The Trouble With Valentine's Day

wrists.

'Most every day.' First he'd noticed her neck and now her wrists. He felt like a vampire.

'I joined a gym once.' She walked in the room and ran her hand over his weights. 'The Golds on Flamingo Road. I paid a year's membership and went three months. I'm afraid I'm not dedicated to fitness.'

'Maybe you need someone to motivate you.' He watched her long fingers and hands slip across a row of chrome dumbbells. In his former life, he would have offered to motivate her.

'No, that's not my problem. I went with my friend Marilyn, and she's a Stair Master fiend. She tried to motivate me.' She shook her head. 'But once my thighs start to burn, I just have to lie down. I'm kind of a wimp when it comes to pain.'

He laughed even though he wished she hadn't mentioned burning thighs. 'Come on.' He led her back out to the open hallway that looked down at the entrance and great room. 'That's my daughter's room,' he said and pointed to a closed door.

'How often does she visit?'

'Amelia's never visited me here. She lives in Seattle with her mother, but when the house was built, I had her room done for her.'

'How old is she?'

'Two.'

He pointed to another closed door. 'That's a bathroom, but I don't think it's ever been used.' They moved past some sort of alcove with a couch he never sat on and a big plant he never watered. 'You ever married?'

'No.'

'Ever get close?'

'A few times.' She laughed without humor. 'Or at least I thought so. They didn't, though.'

'That's a problem.' They moved to the open door of his bedroom. The place where he'd pictured her naked. Tied to his bed or on her knees in the moonlight. He wondered if he should feel like a pig for thinking about her naked so much. He wondered if it counted since she didn't know, and he never planned to do anything about it. He leaned a shoulder into the door frame and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his Levi's. As he watched her move silently through his room, he wondered if he'd ever be able to separate the Kate looking out his bedroom window from the Kate who'd wanted to have sex with him the first night they met. He doubted it. The two were so interwoven in his brain that when he looked at her, it was always there.

'Is this your little girl?' she asked as she stopped in front of his entertainment center, cluttered with pictures of his daughter.

'Yeah. That's Amelia.'

She leaned in for a closer look. 'She's cute. She looks like you.'

'My mother thinks so.'

Kate took a step back, and her gaze moved to his big-screen television. 'Hockey must pay well.'

So, she did know a thing or two about him. It was no secret. Everyone in town knew. 'It did, yes.'

'What team?'

'Ottawa Senators. New York Rangers. Florida Panthers. Detroit Red Wings. L.A. Kings, and the Seattle Chinooks.'

She looked across at him. 'Sounds like you moved around a lot.'

'Yeah.' He didn't really like to talk about the past. It brought up too many questions he didn't want to answer. Too many memories he didn't like to think about.

The carpet muffled the sound of her boots as she walked toward him and stopped about a foot away. 'Were you good?'

His gaze slid to her mouth. 'What do you think?'

She tilted her head to one side as if she were studying him. 'I think you were probably scary.'

'Do you watch hockey?'

'Just enough to know that if you were skating toward me, I'd get out of your way.' She bit her lip, and it slid through her teeth. 'And I saw you take out the Worsleys.'

He chuckled. 'Let's go downstairs,' he said before he gave in to the urge to bite her lip, too.

He pointed to two more closed doors. One bedroom was filled with his fly-tying gear. The other had boxes of his hockey stuff in it. They walked downstairs and through the house, past the dining room to the kitchen. On the granite countertops and steel gas range sat his sheets of cooling granola. He was addicted to the stuff, and he'd been making his own for several years. He'd just about perfected his honey almond crunch. When he'd played hockey, the guys had all given him a raft of shit about his granola, but they all secretly hit him up for some when no one else was around.

She stood next to the work island in the middle of the room and gazed up at the pots and pans hanging on the rack above her head. The recessed lighting cast her in a warm glow and shone in her red hair. 'Who uses all these pots and pans?'

'Me.' He lived alone and had learned a long time ago how to cook for himself. Life on the road and eating in restaurants could get real old. 'When I'm here.' He scooped up some granola and moved toward her. 'Open up,' he said as he held his fingers in front of her mouth.

She looked skeptical, as if she might argue. 'What's in it?'

'Oats, flaxseed, honey.' Or maybe she was just nervous. He liked to think he made her nervous.

'Did you know that a bee only produces one and a half teaspoons of honey during its lifetime?'

'That's fascinating. Now open up.'

Her gaze stared into his as she tilted her head back and opened her mouth. The tips of his fingers touched her lips. He dropped the granola into her mouth as if she were a bird, then he stepped back.

She chewed, then licked the corner of her mouth. 'That's pretty good stuff.'

'I'm addicted to it.' He grabbed one of the cooking sheets and sat it on the island next to her. 'Help yourself.'

'Are you sure you made it?'

'Of course. Who else?'

'I don't know, but you don't strike me as the type of guy who makes his own granola.'

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask her what she did think of him, but he supposed he already knew. She thought he drove a HUMMER to compensate for a small dick and impotence. 'That's because you don't know me.'

'That's true.' She cocked her head to one side and studied him. 'Can I ask you something?'

'Yeah, but I don't have to answer.'

'That's fair,' she said and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. 'Why do you live in such a huge house when you're not even here that much?'

'I'm here from March to September. Well, when I'm not at the store, anyway.' Which didn't answer her question. Why had he built a big house? He shoved his hip into the counter next to her. 'I guess because I've lived in big houses with pools and Jacuzzis and game rooms for most of my adult life. So, when it came time to build this one, I just went with what I was used to.'

'You have a game room, too?'

'Yeah. It's off the great room,' he said as she scooped up granola with her fingers and ate. 'Maybe we can play pool sometime.'

She brushed her hands together as she swallowed. 'Maybe, but I have to warn you, I don't lose on purpose to anyone.'

'What fun is there in that?'

'I saw you play the other night. I could beat you blindfolded and with one arm tied behind my back.'

'Trash talker,' he said through a smile. 'I'd like to see you try and kick my ass.'

'Oh, I don't know if I'd kick your ass. You're not that bad.' She laughed. 'I'd spank you real good, though.'

It was a hell of a deal to have the woman you fantasized about stand in front of you and talk about spanking.

She took another bite of his granola and swallowed. 'Which tends to get me in trouble with me who have fragile egos.' She looked at him through serious brown eyes and said, 'I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry about