by Nancy Warren
Even though it was dingy and decrepit, the room had gorgeous bones, with nine foot ceilings, a turret alcove, a Victorian fireplace – and that fantastic bed. There was no other furniture in the room, or much evidence of previous decorating. A few paper cabbage roses clung stubbornly to the walls, but the rest of the wallpaper had peeled off long ago.
The bed was obviously just too big to move. Laura spent a moment trying to figure out how anybody had ever got it in the room in the first place. To her mind both the doorway and the windows were way too small.
Whatever the reason, she was glad it had been left, and not chopped up for firewood or something during the house's days of neglect. The bed was an excellent example of late nineteenth century American furniture, and it would hold pride of place in the completed room. The bed and the roses… Images and ideas jostled each other in her mind until she was frantically sketching and scribbling. She taped pieces of the old wallpaper and bed canopy to her design sheet and began playing with color combinations.
When she noticed her bottom getting numb, she moved without conscious thought to the bed. The mattress smelled musty and bulged with lumps, but it held her weight. She lay down on it, squinting at the ragged material above her, trying to picture how the canopy would look if she could recreate the original fabric.
"Lounging on the job?" The deep, familiar voice was laced with teasing humor.
A shiver crept up her spine as she turned her head. "Is sneaking up on me in embarrassing situations a new and charming habit?" She made a mental note to get her ears checked.
There was a suggestion of a smile in Jack's eyes as he stood in the doorway, gazing down at her. "Welcome home."
She shouldn't have looked at him. That canary trapped in her rib cage was doing its thing again. It just wasn't fair that while lots of much nicer guys had lost their hair or got fat, Jack had only grown better looking over the years. He still resembled the hero of her fantasies. "How did you get in here?" She was certain she'd locked the front door.
He looked disgustingly attractive and completely at home; not a bit like a man who was trespassing. "You're starting with the master bedroom?"
An undertone in his voice, a kind of teasing intimacy, reminded her where she was – lying full length on the biggest bed she'd ever seen, just like a woman awaiting her lover. Well, her clothing was all wrong, but he made her feel as vulnerable as though she were wearing a transparent negligee.
He shifted in the doorway, and the awareness hovering between them made her jump off the bed as though she'd been bitten.
Gathering up her materials, she did her best to sound busy and professional. "Yes, I'm starting with this, ah, room. And I need to get some things from my van."
What she needed was to get away from Jack. And stay away.
Walking toward him felt like she was moving in slow motion.
Their gazes locked.
He didn't move.
He stayed wedged in the doorway, his deep blue eyes never leaving her. The way he gazed at her had her nerve ends shivering. He'd never looked at her that way when she was sixteen and wanted nothing more than his love. Why did he have to do it now? When she was over him, and planned to stay that way.
"I have work to do, too," he said.
"Well, do it somewhere else."
He pretended to look puzzled. "This is the McNair House, isn't it?"
She stopped dead in her tracks, halfway between him and the huge bed. A horrible premonition seized her. "Oh, no. Oh, no. Don't tell me you're the carpenter on the job?" She should have remembered Jack was no longer a college-bound quarterback.
He nodded, so relaxed he could lean casually against the doorjamb while she was humming with tension.
Suddenly, she didn't feel like a busy professional. She felt like a confused teenager. "But I've already started, so you'll have to tell the committee you've changed your mind."
"I started last week," he countered. "Check out the windowsill." He pointed at one of the windows, and there was the telltale patch of new wood, like a Band-Aid against the darker wood of the original. "And I cleared out a couple of rats' nests in that mattress you were just lying on." He stared intently at the bulging mattress for a moment. "I hope I got them all."
"But I can't work in the same house with you," she said, frantically brushing her rear.
"Why not, Laura?" His casual voice took on an intensity she didn't like.
All the reasons jumbled around in Laura's head like bingo balls. Trying to pick out just one reason was impossible. "I … I just can't, that's all."
