Heaven Can't Wait. Linda Turner
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world, sweetheart, and some things just can’t be explained. The question is, how do you feel about Murdock?”
Pru hesitated, but the truth wouldn’t be denied. “I don’t know,” she blurted. “I just know my heart started skipping the minute I laid eyes on him and I can’t get him out of my head. And now he’s in my dreams.”
“Then maybe you should find a way to get better acquainted with him,” her mother suggested. “If you’re still fascinated with him after you get to know him, you may have just found the man of your dreams.”
She made it sound so easy. “Was it that simple for you and Daddy?”
Even through the phone line, she could hear the smile in her mother’s voice. “It was just like falling off a log, honey. We couldn’t help ourselves. And if you and Murdock are made for each other, it will be that easy for you, too.”
Pru wanted to believe her, but long after she hung up and went back to bed, she lay in the dark, too restless to go back to sleep, her thoughts tangled and unsure. Images flashed before her mind’s eye, images that were part of her dream, part of what could be. Her and Murdock together...always. The whole idea was crazy. She was crazy. But for some reason she couldn’t explain, it felt right. She didn’t know where a possible friendship with him would lead, but she had to find out. She wanted to get to know the man, to figure out what made him tick...and turned him on.
* * *
Feeling like she’d already waited forever, Pru wanted to put her plan into action immediately, but it wasn’t that easy. When she arrived at the site the next morning, Murdock was already there, defiantly pouring cement, his smile mocking as he silently dared her to just try to stop him. She didn’t. Instead she walked right up to him and offered him her hand. “We got off on the wrong foot yesterday,” she said easily, and had the satisfaction of seeing his eyes narrow suspiciously. Suddenly wanting to laugh, she struggled to hold back a grin. “So I thought we could shake hands and start over.”
His eyes locked on her hand, Murdock didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink. He didn’t want to touch her, didn’t even want to think about touching her. But they were in full view of his crew and there was no way he could avoid accepting her handshake without looking like a jerk. Reluctantly, his fingers closed around hers.
The heat was instantaneous, like the flare of a match, jumping from his hand to hers. Startled, he felt it and knew she did, too. He watched her eyes fly to their joined hands, felt her fingers tremble and his own heart slam against his ribs. With a muttered curse, he jerked his hand back, but it didn’t do much good. He still burned.
Pru blinked and looked down at her hand as if she’d never seen it before. “Well,” she said, her voice catching revealingly, “I guess that takes care of the formalities. Maybe now we can be friends.”
But when she looked back at Murdock, he only nodded stiffly, his shuttered expression not giving her much encouragement. “Sure. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to work.”
It wasn’t the response she’d hoped for, but it was a start and not all that bad a one, she decided, considering how he felt about inspectors. Just because she generally knew what she wanted the minute she saw it didn’t mean that he did. She just had to give him some time. After all, it wasn’t as if either one of them was going anywhere. The project was a long way from being finished, and they would be dealing with each other every day. It would be much easier for both of them if they could manage to become friends.
But even though he’d agreed to start over, it soon became apparent that he really had no intention of doing anything of the kind. He was an attractive man and when he was dealing with anyone but her, he actually smiled and laughed. For the first time in her life, envy stirred in her, turning her eyes greener than normal, and she didn’t like it. She knew she was being ridiculous—she hardly knew him. But she wanted him to be as relaxed with her as he was with his crew. She wanted him to see her when he looked at her—Pru Sullivan, the woman, not an inspector he was forced to tolerate. And she wanted him to smile at her, just once, as if he meant it.
But it didn’t happen. The results of the core samples came in and the numbers were acceptable, but only by a hairbreadth. Murdock, so sure the test results would come back heavily in his favor, was shocked and grudgingly admitted that the test was justified. He could no longer deny that she knew what she was doing, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. Because every time she found something wrong, he just had another problem to solve.
For the next three days he continued to look through her instead of at her. Then, just when she thought she was going to have to grab the man by the ears and shake him to get his attention, she discovered that the electricians he had hired to wire the entire complex were not using American-made materials.
It was a mistake that shouldn’t have been made. Regulations required that the majority of materials used on government projects had to be American-made. She might have been able to believe another contractor doing a government job for the first time might not have known that. But not Murdock. He was too sharp to make that kind of costly mistake.
There had to be another explanation, she decided. She’d heard about the problems on the site, problems that evidently went all the way back to the first day when ground was broken. Other, less reputable builders had those kinds of problems all the time. Zebadiah Murdock, however, had a reputation that was head and shoulders above such men. From what she’d heard around the site, he didn’t normally have those kinds of headaches. So what was wrong? It was time she found out.
Not looking forward to the coming conversation, she went looking for Murdock and found him standing outside his minuscule office with his back to her, talking to Roy Wilkins. Her heart lurching in its now familiar way at the sight of him, Pru had eyes for no one but Murdock. She hadn’t been this close to him all day, and for a moment she completely forgot why she had sought him out.
Then Roy saw her and stopped talking in midsentence.
Surprised, Murdock whirled to see who’d approached and just barely bit back a groan. He’d been trying to ignore her for days now, but even if she hadn’t been the only woman at the site, she was hard to miss. She always seemed to be just within the corner of his vision, impossible to overlook. And even harder to forget. Every night when he went home, she was right there with him in his head.
And for the life of him, he didn’t know why. Just because he was a confirmed bachelor at forty-five didn’t mean he was a recluse. When he was in need of female companionship, there were any number of women he could call. Women who were older, more mature, women whose interests matched his. Women, when he thought of Pru, he didn’t call. It was irritating as hell.
Ignoring the sudden heat in the air that hadn’t been there seconds before, he never took his eyes from Pru as he told his field superintendent, “We’ll talk about this later, Roy. Go ahead and take a break. I’ll find you after I’m through with Inspector Sullivan.”
Roy, witness to more than one of their discussions, was quick to cut and run. In the tense silence left by his leave-taking, Murdock drawled, “Don’t tell me. You’ve gone over everything with a magnifying glass and you’ve finally found something to complain about. What is it this time? Measurements a thousandth of a millimeter off, or what?”
The quick retort that sprang to her tongue caught between her teeth, Pru only grinned. The last time she’d let a male push her buttons, she’d been twelve and Tommy Stinson had teased her for being flat-chested while all her friends were blooming like roses. She’d socked him then and learned the value of taking a man by surprise.
“Actually, I was wondering if you’d like to go to lunch with me,” she said easily, flashing her dimples at him. “What do you say? Are you game?”
Murdock couldn’t have been more stunned if she’d tossed a bucket of wet cement over his head. His brows snapping together, he eyed her warily. “For what?”
“Either it’s been a long time since a woman has asked you to lunch or I’m not doing it right.