Into the Fire - Leslie Kelly [42]
"You said spaghetti," Lacey said when he opened the door. She held up a bottle of red wine. Nate watched as she looked him over, head to toe, obviously noting the tomato sauce on his shirt, the worn jeans and his bare feet. She bit her lip. "I guess I'm early. I'm not familiar with this neighborhood, and these brown-stones all look alike. I was afraid I'd get lost."
She looked adorably disconcerted. Ah, hell, just plain adorable. He didn't think he'd ever seen her in jeans, but, oh, the woman had the figure for them. Not to mention the dark green, dingy sleeveless tank top she wore with them. She'd obviously gone home to change. Nate couldn't imagine her going to work dressed so casually. Not to mention so damned sexily, though she probably didn't even realize that. Most women had the mistaken impression that men only thought clothes cut down to there or slit up to here were sexy. As if skin had to show for a man to be interested.
As far as Nate was concerned, nothing made a woman look as good as a dingy top that hugged every curve and a pair of jeans tight enough to outline the fine curve of her sweet…
"Nate?"
"Uh, sorry," he muttered. "It's okay. I was running late myself—I'd planned the world's fastest shower."
"Sorry. Should I come back?"
He held the door open and stepped back. "Come on in and make yourself at home. I've got to finish in the kitchen, or we'll never be able to eat. Then I'll get cleaned up. Okay?"
Nodding, she followed him into the apartment, looking around approvingly. The heels of her flat sandals clicked on the mellowed oak floors, and he saw her smile as she noticed the bench seat in the bay window overlooking the street. "This place is great. So much character. Much better than my complex."
"Yeah, I like it. The wiring's archaic, and you have to pray no one in the building flushes a toilet while you're taking a shower, but it's got a hell of a lot of charm." Nate went into the kitchen and got to work chopping onions and peppers.
She joined him. "Have you lived here long?"
"Nah. I moved up from Virginia less than a year ago."
Nate had loved this area of old Baltimore from the first time he'd visited his sister and her husband two years before. When he got the job at Men's World, there was no question about where he wanted to live. Kelsey and Mitch had invited him to take one of the apartments in their renovated building, but Nate had refused. That would be a bit too much like the way they'd grown up, with Nate and his best friend, Mitch, getting into all sorts of scrapes and his little sister, Kelsey, tagging along behind causing even more trouble.
Dumping the vegetables in a pan with a small amount of olive oil, he sautéed them and then scraped them into the pot of simmering tomato sauce. "My sister and her husband live in another brownstone a few blocks away. They've renovated theirs. Mitch makes considerably more money writing college textbooks than I do ladling out advice for guys who haven't had a date since the Reagan administration."
She chuckled. "Are you and your sister close?"
"Always were. It helped that she married my best friend." He gave a rueful shake of his head. "Mitch never had a chance."
"Sounds like there's a story there."
Laughing at the way his determined sister had roped herself a man, Nate said, "I want you to meet her sometime. As a matter of fact, I've already told her about you."
She looked surprised. "Really? Why?"
"Let's say she's definitely someone who can help us with this assignment we're working on. She's got a lot of connections, knows a lot of people and has a very cool job."
Opening the bottle of wine Lacey had brought, Nate splashed a helping into the pot of sauce and stirred it. "Perfect choice. Want a glass now?"
"It's a bit early for me." She accepted the glass of water he offered instead. "Sounds like your relationship with your sister is great. You also have a younger brother, right?"
"Yep. The