Too Good to Be True(56)

We met when I clocked him with my field hockey stick. I thought he was robbing the house next door. Turned out he wasn’t, simply a guy on his first night out of prison. What for, you ask? Oh, he stole over a million dollars.

Sighing, I tore myself away from the view and went back downstairs. Pictured Wyatt Dunn coming home, hugging me, resting his cheek against my hair. Angus wouldn’t bite him or even bark. We’d sit down in my seldom-used dining room, and I’d pour him a glass of wine, and he’d ask to hear about my students, and I’d cheer him up by telling him about how I divided the class into Confederates and Union citizens and made them debate why their side was right, how the entire Southern side spoke in drawls and got the giggles when Emma Kirk said, “Fiddle-dee-dee.”

So intense was my little daydream that when a knock came on the door, I almost expected it to be Wyatt, that I somehow conjured him. Angus went into his yapping frenzy, so I picked him up and peeked. It was Callahan O’ Shea, down from the roof. My face went lava-hot.

“Hi,” I said, clutching my dog, who growled fiercely.

“Hi,” Callahan said, leaning in the doorway.

“Everything okay?” It was dark, after all.

“Yup.” He just looked at me from those denim-blue eyes, and I noticed for the first time that his irises were flecked with gold. His shirt was a soft green, and the smell of freshly cut wood drifted toward me.

“What can I do for you?” I asked, my voice husky.

“Grace.”

“Yes?” I breathed.

“I want you to stop spying on me,” he said.

Dang it! I sucked in a guilty breath. “Spying? I’m not…I…I don’t…”

“From the attic. Do you have a problem with me being up on my roof?”

“No! I just was…” Hrrrr. Hrrrr. Yarp! Angus was struggling to get out of my arms, giving me a great excuse to stall.

“Hang on a second. Or just come in. I have to put Angus in the cellar.”

I stashed Angus, took a few deep breaths, then turned to face my neighbor, who stood just inside the doorway, a sarcastic eyebrow raised. If eyebrows could be sarcastic, that is.

“Cal, I was just putting some things away up there. I saw you and yes, I wondered what you were doing out there, okay? I’m sorry.”

“Grace, we both know that you’ve been spying. Just knock it off.”

“Well, someone has quite an ego, doesn’t he?” I said. “I was putting away my general’s uniform. Go upstairs and check if you want.” Angus barked from the cellar, backing me up.

Callahan took a step closer and looked down at me—literally and figuratively, I imagined. His eyes wandered to my hair, then…oh, God…to my mouth. “Here’s what I want to know,” he said. “Why does that boyfriend of yours leave you alone so damn much?” His voice was soft.

My whole body responded with a giant, hot, pulsating throb. “Oh…well…” My voice was breathy. “I’m not sure that’s gonna work out. We’re, um…reevaluating.”

Tell him you’re free, Grace. Just say you and Wyatt broke up.

I didn’t. Honestly, it was just too scary. My entire body was quivering with Callahan’s nearness, and fear. Fear that he was playing me, all too aware that I was a heartbeat away from wrestling him to the floor and ripping off his clothes.

That stirring image was almost immediately replaced with another, much less desirable picture—Cal pushing me back and saying, quite firmly, No thanks, that sardonic expression on his too-appealing face.

“So.” My voice was brisk and teacherly. “Anything else, Mr. O’ Shea?”

“No.” But he looked at me, really looked, and it was awfully hard to maintain eye contact, let me tell you. Surely I was blushing, since my face was burning hot.

“No more spying,” he finally said, his voice gentle. “Got it?”

“Yes,” I whispered. “Sorry.”

And then he turned and left, leaving me standing in the middle of my living room, shaky and feeling like my stays were a little too tight.

Okay, okay, I admitted that I was desperately attracted to Callahan O’ Shea. And that was not a good thing. First of all, I wasn’t sure he liked me very much. Secondly…well. It wasn’t just the ex-con thing. Sure, if he’d beaten someone with a pipe or something, obviously he’d be out of the running. Embezzlement, yes, it was also a crime.

But not that bad, right? If he was sorry…plus, he’d served his debt to society and all that crap….

No. It wasn’t his past, though obviously, I put a lot of weight on the past. It was the fact that my whole life, I knew what I wanted. Andrew had been The One, and look how that turned out. What I wanted now, God help me, was another Andrew, just without the whole sister-loving complication.

Callahan O’ Shea was ridiculously appealing, but I’d never relax around him. He was not the type to look at me adoringly. He…he…ah, crap, he was just too much. Too big, too good-looking, too appealing, too stirring. I felt too many things around him. It was disturbing, really. He made me irritable and lustful and sharp when I wanted to be sweet and loving and soft. I wanted to be…well, like Natalie. And I wanted a man who looked at me the way Andrew looked at Natalie. Not like Callahan, who looked like he knew my every dirty little secret.