The Mackades Collection (Books 1-4). Nora Roberts

look right in here. You should see yourself, how right you look. You’re as polished and perfect as this room. I want you so much I can’t see anything else but you.”

      Her heart did a long, unsteady cartwheel in her chest. “You’re going to make me stutter again, Rafe.” She had to make a conscious effort to pump air in and out of her lungs.

      “How long are you going to make me wait?” he demanded. “We’re not kids. We know what we feel and what we want.”

      “That’s exactly the point. We’re not kids, and we should be adult enough to be sensible.”

      “Sensible’s for old lady’s shoes. Sex may have to be responsible, but it sure as hell doesn’t have to be sensible.”

      The thought of wicked, completely insensible sex with him numbed every nerve ending in her body. “I don’t know how to handle you. I don’t know how to handle the way you make me feel. I’m usually good at handling things. I guess we need to talk about this.”

      “I guess you need to. I just said what I needed to say.” Unbelievably frustrated, irrationally angry at his own helpless response to her, he turned to the window. “Your truck’s here. I’ve got work upstairs. Put the stuff wherever the hell you want it.”

      “Rafe—”

      He stopped her, froze her before her hand could reach his arm. “You wouldn’t want to touch me right now.” His voice was quiet, very controlled. “It’d be a mistake. You don’t like to make them.”

      “That’s not fair.”

      “What the hell makes you think I’m fair?” His eyes slashed her to ribbons. “Ask anybody who knows me. Your check’s on the mantel.”

      With her own temper sizzling, she stomped into the hall after him. “MacKade.”

      He stopped on the steps, turned back. “Yeah?”

      “I’m not interested in what anyone else thinks or says. If I were, you’d never have gotten within three feet of me.”

      She glanced up as an interested laborer poked his head into the stairway. “Beat it,” she snapped, and had Rafe’s lips twitching reluctantly. “I make up my own mind, in my own time,” she continued and turned on her heel to open the front door for the movers. “You ask anybody.”

      When she looked back, he was gone, like one of his ghosts.

      Nearly blew it, Rafe thought later. He wasn’t entirely sure why he’d reacted that way. Anger and demands weren’t his usual style with women. Maybe that, he mused as he troweled drywall compound on a seam, was the problem.

      Women had always come easily.

      He liked them, always had. The way they looked, thought, smelled, spoke. Soft, warm, fragrant, they were one of the more interesting aspects of life. Frowning, he slapped on more compound, smoothed it.

      Women were important. He enjoyed cultivating them, the companionship they offered. And the sex, he acknowledged with a thin smile, he enjoyed that, too.

      Hell, he was human.

      Houses were important, he reflected, coating another seam of drywall. Repairing them was satisfying, using your own hands and sweat to turn them into something that lasted. And the money that came from the end result was satisfying, too.

      A man had to eat.

      But there’d never been a single house that was specifically important, as this one had come to be.

      And there’d never been a single woman who was specifically important, as Regan had now become.

      And he calculated that she would slice him into dog meat if she knew he was comparing her to stone and wood.

      He doubted she would understand that it was the first time in his life he’d ever focused on something, and someone, so entirely.

      The house had haunted him for a lifetime. He hadn’t set eyes on her a month before. Yet they were both in his blood. He hadn’t been exaggerating when he told her that he couldn’t see anything but her. She was haunting him, just as the restless ghosts haunted these rooms and hallways.

      Seeing her there that morning had turned him on his head, set his hormones raging, and he’d fumbled. He supposed he could make up ground. But this was the first time he could remember being tackled by emotion—emotion double-teamed with desire—and he wasn’t at all sure of his moves.

      Back off, MacKade, he told himself, and scooped more compound out of the bucket. She wants room, give her room. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have time—or as though she were some sort of life-altering encounter. Maybe she was unique, maybe she was more intriguing than he’d counted on. But she was still just a woman.

      He heard the weeping, felt the stir of chilled air. With barely a hesitation, he leveled his seam.

      “Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” he muttered. “You might as well get used to company, ’cause I’m not going anywhere.”

      A door slammed. It amused him now, these endless little dramas. Footsteps and creaks, whispers and weeping. It was almost as though he were part of it all. A caretaker, he decided. Making the house livable for those who could never leave.

      He thought it was too bad none of the permanent residents ever made an appearance. It would be quite an experience to see, as well as hear. An involuntary shudder worked up his back, as if fingers had trailed along his spine.

      And feel, he thought.

      Footsteps echoed down the hall outside as he moved to the next sheet of drywall. To his surprise and curiosity, they stopped just outside the door. He watched the knob turn, just as the work lamp behind him went out, plunging the room into darkness.

      He’d have suffered torments from hell before admitting that his heart skipped several beats. To cover the lapse, he muttered oaths under his breath, rubbed his suddenly damp palms on his spattered jeans. From memory, he fumbled his way toward the door. It swung open fast and caught him full in the face.

      He wasn’t muttering oaths now, but spewing them. Stars were revolving in front of his eyes. And, with disgust, he felt blood trickle from his nose.

      He heard the hoarse scream, saw the ghostly figure in the shadows of the hall, and didn’t hesitate. Pain and fury had him shooting forward like a bullet. Ghost or not, anything that gave him a bloody nose was going to pay.

      It took him several furious seconds to realize he had warm flesh wriggling in his arms, and little more to recognize the scent.

      She was haunting him all right, he thought bitterly.

      “What the hell are you doing?”

      “Rafe?” Her voice squeaked out. In the dark, she threw up her arms, one flailing hand catching him sharply on the chin before she managed the wholehearted embrace. “Oh, my God, you scared me to death. I thought— I don’t know. I heard… I came up. Oh, it’s you.”

      “What’s left of me.” Swearing, he set her firmly aside. There was enough light from the lamp hooked at the top of the stairs for him to see her pale face and huge eyes. “What are you doing here?”

      “I picked up some things at auction and thought I’d put them— You’re bleeding.”

      “No kidding.” Scowling at her, he swiped a hand under his nose. “I don’t think you broke it again. Quite.”

      “I—” She rubbed a hand over her heart to make sure it hadn’t exploded from her chest. “Did I hit you with the door? I’m sorry. Here.” She dug in the pocket of her jacket and found a tissue. “I’m really sorry,” she repeated, and began to dab at the blood herself. “I was just…” Helpless, she tried to disguise a laugh as a hiccup. “I didn’t realize.” She gave up, wrapped her arms around her aching stomach, and slid to the floor.

      “It’s a real laugh