A Man 0f His Word (Round-The-Clock Brides Book 4)

by Sandra Steffen

  Oh, no it didn’t. There would be none of that. It woke him up, and pried the soles of his shoes from the floor.

  He allowed the kids to draw him to the backyard where he duly praised their playhouse, their swing set, their wading pool and their bicycles complete with training wheels and horns, which they demonstrated. He glanced back at the house once and saw that April now stood at the door where she could keep an eye on her daughters. It humbled him. People called him a hero, but good parents were the true heroes, good single parents especially.

  He’d never realized kids talked so much. These two didn’t seem to mind that he gave them yes and no answers. They were fascinated by a blue feather they found and the dew on the grass and the tracks their wet feet made on the stone as he followed them back into the house.

  Cole stayed just inside the door while Grace and Violet skipped to their room to play.

  April had returned to her earlier post across the room. He waited. The clock ticked. His fingers strummed.

  Clearing his throat, he said, “My cell number and contact information are on the letterhead. I’ll see myself out.”

  She held up one finger for him to wait.

  He found his gaze trained on her. Her waist was narrow, her hips slightly flared. She wore her light brown hair up today. It was secured high on her head with a shiny silver clasp. Tendrils had escaped, curling down her neck and around her ears.

  “When can you begin?” she asked.

  He started, and silently cursed his shot nerves. Just like that, she was hiring him?

  He knew he should answer, First thing Monday morning. Or tomorrow. Or better yet today. His hand went to his forehead, and slowly dragged down his face. “Uh,” he said instead.

  Brilliant.

  She neatened the sheaf of papers by tapping the bottom edges on the counter. Laying all but the last two pages of the bundle down, she looked at him again.

  “I included the phone numbers of each of my references,” he said. “You should call them.”

  “Amelia Bradley gave your work ethic—and, I quote, ‘your boyish shyness’—five stars.”

  He started. Amelia Bradley was a grandmother of seven who’d tried to fatten him up the entire time Cavanaugh & Maloney had been rebuilding her home after a fire. “You’ve really already called Mrs. Bradley?”

  “While you were outside with the girls. She wants you to know she’s doing well and she says hello. She also said there is no finer builder than you.”

  Cole was at a loss. “What about the other references? Are you planning to check them?”

  “Are you planning to leave the job half-finished?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Do shoddy work?”

  He shook his head.

  “Begin before 8:00 a.m.?” she asked.

  This time he held perfectly still.

  “Well?” she prodded.

  He was trying to decide if that was a trick question. “Do you want me to begin before eight?”

  “Oh, gosh, no.”

  She smiled. And he felt it sneaking inside him again. “Then I won’t begin before eight.”

  They stared at one another, Cole near the door, April near the refrigerator, a dozen feet separating them. “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  With the world, with wars, and pain and suffering and the people whose greed caused both? There was plenty wrong if he looked for it. But right now he was looking at April’s mouth. “Why are you smiling?” he asked.

  She rested her back against the cabinet behind her, crossed her ankles and folded her arms. Gosh, she was pretty. It would have been easy to stare, in fact it was damn close to impossible not to, but he forced his gaze to hers and kept it there.

  “Maybe I’m smiling because I think you need it,” she replied. “The same way you need this job.”

  “I’m not some charity case, April.”

  “I’ve noticed,” she said.

  * * *

  Cole was staring into her eyes, and April wondered where he’d learned to hold so still. So far he’d been the epitome of professional thoroughness. He was a successful builder with a construction company of his own out East. And yet he was here. At 404 Baldwin Street. In Orchard Hill, Michigan.

  “For the record, I’m not a charity case, either. This isn’t about money, is it?”

  He shook his head.

  It was about Jay. He didn’t say it. Neither of them did, but they both knew it was true.

  When he thanked her for her time and started back through the living room the way he’d come, she followed him. “I’ll see you on Monday,” she said.

  “Monday,” he agreed. “But not before eight.”

  She felt herself smile all over again. “Cole?”

  He looked back at her from the stoop.

  “The front door is for company and guests. The side door is for friends and family. Use that one next time, okay?”

  He nodded, and it was settled. He left then. Watching him through the screen, she noticed he relied heavily on the railing to descend the steps, but he didn’t limp as he continued on toward his black Ford. He climbed in and closed his door before he looked back at her. Her wave was a brief flutter of her hand. His was more of a salute before he drove away.

  Breathless, she returned to her sunny kitchen and read over the remaining two pages of references Cole had given her. Reaching the end, she realized she couldn’t recall a single word she’d read.

  The girls were playing happily in their room. Normally their voices had a calming effect on her.

  Putting the papers with the others in the stack, she closed her email then placed her fingertips over the thrumming pulse at the base of her neck. Her breathing was shallow and her heart beat too fast. She was scared to death, and she knew why.

  She’d noticed Cole.

  Not as a former soldier who favored his right leg slightly on stairs. Not as a carpenter here to finish what his best friend couldn’t begin.

  But as a man.

