Talk Nerdy to Me (21 page)

Nevertheless,
Eve's meandering thought process had left her in the awkward position of being
caught with her condom box open. She decided there was no getting around this
embarrassing moment. Better to plow right through it.

"You're
probably wondering what I'm up to," she said. "Standing here by the
cabinet where the condoms live."

Charlie started to laugh.
Pretty soon he had to lean against the doorframe because he was laughing so
hard.

She
couldn't help smiling herself, although she wasn't sure what the joke was.
"What's so funny?"

"You."
He gasped for breath. "Us. This whole ridiculous situation." He laid
the hinges and drill on the bathroom counter, took off his glasses, and swiped
his arm across his eyes. Then he put his glasses back on. "You really
want to, don't you?"

"Don't you?"

"More than you can
imagine." He cleared the laughter from his throat. "But I don't see
how it's a good idea, all things considered."

"We could pretend this
is wartime."

"What?"
Then his confusion faded and he started to grin. "Wait, I
get it. I've just enlisted and am being shipped out any day. In the meantime,
we're grabbing what happiness we can. Is that the routine?"

"It works in the
movies."

That
telltale warmth softened his gaze. "You are something else. I could
gobble you up."

Her
skin began to tingle. "I'd like that. I'd like that a lot."

"Me,
too," he said gently. "But before we make any decisions, I have to
fix your door." He picked up the hinges and the drill. "Let's go back
there and get that done."

"Okay." She felt
encouraged by his reaction so far.

"And bring your
condoms."

Now she was
really
encouraged.

Charlie
was toast and he knew it.
After
all
his inner debate about the ethics
of
going
to bed with
Eve,
he'd walked down the hall
and discovered her digging out the condoms.
He
didn't
know how a guy was supposed to resist that kind of enthusiasm.

He
could
rationalize that she'd had a bad scare and he needed to stay and comfort her.
Comfort
could easily take the form of satisfying sex.
On
the
surface that made perfect sense, but when faced with a hot woman supplied with
condoms, all rationalization became unnecessary.
He
'd
be a fool to reject what she was offering.

When
he
got to the damaged back door the wind had blown it
partway open again.
He
closed
it and laid the drill on the floor to hold it shut while he figured out exactly
how he wanted to attach the hinges.

She
walked into the small hallway.
Even
if he hadn't heard her footsteps on the hardwood floor, he
would have known she was there because the temperature went up several degrees.
Or
so it seemed to him.
He
resisted
the urge to open the door again to cool himself off.
He
needed
to
get this door secured before he let himself think about what the two of them
might do with those condoms.

He
picked up one of the hinges, placed it head high on the doorjamb, and used a
small drill bit to scratch marks in the wood where the screws would go.

"The
hinges are a good idea." There was a little quiver to her voice.

He
was egotistical enough to think it might be because of him. And damned if that
didn't feel wonderful, in spite of his misgivings about the direction they were
headed. "They seemed like the best option."

There
was a quiver in his voice, too. Well, what sort of man wouldn't have a quiver
in his voice at the thought of having sex with Eve Dupree? "I was
surprised to see them, though, if you're not interested in carpentry."

"If
I tell you why I bought them, you'll probably laugh."

"Were
they another impulse buy at Middlesex Hardware?" He glanced over his
shoulder at her.

Whoops,
he shouldn't take a chance on doing that. Looking at Eve when he knew she had
condoms in her pocket was like his first glimpse of the erector set he'd gotten
the Christmas he was nine. He hadn't been interested in anything else that
day. His other presents, Christmas dinner, singing carols around the battered
old piano—he'd been oblivious to all of it.

"Not
that there's anything wrong with impulse hardware store buys." He forced
himself to turn back to the job at hand. What had he been doing with this
hinge? Oh, yeah. Holes had to be drilled. Screws had to be inserted. If they
seemed like a metaphor for something else right now, he'd ignore the
implications or risk doing this job while sporting a woody.

"There's
a crawl space over the garage," she said. "A pretty big one, as a
matter of fact."

"And
you wanted to make a trapdoor." He chose a drill bit, positioned it in the
jaws of the drill, and tightened it down.

"I
did want to make a trapdoor." She sounded delighted. "How did you
know that?"

"Lucky
guess." He wasn't sure how he'd known. Maybe he was beginning to
understand how that imaginative brain of hers worked, which was kind of cool.
He turned on the drill and braced himself against the door as he pushed the
whirling bit into the wood. "So what would you put up there?" Judging
from the amount of staff she had all over the house, she could fill a crawl
space in ten seconds flat.

"The hovercraft."

He
stopped drilling and glanced at her. "You're kidding. You'd need a
forklift to get it up there."

"Or
something similar." She looked smug. "I have some rough plans for a
hydraulic system that would raise and lower it."

