Nothing To Lose

by Jenna Byrnes

  A dark haired man in a T-shirt and jeans was working on the railing by the front porch stairs.

  “Excuse me?” she called out to him, and he stopped to look up at her. Bailey went on, “Do you have any idea what time it is?”

  He flashed a sly grin. “Is that what you came out here to ask me? Most people have a clock next to their bed to tell them the time.”

  Bailey put her hands on her hips and looked at him. “A fucking comedian. I know the time, it’s six-forty in the fucking a.m. I just wondered if you knew the time. People are trying to sleep around here.”

  He straightened and Bailey’s gaze went up with him. Maybe it was his boots, because she was barefoot, but he seemed tall. His legs appeared long in form-fitting, tight jeans. For just a moment she let her gaze wander up muscular thighs, settling on his crotch. Images of what the jeans hid flashed through her mind, and she shook her head. Trying to get back to the perturbed feeling of a moment ago, she stomped a foot.

  He leaned against the rail, taking a moment to look her over. “Your mother was always up at this hour. She knew I had to get to work by eight and didn’t mind me coming over early. In fact, sometimes she made me breakfast.”

  Bailey snorted. “Hang on to those memories, buddy.”

  Smiling at her lazily, his dark, clear eyes crinkled at the corners. “Oh, I’m making a whole new bunch of memories, right now as we speak.” He made a point of looking at her breasts.

  Bailey glanced down quickly. In her sleepy state, she’d neglected to put on a robe, and her nipples poked out through her silky pyjama top.

  She gave him a dirty look and spun around to go back inside.

  “Don’t rush off,” he teased.

  “Could you finish this another time?” She stuck her head out from behind the door.

  “I could.” He nodded. “But I’m not going to. I’m almost done, I’ll finish it now. You go on back to…whatever…you were doing.”

  Bailey slammed the door between them and stomped back to her bedroom. She lay down but knew she was so irritated she’d never fall back to sleep. The blond woman’s brother—what was his name? Hell, she didn’t even remember the woman’s name. But he did look like his sister, only taller with dark hair, as she mentioned.

  Not that it mattered. She had enough to worry about under the circumstances, laden with both grief and guilt. It was hard to accept the man as a friend of her mother’s—even more unreal that the woman she knew would put up with such a mouthy person. He was a smart-ass and downright rude to her, and Bailey didn’t appreciate it. She also couldn’t believe she found him so damned good looking.

  Doug Kenny pounded the last nail in the porch railing and gave it a shake. He smiled to himself as he put his tools away and looked towards the house. He chuckled at the irritation of its occupant. He was completely prepared to dislike Bailey Montgomery. He wasn’t prepared for how pretty she was.

  She had a natural-looking yet sexy style. Her face was beautiful and her body—Christ! He couldn’t picture those full, round tits without his dick growing hard. She had a gorgeous body.

  He shifted his jeans on his hips and, with one last look at the house, walked to his truck. After setting his toolbox in the back of his old Ford, he climbed in the driver’s seat and looked around. The blueprints he needed for work weren’t there. He swore silently as he drove home to get them.

  He lived a mere three blocks from the Montgomery house, in a loft apartment over his sister’s garage. After parking in the driveway, he took the steps up to his loft two at a time, went inside and grabbed the blueprints off his table. He locked the door behind him as he left again and, noticing his sister’s kitchen light was on, stopped in for a moment.

  “Good morning.” Sarah dumped a pot full of water into her coffeemaker and smiled at Doug. “You’re up and at ‘em this morning.”

  He reached for a bagel off her counter, opened it up and popped it in the toaster. “You told me the porch railing at Missy’s house needed repair, so I wanted to—”

  Sarah looked at the clock and back at her brother with surprise. “You’re not going over there pounding at this time of day?”

  “Already been.” He grinned and grabbed the two pieces of the bagel as the toaster expelled them. They burned his fingers and he muttered, “Shit!” as he dropped them on the counter.

