"I was having trouble with my feet," Lizabeth said. "They were cold."

Matt handed her a cup of coffee. "Here. Maybe this will warm them up. I have to make a few more phone calls and then we can get out of this basement. As you can see, this is a pretty small operation. I have a partner, but he's in the hospital in a body cast."

"How awful. What happened?" Visions of failed building machinery filled her head.

"Fell off his kid's skateboard and broke his hip. Anyway, we own seven building lots on this cul-de-sac. We've got three houses going up. This one's sold. The other two are spec houses." He saw the question in her eyes. "That means we're building them on speculation. We're using our own money to build and hoping to sell the houses at a good profit when they're done. We subcontract plumbers, carpenters, roofers, drywallers, but we do a lot of the work ourselves."

Lizabeth drank her coffee and watched him. Today he wore a black T-shirt tucked into a pair of faded jeans, and Lizabeth thought he was the most awesome man she'd ever encountered. He was a genetic masterpiece. He was freshly shaven, his blond hair was parted and combed, and his shirt and jeans still held the crease from being laundered and folded. Concessions to civilization, Lizabeth thought. She wasn't about to be fooled by the crease in his jeans. Anyone with eyebrows like that and a tattoo on his arm had to be part barbarian. She guessed at which part, and her conclusion triggered a rush of adrenaline.

"Okay, I'm done." He pushed the phone away and flipped the switch on the answering machine. "I'm going to have you paint trim today." It was the easiest job he could come up with on short notice. She wouldn't have to lift anything heavy, and she wouldn't be near power tools. He handed her a can of white latex enamel. "All you have to do is put a coat of this over the wood that's been primed." He gave her a narrow brush and led the way up the stairs. "You can put your lunch in the refrigerator in the kitchen, and feel free to use the phone to call home if you want to check on your kids."

"Thanks, but they'll be fine. My Aunt Elsie is coming to baby-sit for a while."

Matt nodded. He didn't want to leave her. He wanted to stay and talk to her about her kids, her Aunt Elsie, her sorry house. And he wanted to touch her. He wanted to splay his hand against the small of her back, draw her tight against him, and kiss her for a very long time. He wasn't sure why he found her so desirable. Lately, it seemed the women he met were far less interesting than the houses he built. Lizabeth Kane was the exception. Lizabeth Kane seemed like she would be fun. She reminded him of a kid, waiting in line for her first ride on a roller coaster. She had that frightened look of breathless expectation. He thought about the kiss and decided it might be considered job harassment. He'd been called a lot of things in his thirty-four years. He didn't want to add "sexist pig" to the list. "Well," he said, "if you need me just give a holler." For lack of a better gesture he gave her a light punch in the arm and left her alone with her can of paint.

Two hours later Matt looked in on Lizabeth. She'd made her way up to the second floor, and she was happily singing the theme song from Snow White.

"Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to work we go…" Lizabeth sang as she swiped at the woodwork on her hands and knees.

"Which one are you?" Matt asked. "Dopey? Doc? Sneezy? Sexy?"

Lizabeth stood and cocked an eyebrow. "There's no dwarf named Sexy."

Matt searched his mind. "Are you sure?"

"Trust me on this."

She had paint on her arms, her jeans, her shoes. It was in her hair, splattered on the front of her shirt, and she had a smudge running the length of her cheek. Matt couldn't keep a grin from surfacing. "You're a mess." He reached out and touched a drooping curl. "You have paint in your hair." He'd meant to keep his touch light, his voice casual and teasing, but his hand lingered. His fingertip traced a line down her temple to just below her ear, and desire flared unexpectedly between them.

Lizabeth heard her own breath catch in her throat when he stepped closer. She was scared to death he was going to kiss her, and scared to death that he wouldn't. They watched each other for a long moment, assessing the attraction.

Matt had always felt fairly competent at second-guessing women-until this moment. He didn't want to make any mistakes with Lizabeth Kane. He didn't want to come on too strong or too fast and frighten her away. And he didn't want to make working conditions awkward. And besides that, she was a mother. He'd never before been involved with a mother. In his eyes motherhood was in the same category as a PhD in physics. It was outside his sphere of knowledge. It was intimidating. And the thought of bedding someone's mother-felt a smidgeon irreverent. Not enough to stop him, he thought ruefully. Just enough to slow him down. He considered asking her out, but the words stuck in his throat.

