All He Ever Desired Read Online Free PDF Page A

happy.
    She heard Ryan laugh and she lost her train of thought as the deep sound echoed through the store. The man was distracting as hell, and she only half-listened as her mom moved the conversation to preparations for winterizing her garden.
    And when he turned the corner at the end of the building-supplies aisle and looked at her again, she lost all interest in when a person should cut back her peonies.
    The look in his eyes made her wonder if he was having the same kind of thoughts about her as she was having about him. And when he smiled at her, she had to become suddenly interested in untying and retying her shoelace to keep the heat that rushed through her from showing on her face for everybody to see.
    “I’ll need to borrow Nicky one day after school,” her mother was saying. “It’s almost time to yank the annuals out of the garden, and he can push the wheelbarrow to the mulch pile for me.”
    Lauren nodded and, for once, was thankful her mother’s obsession with her garden gave her something to focus on. This was Lauren’s real life, and she needed to keep her fantasies about Ryan out of it and firmly in her imagination where they belonged.
    * * *
    Ryan was doing his best not to ogle Dozer’s daughter right in front of the man—and her mother—but she drew his attention anyway. And, because he liked the way a little bit of pink colored her cheeks when he smiled at her, he did it again.
    When she bent over to retie a shoe that didn’t need retying, it took all his willpower not to chuckle at her. Luckily, Mrs. Dozynski was talking to her about something and didn’t seem to notice that her daughter was blushing.
    “You want this on the Northern Star account?”
    Feeling guilty, even though he hadn’t really done anything wrong, Ryan stepped up to the counter and turned his back on the corner where Lauren was perched on a stool. Dozer not only was the guy who controlled the building supplies in town, but he could probably break Ryan in half if he wanted to. “No, I’ll throw it on my card.”
    He stood in silence while Dozer ran the transaction, trying to think of some small talk he could make. At the very least he should ask Mrs. Dozynski how she’d been or ask Lauren how Nick was doing, but he felt so awkward lusting after her while her parents were in the room—to say nothing of Matt, who was standing at his elbow—that he just waited to sign the credit slip and grabbed one of the bags from the counter.
    “Have a good day,” Dozer said, as he always did.
    “You tell Rose I said hello,” Mrs. Dozynski added.
    “I will.” He nodded at Lauren and fled, not even making sure Matt grabbed the other bag and followed him out.
    “Pretty lady,” Matt said on their way back to the lodge. “The one sitting on the stool, I mean.”
    “Yeah.” That was an understatement. She’d only gotten more beautiful with age.
    “I wonder if she’s single.”
    Ryan’s fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “Doesn’t matter, since you’re here to work, not socialize.”
    “Can’t work all the time.” Matt was looking out the window, so he most likely missed the boss’s knuckles turning white. “I’ll probably have to make trips to the hardware store. Maybe I’ll run into her again.”
    “And maybe her father, who was the barrel-chested guy behind the counter, will bury your body in the woods.”
    “Dads always love me. I’m a solid guy, or so I’m told.” Matt laughed. “Moms love me, too. My problem is finding a woman who loves me longer than a couple of months.”
    “Maybe you need to worry more about them and less about impressing moms and dads.”
    “True. But I bet I could romance the hardware store–guy’s daughter without getting buried in the woods.”
    Rather than let on he had his own eye on Lauren—not that it meant anything—Ryan let the conversation die and turned up the radio.
    Not only was Lauren being at the hardware store a kink in his plan to stay out of her way, but