"Look, I'm sorry I was such a jerk to you in high school. But that was a long time ago. Surely we can work together as professionals."
This was his idea of an apology? For almost ruining her life? She had no intention of discussing the past with him. Not now, not ever. "It's not personal. It's a professional decision. I only work with people I know – and trust."
His jaw had gone kind of rigid, and his eyes no longer smiled. "I could provide references to vouch for my work."
"From your besotted female clients? I don't think so." She moved forward again, but he shifted position so he was blocking the doorway.
"This isn't about any damn professional ethics, it's about Cory. Admit it."
"Give your ego a day off, Jack. That all happened years ago."
He scratched his stomach, causing the worn chambray to whisper over his taut flesh, and an expression that could have been remorse crossed his features. "I always wanted to explain—"
"You got another girl pregnant when you were supposed to be dating me. What's to explain?"
"We weren't exactly dating – you were all of sixteen, for God's sake."
A spurt of childish anger made Laura blurt, "And Cory was all of eighteen when she jiggled her cheerleader's pom-poms in your face – along with a few other things."
She saw he was about to speak, and flapped her hand to stop him. The last thing she needed was to reopen healed wounds. "Anyway, we've all moved on since then," she said in a determined, bright voice. "How is Cory these days?"
Jack's lips thinned. "She's just fine. Doing great. She's an anchor now at some TV station in California."
"Impressive. She still gets whatever she goes after, then?" It was a low blow, but Laura got a primitive satisfaction watching the flash of anger that crossed his face. He didn't like being thought of as a sex object, but that's all he'd been to Cory Sutherland in her senior year. If she hadn't got pregnant, she would have ditched Jack along with her worn-out pom-poms on her way to the bright lights of some big city.
He was backing away, Laura noted. No longer leaning against the doorjamb, he was standing in the doorway. Soon she'd have the room to herself again. Well, he'd brought the subject up, so she had no compunction about pursuing it until he'd backed right out the front door.
"Does Cory get back to Laroche much?"
He shrugged, took another step back. "Not too often."
She felt a frown pull her eyebrows together. "But what about the baby?" She'd be quite happy if Cory anchored at the bottom of the ocean, with Jack as her co-host, but a poor little innocent baby shouldn't suffer from her parents' mistake.
Jack snorted with genuine laughter. "The baby's eleven. Her name's Sara. She's been living with me since the divorce, and she's wonderful." She heard defensiveness as well as pride in his tone.
"When does she see her mother?" Laura asked softly. Flaky mothers she knew about.
"She gets a trip to see her mom every year for her birthday."
"I hope Cory's a better anchor than a mother." No wonder he was defensive.
He was all the way out in the hallway now. "Cory's just not the maternal type."
"And you are?"
"We're doing just fine." His tone made it clear he didn't want to discuss the subject any further, and all signs of teasing were gone from his face.
She watched him through the doorway. "I'm happy for you, Jack. But we still can't work together
."
"Why not?"
She scrambled to find a reason that wouldn't make her sound as if she still cared about him. She was astonished to hear herself say, "Because my boyfriend wouldn't like it, that's why."
Jack was back through the doorway in one stride. "Oh, right. The guy you're having all that great sex with."
She stared at him defiantly, hands on hips, willing herself not to blush. "Peter gets jealous." Which was perfectly true, and another reason she'd called it off.
"Really."
"Yes. I've ordered supplies. I've started designing. You'll have to quit."
He shook his head. "Your boyfriend's your problem. I'm not quitting." Then, without another word, he turned away, and she listened to the clomp of his work boots fading down the hall.
She slumped back onto the floor and stared moodily at the bed.
Seemed like all the rats hadn't been cleared out, after all.
From downstairs came the unmistakable sounds of lumber being dragged in through the front door. She drummed her fingers on the pitted fir floor, torn between stomping out of this house forever and refusing to give Jack the satisfaction of making her leave the island a second time.
