For His Brother's Wife

“I suppose it’s because I’ve never done something like this before,” she admitted. “Craig liked the way the house was and discouraged me whenever I mentioned wanting to change anything about it.”

Cole’s only reaction was a slight narrowing of his dark green eyes. “It’s your house now, Paige. You can do whatever you want with it.” His touch and the gentle tone of his deep voice sent a shiver up her spine and made her more aware than ever that there was still a spark between them.

Before she realized what was happening, Cole leaned forward to brush her lips with his. When he lifted his head, he seemed to search her face for a moment before he set his coffee cup beside hers on the wicker table, then took her into his arms.

Unable to find her voice, she simply watched as he lowered his head again to fuse their mouths. The feel of his lips as he slowly, methodically acquainted himself with hers was as erotic as anything she had ever experienced. Of course, she had only kissed one other man in her entire life, and although her late husband’s kisses had been pleasant, they hadn’t been anything like Cole’s. Warm and pleasantly firm, Cole’s lips caressed hers in a way that made her feel as if he was worshipping her.

When he softly traced her mouth with his tongue, then coaxed her to open for him, Paige couldn’t have denied him access if her life depended on it. As she parted her lips, her heart beat double time and at his first gentle stroking of her inner recesses, she felt as if she would melt into a puddle. When his arms tightened around her, Paige automatically wrapped hers around him and held on as the feel of his strong body pressed to hers sent shivers of longing straight up her spine.

The unexpected sensation jolted her back to reality and quickly had her pulling away from him. Had she lost her mind? Cole was her late husband’s brother and the last man she should be shivering over.

Cole immediately released her and, muttering a curse, got up from the swing. Walking over to the porch rail, he kept his back to her and remained silent.

Unsure of what else to do, she rose to her feet and picked up their coffee cups from the wicker table. “I...um, I’m pretty tired. I think I’ll go ahead and turn in for the night.”

As she started to open the back door, he finally spoke. “I’m sorry, Paige. I was way out of line. It won’t happen again.”

“It...wasn’t entirely...your fault,” she said honestly as she continued into the house.

After placing their cups in the dishwasher, she went straight upstairs to her room. Why did she feel so confused about Cole kissing her?

She had known what he intended to do when he set his coffee cup down and took her into his arms. He’d given her ample time to resist, but she hadn’t made a single move to stop him. Why not?

Lowering herself to the side of the bed, she shook her head. She knew exactly why she hadn’t protested. The truth of the matter was, she had wanted him to kiss her. And a part of her wished that he hadn’t stopped.

Paige took a deep breath. Had she been so lonely that she fell into the arms of the first man who showed her the slightest bit of attention? Or was it the identity of the man that was responsible for her atypical behavior?

She suspected it might just be a combination of both.

Three (#ulink_f8da8623-ddf7-5e34-bc83-e6e0f79d2ad4)

After spending a second sleepless night thinking about the woman across the hall, Cole was bone tired and more than a little irritable. Half of the crew was down with food poisoning from grabbing dinner out of a vending machine at a gas station the night before, everything on the build was taking twice as long because of their absence and the weather was threatening to end the workday early again. The only thing that seemed to have gone right the entire morning was his managing to get up and leave the house without running into Paige.

“Larry, watch what the hell you’re doing!” Cole shouted as the man barely missed hitting another one of the workers in the head with a board.

When Larry Martin turned to give him a questioning look, Cole immediately noticed his pallor. A ghost couldn’t have had less color. “Did you get a sandwich out of that vending machine last night like the others?” Cole asked.

Larry nodded. “We all had the egg salad sandwiches.”

“What about you two?” Cole asked, turning to the other men.

“No way, boss.” Harold Jenkins grinned. “Me and Terry had better sense.”

“Yeah, we went through the drive-through at the Moo & Cackle and got a healthy meal,” Terry Goodman chimed in. “We both had the macho man burger, a basket of chili cheese fries and a large chocolate milkshake.”

“I’m glad you didn’t decide on something unhealthy,” Cole said drily.

“I think I’m dying,” Larry complained, holding his stomach.

“Go ahead and pack it in for today,” Cole said, resigned to the fact that with the majority of his crew out sick there was no way they could get anything else done on the build. “One of you call me in the morning to let me know how many of you are able to work.”

While Harold and Terry loaded tools into the truck, Cole rolled up the blueprints. “Larry, I want you and the other three who ate from that vending machine to go to the urgent care clinic at Royal Memorial Hospital,” he said, placing the barn plans in the seat of his truck. “R&N Builders will pay for the visit and whatever medication the doctor prescribes.”

“Thanks...boss,” Larry said, sounding worse by the minute.

“But do me a favor. Don’t eat egg salad out of a vending machine again,” Cole advised.

“I don’t think...I’ll ever eat...again,” Larry moaned.

If he felt as bad as he looked, Cole couldn’t say he blamed the man. “Just get to feeling better. You can worry about what you eat after that.”

As he walked toward the house, he watched the R&N truck drive down the lane and felt first one, then another drop of rain land on his forearm. In no time, it was a steady shower and by the time he climbed the back porch steps, the sky opened up with another downpour. It wasn’t even lunchtime and the rain had already set in for the day.

Staring at the back door, he wondered what he was going to say to Paige. Would she want to talk about last night? Or would she prefer to act as if the kiss never happened?

He guessed he could come up with some excuse to make the five-mile drive into Royal in order to avoid the situation entirely, but that would only delay the inevitable. Besides, he had never been the kind of man who avoided confrontations. He preferred to hit a problem head-on, deal with it and put the issue behind him.

He opened the door, entered the kitchen and looked around. He had expected to find Paige getting ready to make lunch, but she was nowhere in sight.

“Paige,” he called, walking down the hall.

“I’m in Craig’s off...in the room I’m turning into my studio,” she called back, correcting herself midsentence.

Cole walked across the family room to the doorway of what had been the sitting room when he’d lived there. When he realized Paige was cleaning out his brother’s desk, he picked up a filled box. “Where do you want this?” he asked.

“In the den,” she said, brushing a wayward strand of her long auburn hair from her cheek. “I wanted to get the room cleared out so your men can get started on the studio whenever they’re ready. I can go through Craig’s things later.”

“I assume Craig had the accounting records and breeding registers on a computer?” he asked, picking up one of the filled boxes. “Do you need that moved, too?”

“Craig used a laptop for everything,” she said, opening one of the desk drawers to poke around inside. “I moved it into my office the week after his funeral.”

Carrying the box to the den, he realized that Paige hadn’t yet looked him directly in the eye. He hated that she felt embarrassed or awkward about something that hadn’t been her doing. He was the one who’d initiated the kiss, and he was going to take full responsibility for it.

“Paige, we need to talk about last night,” he stated when he returned to find her sifting through the contents of a small tin box.

“I’d rather not,” she said, continuing to give her full attention to the container.

He walked over to where she sat in the chair behind the desk and, moving the tin out of the way, took her hands in his to pull her to her feet. “Look at me,” Cole commanded when she kept her gaze trained on his chest.

When she raised her gaze, he hated the embarrassment he detected in her dark gray eyes. “What happened last night was not your fault,” he assured her. “I take full responsibility for it. I was the one who took advantage of the situation.”

She surprised him when she shook her head. “I can’t let you do that, Cole. I was just as guilty as you were.”

“How do you figure that?” he demanded, frowning.

“Would you have stopped if I’d asked you to or given you the slightest indication that I was uneasy about it?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” he said without hesitation. “I’ve never forced my attention on any woman and never will.”