Night Moves Read Online Free Page A

away.”
    â€œNeed a plumber?”
    â€œI don’t need you.” Oops—unthinking words. Dangerous words.
    â€œYes, you do.”
    She looked up sharply, too aware of how skimpily she was dressed, how drenched she was, how intensely he was looking at her, how inexorably the water was flowing around her feet and into the living room.
    â€œI need a shutoff valve.”
    â€œMe too,” he murmured. God, she was gorgeous. She was dressed in next-to-nothing shorts that elongated her legs up to there, and she was braless in the wet T-shirt that was molded to her breasts and nipples.
    She might as well have been stark naked.
    â€œAre you just going to stand there?” she demanded.
    â€œDid you need a plumber, Carrie?” He kept his voice neutral with an effort. She had no business looking so impossibly sexy so early in the morning, and he had no business reacting to her as if he was seventeen and she was a pinup.
    â€œWould you?” she asked with exaggerated politeness.
    â€œWhy don’t you make some coffee?”
    â€œAh, yes—anything to distract the little woman.”
    His eyes swept over her, lingering on her breasts. He
remembered those breasts, how just one touch, one hot lick...he stiffened uncontrollably.
    â€œThere’s nothing little about you, Carrie.”
    â€œOr you,” she retorted.
    â€œYou need a man around the house,” he murmured.
    â€œI need a plumber, nothing more, nothing less,” she ground out, and stamped into the kitchen. A moment later, the sound of pouring water ceased. She didn’t need a man; she just needed to know those indefinable male things like where shutoff valves were and how to unstop toilets.
    Using bottled water, she made the coffee in the ancient percolator.
    She put milk, sugar and a package of cookies out on the counter and rummaged for clean cups and spoons.
    Truck McKelvey was getting more than he deserved.
    Carrie poured herself some coffee and went onto the porch. It was a sparkling clear morning with a crispness in the air that chilled her waterlogged body. She hunched down on the wobbly wicker chair, drew up her legs and balanced her cup on her knees. The pipes were clanking so loud she could hear them even from a distance. She just knew Truck was going to give her bad news. He wandered out shortly afterward with his coffee and nudged his hip onto the porch railing.
    â€œBrought you some wood.”
    â€œThanks.” No smart-alecky retort about that. That was what neighbors did in Paradise: when you came to town with nothing, they brought you wood and wisdom.
    â€œPipes need redoing,” he said matter-of-factly.
    â€œPut ’em together with spit and duct tape,” she said, shrugging.
    â€œYou’re not going to be able to use the shower.”

    â€œSo I’ll bathe in the lake.”
    â€œToo cold yet,” he said, eyeing her.
    â€œYou know every damn thing.”
    â€œI know that plumbing has to be redone, Carrie.”
    â€œI can’t afford it,” she said brusquely.
    â€œHow long are you staying?”
    She lifted her head and met his dark lancing gaze directly. “Through the summer. I’ll manage.”
    â€œYou won’t. Something else in the bathroom will go, or in the kitchen.”
    â€œI can’t do it.”
    â€œOr you won’t? The house isn’t worth it, Carrie? Are you going away for fifteen more years?”
    Oh, the house was worth it. It was a sturdy old house on a big lake in a picturesque Maine town, and it was her only asset right now. Truck didn’t have to know that, she thought, and glanced over at him. She didn’t like the way he was studying her.
    â€œI can’t afford it, Truck,” she said quietly this time.
    â€œOkay. I’ll do it as side work. Afternoons, evenings, weekends. It won’t cost you as much. And it’ll add ten thousand to the price of the house.”
    â€œI wasn’t