Anything for Her(11)

This smile glowed. “Yes. I’d love to, Nolan.”

“Good.” He reached across the table and took her hand in his. It was only the second time he’d touched her. A tactile man, he savored a hand that was fine-boned yet strong. The skin was incredibly smooth except for the toughness he felt on a finger pad or two when she gripped him in return. He liked that she had calluses, too.

He liked everything about her.

So far, he reminded himself. People weren’t always what they seemed. Probably more often than not, they weren’t what they seemed. He wanted to believe she wasn’t flawed beneath the surface, as occasionally happened when he started cutting and sanding a promising slab of stone. He wasn’t going to be a fool, letting himself believe in her too soon.

But oh damn he wanted to kiss her.

* * *

DURING THE SHORT drive back to her apartment, Allie clasped her hands on her lap and felt the throb of her pulse. She was almost frightened by how much she wanted to know how it would feel to be held by Nolan, kissed by him, devoured by him. She’d met attractive men before, had crushes, dated fairly seriously—and now she knew how tepid her responses had been.

He certainly wasn’t handsome by any objective standard. Not that he was plain, the way she’d first thought. Wrong word. His face was all angles. He made her think of the basalt outcrops along the Columbia River—not pretty, but powerful and somehow raw. Set in that stark backdrop, his blue eyes were even more stunning.

Sneaking peeks as they drove in near complete silence, Allie decided she liked how solid he was. Big, strong hands, muscles powerful enough it was easy to imagine him handling enormous chunks of stone, without giving him that thick-necked, weight-lifter look. A deep, rumbly voice and a quiet sense of humor. She liked the way he reflected before he spoke, and the unwavering way he watched her when she was talking. Nolan Radek felt...dependable.

She averted her face and grimaced. Oh, boy—nothing subtle about why she was drawn to him like a tiny metal filing to a giant magnet.

Except...she knew her feelings were more complicated than that. Lust tangled with the lure of that sense of certainty he exuded. There were those wonderful moments when they discovered they understood each other, thought alike. His face wasn’t especially expressive, but his hands were—Allie doubted he even knew how often he seemed to be trying to express his thoughts with those big, blunt-fingered hands instead of his tongue. There was the way he listened to her, as if what she had to say mattered and wasn’t only an interlude before the focus returned to him. If she hadn’t been feeling so tense, she’d have laughed at that—Nolan would prefer the focus never returned to him, she suspected.

When she looked ahead again she saw that he was steering into her driveway. She’d left the light on at the top of the outside steps, but it wasn’t yet needed. Nights came late here in the Pacific Northwest, even in September. She always hated the abrupt change in October, having to close the shop and come home in pitch darkness.

“Those stairs are steep,” Nolan said with a frown. He was staring at them and not at her. He sounded distinctly disapproving.

“I think they’re original, but they seem solid enough.”

He wasn’t listening. The engine turned off, he got out and came around to open the door for her and extend a hand. Considering the distance down to the ground, Allie was glad to take it. Instead of drawing her into his arms, Nolan walked over to inspect the staircase.

“I don’t like it,” he finally pronounced.

“What?”

“The treads aren’t a normal depth. You have small feet, so you may not notice it as much, but it makes it easier to misstep. And the railing’s not solid.” He shook it, and indeed there was a slight sway of which Allie had never been aware.

“I’m careful,” she offered.

Still scowling at the stairs, he only grunted. “These should be replaced.”

“With ones cut from stone?” she joked.

His sharp blue eyes turned back to her. “I’m serious.”

“I can tell.” She considered what he was saying, and had to admit she was always careful on those steps because they made her a little apprehensive. Not so much that she’d allowed her dislike of them to surface, but some part of her hadn’t felt secure when she was going up or down on them. “I’ll talk to the owners,” she promised. “They did a beautiful job renovating the apartment. They won’t want me to fall.”