  “Watch your mouth, little brother.” Sarah reached for the bagel with a napkin and handed both pieces to him.

  “You said it was important,” he muttered in his defence. “I don’t know how late I’ll be working tonight, so I thought—”

  Sarah shook her head. “You didn’t think, Doug. Did you wake her up?”

  He grinned again. “Oh yeah. She’s a feisty one, isn’t she?”

  Sarah nodded and nibbled at some dry cereal she poured for herself. “She seems that way. But to be fair, her mother just died. I don’t think we’re meeting her at her best.”

  “Why are we just now meeting her, is what I want to know. Missy was so sick. I don’t understand why her daughter wasn’t here with her. We were with her.”

  “That was between them, Doug. It’s none of our business.”

  He poured himself a cup of coffee to go. “Always the diplomat, Sarah. Whatever, I need to get to work.”

  She glanced at him. “So, did you fix the railing?”

  “Of course.”

  “She may need some more work done over there.”

  He opened the door and looked back at his sister. “Then she’s going to have to ask. And if she does, I might have a few questions of my own.”

  Bailey lounged in bed, trying to figure out what she was going to do. There was no avoiding it any longer, she had to decide how to handle her mother’s house and belongings. Goodwill or the Salvation Army would probably take the clothes and furniture. That still meant Bailey needed to sort through everything, which seemed like a painful and overwhelming task.

  She also needed to contact a realtor and find out what might need to be done to the house before she listed it. She hoped there wouldn’t be much—she really wanted to clean out the house and go home. She tried to remain strong, but the longer she stayed, the more she missed her mother.

  She dozed on and off for another couple of hours before finally getting up for the day. Wandering through the house in her pyjamas, she realised she had no idea where to start. Maybe she would go for her run and then think about what to do.

  She changed into another running outfit and pulled her hair back into a ponytail. While she was tying her shoes, she looked out the window and thought she spotted someone in her backyard—it seemed unlikely because the yard was fenced. She couldn’t imagine people wandering through.

  Bailey opened the back door and saw a girl sitting in one of the flowerbeds pulling weeds. “Hello?” Bailey called, to get her attention.

  The girl looked up and smiled sheepishly. “Oh, hi. I hope you don’t mind—I usually like to tend to these before the heat of the day kicks in—”

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Mandy Stevens. You met my mom Sarah yesterday…”

  Bailey recognised the features of the blond-haired girl’s face—she looked just like her mother. First the handyman, now a girl—these people seemed intimately familiar with her mother’s house. It made her squirm, realising there was so much she hadn’t known, even talking with her mom regularly on the phone. Guilt bubbled inside her, spilling out as anger. “Your family is too much! I asked to be left alone, and you’re all over the place with food and hammers and weed whatchamacallits.”

  “It’s a weed whacker,” Mandy said quietly, looking at Bailey.

  “Whatever the hell it is, I told your mother I don’t need help. I don’t know what I’m doing with the house yet, and I don’t need you and your mom and your dad all over the place—”

  “My father is dead,” the girl said, speaking quietly again.

  Bailey stopped for a moment, embarrassed, then threw her hands up. “Whateve
r! The smart-ass guy with the hammer, over here at freaking six-thirty in the morning.” She looked at the girl. “I just want some privacy, and peace and quiet.”

  Mandy stood up and gathered her things. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you.” She had a dejected look on her face as she headed towards the gate.

  Bailey felt guilty, watching the girl leave. She hadn’t meant to respond so harshly, but it just came pouring out. The house was hers, now, and she had the right to say what should be done or not done—didn’t she? It stung that these strangers knew so much more than she did.

  She went back in through the house to stretch before her run. Aching feelings of guilt nagged at her as she saw Mandy walking slowly down the street. She pushed them aside and took off running in the other direction.

  Doug finished working earlier than anticipated. His drive from one construction site to another found everything running smoothly and under control. Sometimes his supervisory role put him on the road more than it did wielding a hammer, but he enjoyed the change of pace. He arrived home, parked in the driveway and had started up the steps to his loft when he heard a voice above him.

