Not Even for Love(54)

“I don’t know exactly. Bill is supposed to notify me within a few days.”

“May I see you again before you go?” he asked gently.

Her smile was sad. “I don’t think so, Helmut. It will be better this way.”

“Always pragmatic. Your common sense is one of your virtues, Jordan.”

She laughed again. “That isn’t a very gallant compliment. Where are all those poetic comments you used to shower me with?”

He laughed, too, but then grew serious. “Don’t misunderstand me. Your astute mind didn’t diminish your sexual attractiveness.” He drew her close one last time and whispered the next words directly in her ear. “Don’t let that solid common sense always dictate the course of your life, Jordan. Some of my finest achievements have been the result of a gamble.”

He kissed her once on the lips and then he was gone.

“Damn,” Jordan muttered as she retraced her footsteps back down the first three stairs. Just a moment before she had closed the shop for the night and turned out the light. Now one last customer was rudely knocking on the door.

She was tired. For the last week she had been trying to get the newsstand in tip-top shape before Bill arrived with the Bauermans. At night, after business hours, she had been packing her personal belongings into shipping crates. Today had been particularly busy. A tour bus of senior citizens from Detroit had descended upon her and all fifty-one of them had demanded personal attention. When they left, her shelves had been depleted and had required restocking.

Now someone was blatantly ignoring her CLOSED sign. In exasperation she turned the key in the lock and jerked the door open. “I’m clo—” The words died on her lips and the blue rings around her gray eyes widened.

Reeves was standing on the threshold. He was leaning nonchalantly on the outside wall. His gaze was taking in the heavy clouds overhead, which just now were letting loose their first raindrops.

“I can’t ever seem to get here in anything less than a deluge,” he remarked inconsequentially, and shoved his way past her. She was so stunned to see him that she didn’t try to keep him out. Instead her jaw hung slack and her arms dangled uselessly at her sides.

“W-what are you doing here?” she wheezed.

“I came to help you pack.” He plopped his camera case and duffel bag onto the floor and shrugged out of the shearling coat. “Have you got anything to eat? I’m starving.”

Without another word, he wheeled around, and a second later she heard his booted footsteps clumping upstairs. Still incredulous over his brazen entrance, she followed him. When she reached the top of the stairs, he was in the kitchen, inspecting the pantries.

“Peanut butter? Is that all?” he asked in disappointment. “I guess we’ll have to go out for dinner.”

“Reeves?” she grated as her hands balled into aggravated fists. “What are you doing here?”

He looked at her sympathetically. “You’re repeating yourself, Jordan. You already asked me that.”

“And you didn’t answer.”

#8220;Yes I did. I told you that I was here to help you pack. You’re leaving in a few days, aren’t you?”

His easygoing manner as he spread a piece of stale bread with drying peanut butter amazed her. What did he expect of her? She didn’t know what he was up to, but she was growing angrier by the moment with this game he was playing.

She yanked the sandwich out of his hands before he could take the first bite and tossed it onto the table. “Reeves, I don’t know what you’re doing here, but I want no part of it. How dare you come waltzing in here like this!”

She was building up a full head of steam, but he squelched it when he grumbled, “You ruined my sandwich,” and pointed to the bread that had landed peanut-butter side down on the butcher-block tabletop. “Are you going to be this cranky after we’re married?”

Married! The word bounced off the walls of the minuscule kitchen and fairly screamed through her head. He had totally dismantled her arsenal of self-defense. She sagged weakly against the kitchen counter and watched him with disbelieving eyes. He picked up the gooey sandwich, inspected it, decided it wasn’t ruined after all, folded it over once, and took a huge bite out of it.

“You’re crazy,” she said. “What do you mean by ‘married’?”

“You know,” he mumbled around the bread and peanut butter. “ ‘Dearly beloved, we are gathered here,’ etcetera, etcetera. Flowers. Candles. Weepy mothers. Married.”

“But—”

“You aren’t still engaged to Helmut, are you?”