A Small-Town Homecoming by Terry McLaughlin Page B

basic tract houses lining the streets in the newer section east of town. Her car was anything but basic, but it was an older model.
    Maybe she needed this job as much as he did. Maybe that explained the flicker of desperation he thought he’d detected behind that bewitching stare of hers.
    Don stood and dragged his chair back into place, and Tess walked him to her door. “Gotta watch out for this lady,” Don said as he passed Quinn. “She’ll have you wanting things you never knew you needed until she mentions them.”
    “But you do need them. And isn’t it nice to have someone fuss over all those details for you?” Tess gave Don a dazzling smile, and his face lit up in obvious agreement.
    Poor sucker.
    She waved goodbye to her customer, closed and locked her door, flipped the Open sign to Closed and turned to face Quinn. “Thanks for coming,” she said in her crisp, uptown voice. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee?”
    “No. Thanks.”
    She gave the bottom of her shiny blue jacket a sharp tug in the habit he recognized as her down-to-business attitude adjustment. Moving to the scrawny counter suspended on the wall behind her desk, she poured something into a pretty cup painted with little purple flowers.
    “Only kids drink stuff like that,” he said as she added a ridiculous amount of sugar.
    “I have a sweet tooth.” She settled her hip against the desk’s edge and raised the cup to her lips. “And a metabolism that lets me indulge it.”
    He watched her full red lips pucker around the cup rim, and his own system kicked up a notch. “You’d better make this fast,” he warned, “’cause I’ve got plans for this evening.”
    “Plans involving the security at the site?”
    “That’s right.”
    “What are you going to do, exactly?”
    He pulled his hands from his pockets so he could curl his fingers into fists. “You didn’t ask your grandmother?”
    “I’m asking you.” She blushed and lowered the cup to its saucer, and the china rattled as she set down the pieces. “Geneva Chandler may be my grandmother, but on this job she’s my boss.”
    “That’s a cozy arrangement.”
    “In case you haven’t noticed, she doesn’t play favorites.”
    “No, she doesn’t,” he said. “When it comes to business, she’s too smart to play any kind of game.”
    Her breath snagged with a tiny flinch, and he caught a glimpse of a shadowy flicker in her eyes—a brief softening that hinted at a vulnerability that intrigued him. And in the next moment, before he could guess at its cause, it was gone.
    He’d figured she didn’t have too many chinks in her armor. And now that he’d found one, he was sure to regret it. He preferred the straightforward Tess, the model-in-the-window version who could be relied on to keep her chin up and her talk on target.
    While he considered the flaws in his theory, he discovered they’d somehow shifted closer to each other during their conversation. Too close. He needed to take a step back, but he didn’t want to give any ground.
    He narrowed his eyes, daring her to make the first move, to retreat or…something else. But then her lips curled up at the edges, and he knew she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts, one wrist brushing against him as she built her little barrier, staying within firing range while giving him a shot of her perfume.
    Potent stuff. He crammed his hands back into his pockets so he wouldn’t put them somewhere they didn’t belong.
    “There are two businesswomen in this deal,” she said. “You might have an easier time on this job if you remembered that fact.”
    “Believe me, that fact is a tough one to forget.”
    He inched back, giving them both some space. What he was about to say required some distance. “And so is the fact that I want you.”
    “I know.” Her catlike smile reappeared. “I’d prefer it if you respected me, or cared—just a bit—about me. But I can work with a