But she didn’t turn it.
She leaned her head against the door panel. There wasn’t a peephole to look through, and his voice was muffled slightly by the door, but she’d still heard him just fine. “No,” she said truthfully. “Honestly, right now I’m too sore to miss anything.” Except, right then, she was a lot more preoccupied with the ache inside her than the ones on the outside.
“Addie—”
She closed her eyes. Her skin prickled and her nipples tightened against the towel. If he asked her to open the door again, she wasn’t going to be able to resist. And then what?
But he didn’t ask. “Stay away from the Ace in the Hole. It’s no place for a girl like you,” he said instead.
Her throat tightened. “Jack.” It came out garbled and husky. She slowly turned the doorknob. Pulled open the door. He was already walking away.
Her fingers squeezed the knot holding her bath towel in place as she stood half in her doorway and half out. The only way someone would see her was if they were driving up the street, and there weren’t any vehicles in sight except for Edith and Jack’s truck parked at the curb.
Turn around and see me, Jack. Come back to me.
He reached the curb. Rounded the front of his truck.
Her shoulders sank.
And then he looked back.
Chapter Seven
Addie’s breath caught in her chest as Jack purposefully retraced his steps to her door. When he reached her, his arm scooped around her waist and he hauled her inside, slamming the door shut with his other hand.
He nudged her until her back was flat against it. “This is not a good idea,” he muttered, and closed his mouth over hers.
Wonder sang through her veins. She forgot about holding the knotted towel in place and ran her palms up his broad chest, his strong neck, and sank her fingers into his thick hair. “I think this is the best idea,” she countered against his lips. “I just wish I’d gotten my shower in first.”
He laughed softly, threading his fingers through her disheveled braid as he kissed his way down her neck. “I’ve worked construction since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. You think a little dust’ll scare me off?”
Shivers were dancing up and down her spine. “I hope not,” she breathed. She was desperate to know what had changed his mind but was afraid of the answer if she asked. Or that too much talking would break the spell.
Then he tugged at the knot that was holding her towel together, and just that easily, she wasn’t thinking about anything at all except his hands that replaced the terry cloth, sliding over her breasts, teasing her nipples until she was shaking and dragging at his clothes, too.
“Of course,” he murmured, once she’d managed to wrestle his shirt off his shoulders, “if the lady wants a shower, what kind of a man would I be to stop her?”
She hesitated, a little undone that he’d stop like this so easily, and he smiled crookedly, lifting her off her feet. She grabbed his shoulders. “What’re you doing?”
He carried her past the Murphy bed that she hadn’t bothered to push back up into the wall that morning and into the bathroom. “Giving you what we both want.”
Her eyes nearly rolled back in her head. “Oh,” she managed weakly.
He set her on her feet but kept his arm around her naked waist, holding her to him as he reached beyond the flowered plastic curtain and turned on the shower. The studio was small, but she knew from experience that it was blessed with a heck of a water heater, and in seconds the small bathroom was filling with steam.
“Turn around,” he whispered.
Breathless and strangely teary, she turned her back to him and felt his fingers working her braid free until her hair was loose.
Then he held back the shower curtain. “Get in.”
She looked up at him. His brown eyes were so dark they seemed nearly black. But they were warm. And soft. And in them, she saw forever.
She stepped beneath the hot spray, automatically turning the back of her head into it but never taking her gaze away from him. He sat on the closed commode and pulled off his cowboy boots, then stood and shucked everything else in one smooth move and stepped into the tub with her.
She couldn’t have said a word if her life depended on it. And maybe he knew it, because he smiled a little. Crookedly. And then he kissed her. And while the water ran over them both, he lifted her legs around his hips and loved her until the water ran cold.
* * *
“So.” Jack lifted Addie’s hand, threading his fingers through hers. They were sprawled on her bed, their legs tangled, her wet hair streaming over his chest. “Tell me about Cincinnati.”
“What’s there to tell? Born and raised. My parents are still there.” She curled her fingers around his. “My mom calls almost every night trying to talk me into coming home.”
“What d’you tell her?”
“That I’m here to stay.” She bent her arm and propped her head on her hand. “Everything I want is right here,” she said softly.
His heart lurched inside his chest. She’d claimed to know construction, but every day she spent on the site proved otherwise. Whatever had driven her to Rust Creek Falls, it hadn’t been the Community Center project. “Nobody else you left behind in Cincinnati?”
“No brothers and sisters,” she said so artlessly he had to smile. And her lips curved, too, her expression so open and sweet that he just tugged her down and tucked her head against his chest before he started kissing her all over again.
Her hand drifted over his chest. “Reg told me you were engaged.”
“Reg talks a lot. He tell you what happened, too?”
“Just that it ended. Selfishly, I’m glad.” Her fingers walked down his hip. “Seeing how I don’t sleep with other women’s men.”
He caught her distracting hand. “Trish wasn’t so discerning. She didn’t mind sleeping with other guys even though she was supposed to be marrying me.”
