LITMIR.BIZ

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the wheelchair around, he rolled out to the front porch again and checked his watch. Almost ten-thirty. She’d been gone nearly half an hour and by now was likely wallowing up to her earlobes in remorse. Give her another hour to slave over a hot stove, and he’d bet money she’d reappear shortly after noon.

      And maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if she did. Since he’d run out of fish heads, he could use her bran muffins for crab bait. Shuffling his sorry backside into the runabout and motoring out to the traps was awkward and time-consuming, but worth every ounce of effort for the pleasure he got in feasting on freshly caught rock crab steamed in wine over a bed of coals in the outdoor fire pit.

      Good food and wine were among the few pleasures he got from life these days and, under different circumstances, he might have invited her to join him for dinner. If she had a bit more meat on her bones, he’d probably have tried to get her in the sack, as well, because even skinny as a reed, she was a good-looking woman. Decidedly feminine, elegant, and with something fragile about her that, once, would have brought out his protective instincts.

      Just as well he was confined to fantasizing about sex these days, though, because she was also the type who’d expect a lot more in return than respect the morning after! When he got on his feet again and was good for something other than swallowing painkillers and feeling sorry for himself, he’d make up for lost playtime but, if he was half as smart as he liked to think he was, it wouldn’t be with Jane Ogilvie. Because she was clearly the marrying kind. And he definitely was not.

      A movement down on the beach caught his attention. Uh-oh! There she went, right on cue: a woman on a mission if ever he saw one, climbing the sloping path to the house next door with an unmistakable sense of purpose in her step, while her dizzy hound gamboled clumsily at her heels. Talk about the odd couple!

      Something about his face felt strange—an odd sort of ache as if he were bringing into play muscles which hadn’t seen much use lately—and he realized that, for the second time in less than an hour, he was genuinely amused. He even laughed, though he was so badly out of practice that he sounded like a seal with a bad case of laryngitis.

      Well, what the hell! A bit of free entertainment on the side would help pass the time.

      Letting a smile settle on his mouth, he leaned forward in the chair and waited for scene two to unfold: Goldilocks on a mission of mercy—except with that mane of dark brown hair, the name Goldilocks didn’t exactly suit her.

      For the rest of that day and most of the next, Jane turned a deaf ear on the urgings of her guilty conscience. In light of the way Liam McGuire had received her the first time, he was unlikely to welcome another visit anytime soon. It would be best if she gave him time to simmer down before inflicting herself on him again.

      But it wasn’t easy staying away, and for all that she managed to keep herself busy around her own house, no amount of self-discipline could prevent her from looking out of her bedroom window last thing at night to make sure lamplight showed between the cracks in the shutters on the cottage next door. Or from checking first thing in the morning for the telltale column of smoke that showed he was up and about.

      “It’s absurd that he’s living there alone,” she complained to Bounder. “In fact, it’s unconscionable. He has no right burdening total strangers with responsibility for his welfare.”

      But that line of reasoning soon fell by the wayside and it was all the fault of those darned shutters. Well…theirs and the heat wave which struck out of nowhere two days later and showed signs of staying awhile. How, after all, could any woman with an ounce of charity to her name ignore the fact that, with temperatures suddenly soaring to the mid-eighties, Steve’s place, boarded up as it was, would be like an oven by the end of the day?

      So, armed with a small crowbar and a hammer, she set off after breakfast on the third morning, determined that nothing Liam McGuire could fling at her in the way of insults would provoke her into leaving before she’d accomplished the task she’d set herself.

      Once again, she found his front door open, propped wide this time with an old flat iron acting as a stop, and she could see that he’d made some attempt to clean up the kitchen. A plate, two coffee mugs, a frying pan and a handful of cutlery were stacked neatly in a dish rack next to the sink, and he’d spread a tea towel over the porch railing to dry.

      She’d learned her lesson, though, and didn’t repeat the mistake of walking in when he didn’t respond to her polite knock. With both feet planted on the porch, she leaned forward and gave the door a mighty thump with her hammer. “Are you there, Mr. McGuire? It’s Jane Ogilvie from next door.”

      Still no reply, nor any movement but Steve’s old hammock strung from the porch rafters and swinging in the hot breeze. Assuming Liam McGuire wasn’t deaf or dead, he must be out again, though where he went, given his condition and the uneven terrain around the cottage, was a mystery not hers to solve.

      To do what had to be done, all she needed was the ladder Steve kept in his woodshed, and in all honesty, she was just as glad not to have an audience. Carpentry, even the crude kind she was about to tackle, had never been her forte. She could very well do without the sarcastic running commentary Liam McGuire would no doubt have offered, had he been there to witness her efforts as she wrestled the boards away from the windows and stored them under the porch where they normally spent the summer.

      Things went well enough to begin with, though having to move the ladder every few yards used up an astonishing amount of energy, but the real trouble began when she tackled the bedroom windows. All the others opened onto the porch which offered a nice stable platform from which to work. The ground below the bedroom, however, fell away steeply and was knee-deep in grass, stinging nettles and wild honeysuckle.

      Doubtfully, she sized up the situation. Finding a firm footing for the ladder was difficult enough, but scaling rungs fully fifteen feet in the air taxed her dwindling courage to the limit. She’d never had a good head for heights. And to make matters worse, the glare from the sun hitting the uncovered glass half blinded her.

      “Careful, Bounder!” she exclaimed at one point, clinging to the window frame as he charged past and headed up the slope toward the house with more than usual exuberance. “Up-end this ladder while I’m on it and you and I are going to have a very serious falling out.”

      From somewhere on the deck, Liam McGuire’s sardonic tones floated back a reply. “That’s assuming you live to talk about it, Goldilocks. In case you didn’t notice, your dumb dog just disturbed a wasps’ nest and unless you want to risk being badly stung, you’re going to have to stay where you are until it gets dark which, by my reckoning, isn’t going to happen for another eleven hours.”

      Given his sour disposition, there was every chance he was lying, just to provoke her. But the buzzing sound which she’d vaguely noticed and attributed to the electric generator gave undeniable credence to his words. “When did you get back?” she said, suddenly and deeply regretting having yielded to the whim to do him a favor.

      “More to the point, when did you?” he said. “I don’t recall inviting you, though I do distinctly remember your assuring me you wouldn’t bother me again.”

      The buzzing grew ominously closer and she cringed, certain that at any minute she’d feel insect feet crawling up her bare legs. “Do you think,” she said, hanging on by her fingernails, “that we could pursue this discussion after I’ve figured a way out of my present predicament?”

      “You?” He gave a bark of contemptuous laughter. “You couldn’t figure your way out of a brown paper bag without help. Face it, honey, you’re the one needing favors from me, this time—unless you think Blunder’s about to come to the rescue.”

      “His name’s Bounder,” she said from between clenched teeth. “And if it’s all the same to you, I’d appreciate it if you’d try to keep him away from the foot of this ladder. I don’t want him to get stung.”

      “Well, heaven forfend!” He was jeering at her again but, to his credit, he snapped his fingers sharply and, in quite a different voice, ordered,

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