She stared at him for a moment, a wrinkle forming above her goggles. It suddenly hit him that she didn’t look like she was in a good mood.
“Did you have a reason for stopping by?”
So he was right. “I just dropped by to check on you. Make sure you weren’t dangling from high places.”
The crease above her goggles deepened. “Actually, I’ve managed a whole day without mishap. Of course, there was a tense moment when I climbed up on the roof and lost my balance walking the peak.”
His blood pressure spiked even as he recognized she was teasing him—so maybe she wasn’t in a bad mood after all. “I’m glad you’re teasing me.”
“Had you there for a moment, though.”
“Yes, you did.”
She smiled sweetly. “The thing is, Rowdy, I just met you yesterday, and while I am very grateful that you saved my neck, I really don’t know you. And that being the case... Well, you get what I’m saying?”
Get out of my business. Okay, so maybe she was in a bad mood—twinkling eyes and all. He was losing his touch reading women. That was an understatement. He hadn’t read Liz right at all. Not until her husband had shown up and punched him in the nose had he suspected he’d gotten involved with a married woman. His stomach soured just thinking about it.
Looking at Lucy, he held his hands up. “You are absolutely right.” He planned to leave it at that, get in his truck and hit the road; after all, it wasn’t any of his business. The problem: Rowdy was known for not always doing what he was supposed to do. He’d suffered from the ailment all of his life.
“But you don’t know what you’re doing.”
The words were out of his mouth before he could edit them.
Lucy’s eyes flashed fire his way before she spun on her boot heels and strode back into the house, leaving him standing just off the porch.
Clearly the woman did not want to hear what he had to say. Any man with good sense would get in his truck and head home to tend to his own business. There was sure no shortage of it and that work was what he’d promised himself and the Lord he was going to do for the next year.
But what did he do?
He followed her. That’s what.
Right through her back door and in the direction of a sledgehammer beating the stuffing out of a hunk of wood somewhere inside the house.
All the while telling himself he needed to mind his own business. He had a well-thought-out plan for his life—he was done jumping off into relationships impulsively. He’d given himself at least a year to be completely single. He’d made the deal with the Lord—no attachments—and he’d almost made it.
So what are you doing?
Chapter Two
Leave it to her to get a nosy, arrogant cowboy for a neighbor!
What was his problem? Who was he to come here and question her intelligence? Did he really think she’d be stupid enough to knock out the walls that held her house together?
Lucy swung the sledgehammer and took unusual pleasure when it hit the two-by-four stud exactly where she’d aimed—where it connected to the wood on the bottom of the frame.