by Jillian Neal
“Well,” Sienna shrugged and called herself an idiot of epic proportion. He just looked so desperate. “I did kind want it to be someone I know.” Confusion was the only real emotion she could locate.
“Why were you screaming?” finally blurted from his extremely sexy lips.
“Oh.” She tried to chuckle but didn’t quite hit the mark. “Uh, no hot water. I can’t get the water heater to start. It’s freezing. I hate to be cold.”
“Yeah, I know.” His voice seemed to catch in his throat, but the memories were playing in his eyes. An entire symphony of recollections formed throughout Ryan’s body. The way her sweet lips tasted composed its memory on his tongue. Holding her against him until she stopped shivering when she got out of the ocean heated his chest and made his biceps flex of their own accord. Thankfully, the tool belt did a decent job of hiding the fact that his cock still hadn’t let him forget the stunning imagery of her in nothing but a half towel.
He had to get out of that bedroom. She had to get dressed. It sounded like she might be willing to give him a chance, but he had to keep his libido in check, no matter how mighty the task of that might be. “I could go check that water heater for you. If it’s shot, I can get you one in town and install it today. No problem.” He hoped against hope.
Okay, Sienna, Ryan is here, looking devastatingly gorgeous and offering you hot water. The temptations were more than she was certain she could turn down. What on earth had just happened? How was Ryan McNamara back at Gypsy Beach, and could she possibly be stupid enough to consider offering him the job? He’d broken her heart. She hadn’t even heard from him in ten years. Even when he’d abruptly stopped calling, she’d ridiculously driven to Gypsy Beach after graduation, certain that somehow he would show up and they would be together forever. With another quick glance around the room, with its loosened, bubbled carpeting and peeling paint, knowledge that she couldn’t fix up the Inn on her own took center stage in her mind.
You will not under any circumstances fall for him again, nor will you sleep with him. This will be a professional relationship. He was always really good with those hands.
Her gaze drifted to his substantial hands. They did look a little callused; maybe he did really open a construction company. She couldn’t fathom his parents ever having gone for something like that though. She thought he’d gotten married, but there was no ring to be found. If he works in construction, he probably doesn’t wear a ring, so it doesn’t get messed up. You really are an idiot, Sienna.
“Uh, if you’re interested, we could look into doing a tankless system. I’m not sure they’ve worked all their kinks out yet, but might be worth investigating if you’re going to house multiple people here in the summers.”
Still trying to make sense of the insanity of all of this, Sienna managed a slight nod.
“Uh, that sounds good.” She had no idea what he’d said, but that sexy husk of his voice always made heat surge rapidly through her entire body. It quickly remedied the freezing shower she’d endured.
“Sienna, thank you. Really, you have no idea what this means to me. Let me go check the tank.”
Wait! Did I just hire him? Oh my God, what did I say? She watched Ryan walk out the bedroom door. Their eyes met as he made his escape. Surely, that wasn’t longing that she saw there. She’d imagined that.
Ryan McNamara could have any woman he wanted. He was gorgeous and his family had tons of money. She’d never be enough, but he was kind, and most importantly, he could give her hot water. That fact alone sealed the deal.
Hoping it wouldn’t take more than a few weeks to redo her beloved Inn, she told herself that she and Ryan could work together, maybe even be friends again. That she could endure.
That liquid heat that she felt forming between her thighs would just have to chill. Her heart could not survive another devastating blow. She could not fall back in love with him and then watch Ryan McNamara walk away again. She wouldn’t survive.
Six
Ryan located the water heater in the old workroom just off the kitchen. He was too stunned to concentrate for several long minutes. Leaning back against the concrete walls, he tried to fathom how on earth he’d ended up working for Sienna Cooper. Not that he minded, but he wasn’t at all certain he could survive having her in his presence without having her in his arms.
