by Alison Kent
He wondered if she was comforting her baby, soothing herself or somehow empathetically protecting Chloe.
And he found his carefree mood fading, but only because he’d moved closer and could smell nothing now but apricots and Eden. Inside. With her. In that old house. “What’s the favor?”
“Here,” Chloe called, waving a handful of papers at Jace on her return jog from the car.
He took them from her, ten sheets, various sizes, all blank. He turned them over again to be sure. Yep. Blank. Looking up, he asked, “What’s this?”
“These are the sizes of the drawings I need framed.”
This was about frames? For drawings? That was easy enough. “Why don’t you check The Emporium? I’m sure John has frames to fit.”
“No.” She shook her head, as if agitated. “I need one frame.”
Jace frowned, working to understand what she wanted. “Like a shadowbox?”
“One frame. Separate pictures. Each extending from the next.” She traced an elongated shape in the air with her hands.
Jace gave up, handing her back the sheets. “Show me what you mean.”
With an exasperated sigh, Chloe plucked the pencil from behind his ear, grabbed the papers from his hand, slapped the stack down on the sheet of pine and proceeded to draw. What she sketched was a series of connecting squares and rectangles overlapping one another from corner to corner.
Jace scratched his stubbled jaw, then plowed his fingers through his damp hair. He pointed to the papers. “And these are the sizes of your pictures?”
“Exactly. I measured each one.”
“Okay.” He blew out a long breath. “Let’s lay them out and see what we get.”
The finished product was five feet long and two feet tall. Jace whistled long and low.
“Is there a problem?” Eden asked.
“Depends on where you plan to hang this thing.” He glanced at Chloe for an answer.
The teen looked more than a little put out. “Jenna will display our work on the back wall of The Emporium during the Spring Fest.”
“Who’s Jenna?” Jace asked, feeling like every question he asked spawned another. Then Eden laid her hand on his arm and the anxiety he’d caught from Chloe became a knot of unholy nerves in his stomach.
“Jenna is Chloe’s art teacher,” Eden explained, squeezing his forearm lightly once before moving her fingers away.
“Got it.” Inside. That old house. With her. He turned to Chloe. “Is she setting up a Peg-board? Plywood? An easel?”
“I don’t know,” she replied, offering a typical teenager shrug.
Nothing like the facts to make a job easy. Oh, well. This wasn’t rocket science. “Since you don’t know, we’d better make it as lightweight as possible.”
“That means you can do it?”
“Sure.”
Chewing on one ragged thumbnail, Chloe focused on the layout. “How many days will it take?”
“Depends on how fast Eden wants her shelves.” When he saw the quick flash of concern in Eden’s eyes, he added, “But I can probably do it in a couple of evenings.”
“Perfect.” Chloe threw her arms around Eden in a big hug. “Thanks, Eden.”
“I’m not the one you should thank,” Eden responded, winking at Jace over Chloe’s shoulder.
Jace shifted on his feet and acknowledged the sudden urge to step back just as Chloe launched herself his way. Breath whooshed from his lungs. A sharp grunt followed as Chloe’s knee connected with his thigh seconds before his butt hit the ground.
Straddling his lap, she wrapped both arms around his neck and squeezed. His elbows bolstered both their weights, which was good. He wasn’t sure of the best place to put his hands. Or the best way to move without dumping his passenger to the ground.
His security system solved the problem for him. At the dog’s sudden, territorial bark, Chloe scrambled to her feet. She turned toward the barn, pressing her hands to her heart as if in awe. “Look. It’s a silver wolf.”
Jace stood, dusted the seat of his pants. A silver wolf? A quick glance at Eden and he knew she wasn’t going to be any help, standing there barely stifling a giggle. He glared at her with the straightest face he could manage while speaking to Chloe. “Chelsea’s a malamute.”
The teen totally ignored Jace’s correction, reaching widespread slender fingers toward the dog. “I hear her speaking to me. I see it in her eyes.” She turned an imploring gaze to Jace. “Can I pet her?”
