strolling off to intercept Dru.
She stopped by a table and began speaking to a waitress. Seth's attention was so focused on Dru it took him a moment to recognize the other woman.
Terri Hardgrove. Blond, sulky and built. They'd dated for a couple of memorable months during his junior year of high school. It had not ended well, Seth recalled and nearly detoured just to avoid the confrontation.
Instead he tried an easy smile and kept going until he caught some of their conversation.
"I'm not going to take the place after all," Terri said as she balanced her tray on the shelf of one hip. "J.J. and me worked things out."
"J.J." Dru angled her head. "That would be the low-life, lying scum you never wanted to see again even if he was gasping his last, dying breath?"
"Well." Terri shifted her feet, fluttered her lashes. "We hadn't worked things out when I said that. And I thought, you know, screw him, I'll just get me a place of my own and get back in the game. It was just that I saw your For Rent sign when I was so mad at him and all. But we worked things out."
"So you said. Congratulations. It might've been helpful if you'd come by this afternoon as we'd agreed and let me know."
"I'm really sorry, but that's when…"
"You were working things out," Dru finished.
"Hey, Terri."
She squealed. It came flooding back to Seth that she'd always been a squealer. Apparently, she hadn't grown out of it.
"Seth! Seth Quinn! Just look at you."
"How's it going?"
"It's going just fine. I heard you were back, but now here you are. Big as life and twice as handsome, and famous, too. It's sure been some while since Saint Chris High."
"Some time," he agreed and looked at Dru.
"Y'all know each other?" Terri asked.
"We've met," Dru said. "I'll leave you to catch up on old times. I hope you and J.J. are very happy."
"You and J.J. Wyatt?"
Terri preened. "That's right. We're practically engaged."
"We'll catch up later. You can tell me all about it." He took off, leaving Terri pouting at his back as he caught up with Dru.
"J.J. Wyatt," Seth began as he stepped beside Dru. "Offensive tackle on the Saint Chris High Sharks. Went on to crush as many heads as he could manage at the local university before even his bulldog skill on the football field couldn't keep him from flunking out."
"Thank you for that fascinating slice of local history."
"You're pissed. Why don't I buy you a drink and you can tell me all about it?"
"I don't want a drink, thank you, and I'm getting out of here before my eardrums are permanently damaged by that amazingly loud and untalented band's horrendous version of 'Jack and Diane.'"
He decided it was a point in her favor that she could recognize the mangled song, and pulled open the door for her. "The flowers were a hit."
"I'm glad to hear it." She took her keys out of a streamlined, buff-colored purse.
He started to suggest they go somewhere else for a drink, but could see by the irritated line between her eyebrows that she'd just shut him down.
"So, you've got a space to rent?"
"Apparently." She moved, dismissively, to the driver's side of a black Mercedes SUV.
Seth got his hand on the handle before she did, then just leaned companionably against the door. "Where?"
"Above the shop."
"And you want to rent it?"
"It's empty. It seems like a waste of space. I can't drive my car unless I'm inside of it," she pointed out.
"Above the shop," he repeated, and brought the building back into his mind. Two stories, yeah, that was right. "Bank of three windows, front and back," he said aloud. "Should be good light. How big is it?"
"Nine hundred square feet, including a small galley-style kitchen."
"Big enough. Let's take a look."
"Excuse me?"
"Show me the space. I might be interested."
She gave the keys in her hand an impatient jiggle. "You want me to show you the apartment now?"
"You don't want to waste space, why waste time?" He opened her car door. "I'll follow you back. It won't take long," he said with that slow, easy grin. "I make up my mind pretty quick."
* * *
Chapter Four
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SHE MADE UP her mind quickly as well, Dru thought as she backed out of the pub's lot. And she had Seth Quinn pegged.
A confident man, and a talented one. Each aspect probably fed into the other. The fact that his rough edges managed to have a sheen of polish was intriguing, something she was certain he knew very well.
And used very well.
