A Loving Man by Cait London

showdown, like in the Western movies. She wants to pay you for the roofing job and she said that check for your day’s work at the store hasn’t cleared her bank account. She wants to know if you want her to write another one, adding on the roofing job.”
    Stefan listened to the crickets in the June night. He wanted privacy for the discussion he wanted with Rose, away from interruptions. He wanted her for himself. Rose wasn’t a woman to wait, once she’d made up her mind. If his plan worked, she would come to him. “Tell Rose thatI’m busy and I’m leaving for Chicago in the morning. I’ll talk to her when I get back in a month or so.”
     
    “It’s been two weeks since I tried to talk with you and you wouldn’t answer,” Rose began as she sat facing Stefan, across his massive office desk. She was glad she had chosen the black business suit, despite the mid-June heat in Chicago. She wanted to present a picture of an independent, knowledgeable woman who knew exactly what she was doing at all times. She’d never traveled and the safety of Waterville was far away. Despite the strange hurried ways of the city, she was determined; she wanted her discussion with Stefan to be businesslike and effective.
    She tried to focus on her mission. Stefan had to see how unsuitable they were for each other; she wanted to pay her roofing debt to him. She did not want to owe Stefan anything. Just moments before, she’d been stunned by the expensively groomed power-businessman who had her ushered into his meeting with associates. His answer to the competing company who wanted his chefs was to buy them out. He wasted no time in itemizing details, or arranging dismissal of the top executives who had tried to undermine Donatien’s operation. With the exception of a few tender moments in which he recognized her presence, Stefan was curt and to the point. He had finalized the meeting with a cold nod.
    His associates had slanted Rose curious looks, her inexpensive black suit, blue blouse and practical walking shoes at odds with the sleek interior of the office. Stefan had briefly introduced her, had given her a light kiss as though greeting an old friend and then had asked her to stay while business was concluded.
    The man facing her across the desk did not look like the man who had kissed her after the piglet-episode. Hisexpression was grim and taut as if he’d lost too much sleep. She ached for the shadows beneath his eyes and the lines between his brows and bracketing his mouth.
    “It’s pretty dramatic, isn’t it? Coming all this way to set me straight?” Stefan stated quietly, looking too powerful in his expensive gray business suit. His whiskey-brown eyes drifted warmly over her and his grim expression seemed to ease. “Come here.”
    The anger that had simmered since the night she’d tried to set the rules between them came to a boil. Stefan was the only man who could nick her temper. “Oh, no. I came here to say my piece—to set the rules between us.” She hitched up the large traveling tote in front of her, propping it on her lap for protection. With Stefan, she always felt very unsafe, and she didn’t trust her reaction to him. He had an easy way of moving around her, as if his body recognized hers, and all his antennae were focused on her. “If you’re going to stay in Waterville, you’ll live by the rules. You worked on my house and my store, therefore, you get paid. You can’t just run off with me owing you wages. With that kiss in the field and the town talking, it will look like I’m paying you with something other than money.”
    “I’m staying.” Stefan turned a very expensive-looking pen between his fingers and studied her. “Come here,” he repeated too softly. Then he dropped the pen to the desk and the metallic click mirrored the warmer one in her body.
    That familiar quiver started deep in Rose’s belly, but she tried to push it away. She glanced at the elegantly furnished office, the walnut