“Let’s skip all the crap,” he suggested. “And get right to the part where you express your gratitude for my rescue.”

  She pushed his hand away from her mouth. Her lips tingled at the loss of his touch. “I most definitely do not need rescuing.”

  “Really? You’re going to walk home then?”

  She studied the sky with great intensity, hoping he’d just vanish because it was easier than swallowing pride.

  “Have it your way,” he said after a moment. “See you back at the lake. Whenever you get there. Did I mention it was twenty-two miles from here to there?” With that, he turned on his heel and started walking away.

  “Wait!” she cried, then watched him stop and slowly turn to face her. “Okay, I need a ride to Truckee. But not a rescue. Let’s be clear on that.”

  Leaning against his truck, he crossed his arms. “Oh, you’ll have to do much better.”

  “Or what? You’ll leave me out here? I don’t think so.”

  A blast of wind hit her, raising the skirt on her dress. Before she managed to shove it down, a passing truck honked in appreciation. “Oh, sure, now people notice me standing here,” she fumed, trying to keep her dress down and her hair out of her face at the same time.

  “Maybe he could give you a ride,” Tanner said, unmoved.

  “A ride from you will do,” she said between her teeth.

  He didn’t move.

  “What are we waiting for?”

  He just stood there.

  “Tanner!”

  “I was hoping you could ask me nicely. Maybe even lift your thumb and smile hopefully, like you did for that other guy before I pulled over.”

  She gaped at him.

  His smile went positively wicked, making her stomach leap. “And if you wanted to wait for another breeze to lift your skirt again and show off those pretty pink panties you’re wearing, I wouldn’t mind one little bit.”

  “You’re sick,” she declared, storming around the side of his truck, slamming the door after she plopped into the passenger seat. “Really sick.”

  “Just a thought.” He started the truck and took a quick look at her. Better. She had some color in her cheeks and she didn’t look close to tears anymore. In fact, she looked downright furious.

  She wouldn’t thank him for that, but he was relieved. If she’d broken down and cried, he wouldn’t have known what to do. Tears always baffled him, especially when he was the only one around to soothe them.

  Not that holding her against his chest, running his hands up and down her slim back would have been a hardship. But he’d gotten quite the view of what she had beneath that skirt. Hips that begged for his hands to grip them. Creamy thighs meant for openmouthed kisses. And what those pink panties covered made his mouth water.

  Holding her now would be a definite mistake. It would take her about one second to realize he had more in mind than mere comfort.

  “Who’s Dimi?” he asked.

  “My…sister.”

  “You don’t seem too certain.”

  She let out a tight smile. “She is. She’s just…a lot like me,” she finished lamely. “I don’t like to talk about it.”

  Big surprise. “Did you really have seven stepmothers?”

  She turned on him, horrified. “You listened to the entire conversation?”

  “Your entire conversation with yourself, yes, I listened. Which is why I’m here right now.”

  “Oh.” She sat back. “Yeah.”

  “So…do you?”

  “Have seven stepmothers? No. I don’t think Brandy, Lulu or Cherry qualify as stepmothers, as they’re the same age as I am.”

  “And have bigger boobs.”

  She ignored that. “My dad lives in Europe, so I didn’t see much of them, anyway.”

  He glanced at her and saw past the little smile that was supposed to assure him she didn’t care. He saw a woman who’d probably never had half the love and support from her father that he’d had. He wondered where he’d be without it, and figured maybe he’d be far worse off than having gone out on a stupid blind date. “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t you dare feel sorry for me,” she growled. “I’m sure lots of people had pole-dancing stepmothers, and fathers who forgot their birthdays and mothers who set them up with dates from hell who ditch them in a broken-down car for the night.”

  “Cami—”

  “Say one more word and I’ll slug you.”

  The silence grew, except for the loud, pulsing rock on his radio. When the song ended, a commercial for one of the big phone companies came on. A soft, warm voice told everyone if they were under eighteen and wanted to call home, they could call collect. Free. They could mend fences, speak to a loved one, get help without cash.

