LITMIR.BIZ

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tone, though, was laced with so much skepticism, as if she were clearly beyond help, that Kenzie wondered why he’d offered. Maybe it just seemed like the thing to do since she, a torn cardboard box and all of the box’s former contents blocked his path. Her groan stemmed from equal parts embarrassment and sore muscles.

      Glancing up from her sprawled position in the stairwell, she got her first good look at the potential knight in armor. Paint-stained denim and cotton, if you wanted to be literal, which she did. The new-and-improved practical Kenzie couldn’t afford flights of fancy.

      Then stop staring at this guy like he’s the mystical embodiment of your fantasies.

      Frankly, it had been too long since she’d had a decent fantasy, but if she had, it would look like him. Thick, dark hair, silver-gray eyes, strong jaw and broad, inviting shoulders. None of which were as relevant as her still being on her butt. She got to her feet…more or less.

      As if she were having an out-of-body experience, she watched her wet sneaker slide across a piece of debris—the plaster head of a panda, she realized as she fell backward. The handsome stranger grabbed her elbow. Large hands, roughened skin. Since he was theoretically saving her from ignominious death in a dingy stairwell, she could forgive the lack of a delicate touch. The way her luck was running this morning, she would have broken her neck if he hadn’t come along.

      The man shook his head. “Lady.” Was the undertone exasperation or amusement? Hard to tell from the single word.

      “It’s Kenzie,” she said, grabbing the stair rail with both hands. “Kenzie Green. And thank you.”

      “No problem.” He’d stepped back, either to keep from crushing her belongings under his work boots or simply to avoid her rain-soaked aura of doom.

      She grimaced at the mess that covered half a dozen stairs. The coasters she was always admonishing the kids to use. Assorted books, her texts from some correspondence courses alongside Leslie’s Mary Pope Osborne stories. Two mauve lamp shades. A statuette of a now-headless panda Kenzie had once received for donating to a wildlife fund, and various other small belongings that had been packed, taped up and neatly labeled Living Room in black marker.

      “Guess they don’t make cardboard boxes like they used to,” she grumbled. What was wrong with the stupid box that it couldn’t withstand being weakened with water and dropped down a few lousy steps?

      Thank goodness Kenzie was such a levelheaded pragmatist. If she were given to the slightest bit of paranoia or superstition, she might see it as a bad sign that her first summer day in the sunny South was under deluge from a monsoon. She might be rethinking that rent check she’d written for a place where the elevator doors wouldn’t even open.

      “Are you the handyman?” she asked suddenly, taking in the man’s clothing and an almost chemical smell she hadn’t initially noticed. A cleaner of some kind, or paint? Maybe the elevator would be fixed before Ann arrived with the kids, not that Drew couldn’t take three flights of stairs in a single breath. But he hardly needed new reasons to complain.

      “The handyman?” Tall, Dark and Timely let out a bark of laughter that was gone as soon it came. In fact, all traces of amusement disappeared from his expression so quickly she wondered if she’d imagined them.

      “I’ll take that as a no,” she said. “It was an educated guess—Mr. Carlyle assured me that a handyman would be taking care of the elevators today. Which would make moving in a lot easier.”

      “Mr. C. is the handyman, in addition to being the property manager and the one who knocks on the doors whenever you’re late with rent.”

      She stiffened. “I’m never late with rent.”

      He raised an eyebrow at her hostile tone. “I meant in general.”

      “Sorry. I take money seriously.”

      “You and everyone else.” He grimaced absently, as if he were scowling at an unseen person. Did he owe someone money?

      Oh, don’t let him be one of those charming but perpetually broke deadbeats. There were too many of those in the world already. Then again, this guy wasn’t technically all that charming. Hot, definitely, but not so much with the personality.

      Imagining how Leslie would react to her mother calling a man hot, Kenzie grinned. “Well, thanks again. It was nice to almost meet you.”

      The corner of his lips quirked. “I’m JT. Good luck with the rest of your move.” He started to pass, but stopped, watching as she wrestled with the lamp shades and books. With the box no longer intact, carting her belongings was problematic.

      “I hate to impose,” she began, “but were you in a hurry? It’s going to take me a couple of trips to haul everything to the third floor, and if you wouldn’t mind sticking around in the meantime to make sure no one…” What, stole her stuff? Who would want the book of 101 Jokes for Number-Crunchers Drew got her last Christmas? “To make sure no one trips. I’d hate to be sued my first day in the city.”

      “I have a better idea.” He was already sweeping up an armful of debris. After years of not having a guy in the household, it seemed bizarrely intimate to see this big man handle her possessions.

      Books, Kenzie, not lingerie. Besides, people with better budgets than hers hired strangers to move their stuff all the time.

      JT gestured toward the decapitated panda. “You keeping this poor fellow?”

      “Sure. That’s what they make glue for, right?” A couple of drops of that super all-stick compound and, as long as she managed not to chemically bond her fingers together, the panda should be as good as new.

      Using the soggy cardboard in a way that reminded her of the baby sling she’d bought Ann, JT cradled the awkward bulk against his body. Between the two of them, they got it all up to her floor.

      There were four units, two on each side of the hallway. Hers was the last on the left. As she unlocked her door, she heard JT’s slight intake of breath, as if he were about to say something, but nothing followed. So she set down her load, turned to relieve him of his and thanked him one last time.

      “I’ve got it from here,” she said, hoping she sounded like a confident, self-sufficient woman.

      “You sure?”

      She thought about everything ahead—the new job, this temporary moving before the real move, trying to keep the kids from expiring of boredom until school started, and trying to keep them in their teachers’ good graces once it did.

      “Absolutely,” she lied through her teeth. Next time she lectured the twins never to fib, she’d have to add the mental exception: unless it’s the only thing between you and a nervous breakdown.

      Chapter Two

      “You’re late.” Sean Morrow glanced up from his lunch menu as JT took a seat on the other side of the table. With Sean’s lean build, fair hair and expensive suit, the two men were a study in contrasts. “Dare I hope this means you were so caught up in a new painting that you lost track of time?”

      “Actually, I was assisting a damsel in distress.”

      Sean pursed his lips, looking unsure about whether or not JT was kidding. “An attractive damsel?”

      “Only if drenched waif is your type.” To himself, JT admitted his words were a glib, incomplete assessment of Kenzie Green. Good name. Sounded like a vibrant, bright color—the kind he seldom used anymore—and it certainly rolled off the tongue more easily than phthalo green or Antioch blue.

      Though Kenzie wouldn’t necessarily turn men’s heads on the street, she was put together with a grace of form that belied how they’d met. She was a slight woman with layers of burnished-gold hair that were probably a lighter honey when dry. Her deep blue eyes looked like the ocean when you were so far out the shore was no longer visible, and there was something geometrically appealing about her small face—delicate blade of a nose,

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