Night Whispers - Leslie Kelly [6]
Little Kelsey, who thought all boys were totally gross, already had her hands full with her two brothers. So she did everything she could to get rid of Mitch. Her pranks had been relentless, but for the most part he’d ignored them. The angriest he ever got was when she purposely changed the time on his watch and car clock one night before he went out. His date’s father had been livid when his sixteen-year-old got in at two in the morning instead of midnight. It didn’t hurt that the girl was the daughter of the mayor. That had been the end of that budding romance.
Kelsey’s campaign of terror came to a screeching halt when she was twelve and realized just how handsome Mitch was. Suddenly it didn’t seem so bad to have him around. She tried everything to make him notice her. But he’d never seen her as anything but a pesky kid.
Kelsey smiled slowly. He saw her as an adult now, though. She had seen the expression on his face in that first unguarded moment, and knew he would never see her as a child again. She raised her chin a notch and squared her shoulders. Oh, yes, he saw her as a woman. And he certainly was a man.
“Exactly what have you done to my home?” he asked.
Not “Thank you.” Not “Hello, Kelsey, it’s nice to see you after all these years, how are your folks.” Mitch was spoiling for a fight. She couldn’t really say she was surprised.
“I made some improvements.” Trying to ignore the tone in his voice, she bent to clean up some of the tools she’d left lying around. Her loose T-shirt slid up, baring her middle. “This house didn’t even look lived in. How long have you had it, anyway?”
“Uh, I’m sorry, what?”
Kelsey glanced up to see Mitch staring in fascination at her bare midriff. He looked decidedly uncomfortable. She dropped her lashes and suppressed the grin threatening to spread across her face. Well, wasn’t this interesting? God, how many years had she waited to see that look on his face?
“I said,” she answered slowly, leaning even farther to retrieve the rake, “how long have you had this place?”
She watched his eyes shift again toward the thigh and hip she displayed. “Three years,” he choked out.
“I was sure you wouldn’t mind me sprucing up things a little,” she replied sweetly. “I know how much you travel and assumed you didn’t have time to make this house a real home.”
Kelsey looked for something else to pick up, liking the purely dumbfounded expression he still wore. She started folding the lawn chair, taking her sweet time about it, and allowed it to brush against her legs. A spot of grease or dirt smudged her thigh. Rubbing at it with the palm of her hand, Kelsey slowly wiped away the stain, knowing he was watching her every move. His eyes were twin drills on her flesh. She savored it.
“Your letter did say that I could make myself at home, and should feel free to use the yard and kitchen, didn’t it? I mean, the little efficiency in my apartment isn’t good for much more than warming soup.”
“Yes, yes, of course I said that,” he replied absently. “But I meant you could use the kitchen, not redecorate it. And what about this jungle?”
“Lovely, isn’t it?” Kelsey pulled her T-shirt up to her waist and efficiently tied it in a knot. Mitch looked more and more uneasy, shifting back and forth on his feet and cracking his knuckles. She watched as he dropped his gaze to her bare middle and it was all Kelsey could do to remain nonchalant. She’d waited half her life for Mitch to stop treating her like a little sister. And now that he’d noticed she was a woman, she was not about to back down.
Mitch wanted to yank his shirt off and cover