by Robin Kaye
“She doesn’t have a phone that works.”
“Let her use yours. If I don’t hear from her in the next two days, I don’t care if I have to hike across the lake, I’m going to see her and make sure she’s okay.”
“Since when did I become your errand boy?”
“About the same time you asked me out. What can I say? The world’s gone mad.”
CHAPTER NINE
Jax laid the last row of tar paper, with one eye on the sky. He just hoped it would survive the nor’easter. He wasn’t too worried, though. After all, he’d spaced the nails a hell of a lot closer than he’d been taught to the summer he’d worked as a roofer. The memory brought a smile to his lips. It was the first time he told his uncles to pound rock salt. They controlled his trust fund until he turned twenty-five, and they thought threatening to cut off the money would make him dance to their tune. They’d never made that mistake again. Jax got a job at a roofing company the next day and spent the summer humpin’ seventy-five-pound packs of shingles up two and three stories in the Chicago suburbs during one of the hottest summers on record. He’d loved it.
The scent of something cooking came right through the roof and made his stomach grumble. It smelled like pizza, but he couldn’t imagine Kendall ever pulling a frozen pizza out of the box and tossing it in the oven. He doubted she’d ever eat anything out of a box—that just wasn’t her. No, Kendall was all about sensuality; no matter which of the five senses she was using, she went all in. Everything she cooked smelled, tasted, and looked too good to eat. Everything she wore was soft to the touch but had style. And the way she danced around the kitchen, to music better suited to the bedroom, when she thought he wasn’t looking told him everything he’d imagined she’d be like in bed was probably dead-on. It was in the way she did everything, from walking across a room to kissing. Damn. He sat back on his heels and then checked the sky again. They’d be shut in the cabin, riding out the storm with no TV, no Internet, not even many books. He was in serious trouble.
He checked one more time to make sure he hadn’t missed anything, cleaned up his tools, and threw the rest of the tar-paper roll on his shoulder to haul down the ladder.
The stove and heaters were propane, so no problem there. If the electric went out, they had a generator, or they could just do things the old-fashioned way and take all the food in the refrigerator and stick it out on the enclosed back porch. For light, there were oil lamps in every room. Jax had spent his first week at the cabin doing nothing but chopping wood, so there was plenty of firewood for the season, much less for a nasty nor’easter.
He picked up an armful and stacked it on the front porch. In blizzard conditions, it was a bitch to trek to the woodpile and back. Plus, it was the best excuse he could come up with to release his pent-up frustration and avoid going back in the cabin with Kendall—the root cause of it all. He was in no rush to face her.
The thought of being stuck in the cabin for days alone with Kendall was enough to make him sweat, even with the temperature dropping. Maybe he should have bought the economy-size box of condoms, because he had a feeling that if he were to slip, it would be a very, very, very long fall from grace.
He stripped out of his coat, and a few minutes later his sweater, in his quest for physical exhaustion. The woodpile on the porch was waist high by the time Kendall stepped outside and plucked his coat and sweater off the porch rail. “I’ll take these inside.”
“Thanks.”
“Dinner will be ready in about fifteen minutes, if you want to get a shower.”
All it took was the word shower, and he was right back where he started that morning—dry-mouthed, breathing heavy and hard. Damn, he was seriously screwed. There was nothing between him and Kendall but his quickly dissolving moral code and a small box of condoms.
Jax tossed the armful of firewood onto the stack and followed Kendall inside, watching the hypnotic sway of her hips all the way to the kitchen.
He was going to have a shower, all right—a very cold shower.
Kendall stopped and turned to him as if she’d just remembered something. “Jack.” She rested a hand on his sweat-soaked shirt and then licked her lips—lips he couldn’t seem to stop staring at. “Let me know if you need me to wash your back or anything else.”
“If I did, we’d be in there a hell of a lot longer than fifteen minutes, sweetheart. I wouldn’t want to spoil the dinner you’ve worked so hard to prepare.”