He felt her lips press against his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
He wondered when Trish’s actions had stopped hurting. Maybe about the time he’d looked into a pair of caramel-colored eyes and felt the world tilt. “It was knowing she’d lied that hurt the worst.” He rolled Addie onto her back and threaded his fingers through her hair. Even damp, the curls coiled around his fingers with a life of their own. “I don’t want to ever feel that way again.”
Her lips parted and her lashes swept down. “Jack—”
The sound of her phone ringing startled them both. She slid out from beneath him and darted to the kitchenette counter to retrieve her cell phone. “Hi, Mom,” she answered.
Jack watched her. She was lithe and curvy, and holding her, making love with her, wasn’t like anything he’d ever known.
But she was keeping something back. And he’d meant it when he said he didn’t want to be lied to.
“I’m, um, I’m in the middle of, uh, cooking,” she was saying. “Let me call you back later. Yeah. Uh-huh. Love you, too. Kiss Dad for me.”
Then she left the phone on the counter again and returned to the bed.
“My brother lost half his business to a woman he got involved with on a job,” he said abruptly. “She couldn’t maneuver him into marriage, so she sued him.”
She hesitated, one knee on the bed. “I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“He had to sell off his contracting business to pay her off. That’s why I don’t get involved with anyone on a job.”
She reached out one hand and drew the sheet around her body. “Is that what you think I would do?”
He exhaled and pushed off the bed. “I broke my own rule with all this.” He waved his arm over the disheveled mattress. She had a photo collage hanging on the wall, and he ran his gaze over the pictures, trying to learn everything
she hadn’t said from them.
She sat down, wrapping the sheet even more tightly around herself. “I don’t know whether to be flattered or insulted. We were both willing parties, you know.”
He did know. And he knew, in the end, it wouldn’t matter. He was her boss. “As long as you’re working for me, this can’t happen.”
She pursed her lips and looked away. “Well, there’s the door, Jack.” Her voice was husky. “Feel free to use it.”
He grimaced and went over to her. He pressed his hands on either side of her hips and brought his face close to hers. “What are you really in Rust Creek Falls for, Addie McBride? Are you running from something? What is it you’re not telling me?”
She stared back at him. Her throat worked. Then she looked away. “I’m just here to make a fresh start. That’s all.”
He waited a beat. Then another.
But she didn’t say anything else. And she didn’t meet his eyes.
So it really didn’t matter that when he looked at her, he could envision little baby girls with her curly hair.
He wasn’t giving his heart to a woman who couldn’t give him the truth.
Not again.
He retrieved his scattered clothes and yanked them on.
She sniffled. “Do you want me to quit? Would that make things all right?”
He stifled an oath. “No, I don’t want you to quit.” He sounded curt and didn’t care. Because, despite everything, he still wanted to lay her back against her mattress, and that desire had nothing to do with living like a monk for the past year.
It had everything to do with her.
A woman with a lie in her eyes.
Chapter Eight
By Monday, Addie had convinced herself that she was lucky things with Jack hadn’t gone any further than they had.
She couldn’t regret making love with him. Lord knew she couldn’t pretend she wasn’t crazy about him.
But if he learned the truth about her lying her way into the construction job?
He’d never trust her.
Once he’d gone, she’d showered—again—eaten a bowl of soup and slept for twelve hours straight. Then the next day she’d forced herself to get up and deal with life. She’d gotten Edith towed to Keith’s gas station where—miracles of miracles—he’d been able to fix her ailments for even less than she’d hoped, and even more quickly.
Which meant that she could get to and from the construction site on her own steam. No more excuses for Jack to offer her a ride.
Or anything else, for that matter.
His sister, Jana, had returned to her side of the duplex on Sunday. The woman had promptly come over to introduce herself. Jana was Addie’s age. She worked in the front office for a group of doctors over in Kalispell but lived in Rust Creek Falls because she’d grown up there. She’d dragged Addie out for a hamburger Sunday night, and if Addie hadn’t been painfully aware that this was Jack’s sister, she could easily have found herself unloading her deepest secrets as easily as Jana seemed to.
There was obviously something about the Lawsons that Addie couldn’t help being drawn to.
After her previous two weeks as the local lackey, Reg apparently decided to move her onto something a little more challenging, and soon had her knee-deep again, not in cement, but in drywall mud. Having spent hours sanding down some of the others’ messy work, she was darn careful to make sure her seams were as nearly perfect as they could get, and she didn’t even notice the passing of time until Reg tapped her on her shoulder and told her it was time to break for the day.
And so it went—from drywall to tiling the bathrooms and kitchen that would serve the facility—for the next two weeks until Ruth came around passing out paychecks again.
Jack, always around, always working just as hard as everyone else but deliberately outside her vicinity, didn’t come around with Ruth that time.
Knowing how he felt about workplace involvements, she couldn’t really blame him. But still, the more days that passed, the more times his gaze traveled over her without ever seeming to see her, the more her doubts crept in.
