Just One Taste

by Kimberly Kincaid

  “Involuntary responses in those nerve centers can be powerful stuff. But that’s exactly what I use to my advantage when I’m working with a client. Take your elbow, for example.” She reached out in a wordless request, sliding her fingers over Jesse’s arm after he nodded his approval. “Your Golgi tendon will loosen with the right amount of pressure. It’s not always a bad thing, but it can be painful and can also put the elbow joint at risk for bending the wrong way, or even breaking. Which is, I assume, why you learned about it.”

  “It was combat training,” Jesse admitted, and Kat nodded.

  “Exactly. Powerful stuff.” Her hands paused at the ridge of tendons crossing two inches above his elbow joint, but rather than risk hurting him just to prove a point they both already knew to be true, she coasted them further up his arm. “But if you take the same principle and change some of the intention, the results can be beneficial.”

  “I’m not sure I follow,” he said, and sweet God in heaven, his shoulders were tighter than a hairpin turn in first gear.

  “In your case, making that tendon relax your arm was a negative. But when I apply pressure differently for a less drastic result . . .” She tugged her brows in concentration, going up on the toes of her ballet flats to get the pads of her fingers in just the right spot.

  Gotcha. The right side of Jesse’s shoulder lowered about three inches, the muscles clutching the front of the joint unwinding gently under her grasp.

  Jesse’s eyes flared, his lashes sweeping upward in a honey-blond arc. “How did you do that?”

  Kat’s lips tipped into a triumphant smile that tasted twice as decadent as it felt. “I just applied a little direct pressure right here”—she darted a glance at his shoulder, where her fingers met the cotton of his T-shirt—“in the nerve center where I felt the most tension. You kind of did the rest.”

  She swung her gaze back up to his face, and in that moment, she realized her tactical error. She’d been so gung-ho to prove herself, then so excited that Jesse hadn’t dismissed her assertions outright the way most other people did, she’d just helped herself to his personal space.

  With his forearm cradled in one palm and his shoulder still pressed beneath the other, Kat could easily feel Jesse’s pulse thumping against her skin. The scent of rainstorms and clean earth sent a straight shot of heat between her hips, and she breathed it all the way in like a memory.

  “No,” he said, barely louder than a whisper. “It was you.”

  The tight angle of Jesse’s jaw loosened over the words, his lips slightly parted as he dipped his chin to look at her more fully. Kat’s breath turned shaky and shallow in her lungs. Impulse dared her closer, then closer still, until her eyes shuttered in dusky anticipation of just one taste....

  But instead of closing the barely-there gap between them, Jesse whipped his shoulders back around his spine and took three rapid-fire steps away from the spot where she stood rapidly blinking.

  “I’ll go get the rest of your things and leave you to unpack,” he said, but Kat already had her keys in hand and her sights set firmly on the door.

  “Thanks, but I’ve really got to head out. I’ll just grab the rest later, no big deal.” Setting her spine as tall as it would go, she carved a path to the door, her footsteps keeping time to the gotta-go message blaring through her brain.

  “It won’t take me long,” Jesse protested. “I promised Gabe I’d help you out.”

  Kat pasted an ill-fitting smile to her face, but under the circumstances, it would have to do. “I appreciate the offer, but I’m all set.”

  At least, she would be. Just as soon as she reclaimed her sanity and her distance so she could focus on the house instead of the houseguest.

  Chapter Four

  Kat lowered her trowel back to the pan of drywall mud at her feet, examining the sun-strewn and spackle-covered living room wall with a frown. For every nail hole and timeworn scuff she’d smoothed into submission, two more appeared to taunt her.

  Even in a state of total disrepair, the energy in the lake house was threatening to swallow her whole.

  “So much for a few easy repairs,” she muttered, scooping up her coffee mug for a much-needed pick-me-up. But really, all she wanted to do was make the place more comfortable, more like home. Was it too much to ask that just one of the projects on the list she’d compiled might turn out to be less complicated than nuclear fusion?

  Apparently, the answer to that question was a great big, whopping affirmative.

