glance and an absent wave. Building up steam as she went, she pumped it out the minute she reached

the stacks of pavers.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Playing tennis. What does it look like I'm doing?"

"It looks like you're taking material you haven't ordered, that you haven't been authorized to take."

"Really?" He hauled up another stack. "No wonder my backhand is rusty." The truck shuddered as he loaded. "Hey."

Much to her amazement, he leaned toward her, sniffed. "Different shampoo. Nice."

"Stop smelling me." She waved him away by flapping a hand at his chin as she stepped back.

"I can't help it. You're standing right there. I have a nose."

"I need the paperwork on this material."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fine, fine, fine. I'll come in and take care of it after I'm loaded."

"You're supposed to take care of it before you load."

He turned, aimed a hot look with those mossy green eyes. "Red, you're a pain in the ass."

"I'm supposed to be. I'm the manager."

He had to smile at that, and he tipped down his sunglasses to look over them at her. "You're real good

at it, too. Think of it this way. The pavers are stored on the way to the building. By loading first, then coming in, I'm actually being more efficient."

The smile morphed into a smirk. "That'd be important, I'd think, if we were doing, say, a projection of man-hours."

He took a moment to lean against the truck and study her. Then he loaded another stack of pavers.

"You standing here watching me means you're wasting time, and likely adding to your own man-hours."

"You don't come in to handle the paperwork, Kitridge, I'll hunt you down."

"Don't tempt me."

He took his time, but he came in.

He was calculating how best to annoy Stella again. Her eyes went the color of Texas bluebonnets

when she was pissed off. But when he stepped in, he saw Hayley.

"Hey."

"Hey," she said back and smiled. "I'm Hayley Phillips. A family connection to Roz's first husband?

I'm working here now."

"Logan. Nice to meet you. Don't let this Yankee scare you." He nodded toward Stella. "Where are the sacred forms, and the ritual knife so I can slice open a vein and sign them in blood?"

"My office."

"Uh-huh." But he lingered rather than following her. "When's the baby due?" he asked Hayley.

"May."

"Feeling okay?"

"Never better."

"Good. This here's a nice outfit, a good place to work most of the time. Welcome aboard." He sauntered into Stella's office, where she was already at her computer, with the form on the screen.

"I'll type this one up to save time. There's a whole stack of them in that folder. Take it. All you have to do is fill them in as needed, date, sign or initial. Drop them off."

"Uh-huh." He looked around the room. The desk was cleared off. There were no cartons, no books sitting on the floor or stacked on chairs.

That was too bad, he thought. He'd liked the workaday chaos of it.

"Where's all the stuff in here?"

"Where it belongs. Those pavers were the eighteen-inch round, number A-23?"

"They were eighteen-inch rounds." He picked up the framed photo on her desk and studied the picture

of her boys and their dog. "Cute."

"Yes, they are. Are the pavers for personal use or for a scheduled job?"

"Red, you ever loosen up?"

"No. We Yankees never do."

He ran his tongue over his teeth. "Ura-hmm."

"Do you know how sick I am of being referred to as 'the Yankee,' as though it were a foreign species, or a disease? Half the customers who come in here look me over like I'm from another planet and may not be coming in peace. Then I have to tell them I was born here, answer all sorts of questions about why I left, why I'm back, who my people are, for Christ's sake, before I can get down to any sort of business. I'm from Michigan, not the moon, and the Civil damn War's been over for quite some time."

Yep, just like Texas bluebonnets. "That would be the War Between the damn States this side of the Mason-Dixon, honey. And looks to me like you loosen up just fine when you get riled enough."

"Don't 'honey' me in that southern-fried twang."

"You know, Red, I like you better this way."

"Oh, shut up. Pavers. Personal or professional use?"

"Well, that depends on your point of view." Since there was room now, he edged a hip onto the corner

of the desk. "They're for a friend. I'm putting in a walkway for her— my own time, no labor charge. I told her I'd pick up the materials and give her a bill from the center."

"We'll consider that personal use and apply your employee discount." She began tapping keys.

"How many pavers?"

"Twenty-two."

She tapped again and gave him the price per paver, before discount, after discount.

Impressed despite himself, he tapped the monitor. "You got a math nerd trapped in there?"

