The streetlamp glowed on his ruddy cheeks and snow-dusted hair, but he looked at her with a fierce glow in his eyes. A blister-cold night suddenly warmed. A lonely heart was tempted…or, Daisy corrected herself, a lonely heart would have been tempted by the promise in those wonderful, sexy, warm eyes if she didn’t know better.

She wasn’t going to repeat the same mistakes. She couldn’t possibly have fallen in love at first sight-or first night-not the kind of love that could conceivably work. It didn’t matter what her heart told her. Her heart had been dead wrong before.

“You came from inside the café? It looked all closed up and locked down to me. I never thought Harry kept it open past the afternoon hours,” he said in confusion.

“You’re right, the café’s closed. I’m living in the apartment above it.”

He glanced up. “I didn’t even realize there was an apartment up there.” He opened his mouth as if intending to question her further, but then he looked at her again. Really looked. She had the shivery feeling he would like to swallow her up, because his gaze seemed like a vacuum that sucked in every tiny detail and kept it. “You look terrific.”

“Why, thank you, kind sir.”

“Only, you look too darn terrific for any restaurant this town can offer.”

“Trust me,” she said wryly, “you can afford me.”

She recognized where he was driving-McCutcheon’s, the best restaurant in White Hills-and diverted him to a fast-food burger place instead. He looked tired, her one-time lover. Fit and full of hell and more than capable of causing her a great deal of trouble, but still, tired.

“Your head’s okay? All recovered from that major bump?” she asked him a few minutes later-while stealing another of his French fries. It was the first time she’d seen him in clothes, she realized. He hadn’t been naked the whole time during the blizzard, but when she’d first found him knocked out, he’d been in work duds. Tonight he wore dark cords and a dark sweater with a Nordic pattern. Nothing fancy, still practical, but good clothes that looked more than good on him.

Daisy couldn’t name a single item in her wardrobe that qualified as practical, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t admire someone with traits she didn’t have.

“Actually, the sheriff insisted I go to a doctor, and the doctor decided I’d had a concussion. Like this was meaningful, to have a new definition for a headache.”

“And the ankle?”

“Aw, that. Not worth mentioning. I’ve still got it taped, but that’s just because I’m a sissy.”

“Excuse me.” She stood up, her hand slapped over her heart. “We need to broadcast to greater America that a man in the universe just admitted he was a sissy.”

He just grinned-and threw a French fry at her.

“So it was sprained, huh?”

“Just a little sprain.”

“Even little sprains hurt like a bear.”

“You know?”

She nodded. “I fell off a boat one time, hit an ankle. It was one of my more graceful moves.”

“Did someone get a photograph? Because I don’t believe this story about you not being graceful.”

She stopped dipping fries in the ketchup. She knew charm. All too well. But there wasn’t charm in his voice, only honesty, and that gentle, honest compliment put an itch in her heart.

That’s all it was, though.

An itch.

The itch was bad. Downright unignorable and unforgettable-but still, no worse than a mosquito bite. She could get past it. What she wasn’t sure she could cope with was getting through a more serious conversation, but she sucked in a breath for courage and determined to try. “Teague, you have to be wondering what I was doing in the café-”

“Actually, I was hoping you’d help me with my swatch problem.”

Daisy hesitated. She’d thought his swatch question was a joke-Teague’s making up an excuse to have dinner with her. She’d been positive that if he found her again, he’d ask for an explanation of why she’d disappeared after the blizzard and made no effort to contact him.

The truth was, she’d wanted to. Fiercely. She’d had to work on it every day, giving herself emotional pep talks, exercising her hard heart muscle-or trying to develop one. She was in no position to take on any guy, much less one in White Hills. She’d fooled herself before, about thinking a man was right for her. She shouldn’t make too much of a one-night encounter. It was the blizzard. A wild moment in time. But that’s all.

So she’d told herself.

But looking at him now, laughing with him over ketchup and burgers and fries, she knew why she’d really hidden away. She’d been afraid to see him again. Afraid she’d feel like this. Happy. Lifted up. Her hormones all asizzle and her pulse thumping like a puppy’s tail, just to be with him. “The swatch?” she echoed.

“Yeah. Would you mind coming with me? Seeing the Cochran house, the project I’m working on?”

“Come with you?” she parroted blankly.

“It’s in town. Just three blocks over. I just want to ask your advice. We could be in and out in ten minutes.”

