“Let me help you with that. I hope your car is around there in the parking lot.”

“It is. Thank you.”

He lifted the container of liquid soap. “Did you think you could carry this?”

“I was hoping that I could.”

“Uh-huh. Come on.”

Kendra’s eyebrows shot up. The man’s attitude was as masculine as his looks and aura. His “come on” was nothing short of a command. She walked with him to the car, not in obedience but in gratitude for not having to carry that heavy load.

“You’re very kind to me, Mr. Maguire.”

“It’s the way I was raised. I’ll ride home with you.”

He made no effort to be ingratiating, she saw, and she appreciated that. It had begun to dawn on her that Reid Maguire knew who he was and didn’t have a need to curry favor or to shine up to anyone. Well, neither did she.

She parked in front of her house, opened the trunk of her car and, unwilling to wait for him to do it, walked around to remove her purchases. When she got to the trunk, Reid Maguire stood beside it with both hands on his hips. She glanced up at him and felt as if she would shrink beneath the assault of his withering stare.

“If you’ll go ahead and open your door, Ms. Ruther ford, I’ll bring these things in for you.”

“Thanks, Mr. Maguire.” She did as he suggested, feeling as if she’d had a parental tongue lashing. She was not used to his kind of man. Besides, she didn’t expect men to do things for her just because she was a woman.

“Where do you keep this?” he asked, referring to the big container of liquid soap.

“In the laundry room, but that’s down in the basement.”

“Ms. Rutherford—”

She held up her hands, palms out. “All right. All right. On that shelf to your left, please.”

He put the soap on the shelf, came back upstairs and headed for the front door without saying anything.

“Mr. Maguire!” She spoke sharply, and he stopped, turned and looked at her with an expression that questioned her impudence. “Sorry, but I wanted to get your attention. Thank you for helping me. You were raised to be gracious. So was I, and I’d appreciate it if you would at least accept a cup of coffee or tea, or a glass of milk, in case you don’t drink tea or coffee.”

He stared at her for nearly a minute, and when a half smile formed around his lips, she nearly grabbed the banister for support. What a mesmerizing man! “Thank you for a cup of coffee. I hope it isn’t instant. I get that at home.”

She took a deep breath, recovered her equilibrium and said, “You’ll smell it in a minute.”

To her surprise, he followed her to the kitchen and took a seat. He pointed to a loose board at the base of the radiator. “Why doesn’t this surprise me?”

“What? Why doesn’t what surprise you?”

“That board hanging loose down there in a brand-new house. This builder is known for his shoddy work. I’ll bet if I went through this house, I’d find a dozen things wrong with it.”

She got two plates, cut two thick slices of chocolate cake, got forks and napkins and put them on the table with the cake. “The coffee will be ready in a minute. What do you know about Brown and Worley?”

“Plenty.”

She put the coffee in front of him. “Would you like milk and sugar?”

“Milk, please.”

Something wasn’t right, and she had to find a way to pry from him the information that he was obviously in no rush to provide.

“Did you buy a house from Brown and Worley?”

“This cake is delicious. Did you make it?”

“Yes, I did. You didn’t answer my question. But if you’d rather not…”

“Brown and Worley built an apartment house that I designed.”

She stopped eating the cake and looked at him. “So you’re an architect. I gather they did a poor job. Tell me what happened.”

“Part of the building collapsed, injuring a number of people. The builders swore in court that they followed my design to the letter and brought numerous witnesses who attested to their competence. One man could not stand up to some of the most exalted building firms in this part of the country, at least two of which were owned by Worley’s cousins. I lost a class-action suit, my home, my wife and every dime I had.”

“Especially not one black man,” she said under her breath, but he heard her.

“That, too.”

“How long ago was that?” she asked him.

“A little over six years.”

“Did you know at the time that the witnesses were Worley’s blood relatives?”

“No, and neither did my lawyer. I discovered it a couple of months ago while surfing the Internet for anything that would help my case.”

“Did you print out what you found?”

“Yeah. Of course I did.”

“Then you can reopen the case, but you have to do it within a year of the date on that printout. You may claim the Discovery Rule, which says you may appeal on the basis of new and relevant information. If you were bankrupt when the statute of limitations applied, you may appeal as soon as you get funds.”

“Thanks. That’s good to know. Mind if I ask how you happen to have this information?”

“I’m a judge.”

His whistle split the air. “Where do you preside?”

“Beginning Monday, I will be the presiding judge at the courthouse up the street. I’m looking forward to it. Would you like some more coffee? I made a full pot.”

“Thanks.” He drank the second cup quickly.

“I expected that, in a town this size, people would be friendlier,” she said and related to him her experience with the store clerk who resented being asked if she lived in Queenstown.

“They’re hospitable, Ms. Rutherford, but you walked into a problem.”

“What do you mean?” she asked him, and at the memory of her neighbor’s comment about the group that marched up to Albemarle Gates, its members beating drums and blowing a bugle and a trumpet, fear seemed to settle in her.

“This building is sitting on sacred Native American burial grounds, and sixty percent of the people in this town and the surrounding areas think you’ve sided with the builders who committed this sacrilege.”

“What will I do? I didn’t know anything about it.”

“Be careful, especially when you’re out at night.”

She sank into her chair, unaccustomed to the feeling of defeat that pervaded her. With a deed and a mortgage, she couldn’t walk away from the house. “Thanks for the warning. I’ve been here barely two weeks, and I’m in trouble. I don’t like the sound of this. Tell me, what do you do now?” she asked him.

“I just got a job with Marks and Connerly, my first job as an architect since that debacle, and I’m lucky to have it. I’d better be going. Thanks for the coffee and cake. Both were delicious.”

She wanted to detain him, but she knew instinctively that it would be the wrong move. Reid Maguire was a loner, and every sentence he uttered seemed to struggle out of him. Grudgingly. “Thanks for the company,” she said as she walked to the door with him, “and for the help.”

He glanced down at her from beneath his thick, curly lashes and smiled with seeming reluctance. “It was my pleasure.”

He left without saying another word. Didn’t he know how to say goodbye, or did he have some kind of superstition about it? Holding a conversation with him was as easy as getting a politician to tell a straightforward, uncoated, denuded truth.

She raised her right shoulder in a limp shrug. Damned if she was going to let him bamboozle her every time he rearranged his face into a provocation for female capitulation. She’d like to meet the woman who walked out on that man. She watched his lilting strut as he crossed the street on his way home. Maybe he wasn’t sex personified, but, to her, he was a tantalizing tidbit. Or, perhaps she’d been working in the boondocks too long. However you sliced it, Reid Maguire looked to her the way upstream salmon looked to a hungry bear.

A judge! Was fate playing games with him, putting him on his honor? If Kendra Rutherford presided in Queenstown, chances were fair that she would hear his case against Brown and Worley, provided he managed to bring it to trial. She hadn’t been reluctant to give him good advice, and he meant to follow it, but the less he saw of her, the better it would be for both of them. He’d spent six long years on Philip Dickerson’s estate, during which time he hadn’t wanted a woman and hadn’t touched one. Before Myrna walked out of his life, he hadn’t been celibate or even considered it since he was thirteen, but his disappointment in Myrna had so embittered him that he couldn’t have made love with a woman if his life had depended on it. Yet, the minute he saw Kendra sprawled out on the ice, relaxed and yielding to her inability to get up, much like a dying man submitting to the inevitable, his libido had returned with a vengeance.