Книга - Her Man Upstairs

Her Man Upstairs
Dixie Browning


Okay, so maybe hiring a centerfold stud to remodel my home was crazy. But I, Marty Owens, practical bookstore owner, was a desperate woman, and contractor Cole Stevens was a man with muscles and strong hands and a seductive voice promising me he could get the job done fast.It made perfect sense for him to move in so he could work days and nights. But no logic can explain my wild fantasies about getting cozy with Cole in every room in the house–the bedroom, the shower, the kitchen…. Ladies, I'm in over my head with the man upstairs, but can I tempt him to repair his heart and build a home for us?









It Was Too Late To Think Rationally As Cole’s Lips Brushed Hers.


No pressure, no demand, just…touching.

As the kiss slowly deepened, Marty felt as if she’d been asleep for a hundred years and had woken up in a brand-new world to the tantalizing scent of soap and leather and sun-warmed male skin, to the iron-hard arms that held her breathlessly close.

Her carpenter. Her kissing carpenter, her upstairs man.

“Well,” she breathed, unable to think of anything else to say. “Well…”

“I guess we got that out of the way,” Cole said, sounding a tad stunned himself. “You want to fire me? I’ll understand.”

Marty shook her head. Fire him? Things might be infinitely more complicated after this, but if she let Cole walk away, she might lose the opportunity of a lifetime.


Dear Reader,

It’s Valentine’s Day, time for an evening to remember. Perhaps your perfect night consists of candlelight and a special meal, or a walk along a deserted beach in the moonlight, or a wonderful cuddle beside a fire. My fantasy of what the perfect night entails includes 1) a very sexy television actor who starred in a recently canceled WB series 2) a dark, quiet corner in an elegant restaurant 3) a conversation that ends with a daring proposition to… Sorry, some things a girl just has to keep a secret! Whatever your evening to remember entails, here’s hoping it’s unforgettable.

This month in Silhouette Desire, we also offer you reads to remember long into the evening. Kathie DeNosky’s A Rare Sensation is the second title in DYNASTIES: THE ASHTONS, our compelling continuity set in Napa Valley. Dixie Browning continues her fabulous DIVAS WHO DISH miniseries with Her Man Upstairs.

We also have the wonderful Emilie Rose whose Breathless Passion will leave you…breathless. In Out of Uniform, Amy J. Fetzer presents a wonderful military hero you’ll be dreaming about. Margaret Allison is back with an alpha male who has A Single Demand for this Cinderella heroine. And welcome Heidi Betts to the Desire lineup with her scintillating surrogacy story, Bought by a Millionaire.

Here’s to a memorable Valentine’s Day…however you choose to enjoy it!

Happy reading,






Melissa Jeglinski

Senior Editor

Silhouette Books




Her Man Upstairs

Dixie Browning







www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)




DIXIE BROWNING


has won numerous awards for both her paintings and her romances. A former newspaper columnist, she has written more than one hundred category romances. Browing is a native of North Carolina’s Outer Banks, an area that continues to provide endless inspiration.




Contents


Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve




One


Marty allowed herself ten minutes, start to finish, to shower, shampoo the stink out of her hair, dress and get back downstairs in time to meet the fourth carpenter. If he even bothered to show up. What the devil had happened to the work ethic in this country?

She knew what had happened to her own. It fluctuated wildly between gotta-do, gonna-do and can’t-do. Between full speed ahead and all engines reverse, depending on the time of the month.

At least she had no one depending on her for support. Not even a cat or a dog, although she was thinking about getting one. Something to talk to, something to keep her feet warm in bed at night while she read herself to sleep. But then there were all those shots and flea medicines and retractable leashes and collars and tons of kibble.

So maybe a couple of goldfish…?

She checked her image in the steam-clouded bathroom mirror, searching for signs of advancing age. “At least you’re not paying rent. Except for the phone bill, the power bill and property taxes, you don’t owe a penny to anyone.”