  The ad was purposely designed to tug at the heartstrings, to let everyone know how much this phone company cared to offer such a service. It was a bunch of baloney, in Tanner’s humble opinion, because the only the thing they really cared about was their bottom line.

  And yet from the passenger seat came a suspicious sniff.

  Accusingly he turned his head and found to his horror that her eyes had filled.

  “Oh, no,” he said.

  “Shut up.”

  “It was just a commercial!”

  “I know.” She sniffed again, swiped at her cheek and glared at him. “Don’t you say a darn word. I’m just hungry and cold and…and I have to go to the bathroom!” With that, she burst into tears.

  “Dammit!” He pulled over to the side of the road and stared at her. “I don’t have any tissues.”

  She used the shirt he’d given her, his shirt, wiping both her eyes and her nose. “Just dr—drive.”

  Oh, sure. Just drive. He could no more do that than shoot off his own foot. “Come here,” he said, resigned, and unhooking her seat belt, he pulled her against him.

  She was as warm and soft as he’d feared. More. “I’m sorry about last night,” he murmured into her hair, which tickled his nose. “If I’d have known sooner, I would have been there.” To avoid hair up his nose, he shifted so they were cheek to cheek and tried not to notice how wonderful she smelled. “I can’t believe he left you by yourself.” He knew exactly what could have happened to her, and it turned his blood cold. “I think we should look good old Ted up so I can slug him.”

  He felt her watery smile. She burrowed closer, and his hands tightened on her back as he ordered them to stay still. What they really wanted was to do some roaming. Serious roaming.

  “I’m not crying because of him.”

  Whoa. Having her talk against his skin, having her lips slide over his flesh… Not good. “Um, Cami?”

  “And I’m not crying because I had to sleep in his car,” she said, winding her arms around his neck and pressing closer to his body. “Which is really uncomfortable, by the way.”

  She was nearly in his lap, but she was still shivering, so he didn’t have the heart to push her away. He suffered from the biggest erection he’d ever had in utter horny silence.

  Then she lifted her huge, wet eyes to his. “It was the commercial,” she admitted. “Those long-distance commercials always make me cry.”

  Her mouth was a fraction of an inch from his, and he found himself leaning toward it until what she said sunk in. Long-distance commercials made her cry.

  She rescued spiders.

  She wanted everyone around her to be happy, to the point of risking her own neck on a stupid blind date. She was sweet, whimsical and funny.

  And she was his biggest nightmare, because not only was his body clearly attracted to her, she would be higher maintenance than any woman he’d ever met.

  And any woman he’d ever met had complained about his maintenance habits.

  6

  CAMI TRIED to forget what happened.

  Denny’s. Being ditched by Ted. Then rescued by Tanner. How she’d mortified herself afterward by crying all over him.

  And she might have managed, if she could have just forgotten how she’d felt in Tanner’s arms.

  Amazing. Special. Cherished.

  It left her speechless even now, a full day later.

  She was in bed—which was really the couch, smack in the middle of the living room—the blankets pulled over her head so she couldn’t hear Tanner, who had the radio blaring and tools banging at the other end of the town house. It wasn’t even eight in the morning.

  The phone rang, and though she wanted to ignore it, a client might be calling, and clients couldn’t be ignored. Neither of them. Not if she wanted to eat something that wasn’t out of a can his month. Reaching from her perch on the couch, she fumbled around on the floor for the phone, grabbing it just as she stretched too far.

  And fell to the floor.

  Tangled in blankets, hair in her face, she decided against fighting like a beached whale and lay still. “Hello,” she said into the phone, eyes still closed as she discovered the floor wasn’t so uncomfortable.

  “Cami. It’s Ted.”

  Well, that ruined her tranquillity in nothing flat.

  “Cami?”

  “Hold on, Ted, I’m deciding whether to hang up or yell at you.”

