Mad Enough to Marry - By Christie Ridgway Page 0,9

to see her. They stared at each other for a moment, then she bUnked, her gaze trav-eUng down, then back up to meet his.

**You're, um, dirty," she pointed out, her voice as surprised as her expression.

He nodded, his own gaze involuntarily zeroing in on her full mouth. Dirty in his mind too, he could have added, because he'd been dwelling on that kiss

they'd shared. Not to mention all the time he'd spent studying his new art acquisition, Elena in Bed.

Uh-oh. He suddenly had a very good idea about why the beautiful bane of his life was standing on his doorstep. She'd made some vague threats before hurrying off the day before about getting the painting back.

No, he resolved instantly. No way. It was his! It felt danm good to have something she wanted for once. What other man could say that?

"May I come in?" she asked.

Oh, she wanted the painting bad, Logan decided, because she was actually managing to sound sort of friendly.

Which inmiediately edged up the dial on his Trouble Meter. It was best not to let her inside. Call it a premonition, call it learning from past mistakes, but he and Elena did not do well in close proximity. Consider that kiss. No, better not. Not when she was so near.

He stepped out onto the porch, trying to invent a polite refusal. Hustle her toward home. Out of his life, good. Without his painting. Very good.

But now, a few steps closer to her and with his initial surprise out of the way, his eyes widened again. Elena appeared exhausted. Strangely defenseless too, with her sumptuous curves swallowed up by a white T-shirt and a baggy pair of denim overalls.

With a pale face and tired shadows beneath her baby blues, she was also so gut-wrenchingly gorgeous it made a man want to slay her dragons as much as

he wanted to seduce her. Cursing his own weakness, he found himself turning right around to usher her inside.

**Is everything okay?" he asked, directing her toward the front room. Layers of wallpaper were peeled back from the plaster in long curls. Pink stripes over yellow flowers over a design that might once have been green but was now grayish.

She paused in the middle of the room, taking in the bay window, the wallpaper curls, the two old re-cliners—one with duct tape on the seat—that faced a big-screen TV sitting on a platform of cinder block and plywood. He watched TV sometimes while he worked. The recliners had been left behind by the previous homeowner.

She looked over at him, her expression amazed. **You do actually Hve here. Your mother gave me this address when I called but I wasn't sure I understood her correctly."

Logan gestured toward the recliner sans duct tape, and then frowned as he watched her drop to the seat with a little sigh. She seemed glad to have something beneath her.

**Oh, Mom has the story straight," he rephed, scrutinizing Elena even more closely. *'Can I get you something to eat? A beer? Soda?"

She waved a weary hand. *'Whatever."

When he came back in with two bottles of beer in one hand and a plate of cold pizza in the other, Elena was coll^sed against the back cushion of her chair. He handed her a bottie and put the pizza on the

scarred end table between the two recliners, nudging over the remote control to make room.

She took a long swallow of beer then cast him a look. *'You really quit Chase Electronics?'*

He took a chug from his own bottle. "Yep."

'*You moved out of your condo and bought this Victorian. On my side of town."

*'Yep. Though the condo is actually Griffin's. He and Annie will live in it when they get back from the honeymoon. Until they find their own house, anyway."

"You quit Chase Electronics," Elena repeated as if still not quite believing it, then took a longer swallow from her bottle.

"And I bought my buddy Reuben's rehab business—^which doesn't mean much more than his tools and this house which he was only half finished converting into apartments. But he wanted to move to Oregon with his girlfriend and I wanted to break the chains tying me to my desk at Chase Electronics. A match made in heaven."

"You know how to do all tiiis?" She gestured with her beer toward the wallpaper and then the bay windows. Half the trimwork around them was missing, the other half was shedding paint coat number fifteen.

He shrugged. "We'll find out."

Her jaw dropped.

He laughed. "It's not as