  Pushing into a stretch, Kat carried her coffee mug to the floor-to-ceiling windows lining the back wall of the kitchen. She guided the sliding glass door open to chase away the oppressive smell of drywall mud, peering through the screen to give the yard an objective look despite her anything-but-objective feelings about being there.

  The deck was either two seasons or one good storm shy of falling down, and overgrown didn’t even begin to cover the yard. The weeds in the garden bed had declared mutiny on everything else that dared to try to grow there, even exceeding the brick border to claim some real estate in the shaggy lawn. But she had to admit, the view of the lake itself was actually still quite pretty. It would take some serious planning and even more serious manual labor, but the outdoor space might not be an entirely lost cause.

  And from the look of things, she wasn’t the only one who’d had that realization.

  Jesse stood at the tree line at the edge of the yard, an oversized pile of fallen branches stacked at his feet. In the four days that had gone by since her momentary lapse of sanity in the kitchen, they’d seen each other only in passing. He’d been quiet and polite, just as Gabe had said he’d be, to the point that Kat had to admit any worries she’d harbored over sharing the space with Jesse had been totally unfounded.

  Along with her residual embarrassment over their almost-not-quite encounter. Clearly, he’d either forgotten her overeager gaffe or not noticed it at all. Which worked just fine for Kat. After all, with her family history of setting up shop only to pull up roots a year later, she was the master of the do-over.

  Convenient, actually, since her current do-over was now standing just a few feet away on the back deck.

  “Morning.” Jesse tugged off his thick leather work gloves, running a hand over his dirt-flecked jeans and T-shirt as if he was trying to tidy up his appearance. He tilted his head to look at her, the fine sheen of perspiration on his brow glinting in the midmorning sunlight. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”

  Kat’s laugh snuck up on her, but she let it loose all the same. “Unless there’s a bulldozer involved, it takes a whole lot more than yard work to knock me out of bed. And anyway, I’ve been up for a while.” She stole a glance at the clock on the stove, and hold on a second . . . “Weren’t you at the restaurant all day and night yesterday?”

  Jesse nodded. “Saturdays are usually a double for all of us. But Sunday can be hit or miss between seasons. So I have today off.”

  “Still, it’s barely ten,” she said, lowering her coffee mug in surprise. “Don’t you ever sleep?”

  “Not really.” The words carried nothing but straight-up sincerity, and Jesse’s expression matched them, right down to his half shrug.

  A pang of guilt slid beneath Kat’s rib cage. She’d spent yesterday compiling her to-do list for the duplex, researching a few DIY techniques, and going to the hardware store on Main Street for supplies, but it hardly qualified as busting her buns.

  And she couldn’t let Jesse bust his without at least offering him five minutes of R&R.

  “Well, you shouldn’t do a lot of work on only a little water, especially when it’s warm out. Come on inside.”

  “Are you sure I’m not interrupting?” Jesse asked, casting a look through the screen at the dust-smudged half apron she’d slung over her cargo shorts.

  Ugh. She scooped the pages of her to-do list into a stack, waving him into the kitchen. “Considering how the job is going so far, please interrupt.”

  He pushed the sc
reen door along its rusted track to follow her inside. “That good, huh?”

  “Let’s just say that aging drywall is not my friend.”

  Jesse’s wince was sympathetic. “Yeah, fallen timber isn’t mine, either. You guys lost a pretty big tree down by the dock. It might take me a little time, but I should be able to get it cleared and cut into firewood.”

  “Oh, perfect. That’ll be a nice touch if Gabe decides to come up here this winter,” Kat said, tacking on a smile as she padded to the fridge. Unearthing a bottle of water, she crossed back over the linoleum, her fingers leaving imprints on the frosty plastic as she passed it over to Jesse.

  “Thanks.” He twisted the cap free, his throat working over a long swallow of water before he continued. “You don’t want to come up here too? I mean, I know you’re staying temporarily now, but Gabe mentioned that the place has been in your family. Don’t you visit?”