He was standing very close to her with his fingertip barely skimming the smooth, warm line of her jaw. He'd heard the brief intake of breath at his touch and wondered if it was an indication of desire or distress. Perhaps he'd just caught her by surprise. Probably she thought he was a dunce to be standing here with his heart on his sleeve. He dropped his hand and managed a small smile. "You have some paint on your cheek."

Lizabeth blinked at him. "I thought you were going to kiss me."

Matt grimaced. "I was thinking about it, but I chickened out."

She could identify with that. She'd backed away from a lot of frightening situations in the past ten years. Now she was trying to broaden her horizons, get some courage, assert herself. It wasn't easy.

Well, what the heck, Lizabeth thought, this was a new age for women. There was no reason in the world why she had to wait for yellow-belly here to kiss her. There was nothing written in stone that said he had to be the aggressor. She took a deep breath, grabbed him by the shirt front, pulled him to her, and planted a kiss on his perfect lips.

There was no response. Matt Hallahan stood like a wooden Indian with his arms at his sides, his lips slightly parted-in shock, rather than passion-his eyes open wide. Lizabeth checked him to make sure he wasn't hyperventilating and kissed him again. The first kiss had been sheer bravado. The second was much more indulgent. Lizabeth took her time on the second kiss. She slid her hands up the front of his shirt, enjoying the feel of hard muscle, until the tips of her fingers tangled in his blond hair and her thumbs brushed along the lobes of his ears. She kissed him lightly, tentatively. She parted her lips and kissed him again with more insistence.

Matt's reaction was guarded. There were at least twenty men wandering around on the job site with easy access to the colonial. Howie was downstairs, installing a chair rail in the dining room, and Zito was hanging cabinets in the kitchen. Men's bodies weren't designed to conceal emotion, Matt acknowledged. Any second now he was going to do his Hulk imitation-the part where the Hulk's body swells up so big it rips right out of its clothes. This didn't seem like a good time for that to happen, so he placed his hands on Lizabeth's waist and gently pushed her away. "This is a little embarrassing…"

Lizabeth snapped her eyes open, made a small, strangled sound in her throat, and smoothed her moist hands on the front of her jeans. Don't panic, she told herself. You just threw yourself at a man who obviously didn't want to catch you. It's not the end of the world. You read the signs wrong. No big deal. In twenty or thirty years, you'll get over it. "Well, I guess that didn't work out, huh? It's okay; I mean, I can handle rejection."

"You think I rejected you?"

"I'm sort of new at this. I don't date much. In fact, I don't date at all. And the problem is I want to be a fairy…"

He pulled her to him with enough force to make her breath catch in her throat, and before she could recover, his mouth claimed hers in a kiss that left no doubt about the extent of his desire. Raw passion, hot and hard, arrowed into her as his tongue swept hers and his hands crushed her against him.

He broke from the kiss and held her at arm's length, taking a moment to let his pulse rate slow. "Would you like me to spell it out?"

"Nope. Not necessary. I think I've got it put together." She licked lips that felt scorched and swollen. "Maybe it would be a good idea to talk about this later… when my ears stop ringing."

Two

Billy and Jason Kane had their noses pressed to the living room window when Elsie pulled up in her powder-blue '57 Cadillac.

"Holy cow," Jason said, "did you ever see a car like that? It's bigger than our garage. It's awesome."

Billy rolled his eyes back in his head. "Man, this is gonna be embarrassing."

Elsie parked in the driveway and shook her head at the house. Lizabeth was her favorite niece. She was bright and honest and tenderhearted to a fault. She was not especially practical, though. As a little girl she'd never allowed reality to get in the way of her imagination. And from the looks of her house, she hadn't changed much. The gray paint was peeling down to bare wood, and shutters hung at odd angles. One had fallen off completely and lay on the ground. Elsie looked up to the eaves, half expecting to see bats roosting. While she was studying the eaves, a squirrel jumped from a three-story oak tree onto the shake roof. Several pieces of the roof broke loose and came skittering down, crashing onto the ground. The squirrel slid along with the rotted cedar shakes until it reached the galvanized gutter, where it clung for dear life. The gutter broke loose from its moorings and swung free at one end, hurtling the squirrel into space for about twenty feet before it safely landed in an overgrown lilac bush. "Next time stay off of the roof," Elsie shouted at the squirrel. "Damn pea-brained rodent." She wrestled two huge suitcases out of the Caddy's backseat and headed for the front door.