On the other hand, her split ends were in desperate need of a trim and the sweater she was wearing dated back to her junior year in college. Even if she could’ve afforded to update her hairstyle and her wardrobe, she lacked the interest, and that—the lack of interest—was the scariest of all. She was sliding downhill toward the big four-oh, which meant that any day now, the guarantees on various body parts would start running out. Oh sure, her teeth were still sound, and she could still get by with drugstore reading glasses, but she plucked an average of three gray hairs a day; she was collecting a few of what were euphemistically called “laugh lines” and lately her back had been giving her trouble.

Of course, moving a ton and a half of books and bookshelves single-handedly might have had something to do with that.

Bottom line, she wasn’t getting any younger. Her income was zilch minus inflation, her savings account had earned the lofty sum of a buck eighty-seven in interest last month, and with the least bit of encouragement she could become seriously depressed. She read all those magazine articles designed to scare women and sell pharmaceutical products. The trouble was, scare tactics worked.

Frowning down at her Timex, Marty decided she’d give him ten more minutes. Traffic jams happened, even in Muddy Landing, population just shy of a thousand. She’d forgotten to ask where he was staying, when he’d called late yesterday to see if she still needed a builder. If he was coming from Elizabeth City and happened to get behind a tractor or a school bus, all bets were off.

Squeezing the moisture from her thick chestnut-colored hair, she tried to hedge against disappointment by telling herself that he probably wouldn’t show at all, and even if he did, he probably wouldn’t be able to fit her into his schedule anytime soon. If he did manage to fit her in, she probably couldn’t afford him. But the biggie was her deadline. If he couldn’t meet that, then there’d be no point in even starting.

“Well, shoot,” she whispered. When it came to looking on the bright side, she was her own worst enemy. So what else was new?

The first time the idea had occurred to her, she’d thought it was brilliant, but the longer it was taking to put her plan into action, the more doubts were seeping in.

Was that a car door slamming?

She gave her hair a last hurried squeeze with the towel and then felt in the top drawer with one hand for a pair of socks. Having long since gotten out of the habit of matching her socks and rolling them together, she came up with a short and a long in two different colors. Tossing them back, she raced for the stairway, bare feet thudding on the hardwood floors.

At least she no longer reeked of polyurethane. If the cinnamon had done the trick, neither would her house.

The phone rang just as she hit the third step down from the top. Swearing under her breath, she wheeled and raced back to catch it in case it was her carpenter asking for instructions on how to find her address.

“Hello! Where are you?”

“Is he there yet?”

Her shoulders drooped. “Oh, Sasha.” If there was an inconvenient time to call or drop by, her best friend would find it. From anyone else Marty might think it was a power thing. “I thought you were someone else. Look, I don’t have time to talk now. Can I call you back?”

“You’re talking, aren’t you?”

“But I’m in a hurry—so can it wait?”

“Is he there yet?”

“Is who there—here?”

“Your carpenter, silly! Faylene said Bob Ed said he was going to call you yesterday. Didn’t he even call?”

Marty took a deep breath, drawing on the lessons of a lifetime. Patience was a virtue, right up there with godliness and cleanliness. At various times, she’d flunked all three. “Somebody’s here, I just heard a car door slam. It might be him—he. Listen, later I want to know exactly what you two have been up to, but not now, okay?”

If you couldn’t trust your best friend, whom could you trust?

“Wait, don’t hang up! Call me as soon as he leaves, okay? Faylene said—”

Marty didn’t wait to hear what Faylene had said. The trouble with a small town like Muddy Landing was that aside from fishing, hunting and farming, the chief industry was gossip. By now probably half the town knew what she planned on doing to her house, who was helping her do it, and how much it was likely to cost her.

