He took a deep breath, and I just knew he was about to lie to me.  “It’s a mess,” he hedged.  “I’ll take you there on another day, after I’ve straightened up.”

“Are you telling me that you’re a slob?”

“Yeah,” he said, no hesitation.

I didn’t believe that for one second, not any of it.  He either didn’t live around here, or there was another reason he wasn’t bringing me back to his place.

Dammit.  And we’d been doing okay, making progress.  But at this simple lie, some seeds of suspicion were planted.

What if he had a live-in girlfriend?

Fuck.  What if he had a wife?

“Do you have a girlfriend . . . or a wife?” I asked him point blank, watching his face carefully.

A look of very pure annoyance crossed his face, and I breathed out a sigh of relief.  He was genuinely offended at the question, and I found that boundlessly reassuring.

“No.  Of course not.  I wouldn’t be with you now if I did.  Is that what you think of me?”

Now I was on the defense.  Oh, he was good.  “No,” I said carefully.  “It’s just never bad to be clear, I figure.”

He grunted (this one was annoyed, I thought), and we started walking again.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Next, I took him to my gym, because he asked what I liked to do on my day off, and my first and favorite choice, spending time with my boys, seemed inappropriate.  I didn’t even want to guess what my sons would think of Heath and our age difference.

My next few choices were shot down emphatically.  Shopping was not his thing, and I had a good feeling that I wouldn’t be changing his mind about that.

And no, he hadn’t changed his opinion about me photographing him.

So we settled on a plan.  We’d hit the gym, then I’d head back to my place to shower, and he’d go grab a few things from his place, make a few phone calls (for work), then come to pick me up for our date.

We actually went over all of this, every detail.  Heath seemed to think the day needed to be handled with a well thought out strategy.  I figured this was just another one of his quirks.

“I’m guessing you’ll head straight to the free weights,” I said, after I’d checked us both in.  I got a few guest passes every month, so Heath had been able to accompany me without a hitch.

“I’m guessing you’ll start out with cardio,” he returned.

We smiled at each other.  So we did have a few things in common that didn’t involve a bed.

I found a treadmill with the best view of the free weight area, tossed my hand towel across the top, and started stretching, my eyes on Heath.  I figured that watching him workout would be a treat.

And he did not disappoint.

When we’d been going over the day’s plans, he’d mentioned to me that he didn’t have a gym membership anywhere, or even a home gym, and I’d had a hard time believing it.  He was in perfect shape.  Beyond perfect into mind-blowing, to be precise.  No one got that way without work.

But, watching him work out, I quickly caught on why it made sense.

I’d clocked him as military, and his workout was surely proof of it.  It was grueling, but called for little beyond some room on the floor and a pull-up bar that took a lot of weight.

I didn’t even realize I was counting his pushups in my head until a voice from the machine next to me started counting off the numbers in a mutter.  They were that impressive.

I was running by then, but I shot a glance to my right, taking in the other woman who was shamelessly watching Heath go through his routine.

She was pretty.  And at least ten years younger than I was.  And clearly into Heath.

I started looking around the room, noticing all of the female attention he was getting.

I could certainly see why.

He didn’t pace himself at all, going through his routine at full speed, and in a way that could only be described as punishing.  Even in a large building full of people in excellent shape, his body and methods caught the eye.

When he got to the pull-up bar, I even heard one of the fawning women gasp, and I couldn’t really blame her.

His pace was astounding.  If this was the end of the world, and the only way you could save humanity was to do as many pull-ups as possible, Heath was definitely going to save us all.  And it wasn’t just the pull-ups.  This was how he approached every new maneuver.

I had to squint and do a double take when I saw the size of the weights he used for a long round of surrenders.

At one point, a very hot young brunette approached him, smiling, flirting from across the room.

Oh wow.  I was jealous, and it was awful.

I was not the jealous type.  I’d always been very confident in myself, had felt secure even with my cheating husband, until of course I found out he was a cheat and my best friend was a home-wrecking whore.

But even then, rather than getting jealous, I’d gotten rid of the dead weight that was my loser of a husband.  I’d known it was he that was flawed, not me, and I’d moved the hell on with my life.

I was not a jealous soul.

Or so I had thought.

But then Heath did something that I found made me feel kind of wonderful.

He blew the girl off rather aggressively, with a less than friendly go away motion of his hand, and a sharp, short shake of his head.

She went away, looking baffled.