In seconds, Matt made his way out the door and to the middle of the hangar.
“I don’t know what you’re so upset about. Everybody makes mistakes. It was just a little coffee,” Jedd said as he patted Sarah’s shoulder.
“What the hell happened?” Matt barked.
“She spilled some coffee on me and then she...she just started crying. I’m not hurt, I swear!” Jedd held up his hands.
“Sarah. Tell me what’s wrong,” Matt said, his voice sounding clipped and edgy even to his own ears. He tried his best to soften his tone, but she worried him. The passengers were beginning to stare, too, and she’d hate that.
This had nothing to do with the coffee. He’d only known her a few months but everything about Sarah said confident, capable, independent woman. He’d never seen her give way to her emotions like this, even after losing her estranged father and fighting with Stone over the flight school and their inheritance. Every instinct in him said this was much bigger than spilled coffee.
She shook her head, wrapping her arms around her body like she’d cave in at any minute.
Never one to lack initiative, Matt tugged her gently from behind the counter and then led her, hand on the small of her back, toward Magnum’s main office. He opened the door, and when Emily glanced up from the desk where she sat next to their office assistant, Cassie, he waved away the look of concern in her eyes.
“Need a minute.” He led Sarah inside Stone’s smaller inner office and shut the door.
“I’m okay.” She hiccupped and grabbed a tissue from the box on Stone’s desk. “R-really.”
“Yeah, not buying it. Try again.”
“Seriously. This isn’t your concern. Just give me a few minutes in here. I’ll get myself together.” She jerked away from him, but he caught her by the elbow and turned her toward him. The same energy he’d tried to ignore again and again surfaced as it did every time he touched her. A jolt of electricity coursed through him because every time he touched Sarah he got a one-two-punch reminder he was a man. And she was a hot woman. Beautiful. Smart.
But not his.
“Tell me.”
Her green eyes, now red-rimmed, found their fire again. “Why? So you can try to fix this for me? I don’t need your help.”
Good. He had pissed-off, fighting Sarah again. He could deal with her. What he couldn’t handle was falling-apart Sarah because she only made him want to haul her into his arms and kiss her until she forgot her name.
“Something happened out there, and it didn’t have anything to do with coffee.” He leaned back against Stone’s desk and folded his arms across his chest.
She slapped her forehead. “Of course it didn’t have to do with coffee! This has to do with the fact that I’m an idiot. I trusted a man. I paid him good money, and he didn’t deliver!”
At this, he was sure he’d lost a couple of brain cells. He didn’t speak for a moment, clearing his throat as he tried with a Herculean effort not to picture Sarah paying for a gigolo’s services. But that’s exactly what it sounded like even if he knew it couldn’t be true. Still, his imagination was enjoying this little side trip. Maybe a little too much.
“Oh my God! Wipe that look off your face. I hired a contractor. Somebody up there must really hate me because I picked the loser of contractors. I picked the guy who leads the police on a car chase and gets arrested on national TV!”
Crap. “That was your contractor?”
“It’s him.” She slumped into one of the chairs. “We were all watching. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t him, and that it could be someone who looked like him. I don’t know what he did, but the man got himself arrested. He hasn’t returned my calls and now I know why.”
“Great. How much did you pay him?”
“Too much. I gave him a deposit, and there hasn’t been much labor. He could never seem to finish a project. Always had to run to the store to get another nail or another stud or God knows what.”
“Where did you hear about this guy, anyway?”
“Eloise’s List. He had plenty of good reviews so either the people were being blackmailed into leaving them or he’s recently changed his work ethic.”
There had to be something else, though, or she wouldn’t be this upset. “No worries. I’ll find someone else for you. I’ll check him out first.”
“No.”
He cocked his head. “No?”
“You heard me. Unless you know anyone who works for free, I can’t afford them.”
“You run out of money?”
“You could say that. I planned on selling soon and flipping the house.” She groaned and rubbed her temples. “This is so much more complicated than on those home improvement shows.”
Those reality shows were filled with so much...fantasy. Find a fixer-upper for two hundred dollars, pour in some “sweat equity” and sell for a cool million. He didn’t know where these scenarios happened, but so far as he could tell it wasn’t planet Earth. He’d tried, of course, to warn Sarah about buying the house from Stone. To say the house needed a facelift was an understatement. Even Stone had tried to talk her out of the remodeling.
Initially Matt had believed Sarah might stay, but then she’d made it clear she would flip the house and move back to Colorado. So she’d be leaving, and he’d be staying. He only had a few more years left with his son, Hunter, before he turned eighteen. Only a few years to make a difference in his life.
He liked Sarah, but he also didn’t need the drama. Especially when she was only here in Fortune a while longer. But he wasn’t done torturing himself, nor would he stand by while Sarah lost everything. He squatted down in front of her chair, and put one hand on each of her jean-clad legs.
“I work for free.”
* * *
“FREE?” SARAH ASKED, distracted by the way his forearms connected powerfully and gracefully to the big hands on her legs. They were great forearms. Great hands, too. Great everything. Damn him. He was balanced on the balls of his feet in front of her, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the previous comment she’d made. The one he’d misunderstood so completely.
