To the Studs

by Roxanne Smith

  Neve shook her head. “One thing at a time, pal. My first concern is ensuring the cabin is structurally sound. Check the roof for leaks, patch the hole in the floor so we can move safely inside, and get with Duke about any permits we need to apply for. He’s handling the administrative duties. If we’re set by the end of the week, we’ll move inside and start punching out new windows and building walls.”

  “Huh.” Vince’s grunt held less awe and more grudge than the last one. “Reclaimed wood. I say getting your hands on a good supply ought to come before planning any walls. Just in case.”

  She whistled for Darcy the Pit and smiled wryly at the old geezer. She liked him. “I’ll keep your advice in mind. You know, Vince, I think we’re going to be best friends by the time this is over. I can smell it.”

  He lifted a brow. “That ain’t our budding friendship you got a whiff of.” He nodded past her.

  She turned to catch Darcy the Pit sniffing her latest deposit of warm, steaming fertilizer a few feet away. Neve shrugged. “I didn’t say it was a pleasant smell.”

  Vince resettled his baseball cap again and chuckled, walking off toward the group of men setting up workbenches and spotlights in the small clearing beyond the cabin.

  Neve’s lips curved, despite the scent of fresh dog poo permeating the air. One down.

  * * * *

  Duke smoothed down the rough, wiry hairs of his beard and winced at the tug on his tender ribs. He’d be taking it easy for the rest of the week, whether he liked it or not, no matter how badly he’d rather do other things. Get a start on the stupid cabin, for one. Finish the job, wipe his hands of the whole mess, and go home. Back to designing bras and applying himself to nothing more intellectually straining than trying to win over his neighbor’s dog.

  He’d settled back into more a comfortable position at the same time his cell phone went off, the familiar jingle blasting into the stale quiet of the trailer. Duke bit back a groan and reached for it. Gavin’s name glowed on the screen. Duke dropped his head, closed his eyes, and injected a note of cheer into his forced greeting. “Hey, Boss.”

  “Hey!” One day, Duke would work up the nerve to ask Gavin just what the hell he was so happy about all the time. “I wanted to give you guys a few days to settle in before checking on you. How was the drive up?”

  Duke recalled the long, quiet ride through the middle of nowhere. “Great. It’s beautiful this time of year. Summer’s in full swing.”

  “The cabin’s a gem, isn’t she?”

  As in raw, uncut, and unpolished. “She sure is.”

  “Well, how’s everything else? Have the trailers arrived with Vince and his team? Are they nice? The trailers, that is. I’m sure Vince is great if Neve chose him, but I wouldn’t mind your personal opinion, of course.”

  “Everything’s great. I promise. The trailers are great.” Lying already. Duke checked the sigh gathered in his chest. Gavin would feel terrible about the mix-up and there was little he could do about it now. As the budget sat, Duke would rather not have a second one rented, especially if Neve’s plan for wood didn’t pan out, and they had to find a lumberyard. Besides, he and Neve were both adaptable. They’d make do.

  The sofa bed was against the wall of the small trailer, near the dining table and kitchenette. Beyond, a small open area operated as an office space and, at the far end, a small private bedroom behind a thin particleboard wall. Neve’s domain. Or the dragon’s lair, depending on her mood and his frame of mind.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Gavin broke into his wondering thoughts. “So, what can you tell me so far?”

  “Uh…” It’d be easier to answer Gavin’s questions if Duke hadn’t been confined to his bed for the last day and a half. Winging it, he injected a busy tone into his voice. “Vince and Neve made their initial inspection. A few issues, nothing major. A hole in the floor we need to patch, and the front stairs are…” Are a heaping pile of busted splinters, caved under the weight of my sheer manliness. “Rickety. We’re working on that, as well as contacting lumberyards for reclaimed wood.” He swallowed and recalled Neve’s deal. Somehow, he had to get them talking. “Actually, uh, I think Neve has some questions for you concerning the layout. I’m consulting, but she’s in the thick of it. Probably best you talk to her. I’ll conference dial her, and she can give you the details—”

  “Oh, no, no. Not necessary, Duke. I’ve no need for the nitty-gritty. Have her make a list of her concerns and call me tomorrow. I’m sure Neve has more important folks to deal with.”