  It was one thing to notice his scent. That was as natural to her as breathing. But how could she have memorized every nuance in his lean face—how his cheeks were slightly hollowed, his jaw firm, his neck, shoulders, chest, hips and thighs like corded bronze? She’d noticed his hands, too. They were broad across the knuckles and slightly scuffed up, so unlike Jay’s. She remembered the way Cole stood, feet slightly apart, shoulders broad, gaze steady. And remembering all those parts of him, she felt—

  Something.

  A pull, a small tug on her insides.

  Her hands went to her hot face. She didn’t want to feel this way, but there it was, a stirring low in her belly.

  Jay, where are you? she silently cried.

  The only reply was the sigh of the wind. And she felt bereft all over again.

  Breathing deeply, she placed her hands over her heart. Eyes closed, she felt her love for her husband there.

  She was still in love with Jay. She found comfort in that.

  Cole Cavanaugh had his wounds and his demons. Some people called it baggage. And April had hers. They were both stubborn, each of them determined not to take charity. They each needed something from the other. Not closure—Lord, no, she had issues with that word. Certainly not sex. Whatever it was they needed, they would figure it out without that.

  The trouble was, Jay was gone and Cole was here. Jay was dead. And she wasn’t.

  Standing there, one hand on her warm cheek and the other covering her racing heart, she was definitely not dead. In fact, she hadn’t felt alive in this way in a long time. Fourteen months and six days to be exact. And it scared the daylights out of her.

  Placing the neatened stack of papers on top of the microwave, she slowly turned around. The girls’ breakfast dishes were still on the table and their chairs still pushed out. She t
ook in the dripping faucet, the sun slanting through the window above it. There was Gracie’s and Violet’s artwork on the fridge and a hair tie on the counter, April’s sunglasses on the shelf near the door and her cell phone on the charger. Nothing had changed since last week or the week before that. That little twinge had been an aberration. End of story.

  With that, she gathered used cups, cereal bowls and spoons, wiped the spilled milk from the table and continued on with the ordinary business of her day.

  * * *

  Other than the faint creak of the floor beneath the soles of his shoes, all was quiet in the Stone Inn when Cole emerged from his room shortly before ten on Saturday morning. Nobody had been up when he’d crept out for coffee at daybreak, either. He was hoping his luck continued.

  The inn had been built more than one hundred years ago for a wealthy family whose last name was Stone. If Cole had been in charge of the renovations, he would have done a few things differently, but all in all the elegant charm of the former mansion had been preserved and every modern luxury and amenity added. The bed-and-breakfast inn had central air, spacious rooms with private baths, comfortable overstuffed chairs and beds all decked out in luxurious cotton sheets, locally made quilts and half a dozen pillows.

  He wasn’t sorry he’d chosen this place. Now, if he could make it to the parking lot without being waylaid, he would consider himself a lucky man.

  Carrying his laptop beneath one arm, he listened intently as he rounded the corner in the upstairs hallway. All was quiet on this floor. So far, so good.

  Painstakingly descending the open staircase, he noticed the lingering aroma of strong coffee and bacon and maple syrup, but the dining room was empty and the front desk was vacant. Ten more steps and he would be out the door.

  He’d taken three when someone called, “There you are! I almost missed you.”

  So close. His exit thwarted, Cole refrained from groaning, and carefully did a one-eighty.

  The redhead who covered the front desk when the innkeeper was out was sauntering toward him. Dressed all in purple again today, Harriet Ferris batted fake eyelashes behind her trifocals and said, “This is my sashay. Feel free to admire it.”

  He smiled in spite of himself.

  Seventy-five if she was a day, the audacious bodacious woman stood five feet two in her three-inch heels. She may have been small, but her personality made her impossible to ignore.

  Peering up at him myopically, she said, “My goodness, but I like a man who doesn’t overuse his come-hither smile. Just between you and me, my Walter is in for some serious competition, if you play your cards right, that is. Where are you sneaking off to at this time of the morning, anyway?”

  “What makes you think I was sneaking?”

  She made a dismissive sound between her pursed lips. “I’m a good listener, you know, but you aren’t going to stay and talk to me, are you?”

  “It isn’t that I don’t enjoy talking to people, pretty redheads, especially.”

  Harriet raised one penciled-on eyebrow. She may have been an outrageous flirt, but she was no dummy. “Your leg is bothering you again today, isn’t it?” she asked.

  He couldn’t help it if his eyes widened.

  Waving her hand as if at a bothersome fly, she said, “You used your real name and I’m good with a computer. It’s like I always say, it’s the quiet ones you want to watch. Although it pains me to say this, your secret is safe with me. Still, I wish you would allow Summer’s husband to write an exclusive about you. People would come from miles around to thank you for your sacrifices for our country if they knew.”

  Cole shook his head. Summer Merrick’s husband owned and operated the local newspaper, and Cole didn’t want strangers stopping him on the street to shake his hand. He wasn’t here for glory. “I prefer to keep a low profile.”

  Harriet sighed dramatically. “First our resident ghost decides to lay low.” She shook her head dramatically, and Cole recalled hearing of a ghost that supposedly resided here in the old inn. “And now I have a decorated war hero in my midst and I can’t even tell anybody. Go if you must, but be careful if you’re driving anywhere today. This humidity brings out the crazy in people.” With a wink, she added, “There’s nothing like it to get the juices flowing, though, if you know what I mean.”

