Lady, if I don't finish your remodeling job by the end of the week, you can move into my house.

Roman St. John’s words, spoken only days ago to Tess Abbot, played through his mind like an endless loop as he stared into the flames devouring the uppermost level of her house. Whatever had possessed him to make such a ridiculous boast to the woman?

Behind him, the horn on his truck blared. He winced and glared over his shoulder and through the broad windshield at Tess Abbot ... who was leaning on the horn. That woman and her constant haranguing, that's what had goaded him into being stupid enough to gamble on the reliability of his crew--to propose the ridiculous, that she move into his house if the job didn't get done on time.

Besides, it hadn't seemed such an outrageous boast at the time he'd made it. He had a reputation as a contractor who got his jobs done on schedule ... even when the client was a pain in the ass like Tess Abbot.

Now, here he was, less than twenty-four hours away from getting rid of the client from hell, and his doofus cousin Raymond goes and burns her place down. If the man ever stuck another cigar in his mouth, Roman vowed to cram it down his throat, ash end first.

Honk. Honk. Hooonnnk.

And if Tess Abbot didn't stop honking his truck horn, he was going to superglue her fingers to her harpy tongue. He stepped around to the driver's side of the truck and jerked open the door.

"What now?"

She settled back in the passenger seat, folded her arms across her compact breasts--flattened further by the tight weave of a skin-tight, spandex tank top--and lifted her pert chin to the imperial angle he'd come to know all too well through weeks of working for her. "I smell like the bottom of an ashtray. I want a bath."

The fire truck flasher strobed through the early dusk and across a face that was flawless save for a smudge of soot on one cheek and the flecks of ash salting the close-cropped, jet-black hair spiked against a high, broad brow. Twin flames reflected off the pupils of her wide eyes with their enticing upward slant at their outer corners. The day Tess Abbot had opened her front door to him so he could begin renovations on her Victorian-era house, one look into those waifish brown eyes and he'd almost proclaimed himself a man in love. Given that finding a wife and starting a family ranked at the top of his latest five-year plan, falling in love would have been an appropriate course of action.

But six weeks’ worth of illusion-shattering criticisms later and he'd written her off his list of potential mates. A crime. That's what it was for a woman to have a body that wouldn't quit and a tongue to match. Those palm-sized breasts, every inch of which were detailed by her spandex sports bra, had been the focus of numerous wet dreams these past weeks--a condition he hadn’t suffered from since his teen years. Damn, but he wanted to fit his lips around those plump nipples and tongue her--

"St. John. You do have a bathroom in your house, do you not?"

The blood gathering in his groin retreated. No doubt about it, she was two horns shy of a she-devil. There wasn't enough water in all of Michigan’s Great Lakes to wash that fact away. He swung himself up into the driver's seat.

"How about I put you up in a nice motel for the night?" he ventured one more time, hoping that, by now, the woman had cooled off enough to realize the absurdity of moving into his house ... with him ... and her and her firm, runner's body. Just the thought of all that temptation within his reach made his head ache.

"Your idea of nice no doubt rents by the hour," she lobbed back at him in a tone as effective as a cold shower.

Okay. Maybe resisting her even in close quarters wouldn't be such a chore, especially given her underlying insult to the place he'd chosen to call home. That he couldn't ignore.

"Pine Ridge may be a small town in a forgotten corner of Michigan's Upper Peninsula," Roman informed through his teeth, "but...”

"It has clean air and quiet living," she simpered back at him. "Not to mention it's a great place to raise kids. Yada, yada, yada. Personally, I find quiet vastly overrated."

"Some quiet right now would be vastly refreshing," Roman grumbled, throwing the truck into gear.

"Look, St. John, I'm the one who's been burned out of her house with nothing more than the clothes on her back. And whose fault is that?"

Roman winced. Of all the people to have screwed up with, why did it have to be with the harpy from hell? Hadn't he always been considerate of women? Respectful? Then why wasn't he more tolerant of Tess Abbot, who'd come home from her evening run to find her house on fire--a fire for which he likely was responsible? He owed her some compassion.

"Look," he tried one last time as he pulled away from the curb and edged around the fire truck blocking Tess' car in her driveway, "we may not have any hotels in the area, but there are several triple-A motels...”

"I'm used to five-star accommodations."

The woman was unrelentingly stubborn. No wonder his usual fair-mindedness failed him. No wonder he couldn't help but spar with her at every turn.

