AMES WAS FILTHY and exhausted by the time Parker finally found her way back to the house. He watched as she got out of the car, then turned and lifted something out. It was a dog, some kind of spaniel mutt, maybe twenty pounds, curled into her arms. She set the animal on the ground and clipped on a leash.

“Aw. We have a dog now?” James said.

“I have a dog now,” Parker said. “Thing One, meet Beauty. Beauty, Thing One.”

“Hi, Beauty,” James said. The dog tucked her head behind Parker’s knee and peed, not even bothering to crouch, trembling, unable to even look at him.

Parker tilted her head and gave James a smile. “You have that effect on women, I guess.”

He returned her smile. “Not all women.”

Her ears started doing that sunrise thing, getting all pink, then red. Then she popped the trunk and lifted out a bag. “I bought out the hardware store. Think you could grab a few things so we could get to work?”

“Sure.”

We, huh? She walked past him, her dog scuttling along, half-crouched, as if James was about to karate-chop her on the head. Parker, on the other hand, looked pretty damn good in those jeans, all long legs and perfect ass. And how was it that she smelled good…well, okay, sure, she smelled like dog, but also a little bit like…whatever it was she smelled like. Lemons or something. Flowers. Who knew? She smelled good, dog or no dog.

Just before she got in, her cell phone rang. “Hey, Ethan!” she said, her face lighting up. “No, I talked to them a little while ago. How are you? You did? Cool! Hang on a sec, the cell-phone service out here is horrible. Let me go down to the dock. Yes, there’s a dock, and no, it’s not what you’re picturing.”

She set her bag down and went around to the front of the house, the dog slinking beside her through the long grass.

And here was the thing. It irritated him. First of all, he’d spent the past few hours shoveling garbage on her behalf, and like some little kid who’d gotten an A on his paper, he wanted to show her. Think you could grow a pair, guy? his conscience asked. Secondly, message received. The Paragon calls, the minion can wait. Not that Ethan Mirabelli was a bad guy, based on James’s interactions with him over the years…friendly, successful, great father. That was the problem.

And third…she was down on the dock, and he hadn’t checked that out yet, and who knew if it was sturdy? What if she fell in? She was standing on it, and it hadn’t sunk, but he’d been too busy getting the water turned back on and clearing out her room to get to it.

She was laughing now. She sat on the dock cross-legged, looking every bit the upper-crust, beautiful, graceful woman she was. Oh, a little hair toss. Too bad the Paragon wasn’t able to see it.

“You’re an idiot,” James told himself. He went back inside—plenty more crap to shovel—and got to work.

But he checked on her every thirty seconds or so, just to make sure she hadn’t fallen in.

* * *

WHEN SHE HUNG UP with Ethan, Parker felt considerably cheered. The fact that he’d called made her feel less out of the loop. One thing to check in with your kid a couple times a day, another to have Ethan call her just to say hi. Maybe Lucy had told him she’d sounded lonely—and she’d tried not to, honest—or maybe, and more likely, Eth was a prince.

For about five minutes last summer, when Lucy had decided that she should marry some guy who wasn’t related to her dead husband, Ethan and Parker had thought about trying to be more than friends and parents of the same kid. After all, they laughed at the same jokes. They were both attractive. Once upon a time, they’d gotten it on with satisfactory physical results and a beautiful child. They were both single. Why not, right?

But whatever chemistry had once been between them had faded, and one kiss was enough to make them each rub their mouths with the backs of their hands. “You gave me cooties,” Ethan had said, and they’d ended up baking brownies and playing Scrabble.

It was too bad, in a way, because Ethan was pretty damn perfect. If he could clone himself and excise the part that had loved Lucy since he was nineteen years old, she was pretty sure he could be the One.

“What do you think, Beauty?” Parker asked. The dog had followed her without protest, James being the more obvious threat, but she wouldn’t make eye contact. Slowly, Parker put her hand out and stroked the dog’s cheek with one finger. So soft. “Good girl,” Parker said. “Good girl, Beauty.” The dog sidled closer to her, and a strange, sweet feeling filled Parker’s chest. She’d like to find the person who’d thrown her dog out of a moving vehicle and kick him in the nuts. Wearing her sharpest Jimmy Choo heels.

