Creed's Honor Read Free

and then stood in her kitchen swilling coffee as if he owned the place. “Or the week after, if she’s having an especially good time.”
    “Miss Natty didn’t mention that she was planningon taking a trip,” Conner observed thoughtfully, after another swallow of coffee.
    The statement irritated Tricia—since when was Conner Creed her great-grandmother’s keeper? All of a sudden, she wanted him gone, from her kitchen, from her house. He didn’t seem to be in any more of a hurry to leave than he was to get married, though.
    And he was using up all the oxygen in the room.
    Did he think she’d bound and gagged Natty with duct tape, maybe stuck her in a closet?
    She gestured toward the inside stairway. “Feel free to see for yourself if it will ease your mind as far as Natty is concerned. And, by the way, you scared the cat.”
    He flashed that wickedly innocent grin again; it lighted his eyes, and Tricia noticed that there was a rim of gray around the blue irises. He had good teeth, too—white and straight.
    Stop, Tricia told her racing brain. Her thoughts flew, clicking like the beads on an abacus.
    “I believe you,” he said. “If you say Miss Natty is in Denver, kicking up her heels with her sister, then I reckon it’s true.”
    “Gee, that’s a relief,” Tricia said dryly, folding her arms. Then, after a pause, “If that’s everything…?”
    “Sorry about scaring the cat,” Conner told her affably, putting his mug in the sink and pushing off from the counter, starting for the door. “Truth is, the critter’s never liked me much. Must have figured out that I’m more of a dog-and-horse person.”
    Tricia opened her mouth, shut it again. What did a person say to that?
    Conner curved a hand around the doorknob, looked back at her over one of those fine, denim-coveredshoulders of his. Mischief danced in his eyes, quirked up one corner of his mouth. “If you wouldn’t mind letting me in downstairs,” he said, “I could fill up the wood boxes. There’s room in the shed for the rest of the load, I guess.”
    Tricia nodded. She had an odd sense of disorientation, as if she’d suddenly been thrust underwater and held there, and on top of that had to translate everything this man said from some language other than her own before his meaning penetrated the gray matter between her ears.
    “I’ll meet you at Natty’s back door,” she said, still feeling muddled, as he went out.
    She stood rooted to the spot, listening as the heels of Conner’s boots made a rapid thunking sound on the outside steps.
    Winston crept out of the short hallway leading to the apartment’s one bedroom and slinked over to Tricia, purring companionably while he turned figure eights around her ankles.
    Wishing she had time to pull on some clothes, fix her hair and maybe even slap on a little makeup, Tricia went back down to Natty’s place, bustled through to the kitchen, turned the key in the lock and undid the chain, and wrenched open the door.
    Conner was already there, standing on the porch, grinning at her. After looking her over once more in that offhand way that so disconcerted her, he shook his head slightly and rubbed the back of his neck with one hand.
    “Thanks,” he said, his tone husky with amusement. “I’ll take it from here.”
    Tricia felt heat surge into her cheeks, spark in hereyes. He knew she was uncomfortable and not a little embarrassed, damn him, and he was enjoying it.
    “I’ll come back in a few minutes to lock up behind you,” she replied, ratcheting her chin up a notch in hopes of letting Conner know he wasn’t getting to her.
    Well, maybe he was, a little, she admitted to herself, terminally honest. But it wasn’t because of the invisible charge buzzing around them. She wasn’t used to standing around in her bathrobe talking to strange men, that was all.
    “Fine with me,” Conner answered, lifting the collar of his jacket against a gust of wind as he turned to descend the steps of