Slamming the phone down, she peered through the front bedroom window to see a ratty looking pickup with a toolbox in back and a rod-holder on the front bumper, a description that fit roughly half the vehicles in Muddy Landing. There was probably a gun rack in the back window, too, and an in-your-face sticker peeling off the back bumper.

Well, so what? If the guy could read a blueprint and follow simple instructions, she didn’t care what his politics were or what he drove or what he did in his spare time.

Not that her drawings bore much resemblance to blueprints, but at least she’d indicated clearly what she wanted done. Not only indicated, but illustrated. If he could read, he should be able to do the job. If it weren’t for all the red tape involved with permitting and such, she could probably have done it herself, given enough time. There were how-to books for everything.

She watched from the window as a long, denim-covered leg emerged from the cab. Putty-colored deck shoes, Ragg socks, followed by leather clad shoulders roughly the width of an ax handle. Judging by all that shaggy, sun-streaked hair, he was either a surf bum or he’d spent the summer crawling around on somebody’s roof nailing on shingles. All up and down the Outer Banks, building crews were nailing together those humongous McMansions on every scrap of land that wasn’t owned by some branch or another of the federal government. She’d like to think of all the tourists who would pour down here once the season got underway as potential customers. Trouble was, there were enough bookstores on the beach so that few, if any, tourists were likely to drive all the way to Muddy Landing, which wasn’t on the way to anywhere.

She was still watching when her visitor turned and looked directly at the upstairs front window. Oh, my…

As she flicked the curtains shut, it occurred to Marty that living alone as she did, inviting all these strange men into her home might not be the smartest thing. This one, for instance, looked physically capable of taking out a few walls without the aid of tools. He’s a construction worker, silly! she told herself. What did you expect, a ninety-seven-pound wimp?

She was halfway down the stairs when the doorbell chimed—three steps farther when the smoke alarm went off with an ear-splitting shriek. “Not now, dammit!”

She galloped the rest of the way and reached the bottom just as the front door burst open.

“Get out, I’ll take care of it!” a man barked. He waved her toward the open front door.

Swinging around the newel post, Marty collided with him in the kitchen doorway. She stood stock-still and stared at the billowing smoke that was rapidly filling the room.

“Try not to breathe! Where’s your fire extinguisher?”

“Beside the drier!” Marty yelled back. Racing across the room, she jumped and slammed her fist against the white plastic smoke detector mounted over the utility room door. The cover popped off, the batteries fell out and the ear-splitting noise ceased abruptly.

In the sudden deafening silence they stared at each other, Marty and the stranger with the shaggy, sun-bleached hair and the piercing eyes. The stranger broke away first, wheeling toward the range where clouds of pungent smoke rose toward the ceiling.

“Get out of my way!” Marty shouldered him aside and grabbed the blackened pie pan with her bare hand. Shoving open the back door, she flung it outside, took two deep breaths and hurried to turn off the burner.

The stranger hadn’t said a word.

Trying not to inhale, she clutched her right hand and muttered a string of semi-profane euphemisms. God, she could have burned her house down!

“You want to tell me what’s going on here?” Fists planted on his hips, the stranger stared at her warily.

He wanted answers from her? She wasn’t the one who’d burst into a house uninvited and started shouting orders. At least he wasn’t wearing a ski mask over his face and carrying an AK-whatchamacallit—one of those really nasty guns.

Of course, she’d been expecting a carpenter. And he did have a toolbox in the back of his truck. But for all she knew, the thing could be full of nasty weapons of mass destruction.

A big fan of hard-edged suspense, Marty often let her imagination get the better of her. Not only that, but she’d been under a growing amount of stress, which always tended to affect her common sense.

“Sorry about that,” he said quietly, pulling her back to reality. “I thought you had a real fire going.” He waved away the pungent fumes with one hand.

Trying not to breathe too deeply, she leaned over the sink and held her stinging fingers under cold running water. Ow-wow-ee!

She felt him right behind her and tried not to react. He had to be her carpenter—either that or a fireman who just happened to be passing by 1404 Sugar Lane and smelled smoke.

