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really don’t think…”
    A long metal rectangle urged its way through the slit in the door and clattered onto the counter. Next, a package of metal parts joined it.
    “What is all this?”
    “Payment for the free dinner yesterday,” Buck said easily. “The coil for your hot-water heater. A gasket for the faucet to stop dripping. And a fuse for the burner on the stove. Now will you let me in so I can install them?”
    Loren flushed. “That’s very nice, but no thank you,” she said firmly. “For one thing, it would be an imposition on your time. For another, you surely figured out that I can’t afford to pay you. I appreciate the thought, Buck, but I really think it would be better all the way around if—”
    She had to back up when he pushed the door open. When it closed behind him, there was the distinct reverberation of a near-slam. “Did anyone ever spank you when you were younger?” He handed her his coat, and she took it because it would have dropped on her wet floor if she hadn’t.
    “Now just listen here—”
    “I’m unemployed, remember? There are no jobs to be scouted out on a Saturday. So I’ve got nothing better to do, I wouldn’t expect payment even if you offered it, and you’re not going to stand there and deny you need a man around here.”
    She glared at him furiously. She knew what he had come back for, and it wasn’t plumbing. She didn’t blame him for misunderstanding, and she wasn’t denying that she’d responded to him like some wanton little…whatever. Which was just the point. She needed no further complications in her life—she could barely handle what she had. “Just go away, Buck,” she said in a low voice.
    With a wicked glint in his eye, he said, “I don’t think so.”
    She shrugged off the bandeau, letting loose a bounce of disheveled rusty curls. “You don’t understand. The big thrill in my life is a bath on Sunday night. The rest of the days are filled from six in the morning until nine at night, and at nine I’m something between a zombie and a dead dishrag. Do you want to hear the schedule for today? Because I have a zillion things to do, and there’s no one else to do them.”
    “I think you’re presuming a hell of a lot, but I’m certainly willing to discuss your bath habits—any time,” he assured her mildly, taking up the tool kit and parts packages. “It could just be that all I had in mind was fixing your hot-water heater.” He was on his way downstairs before she had the chance to say another word.
    Sure, stranger, her mind replied dryly. She stood still for a few moments, staring at the cellar door, and then stubbornly got down on her knees to finish the floor. A half hour later she was done, but Buck was still in the basement. Angela had been in and out, discovered Buck’s presence, and had gone down to keep him company. Gramps had been in and out, discovered Buck’s presence, and had gone down to keep him company. The Shephards were a very gregarious family, Loren thought wryly.
    Determinedly, she filled a wicker basket with cleaning supplies. When the ground-floor rooms were dusted, she headed upstairs, and when she’d cleaned all the bathrooms there, she headed toward her own room. She had on a fresh pair of jeans and was pulling a soft wool sweater over her head when she heard the rap on the door. A full second later, he opened it.
    “I seem to be looking for a badly behaving hairdryer.”
    Her coppery hair was wispy around her face from the static electricity of the sweater, and Loren knew he guessed she’d just pulled it on and was remembering exactly what was beneath it. He looked incongruous, that giant of a man in her mauve-and-white bedroom with its muted Monet prints. “Well, it’s not in here,” she said irritably.
    Barefoot, she led the way to Angela’s room, a screaming shout of color and youth—posters of punk-rock stars, an unmade bed, clothes strewn all over furniture and floor. She sighed. “Finding anything in