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It was nearly five when Abra stopped by the trailer to splash cold water on her face After her scene with Cody it see had A part for the elevators had proved defective, and then there had been another tiff between Rodriguez and Swaggart One of the carpenters had gotten a splinter in his eye, and Tiet

It had all started with herface with a towel It wasn&039;t fair to blame Jessie, but no matter when, no matter where, she was a woman who trailed complications behind her, then waited for other people to clear theht to resent the fact that her mother had hit it off so ith Barlow or to worry about the fallout But history had a habit of repeating itself The last thing Abra wanted added to her plate was the possibility of a romance between the owner of the project and her very susceptible athered up a load of files to take home Jessie&039;s varied and colorful love life was much safer to fret over than her own

She didn&039;t have a love life, Abra reminded herself She didn&039;t want a love life Her plans, personal and professional, were all h-handed Florida cowboy botch the of?

The rimaced and kicked the door open She knew very hat he&039;d been thinking of, because she&039;d been thinking of exactly the sa, tornadoes swirling It was difficult to think of anything but power and chaos when she was in Cody&039;s arms

Was it that way for him, too? she wondered as she locked the trailer door Did he lose part of hi and everyone fade away until they seemed - no, until they were totally unimportant?

Of course not, she decided, and gave in enough to rest her forehead against the side of the trailer He was just another good-looking ue and clever hands The world was full of them God knew her mother had made a science out of the search and discovery

Not fair, Abra thought again as she straightened Jessie&039;s life was Jessie&039;s life It wasn&039;t fair to Cody, either, she ad toward her car He had initiated the kiss, but she had done nothing to stop it That eous and unprofessional as his

She should have stopped it A dozen tih the rest of the day she&039;d asked herself why she hadn&039;t It hadn&039;t been shock, it hadn&039;t even been overpowering lust Though she would have preferred to lay the blame on either one It had been Just for a e and wonderful and completely unexpected had happened There had been more than need,Those rockets again, she thought ruefully, looking at the buttes, which were shadowed in the lowering sun But with this bang so had shaken loose She&039;d almost believed she had fallen in love

Which was nonsense, of course She dug in her pocket for her keys She was far too levelheaded to take that route ever again Nonsense or not, the idea was giving her some bad moments

So, she wouldn&039;t think about it There were plenty of other problems to occupy her mind, and most of them were in the files she carried With a little effort and a lot of concentration she could dig out the calculations, work the equations and find the solutions Finding a solution to Cody was out of her sphere, so she would leave it alone and spare herself the headache

She turned her head at the sound of a car and had another bad nized the sporty little toy Cody had rented He pulled up beside her, his car spewing dust, just as she yanked her own car door open

He&039;d done his own share of thinking that afternoon and had come to his own decisions Before she could slide behind the wheel, he was out and taking her aro"

"I was just about to"

"We&039;ll take my car"

"You take your car" She turned back to her own

He took her keys and the files, pocketing the first and tossing the second into the back of his convertible "Get in"

"What do you think you&039;re doing?" Shoving him aside, she reached in to retrieve her files "If you think I&039;ery"

"We always do it the hard way, don&039;t we?" he said, and scooped her up

"You are crazy" She nearly got an elbow into his ribs before she was durabbed for the handle His hand closed like a vise over hers as he waited for her to toss the hair out of her eyes and glare up at hiet out of this car, Wilson, and I&039;ll make you sorry"

"Give me my keys"

"Not a chance"

She considered the possibility of wrestling the keys frohed Eyes narrowed, she met him look for look "Fine Then I&039;ll walk up to the road and hitch a ride"

"You already have a ride" He stepped back to walk about the hood Abra pushed the door open She&039;d no ain

"You don&039;t scare me, Johnson"

"I should We&039;re off the clock, Abra, and we&039;ve got business of our own Personal business" Reaching down, he fastened her safety belt "I&039;d keep that on It could be a rough ride"

By the time she&039;d fumbled the catch open, he&039;d slid behind the wheel Wordlessly he ja up the road

"What are you trying to prove?"

He turned off the construction road onto the highway "I&039; soure it out" Dust rose in plumes behind the car It would take some time for it to settle "The way I look at it, our first plan didn&039;t pan out, so we go back to the drawing board"

Someplace quiet turned out to be his hotel Abra&039;s reaction was to sla lot Cody simply picked her up and tossed her over his shoulder Her stream of abuse trailed behind them to his door

Cody unlocked it and pushed it open, then took the precaution of bolting it before dropping Abra into a chair

"Want a drink?" he asked Abra glared at him "Well, I do" He went to the bar and opened a bottle of wine "A chardonnay this tiht flavor, a bit tart You&039;ll like it"

She could probably haveInstead, she rose very slowly, very deliberately, out of the chair "Do you knohat I would like?" she asked in a surprisingly silky voice The tone of it alerted him even as he drew out the cork "Do you knohat I would really like? To see you hanging by your thue, open fire" She advanced toward hi fire, Johnson, with just enough breeze to draw the smoke away so it wouldn&039;t dull your senses" She slapped her palms on the bar and leaned her face close to his

"Why don&039;t you try the wine instead?"

