by Lisa Childs
The kid lounged on the wide front porch. She could see him through the window of her office, which had formerly been the front parlor since its burled oak pocket doors opened onto the wide foyer. Those doors were open, and so was the heavy front door and every window, but no breeze blew through the house.
The air was so still that the sound of an engine startled her. She glanced out the window but could see only the grill of a truck as it pulled up to the house. Then she heard Stanley call out, “Hey, Cody!”
Her pulse quickened more than it had when she’d opened the thick envelope from the lawyer’s office. Then her heart had raced with fear; now, it pounded with excitement.
Just looking at Cody Mallehan was exciting. With his blond hair, clear green eyes, and muscular build he was beyond handsome. He was probably also bad news for a woman like her.
He was a player. Or so her friends had warned her. The few times she’d seen him before today he hadn’t flirted with her, though. Of course, they’d talked business then because he’d brought Stanley as a boarder.
One truck door slammed. Then another opened. Maybe he was bringing someone else to rent a room.
She glanced at her mother’s portrait. Mama would have cautioned her to stay away from a man like her father, who was only passing through. Everyone said that Cody Mallehan grew bored quickly—with women and locations. He wouldn’t be sticking around.
That was good, though. Serena didn’t need him; she just needed the business he brought her. She was too smart to fall for a man like him anyway. She was in no danger of losing her heart; Serena’s only concern was that she not lose her house.
2
CODY WAS GLAD that he saw Stanley first—sitting on the porch swing of Serena Beaumont’s ridiculously large, yellow-clapboard house. He’d lived in group homes that had been smaller than her place. It was a great boardinghouse.
Not that she had many boarders. The last time he’d stopped by, she’d just had a couple of old folks and Stanley. Probably because it was too far from town. The house was slightly closer than his cabin had been, but the long drive had still given Annie enough time to lick him nearly half to death. He should have made the dog ride in the pickup bed.
“Out!” he told her, pointing at the ground. Finally she leaped down from the passenger’s seat.
“Annie!” Stanley exclaimed with joy. He dropped to his knees and embraced the mutt who jumped all over him, licking his face.
“Don’t act so surprised to see her,” Cody said. “You’re the one who brought her back to the firehouse—after I told you to take her to the humane society.”
“I did,” Stanley replied, quickly and defensively, “when you told me to.”
“That was weeks ago,” Cody said. He narrowed his eyes and studied the curly-haired kid’s face, which was wet with dog drool. Skeptically, he asked, “So what did she do? Break out and find her own way back?”
The dog hadn’t been able to find her own way to the ground from his pickup. He doubted she’d been able to track her way back to the firehouse. Bloodhound was probably the only breed not in her family tree.
“No…” Stanley reluctantly admitted. “I broke her out.”
“Why?”
“Because her time was almost up,” Stanley said.
“What do you mean?” But Cody was afraid that he knew. As if sensing his distress, Annie turned her attention from the kid back to him. She bounded down the porch steps and jumped up on him. Her jowly face and almost soulful brown eyes nearly on the same level as his, she stared at Cody. He pushed her huge paws off his chest, but then patted her head gently.
“They only keep the animals for so long. Then, if nobody adopts them, they put them down, Cody,” Stanley slowly explained—as if he were the adult and Cody the kid who didn’t understand. The eighteen-year-old’s voice cracked when he added, “If they did the same thing with people…”
Cody and Stanley would have been dead long ago, since they’d spent most of their lives in foster homes. That was how they’d met. Cody had been forced to leave their group home when he turned eighteen, but he’d kept in touch with Stanley.
Cody had been adopted once, but adopting him had put a strain on the young couple’s marriage, and after a few years they had returned him to the system—like someone might a dog to the pound. He’d been so young that he didn’t even remember them.
Stanley had been born premature and addicted to crack, so no one had been willing to take a chance on a child who might have lifelong physical and mental disabilities. That was probably why Stanley felt such a kinship with the dog.
