“I’m going to have to beg to differ.” He rubbed a hand over his face, jerking it back into the water when he remembered what he was trying not to expose.
Nora just grinned and crossed her legs, swinging the foot that dangled from her other knee. She leaned an elbow on her knee and propped her chin in her hands. And just…watched him.
“Is there something I can help you with?” he asked, and she raised her brows.
“I thought I made it clear there is something I can helpyouwith, if you’d stop being so stubborn. It’s just a tiny little paper that needs one itty-bitty little signature. There’s really no need to keep torturing yourself with jobs you obviously aren’t equipped to perform when you have a perfectly good wife sitting right here.”
He groaned and slid farther into the water. “I don’t know how many other ways I can say this. Thanks, but no thanks. Appreciate the offer, but I decline. Thanks for thinking of me, but stop.”
Her brows drew together as she glowered down at him. “Well, you needn’t be rude about it.”
“All evidence to the contrary,” he muttered and then sighed at the daggers her eyes were throwing at him. “Look, I understand you’re hankering after a husba—”
She held up a hand. “Stop right there.”
He blinked innocently, trying to keep a grin from escaping. Purposely riling her up wasn’t going to do him any favors in the long run, but he just couldn’t seem to help himself. She made it too easy.
“I am not now, nor will Ieverhanker after anybody.” She pursed her lips for a second before continuing with a grumble. “I may need a husband temporarily, but there is no hankering involved.”
He lifted one shoulder from the water with a shrug. “So you say.”
The look she shot him was such a perfect blend of scandalized shock and sheer angry frustration that he couldn’t help but chuckle. “Oh, come now. You say there’s no hankering, yet every time I turn around, there you are, trying to entice me, purloin my virtue.”
“Purl—what?” she nearly screeched. Her jaw dropped, and she slapped a hand to her chest, indignantly horrified. He beamed at her. The woman had no boundaries whatsoever and was becoming a right nuisance, but he was certainly never bored in her presence.
“I have n-never tried to entice you,” she sputtered, “so if you’ve been enticed, that is your own fault. And I’ve certainly neverpurloinedanything, let alone your nonexistent virtue. I am simply trying to do you a favor. And yes,” she said before he could respond, “it would be helping me out as well. But let’s not pretend you are doing so wonderfully on your own. You’ve been in town nearly a week now, which means your time is ticking down. And in that time, you’ve already managed to lose two jobs. Your horse could probably do better.”
Adam snorted. “You don’t know my horse very well. He barely manages to haul me around without falling over. And those jobs are harder than they look,” he said, grumbling.
She cocked an eyebrow, obviously not buying it. “Be that as it may,” she said, thankfully not arguing his dubious point, “you are down to a little more than three weeks before you hit your thirty days. Seems to me it would be a lot easier on everyone if you would just accept the marriage and sign the papers. It doesn’t have to be forever. Just think of it as…a temporary solution to both our problems.”
He really didn’t appreciate her making sense and tempting him with logic and an easy way out.
“First of all, marriage isn’t a temporary anything. It’s a forever kind of thing. Which is why I avoid it at all costs. I’m not a forever kind of man. Besides, if I ever went and got a divorce, my sainted mother would turn in her grave.”
Nora’s expression immediately melted into one of sympathy. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” he asked, frowning at the interruption to his train of thought.
“For…your mother. Losing her. How long has it been since she died?”
“Oh, she’s not dead, but this whole situation will absolutely kill her.”
Nora gasped and sputtered some mostly incoherent and decidedly colorful language at him before leaning forward to swipe a fistful of water in his face. He lifted his hands to guard his face with a laugh, and thenhegasped, slamming his hands back into the water to cover himself.
“Why do you want me to sign those papers so badly?” he asked, staring at her like he could pull the information directly from her brain, since she didn’t seem inclined to offer it up. “You said yourself you don’t want a husband, so why shackle yourself with one? Especially one who does not want to be one.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I said I have my reasons.”
He opened his mouth to ask yet again what those were, but she pushed on before he could. “Look, despite how it seems, I get why you’re asking. I’d be asking, too. But it’s not really something I can share right now. All you really need to know is that this marriage solves your problem just as well as it solves mine. You get what you need—your ticket to staying in town. Heck, you’ll even earn a place to stay, since it would be mighty odd if my husband were living in the boardinghouse rather than with me.”
Adam slowly sat up, though he took care to keep his hands beneath the water. He let his gaze rove over her still-bouncing foot and up her tightly muscled body before finally locking on her eyes.
Her foot stopped bouncing, and she straightened, watching him like he was a predator stalking her in the grass. Rich, considering she was the one with all the indecent proposals. Then again…he let his gaze skate over her again. This time her eyes narrowed, but he didn’t miss the fine tremor that went through her body at his obvious interest.
“I’ll admit, there are certain aspects of what you’re proposing that I might be on board with,” he said, giving her a slow grin that had her cheeks flaming.
She held up a hand to stop him again. “I didn’t propose anything of the sort.”
