Despite herself, she laughed at his obvious attempt at humor.
“Does this mean you’ll go out with me?” he asked.
Oh, how she wanted to, but dating a stranger wasn’t a smart move. She glanced at his determined gaze and doubted he’d take a straight no for an answer. “I wish I could, but I have to be here for the repairman.” She forced a regretful smile and squelched the female buried inside her who wanted to accept his invitation.
He unbuttoned his suit and slipped the jacket off his broad shoulders before flinging it onto the nearest chair. “It was that or be roasted alive.” He turned back to her. “Now where were we? Oh, yes…you going out with me.”
She opened her mouth to insist she’d made her final decision when the phone rang. She picked it up, grateful to discover on the other end the plumber returning her call. Gratitude quickly turned to dismay. She placed the receiver back on the cradle.
Kane raised his dark eyebrows. “Problem?”
She nodded. “The repairman. He’ll be here. Tomorrow. He hopes.” She plucked at her damp shirt.
“Well then.” He started to unbutton the cuff on his shirt. “We’d better get to work.”
“We?” she asked.
“You and me. I don’t see anyone else volunteering.” His gaze darted around the room. “Do you?”
“No, but…are you a plumber?”
“No, ma’am. But living in an old apartment, I’ve seen my share of broken heaters. So let’s get going.” With a flip of his wrist, he began rolling up his sleeve. When the first one was finished, he began on the second, revealing muscular forearms and bronze skin. With her fair complexion, she always admired deep-olive skin, but his coloring had little to do with the pulse-pounding adrenaline flowing through her system.
It was one thing to sense this man’s strength, another to witness the physical evidence of it firsthand. Kayla’s mouth grew dry and she grabbed for the bottled water sitting on her desk. She wet her parched lips before attempting to speak. “Wrench?”
“What?”
She plucked up the tool she’d deposited on her desk earlier. “I asked if you needed a wrench. To shut off the heat.”
“Take it along and we’ll see.”
She followed him into the back room. He knelt down to examine what she considered a foreign piece of equipment.
“The temperature’s already turned down,” he said.
“The cleaning crew must have turned it on by mistake. It was near ninety when I got here. I got the dial turned down but the heat didn’t follow.”
“It probably needs to hit its peak before it’ll start coming down.”
“You mean it’s going to get hotter?” she asked, fingering the damp bangs that stuck to her forehead.
“Count on it.” His searing gaze zeroed in on hers and the heat in the room seemed to soar. No man had ever had such a heart-stopping effect on her before. Drawing a deep breath, she wondered how to handle such raw masculinity. She’d made too many mistakes to mess up again.
He cleared his throat. “There’s another choice. We can hit the emergency switch and hope we don’t blow the unit in the process.”
She shook her head. “No, thank you. Can’t afford
“Then you have no choice but to let it run its course. In the meantime, do you have a bucket?” he asked.
“As a matter of fact…” She retrieved the pail her aunt had used to store cleaning supplies. “Here.” She offered it and he grabbed the handle.
“What about a skate key?” he asked.
She blinked at the strange question. “A what?”
He chuckled. “Never mind.” He reached around and patted the floor surrounding the heater. “Aha.” He held a small rounded key aloft. Triumph lit eyes that she now realized were stunning-an aqua mix that emphasized more blue than green and turned her already mixed up insides to pure mush.
She glanced at his find. “Let me guess. A skate key?”
“Sort of. Most of these old units need to be bled at the start of every season, sometimes more often. People familiar with them leave the key in a place they won’t forget. Otherwise you have to go running and hope you can find…”
“The nearest skater?” she asked wryly.
“She’d do in a pinch…if she looked like you.”
A burning flush heated her cheeks. Thanks to her fair skin she probably resembled a tomato by now. “Look, Mr. McDermott, I appreciate your help, but you don’t have to flatter me.”
“Do compliments make you uncomfortable, Miss Luck?”
She shrugged, knowing he’d hit a nerve. In her experience, compliments were a means to an end.
“A woman like you should be used to them. I would think you’d take them in stride.”
“Let’s just say, I’d rather get back to the problem at hand,” she said, gesturing toward the heater. “I thought you bled a heater when there was no heat.”
“You do. But you might as well stabilize the system so you don’t have major problems when you turn it on again next winter.” He turned back to the heater and soon the sound of water running into the bucket filled the otherwise silent room. After her third trip to empty the water into the bathroom sink, he flipped the key and rose to his feet.
“All set.” He wiped his damp hands on his pants, unconcerned with the damage he did to his suit. “As for the unit, give it some time. Chances are it’ll cool off without the help of the repairman.”
“Just clueing me in might have saved me a small fortune. Thanks.”
“Not a problem.” His gaze bored into hers and a flash of dizziness assaulted her. She only wished she could blame the heat, but knew it was his penetrating stare that unnerved her.
“Reconsider that drink?” he asked.
She started to shake her head. “I…”
“Then I want lessons. And before you say anything, I know you don’t specialize in dating etiquette anymore, but consider this an emergency. I have dinner with my boss tomorrow night and he plans on bringing his daughter. I don’t want to get involved, but I’d like to make a good impression and bow out gracefully at the end. Dinner tonight so you can teach me the finer points of charm and class.” He grinned and she discovered one dimple in his left cheek.
“I think you have enough of both,” she said wryly.
“So humor me. I’m giving you an excuse to say yes…and you know you want to.” His voice lowered an octave. Husky and seductive, it flowed through her veins.
“And I think you’re taking a lot for granted. How about I make some calls and see if one of my instructors is available to, uh, meet your needs.” She groaned inwardly. It had taken years to learn how to cover her insecurities, but Kayla had managed. Yet around Kane McDermott, she became the awkward girl she’d once been.
“I’d rather go with you.” His intense gaze begged her to believe.
Could he possibly be interested in her? She shook her head.
“Too bad for me.” Disappointment tinged his voice and dulled his gaze. He pointed to the phone. “Guess I’ll be going with a stranger tonight.”
She rolled her eyes. “
“Funny, but it doesn’t feel that way.” His gaze locked with hers in a meaningful stare she couldn’t escape or mistake. There was a connection between them. They both knew it-just as they both knew he’d just changed her mind.
She lowered herself into the swivel chair behind her desk. Leaning across the wooden top, Kane came within kissing breadth of her lips and she caught an enticing hint of spearmint on his breath. “Are you going to disappoint a customer, Miss Luck?”
“Kayla.” She licked her dry lips.
He raised an eyebrow and straightened to his full height. “It seems I’ve made progress,
He most definitely had. “Well, I can’t very well accompany you if you’re going to call me Miss Luck all night,”
