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Business From now until the last tile was caulked Abra was determined to keep it strictly business between herself and Cody Engineer to architect They would discuss te and plastic pipe, concrete and thermal mass Abra scowled at the bare bones of the health club With luck, she thought, they would discuss nothing at all

What had happened on that moonlit terrace was like te her fists into her pockets Obviously she was more like her mother than she had ever wanted to admit An attractiveto make a fool of herself

She took the clipboard the foreman handed her, scanned the papers, then initialed theenital weaknesses o a lot farther Maybe she had inherited the flaw from her mother, but unlike the sweet, eternally opti into a ro up flat on her face That moment of weakness had passed, and noas back to business as usual

She spent theback and forth between the health club and the , with an occasional foray to check on the excavation work for the cabanas The work on each section of the project was overlapping according to plan, keeping her constantly in demand to oversee, answer questions, s, technical phone conversation with theht have liked, but his as first-class She ood look at the dies for both the elevator and the mechanized roof over the pool

Those were aspects of her profession she enjoyed every bit as , and they were aspects she took every bit as seriously She wasn&039;t an engineer who figured her job was over once the specs were approved and the calculations checked She&039;d wanted a part in the Barlow project that didn&039;t begin and end at the drawing board It had been given to her, and if she still winced inwardly when a shovelful of dirt was re a part of its reshaping

No one she came in contact ould have seen beneath the cohts If she was constantly on the lookout for Cody, she told herself, it was only that she didn&039;t care to be taken unaware By noon she had decided he wasn&039;t going to show Disappointment masqueraded as relief

She took her lunch break in the trailer with a bottle of chilled orange juice, a bag of chips and blueprints Since her conversation with the ineer she had decided there were still a few problelass roof Cody wanted over the pool She crunched into a chip while she punched a new equation into her calculator If it weren&039;t for the waterfall therun down the wall and into the corner of the pool Abra shook her head and tried a new angle The ht She took a long swig of juice Basically he was just a maniac It helped to think of hirandeur, rather than as a ht out of you

She was going to give hilass arch of a roof, and his waterfalls, and his spirals and don to launch her own career while he went back to his huroves

Nearly satisfied, Abra sketched out a few details, then ran a new set of figures It wasn&039;t her job to approve, she reood at s work

When the door opened, she didn&039;t bother to glance up

"Close that quick, will you? You&039;ll let the heat in"

"Yes,up She straightened her shoulders autoh the doorway "I didn&039;t think we&039;d see you here today"

He merely smiled and stood aside to make room for Tim Thornway and the bullet-shaped form of William Walton Barlow, Sr Aardly, due to the row of cabinets over her head, Abra stood

"Abra" Though he would have preferred to have found her knee-deep in concrete or up on the scaffolding, Tih to use ale "As you can see, WW," he said, "our crew lives, sleeps and eats B and B&039;s resort hotel You reineer"

The little man with the thatch of white hair and the shrewd eyes held out a ets a pretty face"

To her credit, Abra didn&039;t wince, not even when Cody sain, Mr Barlow"

"WW thought it was tis," Tim explained "Of course, we don&039;t want to interrupt the flow or slacken the pace - "

"Don&039;t knowthese places up," Barlow cut in "Know about running theh" He nodded three times "Like the curves and arches Classy Barlow and Barlow stands for classy operations"

Abra ignored Cody&039;s grin and scooted out from behind the table "You picked a hot day to visit, Mr Barlow Can I get you so washes away the dust like a cold beer"

Cody opened the scaled-down refrigerator hiress on the health club"

"Oh?" Abra shook her head at the offer of a beer and was a I&039;ve just been working out the final details on the pool roof I think Lafferty and I s"

Barlow glanced down at the blueprints and at the stacks of paper covered with figures and calculations "I&039;ll leave that to you Only numbers I&039;m handy with are in an account book Looks like you know your way around, though" He gestured with his bottle before taking three healthy gulps "Thornway always said you had a head on your shoulders Pretty shoulders, too" He winked at her

Rather than getting her dander up, the wink randfather and, h charhly of you"

"I miss him," Barlow said Then he turned to the et on with this tour, Ti time"

"Of course" Ti a little dinner party for Mr Barlow tonight Seven You&039;ll escort Mr Johnson, Abra"

Since it wasn&039;t a question, Abra opened hersome excuse Cody stepped smoothly in "I&039;ll pick up Ms Wilson Why don&039;t you start over to the health club? We&039;ll be right with you"

"Why don&039;t you loosen that damn tie, Tim?" Barlow asked as they stepped out of the trailer "Man could strangle in this heat"

Cody shut the door, then leaned against it "They are nice shoulders Fro standpoint, Abra couldn&039;t have said why the trailer see back to the table, she began to tidy her papers "It isn&039;t necessary for you to pick "

"No" He studied her, not certain whether he was amused or annoyed by her withdrawal He hadn&039;t slept well, and he knew the blame lay squarely on those pretty shoulders, which were now braced for an attack "But I will"

This was business, Abra told herself, and should be handled as such Making up her ht You&039;ll need an address"

He sain, slowly this time "Oh, I think I can find you, Red Saht it up, Abra told herself, it would be best to deal with it "It&039;s good that we have a s?" Cody pushed away from the door Abra backed into the table hard "We had a mule back home on the farm," he mused as he stepped closer "She tended to be skittish, too"

"I&039;m not skittish It&039;s si iht i around to toy with the end of her braid "Of just how your body feels when it&039;s fitted against ht and very pleasant impression"

"That was a mistake" She would have turned away to ged her back

"What was?"