The last decade had done nothing to douse his desire for her. She was somehow still the only thing in his entire world that made perfect sense. He’d lost her for good. She should never forgive him for what he did, and she sure as hell didn’t need to be dragged through the hell he’d been living for the last year.
Maybe by redoing the Inn for her, he could make up for some of the heartache he’d caused. If he didn’t desperately need the money, he’d do it for free. He owed her far more than that.
Payment or not, he could help her achieve what was quite obviously her dream. She’d make it a huge success, and he would stand back and be supremely proud for her and of her, but she wasn’t his anymore. She deserved so much more than he could ever offer her. If he played all of his cards right, maybe they could just be friends and neighbors. He could still bring Evie here and raise her, but if he screwed up again, it would be too painful to live in the same town with Sienna. He had to do this right.
She appeared in the workroom before he had time to prepare himself. His mouth flooded with saliva. He was unable to speak as he stood there, stupidly pointing to the pilot light that had just gone back out.
She was wearing some kind of thin slip dress, and apparently her view on undergarments hadn’t changed in the last ten years as she wasn’t wearing any underneath the dress. It was cut in a low v and showed off the beautiful swells of the tops of her breasts. His jaw clenched as he ordered his hands to remain away from her chest. Tracing over those swells was the only thing his brain offered him. The rage of teenage hormones that her lack of belief in panties and bras had given him when he was seventeen was nothing compared to how hard he was hung at that moment. His cock could drive every damn nail he’d need to rebuild the entire town.
“Uh,” he stammered, and tried to remember how to speak.
“Did you figure out what’s wrong?”
He nodded and swallowed back another flood of saliva brought on by the melody of her voice and the movement of her lips. “Yeah, you’ve just got a dirty thermocouple.”
Her lips pursed, and his entire body tensed. She wrinkled that adorable nose. “I don’t know what that is. Redoing this place was probably such a stupid idea.” The dejection that took over her body had him moving to her. He stopped short of running his thumb over her cheek in an effort to bring back her smile.
“No, it’s a great idea, and you’ll be great at running this place. We’ll get it back in working order before the season starts up, and you’ll be making money in no time.”
“Do you really think so? I’ve never owned anything, much less an entire Inn. I’m not sure I know what I’m doing.”
And there it was. That quizzical, questioning look that said whatever his answer was that she would believe him. How, after everything he’d done to her, did she possibly still believe in him? He didn’t deserve that, but suddenly nothing was as important and keeping his word to her.
“I think you’re perfect,” fell from his lips without him quite meaning for it to come out that way. “Uh, I mean I think you’ll be the perfect person to run the Inn, Sienna. You’re amazing.”
That vow was met with disbelief, however. “Thanks. So, can you fix the water heater or do I need a new one?”
Thankful to be able to discuss something that wouldn’t make him sound like a complete idiot, Ryan smiled.
Dear God, that smile! Sienna’s pelvic muscles clenched tightly as if to pull that devastatingly sexy smile inside of her body. Okay, he needs to stop smiling. Smiling is bad. There should be no smiling while we redo this house. If he kept looking at her like that, she was likely to spontaneously burst into flames. Burning down the
Inn would only make the repairs go on longer. Did he just say I was amazing?
“Yeah, this heater’s only a couple of years old. Thermocouple got a little rusty. Probably from the storm. I’ve got some sandpaper in my truck. As soon as it cools back down from me lighting the pilot, I can clean it up for you. You’ll have hot water soon. And maybe you could tell me a little about what you want to do in the house while we wait on it to cool. We can turn this into the place to stay on Gypsy Beach.”
Sienna grinned at him. His heart and his groin mocked him with internal laughter at his vow to keep his hands and his cock away from her.
Her bottom lip slipped through her teeth, and his hands shook. He shoved them in the pocket of his jeans. “This is kind of weird,” she finally admitted.
His head fell and air escaped his lungs in an audible hiss. He lifted it again and had to nod his agreement.
