“To hit you over the head with, you unimaginable bastard.”
“Well, you got me there, Miss Simmons.”
Recognizing the irony in his tone, Kelsey felt a stab of regret. Everyone in town knew the basics of Laura McKinley’s past. She was neither ashamed nor secretive about it. She had gotten pregnant young and by mistake. The father—KD’s father—refused to marry her and took off without a second look back.
She couldn’t have picked a more apt—or cutting—word than ‘bastard’.
But Kelsey fought the urge to apologize. He hadn’t yet apologized for calling her—by insinuation if not words—a husband-stealing slut. “What I got, Mr. McKinley, is a mind not to hire you.”
“Fine.” His shrug was not an affectation, Kelsey realized right away. He was as happy to wheedle his way out of this job as she was to have him gone. “I came here as a favor to my stepfather, because I owe him that much, and more. You don’t want me to do the job? No skin off my nose. I’m not gettin’ down on my knees, lady.”
Kelsey was shocked to the point of breathlessness at the image that flashed, vivid and utterly sexual, through her mind. She wouldn’t mind having Mr. KD McKinley down on his knees, where she could be in control of him, where she could have him doing things to her that no man had done in longer than she cared to recall.
Oh. My. God.
She knew only enough to find him detestable and she was thinking like that? Oh Lord, Stefan better respond to this dress the way she wanted him to, because deprivation was finally catching up. It had been four long years since she had made her vow to stay celibate until she found Mr. Right. In the view of some—well, in the view of one Gabrielle Murray—that practically made her a virgin again.
She wondered if KD McKinley’s opinion of her would change if he knew that.
“Fine,” Kelsey agreed, her voice breathy. His eyebrow moved, almost infinitesimally, making her wonder if her thoughts had been telegraphed. She felt suddenly, frighteningly naked. Not much of a stretch, considering what she was wearing. It didn’t exactly scream virginal.
She had to get this man out of here.
Pulling herself together, she gave her hair a haughty toss and walked, deliberately casual, by him. “Don’t let the door hit you on the butt when you leave, Mr. McKinley.”
* * * *
“Do you suppose he worked out that you were talking about cinnamon buns?”
Kelsey held the cordless phone between her shoulder and cheek as she spread strawberry jam on a slice of wholemeal toast. “I told you not to mention him again.”
“Oh, come on. That little exchange between you and Laura’s prodigal son was the highlight of my week,” Gabby said unapologetically. “Paul laughed his head off, too.”
“You told Paul?” Kelsey groaned.
“Of course. It’s this pesky ring on my finger. I’m contractually obliged to tell the man everything, whether he’s listening or not.”
“Funny, I don’t remember hearing that in the vows you spoke.”
“It’s in the fine print. Along with ‘I promise to squander my youth by remaining barefoot and pregnant for the majority of my twenties’. Thomas, stop pinching your sister!”
Kelsey waited until Gabby dealt with the altercation in the background before pointing out, “As I recall, you were the one who wanted children right away. A big family like your own and all that.”
“Yeah, yeah. That was before I had two and one more on the way. After this one, that’s it. Paul is getting the old snip-snip.”
“Really?”
Gabby hesitated. Kelsey could imagine her giving her rounded stomach an affectionate pat. “Well…maybe. Anyway, I didn’t call to talk about me. What are you going to do about hunky handyman?”
“Do?”
“I hear he’s a fully qualified carpenter and they aren’t exactly thick on the ground around here.”
Kelsey knew this. Her attempts yesterday to find an alternative replacement for Frank Brevan had proven fruitless. She’d even made calls to Brisbane, but no one had been keen to travel more than an hour to take on her small project.
Yet she said to Gabby, “So maybe I’ll wait until someone’s available. Or start on things myself.”
“You’re going to turn that poky toilet into an ensuite and install French doors?”
“Nooo.” Kelsey drew out the word. She took a bite of her toast, chewing and swallowing before she continued. “I’ll just have to abandon that idea and do the surface stuff.”
