strong features stood out in stark relief. His eyes, the color of the late-afternoon sky, held her gaze across the yard. Just when she was prepared to let him spend the night in his car, he came out of her shower looking at home, as if he belonged there, too.
Carefully she picked up the berries and resumed her packing. Casually she said, “Jacinda was here. She brought a chicken for dinner.”
“Your dinner,” he said.
“Your dinner, too. She made that quite clear.”
“That was nice of her.”
Catherine pushed the boxes aside. “She’s afraid I’ll let you slip through my fingers. She sees you as my last hope before I dry up and blow away.”
Josh leaned against the side of the house, his arms folded across his chest. “No chance of my slipping away today. Why didn’t you tell her you have this thing about bankers before she got her hopes up? Didn’t you tell her we’re all slime bags who foreclose on innocent women and children and take away their homes?”
She stood up with her basket over her arm. “I never said that. I know you’re just doing your job. I just wish—”
“You wish it weren’t my job. Sometimes I wish it weren’t, either. If I were a farmer, you would have kissed me today under the tree, wouldn’t you?”
Her eyes widened, and her heart beat out a warning. “Wait a minute. Don’t jump to conclusions. I’m not looking for a farmer. I’m not looking for anybody. I admit there may be something between us. I don’t understand it, but I don’t deny it.”
He nodded. “Like lightning bolts. You don’t have to understand them to feel them when they hit you.”
She swallowed hard. So he felt it, too, the current that flowed between them. It was time to put a stop to this right now, and the best way to do it, other than telling him the truth, was to agree with him.
“You’re right, you know. I do have a thing against bankers that goes way back. I can’t change it, you can’t change it, no matter what you do. Even if you lend us the money. That’s why it has to be only business between us. Surely you can see that lending us money is good business. We’ll take good care of the truck. We’ll make our payments on time. And you’ll get a whole lot of new customers.” The words were coming faster and faster. She paused to take a breath. “What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing, in theory. But I told you—”
She brushed past him and walked to the back door. “I know what you’re going to say. I don’t want to hear it again. Let’s drop it. We’re stuck here together for a few more hours. Then you can go back to banking and I can go back to farming.”
Josh felt as if she’d slapped him in the face. “I’m sorry I ruined your day. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?”
“You can start a fire out back to barbecue the chicken. That way we won’t have to heat up the house.” She turned and went into the kitchen.
As he tossed branches of apple wood into a pile, he realized she didn’t bother to deny that he’d ruined her day. Well, she hadn’t done much to make his, either. Except for the lunch, and Jacinda had made that. Then there was the encounter under the mango tree, where he had almost lost his control and she had almost given in to the feelings she tried so hard to hide. Was this really a generic hatred of bankers as she claimed, or was it something else, something he couldn’t even guess at?
When she came outside again, the smoke was curling up from the fire. Expertly she threaded the chicken on the spit, and Josh turned the crank until his arm ached and his face was covered with soot. She set the table and brought out a pot of rice and a platter of homegrown tomatoes. Then she poked a fork into the chicken and nodded her approval.
After he washed up, they made polite, impersonal conversation while they ate. But when she wasn’t looking he allowed himself some very personal glances—at the neckline of her T-shirt and the line where her shorts met her thighs. As the shadows lengthened, he studied her profile and the way her hair brushed her cheek. When she got up to get the coffee, he realized he would never see her legs