“But it doesn’t have to be, right?” The utter hope in her question speared through him and did a decent job of shutting up both his heart and his groin.
“Right.” He offered her another kind smile and ran his hands back through his hair, not entirely certain what else to say but deciding just to go with the truth. “Sienna, I really am sorry about all those years ago. Like I said, I know that means nothing to you now, but I’d really like to just be friends with you. If you think that’s okay. If not, I’ll just be your contractor, completely at your service, and then I’ll leave you alone. I won’t bother you anymore.”
Being completely at her service was about the closest thing to heaven Sienna had ever heard. She allowed her mind to conjure images of Ryan doing her sexual bidding before she ordered them away, because leaving her alone sounded a lot like the hell she’d already lived through all those years ago.
Why had he just stopped calling? What had happened to him? She had no idea why she wanted to know. She had no business associating with him at all, but the only voice she could hear in her head was Nana’s. She was chanting, “Cast no dirt in the well that offers you water, Sienna Rose.” And he wasn’t just offering her water, he was offering her hot water and to help her make the Inn everything she wanted it to be.
Oh fine, Nana! I’ll do this, but you better not let him hurt me again!
“I’d really like to be friends again. That would be nice… I think.” She prayed it would be nice and not her undoing.
There it was again, another one of those perfect smiles. He looked like she’d just saved his very life. Damn you, Nana!
Seven
Sienna had tried all day not to notice the way all of those rippling muscles that Ryan McNamara had developed, at some point in the last ten years, looked when he’d removed his t-shirt. Now he was sweaty, and she was certain there was no better view anywhere on Gypsy Beach. She was still insanely curious about what had happened to make him so meek suddenly. He’d always been so full of confidence, but she of all people knew that a decade was a very long time and that a lot of things could change.
She also knew that she shouldn’t care. Ryan was in her distant past, and she got the distinct impression that he didn’t want to share too much with her. She tried to tell herself that it was a good thing. If he did have some plausible explanation for what had happened to him, where he’d disappeared, then it would make this entire thing impossible. Not forgiving him was the key to making this work. She needed to pretend that their past simply did not exist.
She couldn’t risk her heart taking over again. He clearly knew what to do to her Inn and that was as far as Ryan McNamara could be trusted. She moved back to the stockpot where she was trying to master Nana’s sauce. She needed it to be perfect before she fed it to her guests, but her eyes refused to obey her order to stop spying on Ryan while he worked.
By sundown, Ryan had finished dismantling the screened-in porch just off of the kitchen leaving nothing more than the concrete pad. He planned to reconstruct it the next day and then to tear down the front porch. By Friday, he’d have the deckings complete, and he could start tearing out the damaged hardwood floors inside and scraping up the laminate.
Sienna had shown him several beautiful drawings she’d done of what she envisioned the Inn looking like when she opened it up to tourists. He’d been envious of her artful eye and her creativity when they were teens, but she’d turned herself into a full-fledged artist in the last ten years, and this time he could help her make her visions a reality.
She’d brought him coffee and water a few times while he worked, and he’d managed to keep things very casual. He kept talk to the Inn and refused to mention his parents, Alexa, or Evie. He didn’t want to burden her with his life. He just wanted to help her live the one she’d been dreaming about. He had given himself a ten-minute internal lecture after he’d tried to casually determine if she had a boyfriend.
It certainly did not matter, though he couldn’t quite make himself believe that. Her laughing declaration that she’d been blissfully unattached for well over a year delighted him.
It was getting too dark to work, and he’d sold off all of his construction lights to pay one of his mother’s credit card bills. He washed his hands at the outdoor spigot and knocked on the backdoor, refusing to just enter her home again.
She opened the door with another one of those beautiful smiles, like she was somehow actually pleased he was there. That could not possibly be the case, he reminded himself.
“Would you mind doing something else for me?”
“Anything,” he answered entirely too quickly.