“You, abandon an idea? Miss See-things-through-to-the-end-if-it-kills-me? Don’t do it, Kels. The universe might shift off balance and we could all be doomed.”
“Ha, ha.” Kelsey took another bite just as there was a knock on the front door. Walking down the hall, her powder blue pumps clicking on the floorboards, she said into the phone, “I’ve got to go, Gab. Someone’s at the door.” Probably Mrs. Lipitz from the neighboring house, calling in for an ill-timed and much too lengthy chat. She could think of no one else who considered it appropriate to knock at seven-thirty in the morning.
“Okay. The last thing I’ll say on the matter is this. Why don’t you call a truce with hunky handyman and hire him?”
“Would you stop calling him hunky—” Kelsey swung open the front door and fell silent, gaping at the view of firm pectoral muscles that confronted her. Her eyes traveled upward, slower than she liked, to see broad shoulders before connecting with a pair of dark blue eyes the color of the deepest parts of the Pacific Ocean.
Speak of the devil and he shall appear.
“Why not? He is hunky. You’re not so wrapped up in Stefan that you didn’t notice.”
“Miss Simmons?”
His voice was softer than she remembered, as soft as the white cotton of his T-shirt. It made Kelsey feel like his words caressed her.
Oh, stop it you fool. “Gab, I really have to go.”
“He’s there, isn’t he?”
“Gab, I’m hanging up.” Kelsey pressed the end button on the cordless phone. Fisting the implement, she rested it against her hip and gathered her wits with effort.
“Good morning, Mr. McKinley. Did you think of another insult you wanted to hit me with?”
*
KD made his expression neutral, while inside he warred between annoyance and outright lust. Which in turn fueled his annoyance. She wore a streamlined skirt suit in powder blue and a silky white blouse with the top three buttons undone. The sight of her dressed for business was a shock after the lasting impression that little red dress had left. The dreams he’d had…
Well, they didn’t bear thinking about when standing toe-to-toe with their star. He was not here to make matters worse between him and the irritatingly delectable Kelsey Simmons. Unfortunately, he was here to eat a healthy serving of crow.
“Not if you don’t give me any ammunition.” Damn. He was supposed to be ingratiating himself, not getting into it with her again.
“I don’t recall giving you any ammunition last time.” Her haughty demeanor only rankled his nerves further.
“I don’t know. My stepfather has a bad heart, as it turns out. You could have given him a coronary opening the door in that excuse for a dress you were wearing Sunday, whether you meant to seduce him or not.”
“Whether I meant… How many times do I have to deny that I want to get your stepfather into bed?”
KD shrugged in lieu of a response. Okay, so he figured Kelsey and Frank hadn’t been having any kind of affair. When he’d told his mother about the conclusion he had drawn, she had laughed for the first time since Frank had been taken to hospital. Then she’d reamed him out for losing Frank the job he had been so looking forward to, the job he would still want to be a part of, even if it was only in a consultative role.
That was when she’d demanded he come skulking back to Kelsey Simmons’s doorstep and beg forgiveness. Under the circumstances, KD couldn’t deny his mother the favor.
But damn, it was harder than he had i
magined.
He cleared his throat. “Do you suppose I could come in?”
“No.”
He put his hands on his hips, unconsciously mirroring her pose. “Do you suppose we could start over again? I’d like to offer you that estimate I never got around to.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“If you’re here to apologize.”
KD felt his temperature shoot up about seven degrees. She was actually going to make him say he was sorry, when he shouldn’t have to. He had drawn a perfectly logical conclusion the other day. And he hadn’t been completely kidding when he’d said that dress could have given Frank a heart attack.
Forcing himself to think of his mother and Frank, KD said, “Yeah, that’s why I’m here.”
She simply waited, arching an expectant brow. KD cleared the pride out of his throat. “I jumped to the wrong conclusion on Sunday. I should have known Frank would never cheat on my mother.”
