One Good Man by Alison Kent Read Free Book Online Page B

when the fantasy and the reality collided. She stopped on the top of the three concrete steps that led from her driveway into her kitchen; the screen door bounced against her rump because she had yet to move. The room smelled like heaven. She rarely cooked. She was one person, easily pleased with a sandwich, and she hated the heat of the stove. But the smell was only half the picture.
    The real picture was Kell.
    He’d taken over her kitchen. He was tall; his boots made him taller. She’d seen his jeans and white dress shirt before, but this was different. He was in her house, cooking, his long sleeves cuffed up his forearms. He had nice forearms, dusted with dark hair, muscled, a road map of veins in relief beneath his skin.
    His hands were large, dwarfing the slotted spoon he held as he lifted home-cut fries from a skillet to drain. He salted them, peppered them, added garlic and what looked like paprika, but could just as easily have been cayenne.
    He opened the oven door then, and slid two steaks beneath the broiler before pulling a big bowl of tossed salad from the fridge. That was when he turned, when he killed her with his smile, and with his eyes that twinkled like the stars over the mountains at night.
    “Looks like I timed things pretty well.”
    He had. Perfectly. She came the rest of the way into the kitchen and shut the door on the heat of the day. The heat in the kitchen she could handle. As long as she kept it in the kitchen, and didn’t start wondering if Kell was as clever in the bedroom. She was a spinster, remember? And he wasn’t here to have sex.
    Before she could do more than set her bag on the antique washbasin where she kept her keys and her cell charger, and where she dropped the day’s mail, Kell had returned to her cupboards for salad bowls, dinner plates, and grabbed knives and forks from the right drawer without second-guessing.
    Just as if he lived here. Just as if he’d been the one to decide where things would go.
    She arched a brow, tried not to show all of the appreciation she was feeling. She couldn’t let herself get comfortable having him here when it was only for one night. “I see you’ve made yourself at home.”
    “Only in the kitchen. I swear,” he said, giving her a wink before turning back to the broiler and the steaks. “Well, I did use the facilities, but I washed my hands and aimed true.”
    Oh God. He was cute, and funny, made jokes at his own expense, and confident enough to take over her kitchen without asking. She really needed to stop noticing, to remember he was a Ranger sergeant and here for only one thing. And that one thing wasn’t dinner, nor was it her.
    She headed for the fridge and the pitcher of tea there, was reaching for two plastic tumblers in the cupboard when she and Kell touched. He turned from the stove with the basket of home fries. She took a step in the same direction at the same time, and he reached to stop her from tripping over his feet.
    It was nothing but his hand on her arm, his thumb brushing her breast accidentally, yet she felt the shock of electricity deep in her core, saw the same jolt spark in his eyes. She wanted to shake it off, to smile and put the tea on the table, to talk about the weather or the case. He still held her, however, his fingers flexing, as if he didn’t know how to let her go, and when he finally did, she sensed regret.
    “Sorry about that.” He set the fries on the table, and made sure to step around her when he went back to turn the steaks. “I’m used to navigating a one-man kitchen.”
    She gathered herself close. “Hey, at least you’re navigating. I don’t do much more than make a beeline through the room to the door.”
    “You don’t cook?” he asked, closing the broiler.
    “How much of what we’re about to eat, and thank you for that—” she stopped to add along with a nod “—did you have to go out and buy?”
    He laughed. “All of it. Well, not the ketchup. Or the salad