Yesterday's Love

“Worse,” she admitted. “It was my third project. It turned out rather well, don’t you think?”

“You did the kitchen yourself?”

She wasn’t sure whether she should be pleased or insulted by his incredulous tone. She decided to remain neutral. “You’ve seen my tax return. Does it look like I could afford to hire somebody?”

“I guess not.”

“Well, then. Of course, if I’d gotten that refund….” Her voice trailed off forlornly.

“Forget it,” he advised. “You said the kitchen was your third project. What were the others?”

“The bedroom and bathroom.”

Despite himself, Tate was intrigued. Knowing he was going to hate himself later for allowing yet another distraction to keep him from wrapping up this audit and escaping to the relative safety of Cincinnati, he asked, “May I see?”

“Are you sure you want to risk the stairs?”

“Just tell me what the secret is.”

“I’ve fixed every other one,” she explained brightly, as though that were a perfectly sensible thing to do.

He looked down and saw what should have been obvious to him in the first place: every second step was made of new wood, polished and solid looking. The ones in-between were broken planks that looked no better than the floors he’d seen in the downstairs rooms. The third one was splintered where his weight had been too much for the dry-rotted wood.

“I should have guessed,” he said, taking giant-sized steps to join her. “Lead on. You can warn me where the booby traps are.”

“Careful,” she whispered conspiratorially. “You’ll hurt its feelings.”

“Houses don’t have feelings.”

“Of course they do. They have feelings and personalities all their own.”

“This one’s obviously split,” he murmured.

“What?”

“You know…a split personality. Repaired in some parts. Disastrous in others.”

“Very funny.”

“I thought it was.”

“You would. You obviously have a cruel streak.”

“I’ll admit I’m not quite as tolerant as you appear to be,” he retorted, giving her a grin that shattered her indignation into a thousand pieces. Victoria found herself smiling back at him helplessly.

“Do you want to see the rest or not?” she asked softly, her flashing blue eyes more challenging than her words. A flicker of desire had flared to life in Tate’s eyes and Victoria felt a matching tremor of excitement so intense it startled her. So, she thought, this was what the fuss was all about. One minute you’re leading a perfectly ordinary, placid existence, and the next minute some thoroughly impossible, sexy man turns up and turns your insides into warm honey. The sensation was both thrilling and frightening.

“Oh, I want,” he replied in a low voice, his gaze drifting down over her slender neck and bare shoulders before halting in apparent fascination at the swell of her breasts. There was no doubt in her mind that he wasn’t referring to a tour of the house. Victoria suddenly realized with a flush of embarrassment that her nipples were clearly visible beneath the light cotton of her blouse. Worse than that, they seemed to be responding merely to the appreciative warmth of his examination, swelling to an aching tautness. She suddenly felt claustrophobic and had the strangest desire to run. At the same time, she wanted very much to stay right here and see exactly what Tate Mc-Andrews had in mind and whether he meant to follow through on that dangerous glint she thought she’d read in his eyes.

Almost hesitantly, he reached toward her and her heart thundered in anticipation, while her head seemed to be shouting to her to get a grip on herself. Sighing regretfully, she decided that just this once she’d better listen to her head. Before Tate’s fingers could touch her cheek, she whirled neatly around and stepped away from him.

“This is the bathroom,” she said briskly, determined to keep the shakiness she felt from her voice. Just because Tate McAndrews was the sexiest creature she’d seen since her last viewing of Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind, that was no reason for her to go all wobbly and woolly-headed. The man was here to audit her, after all. It wasn’t as though he’d asked her for a date. He’d only looked at her as though he’d wanted to…what? To kiss her senseless? And that was what had made her go weak in the knees. It was not a good way to begin a business relationship with an IRS agent, not unless you planned to follow through, which she most certainly did not.

With determinedly cool detachment she showed him the bathroom with its lovely old tiled walls and floor, its huge tub and the circular leaded window that let in shattered streams of bright sun during the day and soft moonlight at night. When they reached her bedroom, her composure slipped a little as she wondered idly what it would be like to have this virile man sharing her huge brass bed, the colorful, handmade quilt tossed anxiously aside in a tangled heap as a desperate, urgent passion made them oblivious to anything except each other. The prospect sent a disturbing shiver racing down her spine, and she blushed and turned away, avoiding his speculative gaze.

“Very nice,” he murmured softly, and for one very disconcerting minute she wasn’t sure whether he was talking about the bedroom or whether he had read her mind. The possibility that he, too, was looking at that bed and wondering who-knew-what unnerved her. She turned back to study him, a quizzical expression on her face, but he was looking innocently around the room.

“How long do you suppose it’s going to take you to do the rest of the house?” he asked with nothing more than casual interest. Victoria wasn’t sure whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

“At the rate I’m going, it should be finished by the twenty-first century,” she admitted bleakly.

Her response seemed to make him angry for some reason. “You can’t go on living like this.”

“Of course I can,” she retorted. “What’s wrong with the way I live?”

“It’s not safe.”

“It’s perfectly safe. Just because the wallpaper is peeling doesn’t mean the house will fall down.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“Well, I am.”

“Okay. Okay,” Tate said resignedly. Obviously, there was no point in arguing. Besides, it was definitely none of his business how she lived…unless, of course, it happened to be beyond her reported means. From what he’d seen today, that was hardly likely.

“Where are those records you came up here to get?” he asked. “I think we’d better go over them and finish this up.”

“They’re in here,” she said, walking down the hall to the door she’d pulled shut as he came up the stairs. “Why don’t you go back down to the kitchen and wait for me?”

“Why? Do you have something to hide?” he asked, his highly trained and very suspicious mind instinctively surging into action.

She glared at him. “Of course not. It’s just that I’m not sure you are ready for this.”

“Ready for what? The room can’t be in any worse shape than some of the others I’ve already seen. I think my system had become immune to the shock.”

“It’s not the room I’m concerned about.”

“What then?”

“I have a feeling you have an orderly mind.”

“I do. What does that have to do with anything?”

“My records aren’t…” She hesitated. “…Well, they aren’t exactly…orderly.”

“What are they exactly?”

Victoria sighed and opened the door. “See for yourself.”