Parker looked up at the house and sighed. Time to get to work. There was Thing One, looking at her from the window— Hey! He’d taken the boards off the windows! Fantastic.

“Come on, girl,” she said to Beauty, standing up and heading up the short flight of stairs. The back of the house was barricaded by more junk—a table, boxes, a couple of plastic chairs, a tire—so she went around the front, the dog walking so close to her legs that Parker almost tripped.

She went inside and lurched to a halt.

“Holy halos, Thing One,” she breathed.

The hallway that yesterday she’d had to sidle down was completely empty. Wood floor. Grimy walls, a hole near the ceiling, but the entire hallway was cleared. She went down to the kitchen. “My God! You did all this?”

“Yeah,” he answered.

“You… Wow. This is amazing.”

The kitchen was much improved. There were still plastic boxes of who-knew-what, but the trash and cardboard and newspapers were gone. And it smelled much better, thanks to the salt air blowing through the windows.

She glanced out the window at the Dumpster that now graced the side of the house. It was already about a quarter full. “That’s a lot of crap,” she murmured.

“I kept some things I thought you might want. Over there on the table.”

She glanced over, then did a double take at the glass case on the floor by the wall. “Is that Apollo?”

James shrugged. “Think of him as mouse control. I already gave him one.”

“Really?”

“That’s what he eats.”

“Well, we can’t keep him in the kitchen. He gives me the willies.”

“Yes, Majesty. He can stay in my room.”

Whoops. She did sound a little imperial there. “That would be great. Thank you.”

“Here’s the deal,” James said. “The fridge works, but it needs to be scoured. It’s not the most efficient thing in the world, but it’ll keep things cold. The oven is shot and I think your mouse and all his friends live in there, so we should ditch it. My uncle knows a used one you can buy pretty cheap. The cupboards are bolted on, so if we tear them off, it’ll rip out chunks of the walls. The best bet is probably to clean and paint them. You’ll need a new subfloor and linoleum or tile in here, but the floors in the rest of the house are wood. Clean them up, slap on some polyurethane and you have character. New roof, new shingles, cut down some of the scrub around the house, fix the stairs to the dock and the real-estate agent says you might be able to pay off the back taxes and get a little besides.”

“Back taxes? And how much is a little?”

“Depends on the offer you get.”

Crikey. She didn’t really want to hear the actual figure. “Think I’ll have enough left over to buy a house in Rhode Island?”

“Not even close.”

A strand of panic laced through her. Parker took a deep breath. And another. Looked at Apollo, who stared back impassively.

You can only do what you can do, the Holy Rollers chimed. True enough.

She looked around the kitchen, which still had yards and yards of crap in it, then back at Thing One, who was looking at her, arms folded, face unreadable.

“Thank you, James,” she said.

His expression softened. “You’re welcome.”

His eyes were dark, dark brown. Best not to look for too long. She cleared her throat. “I guess I’ll get to work on my room.”

“You do that.”

She went down the hall, opened the door and got another shock.

The room was completely empty. All that stuff…the clothes and boxes and lamps and macramé and Christmas ornaments…was gone. The room was bigger than it had appeared when crammed with junk; the windows were open and somewhat battered screens were in the windows. It smelled clean. It was clean.

“Your bed is being delivered later on.” His voice made her jump. He’d followed her down the hall.

“What bed?”

He shrugged. “I figured you were too much of a princess to sleep on the floor, so I ordered you a bed. Nothing special. Just a frame and a box spring and mattress.”

“James…” Her cheeks burned, and she swallowed.

He smiled. Oh, that was dangerous.

Parker did not find Thing One particularly appealing, though she could recognize that he was attractive. He just didn’t do anything for her. No, those sulky good looks and arrogant bone structure…yawn. He looked like a Gucci model or a bored playboy. Not her type. Not at all.

Until he smiled. He had a wide, generous smile, almost too wide if there was such a thing, and his eyes crinkled far more than a young man’s should, and heck yeah, she felt it in Lady Land, uh-huh.

And given that they were apparently stuck together for the summer—and as James Cahill was the last guy she’d slept with—this was a very dangerous thing indeed.