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Okay, so clearly, physical contact with the Supergeek was a no-no. Was he so inexperienced that he didn’t even know how to respond to the most innocent touch?
    Or was he repulsed by her? The thought popped up out of nowhere. Jimmy had certainly expressed distaste or disapproval several times since picking her up at the airport. He didn’t approve of her coat, her mittens, her occupational goals—that had been crystal clear from the expressions he was unable to hide. Maybe he thought she was unattractive. Except, no, a man such as him, armed with more than enough critical thinking, must surely recognize that Deneen possessed all the traditional markers of female beauty.
    She wasn’t the least bit insecure about her looks. But the other, chronic, terrible, soul-crushing fear—the one Deneen had been carrying around with her since she was seven years old and her mother had given her a time-out for playing dress-up when she was supposed to be doing “Important Women of the Twentieth Century” flash cards with her sister—was that Deneen was nothing more than a dumb blonde, a ditzy chick, a bubble-headed window dressing.
    And if that was how Jimmy saw her, then of course he wasn’t attracted to her. Correction, he was repelled by her. He was probably counting the minutes until she left. But the problem was, she didn’t have anywhere to go.
    No, strike that, Deneen thought, as she swept up a few crumbs and drained the last of her milk while Jimmy bustled around the kitchen. The problem was that Jimmy Mason didn’t like her, and that provoked a combination of indignation and hurt feelings that she really, really didn’t like. Only Deneen’s family was allowed to dismiss her, and only because it was practically a tradition. Men were supposed to line up with their tails wagging, full of compliments about her looks and the way she smelled and how clever she was, and in exchange she knew how to be a darn good date. She laughed at their jokes. She encouraged them to talk about themselves. She followed enough sports to discuss their favorite teams. And most of all, she looked really, really good on their arms.
    “Are you all right?”
    Jimmy was standing next to her, holding a dishrag, and peering at her skeptically. Oh, no—she was about to cry, a fact he seemed to have picked up on despite his general cluelessness.
    “Yes. Yes! All right?” She got up from the table with as much dignity as she could muster. “Thank you for dinner. Wasn’t I supposed to be doing the cleaning?”
    “Oh.” Jimmy looked down at the dishrag in his hand. Clearly he was uncomfortable, too. Well, obviously, because he had an unwanted dumb blonde in his kitchen. “You can clean up tomorrow. Now why don’t you show me your, er, projects, so I can get to work.”
    Deneen almost told him to forget it, especially because he was bound to think her efforts were wasted. But he was already leading the way back to his bedroom, so she hustled after him.
    Inside the room, he stopped and stared silently at the bed for several long moments. Behind him, Deneen felt more and more anxious. Did he hate what she’d done? He probably did. She must have broken some rule and offended his rigid sense of order. Plus she’d done it on his turf, in his room, mussing up his stupid boring bedspread with its hospital corners and perfectly folded bed sheets and—
    “What are those?” he asked, in a strained voice, pointing to the floor, where she’d set the centerpieces she had fashioned from bits and pieces she’d found around the ranch.
    “Oh.” She swallowed nervously. “Those are for the tables. Decorations. I wasn’t sure how many tables there were, so I made six.”
    “Six is…fine.” He took one last look and went to his dresser, grabbing a handful of clothes from the top drawer. “All right, well, I’m off to my workshop. We can load all of this into the truck in the morning. I’ll just, you know, sleep on the floor or something.”
    Was that