He wasn’t going to clean it.
Carbon-based ants, meet ammonia.
Forgetting simple chemistry principles was not a good omen for her degree.
Wanting to watch her unexpected helper go to battle against the ants wasn’t a good omen for her sanity.
Her skin flushed as if she were standing inside hell’s boiler room. She reached for the Windex, but something stopped her before she could get close enough to grab it.
Something that tasted suspiciously like fear.
Not of him.
Of herself.
“I’ll do it,” she bit out. She flicked her fingers up, gesturing for him to hand over the Windex.
“Ain’t no trouble.” His gaze wandered down her body, and she felt a whomp in her chest beneath the tingles spreading to her rib cage.
“Be a shame to mess up them pretty clothes,” he said.
“I can handle this,” she said firmly. She gestured to his car. “There’s another exit two rows down. I’ve taken enough of your time.”
His eyes were big and blue as her wounded heart, but when he squinted at her like that, they went a shade darker to cobalt. “Now I’m sure it don’t matter none to you, but my momma’d have my hide if she heard I abandoned a lady with critters in her car.”
Anna stifled a whimper of frustration. She swiped at her forehead. She’d probably drown in her own sweat before she managed to wrestle the Windex out of his hands.
If she could get brave enough to get within touching distance of him. “I don’t know your momma, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
He scratched his hair again, and she felt an intense desire to claw out that part of her that wanted to know how it wouldfeel between her fingers.
Rebound, her brain yelled.
Something more primitive was still clamoring about his hair.
“Reckon you might be right on that one,” he finally said. “But she’d still know. Scares me more’n that mound you parked over, that’s for sure.”
“I didn’t—” She stopped herself. Red ants swarmed around a huge ant mound beneath where her front bumper had been. “That wasn’t there this morning.”
“Be doing me a real big favor if you let me take care of this for you.” The solemnity of his expression was refreshingly innocent compared with what she expected out of Rodney Friday night. “Besides, killing bugs ain’t no work for a lady. Even a Yankee lady.”
An unexpected snort of amusement lodged in her nostrils. This one was either Southern chivalry at its finest or a few tomatoes short of a ketchup bottle. “This Yankee lady takes care of herself, thank you.”
But she still couldn’t propel herself close enough to grab the bottle.
He propped himself into the driver seat and squirted a trail of ants. A whole row of the little bugs curled up in the fetal position. He took a leisurely swipe at them with a paper towel, then sprayed again. He shot Anna a sly look out of the corner of his eye.
Like he was looking to see if she were watching him.
She quickly dropped her gaze and made a show of checking the time. Her heart thumped again, but this time it was pure panic. If she left now and ran once she got to campus, she’d only be seven minutes late. Plus heatstroke recovery time after the dash to the classroom. She tapped a foot. “We could be done in two minutes if you’d let me help.”
Squirt. Squirt. Squirt. “Getting the ones you can see don’t mean you’re getting the ones you can’t.”
She shivered. “Still, you’ve done enough. Would it help if Iwrote your momma a thank you note?”
Oh,God, and he had dimples. Of course he had dimples. This fiasco wouldn’t be complete if hedidn’thave dimples.
“It sure would make her day,” he said.