No wonder trying to be a nice guy to Tess Abbot wasn't working.

"Nothing less than five stars, huh?" he grunted.

"That's right."

One corner of Roman's mouth twitched involuntarily. If the woman demanded five-star accommodations, he was a free man. One look at his modest digs and she'd beg him to take her to a motel ... any motel.

* * * *

The minute they left the city limits, she should have demanded Roman St. John turn his truck around. But who could tell where city ended and country began? Not a Chicago-bred girl like her, that's for sure. Even downtown Pine Ridge seemed underlit to her.

Worst of all, after all she’d done to keep Roman St. John at arm’s length, here she was driving into the descending gloom of nightfall with a man way too tempting. Him with her favorite hue of sandy blond hair and eyes the shade of a Chicago morning sky. He was way too delicious, way too testosterone laden, way too tempting. And this just wasn’t the time to play around with some guy.

Correction, make that this particular guy. When she’d first set eyes on him, lust had kicked in big time. A few days of working together and he’d earned her respect. A week into construction and she’d found herself eager for each workday and dreading weekends until...

Until she’d overheard his crew goading him into asking her out. Her heart had done a little tap dance against her ribs. Then came his response.

“No way. The woman is too headstrong.”

Headstrong? So they’d had a disagreement about turning the nursery into a walk-in closet.

“Too citified.”

And just what was wrong with that?

“Too career-minded. I’m looking for wife material.”

Wife. There it was. The one thing that made Roman St. John trouble with a capital T. Her worst nightmare.

St. John loved the old, small town of Pine Ridge. He and his great place to raise kids attitude would fit right in with her father ... who still lived by the antiquated standards of the fifties. Daddy Dearest believed women belonged in the bedroom, not the boardroom. He would likely canonize St. John's crew for setting fire to the house she'd intended to use to prove her father wrong.

Never mind that it wasn't her fault the refurbishing job went up in flames. Not her fault she no longer had a photographable project for her portfolio--that her flip had flopped.

Not her fault her investment had been reduced to ashes.

Her father would only see that she'd failed to complete her first solo project. Her father who'd promoted lesser men ahead of her, men being the operative word. Her father who'd refused to give her a recommendation to present to other architectural firms when she'd left his.

Her father who'd informed every loan institution within a hundred-mile radius of Chicago that they could not rely on him to underwrite any loan they gave his first-born child who, being female, would undoubtedly default on the loan because no woman could succeed on her own.

"You'll come crawling back to me before the year is out," he'd shouted as she'd stormed out of his office the day she'd finally realized the extent to which her father would go to keep her at heel.

Fortunately, she had Aunt Honey--great-aunt to be precise--to turn to. Aunt Honey who had never let any man get in her way. Aunt Honey who'd been a career woman before it was fashionable and traveled her own flamboyant path in life undaunted by naysayers.

Aunt Honey who owned a house three hundred miles away from her father's influence--the kind of house whose renovation would be a shining star in any architect's portfolio. Tess had bought the house from Aunt Honey at fair market value even though Honey had offered it to her for less. It was only fair since there had been another interested buyer. Besides, anything less and her father would dismiss her success as having been subsidized by family.

She'd even gone the conventional route by financing the purchase rather than taking Aunt Honey up on her offer of a land contract. A bank loan kept Tess independent, but it also meant she had to turn a profit ASAP or shell out mortgage payments that could bankrupt her. And now that her project seemed nothing more than a charred dream, her father was going to give her big smug, "I told you so."

And St. John had been on the brink of meeting her deadline. A defeated sigh escaped her.

"You say something, Abbot?"

"I was just thinking about the mess your crew made of my flip."

He winced and turned his attention back to the road. Damn, but the man had himself a jaw line that could slice open an envelope and a chin so strong she wanted to nibble on it just to see it quiver. Why did the contractor with a reputation for getting things done on time, a contractor known for his quality and reliability, also have to have a killer profile? Maybe Aunt Honey had something other than building credentials in mind when she recommended St. John for the job.

No. Not independent Aunt Honey. Not the woman who'd beaten men at their love-em-and-leave-em games. No way.

Though, given St John's broad shoulders, trim hips and muscled thighs framing an impressive bulge around the zipper area, Aunt Honey's ulterior motives might have been for Tess to jump his bones and smile her way through her home renovation project. Unfortunately, the desire to prove herself to her father meant she’d had to ignore St. John’s physical attributes these past six weeks. Working on the big Victorian had to be all about business for her.

