by J. R. Ward
“It’s generally considered polite.”
“Even if someone’s being nosy?”
“I’m not nosy. I have a reason for wanting to know. Nosy is much more gratuitous.”
“Look, you’re being paid to cook here. That’s it. So unless you’ve got questions about supplies or the kitchen, everything else is none of your business.”
His eyebrow cocked.
“You’re one tough lady, aren’t you?” He was talking to himself, his eyes narrowed, assessing.
Frankie had to laugh. “Right now, I’m tired. My feet hurt. I just want to go to sleep. If that’s your version of tough, you’ve nailed me dead to rights, but I think you need to check the dictionary. The rest of the world thinks the word means something else.”
She pushed at him, but it was like trying to budge a parked car.
“Are you going to answer my question?”
“Fine. Sure.” She kicked up her chin. “My life’s one long party. Calendar’s so packed I have the men come with name tags otherwise I forget who they are. Yippee.”
“Well, if you can fit it in, how’d you like to go out somewhere with me?” He smiled casually, but she wasn’t fooled. His eyes had that purposeful look in them she was beginning to recognize all too well.
She couldn’t believe she’d mistaken him for an aimless drifter. The guy didn’t have a wayward bone in his body.
“Hell,” she murmured.
“Not exactly the response I was hoping for. Doesn’t answer the question, either.”
“I just have a feeling that’s where I’m headed if I get involved with you,” she said, pulling away.
“Why’s that?”
“Good night, Nate.”
“I’m not going to give up, you know.”
“Do you always come on this strong?”
He traced her lips with his eyes, in what was apparently becoming a habit for him. “When I find something I want, absolutely.”
“Then it’s going to be a long, lonely summer for you.”
This time, he let her shut the door.
Leaning back against the panels, she closed her eyes and let herself enjoy a stolen moment of insanity. She imagined that instead of shutting him out, she’d let him come in. Let him take off her clothes and lay her down on the bed—
“It’s going to be good between us.” Nate’s voice came through the wood, right next to her ear. “I promise you.”
Frankie jumped like she was the one with a finger in the socket. She stuck her head out in the hall, ready to tell him to go back to his room, but his door was just clicking into place.
So it was hard to know if he’d meant her to hear him or not. And she had to wonder whether the words he’d spoken were an empty entreaty or a vow.
Getting into bed, she pondered the two possibilities until all she thought about was the dark, starving expression on his face when he’d stared at her. The image was inescapable and her body temperature soared. Smoldering, she proceeded to kick off her comforter, her blanket and her socks. She opened the window a little farther and then got the box fan out of the closet. She put it on her bedside table and turned it up so it blew great gusts over her skin.
She’d probably have had better luck if she’d just put her head down on her desk and slept in her office. She might have woken up with a paper clip or two stuck to her forehead, but surely that would have been better than trying to find REM sleep in a wind tunnel.
NATE GOT UP WITH THE SUN, pulled on an old pair of cutoff jeans and went looking for a ladder. He wasn’t interested in the step variety he’d run into the day before in the pantry. He was looking for the real deal, the house painter’s kind, the dual layer, extendomatic, break-your-head, trip-to-the-Emergency-Room special. The Big Daddy of ladders.
And White Caps being what it was, he was confident he’d find one somewhere. He’d learned in the past forty-eight hours that the barn and the house’s cellar were repositories for all manner of things. You had to wonder how a WWI bazooka, a gin distillery and a printing press came to be housed under the same roof.
Then again, maybe that did make sense.
It took twenty minutes and a brush with a spider the size of his head to find the ladder of his dreams. Grabbing a screwdriver from a toolbox, he took the aluminum nightmare over to the spot where he and Frankie had argued over lawn-mowing duties. Tipping it up, he extended the thing as quietly as he could, but it was like whispering in church. The sounds were amplified by the silence around him and he felt like he was putting a jackhammer to the side of the house instead of carefully inching the rungs up to the broken gutter.
He was supposed to be helping Frankie, not tuning Mr. Little up for another explosion she’d have to smooth over. And Nate could have waited until people were awake, but he knew she would insist on helping him or doing it herself so he was willing to take the risk.
He surveyed the ladder placement with satisfaction, put his foot on the first rung, and started climbing. He was about halfway up when his fear of heights checked in with a heave-ho of his stomach. Refusing to let an irrational anxiety deter him, he got through the nausea by focusing on his hands as they gripped and regripped.
When he got up to the gutter, he was relieved to discover he probably could solve the problem. It wouldn’t be as efficient or pretty as the turnaround he’d performed on the chicken that first night in Frankie’s kitchen. But at least he could reattach the holder-thing that kept the gutter close to the house.
The sound of a fan had been droning while he’d been climbing and now he was curious. Going down a few rungs and leaning to one side, so that he could look into an open window, he realized he was staring into Frankie’s bedroom. And then he saw her.
She was lying on her back in bed, an arm and a leg hanging off one side and the covers on the floor. She was resplendent. In the process of flopping around, her shirt had ridden up, exposing one perfect breast and her flat stomach. His eyes traced her skin and lingered on her white cotton panties.