  “Hey, Uncle Doug.”

  He looked up to the tree house that had been in the old oak next to the house for over ten years. “Well hey, Squirt. What are you doing up there?”

  “Thinking,” Mandy replied.

  He could tell by her voice there had been some crying involved, too. Climbing the ladder, he reached the floor of the tree house and leaned in to see his niece. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.” She wiped her face and looked away.

  “Amanda Jean, don’t lie to me now. I can see something is wrong.”

  She wiped her eyes again and looked at him. “I went to Missy’s house before lunch to weed the flower beds. Her daughter was there.”

  He smiled. “Oh, you met Mizz Personality, did you?”

  She didn’t smile back, and Doug frowned. “What did she say to you?”

  “It wasn’t that bad.” Mandy sniffled as her tears fell again. “I shouldn’t have gone into the garden without asking her first. She kind of yelled at me that she wanted to be left alone. She said our family is too much, with the food and hammers and weed whackers.”

  Doug scowled and hoisted himself up onto the wooden floor. He pulled Mandy into his arms and hugged her. She cried harder when he did, and he rubbed her back. “I can’t believe she yelled at you. You were there to pull her damn weeds, for Pete’s sake.”

  “She cussed at me too,” Mandy added.

  Doug recalled Bailey calling him a ‘fucking comedian’ that morning and it infuriated him to think she had talked that way to his niece. No matter how attractive the woman was, she didn’t have to be rude. Thinking he’d like to teach her a thing or two, he cleared his throat when he realised he was imagining the woman naked, over his knee. He ran a hand over his face, embarrassed. “Don’t let her get to you, she’s not worth it.”

  “Missy was so sweet,” Mandy cried. “How did she get a daughter like that?”

  “I don’t know, Squirt. Some people are born jerks, I guess.” This one was a sexy, hot jerk with mile-long legs and perky nipples. He looked down as his sister’s car pulled into their drive.

  Sarah got out with a shopping bag and looked up at the tree house. “What are you two doing? I haven’t seen anyone up there for two or three years.”

  “We’re commiserating,” Doug told his sister.

  Sarah chuckled. “About what?”

  “You won’t be smiling when I tell you.” He guided Mandy to the ladder so they could climb down.

  “What’s wrong?” Sarah set her bag on a lawn chair and took Mandy’s face in her hands. “What happened to you?”

  “It’s not that bad.” Mandy shook her head.

  “Bailey Montgomery,” Doug answered, wiping dust from the unused tree house off his hands. “She yelled at Mandy when she found her pulling weeds from Missy’s flowerbeds.”

  Sarah looked at her daughter with surprise. “Did you tell her you’ve always tended to those flowerbeds?”

  Mandy shook her head. “I didn’t get a chance. I introduced myself, and she started yelling about how our family is too much and she wants us to leave her alone.”

  Sarah almost shook with indignation. “You have got to be kidding me.”

  Mandy wiped her eyes again and shook her head. “I left real fast after that.”

  Sarah pulled her daughter to her and said, “You do not go back there.”

  Doug tossed the keys to his truck in the air and caught them. “I’m going back there. I’m going to let Mizz High and Mighty know exactly—”

  “No, you’re not,” Sarah interrupted him. “You stay away from her too.”

  Doug made a face and said, “Mandy, would you excuse us for a minute?”

  “I’ll go inside and wash up.” She headed into the house.

  Sarah called after her, “I’ll be right in.”

  Doug took a step towards Sarah and said, “I’m not going to let that bitch get away with yelling at my family. I don’t care if she is in mourning from losing her mother, that’s no excuse to—”

  “You’re right,” Sarah nodded. “But I’m going to handle it. Mandy is my daughter, and this makes me very angry. I told that woman just yesterday how excited Mandy was to meet her, and then she does this.”

  “She’s a bitch,” Doug repeated. Saying it made it easier to put her nipples out of his mind.

