Page 3 of My Brooding Valentine

“On the sides,” I said. “You can use your body to kind of hold it in place.”

Her body. I didn’t want to think about that. But saying the words had called attention to those curves that had my hands itching to touch them.

And now she was standing way too close to me, even though I couldn’t see her from where I stood. I smelled vanilla, probably from the heart-shaped cookies on that island behind us.

When she’d held out the platter and I’d seen words likeI’m yoursprinted on the cookies, I had thoughts. Thoughts that involved getting naked with this woman. It sure seemed like she was flirting with me, maybe even offering herself to me.

But of course, that was absurd. She was my neighbor. And bringing a platter of cookies was neighborly. Even if it hadn’t been in exchange for free labor, there would have been nothing at all sexual about it.

Still, a man’s mind couldn’t help but wander.

“Are you sure this is safe?” she asked. “I would absolutely hate myself if you got electrocuted.”

“I’d hate you too,” I said.

“Is that a joke? The first joke I’ve heard from you?”

It wasn’t really a joke, but yeah, it was my bad attempt at humor. I didn’t respond to her question, though. Instead, I kept things professional.

“I shut it off at the breaker, remember? There’s no electricity coming to this part of the house.”

“Right,” she said. “Have you done this before?”

Crap. Not only was she chatty, but now she was expecting me to talk. I might be a complete asshole, but I was still a gentleman deep down. I was raised right, and I spent time in the military. Good manners were second nature to me. I couldn’t be rude to a beautiful woman like her if I tried.

“Eight years in the military,” I said. “I guess you could say I learned a little bit of everything. Plus, I was the only guy in my house growing up. If something needed to be fixed, we didn’t have the money to pay someone, and we usually had a landlord who was an asshole about it.”

Asshole. I winced. I didn’t usually cuss in front of women, especially women I didn’t know all that well. Okay, there weren’t any women I knew well these days.

She laughed. “The guy who owns this place owes you a favor. It would’ve broken anyway, and he would have had to pay an electrician to come fix it. You just saved him a bunch of money. Want me to tell him?”

“No,” I said. “But I could break it after you leave, and you could tell him you want a refund for the oven not working.”

Silence. I wanted to look at her, but I couldn’t take my eyes off what I was doing.

“I shouldn’t have come here to start with,” she finally said. “I just wanted to get away…and do things on my own for a few days. My parents always took care of things for me. That’s why I’m up here alone. It’s also why I entered the competition. I want to prove to myself—and the world—that I’m not a complete screw-up.”

Her tone had changed in the past few minutes. She’d gone from being a cheerful, bouncing-off-the-walls chatterbox tosomeone going through some sort of crisis. She was way too young for it to be a mid-life one.

“Yeah, well, I jumped right into life after high school,” I said. “I went straight from graduation to boot camp. I didn’t really have anyone to clean up after me if I made messes. You do what you have to do.”

The silence that followed made me wonder if my tone had been too harsh. I was hardened and cynical. Maybe a little bitter too.

Okay, a lot bitter. Life had handed me a whole pile of lemons, and they were sour as hell. I’d battled through every challenge and come out the other side.

It would be nice if I could coast for a while, the way people like this woman did. To just have two parents who led the family rather than a struggling mom who worked eighty-hour weeks while I stayed home alone. The woman in the apartment across the hall was available if I needed anything, but there was all kinds of trouble a ten-year-old kid could get into in an apartment alone all day.

I shoved those thoughts aside as I moved around to where Hailey stood. My goal was to slide it back into its space, but she didn’t move right away, and that put me uncomfortably close to her.

Or maybe it wasn’t uncomfortable at all. In fact, it wastoocomfortable. Her vanilla scent was almost overwhelming. But instead of holding my breath to avoid its effect on me, I inhaled deeply.

“Do you want to…?” I gestured for her to scoot to the right.

“Sorry,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if…” She paused and shook her head. “Never mind.”

She slid to the right, taking that side of the oven. Together, we nudged it into place, with me bearing the majority of the weight. Then I stepped back and examined it.

“Looks straight to me,” I said. “Ready to fire this thing up and see if it works?”

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