Finally, his adrenaline-pumped instincts took a breather and let his brain kick back into high gear—with a vengeance. What if he'd let her walk in here alone? He'd tried to send her to the house while he'd been tying down the plane and working even harder to harness his libido. Who the hell knew when the break-in occurred? He assumed the vandals had left when the plane approached, but they could have slipped through the back while he and Paige had been making out. A herd of cattle could have thundered by and he never would have noticed.
He had to get hold of himself around this woman and quit sniffing her hair like some horny adolescent. But first, maybe he would hold her a while longer.
Sirens whined low in the distance.
"Bo?"
"Yeah?"
"Look."
He turned to follow her pointed finger to the clinic's medicine cabinet—bashed and open.
Four hours later Paige scooted a box across the office floor with the toe of her tennis shoe as she collected papers. Vic was restoring order to the patient files out in the lobby, while Bo hammered plywood over the shattered glass on the medicine supply cabinet, unspeaking, steady. It would be easy to get used to his help, a fact she'd remembered in time to pull herself out of his arms and greet the police on her own.
Was anything in her life not a total mess? Much like her feelings about the kiss she and Bo had shared. At least they couldn't talk with Vic to overhear in the next room, which would give her more time to gather her thoughts—and willpower.
She tore her eyes off Bo's broad shoulders stretching his white concert T-shirt, back to the current clutter littering her life. Thank God Kirstie had finally fallen asleep upstairs, and Seth was on hand to watch over her. Paige shivered. She couldn't imagine letting her child go anywhere now without one of them glued to her side.
The police had already come and gone, declaring it drug-related vandalism. She just wished Seth had taken longer at McDonald's so Kirstie didn't have to arrive home to find five cop cars in her yard.
Yep, five.
Back in Charleston, a break-in would have warranted one car, but crime was so low in North Dakota, they received plenty of department attention, for which she was eternally grateful. All the more reason to plant her roots deep in this stark but fertile region.
Hopefully, the police would have answers soon to this break-in anomaly. Molds had been made of the footprints and tire tracks—a truck. Great. There were only about a kajillion of those around here.
Ah, hell. When had she become so defeatist? Right about the time she'd cried uncle and turned into a noodle-spine against Bo's chest. Enough of the self-pity garbage. She wasn't the confused, duped fool of a year ago.
She kicked the box to the side and knelt, sliding her hand under the office desk, searching by touch to fish out two more letters. She glanced over them. A credit card offer. Another letter from Kurt's lawyer. Two hefty reminders of her sucky financial state.>The furrow trenched deeper. "You'll pass?" he growled. "That's all you have to say?"
He did confident just right, self-assurance without arrogance. Although she couldn't resist jabbing, "I guess you don't hear that very often."
The furrow between his brows smoothed as the killer smile returned. "Ah, okay, now I get it. You want to make me work for it. Cool. I can do that. I'll enjoy charming you."
Charming.
One word smacked her right back into stark reality. She had a weakness when it came to charming men. "Anybody ever tell you that you're packing a helluva an ego, flyboy?"
"I may have heard that once or twice."
"Well, believe it. Thank you for flying us around for the next two weeks, but I'm not interested in filling time in between those flights with convenience sex."
"Whoa! Hold on. Who said anything about sex?" He stalked down the step to face her.
"Last I heard we were talking about a kiss. One kiss. A kiss where we get to know each other and see if the chemistry we've got going is real."
He thought they had chemistry, too?
Argh. She was such an idiot. She slapped the key down on the railing. "So you just want to make out for two weeks?"
"Urn, well..." He scratched his head. "I didn't think we'd necessarily hop right into a haystack or something today. But if the kiss is as good as I'm certain it's going to be, we could have dinner, see how the next kiss goes."
"And if we land in the haystack later... Yeah, I get it. I'm not a fling sort."
"Neither am I. Believe it or not, I actually enjoy talking to you. So if all we end up with is conversation and a few kisses, no harm no foul."
Were they actually discussing whether or not to kiss? "Some things aren't worth trying.