Which were somehow sexier than the lace and satin numbers he’d seen on other women.
Staring into her room, struck dumb by attraction, knowing that he was a Peeping Tom and feeling badly about it, he hoped like hell she didn’t wake up. But sure enough, it was about then that Frankie started fidgeting in her sleep.
Not about to get caught, Nate took a quick step back into thin air.
FRANKIE WAS AWOKEN BY a howling noise and she shot out of bed. The next thing she heard was the sound of something like a tree hitting the side of the house right outside her window.
She ran across the room, threw up the screen.
And looked into Nate’s horrified face.
“What the hell—” she stuttered.
“Am I doing up here?” He was hugging the ladder he was on. “I’m trying to fix the gutter.” Moving gingerly, he reached into the pocket of his cutoffs and took out a screwdriver. “See?”
“But why?”
“I thought it was better than you having to do it.” He was clearly trying to recover from scaring himself half to death and determined not to show it. The smile he gave her was the same easy, wide one he used on the ground.
But his face was the color of pea soup.
“And this is because you’re so scary brilliant with the Mr. Fix-It stuff?” she chided gently.
“All I need to do is just screw in that thing. Up. There.” He let go of the ladder long enough to gesture with the tool and push at the gutter. Two seconds later both hands were back on the rungs.
He was scared of heights, she realized. And doing his damnedest not to show it.
“Why don’t we get you down from there?”
“Naw, don’t worry about me. I’m fine. I’ll just finish what I started.” But then he made the mistake of looking down and squeezed his eyes shut. “Ah, Jesus.”
“Nate?” He opened one eye. “I really think you should get down on the ground.”
“I can see your point.”
“Why don’t you just try one rung down from where you are. I’m right here. I’ll talk you through it.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re scared of heights and you’re stuck twenty-five feet up in the air. I don’t think I’d call that fine.”
“I’m not scared of anything.”
Tell that to your adrenal gland, she thought.
Frankie sat on the windowsill and considered the options for helping him down. Distraction. That was what he needed. Distraction and a little motivation.
The solution was obvious. Enticing. Dangerous.
“So you can go back inside,” he was saying to her. “I’m just going to catch my breath for a sec and then—”
“Nate?”
“Hmm?” It was a pleasant enough noise. He didn’t open his eyes, though.
“I have a feeling that if I leave you here, you’re still going to be on this ladder at noontime.”
“Untrue.”
Could she really do this, she wondered.
Frankie leaned out and put a hand on his cheek. It was clammy, as if he had a fever.
Her touch got his attention. His lids flipped open.
She refused to think about what she was about to do. She just leaned forward and pressed her lips to his firmly. A shocked hiss come out of his mouth as she pulled back.
“You’re a sick woman,” he said softly. “Why do you wait until I’m completely freaked out and stuck on the side of your house before you’ll kiss me?”
“Shhh.” She dipped back down and this time he was ready for her. His lips responded instantly, moving against hers. His tongue snuck out and the kiss deepened.
God, he felt good.
Frankie buried her hand in his hair, feeling the lush texture. He kissed like a real man, she thought. Hungry, hot, demanding.
There was a scraping noise as the ladder shifted against the siding and they broke apart sharply.
Ho, boy. The idea was to get him down to the ground in one piece. Not kiss him into a dead fall.
“There’s more where that came from, Nate. But only when you can take me into your arms properly.” Her voice was shaky. From the scare. From the heat between them. From the fact that she didn’t mean what she said. She just wanted a way to get him back on the ground.
Nate, however, obviously took her at her word. He started down that ladder like he’d been trained by a fireman.
That was when she realized she was halfway out her bedroom window, wearing nothing but a T-shirt and panties, having kissed a man for the first time in…heck, she couldn’t count that high this early in the morning.
Frankie threw on a pair of jeans and rushed downstairs, hoping like hell he didn’t get stuck again. She rounded the corner and was relieved to see that he was safe, on the ground.
But coming at her with an unmistakable look of intention.
She put her hands up. “I’m really glad you got down—”
“Come over here.”
“Now, look, we just needed to get you—”
“A promise is a promise.”
Nate marched up to her, put his hands on either side of her face and kissed her long and slow. His body was warm against hers, and as he pushed her back against the house, she couldn’t remember exactly why it was wrong to be with him.
Something about leaving, the end of the summer—ah, who the hell cared, she thought.
Her hands crept up his shoulders and around the back of his neck and she held on to him. He smelled like Ivory soap and outdoors, but she would have taken him dirty and sweaty, too.
“Much better on the ground,” he murmured.
Frankie slowly opened her eyes. “I’m not sure I’m standing up anymore, to tell you the truth.”
He smiled with satisfaction. “You want to go upstairs?”
“Yes—no. No, I—” She thought about stepping away but her feet refused to respond.
Probably because her size eight and a halfs knew she wasn’t really serious about wanting to put some space between her body and Nate’s.
