“Is it my fault if things got hung up on the East Coast?”
“Probably not,” Rafe conceded, “but it’s your fault if you don’t get this straightened out in the next—” he checked his watch “—five hours.”
“That’s impossible,” the older man on the other end of the line argued.
“All depends on how determined you are, now doesn’t it?” Rafe wasn’t going to listen to the man’s excuses. This was the second time Mike Prentice had failed to come through for King Construction. It would be the last.
Rafe didn’t put up with failure. Mistakes happened to everyone, he knew that. But if a man couldn’t keep track of his own business, then he was too disorganized to count on. The Kings required the people they worked with to have the same diligence they showed. “You have the materials at the job site by end of day today.”
“Or…?” Mike asked.
A slow smile curved his mouth. Mike couldn’t see it, but he must have heard it when Rafe answered, “You really don’t want to know, do you?”
“Things happen, Rafe,” the man continued to try to defend himself. “I can’t stay on top of every supplier I have, you know.”
“Don’t see why not,” Rafe countered. “I do.”
“Right. Well, I’m betting that every once in a while someone stiffs the Kings, too.”
“Yeah, they do.” He glanced around his office at King Construction, already moving on from this particular problem. “But it doesn’t happen often and it never repeats itself. This isn’t the first time we’ve had this conversation, Mike. I took your explanation last time, but this is your second chance. I guarantee you, we’ll never have this discussion again. If you can’t get the supplies to us in five hours, King Construction will find a new supplier for this job.”
“Now just wait a minute, let’s not be hasty.”
“You get one second chance with King Construction, Mike,” Rafe told him flatly. “And this was it. Now, you have the materials there, as we agreed, or I’ll put the word out to every construction outfit in the state that you can’t be trusted. How many jobs you think you’ll get then?”
A long moment of tense silence passed while the other man did some fast thinking. Rafe knew what was going through the guy’s mind. He’d already ruined his rep with the Kings, but he still had hundreds of other construction outfits to do business with. Unless he messed this up further.
“It’ll be there,” the man said, but he didn’t sound happy about it. “You’re a hard man, Rafe.”
“You should’ve remembered that, Mike.”
Rafe hung up then, leaned back in his desk chair and spun it around until he could look out the window at the ocean scene stretching out in front of him. The King Construction building sat directly on Pacific Coast Highway and each of the brothers had an office with a view. One of the perks of being an owner.
Another perk was reaming guys who failed them.
Standing up, Rafe leaned one hand on the window, feeling the cool of the glass seep into his skin. Was he a hard man? He supposed so.
His ex-wife sure as hell thought so.
Just another reason for him to keep his distance from Katie Charles.
A woman like that didn’t need a hard man in her life.
“Now, isn’t this a nice view?”
Katie rolled her eyes and laughed at her grandmother. “You’re impossible.”
Emily O’Hara grinned, fluffed her stylishly trimmed silver hair and then winked at her granddaughter. “Honey, if you don’t like looking at handsome men, they might as well bury you.”
They were standing at the edge of the yard, watching the action. The men worked together seamlessly, each of them concentrating on a certain area, then helping each other out when needed. Naturally, Nana had noticed Rafe right away, but Katie could hardly blame her. The man was really worth watching.
Katie’s gaze went directly to Rafe, on the opposite side of the yard. Since that morning when she’d stood up for him to Joe, Rafe had been avoiding her. She couldn’t quite figure out why, either. Maybe it was a guy thing, embarrassing to have a woman defend his honor? She smiled to herself at the thought.
“Well, well. I can see now that you’re doing plenty of noticing.” She draped one arm around Katie’s shoulders. “He’s quite the hunk, isn’t he?”
“Hunk?” Katie repeated with a laugh.
“You betcha. The question is, what’re you going to do about it?”
“What can I do?” Katie watched Rafe as he grinned at something Arturo said and she felt a delicious flutter in the pit of her stomach.
