LITMIR.BIZ

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strangely relieved. “I should go.”

      “Don’t be an idiot,” he said, surprising himself yet again. “Dinner is ready here. And it’s late. Plus there’s no way I can eat all this.”

      “Okay,” she said, clearly hesitant.

      “Come on now. Stop looking at me like you think I’m going to bite you. You’ve been reading too much Twilight. Indians don’t really turn into wolves.”

      Her face turned really red then. “That’s not what I was thinking. I don’t... I’m not afraid of you.”

      She was afraid of something. And what concerned him most was that it might be the same thing he was fighting against.

      “I really was teasing you,” he said. “I have a little bit of a reputation in town, but I didn’t earn half of it.”

      “Are you saying people in town are...prejudiced?”

      “I wouldn’t go that far. I mean, I wouldn’t say it’s on purpose. But whether it’s because I grew up poor or it’s because I’m brown, people have always given me a wide berth.”

      “I didn’t... I mean, I’ve never seen people act that way.”

      “Well, they wouldn’t. Not to you.”

      She blinked slightly. “I’ll serve dinner now.”

      “Don’t worry,” he said, “the story has a happy ending. I have a lot of money now, and that trumps anything else. People have no issue hiring me to build these days. Though, I remember the first time my old boss put me on as the leader of the building crew, and the guy whose house we were building had a problem with it. He didn’t think I should be doing anything that required too much skill. Was more comfortable with me just swinging the hammer, not telling other people where to swing it.”

      She took plates down from the cupboard, holding them close to her chest. “That’s awful.”

      “People are awful.”

      A line creased her forehead. “They definitely can be.”

      “Stop hugging my dinner plate to your shirt. That really isn’t sanitary. We can eat in here.” He gestured to the countertop island. She set the plates down hurriedly, then started dishing food onto them.

      He sighed heavily, moving to where she was and taking the big fork and knife out of her hands. “Have a seat. How much do you want?”

      “Oh,” she said, “I don’t need much.”

      He ignored her, filling the plate completely, then filling his own. After that, he went to the fridge and pulled out a beer. “Want one?”

      She shook her head. “I don’t drink.”

      He frowned, then looked back into the fridge. “I don’t have anything else.”

      “Water is fine.”

      He got her a glass and poured some water from the spigot in the fridge. He handed it to her, regarding her like she was some kind of alien life-form. The small conversation had really highlighted the gulf between them.

      It should make him feel even more ashamed about looking at her butt.

      Except shame was pretty hard for him to come by.

      “Tell me what you think about people, Hayley.” He took a bite of the roast and nearly gave her a raise then and there.

      “No matter what things look like on the surface, you never know what someone is going through. It surprised me how often someone who had been smiling on Sunday would come into the office and break down in tears on Tuesday afternoon, saying they needed to talk to the pastor. Everyone has problems, and I do my best not to add to them.”

      “That’s a hell of a lot nicer than most people deserve.”

      “Okay, what do you think about people?” she asked, clasping her hands in front of her and looking so damn interested and sincere he wasn’t quite sure how to react.

      “I think they’re a bunch of self-interested bastards. And that’s fair enough, because so am I. But whenever somebody asks for something, or offers me something, I ask myself what they will get out of it. If I can’t figure out how they’ll benefit, that’s when I get worried.”

      “Not everyone is after money or power,” she said. He could see she really believed what she said. He wasn’t sure what to make of that.

      “All right,” he conceded, “maybe they aren’t all after money. But they are looking to gain something. Everyone is. You can’t get through life any other way. Trust me.”

      “I don’t know. I never thought of it that way. In terms of who could get me what. At least, that’s not how I’ve lived.”

      “Then you’re an anomaly.”

      She shook her head. “My father is like that, too. He really does want to help people. He cares. Pastoring a small church in a little town doesn’t net you much power or money.”

      “Of course it does. You hold the power of people’s salvation in your hands. Pass around the plate every week. Of course you get power and money.” Jonathan shook his head. “Being the leader of local spirituality is power, honey, trust me.”

      Her cheeks turned pink. “Okay. You might have a point. But my father doesn’t claim to have the key to anyone’s salvation. And the money in that basket goes right back into the community. Or into keeping the doors of the church open. My father believes in living the same way the community lives. Not higher up. So whatever baggage you might have about church, that’s specific to your experience. It has nothing to do with my father or his faith.”

      She spoke with such raw certainty that Jonathan was tempted to believe her. But he knew too much about human nature.

      Still, he liked all that conviction burning inside her. He liked that she believed what she said, even if he couldn’t.

      If he had been born with any ideals, he couldn’t remember them now. He’d never had the luxury of having faith in humanity, as Hayley seemed to have. No, his earliest memory of his father was the old man’s fist connecting with his face. Jonathan had never had the chance to believe the best of anybody.

      He had been introduced to the worst far too early.

      And he didn’t know very many people who’d had different experiences.

      The optimism she seemed to carry, the softness combined with strength, fascinated him. He wanted to draw closer to it, to her, to touch her skin, to see if she was strong enough to take the physical demands he put on a woman who shared his bed.

      To see how shocked she might be when he told her what those demands were. In explicit detail.

      He clenched his jaw tight, clamping his teeth down hard. He was not going to find out, for a couple reasons. The first being that she was his employee, and off-limits. The second being that all those things that fascinated him would be destroyed if he got close, if he laid even one finger on her.

      Cynicism bled from his pores, and he damn well knew it. He had earned it. He wasn’t one of those bored rich people overcome by ennui just because life had gone so well he wanted to create problems so he had something to battle against.

      No. He had fought every step of the way, and he had been disappointed by people in every way imaginable. He had earned his feelings about people, that was for damn sure.

      But he wasn’t certain he wanted to pass that cynicism on to Hayley. No, she was like a pristine wilderness area. Unspoiled by humans. And his first inclination was to explore every last inch, to experience all that beauty, all that majesty. But he had to leave it alone. He had to leave it looked at, not touched.

      Hayley Thompson was the same. Untouched. He had to leave her unspoiled. Exploring that beauty would only leave it ruined, and he couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t.

      “I

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