Or the answer to a harried maiden’s dream?

Not that she was a maiden. Far from it.

Way to go, Owens—so much for getting your head together. You nearly burn down your house and now you’re checking out the vital statistics of the first man on the scene.

“Uh—maybe I’d better leave, okay?” The voice was rich and gravelly, if somewhat tentative. Pavarotti with a frog in his throat.

“No! I mean, please—I need you. That is, if you’re the carpenter I was expecting. You are…aren’t you?” She turned, still clutching her wrist to keep the pain of her burned fingers from shooting up her arm.

He was staring, probably trying to decide if it was safe to hang around. “Ma’am, are you sure you’re all right?”

He’d called her “ma’am.” Pathetically un-PC, but sweet, all the same. Conscious of her dripping hair and her naked feet, Marty tried to look cool and in control of the situation. Oh, Lord, did I remember to fasten the front of my jeans?

In case she hadn’t, she tugged her sweater down over her hips. A smile was called for, and she did her best, which probably wasn’t very convincing. At least, her would-be rescuer didn’t look convinced. Any minute now he’d be calling for the butterfly squad.

Deep breath, Owens. Get it in gear. “Sorry. I’m usually not this disorganized.” At least, this time of day she wasn’t. Early mornings were another matter. She was a zombie until she had her fix of caffeine and sunshine. “It’s just that everything happened at once. First the phone, then the doorbell, then the smoke alarm.”

He nodded slowly. Then he sniffed, using a really nice nose. Not too big, not too straight—just enough character to keep the rest of his features from looking too perfect. “What is that smell?”

Marty sniffed, too. The air was rank. “Polyurethane and paint thinner, uh, laced with fried cinnamon. Actually, not all my ideas work out the way they’re supposed to. You ever have one of those days when everything goes cronksided?”

He continued to watch her as if he suspected her of being a mutant life-form. His eyes, she noted, were the exact color of tarnished brass. Sort of greenish blue, with undertones of gold. Looking uneasy, he was backing toward the front hall, and she couldn’t afford to let him get away.

“I left the burner turned on the lowest setting, thinking sure I’d have time, but…” Despite appearances to the contrary, she tried to sound intelligent, or at least moderately rational.

Fat chance. She sighed. “Look, I’ve been painting bookcases in the garage and I left the side door open so I could hear the phone, so that’s how the smell got into the house, okay? I was just trying to cover it—while I showered—with cinnamon.”

“You showered with cinnamon.”

Was that skepticism or sympathy? Time to take control. “Yes, well—I probably should have used something heavier than one of those aluminum foil pie pans. Pumpkin. Mrs. Smith’s. I hate to throw them away, don’t you? They come in handy for scaring deer away from the pittosporum.”

Nodding slowly, he backed a few steps closer to the hall door, watching her as if he expected her to hop up on a counter and start flapping her wings. “This is the right address, isn’t it? Corner of Sugar Lane and Bedlam Boulevard?”

Bedlam Boulevard wasn’t even a boulevard, just a plain old street. She’d almost forgotten the developer’s love of all things British: Chelsea Circle, Parliament Place, London Lane.

She snickered. And then watched as his lips started to twitch. And then they were both grinning.

Marty said, “Could we start all over, d’you think?”

“I guess maybe we’d better. Cole Stevens. I was told you needed some remodeling done?”

“Martha Owens. I’m mostly called Marty, though. Come on into the living room, the odor shouldn’t be so strong there. I’d open a window, but we’d freeze.” Ignoring her stinging fingers—she’d probably burned off her fingerprints—Marty led the way, pretending she wasn’t barefoot and dripping and utterly devoid of any claim to dignity she might once have possessed.



Following her, Cole wondered if he wouldn’t be better off leaving now. He’d never worked for a woman before—at least, not directly.