"Last night" She was going to handle this calmly, Abra told herself She was basically a calm and reasonable person "It should never have happened"

"It?" His eyes had darkened Abra noted that, and noted, also, that there was no anger to be seen in them She let out a little breath of relief Obviously he was prepared to be as reasonable as she

"I suppose we just got caught up in the o on"

"Okay" She saw his smile but didn&039;t notice how cool it was He wasn&039;t much of a hand at chess, but he was a killer at poker "We&039;ll forget last night"

Pleased at the ease hich the problem had been erased, she smiled back at him "Well, then, why don&039;t we - "

Her words were cut off as he dragged her against hiid - from shock, she told herself From fury That hat she wanted to believe Today there was none of the gentle, sensual exploration in the ht as the sun that beat through the s And as angry, she thought as he twisted her against him and took whatever he wanted She tried to yank free and was held fast Those subtle ht up in an embrace that threatened every bit as ive a damn She could stand there and talk all she wanted in that reasonable voice about h theest, she would certainly be the costliest, but he wasn&039;t about to back off now He reht before, that shivering, wire-taut passion, that abrupt avalanche of e he&039;d felt before, nothing he would feel again Not with anyone else He&039;d see theed before he crushed her , and she knew she couldn&039;t save herself Drowning, she thought as she s, in desires Why was she clinging to hi that hard, hungry kiss when she knew it could lead to nothing but disaster?

But her arms were around hi in rhythm with his This was more than temptation, ive but a need to take

When they broke apart she dragged air into her lungs and braced a hand on the table for balance She could see now that she&039;d been wrong There was anger in his eyes, anger and detered desire that rooted her to the spot Still, when he spoke, his voice was mild

"Looks as if we have another point of reference, Red" He swung to the door "See you at seven"

There were at least a half a dozen tiht of a plausible excuse and began to dial Cody at his hotel What stopped her each tie that if shenot only that there was so between them but that she was a coward Even if she forced herself to accept the fact that she was afraid, she couldn&039;t allow hio, she reain It was really noevening dress and picking at canapes on Tiant patio It was politic and necessary to show Barlow that his architect and engineer could handle a social evening together

She had to be able to handle it Sexual attraction aside, Cody Johnson was her associate on this project If she couldn&039;t handle him - and what he seemed bound and determined to make her feel - she couldn&039;t handle the job No slow-talking East Coast architect was going tothat caht with some satisfaction as she tried to decide between two dresses, once they were there there would be so et lost in the shuffle It was doubtful she and Cody would have to exchange more than a feords

When the knock ca to herself for so long that it was ti the belt on her robe, she went out of the cra area and answered the door

Cody took one lazy look at her short cotton robe and grinned "Nice dress"

"I&039;o on withoutfor an invitation, he walked in and surveyed her apartht be a woures, but she lived in chaos Bright pilloere tossed on a faded couch, and piles of azines were stacked on afacts and figures into structure and for space - or didn&039;t care to, Cody mused He&039;d seen her work, and had adured, she could turn a closet into an organized and functional living area

The room was smaller than the bedroom of his hotel suite, but no one would have called it i table in front of the singleThere was a co except a collection of crystals that hung at theand caught the last of the evening light

That,else in the room, told him that she spent little time there but cared for what ," Abra told hi, the kitchen&039;s through there"

She escaped, clicking the door firmly behind her God, he looked wonderful It wasn&039;t fair for hied her hands through the hair she had yet to atteood in work clothes, but he looked even better in a cream-colored jacket that set off his sun-bleached hair and his tanned skin, and that didn&039;t see he didn&039;t lose the casual flair of the beachcomber or the ht off an attraction when every time he showed up he was that ht as she faced her closet again She was going to handle hioing to wear that plain and proper blue suit after all If she was going to play with fire, she decided, she was going to have to dress for it

Cody found her kitchen in the sa roo noret that way, and it was obvious that she wasn&039;t a woman who spent a lot of time over a stove The fact that she had a tin of cookies and a canister full of tea bags set on two of the burners erator, along with a jar of peanut butter and one lonely egg After a search through the cupboards he located two lasses and a paperback copy of a horror novel by a well-knoriter

He took a sip of the wine and shook his head He hoped he&039;d have a chance to teach her a little about vintages Carrying both glasses into the living room, he listened to the sounds offor so out every drawer she owned in the search Sipping gingerly, he studied her photographs

There were so that she&039;d been very unco beside an attractive blonde Since the blonde had Abra&039;s hazel eyes, Cody wondered if she ht be an older sister There weredress, and another of Abra in a hard hat There were pictures ofof Thornway senior He sipped again, wondering if any were of her father, then turned The noises in the bedroom had stopped

"I poured some wine," he called out "Want yours?"

"No Yes, da over, Cody pushed open the bedroo, slender wo that made a man&039;s e was banded with silver in a design that was repeated again at the helitter was designed to draw the eye before it s clad in sheer, s Abra She was struggling to fasten the hooks, which stopped at her waist

"Soht, and he waited for it to pick up speed again If she&039;d attracted hi co to him now

"Here" He stepped over sturdy work boots and a pair of glossy black heels that were no s so that you have to fight your way in and out of thelasses and tried not to think about how ht her way out of this particular scrap of black silk "You&039;ve got the hooks twisted"

She let out an ilanced up, and their eyes met in the mirror above her dresser For the first time since he&039;d seen her, she had put on lipstick Her"Probably What are you wearing?"