“Approach her slowly. Let her smell your hand so she’ll know you’re of the friendly variety.”
“Whatever,” Chloe said, with the forced indulgence of sixteen. She tiptoed toward the barn.
Jace turned to Eden. “That is one weird chick.”
Eden’s expression was a portrait in indulgence. “She’s sixteen, Jace. She’s female. And on top of that, she’s incredibly creative.”
“Sounds like a serious right-brained mixture to me.”
“Would that be experience talking?”
Jace spread his arms wide. “Creative I’ll buy. But you see anything female here, you let me know.”
Her glance took in the length of his body, the expanse of his homestead, his expression. She arched an inquisitive brow. “Actually, I see a decided lack of anything female around here.”
“And that’s a problem?”
“Not for me.” She added crossed arms to her question. “Is it for you?”
Jace let the query hang because he wasn’t sure he wanted to get into this with a woman he wanted to get into this with. She was pregnant, she belonged to someone—or had some time recently. She was a city girl; she missed the life and might be going back. And he found himself thinking about her anyway.
If anything was a problem for him, it was Eden Karr. Inside. That old house. With her.
“Between you and Chloe and Chelsea, I’d say I’m currently overdosed on female.”
Eden didn’t counter but instead took a longer look around. “Molly said you spend most of your time out here by yourself.”
Jace sighed. “I guess you think that’s a problem, too.”
“Nope. What I think is that business must keep you busy.”
“You can say that again,” Jace answered honestly before heading for the storage building behind his barn to see what he could do about helping Chloe.
Eden followed, her footsteps crunching the trail of sticks Chelsea had dropped on the overgrown path. Swinging open the door to the shed, he stepped inside the gloomy darkness.
Musty and damp, the air hung over the room. Jace moved first one box and then another, away from the two-by-two window. The floor creaked as Eden stepped inside.
Her shadow fell over him from her place in the doorway. “I know who you are, Jace.”
He stiffened and rolled aside a keg of nails. “I told you who I was. You recognized my work at The Old Pine Box.”
“No. That’s not what I meant.” Her shadow moved as she took another step into the room. “Six years ago I was assigned to cover a fashion show in Dallas. It was canceled, so I accompanied a friend to the dedication of the Farriday Building.”
Jace shoved his hands into his jeans pockets, stared out the grimy square of glass and shifted his weight between feet. Looked like his gig was up.
“Dallas had never seen anything like it,” Eden went on. “The papers called the architect a perfectionist, able to step back and observe the small piece in the big visual scene, able to let form follow function. But that architect, one J.B. Morgan, was absent from his own unveiling. Another member of the firm cut the ribbon.”
Yep. He’d been too busy working on his next project to celebrate his Farriday success. “He couldn’t make it. Something came up.”
As if she hadn’t heard him—which he knew she had by the roll of her eyes—Eden continued. “When we got back to New York, my friend dug up everything she could find on J.B. Morgan.
“It seems the Farriday Building was the first project this Mo
rgan had designed. He was headed for architectural stardom.” Palms up, she turned a circle where she stood, then met his gaze. “And now here he is, hiding out in a barn in the middle of a pasture.”
Jace jerked a carpenter’s apron from the top of one crate. He wasn’t sure how much he wanted to tell Eden about the reasons he’d left Dallas. It wasn’t like he was particularly proud of the way he’d stepped on everyone he knew while climbing that ladder of success.
“Wait. Let me guess,” he settled on saying. “You have a problem with that, too.”
“No. I don’t,” she said, her voice soft behind him. “But you do.”
Her words landed hard. He turned then and all he saw was her silhouette backlit by the sun streaming in through the door. She had the shape of an ordinary woman. A plain average woman, which was a joke in itself. There was nothing plain or average about Eden Karr.
The tiny, cluttered room grew smaller. And instead of dust motes dancing in the shafts of light, the sparks in her hair caught his eye. Instead of creaks and groans as the old building shifted and settled, her unsteady intake of breath rustled in the still air. Instead of wood, he smelled woman, a mixture soft and sweet and scented with friendship and home.
