And oh, for God’s sake. Whatever.

“Thanks.” With all the dignity she could muster, she still managed to trip over the rug as she left.

To shave or not to shave. It took him ten minutes to work out that philosophical conundrum. He’d been letting his beard grow, figuring what the hell, but after assessing himself in the bathroom mirror, he decided he looked scruffy. He couldn’t go into town with her looking like a bum. Not if she was going to wear that green thing.

He should take her out to dinner, he thought, lathering his face. The thought made him nervous. Like he was a teenager, asking a hot girl out to a dance. What the fuck was he going to do with her now?

His dick had some very good ideas, but they weren’t practical.

The way she’d talked about the flower she’d seen in the winter garden surprised him. That combination of toughness and a good attitude in the Winter Aconite. She’d seen it. That was rare. Most people saw plants as a commodity, a decoration, a means to an end, if they saw them at all. Not many saw them as entities in their own right.

Yeah, and she was probably a woo-woo earth mama type who would commune naked with nature spirits, or something terrifying like that. Jesus. He had to stop shaving for a minute to process that concept, or else risk nicking an artery. Pathetic, sex-starved mountain man that he was.

It had been so long for him, he didn’t even want to do the math.

Maybe he could make the situation go away by pissing her off until she left in a huff. She was proud, prickly. Shouldn’t be too hard.

He wiped off shaving cream as he pondered that option. Maybe he could make crude sexual advances. Infuriate her into leaving. Duncan would kick his ass, but hey. A man had his limits.

But excitement flooded him at the thought of touching her. Stiff dick, red face, pounding heart. He gripped the sink with both hands, and thought it through.

Bad idea. Too volatile. She might press charges against him for sexual harassment, which would be embarrassing and stupid.

Worse yet, who knew? Maybe she’d reciprocate. God help him then. And there was the danger issue, too. Entirely aside from the evil Nazi art freaks, it was flat-out insane for a tiny woman like that to wander around alone in a fucking van, flaunting her sexy little body right and left. Any ignorant redneck dickhead who saw tattoos and a nose ring would instantly draw his conclusions and make a pass.

Repeat after me, he told himself grimly. Not. Your. Problem.

That would be the mantra for the day.

Vivi opened to Jack’s knock. He’d shaved, and combed his wet hair back off his face. His face was even more striking now that she could see the stark, lean angles of his jaw, his chin.

She suddenly wondered how long she’d been staring.

At the grocery checkout stand in Pebble River, they eyed each other’s choices with open curiosity. She went for fruit, veggies, stuff from the health food section. He was classic in his tastes, and definitely a carnivore, but most of his groceries were real food, not empty junk. Which did not surprise her, when he looked at his body.

Which she did, at absolutely every opportunity. Unreal. So hot.

In the parking lot, he turned to her as soon as he started up the engine. “Let’s get food,” he said.

“Didn’t we just?”

“I mean a restaurant. You like Mexican?”

“Uh, yes,” she admitted. The idea of a plate of steaming, cheese-smothered enchiladas took her by storm.

The meal went smoothly enough, at first. He started by asking her for a rundown of the security situation, so she munched freshly fried tortilla chips with fabulous fresh salsa and regaled him with the long and harrowing tale of Lucia’s death, the necklaces, the abductions of her two sisters, and the evil Ulf Haupt and his nasty, piglike minion, John, both of whom were convinced that the D’Onofrio sisters could reveal the whereabouts of these mysterious lost sketches if sufficiently terrified or tortured. She showed him her necklace, with its emerald V, the last of the trio that Lucia had given them. He squinted at it for a while, from every angle, and handed it back, shaking his head.

“Un-fucking-believable,” was his laconic comment.

“Tell me about it,” she agreed, fervently.

Then he started asking questions about herself. She told him about studying art in New York, and her brief, dizzying burst of artistic success when she signed the contract with Brian’s gallery. She did not mention her personal relationship with Brian, or why she’d broken the contract and run. In fact, she started glossing over more and more details. It was that cool, assessing look in Jack’s eye that shut her up. It bugged her. Like he knew something about her. Or rather, like he’d already made up his mind.

“So, you just left everything you built when it was all going so well, and ran off into the sunset to find yourself?” he asked.

She bristled. “I suppose you could say that, if you were being unkind. I didn’t like the way the gallery management was pushing me around. I decided I’d do better on the road, on the crafts fair circuit, developing my own designs. With nobody breathing down my neck.”

“I guess you must hate that more than anything,” he said.

She frowned, unnerved. “Hate what?”

“Having someone breathing down your neck.”

She frowned at him, pondering that. “Depends on the person,” she said slowly. “And it depends on what they want from me.”

“Doesn’t it always. Did you break any hearts when you ran?”

Vivi’s eyes narrowed. His hidden agenda was rearing its horned, fanged head, big-time. “That sounds like a trick question,” she said. “Personal, too.”

“Just wondering.”

She stared down at her half-eaten enchiladas. Her appetite was fading.

“So you did leave someone,” he said.

Her teeth clenched. “I broke up with the man I was seeing before I left, but I had damn good reason,” she said.

“Yeah? What?”

Well, actually, I found out that he was the devil, she wanted to say, but didn’t, it being none of his damn business. “You have no right to judge me,” she told him.

From there, the conversation went sharply downhill. She did her part, but his responses were terse monosyllables. And his shuttered, glittering stare was starting to unnerve her.

She took a swallow of her margarita, and stared him in the eye. “Look, Mr. Kendrick—”

“Call me Jack.”

“Okay, Jack. Just tell me what’s on your mind, okay?”

His eyebrow tilted up at the corner. “What do you mean?”

Vivi shoved her hair back. “I mean, how you judge me for things you know nothing about. I mean, how uncomfortable you are with me.”

“Is that all?”

She shook her head. “What else would I be talking about?”

“I thought you might be talking about the fact that I’m attracted to you,” he said. “I figured you might have noticed that. It’s kind of hard to miss.”

Vivi’s fork clattered loudly down onto her plate. “Ah…”

“But since you brought it up,” he continued, “I might as well just be honest. You’re right. I’m uncomfortable, for two reasons. The fact that I’m attracted to you is one reason. And the other reason—and I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings—is that you are not the type of woman whom I want to be attracted to. That puts me in a bad place.”

Her mouth dropped. “My…type?” she repeated. “And what type is that? Are you one of those meatheads who think that girls with nose rings and tattoos are automatically promiscuous?”

He waved that impatiently away. “No, that’s not the issue. I’m talking about living in a van, moving around all the time, getting bored easily, and leaving things half done. I don’t want to get involved with someone who’s just passing through. It’s a big waste of time.”

Anger burned in Vivi’s stomach. “Hold on, here. Did I invite you to get sexually involved with me without me noticing it? Or did you just assume that my type is sexually available to everyone?”