"You've got nerve, Johnson. I don't like that." She moved to the door, pausing just a moment with her hand on the knob. "If you have any questions that deal with the construction, I'll be around."

He didn't have to move much to put a hand on her shoulder. Under his palm he felt her coil up like a cat ready to spring. "So will I," he reminded her. "We'll have dinner some other time. I figure you owe me a beer."

After one self-satisfied glance at the top of his head, Abra stepped out into the sun.

He certainly wasn't what she'd been expecting. He was attractive, but she could handle that. When a woman took root in male territory, she was bound to come into contact with an attractive man from time to time. Still, he looked more like one of her crew than a partner in one of the country's top architectural firms. His dark blond hair, with its sun-bleached tips, was worn too long for the nine-to-five set, and his rangy build held ripples of muscle under the taut, tanned skin. His broad, callused hands were those of a work-ingman. She moved her shoulders as if shrugging off the memory of his touch. She'd felt the strength, the roughness and the appeal of those hands. Then there was that voice, that slow take-your-time drawl.

She settled the hard hat more securely as she approached the steel skeleton of the building. Some women would have found that voice appealing. She didn't have time to be charmed by a Southern drawl or a cocky grin. She didn't, when it came right down to it, have much time to think of herself as a woman.

He'd made her feel like one.

Scowling against the sun, she watched beams being riveted into place. She didn't care for Cody Johnson's ability to make her feel feminine. "Feminine" too often meant "defenseless" and "dependent." Abra had no intention of being either of those. She'd worked too hard and too long at self-sufficiency. A couple of… flutters, she decided, just flutters… weren't going to affect her.