“The Farriday Building is exquisite,” she said quietly. “You must be so proud.”
Jace stood still, not certain what to say. Sure, pride was a part of what he felt. But there were so many other emotions connected to those years that pride seemed to have taken a backseat. He’d let down Robert and Kevin and Marv. And he’d let down himself by failing his friends.
A building didn’t seem like such a be all and end all in the larger scheme of life. Sure his name went up on the dedication plaque, but he’d only been part of a larger team. He knew that now, but he sure hadn’t taken time to appreciate his assistants and coworkers then. Put simply, he’d been a first-class ass.
In desperate need of breathing room, Jace headed for the storage shed’s door. Eden refused to move out of his way. Fine. Two could play this stubborn game.
He slung the apron over his shoulder, stopped when he reached her and propped his fist on the doorframe above her head. He did nothing but breathe for the next minute, making sure she was as aware as he of his gut pressed tight to her gently rounded belly.
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes burned bright, and Jace resolutely refused to look away. “I don’t think I’ll have time for chili tonight. If I’m gonna do this frame for Chloe, I’d better scrounge up what I need this evening.”
“Fine,” she whispered and pushed back against the shed.
Leaning forward, he lifted a strand of her hair and worried it between his fingers. “I can’t give up what I have here, Eden. You may miss the bright lights and big city, but I don’t care to see either again. Don’t think by reminding me of the successes I’ve had that you can change who I am. Or the way I’ve chosen to live my life.”
Her throat convulsed as she swallowed. “I’m not asking you to change anything.”
“Are you sure?” Jace counted the freckles on her nose, the sprinkling across her cheekbones, the random dusting across her neck. When he found his gaze traveling lower, his mind wandering lower still, he dropped her hair and stepped into the sun.
Before he stepped into her arms.
Chapter Eight
JACE DIDN’T COME FOR chili that night, and though he arrived in a standoffish mood at daybreak, he didn’t refuse Eden’s offer of scrambled eggs and biscuits. Two nights later he stayed for a hurried meal of stuffed baked potatoes and picked up a dozen kolaches from Molly’s the morning after.
The routine continued through the weekend. But Jace never looked at her again the way he’d looked at her in the doorway of his shed. After spending the past six days with the man, Eden felt they were more in tune than many married couples.
Still, nothing she’d learned went deeper than the surface. Since that one brief confrontation, Jace had deflected her every effort to pry. What she knew was to pass the cream for his coffee; he, never to butter her toast.
She knew more, as well. That he’d want a quart of iced tea by three, then nothing but beer with supper. And since lunch wasn’t her best time of day, he managed to have an extra sandwich in his lunchbox, even when he didn’t eat.
When she slipped her shoes off her swollen feet one afternoon, he teased her about her size-eight Jumbo the Elephants. And her woman’s intuition told her he wore an extra-large—in everything.
Monday morning she woke late with a headache, a backache and a heartache that defied explanation. Broody and bloated from head to toe, she wanted to stay in bed and wallow in her misery. Even better, to soak in a tub of apricot-scented bubbles, eat a pan of butter brownies, and reread her favorite romance.
Unfit company for man, beast or even herself, she slipped into a huge shapeless T-shirt dress and padded barefoot to the kitchen for a muffin and tea. Why had she thought relocating and changing careers had been a smart move?
And why in the world did she think she’d be a good mother? She couldn’t even take care of herself. How was she supposed to take care of a business and a family when she couldn’t get beyond the need for a good cry?
It was an eat-a-worm day all around.
So, when Jace knocked on her kitchen door at ten, she purposefully kept her outward reaction to one of surprise, even though deep inside she welcomed him. The screen door creaked as she pulled it open. “I hate you, you know.”
Two steps brought him up her stairs and into her kitchen. Three more took him the width of the room. He leaned against the refrigerator and gave her that sexy Jace Morgan grin. “Good morning to you, too.”