“You should have known Frank would never cheat?” she repeated at a much higher decibel level. “What about me?”
“To be honest, ma’am”—KD forgot that his little accent trick didn’t work on this particular woman—”I don’t know you or what kind of person you are. I mean, you don’t like me based on one wrong assumption I made and you don’t know me either.”
That seemed to stump her. She straightened and stared, wide-eyed. She did have lovely eyes. A soft brown rimmed in gold. Eyes a man could spend a long time staring into as he lost himself in her hot, wet…
Oh, jeez.
At last she spoke, dragging KD away from his lewd thoughts. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought she was struggling not to smile. “That’s the worst excuse for an apology I’ve ever heard.”
“Thank you.”
She heaved a weighty sigh and stepped back to allow him entry. “You might as well come in. I’ll let you give me your estimate—for Frank’s sake.”
“I’m here for Frank’s sake, too,” KD matched her not-so-subtle hint that she wasn’t doing him any favors. “He was looking forward to this job and he wants me to do it. I want to do it, as a favor to him and my mother.”
“I guess you’d better give me a good estimate, then.”
“Why don’t we just cut the crap, Miss Simmons?”
She stopped mid-stride and swung around to face him. Her lush lips were pursed and shiny with lilac-tinted gloss. Her dark mane of hair was clipped back at the sides, the rest of it hanging down her back in ribbons of chocolate brown.
She looked riled and imperious. Strong and sexy. And beautiful. Damn, but she looked beautiful.
“Yes,” she said at last. “Why don’t we? You’re here because Frank asked you to come, not because you want to apologize to me. He was angry with you.”
“It was my mother, actually. She didn’t tell Frank anything about our misunderstanding. And you haven’t been able to find anyone else interested in the job you want done.”
“What makes you say that?”
He showed her a knowing smile. “Because you wouldn’t have invited me in if you had.”
*
Very astute, considering he looked more like some ill-bred cowboy than a man of any depth of intelligence. Kelsey’s opinion of him shifted a little, before she got a hold of herself again. Just because he was smart didn’t mean he wasn’t also the ignominious blockhead she had originally thought. After all, he hadn’t apologized for his outrageous assumption about her interest in his stepfather. He’d only given a half-baked, man-style apology—one that allowed him to save face and that never actually acknowledged the malfeasance against her.
Still, he was right. She had no one else interested in renovating her house and she did need that ensuite. And those French doors. She could just about hear Gabby laughing at her earlier pronouncement that she would do without them. She had already decided what she wanted and, like it or not, KD McKinley was the only man around willing and able to give it to her.
Oh, dear. Did she have to arrange the facts quite that way in her mind?
“Alright, Mr. McKinley,” Kelsey said after a long pause during which images of the man giving her what she wanted—and what she hadn’t gotten in a long, long time—filled her brain to distressing capacity. She shifted her weight from foot to foot. This was just business. She would be at work whenever he was here and so she needn’t take into account the way he vexed her so. “If you can do it for the right price, you’ve got yourself a job.”
* * * *
Three days later, as she sat across a stained timber dining table from Stefan Henley, Kelsey realized she had never told KD McKinley she had a boyfriend.
They were at The Central, aptly and unimaginatively named for its location in the center of town. Its popularity as a lunch venue was due in large part to its status as the only pub in Holly Hill. In addition to this obvious advantage, The Central also had a lovely beer garden dotted with round oak dining tables and matching oak chairs. Couples could enjoy each other in the relative privacy and shade afforded by a lush canopy of rainforest trees.
Kelsey now found herself there, picking at her Caesar salad while Stefan concentrated on his grilled fish. Instead of the potential fiancé seated across from her, she thought about hunky handyman.
Damn that man KD. She hadn’t laid eyes on him since she had offered him the renovation job, but his assorted tradesman debris littered her house, reminding her that he occupied her space during the day. He’d moved her bed into one of the spare rooms, as requested, so he could work on knocking down the wall between the master bedroom and the bathroom. Just the thought that he had placed his hands on her bed made her shiver and she’d barely gotten a decent night’s sleep since.
