by Liz Crowe
Sam turned onto the freeway. Mr. Roberts’s ranch was a bit out of the way, so she’d given herself plenty of time to hit traffic on the way there. “What? Tell me now, my friend. Is he a dirty old man? An ogre? A creep?”
“No, no, none of that,” Skye said. Sam heard banging around in the background of the call. “It’s just that . . . well, Jax made me promise to warn you that he’s, um, well, he’s sort of a ladies’ man. If you know what I mean.”
Sam burst out laughing. “Ah, okay, a gigolo. Sweet. I could use one of those. Thanks, times a thousand.”
Skye sighed. “He used to be married to a nurse. Someone he met on the job. He’s the battalion chief for the paramedics, you know. The boss or whatever.”
Sam merged into heavy early-evening traffic, listening carefully for clues as to how to best handle this new client—a client whose ranch could easily sell for a cool three-quarters of a mil, she’d determined already without even looking at it.
“So his wife, she had an affair with a doctor and dumped Wade. It was a real nasty breakup. Everyone at DFR was sweating whether or not Wade would flat out murder the guy, or kill himself, or just go on some kind of a rampage. He’s usually pretty calm. Now, he seems determined to fuck his way through Dallas, one off-weekend at a time.”
“Wow. Sounds like a real winner. How old is he?”
“I don’t know. Late thirties, maybe?”
“No kids, I hope.”
“No kids. Jax says he works too much. But he’s been doing that for years, too. It’s how he got promoted so fast.”
“All right. Got it. Hero rescuer gets dumped by bitchy, evil, social climbing nurse, turns into Dallas Fire and Rescue’s very own, in-house stud. Like I said, sounds like a winner.”
“I’m supposed to give you a heads up. Jax is worried he’ll hit on you, and you’ll bolt.”
“Bolt? Me? Away from a potential sale that big? Don’t worry, I can handle the poor little broken-hearted stud muffin. But tell Jax thanks for his concern.”
“I told him you’d say that.”
“I’ve got this, Skye, really. I’ll do my thing, evaluate the property, offer a price opinion and a marketing plan. Mr. Roberts and I will be all business, I assure you.”
“He told me you’d say that too. Listen, I think you might consider—”
“Stop right there. I told you both once before—stop worrying about my love life. I’m too busy working and making my own money to worry about that shit.”
Skye sighed. The noises behind her ramped up. Sam heard someone call her friend’s name. “Go on. Make some cupcakes for the governor or something. Leave this to me.”
“You could at least, I don’t know, get laid or something.”
Sam rolled her eyes as she pressed the accelerator of the hundred-fifty-thousand-dollar German-made hunk of over-engineered metal. She loved the feeling she got when the thing would roar under the hood. It reminded Sam she’d bought it herself, with her own dough, trading in her BMW five series sedan as a down payment. Sam knew she was deflecting—turning her single, dateless, sexless self into a selling machine, acquiring stuff like this car as a way of filling the void. She shook her head. No time for self psycho-analysis. She had a new ranch to list.
“I’m fine, Skye. Stop mothering me.”
“It’s just ’cause I love ya. Call me after you’re done out there. I wanna know what you think of him.”
“Sure, okay. Bye.” She ended the call, irritated by how close her friend always got to the core of her innate, self-proscribed isolation. She was happy, she repeated to herself for the millionth time. She didn’t need a man.
“You could get laid or something.” Skye’s half-joke hit her brain. Sam shook her head, unwilling to admit, even to herself, that when she turned thirty next month, she’d have gone without sex for over five years.
The navigation system dinged, indicating her next turn. She sighed, suddenly so exhausted, her vision went wonky for a few seconds as she turned onto the dirt road that would lead her to her new client—Mister Wade Roberts, Mister Lonely Hearts, God’s Gift to Dallas Single Women.
The dust was atrocious. She went as slow as she could, trying to keep the worst of it at bay. But after a half mile on her two-mile trek down the road to Mr. Roberts’s ranch, the fine granules of dirt were wafting into the Porsche’s cabin. With a curse, she cranked on the reverse circulation and cracked the windows, sneezing and coughing her way through the last few thousand feet before she got to the place.