Her eyes widened and she sucked in a breath. “I thought you had no concept of time.”
“I don’t, but I do have a memory.” His hands went to her waist, slid beneath the sweater and the tank, and stroked the warm, smooth skin just above her low-riding jeans.
She curled the fingers on his chest into a fist, shirt and all.
He pushed her hair behind her ear and then leaned in to whisper, “And I remember that when I’m truly inspired, I can go for hours.” He nipped her earlobe and then sucked it into his mouth to soothe it, until he heard that sound she’d made when she’d taken her first bite of her lobster BLT at lunch. “And you inspire the hell out of me.”
He tried to back away, but she had his shirt in her fist. He grabbed ahold of the back of his shirt and pulled it off. “I’ll just go toss this into the mudroom.”
Kendall released the shirt, and the way her gaze roamed his chest and abs made him thankful he’d never given up competitive swimming. He’d gone from his high school team to his college team, and then right into Masters swimming. The 2,500 meters he swam every morning before work not only kept him sane, but also kept him in insanely good shape.
*
Kendall watched Jack walk shirtless to the bathroom, and had to remind herself to breathe. He looked almost as good going as he did coming. She’d always had a thing for men’s backs—broad shoulders tapering down to a narrow waist, and, God, no love handles. Even David—the guy who spent two hours a day at the gym—had love handles. She’d known Jack would look good without a shirt on, but she’d never seen anyone look that good, except maybe David Beckham, but it wasn’t as if she’d seen him in the flesh. She turned around, poured herself a glass of wine, and downed it.
She had to concentrate on dinner, not washboard abs and back muscles that flexed as he walked. And she wasn’t going to get started thinking about how good he looked in a tool belt. No, she was going to concentrate on food.
Kendall slid the pizzas she’d placed on a sheet of tinfoil off the cookie sheets and onto the heated terra-cotta tiles, and set the timer. She looked around and did a mental checklist. The table was set, the salad was chilling, and she’d already made a dent in the nice, big bottle of Chianti she’d chosen. She refilled her wine, tried to erase the picture of a naked Jack in the shower, with water cascading over his well-defined abs, until the timer went off. It hadn’t worked. When the buzzer went off, she pulled the tinfoil out from beneath the pizzas and spun them around the best she could. Normally she’d flip them too, put the top one on the bottom and vice versa, but she was already on her third glass of wine and really didn’t trust herself not to take a header into the oven.
“Kendall?”
“Yes?” She followed his voice and found Jack in his room, wearing nothing but a towel.
“Where’s my dresser?”
“I slid it into my room.” She stared at the slash of muscle that ran from his hip bone toward his pelvis on both sides and disappeared beneath the white terry cloth.
“Why?”
“Why what?” He didn’t have much chest hair, but maybe she just couldn’t see it because he was blond and the lighting was bad. “Do you wax your chest?”
“No, not anymore. I used to when I was on the swim team in college—less drag.” He ran a hand across his chest. “Why is my dresser in your room?”
Her mouth had gone dry. She tried to swallow. “Because it’s too dusty in yours, and with the plaster raining down the way it was, I deemed the room uninhabitable.”
“You deemed
my room uninhabitable?”
She nodded and took a step closer. “You didn’t want your dresser and clothes ruined, did you?”
“No, but it’s my room. My bed.”
“Your bed was trashed, but don’t worry. I pulled off all the bedding, grabbed your dirty clothes, and threw them in the wash. They’re all folded and put away. And I don’t think there’s much hope for your mattress—it’s drenched.”
“But . . .”
“At first I tried just sweeping up the plaster, but it just kept falling, so I whacked it with the broom handle and dislodged what I could—it all has to come down eventually.”
“Yes, but my bed—”
“That’s when I slid your dresser into my room. It’s not a problem—there’s plenty of space for your things. I grabbed the computer off your desk and then moved the rest of the furniture out of the way of the remaining plaster. With you banging up there on the roof, well, you just never know, do you?”
