by Lori Wilde
“Your inheritance?” Tuck gave an angry snort. “That house belonged to Blake’s daughter, not some skank who wormed her way into Blake’s bed.” He folded his arms over his chest. He shouldn’t have said that. The second the words left his mouth, he knew they were low and mean and untrue. He’d lashed out in pain and anger at the only target around.
Jillian clenched her jaw. She looked as hurt and angry as he felt. He felt like even a bigger butthead. “Excuse me, I did not sleep with Blake Townsend!”
He wanted to apologize, but he was entrenched in his position. “So you say.”
“I’m so mad at you right now that I could grab this ladder and shake it until you fall off and break your stupid neck, but I won’t because …” Her voice trailed off.
Tuck put a hand on the ladder just in case she decided to carry out her threat. In his other hand, he held the flashlight. “Because of what?”
She pursed her lips.
Tuck climbed down the ladder. “Because of what?”
Her dark eyes softened. “Because I don’t want to go to jail for manslaughter. The momentary sense of pleasure wouldn’t be worth the consequences.”
“That’s not what you were going to say.”
“It doesn’t matter what I was going to say.”
“I want to hear it. Spit it out.”
She arched an eyebrow. “You sure you can take it?”
He jerked his chin upward. “I can handle whatever you can dish out.”
“I’m overlooking your attitude because I know how much you’re hurting over the loss of your wife.”
That got him square in the gut. “I don’t want or need your sympathy. I’m acting like a jerk because I’m a jerk, not because my wife died.”
“You’re not a jerk.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you’ve been through a lot of pain.”
He hated the way she was looking at him. Just like everyone else did. As if he was an emotional cripple. “No more than the next Joe.”
“Losing a spouse is not trivial.”
Anger rose in his chest. “Oh yeah, and you’re so well versed on what it feels like to lose a spouse? Don’t even try pulling that empathy crap on me. You don’t have a clue what I’ve been going through.”
Jillian recoiled as if he’d slapped her, and immediately Tuck wanted to kick his own ass. “You’re absolutely right,” she murmured. “I don’t, but I do know what it’s like to lose the only person who truly gets you.”
“Blake.”
She nodded and without another word, turned on her heels and stalked over to the desk he’d swathed in a plastic drop cloth to protect the papers from falling ceiling debris. She batted back the plastic.
“Here, let me help.” He went toward her.
She picked up a letter opener off the desk and wielded it. “Back off. Don’t do me any favors. I can take care of myself.”
He raised both arms in a gesture of surrender and cocked her a grin. “Don’t stab, I’m backing away slowly.”
She giggled then, and it was such an odd sound coming from her that he laughed too. What an emotional roller coaster they were both on. Tuck didn’t quite know what to make of her. She had this tough, no-nonsense way about her, but then unexpectedly, like now, he’d glimpse another side of her. A softer side he imagined she didn’t often show.
Jillian put the letter opener down. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I can get a little defensive.”
“Yeah, well.” He pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped his hands on it. “Me too. I suppose.”
She peered at him through lowered lashes.
“Truce.” He stuck out his hand.
“Truce.” She accepted it.
They shook hands.
The contact was electric. Tuck’s head reeled, his body stiffened and his gut clenched in a wholly enjoyable way. Damn, damn, damn. She smelled like freshly laundered linen, crisp and clean and cozy. He thought immediately of a turned-down bed.
Her eyes widened. She dropped his hand like she’d just learned he had leprosy.
Tuck was just as shocked. He couldn’t believe he was reacting this way, and he felt ashamed. I’m sorry, Aimee.
“Did you find somewhere else to stay?” Tuck ventured, praying she would say yes, especially after she’d just electrocuted his hand.
“I did.”
Hallelujah, he could have his life back. “Boulder?”
“Right here in Salvation.”
“Convenient for your new job. Jefferson Baines hook you up?”
“Nope.”
From the way she was looking at him, he wasn’t getting good vibes about this. “What’s the address?”
Her gaze was steely. “Fourteen-fourteen Enchantment Lane.”
Hell, he knew that’s what she was going to say. “No, no.”
“Yes, yes.”
“You can’t stay with me.”
“From a legal standpoint, I can. Since I’m executor of Blake’s will and he left the house to me—unless you produce documentation that says otherwise—I can stay in the house. I’ve unpacked my U-Haul. Like it or not, until you have that deed, I’m your new roommate.”
JILLIAN HELD HER BREATH as Tuck snorted, fisted his hands at his side, pivoted on his heel, and then stalked out of Sutter’s office, slamming the door behind him.
In the wake of his obvious anger, she felt as if she were standing alone in the desert with a hot blast of sand pelting her as she stared at miles and miles of empty landscape.
What? You thought taking over a man’s home was going to be easy?
No, but she hadn’t expected to feel so … What was she feeling?
Jillian swallowed against the vacant, lost sensation surging inside her, and she flashed back to that day in court where the same emotions consumed her. Coming to Salvation was supposed to fix this hollow feeling. It was supposed to make her whole. Fill her up.
