He said, “You’re angry.”
Great catch, Sherlock. “Anger will not solve this problem.”
“But you won’t be satisfied unless I clear out.”
Satisfaction was a strange word. It reminded her that the sheets on the bed were still rumpled.
“I work best in solitude.” Like at three in the morning when all the graduate students had abandoned the lab, leaving her alone with her beakers and her thoughts.
“I’m not surprised. So do I.”
“Look, Macallister.” How would she work with a brawny cowboy with sleep-mussed hair hovering around, disrupting her concentration? “I have nothing against you personally. I don’t know you.”
“I know why you want me to disappear.” His gaze flickered toward the hallway. “I wasn’t exactly the welcoming committee in the bedroom.”
“Let’s just take things from here and now, shall we?”
“Didn’t mean that to happen, by the way.” He rubbed his stubbly chin. “I’m not sorry that it did.”
Her spine aligned like a row of tin soldiers. Was he trying to unnerve her intentionally? She’d spent her whole professional life cultivating coolness under pressure. She’d be damned if she let this prowl of a man think he could unsettle her by reminding her of a single moment of nudity.
Hell, she looked pretty good without her clothes on.
“We’re both adults.” she said, raising her chin. “But only one of us is acting like one.”
With a sigh, he dipped his head and came toward her. She would have sensed his approach even if blind. Logan emanated an intensity that appeared inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them, like microwave radiation. That freethinking graduate student of hers—Maritza—would interpret this close-proximity sensation as a red-wave aura. Maybe that’s why Jen couldn’t stop the urge to lean back, away from danger.
“I’m not going to lie to you.” Logan dipped his voice and leaned a hip on the back of the couch. “This isn’t going to be easy. I’m used to my own company. Don’t have much patience for visitors.”
“I wouldn’t have guessed.”
She tried to straighten an inch taller. She was used to being eye-level with most men. It helped, in her testosterone-driven world, to be born a long-legged woman. But with this guy, she had to arch her neck to hold his gaze. His eyes were a pale green, and full of strange, shifting shadows.
“I figure,” he continued, crossing those arms until they bulged, “that the house has two bedrooms and two baths. Enough space to share for a couple of weeks without invading each other’s space too much. I’ll stay out of your way. And you can stay out of mine. Sound like a deal?”
How was she supposed to avoid him in this tiny, two-bedroom cabin? Right now he looked as immovable as a mountain.
“Provisionally,” she said, her throat tightening. “We could give cohabitation a try.”
“Good.” He pushed off the edge of the couch and strode toward the kitchen, back muscles flexing.
She said after him, “I suppose you’ll want the master bedroom, too?”
“It’s yours. Too many ruffles.” He spoke over his shoulder as he paused in the portal. “And I won’t enter that room again, Red, without remembering you floating out of the bathroom.”
***
A half-hour later, Jenny shouldered open the kitchen door, bracing the first box of equipment in her arms. At the other end of the kitchen, an open door revealed a set of stairs leading into the basement laboratory. She heard Logan rustling around below, long before she reached the bottom stair.
“I’ll be out of your way in a minute.” A box lay open on the long center island. “I’m almost done.”
She stilled with her gear in her arms, eyeing the lab. She saw a clutter of trays near the island sink. Brown bottles of Kodak chemicals stood on a shelf against the wall. A rope strung across a pair of pipes held a row of photographic prints she could only see from behind.
“You’re a photographer, Mr. Macallister?”
“Logan.” He snatched a print and added it, face-down, to a pile. “It’s a hobby.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were using the lab?” She was usurping his space more than he’d let on. “I’ll be out in the field for a couple of days and there’s no reason you can’t use this space while—”
“If I need a darkroom, I’ll rig up the second bathroom.” He laid the prints into the box and flipped the flaps closed. “You get your work done.”
And move on.
The words were unspoken but as clear as a bell. Logan veered around her and dipped his head to avoid the overhang as he headed up the stairs. Suppressing a sigh, she set her gear down on the now-empty table and sank down on a barstool whose padding had seen better days. Well, Jen, you bumbled it again. Over the past few years, she’d managed to earn a Ph.D., publish dozens of papers, and be nominated for tenure at a state university. But, in the immortal words of her sixth grade teacher, she still hadn’t figured out how to play well with others.
Drop-dead sexy men were a particular weakness. Logan had left the room but the scent of him lingered, the perfume of cut wood and shaved pencils. Breathing it in kicked up old instincts and lurched a wave of heat through her. She closed her eyes and experienced the warmth with a measure of scientific detachment as it suffused every cell of her body…and then ebbed away into hollow disappointment.
Yeah, she’d been working too hard. Correcting too many papers, administering too many finals, shepherding too many students through the last of their laboratory projects. Exhaustion nibbled at her, making her easy to unsettle. It had been a while since any man had seen under her clothes…or slipped under her skin. But, after her ex, she wouldn’t let anyone have that kind of power over her again.
She pushed up from the stool and slapped the dust off her hands. No use wasting time thinking about Logan Macallister. She took the stairs two at a time,
