Intercepted by Love: Part 2 (Playing the Field #2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

cell phone from her purse. “I’m calling a cab, Cade, and don’t try stopping me.”

Chapter Five
    A ndie’s hands shook as she browsed for a taxi cab. She still wasn’t used to her cell phone, but once she’d agreed to the screenwriter’s research assistant job, she’d had to get one.
    Behind her, Cade stood silent. Guess he really wasn’t going to stop her. Their two dogs were still frolicking in his yard full of bushes and flowers, although truth be told, it was unkempt and bare in patches. The lawn was dried up and some kind of succulent ground cover bloomed purple and yellow on the slope.
    She connected to a dispatcher.
    “Address?”
    “Uh, hold on a sec.” Lowering her phone, she asked. “Cade, I need your address.”
    “I’ll drive you.”
    “No, really. It was awful nice of you to pick me up at the airport, but I can’t stay with you.”
    “Why?”
    He’d taken off his cap and was no longer bald, sporting a well trimmed haircut, and he’d shaven off his beard and mustache—so different from the lumberjack she’d met at Itasca, but still sexy and totally hot.
    How was she going to hold herself together when all she wanted to do was run her finger over the scar on his upper lip and taste his tongue, and grovel at his feet like the women who chased after King David when he cavorted with the Ark of God through the streets of Jerusalem?
    Snap out of it!
    “Why, Andie? I have all this room.” He beseeched her with his hand, beckoning her to go to him.
    She gave her head a hard shake to chase away the tides of lust and desire welling from her nether regions.
    “It’s a matter of principle. I’m not a sponge or a free-loader.”
    “Then, pay me rent.” He shrugged, looking so cute and rugged at the same time. How was she going to resist not jumping his bones, except he seemed not to want her anymore.
    Maybe she could do it. After all, her mother could use the extra money to hire a home health aide, and God knew her father needed the rehabilitation programs not covered by his basic, catastrophic insurance plan.
    “Okay, guess we can work that out, but it has to be a fair market rate, and I’ll stay to my one room and bathroom. I can’t afford more.”
    “Of course.” Cade wrapped his big hands around her waist and lifted her up easily. “You hide in there and I won’t ever bother you. Promise. Since I’ll give you the smallest room, one shelf of the refrigerator and a single burner on the stove, no oven privileges, it’ll be a hundred a month. Think you can swing that?”
    “Bathroom? I’ll need a sink, toilet and shower.” She was already breathless, being in his arms, but she had to keep her nerves steady. No flailing now.
    “Oh. You’re a tough negotiator.” He swung her around and around. “Of course, but if you want to use a tub, I’ll charge you an affordable price, per use.”
    He wiggled his eyebrows, and Andie couldn’t help remembering the ways she and Cade had used the luxurious bathroom at the Watkin’s Peak ski resort their one weekend together.
    “I don’t think I’ll be taking any tub baths any time soon,” she muttered, hoping her blush didn’t give her thoughts away. “A hundred is way too low.”
    “I could go even lower.” His eyes glinted as they traveled from her face downward. “In fact, why don’t we go inside and renegotiate over a bottle of wine?”
    “I, uh, don’t need to. I mean, deal. Yes, I’ll take it.”
    The scar over his upper lips stretched as he grinned. “I’m sure you’ll take everything I have to offer.”
    If he only knew the truth how attracted she was to him. Still, he’d promised to be a gentleman, and it seemed he was over her already. Besides, he had that baby to worry about, and she did need to save money.
    “Yes, let’s go inside. I mean, not to negotiate, just so you can show me my room and I can get unpacked.” She was babbling now, her heart skipping and pulsing and her single brain cell could not compute why