by Kaylea Cross
“It’s got a fully separate suite downstairs. If you got a renter, that could pay for most of the mortgage every month.” He raised a golden-brown eyebrow. “Wanna see the rest?”
She bit her lip, but couldn’t hold back an excited smile. “Yes.”
His answering grin made her heart flutter, catching her off guard. “Good.”
Shoving aside her strange reaction, she toured the upstairs, which was just as great as the main floor. Two smaller bedrooms, a Jack-and-Jill bathroom, and the master suite. From the hammering and sawing going on in there, it wasn’t done yet.
“We’re almost finished in the master bathroom,” Jase told her, leading the way into the master suite.
“Ohhh…” The room was bright and spacious. Again, the walls were that gorgeous, jewel-toned teal, with creamy white moldings and baseboards and oak hardwood floors. “Did you guys redo all of this?”
“No. It was in pretty good shape when we got it. We just refinished some things and updated some others.” He nodded to the left. “Come see the master bath.”
She didn’t move, feeling a little awkward. The guys had gone to so much trouble for her, no doubt working after hours to get this done so Jase could show it to her. “I didn’t even know you guys were working on this one.”
“I wanted to surprise you. I knew you needed to find a new place, so when the owner decided to sell instead of completing the renos he’d hired us for a few weeks ago, the company bought it so we could fix it up for you.”
She had no illusions that it had been his doing. He always seemed to go above and beyond to help her. “I can’t believe you’d do all this for me.”
He shrugged. “I want you to have a home you feel comfortable in. And I promised Carter a long time ago that I would take care of you.”
What? “Oh.” Her heart hitched. He’d never told her that before.
“Take a look at the walk-in closet. I just put more shelving up.”
She walked over to it, unsure what to think. Taking all this on for her benefit was going way above and beyond, even if he’d made that promise to Carter.
Looking around at everything with new eyes, it suddenly hit her how well Jase knew her tastes, because it was reflected in the details. He’d obviously been paying a lot closer attention over the years than she’d realized.
Not just the overall style and feel of the house, which was reminiscent of the coastal region of North Carolina, but right down to the fixtures and paint colors. The teal on the walls. The glossy aqua on the front door.
“Jase, this is unreal,” she said to him, stunned by all he’d done for her.
He shrugged like it was no big deal. “It’s yours to rent if you want it. And it comes with the option to buy later on.”
Damn, he knew her so well. “How much is the rent for the main part of the house?”
“Whatever you can afford comfortably every month.”
No. This wasn’t right. She couldn’t take advantage of his or Beckett’s generosity. As much as she appreciated his offer and the sheer amount of work he’d put into this, it stirred complicated feelings in her.
“I can’t accept this.” She shook her head, glanced around her. No way this was in her price range. “You could get a premium rent for this from someone else.”
“Moll.” His voice was low, calm. “It’s yours if you want it. But you don’t have to decide right now. I just wanted to show you around so you could get a feel for it. Go home and sleep on it.”
She turned her attention back to him, and there was that undeniable tug of awareness again. She shook it off, unwilling to face or examine it. There were more important things to worry about right now, like where she was going to live. This place felt right. Jase had made it that way, for her and the baby.
She swallowed the lump forming in her throat. While she didn’t like being on the receiving end of charity, she wasn’t so stubborn that she would let an opportunity like this pass by. She couldn’t afford to be prideful right now.
“I’d better go see the bathroom and say hi to the others,” she said, mainly to change the subject and give her an excuse to put some space between her and Jase.
The hammering stopped as she entered the master bathroom, a bright, spacious, spa feel to it. Aidan was busy prepping the walls, his deep auburn hair, face and shoulders dusted with drywall dust, sweat stains on the chest of his shirt and under his arms. “Hey, gorgeous,” he said to her in his deep Scottish burr.
“Hi.” She switched her attention to Beckett, who was grouting the tile in the huge walk-in shower.
“Hey, Moll. What do you think of the place?” Beckett asked, trowel in hand as he stepping out of the shower enclosure.
“It’s perfect.”
Beckett’s dark brown eyes gleamed with humor. “So you’ll take it?”
She glanced at Jase, who stood in the bathroom doorway, the breadth of his shoulders all but filling the space. Why hadn’t she ever noticed the way the fabric of his shirt clung to the muscles across his chest and shoulders before?
Realizing her gaze had lingered on him a little too long, she focused back on Beckett, feeling bad that the guys were working here in their spare time every day. “I’m seriously tempted.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“Why don’t you take another look around and make note of anything you’d want changed. If you give me a list, I can do them, for you,” Jase said behind her.
“It’s already perfect,” she murmured. “But yeah, I’d like to look around more.”
Leaving them to continue their work, she did another tour, noting more details that Jase must have put in for her. Lantern-style pendant lights above the kitchen island. Chandeliers in the bathrooms.
She went back upstairs and into the hallway, looking for something to make herself useful with. A warm vanilla ice cream color had been put up on two walls, making the most of the natural light. A gallon of paint, tray and roller lay on the floor next to one of the remaining primed walls. She wasn’t much of a handyman, but she could paint, and the guys had their hands full. Working on their own time, for her.