He wondered if the fact that she was barefoot had anything to do with the way she moved. Hip bone connected to the thigh bone, thigh bone connected to the—

And then he wondered why he was wondering. Why he’d even noticed the way she walked—or the way she’d scrooched up her mouth when she’d hurled that blackened pan outside. For a crazy woman, she was sort of attractive.

It wouldn’t hurt to stick around for a few more minutes, seeing as he was here. He hadn’t planned on going back to work this soon, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t change his mind. The one thing he was, was flexible.

When he’d set out earlier this week, he’d had some vague idea of cruising south until he saw someplace that appealed to him. Less than a day out of his old mooring place on the Chesapeake Bay, he’d had some minor engine trouble and looked for a place to lay over. He’d radioed a friend of his, who had recommended Bob Ed’s place near the neck of Tull Bay on North Landing River. He’d limped along on one engine, located the place, liked its looks and rented a wet slip for a week, with options.

Yesterday he had exercised his option for another two weeks. One of the things he liked about the place was the fact that, other than a few local commercial fishermen, it was empty. Add to that the fact that, while it was off the beaten track, it was relatively close to a metropolitan area in case he ever needed something that couldn’t be found in the sticks.

Hell, there was no law that said he had to keep on running. No family, no job to hold him back. Not much of a reputation either, but the lack of a haircut over the past few months should keep anyone from recognizing him as the whistle-blower who’d brought down the third largest developer in southeastern Virginia.

What he hadn’t counted on when he’d pulled up stakes and headed south was having so much time on his hands. When a guy didn’t have a real life, things got boring real fast.

He’d been considering moving on when he saw the old guy who ran the place trying to replace a rotten window frame. He’d offered to help, and had been pleased and somewhat surprised to discover that he hadn’t quite lost his old skills. By day’s end they had replaced three windows on the northeast side of the rambling unpainted building that housed Bob Ed’s Ammo, Bait and Tackle, and Guide Service. He’d met Bob Ed’s lady, Faylene, briefly yesterday when she’d come to bring a stack of mail from the post office.

Now there was one strange lady. It was largely due to her that he was here today, actually considering signing on for a construction job. Too much fried food had evidently affected his brain.

Either that or too much solitude.

Cole followed the Owens woman into a comfortable, if slightly cluttered living room, where she turned to confront him. He stood six foot two to her five feet plus a few inches, yet she managed to look down her nose at him.

Haughty as a maître d’in a five-star restaurant, she said, “May I see your résumé?”

His résumé. Cole didn’t know whether to laugh or to leave. A few minutes ago leaving had seemed the better option, but sooner or later he was going to have to jump-start his career. Living alone aboard his boat with no real structure in his life wasn’t going to do it. This job, small as it was, sounded like a good first step if he planned to stay in construction, which was all he knew.

Hands on, though. No more management.

“My résumé,” he repeated. He cleared his throat. “Short version—the firm where I worked for the past thirteen years recently went bankrupt, so my résumé would be pretty worthless.” He didn’t bother to add that the firm had belonged to his ex-father-in-law, who had pushed him into an area of management he had been unprepared for. Deliberately, he’d later learned. The result being that by calling a spade a spade—or in this case, calling a crook a crook—he’d lost his wife, his job, and any ambition he’d once had to be the best damn builder in the business.

“Would I have heard of it?” she asked.

“Were you watching the local news last spring?”

“Local? You mean Muddy Landing?”

He shook his head. “Norfolk. Virginia Beach, specifically.” The state line was less than forty-five minutes away. Northeast North Carolina got most of the news from Norfolk feeds.

The way she was eyeing him, she was probably reconsidering her job offer. With no résumé and no referrals, he couldn’t blame her, but now that he’d come this far, he was determined not to let that happen. Something about big, cloudy gray eyes and soft, pouty lips…

Oh, hell no. Any decision he made would be based on his own needs and not on the appeal of any woman. He’d gone that route once before, and look where it had landed him.