“Honestly,” Nana said with a shake of her head, “youth really is wasted on the wrong people. Katie, if you want him, go for it.”
“He’s not a cookie I can grab and wrap up.”
“Who said anything about wrapping him up?” Nana laughed and advised, “I was thinking more that you should unwrap him. Just grab him and take a bite. Life’s too short, honey. You’ve got to enjoy it while you can.”
“Unbelievably enough,” Katie said, “I’m not as freewheeling as my grandmother.”
“Well, you could be.” Nana shook her head and said, “I loved your grandfather, honey, but he’s been gone a long time and I’m still alive and kicking. And, so are you. You’ve been burying yourself in your work for so long, it’s a wonder you can step outside without squinting into the sun like a mole.”
“I’m not that bad!”
“Didn’t used to be,” her grandmother allowed. “Until that Cordell twisted you all up.”
Katie frowned at the reminder.
“There’s a whole wide world full of people out there and half of them are men,” Nana told her. “You can’t let one bad guy ruin your opinion on an entire gender.”
Is that what she was doing? Katie wondered. She didn’t think so. Sure, Cordell King had hurt her, but she wasn’t hiding. She was working. Building her business. Just because she hadn’t been on a date in…good night. She hadn’t been on an actual date with an actual man since Cordell and that was more than six months ago now.
How had that happened?
She used to be fun.
She used to call her friends and go out.
She used to have a life.
“Oooh, here comes the cute one,” her grandmother whispered.
Katie came out of her thoughts and watched Rafe approaching them. He wasn’t cute, she thought. He was dark and dangerous and so sexy just watching him walk made her toes curl. Golden retrievers were cute. Rafe was…tempting.
“What’d you say his name was?”
“Rafe. Rafe Cole.”
“Hmm…”
Katie looked at her grandmother, but the woman’s expression was carefully blank. Which usually meant there was something going on in Nana’s mind that she didn’t want anyone else to know about. But before Katie could wriggle the information out of her, Rafe was standing in front of them. She made the introductions, then Rafe spoke up.
“I just wanted to tell you that we’ll be shutting down early tonight. Joe’s got a meeting and he wants Arturo and Steve there.”
“Not you?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No reason for me to be there. I’m just a worker bee. Anyway,” he said, with a smile for her grandmother, “it was nice to meet you.”
“Good to meet you too, Rafe,” Nana said with a smile.
When he walked away, Katie’s gaze was locked on him. His long legs, the easy, confident strides he took, the way the sunlight glinted on his black hair. And yes, she admitted silently, she liked the view of his butt in those faded jeans, too.
Finally though, she turned her gaze to her grandmother. The thoughtful expression on her Nana’s face had her asking, “Okay, what’s going on? What’re you thinking?”
“Me? Only wondering if he has a grandfather as good looking as he is.”
“You’re hiding something,” Katie said, narrowing her eyes.
“Me?” Emily slapped one hand to h
er chest and widened her eyes in innocence. “I’m an open book, sweetie. What you see is what you get.”
“Nana…”
She checked her wristwatch and said, “Oh, I have to fly. Grace and I have a double date tonight with a couple of frisky widowers. I’m meeting Grace for manicures in half an hour.”
Katie laughed and gave her a hug. “You’re amazing.”
“So are you, when you give yourself a chance.” Emily slid a look at Rafe again. “Why not invite that boy to dinner? Live a little, Katie. You like him, don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Katie said, shifting her gaze back to Rafe. “I do. I mean, I’ve only known him a week, but I’ve spent so much time with him, it feels like longer. He’s a nice guy, Nana. A regular guy. Nothing like Cordell King and believe me, that’s a good thing. I’ve had it with the idle rich.”
“Not all rich guys are idle,” Emily pointed out. “Or, jerks for that matter.”