  “More important than the client?”

  “Sure. Plumbers and painters, right? You’re my go-between. Besides, you said she’s in the thick of it. I hate to turn you into a secretary as well as a consultant, but it’s for the best if she stays focused on the job while you handle communications.”

  Neve was going to love this. She’d given him one job: get her close to Gavin.

  Boss was kinking up the works, and it didn’t even make sense. Why avoid the person directly responsible for his precious cabin? “Are you sure? She’ll need direct input from you at some point, sir. Especially when she gets into picking out fixtures and furnishings. You don’t want a middleman muddying up the creative process between client and designer. She’ll do her best work if she gets the vision straight from you.”

  “Nonsense. I trust you implicitly, Duke.”

  Something hefty rode on the words, but Duke had no time to sift through and wonder at what it meant. A headache blossomed in his left temple. “Whatever you say. You’re the boss.”

  Gavin gave a contented sigh. “I have to thank you again, Duke. I truly, truly appreciate what you’re doing for me. I’ll be driving up to see the place at some point near the end, and I’d like to take you out for lunch while I’m there. Just the two of us, my treat. Oh, also one last thing. Tell Neve I’ve hired her an assistant. I don’t want you stuck with all the errand running and busy work.”

  “Thanks.” I think. Duke ended the call and reclaimed a more comfortable position on the sofa bed.

  He tried to imagine Neve’s face when Gavin showed up to take him out for an executive lunch while she stayed behind, knee-deep in wood varnish and pipe laying, to say nothing of the assistant she had no hand in hiring. Poor idiot, whoever you are. He tried to resist a grin and failed.

  It promptly fled when Neve opened the front door in her brisk manner, only a sharp knock preceding her entry. “Everyone decent?”

  “Like I’d walk around otherwise in our communal living space.”

  “Never hurts to hope.” She came inside with a wide smile. She looked far too happy.

  Duke’s hackles rose. Then he noticed she had one hand behind her back. He struggled into a sitting position, wincing at every pull on the muscles over and around his ribs. “I don’t like it when you’re gleeful. You frighten me. What do you have there?”

  Her shoulders sloped and she rolled her eyes. She dropped down next to him and angled her body to conceal whatever surprise she had. “Even injured and bedridden, you’re a pecker. Have a little faith. I called a truce, remember?”

  Yeah, he remembered. It’d last until he told her about Gavin’s intention to communicate solely through him. He offered her a weak smile and brushed his hair back from his face. “Old habits. What is it?”

  The smile still fixed in place, Neve brought her hand forward. In it, a small wooden box. A really old wooden box.

  Duke sat up farther, ignoring the sharp tinge from his ribs, and gingerly took it from her. “What the hell?” Seamless. No hinge connecting the lid to the body, and the strangest metal contraption he’d ever seen serving as some kind of medieval locking mechanism, like a metal starburst with multiple holes. Even with a key, unlocking the box would be a bitch. “You found this?”

  She nodded, a hint of pride in her smile. “Darcy the Pit sniffed it out, I dug. Someone buried this thing behind the cabin, next to one of the foundation pillars. Strange, huh?
Something important must be inside. No one goes through all that trouble to make a box with no hinge and an elaborate lock to hide their saltwater taffy stash.”

  Duke turned the box over and ran his fingers across the uneven grain of the wood. “I agree. Have you shown this to anyone?”

  “Vince caught me with it. I told him it was mine.”

  “Good. Neve, this is old. I mean, really old. And like you said, someone went through no small trouble to hide what’s in here. We should probably keep it to ourselves for a while. At least until we figure out how it opens.” He turned his attention to Neve’s critical study of the box in his hands. “Including—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She waved him off, her eyes never leaving the chest. “My new rancher buddy. He’s going to prove useful, I guarantee it. However, knowing you can use someone is hardly the same as trusting them, and I didn’t get this far in my career by being a bad judge of character. There’s something…calculating, maybe?” She shrugged. “I don’t know, exactly. Something about Hux is odd. You can relax. This is our little secret. Now, what do you think’s inside?”

