An hour later they were in front of a blazing fire. The damp wood was popping and snapping as it caught. Karen had chosen two puzzles, one a detailed country scene with only five hundred pieces, the other a wickedly difficult thousand-piece image of hundreds of tropical fish. She left it to Grady to decide.

“The fish,” he said at once. He brought paper and pen to the table.

“What are those for?”

“To keep score, of course.”

“You keep score when you put a puzzle together?”

“I told you it was more of a challenge when I did it. Are you game?”

Her competitive spirit kicked in. “Absolutely.” She’d put this puzzle together once before. She knew exactly where some of the trickiest sections were and what to watch for. “How are you scoring? Total number of pieces we each put together?”

“Exactly. We have one hour.”

She looked up from her assessment of the pieces spread across the table. “An hour?”

He grinned. “After that, if it’s necessary, we work together to finish it. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” she said, and solemnly held out her hand.

Grady’s clasp was warm and brief-his attention was already totally focused on the puzzle. Before she’d even had a chance to catch her breath, he’d snapped his first two pieces together.

Karen forced her concentration back to the puzzle. She found two linking pieces of her own, then a third. Within a few minutes she had the bottom right corner of the puzzle coming together nicely.

She glanced across the table and saw that Grady was at work on the top left section, his brow furrowed, his gaze intent. His total absorption was endearing somehow. It made her wonder if he would be that totally absorbed when he was making love.

As soon as the thought crossed her mind, her cheeks burned. No more of that, she chided herself, forcing her gaze back to the puzzle. It would play havoc with her concentration.

As it turned out, it already had. Though she tried to get back into it, all the pieces began to look the same. She tried to fit together several that were wildly mismatched…as she and Grady were, she reminded herself.

Stop that! she ordered herself as his knee bumped up against hers, sending an electric current racing down her leg. Her thoughts turned chaotic again. Suspicious, she stared at him. Had the grazing of his knee been intentional? Was he deliberately trying to distract her? Was this payback for her game to ruin his popcorn the night before? If so, she couldn’t tell it from his expression. He appeared completely focused, completely oblivious to her presence, and his section of the puzzle was growing by leaps and bounds.

She shifted her foot under the table until it found his leg. To justify her uncharacteristic actions, she told herself this was war as she began a slow, upward slide, her gaze locked intently on the table as if she had no idea what was happening beneath it. Grady jolted as if she’d prodded him with a hot poker from the fireplace. She bit back a grin, delighted that she had his full attention.

That bit of distraction allowed her to quickly assemble several more puzzle pieces, and she grinned as she saw she had completed the full outline of the right side.

The next time Grady reached for a piece, she made sure she reached for it at the same time, her hand covering his.

“Oh, sorry,” she said sweetly, as she withdrew.

He watched her, his gaze narrowed. “What are you up to, Karen?”

“Up to?” she said innocently. “I just thought that piece was the one I needed.”

“Did you now?” he asked suspiciously. “Where did you think it went? Show me.”

She took it and tried it in the bottom corner. Of course, it didn’t fit. “Guess not,” she said with a shrug. She handed it back to him.

“You’re dangerous,” he said huskily. “You know that, don’t you, Karen?”

No man had ever suggested she was dangerous, and Karen discovered she liked it that Grady had. “Remember that,” she advised as she went back to work on the puzzle, deliberately ignoring him.

Naturally Grady wasn’t satisfied to leave it at that. Feeling his gaze on her, she glanced up to find his dark eyes studying her intently.

“Shouldn’t you be concentrating on the puzzle?” she inquired.

“You’re more fascinating,” he said.

Truthfully, he was more intriguing than the puzzle, too, but Karen didn’t dare mention that. The teasing actions she had meant to distract him had affected her as well. The deliberate flirting had made her a little too aware of him as a flesh-and-blood man, instead of an abstract enemy. She was losing her grip on that negative image of him, letting the barriers crumble.

When she realized that he was no longer staring at her but at the puzzle, that he’d used these few minutes to complete another big chunk, she recognized that letting her guard down, even for a second, was a mistake. It was a lesson she needed to keep in mind.

Glancing at the clock, she saw that there were fifteen minutes left in their competition. Grady had a serious lead. She couldn’t let him win. Not at this. Not at any of his games. The stakes were too high and, for one terrifying minute, she had lost sight of that.

It wouldn’t happen again, Karen vowed, as she went back to work on the puzzle with total concentration. This might be just a silly contest, but Grady was clearly playing as he did everything, with a winner-take-all attitude. It would be wise to remember that, because the next time she might lose more than a game.

Grady had never expected to get turned on by doing a jigsaw puzzle. Oh, he’d always found competition to be invigorating, but arousing? Never. Which meant this had to do with his opponent.

He glanced at Karen, amused by her flushed cheeks, by the tip of her tongue caught between her teeth, as she focused totally on the puzzle. She was a feisty, sneaky competitor, far more devious than he’d ever envisioned. She had taken him totally by surprise when she’d flirted outrageously in a very successful attempt to distract him.

Not only was he distracted from the game, he was totally absorbed by the female puzzle sitting opposite him. He realized that he was no closer to his goal of understanding Karen than he had been on the day he’d decided to start spending time with her. There were too many layers, too many contradictions.

Her blind loyalty to her husband’s memory bumped up against her sense of fair play. Her wistful dreams clashed with the harsh reality of her life. She was stubborn and hardheaded, yet vulnerable. Her eyes could flash with defiance and anger one minute, with heat and desire the next. And heat and desire were what she aroused in him, on a more continual basis.

Something was happening between the two of them, but Grady was at a loss to understand it or to predict where it might lead. Nor did he dare jump to any conclusions, because one misstep could ruin everything.

The ringing of a phone jarred the peaceful ambiance. Karen looked up, startled, and maybe even a little bit afraid. Or was it guilt that caused the color in her cheeks to heighten again? Guilt that she was sharing the day with him?

It took her a minute to react, but then she bolted for the kitchen. He heard her answer the phone with a terse greeting, then her voice dropped and he could hear nothing at all.

Knowing it would infuriate her, he used the time to add another dozen pieces to his section of the puzzle. He studied her work and his own and concluded that he had the game easily won.

When she came back into the room, she looked shaken.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

She nodded, but her expression remained troubled and she stood several feet from the table, as if she didn’t dare sit down and join him.

“I don’t believe you,” he said bluntly. “Who was on the phone?”

“Just Gina, making sure that everything was okay out here.”