Lonesome Ryder: Lonesome Ryder / Restaurant Romeo. Carol Finch

him. He didn’t even kiss her back—which was a huge disappointment. It didn’t do a thing for her self-confidence, either. He just stared at her with those glowing green eyes, as if he wanted to kiss her back but refused to let himself do it. Now she really wanted to whale him upside the head!

      Determined to blunder through the awkward silence, Laura dropped down on her heels and plastered on a breezy smile to conceal her embarrassment—and there was plenty of that pulsating in her face, she was sure.

      “Why’d you do that?” His voice crackled like static and his massive chest expanded with ragged breaths.

      “Why didn’t you do it so I wouldn’t have to?” she countered shakily.

      Seconds ticked by while she tried to draw a breath that wasn’t thick with the tantalizing scent of him. Hoo-boy, how was a woman supposed to extricate herself from such an awkward encounter? She had no idea! Why didn’t he say something, damn it? Snippy insults were better than this maddening silence that stretched between them like a rubber band about to snap.

      “Well, that answers that,” she said lamely.

      He didn’t so much as blink. His gaze just bored into her. “What was the question?”

      Thoroughly exasperated, she swatted him on the chest with the back of her hand. “You’re impossible!”

      “Then quit,” he suggested. His face was such an unreadable mask that she wanted to grab him by his shirt collar and shake the stuffing out of him.

      “Not on your life, buster,” she erupted. “You can’t fire me and I refuse to leave. You’re stuck with me!”

      “Not necessarily,” he begged to differ. “A cleverly arranged murder is still an option.”

      She smirked at him. “You’d never get away with it. And you know what else?”

      “I’m afraid to guess because I’m probably being graded on this, professor. You’ll deduct the number of wrong answers from the right ones and I’ll end up with a score of zero.”

      Laura cocked her head and studied him pensively. Was he teasing her with that dry wit that could stir up a cloud of dust? She was pretty sure he was. Wow! A real breakthrough!

      In a moment of what was surely impulsive insanity, Laura looped her arms around his neck, surged upward and kissed him again. His mouth softened ever so slightly, but she didn’t stick around to embarrass herself again, just in case he refused to kiss her back a second time. With a loud smack for her grand finale she broke the kiss, wheeled around and wobbled over to the sink, hoping he’d take his cue and leave so she could splash water on her face and cool off.

      While Laura ran the faucets full blast and stared out the kitchen window Wade pivoted around and hobbled into the living room on one crutch, one broken leg and two unsteady knees that threatened to fold up like lawn chairs. He couldn’t breathe normally and sensual awareness echoed through him like feedback to a microphone. He made it to the recliner—barely—before he collapsed.

      “Aw, damn,” Wade whispered roughly. And that was putting it mildly! He’d watched Laura bend over and poke her head in the fridge and his gaze and attention had been immediately drawn to the swell of her breasts and the alluring curve of her fanny. Desire had shot through him like a lightning bolt.

      He’d taken two impulsive steps toward Laura then grabbed onto his self-control with both fists, telling himself that touching her would be a huge mistake because he was afraid to trust the hot, wild sensations she aroused in him and the ravenous hunger he felt for her. He’d been wrong to trust his feelings and desires before and he’d paid dearly, thanks to his ex. But Laura had had the courage to walk right up to him and finish what he’d foolishly started.

      Now he wished he didn’t know that she tasted like raindrops during a spring shower. He wished he didn’t know that the slightest brush of her lush body could make him hard and aching in the time it took to hiccup. He wished he didn’t know that he’d never be satisfied not tasting her again, not touching, not being as close to her as two people could get because he was so intensely attracted to her that it was downright unnerving!

      “Aw…damn…” he repeated. Another wave of tormenting desire crashed over him and threatened to drown him in forbidden wanting. What the hell was he going to do with that woman when he couldn’t fire her, she wouldn’t quit and he was starting to like her way too much?

      THE NEXT DAY, WADE was still searching for the answer to that question while he lounged in his recliner. He glanced up from the TV when he heard the front door swing open. He inwardly groaned when Laura strolled inside, wearing a wet T-shirt and shorts that clung to her curvaceous body like a coat of paint. Traitorous desire delivered a quick knockout punch as his gaze roamed helplessly over her. Damn it! He’d been sitting here, listing all the reasons he needed to keep his distance from Laura and here she came again, tormenting him to no end. Wanting her, and refusing to do anything about it was wearing him out.

      He frowned disapprovingly when he managed to drag his eyes off Laura’s shapely body and noticed Frank was at her heels. “What’s he doing in the house? He’s a cow dog.”

      Laura reached down to pat Frank’s damp head. “I thought you might enjoy having Frank around for company, so Duff and I bathed him and applied some flea and tick medication.”

      “I don’t want him in the house,” Wade insisted.

      “Sure you do,” she contradicted as she crossed the room.

      Her wet clothes demanded his attention again and he gritted his teeth against the insane urge to reach out and map the exquisite terrain of her feminine body. Well hell, so much for trying to stifle the desire that looking at her engendered. Arousal was becoming the conditioned response to seeing her. Damnation, he was turning into a basket case!

      “Frank, you stay here and visit with Wade while I start supper,” she ordered, then headed for the kitchen. “Duff should be here soon.”

      “Ooofff.” Wade grunted when Frank bounded onto his lap and sat there staring happily at him. Wade sighed in defeat and scratched behind Frank’s ear.

      The woman was definitely taking over his home and his life, he realized. She dominated his thoughts, too. And lately, most of those thoughts originated below his belt buckle.

      When Frank used Wade’s crotch as a springboard to bound from the chair, he grimaced uncomfortably. He muttered a salty curse when Frank trotted to the kitchen to rejoin Laura. Damn dog had turned traitor and was getting attached to Laura.

      Wade sat there in his chair, wondering how much longer he could hold out against this woman’s devastating charms. She’d rearranged his life, left her memory all around his house and she had him wanting her to the extreme. He honestly wondered if the self-control he’d taken for granted for years could fortify him until she was out from underfoot. Wade had the uneasy feeling that one of these days he’d buckle to this inevitable attraction and wind up getting hurt all over again.

      Would Laura be as hard on his heart as Bobbie Lynn had been? Wade liked to think not, but he still wasn’t sure he wanted to take the risk of caring and finding out for sure.

      “NO, NO, NO, YA DON’T CLAMP a cigar between your teeth like that,” Duff instructed. “Hold that bad boy like this.”

      Laura watched her mentor of newly acquired vices bite down on his stogie and then she imitated his technique.

      “That’s better,” Duff said. “Now squint your eyes a bit and look down at the cards in your hand. Don’t change expression, either. That’s a dead giveaway that you’re holding something good.”

      Laura conjured up the somber expression that was Wade’s trademark then studied her poker hand. She glanced at the paper Duff had filled out so she’d know if a flush beat a straight and where a full house fit in the winning sequences.

      “Now, casually take a sip of beer,” Duff told her. “And slouch in your chair a bit. You look as if you’re