  “I’m sorry. I just wanted to—”

  Before Cami could hear what he just wanted to do, the phone was yanked out of her hand. Blinking her bleary eyes open, she saw Tanner standing over her in jeans and that tool belt, grimly holding the phone to his ear. “Ted. This is Tanner James.

  You don’t know me, but I’m Cami’s—” His gaze dipped to Cami, and she would have sworn his eyes heated to sizzling before his lashes came down and shuttered them from her. “Business associate,” he finally said. He listened politely for a long moment, during which time Cami didn’t breathe.

  She wondered what Ted could be saying, but then Tanner put her wondering to rest.

  “So this is all a misunderstanding, you say? That you left a woman—your date—alone in a broken-down car on a deserted strip of highway in order to hitch a ride with another beautiful woman who offered… What was that she offered, Ted? Dessert? Even though you’d already had it?… Uh-huh, I see. You risked Cami’s life for a slice of pumpkin pie. Nice move, Ted.”

  He listened again. “No, that pathetic apology won’t work. You know what? Let’s get to the point here. My point. Basically, you’re slime. A real bottom feeder. And if you call here again, if you come here, if you even so much as think about her, I’m going to find you and beat the shit out of you. Do you understand, Ted?”

  “Tanner!” Cami gasped, trying to sit up, but not only was a blanket wrapped around her as if she were a stuffed sausage, Tanner leaned over and casually stepped on the edge of it.

  Surely he hadn’t done that on purpose. She tugged.

  In response, he set his other foot on the blanket, as well, and looked at her from beneath those lowered lashes.

  “No,” he said firmly into the phone. “You’re right. You must have gotten the wrong phone number. No problem, Ted.” You could only call what he did then smiling, because he bared his teeth. “Goodbye.” And with shocking politeness given what he’d just said, he clicked the phone off and tossed it to the couch.

  “What was that about?” she demanded, struggling to free herself, to no avail.

  “Oh, it’s just some caveman technique a woman wouldn’t care to understand.” He hunkered down beside her, careful to leave a booted foot on her blanket so she was still wrapped tighter than a pretzel. He studied her for a long moment, making her aware of things, such as the fact she had on no makeup, and that her hair was undoubtedly out of control, and that she hadn’t yet brushed her teeth.

  “You okay?” he eventually asked.

  “You’re stepping on my blanket.”

  “I meant did you get enough sleep? You must have been tired after the night before.”

  Short of reading his mind, she had no idea what the hell he was thinking. His eyes were guarded, his expression neutral. But she could have sworn she heard genuine concern in that low voice of his. “Funny time to worry about how much sleep I got, you’ve been banging around for hours.”

  “But I’ve been banging with consideration,” he said. A slight smile softened his features. Then his gaze dipped down and heated, leading her to believe he could see right through her blanket to the large T-shirt and men’s boxers she’d worn to bed.

  “I’m not naked under here,” she said. “You know, just in case you were wondering.”

  “A guy can hope,” he said huskily.

  “What would you have said to Ted if he’d said that to me?”

  Tanner had the good grace to laugh, and surged to his feet. “You still have that other stupid blind date tonight? With your client’s son?”

  The thought made her want to groan and cover her head again. “I need that client.”

  “Enough to go through another Ted?”

  “There can’t be another Ted.”

  “Honey, beneath our masks of civility, all of us males are Teds.”

  “You mean all men like buffets?”

  “Of different types,” he said cryptically.

  “What does that mean?”

  “Not all of us get excited over food, but we’re all reduced to basic stupidity when it comes to our weaknesses. Ted’s weakness just happened to be food.”

  “What’s yours?”

  “Ah, that would be telling.”

  With that, he walked away, leaving her to watch his long, long legs, the way his hammer slapped against his hip with each step.

  He has the most amazing tush, she thought ridiculously, then had to laugh at herself. Seems men weren’t the only ones wearing masks of civility.

