by Linda Seed
“And then when he died, you felt guilty as hell,” Jake finished for her.
She nodded. “Yes.”
“It’s just a name,” he said. “Keeping your name didn’t change the way you felt about him. Just like my ex taking my name didn’t change how she felt about me. Unfortunately.” He gave Breanna a wry grin.
“I want to ask what happened, but it’s none of my business, so if you don’t want to talk about it …”
“She met someone else.” But that wasn’t the whole story, was it? It was true, as far as it went—Beth had met someone else. But it never would have happened if Jake had made her happy. He could never seem to do that. They had too many differences, too many gaps between his goals and hers. As easy as it was to blame her, it wasn’t honest. She’d gone elsewhere to fill legitimate needs that Jake had ignored.
“Jake?” Breanna was looking at him with concern. “Are you okay? Where did you go just now?”
“Ah, just … divorce sucks, that’s all.” He shrugged.
“So does widowhood.”
Suddenly, he felt embarrassed to have been complaining about his own situation when what she’d gone through was so much worse.
Trying to get back on a happier topic, he grinned. “Hey, we were toasting new beginnings a little while ago. Let’s get back to that. Your house is going to be great.”
She smiled, and with the smile came a glow of happiness that made him melt a little. “It really is,” she said.
He promised himself he’d make it happen for her, exactly the way she was imagining it. Sitting here with her, being charmed by her, he wanted to take away her sorrow.
He couldn’t do that, but at least he could give her a kick-ass house.
7
Breanna got to the Whispering Pines later than usual because of her coffee with Jake. Since she was volunteering, she didn’t have a set schedule, but she liked to be reliable and consistent. She hurried over to the B&B as soon as she left Jake.
By the time she got there, a couple had just checked out, so she greeted Mrs. Granfield, then went upstairs to start putting their room back in order.
The work was easy and automatic, and it allowed her mind to wander. It seemed to want to go to only one place: her conversation with Jake.
They’d met so she could sign the contract, and she’d done that. So why had they spent so much time talking about his life and hers, his divorce, her grief?
It had started as business, but it had quickly veered into the personal. He’d been so easy to talk to, so easy to listen to. Being with him felt comfortable, and it reminded her how little time she spent being social with someone who wasn’t her family or a guest at Mrs. Granfield’s B&B.
She used to have more of a social life. She used to spend more time with friends. But the people she’d been closest to just didn’t seem to be around anymore. Her sister-in-law Julia was in Montana. Her other sister-in-law, Gen, was so busy juggling work and motherhood that she had little time for anything else. And, of course, Brian, the best friend she’d ever had, was gone—had been gone so long she sometimes had a hard time remembering what it was like when she’d taken his love and his presence for granted.
Breanna told herself that her conversation with Jake had been nothing more than a lonely woman reaching out to the first available person who showed an interest. But another part of her thought it was more than that. She’d felt a connection. Had he felt it, too?
She carried the laundry from the room she’d just cleaned down to the laundry room and loaded it into the washing machine. As she completed the task, she thought about men—mostly the ones she’d known since Brian had died.
Dating was a tricky thing when you were a widow, and even more so when you were one of the wealthiest widows in the state. When men asked her out, it was usually about the money, about trying to get a piece of the Delaney fortune. When it wasn’t about that—when it was just about her—they often had a hard time getting past the shadow of the man she’d loved and lost.
So many men were too insecure to accept the fact that she’d loved Brian, and still did, and always would. That didn’t mean she couldn’t make room in her life for someone new, but it seemed the male ego had a hard time dealing with competition, even from the dead.
She’d all but given up hope of finding a man who could deal with all of the complications Breanna represented.
Breanna didn’t imagine that Jake was that man. Why should she? They barely knew each other, and besides, he was simply doing a job for her—that was all.
Still, she was starting a new life with the Moonstone Beach house. Why shouldn’t she also start a new relationship with someone? Why shouldn’t she think about dating? Ryan had met the love of his life, then Colin, then Liam. They all had someone. Why shouldn’t she?
“Breanna?”
Redmond had died still missing the woman he’d loved, because he’d been too afraid, too stuck in one place, to pursue her. He’d spent so many years alone. She didn’t want to end up like that, didn’t want to grow old and die pining away for someone who wasn’t there.
“Breanna? Dear?”
Breanna was startled to realize that Mrs. Granfield was standing in the doorway of the laundry room, saying something to her.
“What? I’m sorry. I was just … Did you need something?”
“I was just going to ask if you could keep an eye on things while I lie down for a bit to rest this hip. But you were a million miles away.” Mrs. Granfield looked at her with concern.
“Oh. That’s fine. I don’t have to be anywhere until this afternoon. You go on.” Breanna felt a slight blush rise to her cheeks, embarrassed to have been caught thinking about something as frivolous as dating.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Mrs. Granfield asked.
“Of course. Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“No reason, dear.” Mrs. Granfield started to turn away, then stopped. “I ran into that Jake Travis over at the Cookie Crock earlier this morning. Isn’t he the contractor for your place at Moonstone Beach?”