Prying her gaze from the suede tunic sheathing his wide shoulders, Eden swallowed hard and pushed the door shut behind her. “What I mean is, do you never take a day off? No one who puts in the hours you do has a right to look so...” Gorgeous, her brain supplied “... rested,” she forced herself to say.
Jace shrugged, stretching the fabric even tighter. “I don’t take many days off. Not scheduled, anyway.”
“What do you mean?” She stacked her hands on the door behind her and leaned back, her protruding stomach protruding even more.
Jace’s gaze slid away. He ran one finger over the porcelain knob of the cabinet door beside him. “I work at my own pace. I don’t punch a clock. When I’m tired, I stop. It’s that simple.”
“So, what are you doing here today? You’re certainly not dressed for work.”
“I have a delivery to make in Farmersville.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “But I was hoping we could do some business first.”
Eden pushed off from the door, determined to finish her breakfast dishes, equally determined to ignore the way Jace Morgan filled her kitchen. And the way she felt less blue when he was around. “I don’t know, Morgan. I can’t afford to do much more business with you.”
“It’ll only cost you time.”
She turned, soapsuds clinging to her hands. “Time?”
“Yep. It’s called bartering.”
“What could I possibly have to barter with that would interest you?” she asked, then wished she hadn’t. His heated look flared between them, wordlessly answering her question. Finally, he turned. The back seam of his shirt gaped open, revealing taut muscles and smooth skin.
Too much skin, to Eden’s way of thinking. With unsteady hands, she rinsed her teacup and pulled the stopper from the drain. “Bartering, huh? Like, in exchange for my services as a seamstress, you’ll knock a couple bucks off your estimate to redo my kitchen?”
Lifting the cheesecloth covering the basket on her stove, Jace helped himself to a cinnamon roll. “If that’s what you want.”
What she wanted right now was best not put into words. She watched the final swirl of bubbles vanish down the drain, wiped down the lip of the sink and dried her hands. “No. What I want is to ride into Farmersville with you. I’ve got an order to pick up at Calico Corners.”
He looked up, half the roll in his mouth. “That’s it?”
“C’mon, Jace. Ten minutes of my time isn’t worth much more than a ride.” She tossed the towel on the countertop.
“Sounds like a helluva deal to me.”
“Then let’s take a look at the damage.”
Jace licked cinnamon glaze from his fingers, braced his palms on a chair back and bent at an angle that gave Eden a clear, close view of his back. Her fingers trembled for no good reason. At least none she allowed herself to consider.
Skimming the buckskin with a light touch, she tested the strength of the seam’s worn edges. Heat from Jace’s skin breathed over her hands, a seductive invitation to slip her fingers inside the shirt.
She closed her eyes. The scent of leather and man seeped into her loneliness. Then Benjamin kicked, reminding her not to be stupid again, and she backed a step away. “Fabric looks tough enough. I think the thread just gave up the ghost.”
Jace glanced back. “So, can you fix it?”
“Sure.”
“Now?”
“Now?” she repeated.
He nodded. “The bed of my truck’s loaded. I need to get over to Farmersville before it rains.” The sunlight shining through her kitchen window dimmed on cue. “I don’t think I have time to drive home and change.” When she only stared, he went on to say, “I can go like this if you don’t have time.”
Eden shook off her trance. How bad could it actually be to have Jace undress in her house? She’d seen him shirtless just last week. Then they’d been outdoors, with acres of breathing room. Now they were in her house. Alone. With gloomy skies increasing the intimacy.
“I have time,” she assured him, then held out her hand and held her breath. He slipped out of the shirt and, before she allowed herself more than the briefest glimpse of a flat belly dusted with black hair, she headed for her workroom.
His moccasins whispered over the hardwood floor behind her, the sound a gentle coaxing of her senses, a sweet song to her ears. She felt his presence like a wildness inside her. His shirt grew warm in her hands.
Shoving back the curtained partition, she tossed the shirt onto her sewing table, gestured for Jace to sit in the rattan side chair and headed for the cherry cupboard in the corner.
