May closed the door behind her and rushed down the steps with a lightness in her heart that she hadn’t felt in a long time.
* * *
“I look like a gym teacher.”
He glanced up and smiled. “More like an athlete.” In the white T-shirt, gray hoodie, and track pants he’d given her, her hair dark and slicked off her face again, she reminded him of an Olympic swimmer waiting for her heat.
“Yeah, well, the shoes are going to kill the whole effect.” She slipped them on, then came over and stood next to him, making a show of drumming her fingers on the countertop while she looked pointedly at his sock-clad feet. “Aren’t you ready to go yet?”
Ben took a sip of his coffee and filled in another clue in the Times crossword. “I’ve been ready for a month.”
In fact, he’d had to scramble to get dressed when he heard the shower cut off. She hadn’t been kidding about being fast.
“You’re sweating,” she pointed out sweetly.
“You’re smug.”
She batted her eyelashes. “Who, me?”
He pivoted on his bar stool and stood, scooping the keys off the counter. When he turned back toward her, he realized his mistake.
Way too close.
With her hair wet, her face was all angles and planes, broad cheekbones, and short-fringed eyes. He’d expected her to buy makeup at the drugstore and to come from the bathroom transformed. That was what Sandy would have done. His ex was a beautiful woman with or without all the crap on her face, but she wouldn’t have dreamed of leaving home without lipstick. He’d liked that about her—the way she’d always seemed so pulled together.
May had freckles all across the bridge of her nose and dusting her cheeks. A square face. When you looked at her features one by one, she wasn’t exactly pretty. Her upper lip was a bit thin, the bottom plump but chapped, as though she’d been abusing it. If it weren’t for that lush bottom lip and her big brown eyes, she would look almost mannish. Severe.
He couldn’t stop staring.
“Do I have toothpaste on my chin?” she asked.
If you did, I’d lick it off.
“No. Sorry. Give me a second.”
He went into the bathroom and ran water in the sink so there would be some white noise to cover up the sound of him muttering curses at himself.
Could he not just hang out with the woman for a few days without wanting to climb on top of her? Yes, May was … interesting to look at. Pretty, even. An unusual kind of pretty. And yes, he liked her. But so what? Another man had asked her to marry him at lunchtime on Thursday, barely forty-eight hours ago. She wasn’t available to be mounted, and even if she were, he knew better.
He made his face stern and uncompromising in the mirror. “No kissing, no touching, no fucking,” he told himself. “Be normal.”
When he went back into the living area, she was rinsing her coffee cup in the sink.
“So I figure we shop first,” he said. “After shopping, we grab some dinner, and then I have to check on the bees before it gets dark. You can come with me to the roof if you want, or if bees freak you out, you can stay here. And then after, we can do laundry down in the basement, so if you’ve got new stuff you want washed, you’ll have it for tomorrow. How’s that sound?”
“Sounds perfect.”
“Do you need to call anybody—tell them where you are?”
“Yeah, but I can do that later. This nice lady at Starbucks let me use her phone, and I already called my friend who was going to pick me up. She said she’d leave a message at the store to let my family know I won’t be getting to the cabin tonight. Maybe I can write my sister an email later.”
“Cool.” He rubbed his hands together. “Tonight won’t count for your vacation. I’m going to ask you some questions to find out what you hate about New York, and then I’ll plan your tour experience for the next couple days. Tonight is just chores.”
“You’ve given this some thought.”
He already had a mental list of a whole bunch of places he wanted her to see. Way too many—he had to pare it down. He crossed to the front door, shoved his feet into his shoes, and knelt down to tie the laces.
“New York is counting on me to do it proud,” he said. “What kind of clothes do you want?”