“Look, I’ll be honest with you,” he said.

“For a change?”

Cole didn’t particularly like being called a liar, especially when he wasn’t, but having been grilled by experts, he let it pass. “I can leave now or we can go on with the interview, your choice,” he said quietly. “I’d intended to head on down the Banks and points south in a few days, anyway.”

“Then why did you bother to apply?”

Had he thought gray eyes looked soft? At the moment hers looked about as soft as stainless steel. “I’m beginning to wonder,” he muttered, half to himself. The lady was as flaky as one of the Colonel’s biscuits. “All right, fair question. First, I did a small repair job for a guy who owns the marina where I’ve been living aboard my boat. Yesterday a friend of his happened to mention that she knew somebody who needed a small remodeling job done in a hurry, and asked if I was interested in earning some maintenance money.”

Actually, despite appearances, he had a fairly decent investment income considering his simplified lifestyle. But the market tended to be schizophrenic and, as someone once said, a boat was a hole in the water into which the owner poured money.

“You said that was your first reason. What else? Is there a second reason?”

A second reason. If he said “instinct,” she was going to think he was as big a nutcase as she was. As to that, the jury was still out, but until he had more to go on he’d just as soon not have to defend himself.

It had been instinct that had first tipped him off that Weyrich was dirty. Long before that, it had been instinct that told him Paula was bored with their marriage and looking for bigger fish to fry. Frying them, for all he knew. By that time it had no longer been worth the effort to find out.

“It just struck me as the thing to do,” he said finally. “Small town, small job—good place to get my bearings again.”

“Again?”

She might look like soft, but the lady was a piranha—big eyes, tousled hair and all. “Look, if it’s all the same to you, let’s leave my bearings out of this and get on with the business at hand. Do you need a job done, or don’t you?”

She took a deep breath, hinting at what lay hidden by a baggy turtleneck sweater that showed signs of age. And he wasn’t even a breast man. If anything, he was an eye man, eyes being the window on the soul.

The window on the soul?

Clear case of too much fried food and too much time on his hands.

“It’s a remodeling job,” she explained. “I doubt if it’ll take very long. At least I hope not. I want my downstairs moved upstairs so I can reopen my bookstore downstairs.”

Cole thought for a minute, then nodded slowly as a couple of things clicked into place. “The bookshelves you were painting in your garage.” The smell still lingered, a combination of burnt cinnamon, fresh urethane and paint thinner—but either his olfactory sense was numbed or the stench was starting to fade.

She nodded. “I thought I’d better refinish them now so that they’ll be thoroughly dry by the time my upstairs gets finished so I can move my downstairs upstairs and move the shelves into these two rooms and start restocking.”

Okay. He had the general picture now. “You want to show me what you have in mind?” He hadn’t committed himself to anything.

Marty rubbed her right thumb and forefinger together as she considered whether to show him her drawings first or take him upstairs. She’d burned off her fingerprints, which might come in handy in case she couldn’t get her bookstore reopened in time and was forced to turn to a life of crime.

“Come on, I’ll show you upstairs first so you’ll understand my drawings better. You might as well know, you’re not the first builder to apply for the job. The others turned it down.”

“Any particular reason?” he asked.

Conscious of him just behind her, she made a serious effort not to move her hips any more than she had to. Too much stress was obviously affecting her brain. Just because she’d noticed practically everything about him, from his tarnished brass eyes to the worn areas of his jeans to the way they hugged his quads and glutes and…well, whatever—that didn’t mean he was aware of her in any physical sense.

Sasha would have had a field day if she could’ve tuned in on Marty’s thoughts. Her friend was always after her to add a little more vitamin S to her diet. Vitamin sex. “Maybe then,” she was fond of saying, “you’d get a decent night’s sleep and not be a zombie until noon.”