Pathetic. She would turn thirty in precisely two months, so wasn’t some teenage ingénue. She’d known men and she’d enjoyed sex, for the most part. A bout of abstinence didn’t excuse her acting like a hormone-riddled schoolgirl at the merest thought of the man in her house. The man who would be in her house right now. Working. Sweating. Maybe taking off his shirt, revealing work-hewn muscles and silky, dark chest hair.
Dear God. Kelsey shifted in her seat, shocked to find herself aroused. This was what the man did to her when she didn’t even see him. God help her if she ever ran into him on the way home.
And today was Friday. She usually gave herself an early mark from work on a Friday, if she could manage it. But if she went home too soon she might see KD McKinley. And if he was in the state of half dress she had just been picturing…
Oh, dear. “Would you like to come to my place for dinner tonight?”
Stefan looked up from his plate, a forkful of fish halfway to his mouth. “Pardon?”
And well he should look shocked. She had just interrupted his one-way conversation on land ordinance twenty-six A. Or was it twenty-six B? Stefan was on the local council and he loved his work. He’d be stunned to discover Kelsey had tuned out the conversation for the last ten minutes.
She cleared her throat. “I asked if you’d like to come to dinner at my place.”
“Tonight?”
Kelsey usually appreciated Stefan’s adherence to his strict and busy schedule. She was a fan of the schedule. But right this minute his obvious reluctance to do something even mildly impulsive annoyed her. “Yes tonight.” I need you to stop me from leaping all over hunky handyman if I see him with his shirt off. “I could get a couple of steaks, a bottle of wine. What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I have anything on…”
His hesitancy was giving her a complex. Didn’t he want to spend time with her, even if it wasn’t scheduled? Granted, he’d never been inside her house before—just as she’d never been invited into his. They had dated for almost six months, but they’d only ever been together in public places. Afterward, Stefan always dropped her at her door, giving her a measured kiss—not too heavy, not too chaste, with minimal tongue and some caressing, but no groping. Just
enough to leave Kelsey wanting more. She’d invited him in a couple of times, but he’d never accepted.
For the first time she wondered if Stefan even wanted to have sex.
Her ego punctured, Kelsey found her voice turning peevish. “Well, if you don’t want to, I’m not going to beg.”
“Of course I want to, Kelsey,” Stefan rushed to say, soothing her ruffled feathers. “I always enjoy spending time with you. So yes, I will come to dinner tonight.”
She gave him a bright grin. “Excellent. Why don’t you come over at six or so?”
Stefan smiled. He really was handsome, with soft gray eyes and neatly styled blond hair. When he smiled, his left cheek dimpled and smile lines appeared around his eyes, lending him the character that didn’t always show when talking about work or giving a speech. He was five years older than she was, but that dimple made him look younger, approachable. He was sweet and gentlemanly and dedicated to making Holly Hill a better place for all who lived here.
What more could a girl want?
Take that, KD McKinley. I won’t be fantasizing about you tonight. Tonight I’ll have the real thing.
* * * *
As she carried her grocery bags up the front stairs, Kelsey wondered if she should wear the red dress. She’d bought it so Stefan would see her in it, but she didn’t want to shock the pants off him. His pants should come off voluntarily.
And tonight would be the perfect opportunity. They would be completely alone for the first time, with nothing to stop them from making love. She felt a surge of nerves. How would Stefan react if she made a move?
Instinctively, Kelsey knew he wouldn’t react well. Stefan was a man of the traditional variety. He thought it was the man’s responsibility to make the moves. If she wanted him to make love to her, she would have to let him think it was all his idea.
Which was where the dress came in…
Contemplating her options, she shuffled her grocery bags to reach for the doorknob, only to have it open from the inside. She always seemed to be meeting KD on her front doorstep.
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