Chapter Three

      “No.”

      “No?” He didn’t know if she’d said no to the kiss or no to going to the doctor. But he did know that he couldn’t remember the last time anyone argued with him, and he nearly tripped himself when he bounced off the couch. “What do you mean, no?”

      “Ben,” she said patiently. “I gained twenty pounds in seven months…actually more like five months because I didn’t gain anything the first two months. Picture my small frame suddenly getting twenty pounds, most of it in my middle.”

      He could. Clearly. He could see her standing in front of a mirror, wearing something soft and filmy, looking feminine and motherly and absolutely gorgeous. That’s what bothered him. He could easily envision how she would do anything, from the simple to the sublime, as if he’d known her for years instead of weeks.

      “I’m not sick. I’m tired. I do not need to see a doctor. I need a few minutes of rest, that’s all.”

      When she put it like that, Ben believed her. But she wasn’t completely out of the woods with him yet. “All right, you’re not sick,” he conceded gruffly, trying like hell to stifle the image she’d unwittingly forced him to create in his head. “But what you told me proves you need a good dinner.”

      She sighed. “I’m too tired to make a good dinner.”

      “No problem. Nathan and I will make one for you,” he said, and turned toward her kitchen. “What would you like?”

      “Steak and french fries,” she said with a laugh. “But you don’t have to make me dinner.”

      Walking to the door, he said, “You’re not eating cold cereal. If you want steak, I’ll make steak.”

      “I was teasing,” she called after him. “If you insist on cooking, you don’t have to go to that much trouble.”

      He stopped, faced her and skewered her with a look. “Let’s get one thing straight. I never do anything I don’t want to do, so if I volunteer to do something it’s not trouble.”

      With that he left the living room, crossed the small entryway at the foot of the steps and went into her kitchen. “Nate, we need to make steak and french fries for supper. Do you have any idea where we can find those things?”

      He nodded eagerly. “Sure, there’s a freezer in the basement. She even has frozen fries.”

      “Great. You go get those and I’ll start the grill.”

      With Nate’s help dinner was ready in a little over half an hour. Just as Ben was preparing to put a tray together for Gwen, she entered the kitchen.

      “This smells wonderful,” she said.

      Ben studied her critically. Her cheeks had color. Her energy appeared to have returned. She was smiling. “I knew a good meal would revive you. Just smelling it put color back in your face.”

      “I was tired,” Gwen said. “It’s not a crime. I’ll bet even you get tired, Ben Crowe.”

      He shrugged. “I remember one time, when I was younger, I did get a little tired,” he teased. “But the next day I came down with the flu, so we never really knew if I was tired or if that fluke day was actually just the beginning of my illness.”

      “Oh, yeah, right,” Gwen said, sitting at one of the place settings Nathan had arranged at the table.

      “Seriously,” Ben said as he served the steak, “you do look much better, and I’m sure you’ll feel better once you eat.”

      “Yeah,” Nathan agreed, climbing onto the chair beside her. “You look better.”

      Ben was abundantly relieved Nathan had taken the seat beside Gwen until he realized that sitting across from her would put them face-to-face. But as they ate, and as he watched her become more animated and more energetic, Ben was glad he could see her. He believed her when she said she was tired. He also believed that having a baby move inside you could cause pain. Still, it was good to have all that confirmed by the return of her high spirits and stamina.

      As she and Nathan washed the dishes, Ben cleared the table, continuing to covertly watch her. Seeing her stretching to put the first glass on the appropriate shelf, he said, “Stack those below the cupboard and I’ll store them.”

      “Nonsense,” she said with a laugh. “I can reach.”

      “I know,” Ben agreed, finally comprehending that the way to get this woman’s cooperation wasn’t through quibbling. If you argued with her, she tried to prove you wrong. So the best thing to do was to pretend to agree, then point her in the right direction. “It’s faster if you make a stack to put away all at once, because you eliminate steps.”

      “What are you? Some kind of efficiency expert?”

      “What’s an efficiency expert?” Nathan asked.

      “Someone who tells other people what to do,” Gwen said curtly.

      “Someone who finds a better way to do things,” Ben contradicted, but he laughed. Because laughter was another way to reach this woman. After spending two days with her, he recognized she liked to laugh, and she liked seeing other people laugh. So if that’s what it took to swing her thinking around in the way he wanted it to go, that’s what he would do.

      She turned to place a dish in the cupboard, but as she reached up he caught the plate. He didn’t take it out of her hand, just guided it to the countertop, and when she released it, he directed her hand to get the next one.

      She gave him a curious look, but he didn’t stop long enough for her to realize he was monitoring her every move. He walked to the stove to wipe it clean, surreptitiously observing her from his peripheral vision. When she started to put another plate into the cupboard out of habit, he simply stepped beside her, seized the plate and guided it to the stack beside the dish drainer.

      “Are you this annoying with everyone?” she asked, her eyes narrowing as she glared at him.

      “Absolutely,” he said, but again he didn’t linger. Since the plate was on the pile and she was reaching for another dish, he walked away, busying himself with straightening her tablecloth. Once she and Nathan had finished washing and drying the few dishes and utensils used for their dinner, but before she got the chance to hoist them to the shelves above her, Ben shifted her attention to the table.

      “Would you arrange those flowers?” he asked. “I think I messed them up when I returned the centerpiece to its place.”

      Though he thought she might have questioned that, she looked at the centerpiece, giving Ben enough time to quickly stash her stacks of dishes and glasses into the cupboard. By the time she turned and said, “How can you mess up a bunch of wildflowers?” he had everything put away.

      “My mistake,” he said. “Come on, Nathan, let’s go.”

      Because she hadn’t noticed that he had more or less manipulated her out of disagreeing about who would do what in the kitchen, Ben knew he had been successful. He also knew that dinner and company had boosted her spirits. He had not intended to get involved with her, but, really, somebody had to. Not because she was an invalid, but because she was alone. A million and ten things could happen to her and no one would be around to even discover her, let alone rescue her. So if Ben made himself and Nathan her protectors for the next few months, he wasn’t doing anything but being a good neighbor. Besides, he was her landlord. He had a responsibility to make sure she was safe while she was on his property.

      “I’ll bring Nathan around at eight tomorrow morning,” he announced as he grabbed his coat from