She opened her mouth to say no, but that just seemed cowardly and dumb. What possible harm could it do to spend a few more minutes together, especially at some kind of torn-up construction site? “Okay,” she said.

Six

Teague railroaded her to the front porch of the Cochran house before she could balk-although she was thinking about it. “Teague, we can’t just walk into someone’s place.”

“We’re not going to just walk in.” He rapped hard on the door, rang the bell, then stuck in a key and yelled out a yoo-hoo.

“Teague-”

“They know I come in at all hours. They want to get the job done, so they gave me a key. Just hold up for a second so I can tell them you’re with me this time.”

He bolted up a staircase before she could respond. So she stood there, feeling ill-at-ease in a stranger’s house-even if she did know the Cochran name from her childhood-and more restless than a wet cat in a downpour.

Teague was being easy to be with. Too easy. He hadn’t asked why she was living over the café. Why she hadn’t contacted him after the blizzard. Surely he was going to ask some difficult questions sooner or later?

He bounded back down the stairs, carrying his jacket this time and making a motion for her to hand over hers. “They’re home. They’re happy we’re here, and they’re even happier that I brought someone to give me some advice.”

“You’re talking about the swatch problem advice?”

“Yeah. Come on, so you can see what I’m doing.” He led her through a hall to the back of the stone two-story house. Obviously, the family was living upstairs for now, because the downstairs was too chewed-up to function in. But Daisy sucked in a breath when she saw what he’d been up to.

Even before he switched on a glaring overhead light, she saw the slate walls and white marble fireplace and the shiny dark tiles. It wasn’t like any place she’d seen-not corny country, not citified either, but wonderfully unique without being in-your-face elegant.

“They had beige carpeting in here before. Two cramped little rooms. The fireplace was in the same spot, but it was brick, kind of a dirty red color. It seemed to make good sense to use Vermont white marble, then contrast it with slate-you like?”

“I’m not going to give you compliments for being brilliant. They’d go straight to your head,” she said.

He chuckled. “Okay. So you like it. But now you can see the problem.” He motioned.

On both sides of the fireplace were two huge, new bay windows. The Cochrans’ backyard looked over a ravine, with overgrown woods to the west and a meadow drifting off to the east-a meadow Daisy could so easily imagine in springtime, coming in pale green and then turning lush with wildflowers. “Mrs. Cochran doesn’t want curtains,” she said absently.

“No?”

“I’m assuming that’s why she wanted a swatch, because she thinks she’s supposed to have some kind of draperies. A ‘swatch’ is a piece of fabric so she could see different designs, see how the fabric worked in the room. But she doesn’t want to cover these windows, Teague. There are no neighbors to see in. The view is part of the beauty of the room.” Daisy wandered, touched, looked. “What she’s probably more afraid of is that all these new textures could come across as cold. Attractive, but not warm, not like a home.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And the truth is that the textures are cold. Beautiful, but cold.” She touched the marble fireplace, the slate wall. “The thing she needs to work with, though, is the furniture. No wood, no arms or legs showing. All upholstery. She needs to choose soft fabrics, like ultrasuede or micro fiber. And then colors bright enough to attract the eye-colors with courage. No grays, no colors with gray in the paint. Yellow would warm it up. Or red. Or prints with warm colors. And then she needs a throw rug-just one-round, not rectangular or square. The rug also needs to have some kind of thick texture, like sheepskin or fur or fake fur-something with body and depth…” She could picture it. Her fingers itched to get into the colors, the fabrics, that could make this fabulous room come to life.

“Um, you wouldn’t mind telling Mrs. Cochran this stuff, would you?”

Daisy glanced back at him, startled. “I can’t imagine she’d want to listen to a stranger’s advice. I was just woolgathering to you.”

“Trust me. This is exactly the stuff she wanted me to tell her. Only, I didn’t get it. I understood how to make better use of the space, how to make the view come to life, showcase the fireplace, all that kind of thing. Hell, I love those kinds of problems.”

“And you did fabulously. If this were a room in my house, I’d hang out here and never leave.”

That was obviously too much praise. Whether consciously or unconsciously, he backed away a few steps, looked out at the snow-covered woods. “I like it okay. It isn’t my best. Mostly what I like about carpentry is studying someone’s house, figuring out what works for what they want, what they need, what would make the most of their specific living space. So each job is individual to the person or couple, you know? Except…”