Cisco had been thinking about plumbing and roofing and something else that he could no longer recall. But the moment Melody’s fingers touched his hair, he completely forgot what he was supposed to be doing. Her touch was soft, almost tentative in nature. It was as though she thought he was made of glass or something. Or perhaps she was just worried about touching him in general. He could not have said. All he knew was that the moment she ran her fingers through his hair, he felt as though his whole body was now awake after a lifetime of sleep.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Why?”

Her eyes widened. He could see that there were gold flecks in the darkness of her deep brown eyes. The color was actually quite beautiful. Her skin was flawless. Most women had to use a pound of foundation and a whole load of powder to achieve that sort of thing. With Melody it was simple to see that she was absolutely natural. What you saw was what you got, and in Cisco’s world, that was rare.

“I suppose I’m sorry because I’m being forward.” Her voice was hesitant. It was barely a whisper in the quiet of that bedroom. The sun had started to sink into the sky as the afternoon wore on. The glow coming through the window only served to make her that much more beautiful. “I shouldn’t be touching you. You’re doing me a favor. I’m not trying to assume anything else. You know?”

Cisco smiled. He appreciated her frankness. It was one of the things he’d decided that he really liked about her. “And it could be argued that I should stay far away from you because I don’t want you to think that you have to do anything or be anything or trade anything for my help.”

“Oh.” Her eyelids fluttered. Her lashes were incredibly long and dark.

“So, maybe you should stop worrying about what I think.”

He cupped her cheek in his hand. He meant the touch to be gentle and unassuming. He did not want to put pressure on her. But when her eyes slid shut and she turned her face into his hand, he almost could not control his desire to lean down and capture her perfect lips in a kiss.

Instead, he watched the way she leaned into his touch. He absorbed the trusting nature that she displayed with such ease. For some reason, he knew deep down that this was not the normal way of things for her. This was different. It made him want to be different. He did not ever want her to look at him as though he had taken advantage or abused her trust in him. Perhaps that more than anything else made him decide that he was not going to kiss her. Not right now.

“I want to show you something in the kitchen,” he whispered. Gently moving his thumb over her full lower lip, he enjoyed the resulting tingle that whipped through his body. “Will you come with me?”

“Right now, I think I would follow you anywhere,” she told him with a laugh. “But the kitchen is a fine place to start.”

She gently touched his hand where it rested against her face. Then she leaned forward and put her hands around his midsection. The hug was absolutely innocent. It was also devastating. He wrapped his arms around her athletic frame and felt her ribs and her shoulder blades and wanted nothing more than to ease her struggle in any way that he could. And if that meant offering simple comfort, he was willing to do that too.

The scent of her was incredible. As she pressed herself against him, he realized that she smelled vaguely of coffee, but there was something else too. It was floral and feminine and very, very appealing. In fact, he could not imagine that anything would be any more attractive in a woman. She was spicy and feminine and almost wild.

“Kitchen,” she murmured. “Remember?”

“I’d remember if you weren’t so intent on making me forget.” He was chuckling to himself as he let go of her body. “You’re very appealing, you know.”

“I am?” She seemed mystified by this statement. “I’ve certainly never had that term applied to me before.” Then she drew back and put her hands on her hips. “Wait. Is this because I smell like coffee? I literally smell like someone’s morning brew. If you’re into that kind of thing, I can see how it would turn you on.”

“Now you’re just being silly.” He felt the biggest, broadest, silliest smile cross his face. “So. Kitchen. Right?”

“Right.” She turned and walked out of the bedroom. Throwing a glance over her shoulder, she winked at him. The wink was just about enough to—hell, he didn’t know what it was enough for. It was just enough.

He could not stop watching her as she moved. The sight was strangely erotic. There was something about the way her hips swayed as she moved through the house that was provocative in a very basic way. She didn’t have to try to be attractive or arousing. She just was. It was an effortless thing about the way she moved and the way she carried herself.

Cisco had to remind himself why they were going into the kitchen. It was important to keep himself on task. Or at least that’s what he kept telling himself. She walked into the open airy space at the back of the house, and he knew that she hadn’t been in here before. Her steps slowed as she entered the welcoming space.

There was a big butcher block table in the center of the room. An island separated the eat-in portion of the kitchen from the stovetop, double oven, and the ancient refrigerator. The floor was old wood. Cisco would have bet good money that it had come from a barn somewhere on the property. The oak was solid, and though it was dusty, it would clean up beautifully.

“Wow.” Her whisper of amazement made him smile. Then she turned and stared at Cisco with a look of total wonder on her face. “This is incredible! Is that what you wanted to show me?”

“Not exactly.” He had to rouse himself from his contemplative study of her eyes and try to recall why he’d been so adamant that they come in here. “The lights don’t work, but the refrigerator is still running.

“It is?” She reached for the old handle and gave it a tug. As he had earlier, she coughed as a wave of stale-smelling air wafted out. “Ew, it smells!”

“It’s old.” He chuckled a bit and felt as though her adorable wrinkled nose should probably not be as attractive to him as it was at the current moment. “So, it’s going to need a good cleaning, but someone obviously realized that if you turned it off for a period of say three or five years, that it would be unlikely to turn back on ever. Yet someone also realized that it would likely be cheaper to shut the breakers off in order to keep something from accidentally coming on and costing a fortune in electricity.” He moved toward the thermostat on the wall. “See? It’s set at sixty-eight degrees. I bet it comes on to keep the pipes from freezing.”

“So, basically, you’re saying that someone intentionally kept the house in working order.” She turned a slow circle. “Why? Why would anyone care? Were there documents in there that suggested someone was paying the electric bills? Who has been taking care of the house, and if they care about the house, why does it not matter there are back taxes due on the land?”