“Oh. Yes. He is.” There was the blush again.
“What a handsome young man,” Mrs. Granfield said. “If only I were thirty years younger.”
* * *
On demo day at the Moonstone Beach place, Jake gathered his tools and his crew and got ready to dig in. It was always exciting getting started on a new job. The contrast between what was and what would be filled him with enthusiasm and creative energy.
He couldn’t wait to get his hands on the place.
He would start in the kitchen, which was going to be a total gut job. He had to take out everything—the cabinetry, the counters, one interior wall—and reconfigure the place to give it more room, more modern convenience. Breanna wanted the room to be inviting, homey, and practical all at once.
He and a couple of guys started by taking the cabinets off the walls, then he got to work with a sledgehammer, pounding through the wall that had to go.
Sam came inside to sniff at things and see what Jake was doing from time to time, but mostly he contented himself out in the yard, either taking a nap in the sun, sniffing at clumps of weeds, or chasing the squirrels that scurried about on the property.
By lunchtime, Jake was hot, dirty, and hungry as hell. He and his guys went to a taco truck on Main Street for lunch. While Jake sat outside at a folding table and ate, he thought about Breanna.
He pulled his phone out of his back pocket, pulled up the texting app, and sent her a message.
You should see your kitchen. Or, on second thought, maybe you shouldn’t. We did demo this morning.
A few minutes later, he heard the ping of a response.
Send me a picture.
He grinned, surprised how delighted he was that she’d answered.
I’m at lunch. Will do, as soon as I get back.
He took another bite of his taco and heard the ping of an incoming message.
Is Sam there? He should be good for demo—he’
s a one-dog wrecking crew.
He laughed, then used his phone to snap a picture of Sam, who was on a leash at Jake’s feet. He sent the picture—the frame filled with Sam’s furry face—to Breanna.
Her response came in a few moments later: I wish I could give him a big kiss.
Jake wouldn’t have thought he could be jealous of a dog, and yet here he was, ready to send Sam to doggy day care if it meant getting Breanna’s attention for himself.
On the other hand, maybe he could use this to his advantage. He wouldn’t be the first guy to use a cute dog to get on a woman’s good side. He scowled at his own train of thought.
“Who says I need to get on her good side?” he muttered.
“You say something?” Carl, a young guy with pretty good construction skills and a good, earnest work ethic, was looking at him with curiosity.
“Me? Nah. No.” Even as he said it, he realized he was protesting too much.
“Dude, you did,” Carl said.
Covering, Jake said, “I was just … talking to the dog.”
Sam looked at him with scorn and judgment.
“You just shut up,” Jake told him.
* * *
Breanna looked at her text messages feeling excited—though she wasn’t sure if it was about the progress on her house or her friendly flirtation with Jake.
She hadn’t flirted in so long she’d almost forgotten how. And although she knew it would probably be wiser to keep things with Jake strictly business—at least until the house was done—she had to admit that this was fun.
“What’s put that smile on your face?” Mrs. Granfield asked. Breanna hadn’t heard her come into the kitchen. Breanna was supposed to be arranging tea service and cookies for the B&B’s guests, but she’d been caught wasting time playing with her phone.
“Oh … nothing. My contractor has a cute dog, that’s all.” As proof, she brought up the picture of Sam and held out the screen for Mrs. Granfield to see.
“Hmm,” Mrs. Granfield said.
“I was just … He started the demo today, so …”
Mrs. Granfield raised her eyebrows, grinning knowingly at Breanna. “He’s quite handsome.” She reached into a drawer for a handful of cloth napkins. “And I’m not referring to the dog.”
8
Jake wasn’t sure when he actually made the decision to ask Breanna out on a date. It wasn’t one thing that clinched it. It was more that he’d been rolling the idea around under the surface in his mind until it emerged fully formed, already a done deal.
It was a foolhardy endeavor, for sure. She was his client. She was out of his league in terms of wealth and status. And she had kids—a situation fraught with complications and potential heartbreak.
But he wasn’t thinking about marriage, he was thinking about—what? Dinner? A movie? Another coffee?
He hadn’t worked that part out yet.
He just knew that he liked talking to her. He liked flirting with her, and he wanted to do more of it. Soon.
As he worked at the Moonstone Beach house a couple of days after the texting at the taco truck, he tried to work out how exactly to get her to go out with him, and what they would do if she did.
Jake thought about all of the best dates he’d been on, trying to glean some kind of knowledge, some kind of strategy, from the experiences. But that approach proved to be fruitless. His best date ever, to this day, was the time he and Peggy Carlisle ran out of gas during a drive on the Angeles Crest Highway and ended up having sex in the driver’s seat while they waited for a tow truck. He was seventeen.
He didn’t think Breanna would appreciate it if he tried to recreate that one.
There was a lot to do around here: the area had countless romantic restaurants, wineries with gorgeous scenery, places to take in the stunning Central Coast views. But she’d seen it all, done it all. Where could he take her that wasn’t already old news for her? He was the newcomer here. He was the one who needed to be taken places, shown things.