A lot of good her self-control and St. John's qualifications did her now that her house was a charred ruin. When her father found out, he'd reel her in like one of his trophy game fish, bragging about how right he'd been about a woman's inability to stand on her own. And all because St. John's crew had all but burned her house to the ground. Her one chance to prove her father wrong, now gone up in smoke.

The truck hit a pothole and Tess bounced against her seatbelt. If St. John knew the extent of the damage he'd done her, he'd probably get an I told you so in there as well ... even if her failure was his fault. Their endless arguments regarding the renovation of The Castle, as the locals fondly called the Aunt Honey's Victorian, was proof St. John gave no credence to her opinion.

Or maybe it was his own ideas about the old house that she battled. Roman St. John had turned out to be the very person she bought The Castle out from under. Maybe ensuring that she failed wasn’t such an accident after all.

The truck bounded over another of the defects bad weather and poor maintenance had gouged into the country road. She grunted and grabbed the dash to steady herself. St. John's eyes glittered in the low light off the instrument panel, and he pressed his foot to the accelerator.

"Having second thoughts?" he all but crooned. "I'll gladly turn around and drive you back to town."

"You wish," she fired back at him, automatically contradicting anything suggested by this latest man hell-bent on dictating to her. Even if what he suggested was more reasonable ... safer. She was beginning to feel badly in need of a hug, and any hug from St. John could only lead to hot, animal sex. The image of him shirtless as she'd seen him many times on the job, his yellow hard hat atop his wheat-colored hair and his jeans unsnapped in anticipation, made her groan.

"You being used to five-star accommodations," he countered, apparently missing the hungry inflection escaping her throat, "I wouldn't want you to be disappointed." The corner of his mouth twitched.

No doubt about it. Roman St. John enjoyed tormenting her. But he was in for a surprise if he thought a little mocking would send her running, tail tucked. Take over and take care of the little woman type of men had mocked her all her twenty-nine years.

Granted, none with as manly a physique as Roman St. John. Certainly none with piercing Norse-God-blue eyes, chiseled-by-thirty-something-years-of-experience cheeks, and a resolute, jutting chin ... and faded jeans molded over the most enticing of bulges. Definitely, there’d never been one she’d had to fight to resist. Damn this man, his amazing looks, and smug comebacks ... his ability to aggravate her ... to keep his hands off her. She folded her arms across her chest.

"Just keep driving, St. John."

He wheeled the truck hard off the county road onto a dirt driveway and hit the brakes. Tess lurched against the restraint of her seatbelt.

"Is it necessary to take every turn as though we're trying to outmaneuver someone tailing us?"

"My driving not five-star enough for you, Princess?"

She scowled through the dim dash lights at the man tilting a self-satisfied smile her way. "No one calls me Princess."

"I'd have bet everyone did."

"Then that's a bet you'd have lost, St. John."

He shifted toward her and draped an arm along the back of the seat ... an arm that was bare below the rolled-back cuff of a plaid flannel shirt. Damned if she couldn't feel the heat emanating from that almost naked limb ... sprawled across the seatback ... across the space between them. What would it feel like to be wrapped up in those strong arms, to be touched--caressed--by a working man’s callused hand ... to be explored by work-worn fingers?

Safer to go to a motel.

Involuntarily, her head tilted toward that heat. She wanted to know the cradle of that arm. She wanted to be possessed by its strength--wanted to be possessed by the strength of the man who'd looked her in the eye and seen clear to her soul the first time they'd met.

Definitely safer ... a motel.

Why hadn't she, in all their weeks of working together, not once given in to nature's lusty dictates?

"Here we are," he all but sang in his deep baritone, sweeping one broad hand toward the small structure caught in the arc of the truck's headlights. "Home sweet home."

That patronizing smugness. That's why she refused what her body craved. That's why she'd declared Roman St. John off-limits.

That, and her father with his condescending patriarchal ideas. She was, above all else, a woman who intended never to be subjugated by any man. Never to marry.

*

She was scowling. She was looking at his house and scowling. He should be glad. Surely now she'd admit she'd rather stay in a motel. But part of him resented her attitude. He built this house.

"Finding it a little small for your five-star tastes?"

"It's ... smaller than my father's garage."

"It may not be a castle," he growled, biting his tongue to keep from adding, Like the Victorian you bought in town--no sense reminding her of the house that he was likely responsible for making uninhabitable to her, "but it's livable enough for us common folk."

