LITMIR.BIZ

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Lou’s kitchen with Keri sitting right next to him, Michael’s defenses were down. Circumstances had presented him with rich chocolate, a tempting woman and the prospect of going upstairs with her after they’d finished their dessert. A guy could only take so much before he cracked.

      On top of that, he discovered that Mary Lou and Watkins had only been married a year, which explained the friskiness going on between them. Knowing that Mary Lou and Watkins would soon be getting it on didn’t help Michael’s state of mind. They shooed both Keri and Michael out of the kitchen once the dishes were cleared from the table.

      That left them little choice but to walk through the silent house and climb the stairs together. The intimacy of it grew with each step they took. Michael made small talk along the way, and Keri responded as if she thought his conversation was brilliant.

      She wasn’t fooling him, and he doubted that he was fooling her, either. They were on thin ice, but maybe if they didn’t acknowledge that, they’d get to their respective bedrooms without incident. What a damned inconvenient time to lust after a woman.

      They kept up the inane chatter, but the winding staircase seemed endless. She was a step ahead of him, and her scent, a combination of sweet perfume and warm woman, drifted back to him, tugging at his resolve. He considered laying a hand on her shoulder. That might be all it would take.

      She’d turn back to him, and then…then he would kiss her. But it wouldn’t stop with a kiss, and he knew that. He’d never made love to a woman on a staircase, and he wasn’t about to do it now. Still, that didn’t keep the images from bombarding him until he was hard and aching.

      “Do you want me to dig out the liniment and Epsom salts tonight, so you’ll have them available when you come back from riding tomorrow?”

      “Sure.” He shouldn’t have said that. Every extra minute they spent together increased the possibility that one of them might do something that would make them both lose control. He was willing to take that risk if he could be with her a little bit longer.

      “I think they’re in your bathroom.” She walked down the hallway, lit only by a small wall sconce.

      He followed, all the while lecturing himself to get a grip on his libido. This wasn’t like him. Then again, she wasn’t like any woman he’d met before. She had secrets, and he had to believe they were interesting secrets. Apparently curiosity was a powerful aphrodisiac for him. He hadn’t known that.

      Well, then, that was the solution, wasn’t it? If he solved the mystery of Keri Fitzpatrick, he wouldn’t be so attracted to her. He’d planned on searching the internet to see what he could turn up, but asking her outright was really a more honest way to approach it. His questions might be considered intrusive, but if that would keep him from seducing his host’s housekeeper, he felt justified.

      She stepped into the bathroom and flipped on the wall switch. “Let’s see what I can find.” Walking over to the sink set into a carved wooden vanity, she began pulling open drawers.

      He leaned in the doorway. “It’s none of my business, but wondering why you left Baltimore to come out here and be a housekeeper is driving me crazy.”

      “It is?” She glanced up and understanding passed between them without either of them saying a word. His curiosity wasn’t the only thing driving him crazy, and they both knew it. “The answer’s pretty simple,” she said. “I ran away from a scandal.”

      “That’s not a simple answer.” And all it did was ratchet his curiosity up a notch.

      She gave him a wry smile. “No, I guess not.” Folding her arms, she propped one hip against the vanity. “I was at a New Year’s Eve party at a friend’s penthouse and the champagne was flowing. This cute guy and I were making out in a darkened corner when his fiancée showed up. I didn’t know he was engaged.”

      “That was the scandal?” He had a hard time imagining that would create enough gossip to make her leave town.

      “No. She threw a drink in my face, so I threw one in hers. She came at me, claws out, wailing like a banshee. My temper got the best of me, and…well, there was smashed crystal, imported caviar ground into the antique rug, a crack in a priceless statue…in other words, an unholy mess.”

      Michael tried not to grin, but she’d conjured up quite a picture. He’d only known her a short while, but he sensed the fire in her. She wouldn’t take kindly to being falsely accused. “And here I was impressed that you didn’t faint over a mouse.”

      She shrugged. “What can I say? I’m Irish.”

      He’d thought learning her secrets would make her less intriguing. Instead, he was more fascinated than ever. “Did you win?”

      Triumph shone briefly in her green eyes. Then she sighed. “I did. But in the end, I lost, because I became notorious as the New Year’s Eve Brawler. I couldn’t do my job without the subject coming up. That fight began to define who I was.”

      “What’s your profession?”

      “PR.”

      It figured that she’d be trained in the area that was currently the scourge of his existence.

      She pushed away from the vanity. “There you have it, the reason I came out here.” Moving to the other side of the vanity, she opened the top drawer.

      “But why be a housekeeper? Why not get another PR job?”

      “I just wanted to hide out for a while, do something completely different. The cliché for it is finding yourself. I hadn’t been all that happy with my life in Baltimore, anyway, so this was a chance to explore other options.”

      “You came out here without knowing a soul?”

      “Yep. That was exciting, in a way. I interviewed for the job here on a whim. I had no experience, but luckily Sarah and Jack took pity on me.” She rummaged in the drawer. “There’s a box wedged in the back of this drawer. It could be the liniment.”

      “For the record, Sarah’s thrilled with the job you’re doing.”

      “She said that?” Keri reached deep into the drawer and tugged at the box. It was more square than rectangular, which didn’t make sense for a tube of ointment, but she might as well haul it out, anyway.

      “She did. She’s very happy with your work, but she also expects you to leave.”

      “Which I will, but I’ll give them plenty of time to hire someone else before the boys descend on them next summer.” She yanked at the box. “Got it!” Holding it aloft, she looked at the label.

      Michael looked, too, and began to laugh. “That’s not liniment.”

      Without meeting his eyes, she tossed the box back in the drawer. “Nope, not liniment.” Her cheeks had turned a becoming shade of rose.

      Michael longed to walk over there and kiss her blushing cheeks, her full mouth and her delicate throat. Hell, he’d like to work his way through every tempting spot on her sweet body. Each piece of the puzzle that was Keri Fitzpatrick only made him want to find more so he could complete the picture.

      “I’ll keep looking.” She opened the door under the sink and crouched down to peer inside.

      “That’s okay.” God, he was a noble SOB. “I may not even need any. We should probably just forget about it and go to bed.”

      She gave him a startled glance. “What?”

      Oh, Keri. Lust slammed into him. He pushed it back. “Separately.”

      “Oh.” She blushed again. “Right.”

      “See you in the morning.” He walked out of the bathroom before he changed his mind and closed the short gap between them. Yes, he was nobler than he ever thought he could be.

      But once he was inside his room with the door closed, he reflected on what had been in that drawer. Fate had not only

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