Before Addie knew it, she’d been working on the site for six weeks. Miserable about Jack or not, she’d nevertheless fallen into a rhythm with the rest of the crew. She still went home exhausted, but by morning she was up and ready for the next day’s challenges. The only other downside—besides Jack—was that with each day that passed, the completion of the Community Center drew closer. Jana had shared all the scoop about the grand opening ceremony being planned for it. She seemed to know everything about everyone.
Except the fact that her brother had slept—once—with Addie.
Around the site, the rest of the guys were talking about their next projects. Jack was already on tap to oversee the construction of a new multistoried office building in Kalispell. About half of the crew, including Reg, would be on it. The ones who weren’t didn’t seem to take it as any sort of slight, and Addie tried to follow their example.
“You get what you deserve, Addie,” she grumbled one afternoon as she carefully rolled creamy beige paint on the walls in the room that was going to be equipped as a computer room. “You threw yourself at him and he was too much of a gentleman to turn you down.” Never mind the chemistry that still crackled whenever they were within twenty feet of each other. “Maybe I should get a job at the bank. Stop longing for that darn construction cowboy.”
“Talking to yourself is the first sign.”
She whirled on her heel at the sound of Jack’s voice and landed her foot square in the paint pan on the floor. Beige paint sloshed, her steel-toed boot slipped, sending the paint pan flying and her butt hit the floor so hard she bit her tongue.
“Oww!”
Jack immediately crouched down next to her, his hands gentle as he helped her sit upright. “Are you all right?”
Tears—more from embarrassment than hurt—stung her eyes as she surveyed the mess. “Thank God for drop cloths,” she muttered. The flooring had already been installed and the only reason the walls hadn’t been painted first was that whoever was in charge of such matters had changed the color from blue to beige at the last minute.
Not looking at him, she shrugged off his warm touch and rolled over onto her hands and knees, trying to keep the paint from spreading any farther as she inched out of the goopy flood zone. “Reg is going to kill me.”
“Dammit, Addie. Are you hurt or not?”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “My rear end stings,” she said bluntly. “Anything you can do about that, Jack?”
He closed his eyes and looked heavenward. “Don’t tempt me,” he said under his breath.
But she still heard and her mouth ran dry. She pushed off her hands and sat back on her knees. She wasn’t sure how, but both of her hands were completely coated in paint. “I used to have mani-pedis once a month back in Cincinnati,” she said thoughtlessly. “I wore pretty dresses to work and—” She broke off, feeling the flush hit her face.
“At Honeyque?”
She stared.
He sighed and sat down on his rear despite the paint spattered everywhere, and rested his sinewy arms over his bent knees. “Come on, Addie. Did you really think nobody would check into you just a little?”
“Mr. Swinton—”
“Mr. Swinton didn’t. I did.” His brown gaze probed hers. “You’re not a very good liar, you know.”
She frowned. “Evidently I’m not very good at a lot of things.”
“You’re damn good at tying me in knots.” He grabbed a paint rag from the bucket of supplies she’d brought with her into the computer room and started wiping her hands clean. “You made me forget my own rules.”
The sting of the month of silence from him that had followed that particular lapse welled. “You could hav
e said something!”
He gave her a look. “You could have told me why you really came to Rust Creek Falls, because I figured out from the get-go that it wasn’t because you were qualified for the construction work!”
Her shoulders stiffened. “Reg says I’ve been doing good work.”
His hand squeezed hers through the rag. “You work hard and you learn fast. But you’re still a rookie. Another year of experience and you’d have held your own with half the people I hire.” He worked the rag between her fingers, rubbing off paint, but there was so much of it, it just seemed to spread farther. “Why here, Addie? Just tell me. Are you running from something? Another guy—”
“No! I wasn’t running from something. I was running to something.”
“To what?”
“To you!” She gulped. “I just didn’t know it was you until I met you.”
His eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Lissa Roarke’s blog. Every word she wrote about Rust Creek Falls resonated with me. Stuck with me. I knew, I knew my future was going to be here. I’d finally meet the one I was meant to be with. The one who’d take care of me—not with money but with love—” She broke off, her words practically tumbling over themselves for being pent up inside her for too long. “But I couldn’t afford to visit, much less move here. Not on what I earned at Honeyque. But then I read about Mr. Swinton’s offer, and nothing happens without a reason. My mom’s always saying that. So I thought if I just got here, I’d find a way to make it work.” She closed her hands over his forearms, spreading paint over him, too. “I know it sounds crazy, but destiny was calling me to Rust Creek Falls. And that first morning, when we met—” She broke off, because his eyes were starting to sparkle.
“That’s it? You lied about your construction experience just so you could find a husband?”
Tears spurted out her eyes. “And then you told me about what happened with your brother and not only was I afraid of being fired for lying during my interview with Mr. Swinton, but you’d think I was just like that woman who sued your brother!” She sniffled. “And now I’ve gotten paint all over you.”
Destined for the Maverick Page 4
