LITMIR.BIZ

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darted to the clock, and she bit her lip.

      “Ms. Owens, are you sure this is what you want to do? Tear up your house so you can open—what, a bookstore?”

      “I have to,” she said simply. Then, with another glance at the clock, she quickly explained about Marty’s New and Used. “Up until last fall I rented a two-room cinder-block building that used to be a garage and a bait-and-tackle shop and some other things. Anyway, the rent was cheap enough and the location was okay, I guess, but the income still couldn’t keep up with the overhead. Some days I didn’t even sell a single book.” She gave up rubbing her fingers and folded her hands together, resting them on her knees. Her toes were back on the coffee table. “So I thought if I reopened here, I’d at least save the rent because I own my house. It’s all paid off. My first husband inherited it from his mama.”

      Whoa. Her first husband? He was nowhere near ready to share personal histories.

      The third time he caught her looking at the clock he asked her if she had a problem.

      “Not really, but there’s this dog I walk twice a day. I’m running late today because I was waiting for—”

      She hesitated, and he filled in the blanks. She’d been waiting for him to show up.

      “For the rain to stop,” she finished.

      The rain had stopped. A few chinks of salmon-pink sunset broke through the dark clouds.

      Cole said, “Then why don’t I leave you to it? I need to run a few errands if I’m going to stick around the area.”

      She looked so hopeful, he could have kicked himself. They hadn’t even reached a concrete agreement yet.

      “Are you? Going to stick around, I mean? Like I said, if things don’t work out just right, I’m stuck with a garage full of bookshelves and a spare room filled with thousands of used paperbacks.”

      “Two things we still need to talk about—your deadline and my wages.”

      Looking entirely too hopeful, she said, “When can you give me an estimate?”

      If he didn’t watch it, Cole told himself, those big gray eyes of hers were going to influence his decision. That was no way to start rebuilding a career. “How about we both think it over tonight and I come back first thing in the morning with an estimate. If we reach an agreement, I can start right away. I should be able to bring it in on schedule, depending on how much time you need after the job’s completed.”

      They both stood. Her eyes and her ivory complexion and delicate features called to mind the word fragile, yet he had a feeling she was nowhere near as fragile as she looked.

      She said, “Come for breakfast. You’re not organic or vegan or anything like that, are you?”

      “Methodist, but sort of lapsed,” he replied gravely, and heard a gurgle of laughter that invited a like response. He managed to hold it to a brief smile.

      They agreed on a time and she saw him to the door and said she’d see him in the morning. It sounded more like a question than a statement, but he didn’t reply. He had some serious thinking to do before he made a commitment. One thing for certain—he was nowhere near ready for retirement. As to what he was going to do with the rest of his life and where he was going to do it, that was still up for grabs.

      Standing in the doorway, Marty watched as the most intriguing man she’d met in years adjusted his steps to her flagstones. She sighed. What a strikingly attractive man—and yet he wasn’t really handsome. It was something else. Something in the way he carried himself, the way he…

      Maybe Sasha was right and she was seriously deficient when it came to vitamin S.

      Mutt was all over her the minute she opened his gate at the kennel. His owners, the Hallets, who lived three streets over in the development that had grown up around Alan’s mother’s old house back in the seventies, were on a two-week cruise out of Norfolk. Marty was being paid to pick Mutt up twice a day for a run, as the space provided by the boarding kennel hardly sufficed for a big, shaggy clown that looked as if he might be part St. Bernard, part Clydesdale.

      “Whoa, get off my foot, you big ox.” She managed to snap on his choke collar while he did his best to trip her up. He’d started barking the minute he saw her, and didn’t let up until she opened the front door. Then he nearly pulled her off her feet trying to get outside.

      She gave him a full half hour because that was what she’d agreed to do. Not a minute less, but not a minute more this time because she had to have him back by six when the kennel closed for the day. If she missed the deadline she’d have no choice but to take the crazy dog home with her, and that would be disastrous.

      There had to be an easier way to earn money. If she were a diver she could drive to Manteo to the aquarium every day and scrub the alligators or maybe floss the sharks’ teeth. Unfortunately, her marketable skills weren’t all that impressive in a town where, other than flipping hamburgers, jobs were practically handed down from father to son. None of Muddy Landing’s farming, fishing and hunting applied to her.

      Maybe she and Sasha could start charging for their matchmaking services. Practically everyone in town knew what they were up to, anyway. It was no big secret; they’d been at it too long. They’d been good at it, too—Daisy, Sasha and Marty, with occasional input from Faylene, the housekeeper they’d all shared for years until Marty had gone out of business and Daisy had unexpectedly fallen in love with a good-looking guy who’d come east in search of his roots. A nurse and easily the most sensible of the trio, Daisy had fallen head over heels and ended up marrying Kell and moving to Oklahoma.

      Marty and her friends had been good at it, though—all the planning and finagling it took to bring two people together. Three of their most recent matches had actually ended in marriage and two more couples were still involved.

      Of course, there’d been a few spectacular failures, too, but it had been great fun. Mostly they’d been forgiven their blunders.

      But Sasha was up to her ears in her latest decorating project, so matchmaking was taking a time-out. “And that just leaves me,” Marty panted as she struggled to hang on to the end of the leash. She was wearing out her last pair of cross-trainers trying to keep up with Super Mutt. “Slow down, will you? Let me catch my breath!”

      If she hurried, she might get home before he left for the day.

      Right. Looking like she’d just finished a five-mile run. That would really impress the heck out of Cole, wouldn’t it?

      By the time Cole got back to the small marina with a take-out supper consisting of barbecue, fries, hush puppies and slaw, the last vestige of daylight had faded. And second thoughts were stacking up fast. Not about the work itself, although it had been a while since he’d done any actual construction work. That wasn’t what had him worried.

      As he stepped aboard his aged thirty-one-foot cabin cruiser, he waved to Bob Ed, who was outside sorting through a stack of decoys under the mercury-vapor security light.

      The friendly guide called across the intervening space, “You see her?”

      “I saw her.”

      “Ya gonna do it?”

      “We’re still negotiating,” Cole called back.

      Nodding, Bob Ed went back to checking out his canvasbacks. He was a man of few words. Which was just as well, Cole thought, amused, as Bob Ed’s better half appeared to be a woman of many. Cole had met her only briefly, but she’d made an indelible impression.

      What bothered him, Cole admitted to himself once he was inside, the lights on and his small space heater thawing out the damp cold, was the Owens woman. Or rather, his reaction to her. Before meeting her he would have sworn he was permanently immunized. Trouble was, Marty Owens and Paula Weyrich Stevens, his high-maintenance ex-wife, were two different species. If Paula had ever lifted a hand to do anything more strenuous than polish her nails, he’d missed it. Even for

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