“Maybe,” Katie said, but she wasn’t convinced. Granted, she hadn’t had a lot of experience with rich men. Cordell had been the one and only billionaire she’d ever known. But if he was an example of their breed, then he was more than enough to last her a lifetime. “From now on though, I’m only interested in regular, hardworking guys.”
“You have your mother’s hard head, God bless her.” Nana blew out a breath and said, “Fine. This Rafe seems nice enough and he’s surely easy on the eyes.”
“That he is,” Katie agreed, letting her gaze slide back to the man whose image had been filling her dreams lately.
“But you never really know a man until you’ve hit the sack with him.”
“Nana!” Katie groaned and shook her head. “What kind of role model are you, anyway?”
“The good kind.” Emily laughed, clearly delighted at being able to shock her granddaughter so easily. “I’m just saying, it might be interesting to take him out for a test drive, that’s all.”
Katie loved her grandmother, but she was in no way the free spirit Emily O’Hara was. But then Nana hadn’t always been this outspoken and full of adventure. Right after Katie’s mother died, Nana had seemed to realize just how short life really was and she’d thrown herself into the mix with abandon.
And while Katie admired that adventurous style and certainly understood, she just couldn’t bring herself to behave the same way. Nana had had the great love of her life and now she was looking for fun.
Katie was still looking for love.
Still, the fact was, Nana was probably right about Rafe. Katie was more drawn to him than she had been to anyone, up to and including Cordell King. So maybe it was time she took a chance. Pushed herself out of the cocoon she’d wrapped herself in.
“Not interested in a test drive.” Okay, that’s a lie, she amended silently when that little buzz of interest popped in her veins again. “Not yet, anyway,” she said aloud. “But dinner would be good. I do like him and he’s so different from Cordell King.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Not a darn thing.” Emily pulled her in for a hard, tight hug and said, “I’m off for some fun. I suggest you do the same. Gotta run.”
Alone again, Katie silently studied Rafe Cole as he stood in the sunlight laughing with Arturo.
Fun sounded like a good idea.
“The guys are gone,” Rafe said.
He had stayed deliberately, after the crew left for the night, just to get a few minutes alone with her. Hadn’t asked himself why, because he wasn’t sure he’d like the answer. But he’d fallen into the habit of being the last man to leave and he actually looked forward to the times when it was just him and Katie at the house.
The neighborhood was quiet, but for the muffled, heartbeat-like sound of a basketball thumping in someone’s driveway. A dog barked from close by and the ocean wind felt cool after a long day in the sun.
Katie had her curly red hair pulled back in a ponytail and her green eyes were shining in the afternoon light. A soft smile curved her mouth and Rafe felt a punch of need slam into him. He knew it would be a mistake to get her into bed. After all, not only was she so not his type, but she hated the King family. If they had sex and she found out he’d lied about who he was, it could only get ugly.
But damned if logic had anything to do with what he was feeling at the moment.
“How’d it go today?” She stepped out of the house and started for the garage. Rafe walked with her.
“We got the drywall up over the pipes and the plumbing’s finished.”
“Really?” She stopped and grinned. “No more naked pipes!”
The smile on her face made her eyes shine brighter and Rafe felt a tug of something hot and wicked. The woman could turn him hard without even trying. He couldn’t even remember a time when he’d been this attracted, this quickly to anyone. Not even Leslie, the ex-wife from hell, had had this effect on him.
After a moment or two, he cleared his throat and said, “Yeah. It should move pretty quickly now, as long as all of your supplies come in on time.”
She held up both hands, fingers crossed, and said, “Here’s hoping. I really miss having a kitchen.”
“Maybe, but from the smells coming from your temporary setup, it’s not slowing you down any.”
Laughing, she opened the garage door and stepped into the gloom. Rafe stayed with her, not ready to leave yet. He took a quick look around the garage. It was tidy, like the rest of her house. Storage shelves on one wall, washer and drier on another. There was an older model, red SUV parked dead center and a few lawn and garden tools stacked along the last wall.