He kissed her lightly and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “I take that back. How about we go a little more slowly. Let’s go out tonight after we close. Just the two of us.”
It was weird, but the tempting invitation made reality come back. Maybe because she pictured herself taking him into town and having people watch them together. In a small community, there wasn’t much to do except gossip. And the conclusions that would be drawn, namely that she was sleeping with her new chef, wouldn’t help her or her business.
But that wasn’t the only reason to not go any further with him.
Frankie pulled back and then stepped away.
“Actually, I think we should stop.”
He groaned deep in his throat. “Why?”
“Because I like you,” she muttered. Before he could ask her to elaborate, she put her hand up. “Look, you’re leaving at the end of the summer and nothing is going to change that. I’ve got too much self-respect to be some man’s little diversion and I’m not interested in using you in that way, either.”
His hazel eyes burned as he stared at her. “Fine, but it may not be that easy.”
And with that, he turned and headed back for the ladder.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” she demanded, going after him.
He just shrugged and put his foot on the bottom rung. “You’re assuming we have a choice.”
She watched him take a deep breath, and with his eyes fixated on the gutter, begin to steadily climb back up the side of the house.
CHAPTER SEVEN
A WEEK LATER, SHE STILL couldn’t get that kiss out of her mind.
Although she took a lot of pride in spanking down Nate’s fatalistic attitude. No matter how attractive he was, or how good he’d felt, she’d managed to not jump his bones. She felt like a chronic dieter who’d made it through a Lindt store without buckling.
Restraint came at a cost, however.
Frankie put her head down on her desk. It was utterly exhausting trying to convince her body that it didn’t actually want to be invaded by his.
And her nerves were shot. Whenever she was in the same room with Nate, she wanted to jump out of her skin. She kept expecting him to bring up what had happened or try it again, but he was playing it cool.
And naturally, the space he gave her meant she thought about him constantly.
The nights were the worst. She made a point to go up to bed before him, reinforcing the hands-off message with her closed door. It was a good, stalwart plan, in theory. The trouble was, when she heard him coming down the hall, she kept wishing he’d ignore the signal. She wanted him to knock, probably just so that she could turn him down again. Which was crazy and a little cruel, but somehow drawing the boundaries would make her feel more in control.
As it was, she had to listen to the shower going while imagining what he looked like naked and running a bar of her soap over all of those muscles.
Seeing him in the kitchen was an exercise in self-torment, too, even though he was fully clothed. It was next to impossible for her not to get caught up in watching him cook. You wouldn’t figure some man facing off ten pounds of root vegetables with a paring knife would be so damned attractive.
But she could watch him peel potatoes for hours.
He had beautiful hands. Long, strong fingers and wide palms. His forearms were thick and marked with veins and she loved to watch the tendons and muscles shift as he worked.
God, she was pathetic.
But that was what self-imposed sexual frustration could do to a girl.
In an effort to release some stress, she’d made twenty jars of jam this afternoon. Nate had thought she’d lost her mind when she’d pushed him away from the stove, pulled a stew vat over a flame and proceeded to pitch in about a thousand strawberries and enough sugar to put the city of Albany into a diabetic coma.
The excess was absurd, but she’d give
the stuff away to guests as they left. And at least she’d managed to keep her hands off him for another day.
Of course, she’d also wiped out the strawberry census in Saranac for the time being. But there were always blueberries. And raspberries. And rhubarb.
Hell, she could probably make jam out of grass if she ran out of options.
The phone rang and she jumped. She cleared her throat before picking up, just in case her fantasy life had made her hoarse.
“Yes, we have rooms available,” she said, cradling the receiver between her ear and shoulder. She changed screens on the computer. “This weekend I can offer you a lake-facing suite for two nights. No, I’m sorry, the Lincoln Bedroom is booked. Of course, we love children.”
After she took the man’s credit card information, she referred him to their Web site for directions. “And may I ask where you heard of us?”
She was still surprised when she hung up the phone. Mr. Little had evidently been impressed enough by the food to give a recommendation to a friend of his. Which meant for the first time this season, they were full for the coming weekend.
Joy stuck her head in the door. “Plumber’s back again. He’s got the replacement part and he’s going to need to work in here.”
Thank God. The day after the deluge, he’d managed to patch the slow drip that had caused water to accumulate in the ceiling, but it had been a short-term solution. With any luck, a new valve would take care of the problem and she could get a sheet rocker in to seal up the rafters.
As the guy came in with his toolbox, Frankie figured she’d spend some time in the garden, weeding. She changed into ratty shorts and was heading out to the raggedy patch when a Cadillac pulled up. Mike Roy got out and so did a tall, dark-haired man. Both were dressed casually, although the stranger seemed somewhat regal in his linen pants and polo shirt.
Great timing for Mike to show up, she thought, looking down at her clothes. She was doing an excellent impression of a bag lady.
Frustration surged. They’d been playing phone tag all week and she was finally set to see him in his office on Monday. She’d been looking forward to making a professional presentation of her finances and reassuring him that she was going to meet her obligations. Now, that image was going to be harder to project.
