“LOCAL ARTS AND CRAFTS?”
Kitty looked around her store as though she were trying to envision Josh’s suggestion.
“Anything hand-made, one-of-a-kind,” he said. “Especially things that are representative of the area or reflect the history of the town.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and watched the little wheels turn in her head. “Like the stuff they sold at that Holiday Crafts Faire last November.”
She darted her eyes to his. “I know the woman who organizes it. She also plans Dairy Days in the summer and the Art and Wine Festival in the fall. Between the three, I’ll bet she’d have contact information on all the local crafts people in the county.” Then her eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “There’s a quilt show, too. Three women in town make beautiful quilts. And one makes purses.”
“Now you’re thinking.”
He followed as she circled the displays, mentally swapping out her inventory as she recalled the various things she’d seen at the shows.
“I could do this,” she said. “It could work.”
Those brown eyes were wide and excited, filled with hope and buzzing with energy. Kitty was normally so reserved Josh enjoyed seeing her vibrant and full of life. It was like getting a close-up view of the woman he’d glimpsed from afar.
“I could offer consignment,” she went on. “That would reduce my overhead.”
Her voice had taken on a musical tone that he found endearing. “I’m sure you could.”
“And what do you think of the name?” She lowered her voice and blushed. “I’ve always wanted to change it.”
“To what?”
“Cassandra’s. It’s my real name.”
She threw the statement out casually, then stepped down the aisle as if what she said hadn’t just slapped him up side the head.
Cassandra. It sounded like an alter ego, the woman who came out when the night was warm and the music was playing. The sexy, smooth-tempered blonde he was staring at now, the one who showed herself only after you made it into that special circle reserved for friends. Everyone else got Kitty: pleasant, demure Kitty who wore librarian sweaters and sold stuffed bears and porcelain cherubs to the Auntie Beas of Shiloh.
Sure, so she was only talking about a nickname, but something about the knowledge felt as if he’d been handed a clue to a mystery that kept getting more and more interesting as time went on.
“The name doesn’t really fit the store as it is now,” she added, toying with her knickknacks at the end of an aisle of greeting cards. “But if I did what you were suggesting earlier by going a little more upscale, I could easily see a name like Cassandra’s working.” She spun around and hit him with a smile. “Couldn’t you?”
“Cassandra’s a beautiful name,” he found himself blurting.
Her cheeks reddened, but she looked more flattered than embarrassed. She smiled at the compliment, and then for a long moment, she simply stood and studied him.
Josh couldn’t remember a time when he was at a loss for words. Most definitely never around a woman. But right now, he couldn’t get a sound to form on his lips. It was mostly because he didn’t dare utter what he was thinking. If he did, he’d tell her that her name wasn’t the only beautiful thing about her. That rather unexpectedly, he was finding Kitty/Cassandra the most captivating woman he’d met in a long time. And that while his brain kept screaming at him to keep his distance, every other part of his body desperately wanted to get to know her better.
No. He couldn’t say any of that. Not without the whole thing ending badly. So he just stood there looking dumb and stupid, trying hard to ignore the fire that crackled between them.
“Thank you so much for your help,” she finally said, breaking the long silence. “You’ve given me some great ideas that I really think will work. I don’t know how I can repay you.”
Josh counted off five ways without even trying, but rather than open his mouth and casually spout them out the way he normally would, he held his tongue and forced out, “Don’t mention it,” instead.
She eyed the clock on the wall. “Come upstairs. Let me treat you to dinner.”
“D-dinner?”
She quirked her brow and regarded him like the bungling teenager he’d suddenly turned into. “You do eat, don’t you?”
“Well, yes.”
“Did you already have other plans?”
“I, uh…no, not really.”
Moving to the front door, she pulled a key from her pocket and locked up, shutting off his means of escape—not that he would have used it. This encounter was getting more intriguing by the moment. He was pretty much deciding on the fly that he should stay and let it play out.
She brushed past him, filling his nose with the sweet scent of vanilla and spice. “Come on back. The stairs are this way.”
He watched those shapely hips sway as he followed her out the back door and toward the stairway that led to her upstairs apartment. Tiny voices in his head screamed off warnings, but he flicked them all back, reminding himself that dinner in her apartment didn’t have to be anything more.
But when she turned around and grinned before starting up the stairs, the seductive look in her eyes said fat chance. He might be a little shaken up right now, but he knew a come-hither look when he saw one. Somewhere over the course of their conversation, his shy and tidy neighbor had gone firmly on the prowl, the shock of it freezing his feet in place as she began her ascent.
“Uh, Kitty,” he said.
She stopped again and turned.
He scratched his head. “This is just dinner, right?”
A wicked smile curved her lips. “Is that all you want it to be?”
It was a trick question—one with no good answer. He could lie and say yes, that given their situation and his certainty that she didn’t do flings, they would both be smart to keep their relationship purely platonic. But since when had he ever been smart? And more to the point, he wasn’t entirely certain anymore that Miss Kitty wouldn’t do flings. Thirty seconds ago, he would have said she’d never proposition a man on her stairs either, and look where he was standing.
So he opted for Bad Answer Number Two and told her the truth. “I’d love the whole night.”
Her wicked smile darkened to something that got him hard. “Then come on.” She took two steps up the stairs then halted abruptly when she realized he hadn’t moved. “Is there a problem?”
Say no. Just follow her upstairs and have the time of your life. Forget decency. Forget—
“Kitty, we need to be clear,” he blurted, shutting off his inner caveman voice. “I’m not a relationship kind of guy.”
He expected a sorry look of disappointment, but instead Kitty simply smiled. “I’m not asking for one.”
“You aren’t?”
Turning, she stepped down two stairs so that her eyes were level with his and that pretty turned-up nose was mere inches from his lips. It took every ounce of restraint to keep from leaning out and kissing it. That was, until he glanced down and noticed how close her breasts were to his hands.
There was more of them than he’d given her credit for, most likely because she’d always buttoned them up under her white cotton blouses and cardigan sweaters. But today she wore a simple V-neck sweater, not low enough to show off cleavage but definitely tight enough to show she was packing some goods.
His hands itched to take hold of them, to cup them in his palms and listen to her breath hitch when he gave them a squeeze. He wondered what she looked like naked. Would her skin be lightly freckled or would it be smooth as satin? His cock twitched as he thought about it.
“I’ll get my relationship from Howard,” she said, jerking him from his fantasy.
Howard?
“But before I go down that road, I’d really like one night of pure, unadulterated fun.”
He caught the smoky look of sex in her eyes and knew without a doubt that he could provide her with that—especially the unadulterated part.
But who the hell is Howard?
He had opened his mouth to ask when she turned away and headed back up the stairs, that shapely ass of hers pulling his mind off Howard and back to that thing she said about not expecting a relationship and just wanting fun.
Josh liked fun. And he had no doubt that if he followed her up those stairs, he’d find lots of it. So, not needing to be asked twice, he took them two by two, anxious to see how many more surprises this strange day was going to bring.