She stopped in front of the long drive that led up a slight slope to the left of a huge expanse of deep green grass. Sprinkler system, she thought, adding that to her mental list of attributes. The trees along the last few feet were an alternating flowering pear and apple—the welcoming, tree-lined, asphalt drive, her inner, always-be-selling agent intoned in her mind. As she crested the hill and pulled into the inner circle in front of the impressive home, she slipped immediately into evaluation mode, noting the architectural shingles, the alternating stone and wood façade, and the massive, double wood and glass front door.
Jax hadn’t told her the place was this nice. Her mind’s calculator clicked away, adding the obviously professional landscaping, the towering trees at the rear of the property, and the dark red barn and paddock to the far left of the attached, three-car garage.
She got out, bringing nothing but her business card and sunglasses. Sam prided herself on her ability to make mental lists of work to be done, of improvements already made, ready to regurgitate them all into a report she’d use to justify her final price recommendation.
She never wrote anything down at these first meetings. It was too distracting. She needed to spend time bonding with her new client, and a pen and paper or a computer tablet only served as a barrier to that goal.
When no one answered after she rang the doorbell three times, a small thrill of annoyance hit her brain. She glanced at her Rolex—a recent addition to her vast collection of jewelry—to confirm that she wasn’t too early. With a sigh, she headed down the wide stone steps back to her car, shielding her eyes against the sun’s intense glare. Sweat trickled between her shoulder blades under the silk blouse.
“Shit,” she muttered under breath, deciding to take a look around the exterior until Mr. Roberts deigned to grace her with his presence. Wishing she’d brought her flat sandals since the cream-colored Jimmy Choos really didn’t lend themselves to a stomp around the yard, she squared her shoulders and headed around the side of the house.
A solid twenty minutes later—twenty minutes past the appointment she’d set with him the week before—Sam leaned against the split rails of the fence surrounding the empty paddock. She’d already traipsed across the stone back patio with its custom pool and hot tub, the exterior kitchen that made the one at the house she just sold look like something from IKEA, the casually planned, yet obviously expensive landscaping. Her mental calculator whirred like mad, especially since she’d taken the liberty of peeking through the French doors into the jaw-dropping kitchen.
A solid mil and a half, maybe three-quarters, she’d decided with a sigh, wiping the sweat off her forehead. If the damn man would show up and let her in, she could make that final determination. Her irritation bloomed into full blown anger as the clock ticked its way to thirty, then thirty-five minutes past their appointment time.
“Screw this,” she muttered under her breath as she made her way back around the side of the house, her five-inch, thousand-dollar heels sinking into the soft, well-tended sod. “Inconsiderate jerk.”
The distinctive sound of a female giggle hit her ears, stopping Sam in her tracks. The giggle turned into a squeal and ended with a loud splash. Sam clenched her fists, reversed her trajectory, and headed for the pool, her mind aflame with self-righteous fury.
As she turned the corner of the house and emerged from behind the row of bushes surrounding the patio, she froze again. The sight that met her eyes was not one she had expected. Although, later, sh
e’d admit she didn’t know what to expect, especially after Skye’s warning about Wade’s proclivities.
As she watched, head pounding from the heat, face slick with sweat, a male shape emerged from the pool, pulling itself up on two massive, muscular arms revealing a tight, firm and utterly bare ass and two long, strong legs. The rear view was enough to make her stumble back with her hand to her damp throat.
The man shook his head like a dog, sending water droplets onto the patio surface. His hair looked to be dark blond, cut short, as per his work’s regulations, no doubt. His shoulders were the widest she had ever seen in her life.
He was like some kind of a water god, and she bit her lip as he kept his back to her and the pool. Water sluiced off his tanned skin. Droplets beaded up on the eye-popping terrain of his body. Sam hesitated, ready to call out and warn him that she was there and that maybe he shouldn’t turn around to face her.