Annie whined and pushed her head harder against Cody’s hand. He had a kinship with the damn dog, too. The puppy had been abandoned at the firehouse—just as he had been abandoned as an infant at a firehouse in Detroit. The guys had named her Orphan Annie.
“That sucks,” Cody agreed. “But I don’t know where we’re going to keep her.”
“We’re going to keep her?” Stanley asked, his brown eyes wide with hope.
Cody knew better than to make any promises. “I don’t know if we can…” He didn’t have a place to stay himself, let alone room for a dog. Unless…
As if Stanley had guessed what Cody was thinking, he said, “Miss Serena already told me Annie can’t stay here ’cause she’s not housebroken.”
“Is that why you brought her to the firehouse?”
The kid nodded, and some blond curls fell into his face. He really needed a haircut; Cody would have to bring him by the barber. “Yeah…”
“She can’t stay there either,” he said. “She peed in Superintendent Zimmer’s office.”
Stanley’s brown eyes widened. “How mad was he?”
Braden had actually laughed. But he’d also told Cody to take the dog with him when he left. “I don’t think she’ll be welcome there again.”
“But if we have no place to keep her…” Stanley’s voice cracked with emotion. “And we bring her back to the humane society…”
“Maybe she’ll be adopted this time,” Cody said.
Stanley shook his head. “She’s too big. Nobody wants a dog that big, they said.” His brown eyes filled with tears.
“She can stay.”
Cody’s body tensed at the sound of the husky, female voice. He braced himself before turning to where Serena had stepped out onto the porch. She was so damn beautiful. Ever since the first moment he’d met her, he’d been having fantasies about her long, thick hair—about tangling his fingers in it, about…
His mind went blank as his gaze focused on her. It was so hot that he shouldn’t have been surprised she was wearing shorts. But he hadn’t pictured her as the type to wear cutoff Daisy Dukes, and he’d pictured her in a lot of different things—and nothing at all—since he’d met her. Her legs were long and tanned or maybe that was just the natural hue of her honey-toned skin. With the cutoffs, she wore a pale pink tank top, probably in deference to the heat. Her hair was down, reaching nearly to her narrow waist.
“Annie can stay?” Stanley asked hopefully.
Cody was surprised the kid had enough wits about him to pose a question. His tongue was tied. But she had that effect on him. She was the first woman he’d met that he hadn’t been able to flirt with.
“She can stay outside and in the enclosed porches,” Serena allowed. “I don’t want her peeing in my house. Or chewing up any of my great-grandmother’s antiques.”
Stanley nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”
Ma’am? Cody winced. He was twenty-seven and didn’t like to be called “sir” yet. Serena had to be a few years younger than he was—way too young to be called “ma’am.”
“You should get her some water now,” Serena told Stanley. “With all that hair, she must be overheated.” As she said it, she lifted her own hair from the back of her neck. Her face was flushed; she was hot, too.
So hot…
And sexy…
Nearly tripping over his feet in his anxiousness to obey
her—or maybe to please her—Stanley hurried into the house.
Cody could understand wanting to please her. He’d like to try himself. As all the naked images popped into his head, his throat thickened with desire. He cleared it to say, “Thank you.”
Serena nodded.
“What about me?” he asked, even though he knew it was a bad idea. “Can I stay, too?”
Her dark eyes widened in surprise.
He should have asked her for a room weeks ago instead of crashing at the firehouse. But with the arsonist on the loose, he’d thought it was smart to stay close—and there wasn’t any place closer than the house itself. When those hot spots had flared up again with the arsonist’s help, he’d been the first one ready to go.
But the guys wanted him to have a softer bed so he could get more rest. When they were on the job—sometimes for weeks at a time—they got very little sleep.
Another reason he’d decided to crash at the firehouse instead of getting a room here was because of Serena, though. He wasn’t sure how much sleep he would actually get with her so temptingly close.
