Only Bachelors Need Apply

“Hey, Mom, you gonna go out with that new guy?” Tyler slipped a couple of cookies from the cookie jar and stuffed one in his mouth. “Bet he could afford to take you to the City Hotel over at Columbia for dinner. That’s where Pete’s mom always makes his dad take her for anniversaries ’n stuff like that.”

“I’m not planning to go anywhere with Mr. Slavik. Or with any other man who rents the property because of that ridiculous ad your grandmother wrote.”

“Tyler, dear, don’t spoil your supper,” Agnes said, ignoring Joanna’s distress along with the potatoes. “It’s almost ready.”

“But, Grandma, I’m starved. All I had after football practice was a sandwich.”

Agnes smiled benignly and turned the chicken one more time. “It won’t be long now, dear.”

They weren’t paying any attention to her. Both Joanna’s mother and son were far more interested in dinner than in how on earth she was going to handle a man who expected her to be available for who knew what kind of a relationship.

Her mother had pulled some dumb stunts in her life—like the time she’d tied Tyler’s sack lunch to his belt so tightly for a third-grade field trip that he couldn’t get it off and had to beg his friends for handouts so he wouldn’t go hungry. But this stunt took the cake!

First thing in the morning Joanna was going to cancel that damn ad!

But before that, right after dinner, she was going to make her position quite clear to Mr. Slavik. If he decided to stick around, he’d do so as a tenant. If that didn’t suit him, she’d be more that happy to refund his money.

As night stole the blue from the sky, the sharp taste of embarrassment still filled Joanna’s throat. She swallowed the unpleasant flavor and headed across the road to face Kris Slavik again. It wasn’t her fault her mother had rewritten the ad. Joanna simply had to make clear to her would-be tenant that she was not available for the marriage mart. She’d refund his money, and that would be that.

She sighed. Except she would still have an empty office building to rent and no prospects in sight— including the guy who had promised to show up that evening.

From inside one of the offices a rectangle of light spilled through the open door onto the parking lot. On the porch, a silhouetted figure sat on a redwood bench in the shadows beside the door.

“Mr. Slavik?”

“I’m here.” He unfolded himself, and she was struck again by his tall, lean figure as he stood.

“I’ve come to apologize.”

“There’s no need. Assuming you’ll start calling me Kris. I always get the feeling someone is looking for my father when they call me Mr. Slavik.”

She smiled. He did have a nice voice, one that made her think of quiet winter evenings in front of a fire. Or soft pillow talk.

Mentally, she pushed the thought aside. “My mother did something nearly unforgivable by changing the ad I’d written for the newspaper. I’m truly sorry if she misled you, and I’d be happy to refund all of your money and tear up the lease you’ve signed.”

As Joanna spoke, he strolled lazily off the porch and stood close to her. There was a clean, masculine scent about him. Not artificial, like a shaving lotion, but natural, with a slight touch of musk. In the warm September air it seemed to hover about her in a tempting caress.

“Your eyes are blue, aren’t they?” he asked, his voice a low murmur that didn’t disturb the soft sounds of the night.

“Yes.” It was too dark for him to see that now. With a good deal of pleasure, she realized he must have remembered her eye color from their earlier meeting.

“Did you know your eyes each have about a hundred and thirty million light-sensitive cells in them?”

She blinked at the unexpected comment. “No, I guess that piece of information hasn’t ever come my way before.”

“I’m afraid I’m addicted to bits of trivia that are not necessarily useful.”

“Not everything we learn has to have a practical application,” she assured him.

“Hmm, I’m not sure my parents would agree with you.”

“There are the great poets—Wordsworth, Shakespeare, Longfellow, to mention just a few. Knowing their words isn’t exactly useful, but our lives are richer for them. The same thing is true for great works of art.”

The way he looked at her was very intense, as though he wanted to identify every single cell he’d talked about, as well as hear her words with exceptional clarity. “I can see the reflection of the stars in your eyes, like diamonds sparkling in deep pools. Did you know that the light I see has to travel hundreds of thousands of miles before it can reflect back to me?”

She swallowed thickly. “I’ve never thought about it before.” Nor had the knowledge seemed quite so important.

“Neither had I.”

She felt herself leaning toward him, impossibly closer, when she knew she should be running as fast as her feet could take her in the opposite direction. She was mesmerized by the compelling note in his voice, the insistent timbre that vibrated not only in her ears but also in a heart that had been lonely for a good many years.

Calling upon a wealth of willpower, she said, “About the rental—”

“I’d like to stay. If you don’t mind.”

She minded, all right. Instinctively she knew this man, who couldn’t seem to find a matching pair of socks and who paid his bills in cash, was a threat to her comfortable status quo. She didn’t want him disrupting her life. But that was exactly what he was going to do.

And because she desperately needed his rent money, she could do nothing to change the fates that were bearing down on her like a high mountain avalanche. In her heart, she knew she’d need more than luck to escape without serious injury. Or heartbreak.

“This is the smaller of the two remaining offices, five hundred square feet,” Joanna explained to the prospective tenant. She’d managed to avoid being anywhere near her rental property—and Kris Slavik—for two days. But she couldn’t allow the space to remain vacant forever, not with bills to pay and a roof to replace. “You’ll notice the office is arranged very nicely, with plenty of storage space in the back and a private rest room.”

Percival Carter glanced nervously around the office, as if making a decision caused him a great deal of anxiety. A narrow-faced man in his forties, he combed lank strands of hair over his balding head in a failed effort to disguise his receding hairline. His double-breasted brown suit, which matched his prominent eyes, looked as though it had been purchased in another era. “I’m sure my mother would think this is very nice.”

“Your mother? Does she work with you?” Joanna asked.

“Oh, no. At least, not regularly, though she does help me with the filing occasionally. I don’t have a large-enough accounting practice to warrant a staff. There isn’t that much call for a CPA up here in the mountains. But Mother did, ah, encourage me to rent one of your offices.”

“Well, that’s very nice of her. I hope you’ll be happy here.”

“Oh, I think so, Ms. Greer. You see, I’m a bachelor.”

Joanna’s spirits plummeted. “Mr. Carter, I’m afraid the ad you saw—”

“Oh, it was my mother who—”

“It’s very misleading.”

The familiar tall figure of a man filled the doorway, and Joanna drew a quick breath.

“Permit me to disagree. As the advertisement promised, the landlady is indeed attractive, marriageable and has a son who is bright, intelligent and inquisitive.” A slow, seductive, smug smile tugged at the corners of Kris Slavik’s mouth.

Joanna wanted to throw something at him. Or crawl into a hole. “Excuse me. I’m trying to conduct some business here.”

“That’s okay.” Kris looped his arm over the older man’s shoulders, demonstrating the fact that he was at least six inches taller than the would-be tenant. “Since Percy and I are going to be neighbors, so to speak, I can bring him up to speed on the property. You know, stuff like which trees not to park under. The birds can wipe out your car’s finish in fifteen minutes if they’ve been munching on some of those late-ripening berries.”

“Kris! Will you stop—”

“It’s all right, Ms. Greer.” Percy smiled at her with endearing shyness. “Since I’ve met you, there’s no way he can discourage me from renting the office. Besides, my mother would be apoplectic if she thought I’d missed this chance. She’s quite anxious that I marry and produce a grandchild for her before she passes on. Though I doubt I’ll provide much competition for this gentleman. The two of you make a very attractive couple.”