She snatched for the glass, but he was quicker His fingers wrapped firmly around hers "Red," he said in a reasonable tone, "if you pour this on lass away and downed the contents in one s "Thanks for the drink" She nity intact, but he was there beside her before she could unlock it

"You&039;ll never learn to appreciate good wine that way" Pulling her back, he shoved her into a chair "Now sit," he told her "We can talk this through or I can go withto talk about"

"Fine" As quickly as he&039;d pushed her into the chair, he hauled her out of it She ed one sputter of protest before she irled into his ar her forever Hisas it deht in her hair, while the other roa, fir her slenderness, her softness, her weaknesses and her strengths He&039;d never touched her like this before, and the result stunned both of theh his fingertips An energy fueled by passion raced through her, leaving him dazed and desperate There was no one else who had ever set off this combination of needs and sensations inside him

No one had ever hted her It was easy, alet the rules she had set up for their relationship, the reason for the in her only moments before There was only now and the way her body experienced dozens of tiny explosions wherever he touched - wherever she wanted hi With a ainst hi They ignored it and listened to the pounding of their own hearts

Cody broke away to bury his face in her hair and catch his breath Another first, he thought He couldn&039;t think of another woman who had left hith to study her face Her eyes were big and clouded and very green He decided she looked every bit as stunned as he felt If they moved on impulse now, their already shaky foundation would crumble

"We&039;d better talk"

She nodded and sank into a chair, wondering if the strength would ever seep back into her legs "Okay"

Turning to the bar, he poured lass His hand wasn&039;t steady Cody wondered if he&039;d find the energy to laugh about that later He gave her a glass, then took his own to the chair facing hers

She looked at him then, as she had refused to before His hair was ruffled by the fast ride in the open car Hours in the sun had streaked it and deepened his tan Still, he didn&039;t make her think of a laid-back beachcomber now There was a sense of- arrested, held in check, but ready The energy was there, and a power she&039;d already experienced firsthand If they crossed swords again while thisbreath, she sipped "You wanted to talk"

He had to laugh It helped somehow to diffuse the worst of his tension "Yeah That was the idea"

"I don&039;t appreciate being hauled in here this way"

He settled back but discovered that relaxing wasn&039;t as easy as it had once been "Would you have come if I&039;d asked nice?"

Her lips curved briefly "No But that doesn&039;t give you the right to turn into a Cro-Magnon and haulAbra into a cave had a certain appeal at the moment, but she had a point "It&039;s not y?"

"I think we&039;ve already passed around enough of those You wanted to talk" She thought she was on firround now "Since I&039;reat in overalls, Red"

With a shake of her head, she started to rise "If that&039;s all - " But he held up a hand

"I think it&039;s fair to say that the plans we laid out about keeping our personal relationship impersonal are pretty ashed up"

Abra stared into the wine in her glass When facts were facts, she wasn&039;t one to evade theuess that&039;s fair"

She didn&039;t look too thrilled by the ad for a match He nearly swore at his own clus, all he could taste was her "So, where do we go froain, cal inside her were carefully controlled "You seem to have all the answers"

"Abra - " He stopped hiain or to deive "You&039;d like to keep things siht?"

Siain Her fingers tightened on the stelass, and she deliberately relaxed theine that either of us have time for complications at this point in our lives"

Corabbed her to show her just how cos already were She looked so composed "Then we&039;ll deal with the facts Fact one, I want you" He saw so - passion, fear, hope - flicker in her eyes "Fact two, you want arette "Now, if ith those two factors and add the information that neither of us are kids, that we&039;re both responsible adults who are sh to approach a relationship intellectually, as well as emotionally, we should come up with, as you said, a simple answer"

She didn&039;t want to be intellectual She didn&039;t want to be smart It had taken his practical recitation of the facts to make her realize that she just wanted to open up her arms and her heart and take him in The hell with facts and plans and si, Abra reminded herself as she cooled her dry throat with the wine What worked for Jessie was never going to work for her

She looked at Cody over the rilass He seemed so relaxed, so at ease She couldn&039;t see the tension that had hislike wire She only saw the faint amusement in his eyes and the easy way he sprawled in the chair

"Want ain for you, Red?"

"No" She set the glass aside and folded her hands "A simple answer We have an affair"

He didn&039;t like the cool way she said it, as though it meant no more than the letters it took to h to the core of it, wasn&039;t that what he wanted? To be with her Still, it hurt, and that aet started?"

His curt response had her curling her fingers hard into her palms She had opened the door, Abra reminded herself Noas time to face it "I think it&039;s best we understand each other first We don&039;t let our personal life interfere with the job"

"God forbid"

Taking a deep breath, she pressed on "It&039;s is, no regrets, no long-tero back to Florida and I&039;ll stay here It won&039;t do either of us any good to pretend otherwise, or to act as though e&039;re beginning isn&039;t going to end"

"That&039;s clear enough," he said, toying with the idea of strangling her for being so cool, so aloof, when all he wanted to do was"Obviously you&039;ve been through this before"

She didn&039;t answer She didn&039;t have to Before she lowered her eyes he saw the, he moved over to crouch beside her "Solad you&039;re a a hand to her cheek

"I&039; them to his lips "I don&039;t expect to be the first man in your life, but I&039; she&039;d expected froht tears to her eyes that had much less to do with the past than with the present "I don&039;t want to talk about it"

Soht, and others fester He intended to find out just how deep this one had cut, but he could wait "All right Let&039;s try this Have dinner with ed a so out to dinner"

"Who said anything about going out?" Leaning over, he teased her lips with his "Didn&039;t you say so hotels because you could order room service and eat dinner in bed?"

"Yeah" She laid a hand on his face and let herself drift with the kiss

"I&039;ll let you use my shower and drop the towels on the floor"