One Night With You
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“Where do you live?” he asked her. “I’d better carry this for you, because I’m not sure I’m up to sliding around to pick this stuff up again.”
“I don’t know how to thank you. I’d probably still be trying to get up.”
“It was my pleasure. Best exercise I’ve had in a while.”
She opened her front door, and he put the bags on the floor in the foyer beside the door. “I’m Kendra Rutherford, and I just moved here.”
“I’m Reid Maguire, and I live in that apartment building across the street from here. Nice to meet you.” He turned and left, and she realized that he had shown absolutely no interest in developing a friendship with her. What a letdown!
Reid Maguire didn’t talk much, and he never spoke if silence would suffice. He didn’t know Kendra Rutherford, and his reaction to her was none of her business. If he’d learned anything, it was the virtue of feeding a good-looking, sexy woman with a long-handled spoon, as it were, so as to keep as much distance as possible between him and her. Kendra Rutherford might not be an aggressive man-eater, but her reaction to him was the same as his to her, and that spelled trouble.
There might not be another woman on earth like Myrna, his ex-wife, but he didn’t intend to start testing that theory. He’d had it with women, and he didn’t want one cluttering up his life pretending that she loved him, when she only loved what he could give her. At the moment when he had needed his wife most, she had walked out on him.
Tomorrow, he would begin work as an assistant with the architectural firm Marks and Connerly, Architects, Ltd. He didn’t intend to spread information about his former status. If his new colleagues guessed or knew who he was, so be it; if not, he didn’t care. He was back in his chosen field, and he meant to make the most of it.
But he was not to have the benefit of anonymity. “I’ve been doing some research on you, Reid,” Jack Connerly, the senior partner, told him when they met, “and I think we hit the jackpot when we hired you. We’ve contracted to design an airport terminal in Caution Point, about thirty miles from here. Would you like the job?”
“I’m stunned. How many enemies in the firm will this get me?”
“Who knows? Do you want it?”
“Absolutely. I’d like to see the site, but I don’t have a car.”
“You can take a company car. Make a list of what you need to work with and give it to the supply clerk. Your expenses are covered up to three fifty per day, excluding transportation, and you can’t put alcohol on your tab.”
“Thanks. I’ll give you two or three sketches.”
“Great. It’s good to have you with us. Your office is two doors down on the right.”
Reid walked down to the end of the hall and back. There were sixteen offices, eight on each side of the corridor, and only one office separated his from that of the senior partner. So far, so good. They weren’t paying him what he was worth, but when he finished the design of that airport terminal, they would.
In the drugstore about three blocks from his apartment, where he stopped in the hope of finding a felt-tipped pen, he bumped into Kendra, almost knocking her down.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m not usually this clumsy.”
“It was my fault. I hope I didn’t hurt you.” He allowed himself a smile, and headed for the aisle in which he’d previously found unlined tablets large enough for drawing, though he would have preferred bigger ones. Seeing no pens of any kind, he walked around until he’d satisfied himself that he wouldn’t find them in that store, and that he’d have to wait till the supply clerk at Marks and Connerly filled his order. As he started for the door, he noticed Kendra struggling with a large container of liquid soap and a few other items. After counseling himself to pretend he didn’t see her, because he didn’t want any involvement with her, he walked over to her.
“Let me help you with that. I hope your car is around there in the parking lot.”
“It is. Thank you.”
He lifted the container of liquid soap. “Did you think you could carry this?”
“I was hoping that I could.”
“Uh-huh. Come on.”
Kendra’s eyebrows shot up. The man’s attitude was as masculine as his looks and aura. His “come on” was nothing short of a command. She walked with him to the car, not in obedience but in gratitude for not having to carry that heavy load.
“You’re very kind to me, Mr. Maguire.”
“It’s the way I was raised. I’ll ride home with you.”
He made no effort to be ingratiating, she saw, and she appreciated that. It had begun to dawn on her that Reid Maguire knew who he was and didn’t have a need to curry favor or to shine up to anyone. Well, neither did she.
She parked in front of her house, opened the trunk of her car and, unwilling to wait for him to do it, walked around to remove her purchases. When she got to the trunk, Reid Maguire stood beside it with both hands on his hips. She glanced up at him and felt as if she would shrink beneath the assault of his withering stare.
“If you’ll go ahead and open your door, Ms. Ruther ford, I’ll bring these things in for you.”
“Thanks, Mr. Maguire.” She did as he suggested, feeling as if she’d had a parental tongue lashing. She was not used to his kind of man. Besides, she didn’t expect men to do things for her just because she was a woman.
“Where do you keep this?” he asked, referring to the big container of liquid soap.
“In the laundry room, but that’s down in the basement.”
“Ms. Rutherford—”
She held up her hands, palms out. “All right. All right. On that shelf to your left, please.”
He put the soap on the shelf, came back upstairs and headed for the front door without saying anything.
“Mr. Maguire!” She spoke sharply, and he stopped, turned and looked at her with an expression that questioned her impudence. “Sorry, but I wanted to get your attention. Thank you for helping me. You were raised to be gracious. So was I, and I’d appreciate it if you would at least accept a cup of coffee or tea, or a glass of milk, in case you don’t drink tea or coffee.”