NRoberts - G1 Blue Dahlia

The Fields job had strong possibilities. The woman ran that roost and had very specific ideas. Since he liked and agreed with most of them, he was eager to put some of them on paper, expand or refine them.

And since it turned out that Marsha's cousin on her mother's side was Logan's second cousin on his father's, the consult had taken longer than it might have, and had progressed cheerfully.

It didn't hurt that she was bound to send more work his way.

He took the last curve of the road to his house in a pleasant frame of mind, which darkened considerably when he saw Stella's car parked behind his.

He didn't want to see her now. He hadn't worked things out in his head, and she'd just muck up

whatever progress he'd made. He wanted a shower and a beer, a little quiet. Then he wanted to eat his dinner with ESPN in the background and his work spread out on the kitchen table.

There just wasn't room in that scenario for a woman.

He parked, fully intending to shake her off. She wasn't in the car, or on the porch. He was trying to determine if going to bed with him gave a woman like her the notion that she could waltz into his house when he wasn't there. Even as he'd decided it wouldn't, not for Stella, he heard the watery hiss of his own garden hose.

Shoving his hands in his pockets, he wandered around the side of the house.

She was on the patio, wearing snug gray pants—the sort that stopped several inches above the ankle—and a loose blue shirt. Her hair was drawn back in a bright, curling tail, which for reasons he couldn't explain he found desperately sexy. As the sun had burned its way through the clouds, she'd shaded her eyes with gray-tinted glasses.

She looked neat and tidy, careful to keep her gray canvas shoes out of the wet.

"It rained today," he called out.

She kept on soaking his pots. "Not enough."

She finished the job, released the sprayer on the hose, but continued to hold it as she turned to face

him. "I realize you have your own style, and your own moods, and that's your business. But I won't

be spoken to the way you spoke to me today. I won't be treated like some silly female who calls her boyfriend in the middle of the workday to coo at him, or like some anal business associate who

interrupts you to harangue you about details. I'm neither."

"Not my girlfriend or not my business associate?"

He could see, quite clearly, the way her jaw tightened when she clenched her teeth. "If and when

I contact you during the workday, it will be for a reason. As it most certainly was this morning."

She was right, but he didn't have to say so. "We got the Fields job."

"Hooray."

He bit the inside of his cheek to hold back the grin at her sour cheer. "I'll be working up a design for

her, with a bid. You'll get a copy of both. That suit you?"

"It does. What doesn't—"

"Where are the kids?"

It threw her off stride. "My father and his wife picked them up from school today. They're having

dinner there, and spending the night, as I have a birthing class with Hayley later."

"What time?"

"What time what?"

"Is the class?"

"At eight-thirty. I'm not here for small talk, Logan, or to be placated. I feel very strongly that—" Her

eyes widened, then narrowed as she stepped back. He'd stepped forward, and there was no mistaking

the tone of that slow smile.

"Don't even think about it. I couldn't be less interested in kissing you at the moment."

"Then I'll kiss you, and maybe you'll get interested."

"I mean it." She aimed the hose like a weapon. "Just keep your distance. I want to make myself

perfectly clear."

"I'm getting the message. Go ahead and shoot," he invited. "I sweated out a gallon today, I won't mind

a shower."

"Just stop it." She danced back several steps as he advanced. "This isn't a game, this isn't funny."

"I just get stirred right up when your voice takes on that tone."

"I don't have a tone."

"Yankee schoolteacher. I'm going to be sorry if you ever lose it." He made a grab, and instinctively

she tightened her fist on the nozzle. And nailed him.

The spray hit him mid-chest and had a giggle bubbling out of her before she could stop it. "I'm not

going to play with you now. I'm serious, Logan."

Dripping, he made another grab, feinted left. This time she squealed, dropped the hose, and ran.

He snagged her around the waist, hauled her off her feet at the back end of the patio. Caught somewhere between shock and disbelief, she kicked, wiggled, then lost her breath as she landed on the grass on top

of him.

"Let me go, you moron."

"Don't see why I should." God, it felt good to be horizontal. Better yet to have her horizontal with him. "Here you are, trespassing, watering my pots, spouting off lectures." He rolled, pinning her. "I ought to

be able to do what I want on my own land."

"Stop it. I haven't finished fighting with you."

"I bet you can pick it up where you left off." He gave her a playful nip on the chin, then another.

"You're wet, you're sweaty, I'm getting grass stains on my—"