Or more than likely he was only teasing her with the fully sexual look he’d pinned her with a moment ago. She could almost see the moving frames of the porno movie playing in his mind. Why he continued to play with her like this she’d never understand. Oh yeah, that’s right, but she did understand. He was a man.
“I know my way around a hammer. I’ll help.”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t let you do this.”
“Yeah, you can.”
“No, Matt. You have enough going on in your life.”
“And I can handle it.”
If she hadn’t been trained for her work as a forensic artist back in Colorado, she might not have noticed the tells of the eyes. Matt’s were obvious to her, which made everything between them so confusing. His eyes consistently told her one thing and his words another. Right now the breath-stealing eyes said he was tired, tense, frustrated and something else she couldn’t put her finger on. Was it desire? Pity? Oh please, not pity.
Stop it. Stop trying to analyze everyone.
The problem was she knew too much about Matt Conner to believe him right now. When Matt had moved on from the Air Force, Stone offered him a full-time position piloting flights at Mcallister Charters. It had been time, Matt had said, to settle back in his hometown. The teenage son he’d had with a high school girlfriend lived nearby and Matt had been trying to reconnect with Hunter after many years of living abroad. As far as she could tell, the reunion wasn’t going well.
She did know a little about teenagers and their anger and resistance to absentee fathers.
Matt also looked in on his father, who had retired early and lived nearby. Then there was the hellish landlord she’d been hearin
g rumors about lately. Matt was looking for another place to rent in the area, preferably a home where he could have his son visit every other weekend. How could she, in all good conscience, take any more time away from a man who already had far too many demands on him?
“Matt,” she said slowly, drawing out his name, and peeling his warm hands off her legs.
“Sarah,” he repeated, allowing it, but giving her a slow and devilish grin that reached into her heart and gave it a little twist.
“Forget it.” She stood up, smoothing down her jeans and taking a deep and sexually frustrated breath.
She couldn’t have Matt around every day fixing her house. A woman only had so much self-control around a man like Matt. She figured within three days of him at the house, working in a tool belt and no shirt—at least in her fantasies—she’d attack him and make a fool out of herself. And she’d had enough of that in the past few months, thank you very much.
“I need to get back to work. Thanks for bringing me in here to calm down. I don’t know what happened out there. I guess I lost it for a minute.” She put her hand on the doorknob and turned to give him a small attempt at a smile. It felt tight. Fake.
He was back to leaning against Stone’s desk, his big arms folded across the white button-up Mcallister Charters shirt. No one wore a shirt like Matt Conner did. Like Stone and the other pilots, he wore a type of uniform when he flew. The white button-up with its logo, usually sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and black cargo pants filled out in all the right places. The aviator glasses often completed the outfit, making him drool-worthy. She also knew him to be highly intelligent. A pilot. An engineer. A mechanic. Apparently also a carpenter of sorts.
And one hundred percent heartbreaker.
“Hey.” His smooth-as-whiskey voice stopped her halfway out the door.
“Yeah?”
“I’m not going to forget it.”
She didn’t answer, too tired to fight with him anymore, and made her way back to the Snack Shack. Jedd had gone back to work, and the entire coffee mess had been cleaned up as if nothing had happened at all. A couple of customers were waiting patiently, and Sarah apologized to them. Behind the counter, she stayed busy filling coffee orders and warming up pastries in the microwave.
And she tried not to notice when Matt finally emerged from Stone’s office a few minutes later, his long, lean body moving through the hangar until he disappeared out the doors to the tarmac.
Tried not to notice. But as usual, she couldn’t resist.
CHAPTER THREE
THREE DAYS LATER, Sarah sat in the middle of the floor in the hallway, safety glasses on, a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other. Stone had previously replaced worn, missing and loose panels in the home. She, on the other hand, had decided that she wanted brand-new cherrywood flooring throughout. Now that half of it was done and half not done, she’d need to finish the job herself. And she would make this hardwood floor her bitch. How hard could this be when Satan could do it?
“You can do this. You’re an artist. This is just a different medium,” she told herself.
This much was true at least. She had a bachelor of liberal arts from Colorado University. Because she hadn’t much wanted to starve, she’d wound up working as a forensic artist for the Fort Collins Police Department. Her work had earned her a reputation back home. She’d drawn sketches of alleged suspects worthy of an art gallery, some had said. Of course, she disagreed, but she had a higher standard than most.
Van Gogh. Monet. They were her standard.
She no longer felt satisfied or rewarded by all the hard work she’d done for the PD. No longer happy to simply collect her paycheck and call herself an artist. There was still something to be said for art that simply existed for no other reason than beauty.
But now her father’s house would suffer at the hands of an incompetent carpenter. This bothered the artist in her, but maybe her dad deserved it.
She’d read the instructions on the wood slat box. Engineer talk, all of it. Clear as mud. Sounded like they were describing how to build a ship to fly to Mars, so she ignored the stupid instructions and let common sense be her guide.
