“Okay. I’m ready.”
“So you are.” He felt a grin coming on. “Sometimes I wear old clothes, but what you’re wearing is good, too.”
“Everything was on sale,” she said as though this explained everything. “Forty percent off with free shipping.”
She walked away from him and while he considered getting her set up, that might look like he didn’t have enough faith in her, so he hung back and let her do it all herself.
Have a little faith. Trust, Matt, trust.
Yeah. Still working on it.
Trust issues and him went way back, so it was no wonder that even with good friends he still occasionally wound up verifying. It had cost him a relationship or two in his past, but after Joanne his trust when it came to women had been compromised almost permanently.
A half an hour later, he still hadn’t heard the sounds of nail gunning in the living room so maybe Sarah was still lining up the boards. Or possibly trying to figure out a way out of this while saving face. He tacked in the last wood floor slat and determined he’d go in and pretend he only wanted to check out her great progress, then underhandedly find a way to assist her before she impaled herself.
He heard a strange whirring sound, immediately followed by the sounds of a nail gun...being operated at the rapid-fire rate of a machine gun.
Shit. Not good.
He dropped everything and ran to the living room, where he found Sarah on the ground, wearing her safety glasses, legs spread out, holding the nail gun away from herself as it shot nails out like it was possessed by the demonic soul of an assault rifle.
Fuck. Heart pounding in his ears, he yanked the electrical plug from its socket then dropped down next to her, worried because she looked shell-shocked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m s-sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Explain what the hell happened.” He took the nail gun from her.
“I don’t really know. Maybe it jammed? Everything was going well, and then...and then...” Her safety glasses slightly askew, she pushed them up with her finger.
Thank God for the safety glasses. “Doesn’t matter. Just please tell me you’re okay.”
“Fine, but a little humiliated. This looked so easy. I read all the instructions. Well. Most of them.”
He let out an uneven breath, and took a good long look at the wall. The wall Stone had painted not long ago with a shade of brown had nails all over it in interesting random patterns.
“You killed the wall.”
She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, crap.”
Yeah. It was okay, he told himself over and over again. She wasn’t hurt, and that was the main thing. Instinctively and possibly without much thought, he pulled Sarah’s back to his chest. They both sat on the ground of the living room floor staring at the massacred wall for several silent minutes. Finally, she leaned her head back and told him she was sorry another dozen times.
“Maybe you should stay away from power tools for now.”
She nodded slowly.
This would be an interesting couple of months, if they each lived to tell about it.
* * *
“HONESTLY, MATT, YOU look exhausted. Let me help,” Sarah said. “Please.”
“I’m good,” he said from the top of the ladder where he was fiddling with the wiring coming out of her bedroom ceiling.
Good. He was always good.
The man had run himself ragged all week long, working at the airport most of the daylight hours, helping his son paint a fence—she didn’t ask because Matt didn’t look happy about it—and working on her numerous home improvement projects. Being forever banned from using power tools meant that she couldn’t help him much anymore. But no sooner would he finish one house project than another issue would present itself. Either it was a wiring problem or a plumbing problem. Rather than the list getting shorter, it got longer. Just like the summer days.
And Matt got sexier every day. Each time he recited the complex reasoning behind why the house’s electrical wiring had “issues” she’d stare at him, appreciating that he understood her to be intelligent enough to follow was the single most attractive quality about him.
Of course, his most attractive quality changed from moment to moment and depending on what the man was doing. Sometimes his forearms were the single most attractive quality about him. Sometimes his eyes, beautifully dark and edgy. She had to face it—she had a large menu to choose from.
And now tonight he’d finally put in her ceiling fan, and those tentacles falling out of her ceiling would be covered up and stop giving her spider nightmares. She’d run the fan tonight and cool down from the suddenly hot summer nights. They were having a small heat wave.
Unless that was all Matt.
She was still feeling her way around this whole friends-and-roommates thing, thinking up ways to get Matt’s attention other than leaving all her underwear out, flashing him or scaring him with her appalling lack of carpentry skills. So far she’d accomplished all of those without even breaking a sweat.
He stood now on the ladder just under the wires, balancing his weight on the second highest rung. Her only job was to keep Shackles away from him, since her dog now had a serious case of hero worship for Matt and followed him around the sometimes-dangerous house. The evening sky had begun to darken and little slits of light were all that was left of the daylight coming through the bedroom window blinds he’d replaced for her. She walked to the window, still holding on to Shackles’s collar, to open them further and give Matt more light while he worked.
An enormous spark popped out of the ceiling, and Matt cursed as he fell from the ladder. Letting go of the dog, she lunged for the ladder to steady him, but he grabbed it and took it with him, presumably to keep from falling on them. Shackles yelped and ran out of the bedroom. Somehow Matt managed to topple onto her bed, at the last minute throwing the ladder away from them both. It landed with a crash against the far wall.