Her eyes narrowed at him. "You think I'm spoiled, don't you?"

"If the glass slipper fits."

"Don't know your fairytales very well, either, do you?"

A man didn't grow up in a family of five kids and dote on a preschooler nephew without learning his fairytales. The fact was the woman pushed his buttons, made him forget to use reason ... made him act like a Neanderthal. It was that ever-complaining mouth of hers ... and that lean, firm body. Even shaking a finger at him as she now did, nothing jiggled. But then, he’d never seen her naked. If he could get her out of her duds, he’d bet he could get something jiggling.

"Cinderella wasn't rich," she railed. "She wasn't indulged and she wasn't a princess."

"Then make it a Gucci pump," he barked, coming back to his senses. "Whatever. Just tell me you've punished me enough for one evening, and I'll drive you to the best motel in town."

"You think this is about punishing you?"

"You could probably buy out the total occupancy of any local motel. Why else would you insist on moving into my house?"

"Because it's your crew's fault my house went up in flames tonight."

"Your house didn't go up in flames. Only part of it burned."

"Because of the carelessness of your workers."

She had him there, if the Fire Marshal's investigation confirmed what they already suspected.

"Look," he ventured, "we're both stressed out. Maybe there's a condo available at the ski hill. It's off-season."

"I'm staying at your house."

"Why?"

"Because you said if you didn't have my remodeling job done by the end of the week, I could move into your house. It's the end of the week, St. John, and my remodeling job isn't done. Not by a long shot. Now, are you a man of your word or not?"

A man of his word. Above all else, he was that.

"Fine. I'll leave the headlights on until you get on the porch."

She frowned at the dirt path leading from drive to house and the shadows beyond the reach of the headlights. "It is awfully dark out here."

Did he detect a hint of apprehension in her voice, an edge of uncertainty? Could Her-City-Born-Highness be uncomfortable with the dark? Maybe there was still a way of persuading her out of staying under his roof tonight.

"Yep. No pesky streetlights shining in our eyes and keeping us awake out here in God's country."

She scowled at him. But, as her gaze slid past him toward the woods darkening the edge of the driveway, apprehension once more pulled at her features. He should be kind. Ease up on her. But a knockout gorgeous harpy was the last thing he needed sleeping under his roof, tempting him.

"With the extra overcast tonight," he grumbled, "it'll be especially nice and dark."

She shivered, and Roman suffered a twinge of guilt. But he reminded himself whom he was feeling guilty over and prodded, "Let me help you with your seatbelt."

Her hand clamped down on the belt buckle, her white-knuckles confirming that Little-Miss-Thinks-the-World-is-at-Her-Beck-and-Call wasn't as self-assured as she pretended. Again, guilt niggled at him.

"I can manage on my own," she retorted in the no-nonsense tone she used on him far too often, her chin tilted at its usual maddeningly haughty angle.

He pondered if a soul-deep kiss might not be just the thing to deflate some of that ego. Or was it all an act? He grunted. Bluff or not, the woman deserved no mercy.

"Perhaps her Ladyship would like me to escort her to the door."

"That won't be necessary. I can manage...”

"On your own?" he finished her familiar mantra.

"Yes," she snapped, jerking on the door handle.

"Of course," he returned through his teeth, silently damning the woman for her stubbornness, and stubbornness had to be at the root of her actions. Why else would a woman accustomed to five-star accommodations hold him to a stupid boast made in the heat of an argument?

She swung her legs out the door and slid to the ground, almost disappearing beyond the edge of the seat. He wished she'd disappear.

She peered at him across the broad seat. "You will leave the lights on until I'm up to the house? I have your word on that?"

"Cross my heart and hope to die," he muttered, feeling more like a cad with each passing moment.

A tiny smile lifted the corners of her lips. "Is that a promise?"

Damn, but the woman was quick with that tongue of hers.

"If you still doubt my word at this point," he growled, "let me put it another way. I wouldn't want her Ladyship to trip on a rut and have another reason to sue me."

She arched her mink-brown eyebrows at him. "Sue you?"

Roman winced. The last thing he'd meant to do was remind her what course of action she could take against him over the fire. As if he bought for a moment she hadn't already thought of it. She probably had her lawyer's phone number on speed dial.

"Just keep in mind," he grumbled, "I offered to walk you to the door."

"What a gentleman."

