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"If I had to guess, I'd say you're a lot alike in the stubborn department."
"Fine." She thrust the shovel toward him.
A smile touched the corners of his mouth as he withdrew his hand from the front pocket of his pants and took the shovel from her. He clamped his bare hand over hers. She tugged, but his grasp tightened.
She wasn't about to get into a tug-of-war with a man built like the Rock. "Can I have my hand back?" He relaxed his grip finger by finger, and she pulled free.
"Damn," he said, "I was kind of hoping I'd have to wrestle you for it."
She knew that wasn't true. Drunk or sober, he had no interest in "wrestling" Kate. It wasn't personal. She told herself he had some sort of dysfunction that prevented him from "wrestling" with any woman. There wasn't anything wrong with her. It was him. She should feel sorry for him.
"I was kinda hoping to get a look at your tattoo while I was at it."
It took several heartbeats for his meaning to penetrate Kate's brain. When it did, she forgot all about trying to feel sorry for Rob Sutter. Not that it was working, anyway. She sucked in a breath. "You do remember!"
"What? Your offer to show me your bare ass?" He rocked back on the heels of his boots and chuckled. "How could I forget that?"
"But…" Her sucked-in breath got caught in her chest, and she had to let it out. "But you said you'd never met me." She was starting to see spots and took another deep breath. "That first day you didn't…oh my God!"
"Did you want me to tell Stanley that we'd already met?" he asked as he bent to shovel snow. "He'd want to know the details."
Good Lord. She put her gloved hand to the side of her face as thoughts rushed and collided in the middle of her brain. Of all the bad luck, he wasn't an alcoholic. He remembered. How many people had he told about that night? In this town, all it would take was one person, then the news would spread like the West Nile virus. Although she would prefer that the town not know of her humiliation, she really only cared about her grandfather. He went to church every Sunday. He didn't believe in sex outside of marriage, let alone in women propositioning men in bars.
"I don't want to be the one who shatters his illusion of you." He scooped up the patch of snow between them and tossed it off the curb. "The truth would probably give him that heart attack you seem so worried about."
She lifted her gaze to his knit ski cap. His hair curled up like little fishhooks along the back. "You don't know me, and you don't know anything about my relationship with my grandfather."
"I know you're right about Stanley being an old-fashioned guy. He probably thinks you're saving it for your wedding night, and we both know you're not."
If Kate hadn't given him her shovel, she would have beaned him with it.
"I also know you don't want to hear some advice from me, but I'm going to give it to you anyway," he said as he rested the blade of the shovel on the concrete and hung his wrist over the top of the handle. "Picking up men in bars isn't smart. You could find yourself in a lot of trouble if you keep it up."
She didn't care what he thought and didn't feel as if she needed to defend herself. "I know you're not my father, so what are you? A cop?"
"No."
"Priest?" He didn't look like a priest, but it would explain a lot.
"No."
" Mormon missionary?"
He chuckled, and several puffs of air hung in front of his nose. "Do I look like a Mormon missionary?"
No. He looked like a guy who liked to sin, but he wasn't. She didn't know anything about him at all. Other than the fact that he was a jerk and drove a HUMMER. What kind of person drove an array assault vehicle? A jerk with erectile dysfunction, that's what kind. "Why don't you drive a human-sized car?"
He straightened. "I like my HUMMER."
A cold breeze lifted the tails of Kate's wool scarf, and it danced on the air between them. "It makes people wonder if you're overcompensating for something," she said.
Lines appeared in the corners of his eyes, and he reached out to tug at one end of her scarf. "Are you standing there wondering about the size of my package?"
She felt heat rise to her already heated cheeks, and she was grateful they were already red from the cold. She pulled her scarf out of his grasp. "Don't flatter yourself. I don't wonder about you at all." She walked around him and added, "Let alone the size of your package."
He tipped back his head and laughed. Deep, satisfied male laughter that chased her all the way to the front of the store. She mumbled a "Have a nice day" to Paul Aberdeen and Hayden Dean as she passed them on their way out of the M &S. Inside, Regina still hovered near Stanley, going on about the library where she worked, her thick glasses bobbing on the end of her nose as she nodded her head. Stanley busied himself with impulse items near the checkout.
Normally Kate would have rescued him from Regina's chatter, but Stanley had sicced Rob on her and she wasn't feeling charitable at the moment.