The way Jack turned a full circle, if he struck a pose and put on a thoughtful expression, he could be an underwear model—that is, if he put on underwear.
“Even after I swept, the dust was horrible. Just come out of there and close the door so it doesn’t get into the rest of the cabin again. As it is, I already had to dust the whole place, and, unfortunately for you, I don’t find cleaning therapeutic, thank you very much.”
“Kendall, I never asked you to clean. Cleaning is not the problem.”
She wished she’d brought her wine, because for some reason, this conversation was very confusing. “Okay, so what’s the problem?”
“The problem is that we’re both tall and the couch is short.”
She didn’t understand, but that could have something to do with the towel slipping down his hips as he stalked back and forth over the dusty floor. “What does the couch have to do with anything?” She jumped just a little when the timer went off. “Are you planning to eat in your towel? Or maybe naked? If you are, you won’t hear any complaints from me, but if you want to dress for the occasion, now would be a good time. Dinner’s ready.”
Jack stomped the three steps to her bedroom and slammed the door. She thought she heard him cursing again.
“Jeez, I try to help a guy out, break my back knocking down a freakin’ ceiling, sweep and dust, do his laundry, and cook dinner, and do I get so much as a thank-you? No. All I get is an angry man stomping around in a towel.”
But then when she thought about it, that wasn’t such a bad trade after all.
*
Jax cursed a blue streak as he threw the towel against the wall and rummaged through his drawers for clothes—clothes that Kendall had washed and folded and put away. He’d gone up to work on the roof, and when he’d come down, he’d found out that Kendall had demolished the remaining ceiling in his bedroom and moved him into hers without so much as a word.
He didn’t bother with underwear—something about knowing she had her hands all over his shorts was a turn-on—which in and of itself made him worry about his mental capacity, not to mention his ability to button his damn fly. Unfortunately, both problems seemed minor compared to his reaction to the thought of sharing the bed with Kendall. His body screamed, “Hell, yeah!” but his brain told him to run while he still could.
By the time he’d gotten both problems under some semblance of control, he went out to the kitchen and found Kendall with her head practically stuffed in the oven.
She wore blue pot-holder mittens on her hands. “God, I really miss my pizza paddle.” She closed the oven door, turned, and almost ran into him.
“And here I thought you’d never buy frozen pizza.”
“Frozen pizza?” The look she gave him was enough to make him want to sleep with the light on, a knife under the pillow, and one eye open.
“Don’t get me wrong—I’m not complaining. It looks amazing.” He scanned the counters to make sure there were no weapons close at hand.
“You think I bought this?”
Of course he did. He’d never seen pizza that looked that good in any New York or even Chicago restaurant, for that matter, and definitely not in Harmony. “Are you trying to pull one over on me? Come on. No one could make a pizza at home that professional-looking without a brick oven and a pizza chef.”
She slammed the pizza wheel he’d never seen before into the first pie with such force, the sound made him jump.
He watched while she sliced the pie in perfectly even pieces, making short work of it, like it was second nature. She’d done it without ever taking her pissed-off glare away from him.
“Think again. And as for the brick oven, I improvised and made my own.”
And to think he’d just spent the past few minutes wondering about his sanity, when all the while maybe he should have questioned hers. “You made a brick oven? How did you manage that one?”
She walked over to the oven and opened it up before doing a really good impression of Vanna White. “What do you think the terra-cotta tile I picked up at the Home Depot was for, Einstein? Oh, and thanks for the professional comment. It’s good to know that the four years I spent cooking at Pizza King downtown weren’t wasted. Mine’s better, since I perfected my recipes for the crust and sauce—I’m not a fan of sweet pizza. Tomatoes are sweet enough on their own, don’t you think?”
She was still obviously pissed over his frozen pizza comment, if the way she attacked the second pizza was anything to go by. While he was busy trying to scrape his jaw off the floor, she’d gathered both pizzas and left him standing in the kitchen.
