managed to stop them in time.

      “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I still had that on,” she muttered. “You’ll get it back today.”

      “No hurry. We really got off on the wrong foot last night. Maybe we should start over.”

      She made a noncommittal sound. “You haven’t looked at me once. Did I frighten you last night? I’m sorry if I did.”

      The man looked even better than his pictures.

      Lifting her head, she forced herself to look at his face. Clinically, she ticked his features off one by one. Black hair with the faintest red highlights where the morning sun grazed it. Too long, for her conservative taste, curling towards his collar at the back. Strong chin and cheekbones, firm mouth, curved in what seemed to be a permanent half-smile. Laughter lines around his mouth and eyes. Gritting her teeth, she allowed their gazes to meet. Green eyes. Deep, vibrant green.

      Better than the teasing shadow that had haunted her dreams last night.

      No wonder that her dreams had revolved around him, she thought, glancing at the soft fabric of his shirt over her breasts. There was something intensely intimate about wearing a man’s shirt to bed.

      Mentally she shook herself. Nathan had asked her a question several minutes ago. He might expect an answer.

      “You didn’t frighten me,” she told him. “Of course I was scared at first, when I thought someone had broken into the house, but the rest was just embarrassing. I’d just like to forget all about it.”

      What was embarrassing was her knowledge of that instant response to him, that pull of attraction towards a man she didn’t know but already disliked.

      Nathan chuckled. “It was funny. As I recall, you found it funny too at the time. You almost fell off the roof laughing.” He extended a hand towards her. “Let’s start over. Hello, Erin. I’m Nathan. Nice to meet you.”

      Charm on, full impulse, she thought sourly, looking into smiling green eyes filled with confidence and self-assurance. Well, it’s not going to work with me, buddy. I’m not one of your babes. I won’t succumb to that charm of yours again.

      Reluctantly she shook his hand, feeling its warmth shoot up her arm with the speed of light. Irritated, she concentrated on her breakfast, answering his few attempts at conversation with one-syllable words. There was no reason to engage in small talk with him. Perhaps she was being rude, but better that than to embarrass herself again.

      She put her cup down after finishing the last dregs of coffee and glanced up at the kitchen clock. It was almost eleven. Nathan had stayed almost double the allotted six hours. He would probably leave right after breakfast.

      Perhaps she could manage to be civil just for another hour. For Sally’s sake.

      Determined to do her best, she straightened up from her slouch and offered him more coffee. With a slight look of surprise, he accepted.

      “Sally