  “And I’m a Christian woman, so I don’t appreciate language like that.”

  Doug frowned at his sister. “Mandy said Bailey cussed at her.”

  “She what?” Sarah’s eyes flew open. “What did she say?”

  “I don’t know, but she dropped the F-bomb on me a couple of times this morning, so I can only imagine…”

  Sarah’s face reddened and she took a couple of deep breaths. “She better not have used that kind of language with my daughter.”

  “What are you gonna do?” Doug shrugged, knowing very well what his sister would do.

  Sarah picked up her grocery bag and shoved it towards him. “Tell Mandy dinner will be late.”

  “Want me to come with you?”

  “No thank you, I can handle it.” She got back in her car and pulled out of the driveway.

  Doug watched her go. He’d love to be a fly on the wall for that conversation. Or did he just want to get another glimpse of Mizz High and Mighty’s knockers? That too. He smiled.

  Chapter Two

  Bailey had just fixed herself a Margarita when she heard the doorbell. Before she could answer, it rang again. She opened the door to the angry blond woman. “Hello,” she said, and Sarah lit into her.

  “You probably don’t realise that my daughter has taken care of your mother’s flowerbeds practically ever since Missy moved here. You obviously don’t care that my brother has taken care of this house—inside and out—for almost as long. Your mother and I—and all of my family—became quite close, especially since her illness.”

  “I appreciate that,” Bailey replied. “I simply told your daughter that I don’t want any help right now until I figure out what I’m doing with the house and grounds.”

  “You simply told her by yelling and swearing at her? Gee, I wonder how you treat your enemies if this is how you treat your friends.”

  “I didn’t swear at her!” Bailey scoffed.

  “Mandy tells the story otherwise. Well, I would appreciate it, Ms. Montgomery, if you would control yourself around my daughter. My brother and I are old enough to stick up for ourselves, so if you want to swear at someone, swear at us. But leave my daughter alone. I’ll see to it that no one from my family ever darkens your doorstep again.” She turned on her heel and walked off.

  Bailey was too surprised to offer a comeback, so she closed the door and nursed her drink while she rehashed the conversation in her mind. She didn’t remember swearing at the girl, but maybe she had without realising it. She
had a bad habit of forgetting things which didn’t seem that important to her. She still couldn’t remember the woman’s name, even after the reaming she just took from her.

  The casserole dish was sitting in the sink and Bailey glanced down at it. Sarah Stevens and a phone number were printed on the side. That was her name, Bailey recalled now.

  She wandered around the house, sipping her drink and trying not to notice how full each room was with various kinds of stuff. It was going to take forever to clean the place out on her own. She envisioned herself becoming sidetracked by every trinket, recalling memory after memory. If her mother was there, she’d tell her to get busy and just do it. Bailey sniffed. If her mother was there, she wouldn’t be cleaning out the house. She swiped at a tear with the back of her hand.

  It was summertime, and the kids were out of school. Perhaps Bailey didn’t have to go through this alone. The Stevens family had insisted they wanted to help. If she could make amends, perhaps offer to pay the girl for her time, maybe they could strike a bargain.

  In an effort to find an olive branch, she went into her mother’s room and looked through her jewellery box. Melissa didn’t have a lot of expensive pieces, but there were a few things that were special. One was a simple gold necklace with a small cross on it, which she knew her mother especially loved. Bailey stared at it for a moment then cradled it in her hand. She could picture her mother wearing the cross on many occasions, and the images made her smile.

  Exactly why I need help. Everything reminded her of something special about her mother. She’d get caught up in old times, and the house would still be full after her month had come and gone.

  Digging in the bottom of the jewellery box, she found a black velvet bag and dropped the necklace into it. She carried it out with her and continued to walk around the house, formulating a plan in her mind.

  Bailey looked up Sarah Stevens’ address in the phone book the next day before hitting the local market and buying a bouquet of carnations and daisies. She put the flowers in a crystal vase of her mother’s and at six p.m. headed to the Stevens’ home.