Of course, that was one approach he could take. He could plead ignorance about the area and ask her to show him around. Who better to do it than someone who’d been here her whole life?
But Jake liked to play the role of the host, the alpha male, when he asked a woman out. He liked to make plans and show her a good time. Giving up that role would be especially problematic when you considered the fact that Breanna was the alpha here in so many other ways. As his client, she was paying his bills. And she had so much money to pay them with.
All of these thoughts about alpha this and that were so much bullshit.
“We’re people, not wolves,” he muttered as he hauled a load of debris out of the house toward a Dumpster set up in the yard.
“What?” Mark Winslow, one of the guys on the crew, was looking at him with curiosity, and Jake realized he’d said that last part out loud.
Covering, Jake barked, “I said we’re people, not a damned pack of wolves. Clean this crap up.” He gestured toward the mess that still needed to be cleared away.
He needed to stop thinking about Breanna and start thinking about work—especially since he would be using power tools. Best to keep his head in the game.
* * *
He made his move a couple of weeks later when Breanna stopped by the Moonstone Beach site to see how things were coming along.
She was ready for Sam this time—she braced herself, setting one foot firmly behind her for support, as he came rocketing toward her in ecstasy.
“Hey there, big guy.” She distracted him with a Milk-Bone she’d pulled out of her pocket. The strategy worked—the dog hesitated slightly before he reached her, which took a little bit of the impact out of his approach. He still landed on her with both front paws on her chest, but she was able to stay on her feet, which she considered a victory.
“How are you today?” she cooed to the dog as she ruffled her hands through the fur around his big face. “Howza boy? Howza good boy?” Sam looked at her with a happy doggy smile, the Milk-Bone already a distant memory.
Jake came out of the house to greet her, grinning with admiration.
“Well, that went a lot better this time,” he told her.
He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, work boots, and a tool belt, with a dusting of some white powder that was probably the remains of her drywall in his hair. Why that was almost unbearably sexy, she could not have said. Must have been something about the very masculine work he was doing. Not that a woman couldn’t do this kind of job, Breanna told herself. Though the woman in question probably wouldn’t look nearly as scrumptious doing it.
“I just thought I’d drop by to take a look,” Breanna told Jake. “I know I should stay away. I don’t want to be a pest. But—”
“It’s fine,” Jake told her. “But you might not like what you see at this point.”
“I can take it,” she reassured him. “If I can handle Sam, I can handle whatever you’ve got going on in there.”
They went inside to the sounds of hammering and men bantering about various things while they worked—sports and women and good-natured insults about somebody’s mother.
“Hey, guys. Ms. Delaney’s here,” Jake called out as they entered. Probably, Breanna thought, to stave off any off-color language that might have naturally occurred had they not known. Breanna wasn’t put off by off-color language. She had three brothers.
Breanna called out greetings to the crew. Most of them were local guys she already knew, and they waved or called back a friendly hello. One or two of the men were strangers to her; she wondered if Jake had brought them in from out of town for the job.
“You ready for the tour?” he asked.
“Absolutely.” She steeled herself to see her precious house in complete disarray.
To her surprise, things looked much better than expected.
“Here’s the kitchen.” Jake ushered her into the room, which was no longer identifiable according to its intended purpose. All of the cabinetry had been taken
out—no loss, since it had been old and nearly falling apart—and the room had been stripped down to its bare bones. One wall had been removed to enlarged the space, and a new wall, about three feet back from where the original one had stood, had been framed in, fresh studs forming its skeleton.
“Oh, wow,” Breanna said in wonder.
“Is that a bad ‘oh, wow’ or a good one?” Jake wanted to know.
“A good one.” Now that the dark paneling and the oppressively dark cabinetry that had been in this room had been stripped away, the place looked so much lighter, brighter. “There’s so much more space. I didn’t think three feet would make that much difference, but … wow.”
“Wait until we get the new cabinetry and countertops in here,” Jake said, clearly pleased. “Once it really starts to take shape, you can see what you’ve got.”
They moved room by room through the rest of the house: the parlor, where the old, freestanding cast iron fireplace would be replaced by a big stone built-in; the dining room, which was losing a little bit of its space to the kitchen; the downstairs bedroom, which was getting an en suite bathroom; and the upstairs bedrooms, each of which would be refreshed with details like new doors, remodeled closets, and restored oak floors.
At this point, many of the changes were still a matter of plans and imagination. But everything had been stripped to the bare drywall, some walls had been removed and others had been framed in, and Breanna could clearly see the outline of what this place would be when Jake was finished.
She looked around in wonder as she went room to room, viewing what had been done so far and discussing what would come next. “This is amazing.”
“Really?” Jake sounded surprised. “I kind of thought you’d be underwhelmed. There’s not much to see yet.”
“Are you kidding? God. It’s going to be gorgeous. I can’t wait.” She bounced a little on her toes.