Instead, she was adrift, unsure of herself, isolated. But that was no different than she’d been for most of her life. Maybe she should reconsider staying at the lake house.
And go where? Back to Houston? There was nothing left for her there.
She sucked her bottom lip between her top teeth and stared dismally at the shambles around her.
This is where you start. This is square one. This is your new beginning.
The sound of footsteps tromping on the roof drew her gaze upward. Stomp, stomp, stomp. Had to be Tuck and from the sound of it, he was still steamed.
Too bad.
It was time to take a stand. Sure, she could just pack up and drive away, but no matter where she went, she now realized things wouldn’t be any different. She’d feel the same sense of loneliness. There was only one way to overcome it. Step from her aloofness. Entrench herself in a community. Make friends. She loved the town, loved the house, and by gosh, if she made an effort, she could love these people and they could come to love her.
Really? whispered the ugly little voice in the back of her head. You really think that anyone is going to love you? Your own mother didn’t love you. Why would these people?
Jillian closed her eyes against the sudden rush of tears. She would not cry. She would not. Gulping, she sniffed, blinked.
No, she would not cry, but neither would she run. For better or worse, she’d made her decision. She’d come to Salvation to find a home, and that’s what she was going to do. Come what may, she wasn’t going to let Tuck Manning stop her.
LATER THAT DAY, Tuck stalked into the lake house, planning on laying down the law and telling Jillian why she simply could not stay there. He had the arguments all prepped in his head when he heard her singing at the top of her lungs from the direction of the bathroom. The cheerful sound stopped him in his tracks.
He canted his head, listening to identify the tune over the sound of the shower running—“I Can See Clearly Now.”
The tune reached out and smacked him. He sucked in his breath.
Aimee
used to hum it when things were going badly. She’d told him once it was the song her father hummed just before he went into court for his final summation. She recalled sitting on the bed in her parents’ bedroom, watching Blake knot up his tie in front of the mirror while belting out the old Johnny Nash tune.
Tuck had asked, “If it’s a song favored by your dad, why do you sing it?”
“It gives me courage and hope.”
“But you and your dad don’t get along.”
She shook her head and looked at him as if he were a naïve child. “I love my father with all my heart, Tuck. I just can’t forgive him for destroying our family.”
And that was Aimee’s greatest flaw. Her inability to forgive if you’d wronged her. He’d never wronged her, so he’d never been on the receiving end of her unforgiving nature, but suddenly he had an unexpected empathy for Blake. And a deep sadness for Aimee, who’d been unable to let her father make amends.
Had Jillian picked up the song from her mentor? Did she, too, hum the tune when things were going badly? Was it the equivalent to whistling in the dark, pretending you weren’t scared of the boogeyman?
The thought dissipated his anger.
And before he could move, the bathroom door opened and Jillian stepped into the hallway, wrapped in nothing but a beach towel while she busily dried her hair with a bath towel.
“Oh,” they exclaimed simultaneously as their eyes met.
And for one long moment, time just hung.
Tuck stared at her, his throat muscles paralyzed. He couldn’t speak or swallow.
She stared back, her dark eyes glimmering in the light from the hallway bulb, rich as cocoa beans dipped in Swiss chocolate.
Something inside Tuck slipped. An awareness that he’d never felt before. For the first time, he noticed the little imperfections on Jillian’s face. The tiny half-moon-shaped scar in the center of her forehead. The way her eyelashes were so long they looked fake. How the hairline on her left side grew farther back than on the right side. Oddly, those imperfections served to make her more appealing.
Her cheeks were flushed pink from the hot water of her shower, contrasting sharply with her otherwise creamy white complexion. With that dramatic dark hair and her pale skin, she would have made a hell of a Goth girl if she’d wanted.
He expected her to duck into her bedroom for cover—Aimee would have under similar circumstances—but Jillian just stood there, appraising him with her best prosecuting attorney gaze. He forgot every word that had been in his head just minutes earlier.
“Your mouth is hanging open,” she said coolly, rubbing her hair between the terry cloth fold of her towel.
“Um …” He grunted, unable to push anything resembling civilized conversation over his tongue.
“Is there something you wanted?”
You, I want you.
The thought raced through his mind and took him completely aback. “Um …”
“Yes?” She fluttered those dynamite lashes.
He cleared his throat. Remember, you were going to lay down the law, tell her she had to hit the road.
She waited.
Dammit, he couldn’t help himself; his gaze dropped to where her towel was knotted just above her breasts. “Um …”
Droplets of water spattered the hardwood floor at her feet. His eyes tracked downward to her bare toes painted fire-engine red. He’d never seen anything more erotic.
“Tuck?”
His gaze shot back to her face. “Huh?”
“You were trying to say something to me?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He nodded, trying to shake off the mental fog that had befallen him. “There’s only one way this arrangement is going to work.”
“If you move out?” Jillian asked with a hopeful tone in her voice.