Before he could retort that he was a gentleman, that she'd know it if she weren’t so quick with her razor-sharp tongue, she shut the truck door between them. So much for scaring the mule-headed woman off with rough roads, dark woods, and bungalow-sized accommodations.

Maybe she just wanted to make him squirm a little more. That would be right up her alley or, in her case, boulevard. Maybe she'd give in and let him drive her back to town once she'd crossed his threshold and invaded his territory.

Fine. Let her have her way. The sooner she proved her point, the sooner he got rid of her.

The minute her foot came down on the top step, he flicked off the headlights and headed for the house, following a path he knew by rote. A twig snapped beneath his foot.

"Is that you, St. John?"

"No, it's the bogey man," he grumbled, focused on separating his house key from the rest on his key chain as he climbed the steps to the porch ... and ran smack dab into his unwanted houseguest.

She screeched and tottered. He caught her by the upper arm, his knuckles brushing the side of one, firm, spandex-cupped breast. She swatted him. He let go. "Did it ever occur to you to move out of the way?"

She snagged him by the sleeve, grousing and stumbling along at his side as he crossed the porch to the front door. "You turned off the lights so quickly, I didn't have a chance to get my bearings."

"You're on my porch. It has a railing." He slid the key into the lock and turned it. "You couldn't have fallen off or gotten lost if you'd tried."

She shifted at his side, her fingers biting into his sleeve and tugging the fabric over his arm. She really was unnerved. Another twinge of guilt nudged him. He should reassure her. Maybe slip an arm around her and pull her close--protect her against whatever frightened her. He wanted to. If only she'd keep her mouth shut.

But that was too much to ask of the stubborn woman who clutched his shirtsleeve even as another barrage of complaints rolled off her tongue. "There's a ramp off the end there. I could have been dumped right back into the driveway."

"Then you could sue me over that, too," he growled as he opened the door, reached inside and flicked on an interior light.

"I didn't say I was suing you over anything.”

He eyed Tess Abbot hopefully, the edge of light wedging out from the open door, making her appear anything but the she-devil he knew her to be. And she was a she-devil even if the diffused light softening her eyes gave more of a glint of amusement than vindictiveness ... even if her lips curled impishly at their corners.

"Yet," she finished smugly.

*

Chin held high and shoulders squared, Tess released St. John's shirtsleeve and stepped into his house. The entrance opened into a space between a kitchen with glistening, clutter free countertops, and a front room with nary a magazine out of place. Apparently, St. John didn't spend much time here. No man was this neat. Hell, she wasn't this neat.

He crowded in behind her, a wall of rock hard muscle bumping against her shoulder blades and something nearly as hard butting her backside. Odd, how they tended to bump into each other more often than two coordinated people ought. Aunt Honey would have called those encounters Freudian slips of the physical kind.

Aunt Honey had listened to her complaints about Roman St. John's tendency to get in her way ... and about how he wore his tool belt slung way too low on his hips. Never mind that the belt was designed for a carpenter's convenience. The way the hammer handle thumped against her contractor's thigh with his every move, the smooth stroke of his hand in and out of the nail pocket center front, and the ready release of the clip-on tape measure always got her thinking about something far removed from construction. Even now, just the thought of that belt and its dangling hammer handle...

"Unless you want to spend the night entertaining mosquitoes," he was close enough to her that his breath rifled through the hairs behind her ear, "I suggest you move out of the way and let me close the door."

So much for fantasies ... as if she needed him or any man to fulfill her dreams. She would build her own empire one refurbished house at a time ... provided men like Roman St. John quit burning up her assets.

"How inconvenient of me to be in your way, St. John." She stepped into the front room, rubbing the tickle of his breath from her ear, and added over her shoulder, "But then, I wouldn't be here if my house hadn't been set ablaze by one of your employees."

He grumbled something under his breath she no doubt didn't want to hear. As if the opinion of any man who owned a plaid couch could be of any importance to her.

Her eye snagged on a photo on a table beside the couch of a woman with wild strawberry-blond curls and a little boy with straight hair the color of wheat. Tess picked up the picture and studied it closer, frowning as she tried to match the color of the child's hair to St. John's. He'd never said anything about being a father ... or being involved with someone or having been married.

Not that she'd ever asked. She hadn't. Never would. A woman who had no intentions of marrying didn't need to know such things about a man. But a man who never spoke of his child was not a man she could respect.

"That's my sister and her son, Ben," he said.

