He noticed. “It’s getting chilly.” Nick eyed the firepit in the middle of the patio. “Got any wood?”
“Wood?”
“Yeah, for that firepit over there.”
She regarded him questioningly. “Why?”
He grabbed the last unopened bag and raised it. “So we can do dessert.”
He handed her the bag. She looked inside. A package of marshmallows, a giant chocolate bar, and a box of Graham crackers.
Jannie couldn’t help it: she laughed. “You ordered s’mores stuff?”
“Had to. I saw that firepit, and there’s nothing like a good s’more.”
She couldn’t argue with that. She also couldn’t remember the last time she’d used that thing, and never to roast marshmallows.
Where was the wood? Jannie crossed the patio to the corner pool closet and tried to open the door, but it had been closed for so long that it was stuck shut.
“Aw, shit,” she muttered. She yanked harder, but it was no use. Well, this was embarrassing. She hated to seem incapable, no matter what shewas trying to do. Maybe some WD-40 would do the trick.
She started to turn, only to nearly bump into Nick’s very tall and very solid frame.
“Let me help.”
For a heart-pounding moment, she stood there, looking up at him.
“It’s stuck,” she said, stating the obvious.
He nodded. “I see.”
Was he referring to the door? Because his impossibly dark eyes were studying her face with an intensity that made her look away. But was ensnared, trapped in the beauty of his gaze, inexplicably caught in … in him.
Hastily, she stepped aside, nearly colliding with the heavy stone hose pot to her right.
She watched as Nick gripped the doorknob, and Jannie couldn’t drag her gaze away from his forearms. With one powerful tug, he pulled the door open as if it were nothing.
A small brown spotted gecko darted out, scurrying away from the closet where he’d apparently been trapped. Nick didn’t so much as flinch, unlike most people unfamiliar with Florida’s critters.
“Glad I opened this door,” he muttered. “Little guy would have died in there.” Nick eyed the inside of the closet. “Here we go.” He grabbed several pieces of split wood off a neatly stacked pile. “Kindling?”
Jannie shook her head.
Nick zoomed in on a hatchet propped against the pile. “No problem.” He grabbed the tool and strode to the grass. Lying the log horizontally on the ground, he chopped downward toward the end of the firewood. Once the blade was embedded in the wood, he lifted both and drove them down with enough force to neatly split the quarter log in half, then did it again.
There was something primal about a muscular man wielding an ax to make a thing as basic as kindling. He crouched down, the navy fabric stretching tight across his ass, and Jannie couldn’t tear her eyes away. His muscles corded beautifully, biceps bulging as he made quick work of his task.
Finally, he held up several thin sticks with a triumphant grin. Hetipped his head back to look up at her, fist full of wood, his dark hair ruffled by the gentle breeze, and she suddenly wanted to step forward and grip a handful of that glossy hair and press his face to …
A nearly violent electric current coursed through her.
She took a big step back, shaken by the graphic image that had just invaded her mind. “I’ll get the lighter.”
Nick
Nick stared into the fire that quickly grew, the flames licking the edges of the firepit.
His gut feeling that Jannie was in trouble had proved right. The way she looked when she came outside, as if she’d spent the whole day in bed, not eating enough, not leaving the house, not interested in anything … She had lost weight, and there were shadows beneath her beautiful eyes.