And now she was short a nail.
She fixed the last nail into a single wood slat, one little tap after another. She’d nearly bruised her lower lip by the time she was done. “There!”
At this rate she should be done in approximately six months.
Shackles came into the hallway, sniffing around her like a Hoover, as if he’d missed a crumb somewhere. When he picked up a nail, Sarah panicked. Had he already swallowed the missing one? If so, why wasn’t he lying on the ground convulsing in agony?
“Drop it! Drop it, Shackles.”
She pulled his jaw open only to be rewarded with a growl. Finally prying the nail out from between his teeth without getting bitten in the process, she carried him into the spare bedroom and shut the door. He yipped his regret from behind the closed door.
“Too late for apologies. You won’t be committing suicide on my watch.”
Turning in a circle, air coming in short desperate spurts, Sarah wondered whether she could call 911 for a dog. She finally took in a full breath when she found the missing nail sticking halfway out from under one of the floor slats. So she would now have to rip up this section and try again, but at least her dog wouldn’t die.
She had to work faster. Thankfully Gus had left some of his tools and she would be confiscating those as payment for the work not delivered. Maybe a nail gun would be the answer to going faster. Power tools. Great idea. She’d seen Satan fooling with the nail gun, and making good time with it, too. Speaking of Gus, she could no longer leave a message on his phone. Box full. Surprise. Emily had heard from one of her event planners at Fortune Ranch, her family’s business, that Gus Hinckle had indeed been arrested. Drug possession was the rumor floating around town. Suddenly the constant runny nose made sense. It was not, as he had claimed, spring allergies.
More importantly, Sarah would never see her money again. Having worked with the police department, she understood felony charges would take priority over anything else. In any case, she had neither the time nor the money to sue him. This was her hot mess, and she’d fix it.
Buying her father’s house was supposed to be about a trip down memory lane, and a time for healing. She had a chance to break from her routine life in Colorado and the job that sucked the life out of her soul. A chance to try on a new attitude in a new place. And maybe, if she could make this house her own before she had to say goodbye to it, she might be able to go back home with a renewed purpose. A new beginning. As an added bonus, she’d reconnected with her brother.
Stone had grown up with their father, and Sarah had been raised by their mother. A strange custody arrangement by anyone’s standards. Even Stone now agreed, after a difficult period of time during which he hadn’t been able to face that the man who’d been his hero had done something wrong. It wasn’t like Sarah didn’t blame her mother, too. Practically being an only child had tied Sarah to her mother in a kind of guilt bond that had lasted for years. Out here in California, she’d been free from that guilt, even if she still didn’t quite belong.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
She’d had a goal when she’d come out to Fortune that went beyond hammering out estate problems with her brother. Sarah Mcallister was going to stop being a prickly porcupine. The change hadn’t been easy so far. One big mistake—okay, several big mistakes in her teenage years—didn’t mean that she had to be a nun for the rest of her life. She was going to awaken her inner goddess because life was short, dammit, and she was going to get some.
Yeah, right.
Her doorbell rang. Probably Emily again, who dropped by once a week, with or without Stone. She had to give it to her sister-in-law to be. Emily kept trying her best to make Sa
rah feel welcome. She’d reached out and made friends, which Sarah appreciated. It wasn’t like Stone had thrown out the welcome mat when she’d arrived in town.
But when Sarah opened her front door, it wasn’t Emily behind it. Matt stood there in all his male glory. The midday June sunshine pooled through the doorway all around his big body, practically illuminating him. It was as if God was showing off, saying Behold some of my best work. You are welcome.
He grinned and whipped off his aviator glasses. “Hey.”
Sarah’s knees took the hit first. Then her mind followed. Blank. Why, oh why, did she lose several IQ points around the man?
“Are you going to let me in?”
“Oh.” Good idea. She should let him in. Why not? How much harm could that do? She moved aside.
He was dressed casually today, in dark jeans and a Giants T-shirt. Mr. Cool.
“How’s it going?”
“Great! I just put in some of the flooring in the hallway. There’s a little section I might have to redo.”
He raised a brow. “You’re doing this all yourself?”
“Sure. I can’t lie, it’s a little challenging, but I figured I’d work with what I have.” She followed him into the kitchen, where his gaze studied the cabinets. The doors were all missing. She cleared her throat. “I hope he ordered those. Maybe I’ll get a call from the home improvement store that they’ve come in.”
“Yeah. Maybe,” he said without an ounce of confidence in his voice. His hand smoothed over the granite countertops. “These came out well.”
“Yeah. Well. Stone’s handiwork.”
“I remember.”
Right. Matt had dropped by a lot during the week Stone had been helping her work on the house.
She blew out a breath, and her overgrown bangs flipped out of her eyes. “Matt, what are you doing here?”
“Came to check things out.”
“I thought I told you to forget about this.”
His dark gaze did a slow slide down the length of her body, and back up to meet her eyes. “And I told you I wouldn’t.”
Airman to the Rescue Page 2