“Baking the cookies is easy enough thanks to you setting up the stove for me,” she said, with a nod of her head. “But oh, I miss my counter when it comes time to decorate and wrap. I’ve got tables set up all over the patio now, but…”
“You want your life back,” he finished for her.
“Yes,” she agreed with a sigh. “Funny, but you go along every day and you hardly notice your routine—” She paused and smiled. “You’ll notice I said routine, not rut.”
“I noticed,” he said with a grin.
She stopped beside the shelves and bent down to pull a bag of charcoal free. He bent down at the same time and suddenly, their mouths were just a kiss apart. Time staggered to a standstill. His gaze dropped to her lips and everything inside him clenched when her tongue slipped out to slide along her bottom lip.
Rafe wanted a taste of her. More than he did his next breath. But her eyes told him she wasn’t ready for that and if there was one thing Rafe King knew, it was how to be patient. So he straightened up and grabbed the bag.
“Let me get that for you.”
She stepped back with a soft thanks, then continued with what she’d been saying. “Then you get ripped out of that routine and all you can think about is getting it back. That doesn’t make any sense at all, does it?”
“Sure it does,” he said, idly noting how the sunlight drifting in through the small garage windows shone on her hair like fire. His body was tight and his breath was strangling in his lungs. But he didn’t let her know that.
“Nobody likes having their place invaded and their life turned upside down.”
“What about you?” she asked. “Do you have a routine you don’t want upset?”
He gave her a quick grin and set the bag of charcoal at his feet. “Men don’t have routines,” he corrected. “We have schedules.”
“Ah.” She leaned against the front fender of the van. “And your ‘schedule’?”
“Same as everyone else’s I guess,” he said after a long minute, when he took the time to remind himself to be vague. He couldn’t exactly tell her about time spent with his brothers, or at King Construction. “Work, home. Play.”
“I know what you do for work. What’s your idea of playtime?”
“Well now,” he mused thoughtfully, meeting her gaze and allowing her to see exactly what she was doing to him, “that’s an interesting que
stion.”
She sucked in a breath of air and straightened up and away from her car. He liked seeing her nervous. That told him she was feeling the same kind of attraction he was. Good to know. But he’d let her catch her breath before he pushed any harder. He wasn’t used to dealing with a woman like Katie.
The women he generally spent time with were, like Rafe, only interested in a few hours of pleasure. There were no hidden agendas, no emotional traps and no expectations. Katie was different. She was new territory for him and damned if he wasn’t enjoying himself.
“So?” he asked, picking up the bag of charcoal, “Barbecuing?”
She looked grateful for the reprieve. “Yes. Hamburgers sounded good to me and they’re just not the same if they’re not barbecued.”
“Agreed,” Rafe said, turning for the door. “Want me to set it up for you?”
“Only if you’ll stay for dinner.”
He stopped, half turned and looked at her. A slow smile curved his mouth. If he was here for dinner, he’d be damn sure staying for dessert, too. “That’d be great. But if it’s all the same to you, I’ll go home and shower and change first.”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
She looked nervous again, chewing at her bottom lip. His gaze locked on that action and his insides tightened even further. Oh, yeah. He’d make it a cold shower, too.
“Okay,” he said, “give me an hour? I’ll get the barbecue going when I get back. I’m good at starting fires.”
“That,” she said, “I absolutely believe.”
Four
“It doesn’t mean a thing,” Katie told herself while she quickly mixed up a batch of pasta salad to go with the burgers. “It’s just dinner. A barbecue. Friendly. Non-threatening. Not sexual in any way…”
Oh, even she didn’t believe that. She’d felt the tension mounting between them when they both went to reach for the bag of charcoal. For a second, she had been sure he was going to kiss her and she still wasn’t sure if she’d been relieved or disappointed that he hadn’t. And, she had seen his eyes when he promised to start her fire for her. He probably knew that he’d already started it.
King’s Million-Dollar Secret Page 4