Her lips parted, but she said nothing—her hesitation obvious. She didn’t seem to want him in her house any more than she wanted the dog.
So he promised her, “I won’t pee in your house or chew up your great-grandmother’s antiques.”
She hesitated another long moment before replying, “Then I guess you can stay.”
*
WHAT THE HELL had she been thinking?
Sure, she needed more tenants to be able to show the bank that the boardinghouse could be a profitable business. She’d even hoped that Cody was bringing her another boarder. She hadn’t thought he would be that boarder, though.
Grandma would’ve said it was like letting a fox into the hen house. Of course, she and Mrs. Gulliver were the only hens. And Mrs. Gulliver was eighty-six.
And despite all the things Serena had heard about Cody Mallehan being a shameless womanizer, he hadn’t really even flirted with her. Of course she wasn’t his type. Guys like him loved fun-loving, lighthearted women. She was too serious for him, too stressed thanks to that damn lawsuit. She also didn’t care about makeup and clothes, about dressing to attract men.
Not that she didn’t want a man. But she didn’t want just any man; she wanted one who was as serious as she was—who would stay and help her raise a family someday in this house. That was why she couldn’t lose it.
She had too many hopes and dreams for it—for someday filling it with family, like Grandma had.
No, she definitely wasn’t Cody’s type any more than he was hers. But as she climbed the staircase ahead of him, his gaze was on her ass. She doubted she was just imagining it because it was so palpable she could almost feel it. The elaborate polished oak staircase was extra wide; he could have walked beside her, like a gentleman, but he was taking the opportunity to ogle her instead.
Settling in a boarder was her job, not another tenant’s, or she would have had Stanley show Cody to his room. They would both be on the second floor. Fortunately, her room was not; she lived in the attic, which had been converted to a studio apartment long ago.
As she reached the second-floor landing, she expelled a shaky breath of relief. She was almost there. But a strong hand closed around her wrist, stopping her. Her skin tingled beneath his touch.
“What’s up there?” Cody gestured toward the narrower flight of stairs that led to the third floor.
“My private quarters,” she said. She had no intention of ever letting him up to the small space dominated by her great-grandmother’s old brass bed.
She tugged free of his grasp and headed down the hall toward the room at the end. As Cody followed, she hurried past all the six panel mahogany doors. As she passed an open one, she pointed. “There’s the bathroom. There are two on this floor. One on this side of the stairwell and one on the other side.”
He nodded but he didn’t even glance inside the room—which was good since she still needed to clean it. His gaze remained on her; it was so intense that her hand shook as she reached for the doorknob for his room.
“And this is where you’ll be staying.”
She had put him in the biggest second-floor room, which was also the most masculine with its mahogany trim, dark stained wood floor, and navy blue walls. She stepped back to let him pass her. But he brushed against her anyway, his chest and hip bumping into hers.
Something flared in his green eyes. Or maybe it had already been there—an intensity that unnerved her. As she held out the room key to him, her hand shook so much that she dropped it. He leaned down to pick it up, and his soft hair whispered across her bare legs.
Despite the heat, she shivered. “I should have opened the window,” she murmured and hurried over to it. She needed the air. More than that, she needed the distance from him. But even though it was the biggest bedroom, it wasn’t big enough for her to escape his presence.
She threw up the sash, but no breeze blew in through the window. Not a tree limb or leaf moved in the woods that surrounded the house. She drew in a deep breath and turned back toward Cody.
Now he was leaning over the duffel bag he’d dropped onto the red-and-blue plaid bedspread. His jeans were faded and so worn at the seams that she caught glimpses of blue underwear through the thin material.
Sweat trickled down between her shoulder blades. He was so damn sexy. It wasn’t fair.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured.
He glanced up in surprise. “What are you sorry about? The room is great.”
