“Figures.” She sighed. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer, Jeff.”
“But you don’t trust me.”
Her gaze sharpened. “It’s not that exactly.”
But it was that. He could read it in her eyes. She wanted to believe and she wasn’t sure. Could he blame her for that?
I want you.
The words remained unspoken, but they burned inside of him. He wanted and he needed with equal intensity. He wanted to inhale the scent of her body, touch her everywhere. He wanted to feel the silk of her short, dark hair and taste her mouth. He wanted to fill her until they both forgot everything but the heat of the moment.
Instead he drew in a slow breath. “The offer still stands. I hope you’ll reconsider.”
“I can’t.”
He wanted to ask why. He wanted to know how she’d figured out the truth about him so quickly. How had she learned that the safest course for her was to run away? He wanted to protest her decision, tell her that she was the closest to caring that he’d come in years. That when he was with her and Maggie, sometimes he forgot he wasn’t like everyone else.
What he said instead was “Let me know if you change your mind.”
And then he walked away, because if he didn’t, he would say something he would regret. He might even tell her the truth.
* * *
The next morning Ashley carefully replaced the phone in the cradle when what she wanted to do was throw it across the room and stomp her feet. She hadn’t thought it was possible for her life to get any worse, but she’d been wrong. One brief sentence had turned her world upside down. Just one sentence.
“Your apartment building has been condemned.”
With that, her home was gone. The city official had been very polite, offering assistance in finding a new place to live. However, there were no plans to help her with the costs of moving, nor was she likely to find such low rent. She was completely and totally screwed.
The timing was incredible. Just last night she’d told Jeff they would be moving out in the morning. Mostly because she’d expected her apartment to be habitable by now. Talk about being completely wrong.
She wanted to go back to bed, pull the covers over her head and wait for the world to go away. Unfortunately that wasn’t likely to happen. Instead she had a child to worry about, and classes, not to mention solving her living arrangement issue.
She left her bedroom and moved toward the stairs. Smile, she told herself as she walked down the hall. Jeff mustn’t know she was in such dire straits and she didn’t want Maggie worrying, either.
She stepped into the kitchen to find her daughter and Jeff having breakfast together. Neither of them looked up, although she was reasonably confident that Jeff knew she’d arrived. She ignored the man sitting at the table and instead focused on her daughter.
She’d dressed Maggie in her favorite pink corduroy overalls with a matching pink-and-white kitten-print shirt. She’d washed her daughter’s face, helped her with her shoes and socks, but she hadn’t had time to do her hair. Yet Maggie’s curls were drawn back from her face with two tiny, plastic, pink barrettes. They weren’t even, or anchored to last the day, but they were in place.
There was no way her daughter had managed to fasten them in her hair, which left only one possibility. Ashley’s gaze slid to her host. Jeff was in a suit, as usual. In fact she didn’t remember seeing him wear anything else. His white shirt was starched, his tie perfectly in place. He was showered, shaven and ready to start his day.
The breadth of his shoulders spoke of his strength. His firm mouth barely smiled. Yet he’d taken the time to fix a little girl’s hair. Something he’d done before. Maggie wasn’t afraid of him. If anything, she adored Jeff. She’d trusted him from the first moment they’d met. Was that the intuition of a trusting child, or the hunger of a fatherless girl to interact with a substitute male? Ashley knew generalities about Jeff—that he was a former soldier, a dangerous man who excelled in a potentially deadly occupation. But what did she know about the person inside? What was his story?
“Mommy?” Maggie had looked up and seen her in the doorway. “I’m eating all my cereal.”
“Good for you.” Ashley raised her chin slightly. “Jeff, may I speak to you for a second?”
He nodded and rose to his feet, then joined her in the hallway. “Is there a problem?” he asked.
She stared into gray eyes. She couldn’t read him any better than she had when she’d first arrived. “I talked to someone from the city just now. Did you know my apartment building had been condemned?”
His gaze never wavered. “No, but I’m not surprised. The water damage looked extensive.”
“I have to find a new apartment.”
He folded his arms over his chest. “Do you have the money?”
“No.”