  Her glee was intriguing. Lately, every time Duke turned around, he was noticing some new, not-terrible side to Neve. Her smile was big, her eyes bright and shiny. Like a kid finding a penny in a parking lot.

  With effort, he regarded the box once more. It might’ve been polished smooth twenty or thirty years ago, but time, humidity, and dirt had all left their mark. Not large by any measure. Neve had held it comfortably in one slender hand. Big enough, however, to keep a decent secret. “Coins, maybe? Lost maps, notes between clandestine lovers.” He lifted the shoulder on the uninjured side of his body. “The cabin’s plumbing schematics. I don’t think we should try to force the lock.”

  Neve cocked her head to one side. “Yeah, I thought of that. Could destroy what’s inside.”

  “The key is a lost cause. There’s no telling if it still exists or where it might be.”

  “Would it help if we had the key? Look at that thing. It’s meant to be opened by someone who knows how to open it.”

  He nodded. Made sense. “Like if you’re meant to open the box, you’d know how.”

  “Right. Except, I’m not a stickler for the rules.” She reached for the chest. In her hands, it seemed a little larger. “I bet anyone who knew how is long dead. It’s at least half a century old, don’t you think? What should we do?”

  Why’d it surprise him she asked his opinion? He didn’t really care for the warm, tingly way this new side of her made him feel. He scratched his chin through his mired beard hair. “Out here, the world is older. Time moves slower. Small towns like Red Hill cling to their pilgrim days, the age of homesteading and establishment. They revere the past. Who but Southerners reenact a war they lost hundreds of years later? I think we start with nearby museums.”

  Neve’s face lit up and she pointed a finger at him, pistol-style. “Nice. You’re absolutely right. Little hole-in-the-wall museums are everywhere out here. One of them is bound to have something similar on display, especially if it was the work of a local craftsman. What about locksmiths?”

  “Another good idea,” Duke agreed.

  She nodded. “So long as it didn’t come from a traveling Chinese immigrant salesman, there’s hope.”

  “There’s always the Internet. I can do a search.”

  She bent over and patted him on the head like he was Darcy the Pit. “It’ll be the most useful thing you’ve done since we arrived.”

  “I figured out the front steps were broken, didn’t I?”

  She gave him a begrudging smile. “I do love a hands-on partner.”

  He waited and considered. He hated to spoil her rare good mood, but he’d didn’t want to deal with the aftermath of coming clean when she was feeling otherwise. “While you’re in such high spirits, I have some unfortunate tidings from Gavin.”

  Neve left the sofa bed and set the mystery box on the picnic-table-style dinette table. Then she slid onto one of the long benches. “I can’t have a good day, can I? Everything has to be tempered with a dose of crap.” She threw up her hands in an impatient gesture. “Well, go on. What now?”

  Duke sucked in air. “Gavin intends to communicate exclusively through me and he hired you an assistant.”

  Nothing. No response. Not an eye roll or locked jaw.

  A great bubble of tense silence filled the space between them until Duke wanted to rise and bolt. How did one person create such immense tension without a single utterance? His eyes couldn’t quite meet hers. He imagined her great amber eyeballs drilling into him. He waited for the ball to drop. For a curse or a shout, but the awful silence continued.

  Another moment passed.

  Finally, when he could stand it no longer, he risked a peek at Neve.

  Her hands were folded demurely on the tabletop, and she watched him with a slight curve to her lips. “You should see your face. I can probably get Laurel and Owen over here with some more of their horse tranquilizers if you’re feeling tense.” Knowing amusement glinted from her honey-colored eyes.

  Slowly, the pressure bled away. Goddamn her. “You shouldn’t toy with a man’s emotions. You’re telling me you’re not pissed?”