A female voice called out something, but the roaring in Sam’s ears was too loud to hear it. The man—her new client, she could only assume—ignored the voice and started walking toward the open French doors.
“Way—ade . . .” The voice called, drawing his name out to two syllables. He kept walking away from it, from the pool, from Sam’s gawking eyes. “Come back here.”
Wade gave a dismissive wave of his arm and said something in a low, rumbling growl that made the hair on the back of Sam’s neck stand up. Her whole body had broken out in a cold sweat as she backed away, her heels continuing to sink into the grass. She was furious at the man but too unnerved by the sight of his impressive bare rear view to do anything but plan her escape.
At the last minute, the man turned. Sam let out an involuntary squeak of protest and averted her gaze . . . about three seconds too late.
Holy shit. Holy, well-endowed Mr. Lonely Hearts, she thought, as her left ankle buckled under her and she dropped to her knees in the grass.
“Hey,” the man called. “Who’s there?”
“Sam. The Realtor,” she said as she scrambled to her feet and then ran full out to her SUV. “We had an appointment, you exhibitionist jackass.”
By the time she’d made it to her car, gotten in and cranked the key, Wade was standing by her window, knocking on it, his craggy, distinctive face close enough so she could see the stubble on his jaw. And his broad, smart-alecky smile.
“Beat it,” she said, putting the car in gear.
“No, no, I’m sorry. I totally forgot.”
“Obviously.” She kept her gaze trained ahead, even as the memory of his front view seared her retinas.
“Come on, Realtor lady. I’m sorry. Seriously.”
“No, I’ll come back another time. When you don’t have company, perhaps.”
He chuckled. The sound of it forced an unwelcome, involuntary, shiver through her. She clenched her jaw. “Move away from my car,” she said. “Call me when you’re serious about selling.” Without waiting for him to move, she inched the vehicle forward.
Unable to stop herself, she glanced in the rearview mirror before the driveway curved away. Wade Roberts stood, naked as the day he was born, his cut torso like something on a romance novel cover, with arms crossed, brow creased, and his . . . his penis just hanging there. Hanging there low, she noted with another bite to her lip and a shiver of something she refused to accept as what it was—core-melting lust.
Chapter Three
“I told you already, I’m busy that day.”
Wade glared into the deep blue recesses of his pool, the whir of the filtration system kicking in, making him frown. Damn thing was coming on too often, using up too much electricity. What? Was he made of money?
“You’re a liar is what you are,” Jax insisted right before he dove into the deep end, swam to the opposite end, and then emerged with a whoop of pleasure. Wade sighed and flopped onto a lounge chair, gripping the neck of a beer bottle. A couple of other guys strolled out from the open French doors wearing swim suits, and beers in hand.
“Thanks for this,” one of them said, tipping his bottle in Wade’s direction. He saluted them with this bottle His head ached and his throat felt closed up—a condition he’d inhabited for several hours. Ever since he’d glimpsed her the previous day—the real estate chick, standing there in her short skirt, high heels and sexy, silky shirt, gawking at his junk like a teenager—he’d been just this side of obsessed. Not a condition that sat well with him. But at the same time, something he couldn’t seem to shake.
He stared down at his hand wrapped around the brown bottle, full of his favorite Shiner Bock. The sounds of raucous laughter, good-natured jibes, yelps of pleasure when bodies hit the perfectly temperature controlled surface of his pool all flowed around him.
He still couldn’t recall why he’d blown off the real estate appointment he’d made with Sam Weaver. His only real excuse was the booze he’d had the night before—straight bourbon. He typically avoided it, being more of a beer drinker, but the girl he’d picked up had claimed that nothing but Maker’s Mark would do for her. And Wade was all about making sure whatever woman had become his target for the night got what she wanted from him. In all areas.
That chick had hung around the next day, despite his usual rude insistence that she take a hike by mid-morning, leaving him to recuperate in peace. She’d been all kinds of nasty—something he’d missed in his most recent encounters. He’d let her linger, giving him pretend strip shows and lap dances, practically sucking the skin off his dick by the time they’d hit the pool that late afternoon, a solid half hour past his realtor appointment.