Matt lay on his back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Recovering from her small heart attack, Sarah rushed to him. “Matt! Oh my God, Matt, are you okay?”
“I’m good,” he said, wincing.
She climbed on the bed with him. “If you say you’re good one more time I’m seriously going to have to kill you.”
He groaned his response.
“What can I do? Do you need me to call 911? Should I get you a cold wet rag? How about a warm one? Talk to me!”
It took her a minute to realize that in her panic she’d crossed a dangerous line. She was pretty much straddling his hips. Not exactly how she’d pictured winding up in this position, with all her clothes still on, but damned if she would move now. She had a perfectly good excuse to be hovering over him, in care and concern over whether he’d managed to electrocute himself trying to fix her money pit of a house.
“I’m okay.”
“What happened?”
“It’s worse than I thought.” He looked at the wiring above them, then at her. “I’m not sure I can move my legs.”
Sarah drew in a sharp breath. What had she done? Why, oh why, had she let him help her? “You...you can’t m-move your legs?”
He didn’t answer, but in one swift move he flipped her and now she lay under him.
“How about that? Guess I can move them. Just needed a little motivation is all.”
She pushed on his chest, marveling at how quickly he’d switched gears. “Not funny, Matt! You scared me.”
But his eyes were serious now, incredibly so, as he braced himself above her. She shivered when one hand skimmed down her arm until he came to her wrist and cuffed it. Sarah didn’t breathe. Didn’t move. Letting go of her wrist, Matt’s hand went to her hair clip and he removed it. He made an innately male s
ound as her hair tumbled down around her shoulders, loose. His finger traced the edge of her jawline and he followed with his lips. Oh boy. She’d wanted this for so long that the moment they were both caught in seemed surreal. But these were her hands moving under his shirt to touch the solid planes of his muscular chest, luxuriating in how warm and hard and positively male he was. This would finally happen. Happen now. Any minute he’d kiss her senseless, unless she kissed him first. Any time now.
The doorbell rang.
Shackles yipped and barked, doing his job and sounding the alarm. People! People! Hurry and let them in so I can sniff them!
Matt removed his hand from her ass. “You expecting anyone?”
“No.” She tried to tug him down by his powerful neck while she prayed silently that whoever was at the door would give up and go away. Fast. But Matt wasn’t giving an inch.
The doorbell rang again. Shackles became hysterical with the barking. Matt moved off the bed. And Sarah decided whoever was at the door would be dead in two minutes flat.
“Okay.” She rose from the bed and smoothed back her hair. Licked her unkissed lips. “I’ll go see who that is.”
But no one was dying tonight, because behind her front door stood Emily and Stone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SARAH RELUCTANTLY OPENED the door because Emily and Stone had already seen her through the front paned window. All she had hanging there was a mostly see-through white cotton sheet. Besides, she should let her brother inside. He was blood and all that.
“Hi!” Emily said. “We thought we’d come by to help.”
“Hey,” Stone said to Sarah. “I don’t want to be here.”
Sarah smiled at her brother’s honesty and waved them both inside.
“It will go faster if Matt has some help.” Emily squatted as Shackles yipped and yapped his welcome.
“He doesn’t want my help,” Stone protested. “I’m telling you, his exact words were ‘I’m good.’”
“I brought some beer, too.” Emily held up a six-pack. “As a reward for when the guys are done.”
“That’s not what I want as a reward and you know it,” Stone said to Emily. Then he caught sight of Matt coming out of the bedroom. “What’s up?”
“Electrical,” Matt said and they both disappeared back into Sarah’s bedroom.
“How’s it going around here?” Emily handed Sarah the six-pack.
“Super.” She’d just been in Matt’s arms and about to kiss him. It was the best thing that had happened all year, hands down. Sarah opened the fridge and set the beers inside.
“Boy. You look...flushed,” Emily said as she studied her.
“This is hard work. And Matt got zapped.”
“Uh-oh.”
“He’s good, though.” Now she was adopting Matt’s pat phrase. “But I’m guessing my electrical isn’t.”
She was back to thinking about the house’s many problems when she would have preferred to still be wondering whether Matt wore boxers or briefs. She might even have been about to find out.
Shackles trotted to the sliding glass door leading to their backyard and Sarah followed, Emily behind her. Sarah stopped at the edge of the lawn and turned west to watch the sun begin its slow sink over the horizon. The painted skyline over the hills was awash in red and gold tonight and woke her up a little bit. She’d been about to cross a line with Matt, maybe even two or three, and somehow this should bother her. Worry her.
Only it didn’t. She’d wanted to cross lines with him for a long time. Erase them, if she were being honest. He’d been the one constantly holding back. Flirting but only to the edge and no further. But something had changed tonight. She hoped it had nothing to do with an electrical shock.
“You guys didn’t need to come over, you know.”