She spun back to the oven. The short dress flared, showing off just a peek of her adorable ass and of that insanely seductive tattoo, and Ryan’s lungs begged for breath he couldn’t provide. “Will you taste this?”
“Oh, hell yeah,” he growled, but then realized that she was holding a wooden spoon and not referring to what he so wanted to taste. Get it together, moron! He ordered himself. “Sure, what is it?”
“I’m trying to figure out what to serve for breakfasts, and I want to have one dinner a week on Sundays, just like Nana used to.” She shrugged. “This is one of Nana’s sauce recipes, but you know we like everything spicy. I’m worried it has too many peppers in it.” She brought the spoon to his mouth, and he quickly accepted the bite. It was outstanding.
Starving for so many forms of sustenance, he grasped her wrist and brought the spoon back for a second lick before she pulled it away. The electricity that sizzled between his hand and the smooth skin of her wrist shot straight to his groin. He felt her pulse quicken against his thumb, but he wasn’t certain if her body was having a similar reaction as his or if he’d gone too far. He quickly dropped her arm.
“That’s great, Sienna. I don’t think it’s too spicy. It’s really good.” He swallowed down the aching desire to draw her into his embrace and make up for the last ten years.
“The secret ingredient is merlot, but don’t tell.” She beamed. He fought not to whimper. He wasn’t certain he could be around her for the next few weeks that it would take him to put all of her plans into place. She was too much, too sweet, too perfect. She’d given him a second chance when no one else would’ve. She was the person he’d hurt above all others. How could anyone be so kind?
“Hey, it’s okay if this is too weird, but I’ve been making sauces all day so I have a ton. I’ll never be able to eat it all. You wouldn’t want to have dinner would you? It’ll just take me a minute to make the noodles. I can only get one of the burners on the stove to work.” Her apology about not being able to cook more than one thing at a time brought back the determination to make this into a livable home for her.
His brain made a feeble attempt to talk him out of dinner, but the kitchen was infused with the delectable scent of that sauce and of her. She still smelled like those daisies she used to pick and put in her hair, with a hint of citrus like a sunset, and fresh-picked strawberries mixed with the humid ocean air. She smelled like the perfect summer night. His stomach and his groin won out with ease. “You sure
?” he forced himself to ask.
“Yeah, we’re not gonna let this be weird, right?” Sienna urged, but she didn’t sound too certain about that just then.
“Right, I’d love to. You care if I clean up a little?” He gestured up the stairs.
Oh, good job, Sienna. Now, he’s staying for dinner and he’s going to take a shower. You should probably call up that psychiatrist your mom kept telling you to see, because you really are crazy!
“Sure go ahead.” Stupid, stupid, stupid! Are you this hard up? Her brain jeered.
“Thanks, and at dinner, we can talk about what kinds of appliances and cabinets you want in here. I’ll get them ordered and installed whenever you’re ready to redo the kitchen.”
All of the mocking condemnation her brain offered her did not compare to having dinner with Ryan McNamara and getting a stove that worked without matches.
Friends. We are friends, and he is working for me. Nothing more! She told herself she was starved for human companionship, but her heart was dangerously close to taking over her brain all over again.
It vibrated rapidly when she heard the shower water start to fall. Her thoughts whirled in a mass of intrigue, desire, fear, and raw heat. Joining him in the warm shower water that he’d so graciously provided her would lead nowhere good.
She’d never been very adept at sneaking around, so spying on him would probably get her caught. Ryan bursting in on her that morning brought a wicked grin to her face, but she just couldn’t allow herself to see all of that masculinity, all of Ryan naked. That would definitely throw the friend thing right out the window.
Her cheeks fevered with heat as she remembered that he’d seen her with nothing more than a hand towel that morning. Though she knew she shouldn’t, she wondered what he’d thought.
She hadn’t changed all that much since she was 17, she didn’t think. She’d gotten her bird tattoo along the road, but she was still relatively without curves. Her ass was bigger; not that that was a good thing.