  Kat crossed her arms, fiddling with the hem of her tank top. “No. I’ve already got my own space over at the apartment building.”

  “I imagine a permanent place has its advantages,” Jesse agreed, a shadow flickering over his melted-bronze gaze for barely a breath before disappearing. “It’s just really nice up here, that’s all.”

  A pop of surprise mixed in with her laughter, loosened her arms back down to her sides. “Are you sure we’re talking about the same lake house?”

  He didn’t hesitate. “Absolutely. I mean, don’t get me wrong. The place obviously needs some help. But so does everybody from time to time.”

  “You don’t look like you do,” she pointed out. In fact, as far as Kat could tell, not even a Category 5 hurricane would blow his composure.

  “I’m here to help you.” Jesse’s shrug made an encore performance, his shoulders lifting snugly beneath his dark gray T-shirt. An expression Kat couldn’t peg crossed over his face, sort of a mixture of aggravation and sadness. It lasted for less than a breath before his expression dialed back down to neutral territory, but realization crashed into Kat all the same.

  Jesse’s expression wasn’t blank all the time because he didn’t feel anything. It was blank because he was hiding something.

  “Anyway.” He ran his palm over the front of his jeans, standing ruler-straight on the linoleum. “Thanks for the water. I really should get back to work.”

  “Wait! I want to help you in the yard.”

  The water bottle in Jesse’s hand took a one-way clunk to the counter. “You want to what?”

  Kat took a stabilizing breath, but she didn’t scale back on her certainty. “Look, I have to wait a couple of hours for this spackle to dry before I can go back to working on the wall, and it looks like you’ve got a full plate with the mess out there. You just said everyone needs help from time to time. Today I want to help you.”

  “I promised Gabe I’d do my part,” Jesse said, and of course his Rock of Gibraltar work ethic would rear its dead-set head. Too bad for him, Kat’s determination was made of the same brand of stubborn.

  She needed a distraction from being here with all her memories, and as much as he was trying to cover it up, he needed something too. Even if she had no idea what.

  “So did I, and this place is half mine,” Kat reminded him. She cast a glance at the walls that had threatened to close in on her not even fifteen minutes ago, folding her arms squarely over her chest. “I want to fix the house up as much as you do, Jesse. We might have different reasons, but we both want the same thing. So the question isn’t whether or not we’re going to get the job done. It’s whether or not we’re going to get it done together.”

  “Okay.”

  The minute Jesse let the word past his lips, he knew he was hosed. But strategically speaking, his options were shit and shittier. While he’d been able to keep his distance from Kat since she’d nearly destroyed his willpower with that magic-touch-please-kiss-me thing the other day, he couldn’t exactly look after her like he’d said he would if he ignored her altogether. The yard needed a metric ton of work, and if the bold glint in her eyes was any indicator, she wasn’t taking no for an answer. Plus, the expression that had flashed over her face when she’d spoken of home told him that, as tough as she might seem on the surface, Kat had a few ghosts of her own.

  Better to let her air out hers than cop to his.

  “You’re going to let me help you?” Kat asked, her face betraying her surprise. But Jesse refused to let his emotions have the same leeway, even though the shrug he’d always relied on as a cover-up took more work than usual.

  “Sure. Like you said, we both have the same goal. Seems kind of silly not to work together.” And just because they’d both be in the same yard didn’t mean he couldn’t keep his distance along with keeping his shit together. All he had to do was focus on the work, and he’d be good to go.

  “Okay,” she said, kicking her feet into motion as if she wanted to act before he changed his mind. “I’ll just get ready for yard work and meet you out there, then.”

  Five minutes later, Jesse had given any hope of focus a long, hard kiss good-bye. While Kat had donned a pair of sensibly sturdy hiking boots and a short-sleeved button-down shirt over her tank top, she’d kept her low-rise cargo shorts perfectly in place over her hips.

  And if those tan, toned legs didn’t strike him dead, her sun-kissed smile just might move in to finish him off.

  “So where should we start?” Kat lifted a hand to shade her eyes, and Jesse forced himself to meet her questioning gaze.