Tess smiled and set the picture down. She had no business being pleased about her contractor's non-marital status ... even if he was a spectacular specimen of manhood. He was too much like her father. At least, he was whenever he espoused the merits of rural family life or patronizingly pointed out the flaws in her renovating plan.

Why did her libido have to be attracted to this contrary man? Her smile faded. Maybe this was just about a man she couldn't have. Much as she hated to admit her father was right about anything, he'd pegged her when he said she always wanted what she couldn't have.

*

"Now what are you scowling at?" Roman demanded, instantly defensive.

She blinked and, when the heavy dark lashes lifted once more, his uninvited houseguest's gaze fixed on his hand clamped over the edge of the still open door. "I thought you wanted me out of your way so you could close the door and keep out the mosquitoes."

He stepped into the room toward her, silently cursing her stubbornness as he slammed the door shut behind him. The object had been to crowd her--push her into realizing she'd manipulated herself into being alone in the home of a man she barely knew and to make her see the error of her actions. Instead, the inimitable Tess had pushed him into closing the door and sequestering them in his house alone together.

Worse, she turned her back on him, her slightly rounded hips swaying as she strolled deeper into his house. His palms could almost feel their perfect fit. In his dreams, they had. Then, the crisp tones of her voice trailed back at him.

"You going to give me the grand tour, or shall I explore on my own?"

He should have known Tess was beyond reasoning with. She'd proven that all too often in the past weeks while he'd worked on her house--a house he knew far better than she did. Yet, every suggestion he'd made, she'd opposed. Maybe that was the key to handling her--reverse psychology.

She stopped at the threshold of his bedroom. Tess Abbot in spandex bicycle shorts and sports bra mere feet from his bed. Reverse psychology called for him to suggest she take his room--sleep in his bed. Hell, she and her trim runner's body were already too close to his bed ... where he'd like nothing more than to toss her down, strip away her clothes and taste her just to see if she was as hot as he suspected she was.

Down, boy. Stick to business. Think with the head on your shoulders.

And the head on his shoulders told him Tess was flat out too clever to fall for reverse psychology. Her quick wit was proof enough of that. But there'd been other hints of her intelligence, like the fact that she'd known how to open up a supporting wall without dropping the roof into the front room. He'd liked that she'd known what she was doing in that old house ... even if learning that fact about her had culminated from weeks of arguments.

He liked way too much about Tess Abbot to let her into his bed ... whether or not he shared it with her.

"That's my bedroom," he said, sounding more territorial than he'd intended.

"This the only bedroom in the house?"

"And if it is?"

She leaned back against the doorframe and folded her arms across her chest, her eyes gleaming. "Then you’d better hope that couch of yours is comfy, because that's where you'll be sleeping."

"You think you're always entitled to the prime location, don't you?"

She huffed, her nostrils flaring in a way he'd love to make them flare. "When I've been uprooted from my house due to no fault of my own, I expect the offending party to be gracious about living up to what he promised."

"I offered only that you could move into my house. I said nothing about moving into my bedroom."

He advanced on her, not stopping until he stood so close she had to crane her neck well back to meet his glare. She didn't flinch. He'd give her points for good acting.

"Why, St. John, I'd almost think you were trying to intimidate me."

Okay, so she wasn't acting. So, she'd backed him down plenty of times already during the remodeling of The Castle these past several weeks.

He nodded at the stairs that climbed from outside his bedroom door. "There's a second bedroom up there and my office."

"Second bedroom, huh?" She peered over her shoulder into the darkness at the top of the steps. "What's a bachelor need with a second bedroom?"

"I don't plan on being a bachelor forever."

She eyed him, one dark eyebrow canted up on her forehead and a mischievous lift to the corner of her mouth. "You think this little bungalow is big enough for a family?"

"It's a starter home."

She glanced into his bedroom. "You and mommy and...” she nodded up the steps, "baby makes three?"

"Something like that."

She scowled and straightened from the doorway. "Fine. I'll take the upstairs room." She canted her face at his, so close he could smell the minty sweetness of her breath. "And you thought I couldn't be reasonable."

"Uncle!" he bellowed, taking a step backward.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm crying uncle. Anything to get you to let me drive you back to town and put you up anywhere else but here."

A devilish smile pulled across her mouth, causing tiny dimples to dent the corners of her kissable lush lips. "No deal. Just point me in the direction of your bathtub, St. John."

Bathtub? Swell. Not only was he about to be stuck under the same roof with Tess Abbot for the night, he was about to be stuck with her naked.