  “Something tells me people always know what you mean, Harriet.”

  “Scoff if you want, but when the temperature and humidity climb, clothes come off. Consider yourself duly warned.”

  “I’ll take it under advisement, Harriet.”

  Fanning herself with one hand, she said, “With that swagger and those eyes, women must be lining up.”

  He walked out the door without commenting because he didn’t want women lining up. There was only one woman he wanted. There. He’d admitted it, to himself at least. He waited for the sky to open up or the earth to begin to shake.

  It would be bad enough if he’d started wanting her after Jay died. But Cole had dreamed of April before. Logically, he knew a man couldn’t control his dreams, but he still felt guilty as hell about it.

  He could, and would control himself in every other way. Because he didn’t see how he would live with himself if he didn’t. And Cole couldn’t explain it, but for the first time since Jay had died, Cole felt alive, as if until now he’d just been going through the motions. He was alive. For the first time in a long time, he was almost glad about that.

  Chapter Three

  Although the temperature and humidity continued to climb, contrary to Harriet Ferris’s prediction, the only ill temper Cole encountered during his drive to April’s house came from a honeybee that flew in the open passenger window and got desperate when it couldn’t find its way out. Cole reached April’s driveway in record time, shoved the shift lever into Park and dove out of the truck, the bee right behind him.

  One hand on his thigh, he straightened from his crouch and looked around to see if anybody had witnessed his ungainly landing. April’s garage doors were open and two cars were inside. Somebody in the neighborhood was playing music the way he used to when he was a teenager washing his first car. Two small bicycles sat in the driveway, their riders nowhere in sight.

  In a yard behind April’s, a sprinkler oscillated, the spray visible above an aging privacy hedge. Bits of colorful swimsuits appeared through the sparse foliage as screeching children darted through the spray.

  After retrieving his laptop from the passenger seat, Cole stepped over a pair of flowered garden gloves lying on top of a small pile of weeds on the sidewalk. He started toward the front door before he recalled April’s invitation to use the side door from now on. Going to that one instead, he knocked briskly on the sturdy screen.

  “Somebody’s here, April.” It was a man’s voice. And it came from inside.

  She was at the door within seconds. “Cole. Hello.” Did she sound breathless?

  He hadn’t considered the possibility that she might be seeing someone. “I should have called,” he said, stifling the urge to shuffle from foot to foot. “I didn’t see a car, but if you’re busy I’ll come back another time.”

  “Don’t be silly. Come in.”

  “You have company.”

  But she didn’t listen. Opening the door for him, she smiled and said, “Days like this make me wonder why I don’t have central air. What this humidity does to my hair alone is reason enough.”

  It didn’t seem to matter that he didn’t comment. She led him past a small laundry room and closet. Her hair looked good to him, soft, touchable and resilient. Like the rest of her. She wore blue shorts today and a sleeveless shirt with buttons down the back. She looked sexy and dewy, and damn, he really should have called instead of stopping in unannounced. A decision about the windows upstairs could have waited, but it was too late now.

  In the kitchen a man was running water at April’s sink. Wear
ing a T-shirt and running shorts, he was fit and tan and seemed to know his way around her place.

  “Will, this is Cole Cavanaugh. He—”

  “Cole Cavanaugh,” the guy repeated, interrupting her. “Jay’s best friend in the army?”

  Cole was pretty sure the reverence in the other man’s voice was genuine. Obviously he’d known Jay well, and he knew April, too, well enough in fact to complete her sentences.

  The breeze from an oscillating fan fluttered her curly hair, its low hum blending with outdoor music and the occasional shrieks of children at play. “As I told April,” Cole said tersely, “if this is a bad time, I’ll come back later.”

  “I can’t speak for April but it’s not a bad time for me,” the other man said. “I just finished fixing her leaky faucet.”

  Backing up a step, Cole turned to April. “I tried to buy new windows for the upstairs, but there’s a problem with the sizes. I can order them if you want, but it’ll take four weeks for them to come in. I have a few alternatives for you to look at. Online.” He held up his laptop. “I’ll just show them to you Monday morning. After eight.”

  April eyed him oddly before turning to Will-whoever-the-hell-he-was. “I’ve decided to use some of the money from your great-aunt Lucille’s trust fund to finish the upstairs.”

  “Technically she wasn’t our great-aunt,” Will said patiently.

  Cole wanted to call him out for correcting April. Who did he think he was?

  “She was my grandmother’s closest friend. She had no family, so she adopted the Avery clan.” The other man turned his hands up and shrugged one shoulder.

  There was something familiar about the gesture. “Will,” Cole said with a dawning realization. “As in William. You’re Jay’s brother Billie?”

  The guy grimaced. “Jay dubbed me Billie when I was two years old. He’s the only one who never outgrew it.”

  This was one of Jay’s brothers. His younger brother. Cole saw it now, the likeness through the eyes, the lanky build and wry humor. It was good Cole hadn’t flattened him.