  The phone rang again, and before Tanner could come back and step on her blanket, she grabbed it. “Hello?”

  “You sound breathless,” said Dimi.

  Breathless? She was. It hadn’t been Ted to do that to her, and it certainly hadn’t been a sexy dream, not with all that banging going on, so it must have been Tanner. Oh, boy. “Yeah, well.

  I’m recovering. Oh, and gee, thanks for calling me back in a timely fashion.”

  “I was busy. Working. You might not know that concept.”

  “Hey, I work. I work hard.”

  Dimi sighed. “Sorry. I know you work hard.

  And I know you’re trying to get your business going. But mine is the pits at the moment. Literally. I just screwed up today’s show. Somehow left a pit in one of the peaches we canned, so my guest host swallowed it and choked.”

  “On the air? Live?”

  “Well, yeah.”

  “Ouch.”

  “That’s not the worst of it. When I gave her the Heimlich maneuver, she coughed up the pit and it beaned the camera man right between the eyes. Gave him a concussion.”

  “Holy smokes.”

  “I might get a ratings boost out of it, though. If people think someone might do it again, they’ll tune in.”

  There was Dimi. Positive to the end.

  “Now tell me about this date from hell you were muttering about on my answering machine.”

  “It’s old news.”

  “Good. So you’re still going out tonight with Mrs. Brown’s dateless son, right?”

  “I’d rather have my impacted wisdom teeth removed, without drugs.”

  “You can’t back out now. Bring laughing gas.”

  “Funny.”

  “Mom told me your contractor rescued you.”

  “Tanner.” From her position on the floor, Cami lifted her head. She could see him down the hallway, kneeling before a large tool chest, rifling around. He had two nails in his mouth, a baseball cap on backward, a T-shirt that said Bite Me across the chest, and he was humming to Led Zeppelin on the radio.

  Out of the corner of his eyes, he caught her staring at him. He sent her a slow wink and a smile that could only be classified as bad-to-the-bone wicked.

  Her heart fluttered. “Damn,” she whispered.

  “Is that damn, yes, he rescued you?” Dimi wanted to know.

  “Yes,” Cami whispered, her gaze locked with Tanner’s.

  “Oh, man, that’s a loaded yes. Are you doing your contractor, Cami? Cami?”

  No, but suddenly she wanted to be. “I’ve got to go now.”

  “Remember, date tonight. Date means income. A good thing.”

  “I know.”

  “Take your eyes off your contractor.”

  She couldn’t.

  “Cami. Right now. He’s not your type. Yes, he’s a smartass like you, he’s darkly gorgeous, which I know is tempting, not to mention he’s right there beneath your nose, but listen to me.

  He’s not your type.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Let’s just say I think he needs a woman who has more…needs than you.”

  “You think I’m not sexual enough for him.”

  “Now don’t be insulted. I wouldn’t be, either.

  Face it, Cam, we’re not exactly sexual creatures.”

  Cami thought maybe she could be, with a little practice.

  “You’re thinking too much, I can hear it,”

  Dimi said. “Listen, I can see it in those heated, intense eyes of his. He’ll want…things. Things you won’t want to do. You couldn’t keep a man like that happy.”

  “Are we talking about oral sex?” Cami whispered.

  “Cami!”

  “Well, really. This is the twenty-first century.

  I could certainly learn.” Wanted to learn.

  “I’m not listening to this.”

  “How hard could it be? I’m sure he’d be willing to teach me good…technique.”

  “Oh, my God. Look, you don’t even know him all that well.”

  “Sure I do.”

  “Yeah? Have you told him about us? That you’re a twin?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “You never tell any man about me.” Dimi gentled her voice because they both knew why, that Cami always held a part of herself back on purpose, a very important part. She didn’t trust love, didn’t believe in it. “I’m using that as my gauge. Someday you’re going to tell a man you’re a twin, and I’ll know you’re serious about him.”