"Yeah?"
God, she was sexy when she talked like that. "Hydraulics would definitely
work. I could help you build it." She wouldn't be able to beat him off
with a stick. He was all over that hydraulics idea.

Her
smile dazzled him. "I thought you might like that part. I haven't worked
out the kinks yet, but I think it's viable. Then it would be out of the way so
I have the available space for whatever I wanted to invent next."

He
nodded. "Nice." He wondered if any other man in the world would be
turned on by this kind of discussion. He sure was. All he had to do was listen
to her ideas for fascinating machinery and he was ready to go. She was the most
exciting woman he'd ever met.

"It's
a short-term solution, though. I can't store every invention in the crawl
space."

"Do you already have
an idea for your next invention?"

"Oh,
yeah!" Her face glowed with excitement. "How about a personal rocket
system that includes its own parachute? Forget about climbing ladders to fix
that hole in the roof. Just shoot yourself up there and parachute back
down!"

"That's
great!" Charlie was sinking deeper with every minute. He wanted to be
around for the next invention, and the one after that. He could be her guinea
pig, her project consultant, her marketing adviser, her lover...

"Charlie."

"What?"

"You've stopped fixing
the door."

"Oh!"
Jumping to attention, he squeezed the trigger on the drill he was holding at
crotch level and damn near ended his sex life. "Right."

Putting
down the drill, he took screws out of his pocket so he could insert them partway
into the holes he'd drilled. Once all the holes were made and the screws tucked
inside, he'd take out the drill bit and use the screwdriver attachment to
speed things up. With the potential of ending up in Eve's round bed, he didn't
want to waste too much time on this job.

Thoughts
of Eve's inventions mingled with images of Eve naked. His brain was on such
overload that it was a wonder sparks weren't coming out of his ears. His
hand-eye coordination was off and he had trouble getting the screws in the holes.

"About the personal
rocket system."

"What
about it?" He managed to insert the screws and start the next round of
drilling.

"I'd
appreciate it if you wouldn't mention that to my sister Denise."

"Eve,
I wouldn't mention it to anyone." But he'd forgotten that Denise would be
showing up tomorrow. Chaperone time. Tonight could be his one and only chance
to be alone with Eve and her pocketful of condoms.

I
didn't think you would," she said. "You're the discreet type. In
fact, I should have told you about the hovercraft immediately when we met for
pool."

That
still bothered him, that she'd told Rick years ago and then withheld the
information from him, her knight in shining armor. "So why didn't
you?"

She
took a deep breath. "Once I heard your name, I figured out you had to be
Rose Shepherd's son. I thought about your SATs and your magna cum laude and I
was afraid to."

"Afraid
to?" He abandoned the drilling and turned around. "That's the
craziest thing I've ever heard. I may be a lot of things, but one thing I'm
definitely not is scary."

"Oh,
yes you are, Charlie Shepherd. You not only have an excellent brain, you know
how to use it. You ace tests and you win academic honors and you march in
graduation processions with special tassels hanging from your cap. I... can't
seem to do any of that. I just fool around with inventions."

He
stared at her in amazement. She was without a doubt miles ahead of him in
brainpower, and yet she had no confidence in her mental abilities. Somebody, or
several somebodies, had done a number on her. Her teachers might be partly to
blame, but in Charlie's experience the buck stopped with the parents.

He
hoped he was wrong. A genius born to unsupportive parents could live in agony.
"I can't believe no one ever told you how smart you are."

"I
had one science teacher who told my mom and dad that maybe I should go to a
special school for gifted kids. My mom was willing to consider it, but my
grades were horrible, and my dad said if they paid the money for anyone, the
person who should go to a special school would be Denise, who was making
straight As."

"And now she's an
economics professor at Yale."

"Yep.
She fulfilled her destiny. And so did I. When the science teacher, Mr.
O'Hurley, suggested a special school for me, I was already doing commercials.
My dad found me an agent who told my folks that I'd make a fortune in modeling.
So I've fulfilled my destiny, too."

Charlie's
jaw clenched. Her parents had been given an exotic flower with incredible
potential, and instead of letting her grow in a fertile bed where she could
send down roots and expand her abilities, they'd planted her in a pot that was
way too small. Before he left this town he hoped to convince her that she was
worth more than she'd ever dreamed.

He
couldn't do that by holding himself aloof from her, either mentally or
physically. He hated to think he might be the first guy who appreciated
everything about her, but he could be.

"I
think you might have some more destiny to fulfill," he said.

Her
gaze held his. "You make me feel that way, Charlie. That's why I'm glad
you offered to help. And I'm worried about the electrical system of the
hovercraft. Structurally I think it's okay, but the electrical system may not
be quite right."

"Don't
worry. I'll check it all out." He blew out a breath. How he longed to take
her in his arms and tell her how beautiful and smart she was. "I really
need to finish this door."

"Go ahead. I didn't
mean to distract you." He smiled. "You would be a distraction just
standing there."