"Just the wonders of the twenty-first century. You'd find it quicker than counting on your fingers."

"I don't know. I've got pretty fast fingers." Drumming them on his thigh, he kept his gaze on her face.

"I need three white pine."

"For this same friend?"

"No." His grin flashed, fast and crooked. If she wanted to interpret "friend" as "lover," he couldn't see

any point in saying the pavers were for Mrs. Kingsley, his tenth-grade English teacher. "Pine's for a

client. Roland Guppy. Yes, like the fish. You've probably got him somewhere in your vast and

mysterious files. We did a job for him last fall."

Since there was a coffeemaker on the table against the wall, and the pot was half full, he got up, took a mug, and helped himself.

"Make yourself at home," Stella said dryly.

"Thanks. As it happens, I recommended white pine for a windbreak. He hemmed and hawed. Took him this long to decide to go for it. He called me at home yesterday. I said I'd pick them up and work him in."

"We need a different form."

He sampled the coffee. Not bad. "Somehow I knew that."

"Are the pavers all you're taking for personal use?"

"Probably. For today."

She hit Print, then brought up another form. "That's three white pine. What size?"

"We got some nice eight-foot ones."

"Balled and burlapped?"

"Yeah."

Tap, tap, tap, he thought, with wonder, and there you go. Woman had pretty fingers, he noted. Long

and tapered, with that glossy polish on them, the delicate pink of the inside of a rose petal.

She wore no rings.

"Anything else?"

He patted his pockets, eventually came up with a scrap of paper. "That's what I told him I could put

them in for."

She added the labor, totaled, then printed out three copies while he drank her coffee. "Sign or initial,"

she told him. "One copy for my files, one for yours, one for the client."

"Gotcha."

When he picked up the pen, Stella waved a hand. "Oh, wait, let me get that knife. Which vein did you plan to open?"

"Cute." He lifted his chin toward the door. "So's she."

"Hayley? Yeah, she is. And entirely too young for you."

"I wouldn't say entirely. Though I do prefer women with a little more..." He stopped, smiled again.

"We'll just say more, and stay alive."

"Wise."

"Your boys getting a hard time in school?"

"Excuse me?"

"Just considering what you said before. Yankee."

"Oh. A little, maybe, but for the most part the other kids find it interesting that they're from up north, lived near one of the Great Lakes. Both their teachers pulled up a map to show where they came from."

Her face softened as she spoke of it. "Thanks for asking."

"I like your kids."

He signed the forms and found himself amused when she groaned—actually groaned—watching him carelessly fold his and stuff them in his pocket.

"Next time could you wait until you're out of the office to do that? It hurts me."

"No problem." Maybe it was the different tone they were ending on, or maybe it was the way she'd softened up and smiled when she spoke of her children. Later, he might wonder what possessed him,

but for now, he went with impulse. "Ever been to Graceland?"

"No. I'm not a big Elvis fan."

"Ssh!" Widening his eyes, he looked toward the door. "Legally, you can't say that around here. You

could face fine and imprisonment, or depending on the jury, public flogging."

"I didn't read that in the Memphian handbook."

"Fine print. So, I'll take you. When's your day off?"

"I... It depends. You'll take me to Graceland?"

"You can't settle in down here until you've experienced Graceland. Pick a day, I'll work around it."

"I'm trying to understand here. Are you asking me for a date?"

"I wasn't heading into the date arena. I'm thinking of it more as an outing, between associates." He set

the empty mug on her desk. "Think about it, let me know."

* * *

She had too much to do to think about it. She couldn't just pop off to Graceland. And if she could, and had some strange desire to do so, she certainly wouldn't pop off to Graceland with Logan.

The fact that she'd admired his work—and all right, bis build—didn't mean she liked him. It didn't mean she wanted to spend her very valuable off-time in his company.

But she couldn't help thinking about it, or more, wondering why he'd asked her. Maybe it was some

sort of a trick, a strange initiation for the Yankee. You take her to Graceland, then abandon her in a

forest of Elvis paraphernalia and see if she can find her way out.

Or maybe, in his weird Logan way, he'd decided that hitting on her was an easier away around her new system than arguing with her.