In the living room, the telephone barely trilled before Ryan leaped out of his chair and lurched for it. Before Greer had the chance to get nervous, he was barking her name from the other room.

“Someone named Daniel,” he growled as he handed her the receiver.

“Dan?” she said. “No, that was my new neighbor.” With the receiver cupped to her ear, Greer smiled into Ryan’s blue eyes, a little startled to see that the dance in them had been replaced by little chips of ice. “Sure, Friday night will be fine…” No problem, she mouthed to Ryan, the caller was a friend.

He stuffed his hands loosely into his jeans pockets, but hovered until she hung up the telephone. After that, he took on the dishes while she made coffee.

An hour later, she was curled in the old wicker rocker, and Ryan, was stretched out on the couch. Tuesday evenings were usually a boring midpoint in the week, but not this one. Greer couldn’t remember feeling as at ease and content in anyone’s company on first meeting.

He was from Maine, he told her, a simple old-fashioned backwoods town not far from the Atlantic coast. He clearly loved the place. Unfortunately, the town offered limited opportunities for a mechanical engineer; he’d worked for six years for one company, but there’d been no hope of further advancement. He was interested in starting his own firm eventually, but he didn’t have the varied experience he needed to do that just yet-and Laughlin had snapped him up after seeing his qualifications, grateful that he was willing to move to North Carolina.

Of the women in his life he said nothing, Greer noted, but the longer she listened to him, the more she was conscious that first impressions were deceiving. His looks weren’t ordinary at all. His eyes often sparkled with fine dry humor; he had an endearing crooked grin; and his body…there was something about that body that reminded her of lumberjacks or shipbuilders. Energy, vitality, the lithe way he moved…he was so clearly a physical man.