“I’ll be right back.” Before she could ask, he headed through the house and up the stacked flights of steps, taking them two at a time. He was back a minute later.

“You don’t have to donate the sweater to the cause,” she started to say.

He shook it out to show the destruction. “I already have. And don’t worry about it.” He knelt again and finished setting up shop, smiling.

“What?” she said, noticing the smile apparently, when he finally stood and brushed off his knees.

“Nothing.”

“Something,” she echoed back at him. “You seemed…amused by my kitty-whispering skills. Or lack thereof.”

“No, no, you did fine.” He took the now yawning little ball of fluff and nestled her into his sweater, where she instantly curled up and went to sleep. He straightened and stood next to Kirby. “They look so innocent when they’re sleeping, don’t they?”

He glanced over just in time to catch her rolling her eyes, which, perversely, made him grin all the more widely.

“We’d better eat while the little devil-I mean darling-naps,” she said.

He laughed as he held the door open for her, then paused to check out the damage to the screen before stepping in behind her.

She looked back and sighed. “I’ll have to tackle that tomorrow.”

“If you have some extra screen laying around, I’ll be happy to replace it for you.”

She smiled now, but it was a wry one. He wouldn’t have thought it would suit her aquiline features, but it did somehow. Or maybe he was finally adjusting his expectations. He wasn’t sure which. But he knew he wanted to figure it out. Figure her out.

“I’m not in the habit of asking paying guests to do repair work on their guest quarters. And this was hardly your fault. I put her out there and constructed the failed playpen.”

“I wasn’t asking to be billed for the damage or offering because I felt guilty. I can do the job and thought it might help. I was just being…friendly.” He smiled in the face of her dubious expression. “Are you always in the habit of not giving your guests the benefit of the doubt?”

“No, of course not.” She immediately smoothed her expression and he almost felt bad for making her feel self-conscious. “I’m sorry. And thank you for the kind offer. But I can-”

“Handle it. Why is it,” he said, as he gestured for her to proceed him into the dining room, “that I think you say that a lot?”

“I don’t know that I say it, but it is true. I’m a pretty capable person, despite the damsel in distress act earlier.”

“I don’t doubt that. And accidents can happen to anyone. That you climbed up there at all either spoke of great confidence or-”

“-gasping idiocy.”

He smiled as he took the seat across from her and spread the linen napkin on his plate across his lap. “I hardly think that would ever describe you.”

“You’d be wrong, but I appreciate the gentlemanly response. Especially given you have actual proof to the contrary.”

“Like I keep saying, accidents happen.”

She took the lid off the serving dish. “Chicken and mushroom over rice. Salad, too. The dressing is there,” she said, motioning to the small tureen. “It’s Italian. I hope that’s okay. Biscuits in the basket there.”

“More than okay. Smells incredible.”

“Sorry about the pot roast.”

“I can’t tell you the last time I had home-cooked anything. I’m more than grateful.”

Her smile was a bit self-deprecating as she served herself salad. “Well, I did use the stove, but it’s hardly cooking. Pour a can of mushroom soup over a few breasts of chicken. Make instant rice. Crack open a tube of biscuits. Not exactly going to give Rachel Ray a run anytime soon.”

He smiled as he filled his plate. “Don’t knock yourself. My specialty is ordering room service or takeout. Left on my own, I’d be surviving on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and Captain Crunch. This is five-star for me.”

Kirby lifted a quizzical brow and looked like she wanted to ask some questions, but continued to munch her salad instead. He’d have answered anything she asked him, but he had to admit he kind of liked that she had absolutely no idea who he was, and therefore was willing to take him strictly at face value. Her curiosity would get the better of her eventually, and then things would go in whatever direction they did. Probably not all that differently here in Vermont than back in Vegas. Money and fame tended to affect people the same no matter where they hailed from, he’d discovered.

It didn’t occur to him until he was on his second serving of chicken that he’d naturally assumed he’d be sticking around long enough for her to find out anything at all.

“So,” he said as he cracked open another biscuit. His third. “Is this the first place you’ve owned?”

“That obvious?” she said on a laugh. She was working on another biscuit herself.

He liked a woman who wasn’t afraid to eat in front of a man. Not that this was a date, or that she was remotely concerned about his opinion of her eating habits…but he’d spent most of his life surrounded by women for whom eating was an elaborate science of carb totals and protein gram calculations that would give even the most anal retentive scientist a migraine, all while making sure nothing that contained actual fat ever crossed their lips. He swallowed a smile as he watched her slather on the butter, thinking how hated she would be in his hometown if she regularly ate chicken and biscuits and still looked like she did.

“No, it’s not obvious,” he said. “You have a really nice place here. All of it, inside and out. I just…when I was signing in. I noticed…” he trailed off, not wanting to insult her or make her feel bad. Quite rude given he was enjoying a meal prepared by her. “I’m sorry, none of my business.”

“That’s okay; it’s a fair question. This is my first and only establishment. A culmination of a lot of hard work, a long ago dream…and quite possibly a large portion of that gasping idiocy I mentioned earlier.”

“I’d call it flying in the face of fear.”

“Terror, yes. Lots of that.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s a requirement. You’re only afraid because it matters if you fail. And so that’s a good thing.”

She paused for a second, as if considering that. “I’ll take your word for it,” she said, and polished off the rest of her biscuit. “I wouldn’t mind if the fear took a break. At least on alternate weeks.”

He gave a short laugh. Then he reached over to dab a bit of errant butter from the corner of her mouth before he thought better of such a personal action. Her gray eyes widened a bit, but she didn’t jerk from his touch. “Sorry, I just…” He smiled…and licked his finger.

She cleared her throat then and shifted back in her seat. “No problem.” He saw the color steal into the smooth cream of her cheeks and figured he should feel badly about that. But…not so much, as it turned out.

“Would you care for another helping? More salad? I don’t know who I thought I was feeding. Enough here for an army. Biscuit?”

He liked the nervous chatter. A lot. “I’m hungry enough to eat at least a platoon’s worth.”

“Please then,” she said, all but shoving the serving dish at him. “Help yourself.”

He did…but he was thinking how what he really wanted to help himself to wasn’t on the table, but sitting at it. Although having her on the table wasn’t exactly a bad idea, either.

Now he was stifling a smile at his own expense. Big talk for a guy who hadn’t put moves on a woman in…well, it was too embarrassing to actually factor out. But, safe to say, a long while. Hard to put moves on women who were already draping themselves all over you. Then, with the string of bad stuff happening over the month or so after he’d left the casino world, that hadn’t exactly been uppermost in his mind.

Unlike now. When it seemed to be all he could think about. Thank God he knew his poker face was unshakable. Because if she could read even a fraction of the thoughts running through his mind at that moment, a whole lot more than her cheeks would be turning pink. And he doubted he’d be a guest at her dinner table again anytime soon.