“You’d figured them for flakes. Because of the lingerie,” Greer said wryly.
“I hadn’t figured them for anything at all. Don’t jump to conclusions, sassy.” He paused. “I must have met at least five of your colleagues.” And there was no need to mention that he’d engineered all of those meetings. “There’s no question they’re fond of you.”
“And I love them back,” Greer said mildly.
“The first one I ran into was a man named Ray. The one you mentioned you’d be going to that trade show with.”
“Hmm.” Traffic was thick, less because of rush hour, since Greenville really didn’t have that much of a rush hour, than because of a muggy day when drivers were crabby.
“You trust him, Greer?”
“Ray?” She chuckled, darting around a poky Chevy. “No woman in her right mind would trust Ray.” She flashed Ryan a glance. “I can land a mean right hook, if that’s what you were thinking. And you work in an office yourself, so don’t tell me there isn’t a woman around who makes the men occasionally nervous. It comes with the business. You can’t like everyone you work with, and some people are more aggressive than others.”
“Yes.” He wanted to pursue it, but didn’t. Greer’s voice held a defensive pride. I can handle my own problems. I always have. Ryan watched her steadily maneuver in and around the other cars. “Are you going to feed me tonight?” he asked casually.
“No.” But she was. She had known the minute she saw him that she was doomed again. It wasn’t wise, getting involved with McCullough; she had been foolish to sleep with him, and the best thing she could possibly do now was tactfully ease herself out of any further intimate contact. Besides that, she was hot, tired and irritable; she had to call her mother…and blood was dancing up and down her veins just from being this close to Ryan again.
“Greer? It’s a red light.”
Obviously. She turned to him quizzically as she stopped the car, unsure why he was stating the obvious. His face loomed closer, much closer. So swiftly, so softly, his lips touched hers. And again. And then sank in the way a pillow sank in, a soft crash of weight, leaving the molded indentation of his mouth afterward. She was staring at him, dark eyes bemused, confused and warm with longing, when the car behind her honked.
She jammed her foot on the accelerator. The car stalled. Ryan chuckled.
“Listen,” she began abruptly as she started the engine and drove through the intersection.
“I’m listening.”
But Greer didn’t have anything to say. Ryan sneezed again, and she frowned.
“Are you catching something?”
“I never catch anything.”
“What’s wrong with your car?”
“Nothing. Just needed an oil change. And I used the excuse to get dropped off where you’d be stuck taking me home.”
“Didn’t it once occur to you to call? I might have been working late.”
“I considered that, rationally. Except that rational decisions haven’t always worked out too well lately.”
“Pardon?”
At her apartment, a tall, towheaded boy was ambling out of their building with a sack of newspapers slung over his shoulder. He brightened at the sight of Greer. “Hi.” His voice sounded cracked and wistful.
“Hi, Johnny,” she returned warmly. “Life treating you okay?”
The boy spread his fingers and wagged his hand back and forth, and Greer chuckled. “You’re not alone,” she assured him as she waved goodbye and fumbled for her apartment key.
Ryan glanced back, to see the boy staring at Greer-at least until he caught Ryan’s deadpan stare. Johnny turned in a hurry, flipped up the kickstand of his bike and sped off. Ryan climbed the stairs at a more sedate pace, noting that Greer’s newspaper had been neatly tucked behind her doorknob. His own had been haphazardly tossed near the mailbox.
“Known him long?” he asked.
“Who?”
“The kid.”
Greer looked up. “Sure. Johnny and his mom have lived across the street for as long as I’ve been here.”
“He’s got a crush on you.”
“Yes. Painful. On both sides. I wouldn’t hurt him for anything; he’s a sweetheart.” She glanced up when Ryan stole the key from her hand and motioned her toward his place. “I thought you wanted me to cook?”
What he wanted her to be was safe, and away from every damn male but him.
Prepared for a touchy exercise in tact, Ryan had found her boss more than willing to listen. Grant clearly appreciated Greer’s talents and was personally fond of her. Ryan had liked him instantly. The man had been disturbed that Greer hadn’t mentioned her crank calls to him, and not all that quick to discount any of his employees as possible culprits. He wasn’t in a hurry to malign any of his staff, but Grant admitted that several men would have done more than look at Greer if she’d ever given them the first encouragement. If Ryan was implying that those calls could mean a threat of a sexual nature…
Ryan had implied nothing. He’d said it straight out.
The police had assured him that nuisance callers rarely followed through on their telephone threats. Despite that, every instinct told him that this caller was a sexual threat to Greer.
And Ryan was disturbed, frustrated, fiercely protective and beginning to worry about even fourteen-year-old boys who looked at her.
He coaxed. “You haven’t seen my place since it was decorated in packing crates. We can eat there just as well.”
“I need to change my clothes, my mother calls on Mondays, and I-”
“You can call her from my apartment, or vice versa. I had an extension of your phone installed this morning.’”
“You what?”
Greer’s temper simmered helplessly while Ryan shoved some kind of gourmet TV fare in the oven, showed her around the apartment, nudged a dish of mixed raisins and nuts into her hand, and left her to muddle around while he disappeared to change his shirt.
By the time they finished dinner, she figured he had to have exhausted himself with inconsequential nonstop patter about engineering, and weather, and his mother’s love of gardenias, and health care in England. Only after dinner, he installed her on the couch. His furniture was new; she couldn’t help but approve of it. The couch was an off-white nubby affair, and she sank into it so deeply and so comfortably that she doubted she could get up.
Her stocking feet seemed to be propped on an ottoman, and she hadn’t seen her shoes in an hour. It was tough, dredging up irritation when she was so comfortable. The rest of his new furnishings were equally pleasing. He had placed them all wrong-men will be men-but they were tasteful and appealing. Brass lamps, an oak rolltop desk, shelves in pecan, a coffee table in that rare dark marble she’d seen only in books before… The only thing he hadn’t found a place for was a painting.
The oil was resting on the floor against the wall, a seascape at dawn; the creamy breakers were rolling in, and the waters beyond were a bright, endless blue. The blue of Ryan’s eyes.
“That’s been sitting there for days,” he said casually. “Wouldn’t have any ideas where I should hang it, would you?”
She had several ideas where Ryan was concerned, none of them mentionable. In a demonstration of totally out-of-character garrulousness, he’d mentioned lightly that he’d had a very busy day with the police and the phone company on her behalf. Now her phone-temporarily-rang in his apartment as well as her own. Since it was past time to get to the bottom of the caller mystery, he couldn’t imagine that she had any objections.
Four times she’d opened her mouth to read him the riot act. Four times she’d closed it.
Confusion kept her silent. She heard Ryan’s overt message, but she heard the unspoken one as well. She’d given him certain rights when she made love with him. Privacy and lovers didn’t go together, of course. Or they shouldn’t. When you loved someone, you bared your vulnerabilities, laid open your weaknesses. Like the things you were afraid of.