Her sigh was filled with asperity. S
he took another log off the pile in his arms in order to lessen his load. When she tried to take another, he shifted his arms, preventing her. She gave him a condemning glance.
“Is that all you’re going to do? Repeat everything I say and give me dirty looks?” she asked.
“Put those logs back on here.”
She frowned at him and did what he said, putting the logs back in his arms. He stomped up the stairs. Katie let him go this time, made a pit stop in the bathroom and then cautiously entered the living room a few minutes later. Rill glanced over at her from where he knelt before the fireplace.
“I would have preferred to have lunch with you, but you were nowhere to be found when I got up this morning,” she said quietly.
He’d been about to say something, but her honesty made him pause. He threw the last of the kindling sticks he held in his hand into the growing fire and stood.
“I was hiking in the woods,” he said gruffly. “I do that a lot.”
Katie removed the jacket she’d been wearing, tossed off her flats and settled into the corner of the couch, drawing up her knees. “Your car was gone.”
He shrugged. “There are hundreds of hiking trails around here maintained by the forest preserve. Sometimes I drive to the park entrances and try different ones. Other times, I just wander around here.”
“Does it bring you any peace?”
“No, not really. Something to do, though.”
He didn’t move to join her on the couch, but he didn’t walk out of the room, either. The living room was cast in shadow despite the brilliance of the fall day outside. Katie could see the gleam of his eyes from beneath a lowered brow as he studied her. When Miles had arrived earlier, she’d showered and thrown on a pair of skinny jeans and a frilly little button-up blouse, and tempered the super-feminine effect with a sleek belted jacket. She hadn’t once thought about how she looked when she was with Miles, but she felt hyperaware of how she might appear to Rill. It suddenly occurred to her that Eden had always been dressed impeccably in conservative suits and elegant tailored blouses.
She couldn’t help but feel Rill must find her appearance lacking.
His forehead crinkled. “What are you thinking, Katie?” he asked slowly.
“I was thinking it blows my mind. I don’t understand it. You must be bored to tears living here.” It wasn’t a complete lie. She’d been wondering about that very thing even though she hadn’t been thinking it at the moment he’d asked. “Are you at least writing?”
He exhaled and stepped toward her. Katie gave an inner sigh of relief when he walked around the coffee table and sat on the center cushion of the couch, his thigh just inches away from her toes. For a few tense seconds, she’d been sure he was going to walk out of the room and abandon her once again.
“I haven’t written a word since I came here.”
“Why not?”
He shrugged, the movement bringing her gaze down to his shoulders and chest. He looked delicious in denim, red cotton and flannel . . . rugged and so male she could practically taste the pheromones he exuded on her tongue. She was overwhelmed with a need to touch him, but something stilled her hand. Maybe it was the voice inside her that kept reminding her repeatedly that she wasn’t what Rill wanted. Not really.
You’re not his type. You’re not like Eden.
“I haven’t got any ideas for a story,” he said, his voice carrying that flat, empty tone that Katie hated. She breathed deeply and felt a glimmer of satisfaction when his eyes flickered over her chest.
“I haven’t seen a computer anywhere. Don’t you have one here?”
“Yeah,” he muttered, glancing away from her breasts.
“Well . . .” She paused and gave a wide yawn. The heat from the fire had started to warm her. “Why don’t you at least set it up, make yourself a work space? It’d at least create an atmosphere for the possibility of writing.”
When he didn’t say anything, Katie thought he’d dismissed her advice just like he did everything else she offered him. She sighed dispiritedly and laid her cheek on the arm of the couch. He turned at her defeated sound.
“Why are you here, Katie?” he asked her yet again, his tone a mixture of irritation and puzzlement.
“I told you,” she mumbled groggily.
“Why did you quit your job?”
“I hated that job,” she said impulsively.