Jax grabbed her forgotten, half-filled wineglass and the bottle of Chianti and hit the table, prepared to grovel. He set her wineglass in front of her and took a seat, to find she’d already put three big pieces on his plate. His mouth watered, but he waited to eat. He’d be damned if he’d ruin the dinner she’d slaved over.
Shit, he hated groveling even more than apologizing, because in order to really grovel, you had to apologize too—something else his father had taught him. Unfortunately, he didn’t listen when his dad told him never to comment on a woman’s cooking, except to say it was wonderful. What the hell had he been thinking? Hadn’t he told himself she wasn’t the type to buy prepared food?
Jax cleared his throat. “Kendall.” He waited until she looked at him; it took a second. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you. I just didn’t think anyone, even you, could throw together a homemade pizza in the time it took me to finish the roof. Actually, except for you, I’ve never seen anyone make one worth eating. Thanks for cooking.” He held his breath as she watched him, as if she were trying to decide if she should let him live.
She must have ruled in his favor, because she shot him a smile and picked up her first piece. “It’s okay. I might be a little oversensitive about my pizza.” She looked away, but he couldn’t seem to stop staring at her. Why would anyone who cooked as well as she did be sensitive about it? He and every other man he knew would give their right arms to have food like this on a daily basis.
Kendall tipped her head back and closed her eyes as she slid a slice between her lips. She bit down and let out a groan that sounded as if it should come from the bedroom, not the dining room—that is, unless they were both naked. Her eyes flew open and met his. Embarrassment flooded her cheeks.
Jax took a sip of his wine. Kendall looked and sounded as if he’d caught her in the throes of an orgasm. Without breaking eye contact, she took a napkin and swiped off a string of cheese hanging from her chin. “Sorry, but I’ve forgotten how incredible my pizza is. I haven’t made it in ages.”
“Why the hell not?” He reached for a piece, and she watched as he took a bite. And oh, God, he couldn’t blame her—this pizza was definitely groan-worthy.
“David didn’t appreciate eating with his hands, or the calorie count. He ate pizza with a fork and a knife, if you can believe that.” She was lost in thought for a moment and then shuddered. “God, I almost married a Ken doll.”
He shot her a quizzical look but didn’t bother asking. After all, his mouth was full.
“You know, Barbie and Ken? He was an overly orange tool who looked pretty but had no sense of humor. No wonder Barbie dumped him for G.I. Joe.”
He couldn’t help but grin and hold up his wineglass in her honor. “Well, that’s certainly good to hear. See? I told you it wouldn’t take that long before you realized he did you a favor.”
“I guess you’re right.” Since he’d made room on his plate, Kendall, who, he realized, had a thing about making sure he ate vegetables, put a huge scoop of salad on it. He was relieved when she laughed at the look he shot her that told her in no uncertain terms that he had no intention of eating salad when there was perfectly good pizza within reach.
“If you think the pizza is good, just wait until you get a load of my Caesar salad.”
He didn’t say anything; he just kept eating, and tried to figure out what the hell to do about the fact that there was only one bed fit to sleep on. His mattress obviously had taken the brunt of the leak, as it was soaked through and weighed a ton. There was no way in hell anyone was going to sleep on that.
“Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you?”
“No.”
“Do it anyway.”
He put down his half-eaten slice and leaned forward. “This two-bedroom cabin just turned into a one bedroom, and the couch is too small for either of us to sleep on.”
“Well, then, it’s a good thing that queen bed sleeps two.”
He let out an exasperated breath. “Kendall, I can’t share a bed with you.”
She swatted the thought away as if it were of no more annoyance than a housefly. “Sure you can. There’s plenty of room.”
“There’s not a big enough bed on the planet for the two of us to sleep in—not if you want to get any rest.”
Her mouth formed a surprised O—but that surprise quickly turned to disappointment. “That wouldn’t be a problem for me, but you obviously don’t feel the same.” She thought a moment, and then her face brightened. “I know—I’ll go stay with Jaime. He has plenty of room, and I’m pretty sure he won’t mind.”