Why should she? She loved this place. Besides, their respective professions made it impossible for her and Jack to work in the same space. If the project wasn't under a tight deadline, she wouldn't even have started until all the carpentry was finished.
Okay. He wasn't the carpenter she would have chosen to work with, but there was no reason for them to have anything to do with each other.
She pulled herself to her feet, her decision made. She had enough ideas to put in an order with Stan and get a few supplies here in town. That would get her out of Jack's way for a while until she was used to the idea of working with him.
No problem.
When she got near the bottom of the stairs, she inhaled the tangy scent of new lumber. Jack was dragging a load of wood into the dining room, where he'd set up a temporary work station. He'd stripped down to a T-shirt and donned rough leather work gloves. He might not be a quarterback anymore, but the size of the muscles in his arms told her he did something to stay in shape.
He used to hold her in those arms while they were necking…
Unbidden, a vision rose in her mind, of herself wrapped once again in Jack's strong arms. She imagined him touching the sensitive skin of her breasts with those rough leather-gloved hands, and was shocked at the rush of heat that surged deep inside her, and the way her nipples perked to attention. His personality might be seriously flawed, but he was so gorgeous in a rugged, laid-back kind of way that just watching him had her whole body getting twitchy.
Look, but don't touch, she reminded herself sternly, continuing down the stairs.
He glanced up then, a question in his eyes.
Although it was unspoken, she decided to answer it. "No, I'm not quitting, either. I guess I just lost my head a little back there. I was forgetting that by the time I get to a room, the carpentry's all finished, so basically, we'll hardly see each other." She pasted a perky little smile on her face and issued a part warning, part promise. "Peter won't have anything to be jealous about."
She'd expected her words to elicit some kind of agreement, even just a Neanderthal grunt, so she was more than a little surprised when Jack sent her a high-wattage grin that could only be termed wolfish. "Lady, that sounds like a challenge no red-blooded man could resist."
There was so much teasing humor mixed with the testosterone in that grin that she felt her lips quiver in response. "I'm not as easy to impress as I was at sixteen, Jack."
"No guts, no glory."
*
What was he thinking? Jack cursed his own stupidity as he watched Laura sashay out the front door without another word.
He'd thought that working together on this project would give the two of them a chance to put his screwup behind them and rekindle the friendship they'd had as kids. And here he was, trying to lure her into the kind of sexual banter that was an easy prelude to full-scale seduction.
Trouble was, when he'd agreed to do the McNair House, he'd pictured Laura as just a taller version of the kid who used to hero-worship him.
It hadn't occurred to him that she'd be sexy as hell.
He couldn't figure out why. She had the fashion sense of a scarecrow, with those sweater-stuffed overalls she kept wearing, and her hair sticking out all over the place.
Truth was, he'd never seen a woman who could look so good with so little effort. If she wore makeup, he saw no sign of it. There was certainly no indication that she ever brushed her hair. But there was no disguising the warm glowing brown of her eyes, the creamy skin that didn't need make-up, or those very kissable supermodel lips.
And if she thought those sweaters and overalls disguised her shape, she was sadly mistaken. They hinted at curves in a tantalizing way that made him want to peek at the womanly flesh hidden under all that bulky fabric.
But how was he supposed to get near her when she wouldn't even work on the same floor?
By the time she returned, several hours later, he was getting ready to leave for the night. She lumbered in the door with a ladder under one arm and an industrial-size paint pail in the other.
"Let me help you." He rushed forward.
"Uh-uh," she grunted, but by that time he'd already arm-wrestled the heavy can away from her.
She stalked ahead of him, muttering. He thought he caught the word caveman, but couldn't be sure. Once they'd dumped their respective burdens in the master bedroom, she turned to him, hands on hips, a belligerent expression on her face. "I carry my own weight on this job, Jack." She paused at his smirk. "Pun intended."
"Don't forget your grandparents as good as raised me. I'd catch hell if your gran knew I'd let a woman haul a twenty-five pound bucket of paint while I stood by watching."