“You wish,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Well, neither am I. So if you want me gone, you better find that deed.”
“Believe me, I’m on it. But in the meantime, since you’re so determined to hang around where you’re not wanted—”
Jillian tossed her head. Wet strands of hair slapped lightly at her cheeks. “I’m determined to take possession of what’s mine.”
The hot look in Tuck’s eyes sent a shiver of ice straight down her spine. “That’s still in question.”
“So until it’s settled, we need to find a way to live together.” Her heart was pounding. She was trying so hard to look cool, calm, and collected. She didn’t want him guessing just how much courage she’d had to summon to stay here rooted to the spot in nothing but a beach towel when she wanted nothing more than to dart upstairs to the guest bedroom where she’d spent the previous night.
“Agreed.”
Was it her imagination or did he sound as off center as she felt? “I could live upstairs; you take the downstairs.”
It was official. She’d lost her marbles. She should either leave or throw him out, but here she was proposing a live-in relationship.
He eyed her. “You sure?”
“We’re both adults. We can make this roommate thing work.”
“Roommates, huh?”
He smiled and she saw he had a cosmically cute dimple in his right cheek. She could see why he’d been christened the Magic Man. There was something very compelling about that grin.
Mutt trotted over and sniffed at Tuck’s shoes. The traitor.
Tuck leaned down to scratch the dog behind the ears, and Mutt sighed like he was in heaven. He’d won over her dog.
She didn’t like that. “Let’s get the ground rules straight.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Smart-ass.”
“You started it.”
“I hate getting up early in the morning,” she said, ignoring his quip.
“That’s good, because I’m an early bird. We can avoid each other.”
“No bringing women back here. You want to make out, go to her place.”
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Okay, then no bringing guys back here. You want to make out, go to his place.”
“I’m not gay.”
She could tell that, but she hadn’t wanted to assume anything. “So you’re what? Celibate?”
“Something like that. But the same goes for you. No bringing guys over.”
“Agreed.”
A dark look crossed his face. Abruptly, he turned. “I gotta go. I just remembered I have another job.”
“After working on Sutter’s place all day?”
“Carpentry never sleeps.” He was shrugging into his coat, avoiding looking at her.
“What does that mean?”
“A man’s work is never done?”
“Okay, so I’ll see you when I see you.”
“Yeah.” He moved toward the door with purposeful strides, leaving her wondering exactly what she’d said to send him scurrying for freedom.
BY FRIDAY, the tension between Tuck and Jillian was so thick it would have given a chainsaw a run for its money.
She spent as much time as possible in the office, going through Sutter’s files and pending cases, trying to make order out of chaos. It wasn’t easy in the midst of Tuck’s construction. She’d gotten the bulk of it tamed to manageable tasks, but she hadn’t stumbled across the deed to the house on Enchantment Lane. Which was both a blessing and a curse.
Added to this, whenever she got home, Tuck would leave and come back long after she went to bed. He got up before she did, and he was out the door before her feet hit the floor.
It was more difficult avoiding him during office hours, although as long as he was patching the roof, she only saw him when he came down for lunch or to go to his truck for supplies. However, yesterday, he’d finished the roof and today he would move on to repairing the office ceiling.
Jillian realized she simply couldn’t take it anymore. Not when she kept having fevered dreams about him. Not when she kept entertaining inappropriate sexual thoughts about a man who was e
motionally unavailable. Today, she’d tell him that he had to go.
She walked into the office to find him on the ladder again, impressive butt on display as it was the first day. She tried to ignore him, but it was like ignoring a persistent toothache.
Apparently he was trying to ignore her as well, because he didn’t say a word. Not even “good morning.” Neither did she.
The room was deadly quiet.
The clock on the wall ticked loudly. Jillian cleared her throat.
“I’m going up into the attic,” Tuck said. “Looks like Sutter’s got termite infestation, and they’re eating up the support beams.”
“Thanks for the update but don’t feel obligated to keep me apprised of your comings and goings.”
“Just trying to be courteous,” he said tightly.
“No need.” She kept her gaze focused on her laptop even though she wasn’t seeing a word of the codicil she was drawing up for Tom Red Deer’s will.
He left the room, his boots clomping loudly, letting her know she irritated the hell out of him. Well, it cut both ways. He got on her nerves as much as she got on his.
TUCK CLIMBED INTO THE ATTIC, his thoughts in turmoil over Jillian. Living with the woman for the past several days had been tough. He’d never lived with anyone other than Aimee, and it felt strange, unnatural.
He shone the flashlight through the attic and shook his head. It would take him forever to replace all the damaged timber. After he assessed the damage and started to work on the water-damaged Sheetrock, he poked his head through the hole in the ceiling and stared down at Jillian below.
Sitting there in her chair, attention honed on the computer screen, she looked the epitome of an accomplished businesswoman. But he’d seen another side to her. Knew she wasn’t near as tough as she wanted everyone to think. Jillian Samuel’s had a soft underbelly she struggled hard to hide. But Tuck wasn’t fooled.