“I’m not sure.” He didn’t have a ready answer for this particular puzzle.

Cisco looked at the wonderful kitchen with the sun spilling through the windows. It was a very well-positioned room. The obvious care that someone had taken with not only the architectural design but also the upkeep of the place was obvious. This was one of those situations where the actual evidence didn’t quite add up to the reality of the situation.

“I’ll admit,” Cisco told Melody. “I expected the roof to be falling in and animals to have moved into the place. So far, there are no signs of critters or anything else. I haven’t been upstairs yet though. Shall we try?”

Melody was busy opening pantry doors. She discovered a half bathroom in the tiny hallway between the kitchen and the back door. This seemed to excite her. She bounced on the balls of her feet and turned around to look at him with her eyes shining in obvious pleasure.

“There’s another bathroom!”

“Actually, I would imagine there’s a shower in there too,” he mused. “They sometimes call those mud rooms. It’s so the menfolk don’t have to track mud and dirt through the whole house when they come in from the barn.”

“Oh!” That seemed to fascinate her. “So, basically, the men would take a shower and then streak through the house for clean clothes?”

“Only if the womenfolk were mean and didn’t leave them some clean duds in the bathroom,” he teased.

She put her hands on her hips and laughed at him. “I’d have totally stolen your clothes and made you streak.”

“Oh, really?” He raised an eyebrow. She had never been quite this bold around him. It was both startling and very endearing. She was being silly. She was excited. Normally she carried such a weight on her shoulders that any happiness or exuberance seemed tempered by real-life worries. He could not resist the opportunity to tease her back. “And what would you be hoping to catch a glimpse of when I ran past you without any clothes?”

“Definitely your butt.” She nodded emphatically. “I have this feeling that your butt is really amazing in the flesh.”

He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting, but that definitely wasn’t it. “My butt?” He turned to try and look at the body part in question, which was super awkward, all things considered.

“You called me very appealing earlier. Remember?” She took a few steps closer to him. Now he could smell her warm feminine scent. “What if I think you’re appealing too?”

“Maybe I would be flattered.” It was hard to get the words out. His throat was tight, and his tongue felt too big for his mouth.

She moved even closer, until she was standing so close that he could see the top of her head. Then she lifted her chin and looked right up into his face. “Maybe I do. Maybe I really want to touch your face.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t mind if you do.” He swallowed. Was he about to pass out? It was difficult to tell. “Maybe I would like it.”

She lifted her hand. The movement was so slow and so deliberate that he felt himself unconsciously holding his breath. The first brush of her fingertips against his skin was startling. He loved the way it felt when she brushed his whiskers. He hadn’t shaved that morning. Now he was glad.

Melody ran her fingers over his jawline. Brushing his chin, she smiled as she touched the slight cleft before moving on to his cheeks. She raised her other hand and let it join the first. She cupped his cheeks. The way she stared up at him left a mark on his soul. He’d never been stared at quite like that before.

“It’s scratchy but soft too,” she whispered. “I like it. I like the way it feels on my palms.”

Her hands moved up his jaw toward his ears. He felt a tingle shoot down his spine. Everything from his head to his toes tingled. His fingertips were buzzing. He longed to touch her, but he didn’t want to startle her either. So, he settled for gently placing his hands atop hers where they rested against his face.

“Cisco,” she whispered. “There’s no future for people like us.”

He didn’t answer right away. What was he supposed to say? Hadn’t he had the same thought earlier? Weren’t her words absolutely true? He did not want her to feel as though she had to “pay” him for what he was doing for her. It wasn’t like that.

“Maybe future is the wrong word,” he whispered. “Maybe we should stop thinking about the future and just think about right now. Is there a future for us in the next five seconds? Probably. After all, you’re still going to be talking to me in five seconds. Right? You’ll still be touching my face?”

“I want to be,” she admitted. “I want to keep touching you. I want you to touch me too.”

“Like how?” He almost couldn’t get the words past his lips.

“I don’t know.” She tilted her head to the side. “Maybe my cheek?”

He didn’t waste a single second. Cisco cupped her cheek in his hand and ran his thumb over her lips once again as he had in the back bedroom. He loved the way her full lip felt beneath the callous on his thumb. He loved the way she sucked in a little breath at the last second almost as though she were surprised by the sensation she was experiencing.

“That’s a good place to start,” she admitted in what seemed like almost a shy voice. “Your hands are soft.”

“My hands are calloused,” he argued. “But your face is incredibly soft. That must be what you’re feeling.”

“I can’t feel my own face through your fingers!” Her eyes sparkled as she laughed.

When her lips parted, he gently ran his finger over the whole cupid’s bow of her lower lip. She shivered a bit. Her hand reached up and grabbed his wrist. There was a look of surprise on her face, and suddenly he could not resist one second longer.

Cupping her face in his hands, he lowered his lips to hers. He very gently kissed her mouth. It was just a chaste brush of the lips. He did not push things. He didn’t let them get out of control. This was not the time to let his desire overcome his self-control. He needed her to know that he respected her first and foremost, because he suspected that nobody else had.

Cisco pulled back very slowly. To his surprise, Melody came with him for just the briefest second. Her expression was slightly bemused and very, very sweet. She exhaled a little sigh, and Cisco suddenly felt as though he were on top of the world.

Of course, that lasted up until the moment he heard someone pounding on the front door. There were heavy boots on the porch and then a deep voice yelling into the living room.

“Who’s trespassing in here? I see a Hernandez vehicle out front! You dirty thieves better not be trespassing on my land! I’ll shoot first and ask your corpse the questions later on!”

Holy shit. That sounds like Paul Weatherby!