Pride And Pregnancy

Chapter Three

Troy’d been watching Karleen off and on for ten minutes or so, going after that poor plot of dirt as though it had offended her deeply. Especially after the boys had accosted her. Not that he could hear the conversation over that god-awful country caterwauling. But after more than a decade of dealing with bank managers, suppliers, advertising agencies and potential investors, he was no slouch at deciphering body language.

A dialect in which his new neighbor was particularly fluent.

The cold, wet bottles soothed his heated palms as he crossed the fifty feet or so. A good thing, since the closer he got, the more agitated her digging became. Well, tough. She still wasn’t his type, but he wasn’t the bogeyman, either. And it bugged him no end that she seemed to think he was. So, okay, maybe he wasn’t exactly racking up the bonus points by invading her space, but considering she’d come out of her house looking ready to bite somebody’s head off, he sincerely doubted he was more than a fly on an already festering wound.

The brim of her hat quivering, she glanced up at his approach. And sure enough, worry peeked out from behind the aggravation simmering in her expression, and he thought, See? Told ya, followed by the inevitable pang of empathy whenever confronted by someone in trouble. Amy used to tease him unmercifully about it, about his always getting far more personally involved in other people’s messes than he should. Some things, he thought as he held out one of the bottles, can’t be helped.

“It’s hotter than it looks. You’ll get dehydrated.”

“Thanks, but I’m good,” she said, stabbing the dirt again. Her jeans sat intriguingly low on her hips, allowing an occasional glimpse of that sparkly belly-button stud, companioned by one of those stretchy tops that were basically just big, blah bras. Although on her, not so blah. In fact, the way the sun licked at the moisture sheening her skin…

Nope. Not blah at all.

“It’s a bottle of water, Karleen. Not my fraternity pin.”

Panting slightly, she shifted her gaze toward him again; fireflies of sunlight danced over her face through the straw brim. He wiggled the bottle. She reached over and snatched it out of his hand. “Fine,” she said, twisting off the top and taking a swallow. “Now will you go away?”

“Not until you tell me what’s wrong.”

Surprise flickered across her features, followed by a head shake. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Bull.”

Now her brows lifted, as well as one corner of her mouth. “You don’t know me from Eve. Why would you care?”

“Consider it a character flaw.”

She met his gaze with a startling intensity that jolted his sex drive awake like a fire alarm. Underneath her T-shirt, her sigh took her breasts for a little ride.

“It’s not you,” she said after a moment, breaking the spell before his tongue started dragging in the dirt. Jeez. “I got a phone call that rattled me, is all.” She shrugged, then set the bottle down by the fence before she went back to work. “Family stuff, nothin’ too serious, and not to put too fine a point on it—” she attacked a particularly obtuse dirt clod “—but it’s none of your business.”

The haze nicely cleared now, Troy took a sip of his own water, then propped the bottle on the top rung of the fence. “Okay, so I didn’t come over here soley to make sure you wouldn’t die of thirst.”

A tiny smile made a brief appearance. “No?”

“No. You were right the other night, when you made that comment about it having been a long time for me. I haven’t even gone out with another woman since my wife died.”

The dirt clod exploded like a supernova; her gaze touched his. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope.”

She stilled, clearly on the alert. “And what does this have to do with me?”

“Well…Blake—the guy who helped me move in?—suggested that maybe I needed someone—a woman, I mean—to practice on before I plunged back into the dating scene.” He lifted the bottle in her direction. “And since you live right next door, he thought maybe you might be that woman.”

Karleen barked out a laugh, then said, “And I can’t believe you’re dumb enough to say that to a woman with a shovel in her hands.”

“I mean to talk to, what did you think I—? Oh.” His mouth flatlined. Maybe the haze hadn’t cleared as much as he’d thought. Good to know the hormones were still flowing, but the perpetual leaky faucet sucked. “Sorry. That didn’t come out exactly the way I heard it in my head.”

She stabbed the shovel into a hard section of ground, balancing on it like a pogo stick until it sank. “Well, if that boneheaded attempt you just made is any indication, your conversational skills could definitely use some fine-tuning. But why me, exactly? Besides the convenience factor, that is.”

“Because I figure if I can handle a conversation with you, I can handle one with anybody.”

That got another laugh, this one a little less scary, and the faucet started dripping harder. After living with a woman for nearly ten years, not to mention four years of celibacy since, Troy knew damn well he wasn’t one of those men who thought about sex 24/7. But as he watched Karleen bend over to snag the water bottle and his eyes went right to her soft, round backside, he realized that it definitely hummed in the background like a computer operating system—unseen but always on.

Her lips glistened from her sip of water. Yeah, that was helping. “You mean to tell me,” she said, “that you haven’t so much as talked to another woman in all this time.”

“Not in the man-woman sense, no.”

“And what’s really pathetic,” she said with a smile that only underscored her words, “is that I actually believe you.”

“Thanks. I think.”

“Although…you’re not doing so bad right now.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Got off to a bit of a bumpy start, but you recovered nicely enough.” She took another swallow of the water, then made a face. Troy frowned.

“It’s bottled water, how bad can it be?”

“It’s not the water, it’s that wussy music you’re listening to.”

“What’s wrong with it?”

“Other than I keep thinkin’ somebody’s about to say, ‘The doctor will see you now’? Not a thing. Music’s supposed to get your juices flowin’, sugar, not put you to sleep.”

Troy let out a slightly pained laugh. “Trust me, between my work and keeping track of my sons and…other things—” uh, boy “—my juices flow just fine, thank you. I want something to calm my nerves,” he said with a pointed glance over at the loud country music issuing from her patio, “not frazzle them more than they already are.”

She’d picked up her shovel again; now she leaned both hands on the end of the handle, striking a pose that could only be described as sassy. Troy didn’t do sassy.

He didn’t think.

“You got somethin’ against country?” she said.

“When it’s loud enough to rattle windows in Phoenix? Yeah.”

Karleen looked back over her shoulder, considering. “I suppose I could turn it down. But…” Then she glanced up at him, the sassiness half melted into something that, once again, sent all those crazy hormones running for cover. “The CD’s almost done, you mind if I let it run out?”

“No, of course not.”

“Thanks. But tell you what…how about we agree not to play music outside at all? Unless the other one’s not around, I mean?”

“Deal. Oh, and sorry about the kids earlier.” When she frowned, he prompted, “About the garden?

The shovel stabbed at the dirt, but she glanced up from under the hat’s brim. “They’re just bein’ little kids, it’s no big deal. And anyway, since it’s not even an issue for at least another month, I’m not worried.”