My Man Pendleton(61)
Author: Elizabeth Bevarly

As if to punctuate the point, the puppy beneath the kitchen table sounded off with a few perfunctory yaps, then went back to gnawing on his rawhide chewy with a growl of satisfaction whose rumble never seemed to end.

Kit scrunched up her shoulders uncertainly. “Well, what am I supposed to say?”

Pendleton tossed the dish towel over his shoulder and crossed his arms—those incredibly sexy arms—over his chest—that incredibly sexy chest. “I don’t know,” he said. “But it’s not like you to keep quiet. In fact, this lack of a running monologue on your part is making me nervous.”

“Oh?”

“Well, God only knows what you’re plotting over there. At least when you’re talking nonstop, I know you can’t be preoccupied with plans for my downfall.”

She met his gaze levelly. “Says who?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, but didn’t comment. Instead, he only retrieved the dish towel from his shoulder and folded it neatly in half lengthwise, then hung it on a rack between the counter and stove, a silent indication that he was through being domestic for the day, thank you.

“Hey, you left a glass,” she said, pointing to the solitary dish sitting in the drainer.

“Doesn’t matter,” he tossed off casually.

Doesn’t matter? she echoed to herself. Whoa, whoa, whoa. This wasn’t like Pendleton. He never left anything unfinished. He was annoyingly anal about stuff like that.

“You know, you never paid me that dollar you owe me,” he said out of the blue.

“What dollar?” she asked.

“That dollar you promised me for dancing with you in Veranda Bay. You never gave it to me.”

She settled a damp fist on her hip. “What, are you running short already? Boy, this is what happens to you executive types. The minute you hit that six-figure salary, you start living beyond your means. When’s payday?”

In response to her question, he only smiled. Kit decided right away she didn’t like that smile at all, nor, she suspected, was she going to like what was sure to come after it.

“Tonight,” he said. “Payday is tonight.”

Yeah, she knew she wasn’t going to like what came after it. “Sorry,” she said, “but I’m busted, too. I didn’t get a chance to go to the money machine.”

His smile didn’t falter at all. “That’s okay. I know another way you can pay me back. Dance with me.”

“Dance with you?”

“Yeah, then we’ll be even.”

Before she could object, he spun on his heel and headed through the swinging door into the dining room. Kit took advantage of his disappearance to debate the pros and cons of fleeing through the back door. Pro, she would be saved from whatever weird stuff was currently possessing Pendleton. Pro, she would avoid having to come within touching distance of him, thereby maintaining what little composure she’d managed to collect since he began undressing himself in the living room a short while ago. Pro, she wouldn’t have to tolerate any longer the racing of her pulse, the frazzling of her brain, the heating of her blood, and the zinging of the strings of her heart. Pro, she’d stay sane. Con, she’d get her feet wet, because she took off her shoes a while ago and left them under the dining room table, and the ground outside was still mushy from all the melted snow.

Well, that was it, then, wasn’t it? No contest. No way was she going outside in her stocking feet with it all muddy and icky. Hey, these were new socks.

She wrung out the dish rag, hung it up on the rack by the towel, and tiptoed cautiously toward the kitchen door. She was about to push it open when she heard the sound of music coming from the other side. Not just any music, but the slow slide of fingers along the strings of an electric guitar, the melancholy wail of a saxophone, the soft, leisurely scuff of brushes over the skins of a drum.

Uh-oh. Blues. Touchy music. Feely music. Sexy music. No chance they’d be marimba-ing to that.

“Oh, Kii-iit,” he called out, his voice a gentle cajole. “I’m waaaiiitiiinnng.”

When, precisely, the earth shifted on its axis, she supposed she would never be able to say. She only knew that one minute, everything in her life was neat and orderly and well within her control, and the next minute, a whipcord of delicious possibility was slapping at the edge of her soul. In spite of its sting, there was something very appealing about the pull.

As she pushed open the door and passed through it, Kit reminded herself there was still time to scoop her shoes off the floor and hie herself out the back door, safely into the night, regardless of its mushiness. But she ignored the three-inch heels as she passed them, and focused instead on the man who stood center stage in the living room beyond.

It was just a dance, she told herself. Hey, she could handle that. She’d been dancing since she was eight years old, and put all the instructors she ever had to shame. Kit McClellan was nothing in this life if not an absolute expert at dancing.

Unfortunately for her, though, Pendleton was pulling her well into his arms before she realized that dancing was the last thing he had on his mind.

Chapter 15

She discovered that the minute he tugged her forward and crowded her body into his, roping his arms around her waist and back with way too much familiarity. Hey, just what kind of girl did he think she was?

Okay, so once she offered him money to marimba with her. Lots of women offered men money to marimba, didn’t they? And okay, so she broke into his house and climbed na**d into bed with him. Like that didn’t happen every night of the week to guys in some countries. And okay, so she was kind of been cohabitating with him against his will and had been for more than a month now. What man didn’t experience something like that at least once in his life?

Did those things give Pendleton the right to question her moral steadfastness? No, they did not. Didn’t he watch Lifetime Television? Hadn’t he seen any of those Nike commercials? Didn’t he know a woman could do things like that these days if she wanted to, without fear of being labeled loose and immoral and up for hanky-panky?

The righteous indignation she was trying so desperately to corral evaporated completely when Kit felt one of his hands venturing in a southern direction. She reached behind herself to halt his progress, curling her fingers softly around his wrist before scooting his hand back up to the small of her back. But Pendleton, clearly not one to be put off so easily, only retraced the journey with his other hand.

So she reached her other hand back, as well, and repeated the service.