On Pins and Needles by Victoria Pade

realized what she was actually saying.
    Josh cracked a smile—the first since he’d shown up at her office that afternoon—and raised a charmingly lascivious eyebrow at her. “Are you offering?”
    Megan could feel her face heat and knew it was turning cherry-red—a hazard of having such a fair complexion. “I just meant that that seems like the only thing you haven’t done here, so I’m wondering if that’s what I’m in store for since you didn’t leave with the rest of them.”
    She was only making it worse and she knew it, so she finally stopped talking.
    Josh’s smile remained, as if he were still enjoying her blunder and the blush it had induced. “As a matter of fact, I’m off the clock now and I thought I’d help get everything back in place.”
    â€œOh,” she said for lack of a better response as his big hands began to roll up the cuffs of his uniform shirt, exposing thick wrists and hair-spattered forearms.
    Helping to put everything back in place was a nice thing for him to do but it left Megan in a melee of mixed feelings.
    She was mad at him for this whole thing. For suspecting her parents. For searching her home.
    But at the same time, here she was feeling pleased by his offer to pitch in with the cleanup and admiring the sight of oh-so-masculine hands and wrists and arms, of all things.
    Of course it had been that way all afternoon andevening. Even in the midst of invading her privacy not a detail about him had escaped her notice.
    She’d taken in every scuff on his cowboy boots, and the snug caress of blue jeans that fitted his to-die for derriere like kid gloves. She’d studied his uniform shirt—a tan color with darker brown epaulets and flaps on the breast pockets. She’d surreptitiously read the lettering on the sheriff’s department insignias that rode each of the sleeves where his biceps stretched them to their limit. She’d memorized the number on the badge emblazoned on a chest that appeared to be made up of massive pectorals. And all in all she couldn’t help but be aware of how incredibly appealing he looked. Despite the fact that he was tossing her home as if she were a common criminal.
    â€œSo what do you say? Let’s put this place back in order.”
    For a moment more Megan just stared at him. He’d been freshly shaved when he’d shown up at her office and she could still smell the faint scent of a sea breeze-like after shave wafting to her from where he stood.
    Tell him no thanks, she ordered herself. Tell him that if his business is finished he should get out, that he isn’t welcome here.
    But the trouble was, as much as she knew she should say exactly that, she couldn’t quite do it.
    Instead, another voice some where in her head said, He was the one who made the mess, he should be the one to clean it up….
    And somehow that seemed perfectly reasonable.
    â€œWhere would you like to start?” she heard herself say suddenly.
    â€œHow about in the same order I messed things up? You can put your things back in the bathroom and the dresser drawers while I get the beds and bureaus against the walls again.”
    Megan was about to agree when her stomach rumbled quietly and reminded her how hungry she was.
    â€œOr you could go to work on the furniture and I could make us a couple of sandwiches,” she suggested.
    â€œBetter yet. It’s way past sup per time and I’m starving.”
    And wasn’t this all amiable and companionable? Megan thought, feeling disloyal.
    But again there was emotional confusion because she was also feeling a twinge of excitement at the prospect of the two of them sharing a light, impromptu supper alone together.
    This was really crazy, she decided, wondering if she should rescind her own offer of sandwiches, reject his offer of help putting the house in order, and call it a night after all.
    Only once more she just