  “Oh, I’m pissed. But you don’t know me as well as you think. Right now, I’m on a job. My motives for taking the job notwithstanding, work is something I don’t take lightly. Nor do I put personal business above the contract I signed. My outbursts are reserved for dumb apprentices and men a’scared of a woman telling them what to do. I’ve already had one such battle this morning. Gavin’s hiccup doesn’t mean much by comparison, and the fix is relatively simple. Next time he calls, you’re unavailable. You’re stuck in a tree, digging a hole to poop in the woods, something. Anything. Eventually, he’ll be forced to get in touch with me. We establish a rapport. A new routine takes place. Problem solved. As for the assistant he hired, a bad one won’t last five minutes and a marginally adept one will be much appreciated. Not that I’ve got my hopes up or anything.”

  Only Neve could come up with such a response. He wanted to roll his eyes, but she had a real way with words he couldn’t help but appreciate sometimes. “Sorry.”

  She leaned forward to prop her elbows on the table. “Don’t apologize. I’m giving you a hard time. Sure, I’m prone to rage but I also made a deal with you I intend to keep. Until you fail, utterly and spectacularly, I’ll honor my end of the bargain. I’m being nice, Duke.”

  Huh. Nice. How about that. He prodded his ribs. “I’ll be ready to work tomorrow.”

  Neve stood, yawned, and stretched, with her arms reaching for the ceiling. “No, you won’t. I want one hundred percent out of you. This week, your duties are administrative. We need permits and details from Gavin concerning the layout of the cabin. I have a list of questions. Next week, you can join us in the manual labor. Ugh.” She dropped her arms and reached under her tight gray T-shirt. “I shouldn’t have worn my new bra out here. No time to break it in.” Beneath the fabric, her hand tugged at a front clasp and pried the lemon yellow strapless bra free. Without it, the smooth edges of her nipples fought to escape the confines of the body-hugging fabric.

  Duke’s mouth went dry. Stupid yellow bra.

  Neve ran a hand over one of the cups, then approached him and held it out. “You’re a bra guy. What’s wrong with this thing? There’s not supposed to be a wire, but I’d swear there’s a damned wire in here somewhere.” She glanced up when he didn’t respond.

  He stopped staring at her nipples to meet her gaze.

  Her brow snapped together, and she leaned down to look directly in his eyes. Her small breasts hovered inches away, and she placed a hand on each of his knees to steady herself. “You okay, Duke? You’re sweating.” She straightened and put a hand over his forehead.

  For a split second, he imagined she kept moving forward, her hands sliding all the way up his thighs, her lithe body climbing over his, straddling
him, firm nipples pressed into his chest.

  He swallowed. “It’s…I’m hot. It’s hot. I should go outside. For air.”

  Air and space between her body and his. He’d be pissed if, after everything, a bra was his undoing.

  She dropped her hand from his forehead and shrugged, her attention again focused on the bra. “Well, do something with this thing, will you? If you can’t, I’m going braless. It’s killing me.”

  Duke stood on shaky legs and made for the door. No one would get a damn thing done if Neve sashayed around with her pointy little nipples staring at everyone for the next eight weeks. He snatched it from her on his way out the door. “I’ll fix it.”

  Chapter 5

  Neve cupped her mouth and shouted. “Duke, wait up!”

  He paused midstride, turned, and blew out his cheeks impatiently.

  Besides his manic, pent-up energy from a bedridden two weeks, he struck a rather dashing figure this morning in a pair of fitted dark denim jeans, heavy work boots, and a black T-shirt curving comfortably around his form, the way an oft-worn piece of clothing tended to.

  In his left hand, a clipboard with notes written in Duke’s nifty, precise handwriting. He still leaned slightly, favoring the injured side of his body.

  Neve decided he deserved it, even as she pitied him.

  Last week he’d attempted to climb a ladder to help Vince on the cabin’s roof, only to misstep and aggravate the injured ribs in a mad scramble to stay on the ladder rather than fall and break his back.

  Pity or no, his impatient expression when she caught up to him struck a nerve. She stopped a yard away and lifted her chin. “You have something more important to do than talk to the person in charge, Mr. Kennicock?”

  His deep blue eyes widened slightly, enough to wipe away the bored, half-lidded expression he wore. “No, of course not. I’m ready to work, that’s all. I’d apologize if it weren’t for the totally fab nickname. We’re even in my book.”