  “I cleared a bunch of smaller fallen branches from the yard, but I’m going to need to break down that bigger tree. Don’t suppose you have a chain saw in the shed?”

  “I’ve never seen one,” she admitted. “But I think we’ve got an axe.”

  Even better. Nothing steeled a guy’s concentration quite like no-holds-barred manual labor. “That’ll work.”

  They made their way over to the shed, which appeared to be in remarkably decent shape compared to the rest of the lake house. The wooden boards had been painted a lot more recently than those of the duplex, with various garden implements lined up in precise rows on the workbench to the right. The left side housed an impressive assortment of larger tools, most of which hung from the pegboard on the wall and all of which clearly had a designated resting spot.

  “Welcome to the colonel’s lair,” Kat said. She knotted her arms around her rib cage, and Jesse proceeded with more curiosity than caution.

  “Looks like he was an orderly man.”

  “That’s putting it mildly.” Her hiking boots scraped against the neatly swept concrete floor, a bright sliver of sunlight glittering over her ponytail as it snuck between the wall boards. “The tools are arranged alphabetically, so if there’s an axe in here, it’ll be in this corner.”

  Okay, so orderly was an understatement. “Your old man put his tools in alphabetical order?”

  She gave a curt nod, sending the sunlight flying from her hair. “Everything in line, no exceptions. The more organized your things are, the easier it is to pack them up and go when it’s time.”

  “It certainly takes the challenge out of finding what you need,” Jesse said, leaning in from behind her. Sure enough, the painted red handle of an axe stuck out from between an auger and a broad fork.

  “I guess.” Kat side-stepped his reach-and-pull maneuver, grabbing a box of lawn recycling bags from the workbench.

  “I take it you’re not a big fan of moving around.”

  She scoffed, and damn, even defensive, she was still pretty. “What gave it away?”

  “Well, aside from the fact that you clearly don’t want to be stuck here, you tend to cross your arms over your chest when you’re uncomfortable with a topic.”

  Kat dropped her arms—and the box of lawn bags—as if they’d scorched her. “I’m not uncomfortable.” She capped the denial off with a mutter that sounded suspiciously like the word smart-ass, and yeah, no way was he leaving that alone.

  “It’s not a bad thing to
want to stay in one place,” he said, bending down to scoop the lawn bags back off the floor. Damn it, he needed to shut up. How could one vulnerable little smile from this woman nuke his brain-to-mouth filter so thoroughly?

  “It is if you’re an Army brat.” Kat accepted the box from his outstretched hand, but she cradled it to her hip instead of over the center of her shirt as she had a minute ago. “I was the only one in my family who hated it, of course. I swear I lost count of how many times we picked up and moved, especially after my mother died.”

  Jesse’s pulse worked faster in his veins. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

  “Thanks,” Kat said, her expression becoming softer even though her voice stayed level. “She died in a car accident when I was five. After that, we moved just about every eighteen months. I know it was the colonel’s way of coping. At least, I do now. But I hated every box, every time.”

  He stepped back to guide her through the door of the shed, modulating his breathing as they headed for the tree line by the dock. “So that’s why you’re upset we got flooded out. Because you had to move.”

  “I like my space,” she said, her blue eyes fixed firmly on the grass beneath their feet. Jesse recognized it as a clear-cut sign that he should shut up, and it wasn’t like he had the gift of gab, anyway.

  So it surprised the crap out of him when he replied, “I like mine too.”

  Kat’s golden brows skipped toward the red bandana keeping her ponytail in check, and she took one of the oversized brown bags from the box under her arm. “Have you lived in Pine Mountain your whole life?”

  “Yup.”

  Despite his one-word answer, her frown eased. “Wow. I can’t even imagine that. So you knew your classmates all the way through school?”

  “I did,” Jesse said, steering the conversation away from turbulent water. He had no business sharing any of his GED status with a woman who’d gone to freaking Stanford. “In fact, one of them is my boss now. Although Teagan was a couple years ahead of me in school.”