Page 6 of Alone With You
How was she supposed to avoid him in this tiny, two-bedroom cabin? Right now he looked as immovable as a mountain.
“Provisionally,” she said, her throat tightening. “We could give cohabitation a try.”
“Good.” He pushed off the edge of the couch and strode toward the kitchen, back muscles flexing.
She said after him, “I suppose you’ll want the master bedroom, too?”
“It’s yours. Too many ruffles.” He spoke over his shoulder as he paused in the portal. “And I won’t enter that room again, Red, without remembering you floating out of the bathroom.”
***
A half-hour later, Jenny shouldered open the kitchen door, bracing the first box of equipment in her arms. At the other end of the kitchen, an open door revealed a set of stairs leading into the basement laboratory. She heard Logan rustling around below, long before she reached the bottom stair.
“I’ll be out of your way in a minute.” A box lay open on the long center island. “I’m almost done.”
She stilled with her gear in her arms, eyeing the lab. She saw a clutter of trays near the island sink. Brown bottles of Kodak chemicals stood on a shelf against the wall. A rope strung across a pair of pipes held a row of photographic prints she could only see from behind.
“You’re a photographer, Mr. Macallister?”
“Logan.” He snatched a print and added it, face-down, to a pile. “It’s a hobby.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were using the lab?” She was usurping his space more than he’d let on. “I’ll be out in the field for a couple of days and there’s no reason you can’t use this space while—”
“If I need a darkroom, I’ll rig up the second bathroom.” He laid the prints into the box and flipped the flaps closed. “You get your work done.”
And move on.
The words were unspoken but as clear as a bell. Logan veered around her and dipped his head to avoid the overhang as he headed up the stairs. Suppressing a sigh, she set her gear down on the now-empty table and sank down on a barstool whose padding had seen better days.Well, Jen, you bumbled it again.Over the past few years, she’d managed to earn a Ph.D., publish dozens of papers, and be nominated for tenure at a state university. But, in the immortal words of her sixth grade teacher, she still hadn’t figured out how to play well with others.
Drop-dead sexy men were a particular weakness. Logan had left the room but the scent of him lingered, the perfume of cut wood and shaved pencils. Breathing it in kicked up old instincts and lurched a wave of heat through her. She closed her eyes and experienced the warmth with a measure of scientific detachment as it suffused every cell of her body…and then ebbed away into hollow disappointment.
Yeah, she’d been working too hard. Correcting too many papers, administering too many finals, shepherding too many students through the last of their laboratory projects. Exhaustion nibbled at her, making her easy to unsettle. It had been a while since any man had seen under her clothes…or slipped under her skin. But, after her ex, she wouldn’t let anyone have that kind of power over her again.
She pushed up from the stool and slapped the dust off her hands. No use wasting time thinking about Logan Macallister. She took the stairs two at a time, barreled through the empty kitchen, and headed for her car to retrieve another box. When she returned, she thought she heard the buzz of some electric tool coming from the back yard. A quick glance through the basement window revealed a roomy shed some distance apart from the cabin. A splatter of what appeared to be sawdust flew out of the open door. He was hewing logs for the winter, no doubt. She forcefully pushed the image of Logan shirtless with a chain saw out of her mind, opened the first box, and plunged into the task of setting up her temporary lab. She had no sooner scraped a digital scale on the table when she noticed the tracks it left through the grime on the surface. She’d better clean first. She was elbow-deep in a sink full of suds when the basement door scraped open sometime later, flooding the basement with light.
Macallister pounded down the stairs, stopping mid-flight to grip the sloping ceiling, showing off the flex of his arms.
“Whoa,” he said, looking around.
She swiped her brow and followed Macallister’s gaze to the room. The counters and island gleamed, the machines sat neatly in a row, and rinsed glassware sparkled on crisp paper towels.
She said, “I like a clean workplace.”
“No kidding.” He dropped his arms to his hips. “You planning to eat sometime today?”
“Eventually.” She turned back to a sink full of suds, away from that strange pulsing aura of his. “I’ll manage something later.”
“Something more substantial than M&Ms?”
She glanced at the bag of candy she’d opened a while ago, now spilled in a colorful pool on the island. “I’ll eat real food later.”
“It already is later, Red. Past eight o’clock.”
Jenny glanced toward the single basement window. Rays of dusky gray light poured through the outside grime. She must have been working for hours.
“I’ll order in,” she said. “Know a good pizza place?”
Logan rumbled a laugh that dragged her attention back to him. Bits of chaff clung to the thighs of his jeans. Dirt streaked his once-white T-shirt. His hair looked like he’d spent the afternoon tracking his fingers through it.