She was sorry about the air. But since he hadn’t mentioned it, she didn’t either. She gestured toward his duffel bag. “I’m sorry your cabin burned down.”
“You didn’t do it,” he said. His eyes narrowed, but a grin curved up the corners of his mouth. “Unless you’re confessing to being the arsonist…”
She uttered a kind of you-caught-me sigh. “If I was, I’d be pretty stupid letting a fireman move in.” Her decision had been stupid, though, because she was already under enough stress. Now she had to fight her attraction to him, too.
“I’m sorry that you lost everything in that fire,” she clarified.
He chuckled. “I didn’t have much to lose,” he said. “I travel light—because I travel often.”
Was he warning her? He needn’t have bothered. Her friends had already done that. They’d thought he might ask to stay at her boardinghouse when his cabin had burned down.
“Well, I’ll leave you to unpack,” she said.
“I usually don’t bother,” he told her.
Of course he wouldn’t be staying long. So she would have to apply for that loan quickly—before he left. “I’ll be in the office if you need me,” she murmured as she hurried for the door.
She doubted he would need her. So she settled back into her office with a glass of iced tea. She fished an ice cube from the glass and pressed it to her throat. She could almost feel it sizzle against her hot skin. She would like to blame the lack of air-conditioning for why she was so overheated. But she suspected that wasn’t the only reason now—not with Cody Mallehan moving in.
Knuckles rapped against wood, startling her. She dropped the ice cube, which slid down her neck to disappear between her breasts.
She glanced up to find Cody leaning against the frame of the pocket door to her office. Hopefully he was on his way out.
“Want me to get that for you?” he asked, his mouth curving into a wicked grin. Now he was flirting with her?
Had he refrained earlier so that she would let him move in? Serena could still ask him to leave, if it got too uncomfortable—more uncomfortable than the ice cube melting in her cleavage.
Her brain muddled, she could only murmur, “It’s hot…”
Hotter now that he was here. His green eyes twinkled with amusement—and something else—as he studied the wet trail the cube left on the front of her shirt.
“It’s damn hot,” he agreed.
Maybe it
was because of the way he was staring—or maybe it was because of the ice cube—but her nipples tightened inside her lacy bra and pushed against the thin material of her tank top.
“I have a repairman coming out to fix the air-conditioning,” she said.
Or she would have the technician come out, as soon as she came up with enough money for the service call and whatever else he might charge to get the old unit functioning again. But she didn’t want Cody to know that; she couldn’t afford to lose a renter, especially now.
And that was why she had to ignore the attraction she felt for him. A man like Cody wouldn’t stay in the home of a woman he’d slept with. He was definitely the love ’em and leave ’em type. That part of the rumors she’d heard was true, she knew—or he wouldn’t be renting a room from her. He’d be living with one of his lovers.
“I didn’t realize the air was out,” he said. And that wicked grin widened.
He was definitely flirting with her. Her pulse quickened. He shouldn’t be flirting.
But then he probably didn’t care if he stayed in her house or not. Eventually the US Forest Service would rebuild his cabin. Or he’d go back to staying in the firehouse where she’d heard he’d been sleeping since the last fire.
Remembering how the flames and smoke had painted the sky red and black over Northern Lakes, she shuddered. The fire had come too close to the house—licking at the trees at the edge of her property.
“I thought you were hot,” he said. “But now you’re shivering.”
She sighed. “I was just thinking about the arsonist—how he could strike again at any time…” Which was another good reason to have a firefighter living in her house.
The flirty sparkle of amusement left his green eyes, leaving them dark and hard. His voice gruff with emotion and determination, he said, “We are going to catch him.”
She nodded. “I know.”
He released a ragged breath. “That’s where I’m heading now. The whole Hotshot team is having a meeting at the firehouse. I just popped in to your office to give you this,” he said. His long strides closed the distance between them in two steps. He dropped a wad of cash on the desk. “This is my rent,” he said. “And the other amount we agreed on…”