“Why? Did we interrupt something?” Emily grinned.
“Uh...no. It’s just... Stone has done enough. He put in the kitchen counters, and he basically sold me his half of the house for below market value. I don’t think he realizes I know.”
It was better, too, not to admit she’d figured it out. When she’d first come out to California, Fort Collins real estate prices were all she had to compare with. Bay Area prices for the oldest and smallest houses had been like a jolt of ice water on a cold winter day.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Sarah toed the edge of the lawn with one bare foot. “Okay, yes. Nothing happened. Something...almost happened. Am I that obvious?”
“It took you a while to get to the door, and once you did...your face. It’s flushed but in a nice way. And your hair. It looks good down like that. You look great, by the way.”
Her hair clip. Sarah’s hand went self-consciously to her wild and crazy mane of hair. It was so unruly she always kept it in a bun. “Well, as long as I look great. I don’t know what I’m doing, actually. Pretty sure he’s clueless, too.”
Emily gave the look of a woman who knew about these things. “Oh, I can guarantee you that.”
“Matt has a lot going on right now. All I did was become one more item on his list.”
“I don’t think so. I think he likes you.”
“I know that he probably doesn’t want to hurt me. That’s just who he is.”
“Who says he’s going to hurt you? Maybe you’ll be the one to hurt him.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to hurt him. I couldn’t do that.”
“When you leave.”
It was difficult to believe. Matt was such a confident, assured man. But it occurred to Sarah that she’d never spent much time thinking about how her leaving might affect him. Maybe it was why he’d kept a healthy space between them, despite the occasional flirting. A space which had taken a bit of a hit tonight. She understood he didn’t want a fling with his best friend’s sister. But if she was leaving eventually, and no one but the two of them had to know, why did it matter?
As a light came on inside, Emily turned toward the house, then met Sarah’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I just think that Matt really needs someone. He doesn’t act like he does, sure, but he’s lonely.”
“Emily, he could have anyone he wanted. If he’s lonely, it’s by choice.”
“Or maybe he just hasn’t had the best luck with women. Might have some abandonment issues, even. His mom left them when he was ten and he hasn’t heard from her in years. There’s really no relationship there. And then his ex Joanne. She never made it easy for him to see Hunter.”
Sarah had wondered about Matt’s past but beyond light conversation they hadn’t delved deep. They’d been too busy talking about her problems. Her grief. But she wanted to go deeper with him. Hear all of his secrets and painful mistakes. The kind of private, personal matters only lovers knew about each other. But in order to have that level of intimacy, she might have to tell him her biggest regret, and she wasn’t quite ready for that.
“Have you found anything else about your dad?” Emily nudged her chin toward the shed. “Anything important?”
“Nothing.”
It was too late now. He was gone and Sarah had to move on. Sell the house and go back home to Colorado and her life back there. The change she’d wanted, the one that could only happen from the inside out, hadn’t happened. She wanted to feel alive again. She’d traded her pantsuits for jeans and tank tops. Her framed glasses for contacts. But still nothing. Those were all external changes, and she had to work on her heart. It had to be more open...or something.
“I’m sorry.” Emily squeezed Sarah’s shoulder. “I had hoped maybe there was something in this old house.”
“Besides memories and a bunch of junk? Probably not.”
Shackles, done with sniffing every square inch of his territory, joined them on the patio. He whimpered at Emily’s feet until she bent do
wn to scratch behind his ears. “Sometimes we just have to find a way to lick our own wounds. Huh, Shackles?”
Sarah was familiar with being her own hero. She’d done that for most of her life. Each time she had felt a little more dead inside as she proved over and over again that she didn’t need anyone. For once she’d wanted something, someone, to rescue her so she could stop being so tough and strong all the time. But that had been a mistake. There would be no rescue for her. She’d do her own saving again.
Emily straightened. “One thing you should know about Matt. He feels like a total screw-up.”
“Why?” Not Matt Conner. Air Force pilot Matt? Mechanic? Engineer? Single father? He’d already done so much with his life.
Perhaps that was why she’d been so drawn to him from the start—because it took a screw-up to see a screw-up. She didn’t see a screw-up, though. She saw someone who’d made mistakes and lived with the consequences. It was quite possibly the most attractive quality about him. Maybe because she’d been struggling to do the same for years.
“Matt was raised by a single father. Mr. Conner was tough. He was a top-level executive in Silicon Valley for years. And he expected a lot out of Matt. More than the Air Force, that’s for sure.”
“What’s wrong with the Air Force?”
“Nothing, but when you’ve been groomed to go to an Ivy League school, I guess it can be seen as a step down. At least it did to Matt’s father. And probably most of his teachers. Matt was on the Principal’s Honor Roll every semester. His SAT and ACT scores were near perfect. He was supposed to do better.”
Airman to the Rescue Page 6
