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tripped and fell into her gut. Oh…God, he was handsome.
     
    “How long are you in town?” she blurted. And then couldn’t believe she’d asked. It wasn’t that the question was forward on the surface, but more because she was angling to see him again in a situation just like this. The two of them alone.
     
    Can you say desperate, she thought.
     
    “I’m going back to the city tomorrow—well, that’s today, isn’t it?” He wiped his mouth and took a drink from his glass of orange juice. “But I’ll be back. I’ve got to clean out this place.”
     
    “Are you going to sell?”
     
    “No reason to keep it. But I’ll make sure you’re in the loop.”
     
    “Thank you. I really liked living here.”
     
    “Hopefully you won’t have to leave. I can’t believe anyone would want to turn this into a one-family.”
     
    “I think I’m going to want to move, though.”
     
    “Why?”
     
    She looked around. “It won’t be the same without him.”
     
    Sean frowned and fell silent so she got up and took both their plates to the sink. As she washed them with a sponge she’d bought a week and a half ago, she tried not to think that Mr. O’Banyon had still been alive back then.
     
    “So you and my father were real tight, huh?”
     
    She held a plate under the rushing water. “We used to watch TV together. And we always ate dinner up here on Sundays. We also looked out for each other. It was nice to think someone wondered whether or not I made it back from my night shifts. Made me feel safer.”
     
    And cared for.
     
    With her mother, Lizzie had always been the watcher, the worrier, the keeper…even when she’d been young. For the time she had known Mr. O’Banyon, it had been really nice to be something other than a ghost on the periphery of someone’s artistic inspiration.
     
    Feeling awkward, she asked, “So do you live right in Manhattan?”
     
    “Yeah.”
     
    “I’ve always wanted to go there,” she murmured as she put the plate in the drying rack. “It seems so exciting and glamorous.”
     
    “City’s not far from here. Just drive down some time.”
     
    She shook her head, thinking of the time she would have to take off from work. “I couldn’t really afford to. With two jobs, my hours are long and my mother needs the money more than I need a vacation. Besides, who am I kidding? I’m a homebody at heart.”
     
    “And you were happy being a homebody here. With my father.”
     
    She picked up a towel and began to dry what she’d washed. “Yes, I was.”
     
    “Were you lovers?”
     
    “What?”She nearly dropped the skillet. “Why would you think that?”
     
    His eyes were cold and cynical as he said, “Not unheard-of.”
     
    “Maybe to you. We were friends. Good Lord…”
     
    She quickly put away the dishes, hung up the towel and headed for the exit. “Thank you for breakfast.”
     
    He rose from the table. “Elizabeth—”
     
    “Lizzie.” She stepped around him pointedly. “Just Lizzie.”
     
    He took her arm in a firm grip. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”
     
    She leveled her stare on his hard face. His apology seemed sincere enough; though his eyes remained remote, they didn’t waver from hers and his tone was serious.
     
    She reminded herself that he was under a lot of stress and it was four—well, almost five in the morning. She cleared her throat. “It’s all right. This is a hard time for you right now.”
     
    “Hard time for you, too, right?”
     
    “Yes,” she said in a small voice. “Very. I’m going to miss him.”
     
    Sean reached out and touched her cheek, surprising her. “You know something?”
     
    “What?”
     
    “A woman like you should have someone waiting up for her, Lizzie.”
     
    In a flash, she became totally aware of him down to the details of his beard’s dark shadow and the hazel of his eyes and…
     
    And the fact that he was looking at her mouth.
     
    From out of nowhere, an arc of heat supercharged the