“Why d’you wanna sell this place anyway, honey bun,” the annoying chick had asked once she’d found him standing naked in his driveway, watching the cloud of dust following her—Sam—and the obnoxious imported SUV.
“Huh? Oh, well now, that’d be none of your business,” he’d said, giving her a quick smack on the ass. “Time for you to vamoose,” he’d insisted, heading inside to the shower and ignoring her until she obeyed him.
That was yesterday. Today, he’d invited Jax and his off-schedule fire battalion out for a dip and a brew, along with the off-duty crew of paramedics affiliated with Jax’s firehouse. He thought of them as his own band of merry numbskulls.
He’d been pacing the floor all morning, his skin crawling, his brain flaming with the memory of her—of Sam. To distract himself, he’d made a few calls and within hours, was surrounded by a group of boy-men, whooping and hollering, drinking and cutting up, giving him the perfect excuse to damn well stop thinking about her. About her long, jet-black hair, the curvy perfection of her figure, the smooth, lightly tanned tone of her calves in those killer fuck-me pumps.
He fiddled with the label on the sweating beer bottle, pretending to listen to all the catcalling and crap going on all around him. With a sigh he got up and headed inside, restless and irritated. Her business card lay on the stainless surface of the kitchen island, all by itself, like a warning flag, or a talisman. He picked it up, flipped it through his knuckles like a playing card, then pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed her number.
Tapping his fingers on the cool counter surface, the sound of his friends and fellow lifesaver types yelling and splashing behind him filling his brain, he waited for her to answer. When she didn’t, he called again, then hung up and sent her a text:
I’m sorry for yesterday. Can you come back out? I promise not to skip it this time. I want to get the place on the market.
It took about ten minutes to get the response:
I think you should try a different agent.
He frowned at that. From what Jax had told him about Sam, she was a balls-out pro. Not one to skip the opportunity to list a cream puff like the one he currently inhabited—and wanted to unload so badly he couldn’t even stand to sleep here some nights.
That’s lame, he tapped out, not sure he was doing the right thing but desperate to get in front of her again. You’re gonna give up on a potential five-figure commission just bec
ause I let it all hang out the last time you were here?
He noted the little bubbles, indicating she was responding. With a smile, he polished off his beer and filled a glass with water.
I don’t need your commission, thanks. I think you’re a rude show-off who knew damn good and well you were blowing me off. I don’t have time for that kind of immature nonsense. I have a grown up job to do.
He sighed and put the phone down, unable to respond, since she was probably more than half right. He downed the water and refilled the glass while he pictured her, which made his dick stiffen under his swim trunks. He grabbed the phone once more and typed out:
Ok then. When you see Hollister Grant’s sign in my yard, don’t say I didn’t give you a shot at it.
He dropped the device on the counter and headed out to the pool. He knew her type. Tossing the name of her biggest competitor in the over-priced Dallas luxury home market in her face would bring her back.
A few hours, later, belly full of grilled burgers and baked potatoes, waterlogged and exhausted from several rounds of not-so-gentle water polo, Wade sprawled on the outdoor couch, watching the lightning bugs flicker around the pool’s now calm surface. Jax emerged from the house, dressed in his jeans and a Dallas Fire & Rescue logoed T-shirt, holding a couple of water bottles. He handed one to Wade, then took the chair opposite him, propping his feet on the glass-topped table between them.
“Cheers,” he said, holding up his bottle.
Wade raised his bottle, feeling slow, woozy, and lethargic. And wishing he had female companionship. They drank in silence as the twilight morphed to full dark, causing the tall lanterns around the patio to flicker to life. All these details, he sighed, sipping the water. All the things she did—his wife, that bitch—to make this house the showplace she’d always dreamed about, and his own stupid, sappy agreement to everything. It made his face hot and his chest tight.
Forcing himself not to think about her, he set the empty bottle on the table and leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