He was attractive. The lean, lanky build that looked as though it had been designed to wear those worn-out jeans. All that burnished blond hair, straight as a pin and never quite styled. The hollowed cheeks, the vivid blue eyes. Not just vivid in color, she thought now. In intensity. The way he looked at you, as if he saw something no one else could see. Something you couldn't see yourself.
It managed to be flattering, jolting and just a bit off-putting all at once.
It made you wonder about him. And if you were wondering about a man, you were thinking about him.
Women, she concluded, were like paints on a palette to him. He could dab into any one of them at his whim. The way he'd been snuggled up with the blonde in the bar—a little play she'd noted the instant she herself had walked in—was a case in point.
Then there'd been the way he'd smiled at the waitress, the terminally foolish Terri. Wide, warm and friendly, with just a hint of intimacy. Very potent, that smile, Dru mused, but it wasn't going to work on her.
Men who bounced from woman to woman because they could were entirely too ordinary for her tastes.
Yet here she was, she admitted, driving back to the shop to show him the second-floor apartment when what she really wanted to do was go home to her lovely, quiet house.
It was the sensible thing to do, of course. There was no point in the space staying empty. But it galled that he'd assumed she'd take the time and trouble simply because he wanted her to.
There was no problem finding a parking space now. It was barely nine on a cool spring evening, but the waterfront was all but deserted. A few boats moored, swaying in the current, a scatter of people, most likely tourists, strolling under the light of a quarter moon.
Oh, how she loved the waterfront. She'd nearly howled with glee when she'd been able to snag the building for her shop, knowing she'd be able to step outside any time of the day and see the water, the crabbers, the tourists. To feel that moist air on her skin.
Even more, to feel part of it all, on her own merits, her own terms.
It would have been smarter, more sensible again, to have taken the room above for her own living quarters. But she'd made the conscious and deliberate decision not to live where she worked. Which, Dru admitted as she swung away from Market to drive to the rear of her building, had been a handy excuse to find a place out of the town bustle, someplace on the water again. An indulgent space all her own.
The house in Georgetown had never felt all her own.
She killed the lights, the engine, then gathered her purse. Seth was there, opening her door, before she could do it for herself.
"It's pretty dark. Watch your step." He took her arm, started to steer her to the wooden staircase that led to the second level.
"I can see fine, thanks." She eased away from him, then opened her bag for the keys. "There's parking," she began. "And a private entrance, as you see."
"Yeah, I see fine, too. Listen." Halfway up the stairs, he laid a hand on her arm to stop her. "Just listen," he said again and looked out over the houses that lined the road behind them. "It's great, isn't it?"
She couldn't stop the smile. She understood him perfectly. And it was great, that silence.
"It won't be this quiet in a few weeks." He scanned the dark, the houses, the lawns. And ag
ain she thought he saw what others didn't. "Starting with Memorial Day the tourists and the summer people pour in. Nights get longer, warmer, and people hang out. That can be great, too, all that noise. Holiday noise. The kind you hear when you've got an ice cream cone in your hand and no time clock ticking away in your head."
He turned, aimed those strong blue eyes at her. She could have sworn she felt a jolt from them that was elementally physical. "You like ice cream cones?" he asked her. "There'd be something wrong with me if I didn't." She moved quickly up the rest of the steps.
"Nothing wrong with you," he murmured, and stood with his thumbs tucked in his front pockets while she unlocked the door. She flicked a switch on the wall to turn on the lights, then deliberately left the door open at his back when he stepped in.
She saw immediately she needn't have bothered. He wasn't giving her a thought now.
He crossed to the front windows first, stood there looking out in that hip-shot stance that managed to be both relaxed and attentive. And sexy, she decided.
He wore a pair of ragged jeans with more style than a great many men managed to achieve in a five-thousand-dollar suit. There were paint flecks on his shoes.
She blinked, tuning back in to the moment when he began to mutter.
"Excuse me?"
"What? Oh, just calculating the light—sun, angles. Stuff." He crossed back to the rear windows, stood as he had at the front. Muttered as he had at the front.