Leaning against the doorway, he crossed his arms over his chest and smiled as she dug through a couple of large boxes.
“Breaking and entering is still a crime around here, you know?” he said, causing her to jerk around. When she did so, she jumped up and bumped her head on a low shelf holding a box of papers, sending them showering over her.
He held in a chuckle as he rushed over to help her pick up the mess.
“You scared me,” she exclaimed.
“Sorry,” he mumbled as he knelt beside her.
“Your mother said I could stop by and see if there was anything else in here that I could use,” she explained as she helped pick up the papers and books. Then her eyes moved past the papers and landed on him, and she frowned, then smiled slowly. “Did you spend your day making mud pies?” she joked.
He glanced down and realized every inch of him was caked in mud.
Groaning, he shook his head. “Helping someone get their truck out of the mud.”
“Right,” she said slowly, as if to give him the idea that she didn’t believe him.
He finished putting the last of the books into the box and replaced the box on the shelf. “Find anything you might want?” he asked. When her eyes ran over him and she sucked her bottom lip in between her teeth, he felt his body react.
“A few things,” she answered finally.
His eyebrows rose as he thought about taking her, here, with the smell of fresh hay mixing with the soft scent of her perfume.
“I just don’t know how I’m going to get it all over to the cottage,” she added.
He glanced around. “Where’s your truck?”
“Robin has it. She went to Portland to help my folks hold a garage sale. They’re getting ready to sell their place and have a ton of stuff they wanted to get rid of. My sister, being the businessperson that she is, wanted to take over the entire process.”
“How’d you get here?” he asked.
“Walked,” she answered with a shrug.
He thought about the trip from the cottage to his parents’ place and realized it was less than a few miles down the road. Even less if you went the beach route.
“You need your own car,” he suggested.
“Why? It would only sit most of the time. Besides, I like walking.”
“What are you going to do when it starts snowing?” he asked, remembering he’d asked her that the other day.
She shrugged and smiled. “Put on boots and a coat.”
He sighed and shook his head. “I’ve got a truck.”
Her eyes ran over him and then she laughed. “There is no way I’m letting you step foot in the cottage like that.”
He glanced down again and groaned. “Yeah, as it is, I’m going to have to strip naked on the back doorstep just to get inside the house to shower off. My mother would kill me if I dropped so much as a clump of dirt on her floor.”
Kara’s laughter warmed him and, at the same time, further ignited his desires.
“If you want, I can head in and shower and then help you move over what you want?” he offered.
“I’ll take you up on that offer,” she said easily. “I found a cute coffee table.” She motioned to the pile of furniture. “Somewhere in here. What is your mother going to do with all this? Open her own store?”
He chuckled. “She used to run an antique store. I think she still thinks she does sometimes.” He shook his head. “I think my crib is still in here somewhere,” he joked.
Kara laughed again. “I’ll keep looking. You go clean up.”
Conner walked in the back door of the house, stripped down to nothing more than his boxer briefs and socks, and avoided talking to his mother until he was done showering and dressing.
“So,” he said, stepping into her art studio. She was sitting in front of the large bay windows, working on a large canvas. Her father was sitting in the corner, reading a book with the two dogs curled around his feet. “For years you’ve stockpiled furniture in that barn and now you’re just giving it away?” he asked her.
His mother glanced over at him. A strand of her hair fell loose and slipped into her eyes, which she quickly wiped away with the back of her hand, spreading a dark blue streak of paint over her cheek as she did so.
He smiled and walked over to wipe it away with a cloth she kept nearby.
“I’m not giving it away,” she said, turning back to her canvas.
“Don’t tell me that you’re making her pay for all that junk?” He glanced out the windows towards the barn and could still see the light on out there.
“No, of course not.” His mother turned to look at him with a smile. “We’ve come up with a deal. A trade of sorts.”
His eyes narrowed. “A trade of what?”
“Well, she can have whatever she finds in the barn and I get one free event at her venue.”
“That’s not really fair.”
His mother waved her paintbrush at him. “Sure, it is. I’ve been wanting to host a local art fair. It’s not a large event and, really, no big planning on Kara’s part.” She turned back to the canvas. “Besides, it was her idea.”
“Right,” he said to her back. He turned to sign to his dad. “Did you know about this?”
His father shrugged and replied. “I learned a long time ago to stay out of your mother’s business.”
Conner chuckled. “Smart man,” he signed back. “How did you expect her to get all that stuff back to her place?” he asked his mother.
“I knew you’d be along to help out soon enough,” she threw over her shoulder. “Remember”—she glanced over her shoulder and wiped at the loose hair again, sending more color onto her cheeks and forehead—“lift with your legs not your back.” She smiled.
“Meddler,” he mumbled as he walked out. He heard his mother laugh as he headed out to help Kara move furniture. He’d walked right into his mother’s trap. She knew that he had Wednesdays and Thursdays off. Had she requested Kara to stop by tonight knowing he didn’t have to be anywhere early in the morning?
Shit. Did he even have protection still in his wallet? Would he need any? What was he thinking? He wasn’t even sure Kara wanted him like that. Sure, they’d kissed a few times, but that didn’t mean that she wanted to sleep with him.
He was getting way ahead of himself. Shaking off the thoughts of his mother trying to hook him up, he backed the truck up to the barn door and got to work helping Kara load up everything she’d picked out all while trying to keep the thought of her naked under him out of his mind.
“Everything okay?” she asked after the last of what she wanted had been loaded up in the back of his truck and they were on the road driving to the cottage.
“Yeah.” He glanced over at her. “Just… tired,” he lied.
“I’m sorry that I’m dragging you out again,” Kara said.
“It’s no bother. I wanted to help out.” He backed up to get as close to the front door of the cottage as possible. Glancing over at her, he took a moment to appreciate just how perfect she was before jumping out and rushing around to open her door.
“You keep doing that,” she said as he helped her down out of the truck.