The stepladder creaked as she cranked it open. "Socially, I think it's fine for you to open a door or hold a chair for a woman. But this is work. No gender biases, thank you."
"Well, pardon me. I wasn't trying to bias your gender." Whatever the hell that meant.
She glanced up at him, the rigid expression gone from her mouth. "You should know me well enough to figure out I want to be treated just like any other tradesperson."
"I hardly know anything about you anymore," he protested. "I haven't seen you since you got that art school scholarship and hightailed it out of here."
"You see me every time I come home to visit Gran."
"Not if you see me first."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You avoid me." It stung even to say the words.
Her cheeks colored faintly. "Why would I do that?"
He moved closer. "I don't know, why would you? Unless maybe you're still mad at me for what happened."
"Jack." She walked forward until she was standing inches from him, her big brown eyes gazing directly into his. "Hear this, loud and clear. I forgive you. Dumping me for Cory was the best thing you could have done for me."
"What?" He was so used to feeling guilty about breaking her teenage heart that it was an unpleasant shock to hear he'd done her a favor.
"You made me grow up." She dropped her gaze and caught her bottom lip between her teeth.
"Stan says you avoid intimacy."
Her gaze snapped back up to meet his, a dangerous sparkle in her eyes. "Stan reads too many self-help books. I have no intimacy problems. Really."
"Prove it."
"How?" Her eyes narrowed. She'd always been a sucker for a challenge.
"Kiss me. Right here. Right now." Where had those words come from? He'd shocked himself as much as he'd obviously shocked her. Oh, but the idea held a certain appeal, he had to admit. It must have come right from the libido side of his brain and bypassed the thinking part.
"Don't be ridiculous." Her lower lip was glossy from where she'd been biting it. No wonder his libido was putting words in his mouth.
&nb
sp; "I think Stan's right. You're scared." He was half teasing. More than half. The grown-up Laura was so intriguing and edgy, he had to push to find out where the edges got sharp.
She glared at him for one second and then, before he knew what was happening, she'd grabbed his face between her hands and yanked him forward. He opened his mouth to protest, and found it covered by her soft, sweet lips.
Okay. It wasn't exactly a sultry, sensuous kiss. Her rigid jaw bumped his chin, and he'd probably need a visit to the dentist after she'd finished crushing his teeth between her palms. But her lips were anything but rigid. They were soft and warm and infinitely kissable.
Shock turned to amazement. His cocky libido had scored, and it was gearing up with a whole lot of other ideas. He brought his arms around Laura and snugged her up tight against him, feeling the wool and denim and all the glorious curves beneath her baggy clothes.
For just a second she let him hold her, then pulled firmly away.
He stood there trying to get his breath back while she hefted the paint pail to where she wanted it, as calm as anything.
"Got any more theories you'd like to discuss?" she asked sweetly.
* * *
Chapter 3
«^»
Jack's boots crunched up the gravel drive and a familiar feeling of guilt surged when he spotted the shadowy figure in the lighted window.
He entered the kitchen and watched his daughter expertly drain spaghetti into a colander in the sink. "How's my girl?" he called softly, once she'd finished. She looked up, her face flushed from the steam, blond hair pulled off her face in one of those plastic things that reminded him of the jaws of life.
At eleven, Sara was just starting the transition from child to woman, and she promised to rival her mother for looks. All she seemed to have inherited from Jack was the eyes. Not green and round like Cory's, but blue and almond shaped.
"Hi, Daddy!" She smiled happily, and he felt the love that rose in his throat threaten to choke him.
"Smells great, Sara," he said. "But it's my turn to cook dinner."
"That's okay, Dad, you can do the dishes."
He watched her ladle spaghetti sauce onto the pasta. The table was already set; bread steamed in the basket. Sara was so grown-up, so responsible – too responsible. A girl her age should be playing house, not keeping one.