She pulled her hair back into a clip, rolled up her sleeves and poured some paint into the tray. Then she lifted the ladder away from the wall and opened it, loaded her brush in the paint, and climbed up to begin cutting in near the ceiling.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
She started to turn her head just as Jase rushed over, then gasped in surprise when his arms banded around her waist and lifted her to the floor. The strength and warmth of his hold penetrated her awareness, leaving her skin strangely sensitive. “Hey,” she protested.
“Hey nothing.” He spun her around and plucked the paintbrush from her hand. “I don’t want you lifting a finger here, let alone up on a ladder and breathing in paint fumes right now.” He carried the brush into the master bedroom.
“Jase.” She followed him, annoyed. At his ridiculous overprotectiveness. At her body’s unsettling reaction to the feel of his arms around her.
Her skin tingled where he’d touched her, the easy strength in his muscles making her heart flutter. Both things she didn’t want to think about.
What was wrong with her? She was a pregnant widow and he’d been her husband’s best friend. The very idea of her being attracted to Jase that way…it was ridiculous. “I’m pregnant, not helpless. I can roll some paint.”
“I appreciate the offer, but no. We’ve got this,” he said without looking at her.
He was ridiculous. She put her hands on her hips. “Seriously?”
That startling aqua gaze of his sliced over to her. “Seriously.”
She stood there scowling at him, not really angry at him but for some reason she couldn’t look away. Not even when he climbed back into the huge walk-in shower to resume grouting with Beckett.
Against her will her gaze slid over his shoulders and back, tracking the way the fabric of his shirt pulled taut along the ridges of muscle there.
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Unbidden, an image flashed into her head. Of him standing in that same shower while the water sluiced over his naked skin, down the rock-hard slab of his chest and belly to his groin—
She mentally slapped that painfully vivid picture away, stunned and unsettled. Where the hell had that come from?
Molly tore her gaze from him, ashamed. Carter was barely cold in his grave, and here she was, fantasizing about his best friend.
She didn’t know what to do with these strange, budding feelings for the man who up until now had simply been one of her closest and most dependable friends.
I gotta get outta here.
“I have to go,” she called out.
Jase stopped and looked over at her. “Already?”
She nodded. “I have some things to take care of.” Like sorting out her tumultuous thoughts.
He studied her a moment. “Okay. So you’ll think about taking the place?”
“Yes,” she promised. “Thanks for…everything.” That was so lame in light of everything he and the others had done, but it was all she had.
“Sure. Have a good night.”
“You too.” She rushed downstairs, trying to sort out her racing thoughts.
She had always liked Jase. Loved him as a friend. But she hadn’t ever pictured her friends naked in the shower before, and that was worrisome. Hopefully it was just pregnancy hormones making her temporarily insane, but whatever the case, her awareness of him as a desirable man was growing stronger every time she saw him, and she couldn’t seem to shut it off.
This was bad. What would people think if they knew what was going on in her head? And she knew all too well the risks that came with getting involved with a Green Beret. Even if Jase was out of the military, it didn’t mean his service hadn’t affected him. Or that it wouldn’t affect him later.
Still a little shaken, she got into her car and drove back to the older rental she was staying in. Determined to push the unnerving thoughts and Jase from her mind, she packed up a few more moving boxes from her bedroom and closet, leaving only the most basic essentials until moving day.
Someone knocked on the front door as she was finishing up an hour later.
Pushing up from her kneeling position, she hurried to the front door. “Coming,” she called.
There was no peephole and no side window to look out of, so she pulled the door open just a few inches to see who it was. A jolt of surprise hit her when she recognized the man who had approached her at the funeral standing on her doorstep.
“Hi, Molly,” he said, giving her a confident smile that was right on the edge of oily. Today he was in jeans and a dress shirt, his dark brown hair styled perfectly, his sunglasses dangling from his fingertips.
“How did you find me?”
“I came by to visit Carter once. My name’s John, by the way.”
She didn’t believe him. On either point.
She stayed where she was with the door partially ajar, refusing to open it more. What was he doing here? How had he found her? “What are you doing here?” Her tone was barely polite, her expression just on the unfriendly side of neutral.
“I was hoping we could talk for a few minutes.”
“About what?” A thread of unease wound around her insides. No way she was letting him inside. Dense trees bordered three sides of this lot. No one would see or hear them. If she screamed for help, she doubted anyone would hear, much less help.
“I’d rather talk in private.”
“Here’s just fine.”
He smiled thinly at her refusal, then sobered. “You’ve been through a lot lately. I know this is a hard time and I don’t want to add to your burden, but I get the feeling you aren’t aware of the financial problems your husband was in when he died.”
A sense of foreboding crept over her. “What do you mean?”
“His debt.”
Debt? Her stomach shrank and she didn’t correct him by saying ex-husband. That was none of his damn business.
