Montana Passions. Allison Leigh

pulse ratcheted up a notch and he quelled a satisfied smile. Better, he thought. Now, don’t blow it…

      He shut the battered paperback without marking the page. Next time he picked it up, he’d have to start over, anyway. “Yeah,” he said, sounding a hell of a lot more offhand than he felt. He gestured toward the cabinets on the far wall. “In the bottom, on the left.” He started to rise.

      “No. I’ll look.”

      He sank back to his seat and she got up and went over there, leaving him debating whether to follow her. He decided against it. She was loosening up a little. Better let her get looser before he got too close.

      She went to her knees, pulled open the cupboard and stuck her head in there. He looked at her backside. Great view. Even with the ugly baggy sweater and too-loose frayed corduroy pants.

      “Yes,” she said, her voice muffled by the cabinet. “Here they are.” She pulled her head out and craned around to grin at him. “Lots of soup, but I see some canned fruit, too.”

      He got up, after all, and went to stand over her—just to be helpful. She passed him the dusty cans and he set them on the counter above the cabinet.

      “That’s it.” She shut the cabinet doors and stood to read the labels. “Vegetable beef, chicken noodle, cream of asparagus, pears, applesauce…” She gave him a pert look. “Justin. Not a single can of cream of mushroom soup. And no peaches.”

      Absurdly pleased that she’d remembered the details of his childhood ordeal, he allowed himself to chuckle. “That’s a relief. I admit I was getting worried.”

      “No need to.” She brushed his arm—the lightest breath of a touch. Beneath the green sleeve of his sweater, his skin burned as if she’d set a match to it.

      Their eyes met. Zap. His heart raced faster and the air seemed to shimmer around them. Damned amazing, her effect on him.

      Katie smiled wider, a nervous kind of smile. Yes. She was trying. She wasn’t cutting him out anymore. “So…soup with your sandwiches?”

      He nodded. “Vegetable beef—unless that’s your favorite?”

      She admitted, “I have this thing for cream of asparagus.”

      “Well, then. Looks like we both get what we want.”

      Katie went to get ready for bed at ten. Justin said he wanted to read a little longer and then he’d be in.

      She knew it was only a pretense. In the hours they’d sat reading, he’d hardly made it through the first few chapters in that book of his. No. He was being thoughtful, giving her a chance to get ready and go to bed in private.

      In the ladies’ room, she rinsed out her underwear and hung it over the stall door. She washed up and dressed for bed in a wrinkled old pair of red flannel pajamas—thanks, again, to the bags of clothing in the storage room.

      She looked at herself in the mirror over the sink and scrunched up her nose at what she saw. Tomorrow, if they were still stuck here, she would have to wash her hair. Maybe she could find some bath towels in the rummage sale stuff—or if not, well, she’d work it out somehow. And really, Justin didn’t need to be sitting in the kitchen pretending to read, respecting her need to keep her distance from him after the kiss that had gone too far out in the shed.

      “Stupid,” she muttered to her own reflection. “I’m being stupid about this and I need to stop.” There was nothing alluring or lust-inspiring about the sight of her in flannel pajamas. They buttoned up to here and bagged around her ankles. If Justin saw her getting into bed in them he would not be the least tempted to make mad, passionate love to her.

      Truly. In pajamas like these, she was safe from the potential to have sex of any kind.

      She peered closer at herself, craned her head forward so her nose met the glass. The question was, why did that depress her?

      Oh, come on. She knew why.

      Because there had not been nearly enough sex—of any kind—in her life.

      “I, Katherine Adele Fenton,” she whispered, her breath fogging the glass, “am a cliché. I’m right out of The Music Man. I’m Marian the librarian—hiding in the stacks, waiting for some cocky con man to show up and let down my hair for me.”

      Really, it had to stop. She owed it to librarians everywhere, who, she knew, were a much more outgoing, ready-for-anything bunch than most people gave them credit for.

      She pulled back from the mirror and then used her flannel sleeve to wipe the steamed-up place her breath had left. She stood straight and proud. “I wanted him to kiss me and I’m glad he kissed me,” she announced to the sink and the toilet stall and her soggy underwear hanging from the stall door. “I’m not afraid of my own feelings. I’m an adult and I run my own life and I do it very well, thank you.” She liked Justin and he clearly liked her and she wasn’t running away from that. Not anymore.

      Yes, there was always danger—when you really liked someone, when you put your heart on the line. Things that mattered inevitably involved a certain amount of risk.

      Her shoulders back and her head high, Katie marched to the ladies’ room door and pulled it wide.

      Justin looked up from his book when she entered the kitchen. The bewildered expression on his handsome face made her want to grab him and hug him and tell him it would be all right. She didn’t, of course. There were a few things that needed saying before they got around to any hugging.

      “Katie? Everything okay?”

      She marched over, yanked out the chair opposite him and dropped into it. “It was very sweet of you, to sit in here with that book you’re not really interested in and wait until I had time to put on these ugly old pajamas and get into bed. But it’s not as if we had to share a bathroom or anything.” She raised her arms and looked down at her baggy bedroom attire. “And as you can see, this outfit reveals absolutely nothing of my, er, feminine charms. We’re both perfectly safe from any, um, dangerous temptation, don’t you think?” She lifted her head and met his eyes.

      They were gleaming. “Well, Katie. I don’t know. You look pretty damn tempting to me.”

      “Liar,” she muttered, flattered in spite of herself.

      He put up a hand, palm out, as if testifying in court. “Sexiest woman I ever saw.”

      “Oh, yeah, right.”

      “Must be the color. You know what they say about red. The color of power. And sex.”

      She sat up straighter. “Power, huh? I kind of like that.”

      In his eyes she could see what he almost said: But what about sex? He didn’t, though.

      Probably afraid she’d get spooked and shut him out again.

      “Justin?” Her heart pounded painfully inside her rib cage. She had things to say and she was going to say them, but that didn’t make it easy.

      “Yeah?”

      “Justin, are you after my money?”

      With zero hesitation, he replied, “No.”

      She peered at him through narrowed eyes. “Are you sure?“

      “Yeah. Money’s not an issue for me. I have plenty of my own. Now, anyway. And I earned every damn penny of it.”

      Her face felt as if it had turned as red as her pajamas and her heart beat even faster. She did believe him. If that made her a total fool, well, so be it.

      He added, “But don’t take me wrong. I don’t mind that you’re rich. Hey, I’m glad you are. It’s always better, don’t you think, to have money than not to?”

      Katie thought about that. “Sometimes I’m not so sure. Money can…isolate a person. It