LITMIR.BIZ

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      “Only if you’re a mosquito.” She sighed, shutting her eyes. “I need time, Kevin. I feel my whole life has been based around his leaving us.”

      “You’re working the farm.”

      She opened her eyes to look at him. “What does that have to do with anything?”

      “Aren’t you back here, where you lived as a child, to try to change things, to turn things around? To see what it might have been like if you’d all stayed here, trying to make a go of working the land? Of living here instead of with your grandmother above the post office?”

      Her denial died on her lips. She supposed he was making sense. Kind of. “Jimmy never told me you were a philosopher.”

      “He should have.” He laughed, remembering. “God knows I spent enough time trying to talk sense into him when he was a teenager.”

      June leaned back against the ancient counter that ran along the wall. “I’m not a teenager, Kevin,” she pointed out.

      “Nobody outgrows their need for common sense.” He peered out through the kitchen window. Daylight was streaming in full force. But he could feel his stomach tightening. He’d left the watch Luc had lent him on the bureau in his room. He still couldn’t find his own.

      “Damn it.” He turned to look at June. “I can never tell by looking. What time is it?”

      She felt she’d packed a great deal of living into this one day. June glanced at her watch. “Almost five, why?”

      “I was just thinking that dinnertime will be coming up soon.”

      The only schedule she adhered to had to do with working. In her personal life, she was far more lax. She ate when she was hungry, slept when she was tired. She pressed her hand to her stomach, remembering that she’d had very little to eat today. “I really don’t feel like cooking.”

      “That wasn’t going to be the offer,” he told her. “I can either make something for us, or we can go over to Lily’s.” Never one for pretenses, she was staying with Max at his home. She’d reasoned that since she was going to be living there after the wedding, she might as well get a jump on redecorating it now. Max had seen no reason to argue with her. “She’s always game to whip up a meal or twelve.”

      Even though he’d seemed to take the news well enough, Max was going to need Lily tonight, June thought. And while there was a need within her to band together with her siblings, there was also a desire to be alone. To lick wounds that had been freshly ripped open.

      She shook her head at the latter suggestion. “I don’t feel like going out again.”

      It was just as well, he thought. She needed a little time to rebound from this. And, selfishly, he wanted to be with her. “Okay, then I’ll cook.”

      She sighed. “I’m being waspish, short-tempered and surly. Why are you being so nice to me?”

      He lifted her chin and looked down into her eyes. His own smiled softly. He thought of the way she’d been earlier, so pliant, so willing in his arms. He might have been her first, but the way he saw it, she had been his salvation.

      “It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it.” He brushed a kiss against her lips. “Now, why don’t you just relax and let me do the work?”

      She nodded, then flushed, feeling guilty. She’d had so much planned for today. “I haven’t gotten anything accomplished today.”

      She sounded like him, he thought. Before he’d learned better. “Not every day has to end with a mountain of accomplishments arrived at by exerting muscle power.” He opened a cupboard but didn’t find what he was looking for. “You’ve left your mind open to a possible truce. I’d say that was a great deal of work for one day.”

      June turned to look at him. She’d never met a man like Kevin before. Something stirred within her, but she refused to let it rise. “Did you ever think about putting all these sayings of yours into a book?”

      “Another undertaking to consider.” He laughed as he continued to hunt for a large frying pan. He’d found one pan, but it was small and hopelessly burned along the bottom.

      Two pots fell at his feet as he opened the next cupboard. Apparently her method of putting away cookware was to shove it into a closet and close the door quickly, praying that the laws of gravity would hold it in place.

      The laws took a holiday.

      With a sigh, knowing she had to do something, June crossed to where he was standing and picked up the fallen pots. She thought of the way her grandmother had badgered him earlier.

      “What about that other undertaking?” she asked, leaving the pots on the counter.

      Finding what he was looking for, he took the liberty of rinsing the pan out in the sink first, just in case the pots shared space with small, furry creatures. “Which one?”

      “The one my grandmother sprang on you. The transport service.” Did he want her to spell it out for him? To tell him that even though she’d rescued him from her grandmother’s grilling, part of her hoped he’d say yes to the proposition? “You weren’t serious when you said you’d think about it, were you? I mean, you were just humoring her, right?”

      He dried off his hands on the towel. Unable to read the look in her eyes or to decide which answer she wanted from him, he asked, “Would you want me to be serious?”

      Irritation rose. “Why do you always answer a question with another question?”

      “It’s what we philosophers do.” He laughed when he saw her frowning. “You’re the one who called me that, not me. I asked the question to find out how you felt about it.” He paused before opening her refrigerator, one that he had taken the liberty of stocking on his third day of work. “How would you feel about it?”

      The shrug was a little too deliberate, a little too studied. “We could use a transport service,” she acknowledged, then built on her words. “Hell, as far as I’m concerned, we’re way overdue for one. We could have used it a year ago. Maybe if we had one, I wouldn’t have sold my repair shop.” When he looked at her quizzically, she added, “A lot of business comes in from fixing planes.”

      “You can fix planes?” There was no end to the surprises the woman was hiding in her bag of tricks, was there?

      “I can fix anything that has to move.” She wasn’t bragging—it was a simple fact. “With the possible exception of some of the old men at the Salty.”

      “You had trouble with the tractor,” he reminded her, a grin playing on his lips.

      She ran her tongue along her lower lip, suddenly wanting to kiss him. To keep from giving in to the whim, she took a step away from him.

      “It was just a matter of time,” she hedged. “You figured it out first.”

      He nodded. “I really wasn’t talking about how you felt about having a transport service.”

      “Then what were you talking about?”

      “How you felt about me buying one.”

      She wasn’t about to get pinned down. Not when he didn’t say anything first. “Someone has to. Might as well be you.”

      “And that’s it?”

      Her look was hesitant. Edgy. “Why, what else do you want?”

      He smiled indulgently at her. “Now who’s answering questions with questions?”

      She began to drift around the small area, aimless. She’d never really fit into a kitchen. “I like to think I have an open mind and learn as I go along.”

      He tried another approach. This was not the outspokenness her grandmother had claimed was the hallmark of women out here. He was pulling teeth. “Would it bother you if I

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