“What kind of debt?” She and Carter had held separate bank accounts for almost two months before he died. She hadn’t been able to access his banking information because she wasn’t authorized on his new account. That’s why dealing with all the financials before the funeral had been such a nightmare.
“John” gave her a pitying look. “You were living apart for a while before he died, right?”
She didn’t like where this was going. Why had Carter been in debt? How much? What had he spent his money on? “So?”
“So you weren’t aware of what he was involved in.”
Involved in… She wanted to tell him to leave her the hell alone and slam the door in his face, but she couldn’t move.
She’d wondered what Carter had done while they were apart. How he had supported himself and come up with the money to live on after those first few weeks, since Beckett had been forced to fire him and he hadn’t had much in the way of savings.
Before Carter had left, most of what they earned went towards rent and the rest of their bills. Anything left over had gone into a joint savings account that he’d given to her when he’d moved out.
“Were you aware that he developed a gambling habit?”
Oh, shit.
A hole opened up in the bottom of her stomach. Carter had enjoyed gambling on occasion, but he was never irresponsible about it and he’d steered clear of it after his injury because he knew his brain wasn’t functioning the same and hadn’t trusted himself to be able to stop when he needed to.
“What kind of gambling?” she made herself ask.
He shrugged evasively. “Little of this, little of that. Unfortunately, he either got greedy or desperate. Bet everything he won, and lost it all. Then he came to us.”
She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, afraid to ask who “us” was, because she was starting to get a good idea on her own. “How much?” she asked dully.
“He owes us a hundred-and-twenty with the interest.”
Her eyes went wide. “A hundred twenty thousand?”
“Yep. Give or take a few.” He put his hands in his jacket pockets, cocked his head. It was only then she realized how big he was. How powerful his build was. And how very alone she was. “I need the money back.”
Her pulse hammered in her throat. “Well I can’t help you. As you saw the other day, my ex-husband is dead and buried.”
His hazel eyes turned hard, and the twist of his lips sent a frisson of warning through her. “That doesn’t mean the debt is forgiven.”
Cold crawled up her spine. “You need to leave. Now.” She started to shut the door, barely stifled a gasp when he shot a hand out to grab the edge of the door to stop her. Their eyes locked and an icy trickle of fear slid through her veins.
The sound of an approaching vehicle made them both dart a look toward the driveway. Relief punched through her when she recognized Jase’s white pickup coming toward the house. “Whatever Carter did has nothing to do with me,” she snapped to “John”.
He turned back to face her. “As you’re no doubt aware, unfortunately life’s not that simple.”
The implied threat chilled her even more. “Go,” she ground out. “Now. Or I’m calling the cops.”
He held her gaze for another few heartbeats. Unflinching. And from his calm demeanor and total lack of concern for being seen by Jase, some part of her recognized that this man could be lethal when he chose to. “We’ll talk soon,” he murmured, and stepped back.
Molly couldn’t answer, her throat was too tight.
She stood there rooted to the spot while he got in his car, quickly reversed and shot past Jase in the driveway. There was no time to grab her phone to take a picture of the plate. She was just glad he was gone, and even gladder that Jase was here.
Chapter Five
Jase couldn’t see the Audi’s driver clearly through the tinted windows but he saw enough to know it was a man. Who was it? He watched in the rearview mirror, unable to get the plate number because of the an
gle, and continued up to Molly’s house.
Molly was waiting at the door when he pulled up. “Who was that?” he asked as he climbed out. “Someone from the insurance company?”
She shook her head. “No.” She was visibly upset, immediately putting him on edge. And she’d taken off from the house abruptly. Something else was bothering her.
“Do you know him?”
“He was at the funeral. Said his name is John, but I trust him about as much as I can pick him up and throw him.”
“What did he want?”
She hesitated, and that alone told him she was hiding something. Why? “Something about Carter.”
Jase waited for her to elaborate, but she didn’t. He swept his gaze over her, noting the way she had her arms wrapped around her waist. He also couldn’t help but notice the changes in her because he noticed everything about Molly and always had. Her breasts were bigger now, and her belly showed a slight curve above the waistband of her jeans.
While it was hard to see the visible reminder of the baby Carter had left behind, the child was also part of Molly. Jase wanted to be there for her, wanted her period if she would only give him a chance.
No way in hell he was going to tell her how he felt, however, at least not yet. There was too much history between them for her to get past right now—and she was pregnant—but some part of him that refused to die hoped that in time she might change her mind and see him as more than just a friend.
If something—or someone named John—was bothering her, he wanted to know about it. “Moll, I want to help. But I can’t if you won’t talk to me.”
She waved a hand, a frown knitting her eyebrows. “It’s just—it’s something to do with Carter. I don’t even know if it’s true.” She turned and headed down the hallway before he could ask anything more. “Did you need something?”
I need you to stop and talk to me. “I was just on my way to the gym and wanted to come by and make sure you were okay. You seemed a little upset when you left the house earlier.”
“No, I was just a little overwhelmed, that’s all.” She went into the kitchen. “You want some dinner? I’ve got some leftover casserole from last night.”