She wasn’t that bad. Just because she wasn’t a morning person—

He’d asked her a question. He was waiting for an answer. Kick in, brain—it’s four-thirty in the afternoon! “Reason why they didn’t work out? Well, one never showed up, and the next two, once they found out what I wanted done, told me I was wasting their time. Oh, and one of them said he could only work on weekends because the rest of the time he worked with a building crew at Nags Head.” She hadn’t yet mentioned the time constraints, but that shouldn’t be a problem. It wasn’t a major job, after all. Not like starting from scratch and building a house.

“So—here it is.” She waved a hand in the general direction of the upstairs hall and the spare bedroom, which she planned to move into so that the larger bedroom could become her living room.

She had painted up here less than two years ago. She’d chosen yellow with white trim on the theory that sunshine colors would help kick-start her brain when she stumbled out of bed and staggered to the bathroom early in the morning.

While he looked around, tapping on walls, studying the ceiling, Marty told herself that it would get done. It was going to work. Her life was not in free fall—it only felt that way because time was wasting. She kept racing her engines but not getting anywhere.

Following him around, she tried not to get her hopes up—tried not to be distracted by the fact that he smelled like leather and something spicy and resinous, and that he looked like—

Well, never mind what he looked like. That had nothing to do with anything except that her social life had been seriously neglected for too long.

They were standing beside the closet she wanted taken out and turned into part of a new kitchen when he said, “You want to show me your drawings now?”

There was plenty of room. It was only her imagination that made it feel as if the walls were shrinking, pushing them closer together. Breathlessly, she said, “Come on, then, but remember, I’m not an architect. You can get the general idea, though.” Turning away from her yellow walls, she was aware again of how early it grew dark in late January—especially on cloudy days. “I’ll make us some coffee,” she said. Heck, she’d cook him a five-course dinner if that was what it took to get him to agree.

Marty saw him glance into the spare bedroom where she’d stored dozens of boxes of paperback books, plus the bulletin boards where she used to tack up cover flats, bookmarks and autographed photos. She hated clutter, always had, and now she was wallowing in the stuff. As Faylene, the housekeeper she could no longer afford, would have said, “You buttered your bread, now lie in it.”

Hmm…alone, or with company?




Two


“They’re there on the coffee table,” Marty said, leaving Cole to look over her plans while she started a pot of coffee. Too late to wish she’d taken time while they were upstairs to pull her hair back with a scrunchy and put on some shoes—and maybe add a dab of her new tinted, coconut-flavored lip balm. Not that she was vain, but darn it, her feet were cold.

Okay, so he was attractive. He wasn’t all that attractive. Not that she had a type, but if she did, he wasn’t it. She’d been married at eighteen to Alan, whose mother had left him this house. Whatever she’d seen in him hadn’t lasted much beyond the honeymoon, but as she’d desperately wanted a family, she’d stayed with him. After he’d been diagnosed with MS, leaving was out of the question.

A few years after Alan died she had gotten married again, this time to Beau Conrad, a smooth talker from a wealthy Virginia family—F.F.V., U.D.C. and D.A.R.—all the proper initials. Only, as it turned out, Beau was the black sheep of the family.

Looking back, she could truthfully say that both her husbands had been far handsomer than Cole Stevens. So what was so intriguing about shabby clothes, shaggy hair, and features that could best be described as rugged? Was she all that starved for masculine attention?

Evidently she was. When she’d first mentioned her building plans, Sasha had offered to buy her a stud-finder. Four-times-divorced Sasha, ever the optimist. It had taken Marty several minutes to realize that her friend wasn’t talking about one of those gadgets you used to find a safe place to hammer a nail into a wall.

“You see what I mean, don’t you?” she called now from the kitchen. There’d been no sounds from the living room for the past several minutes. “Where I want the closet taken out and added to the back wall to make room for a couple of counters and whatever else I need for a small kitchen.” She could mention the plumbing and wiring later. She didn’t want to scare him off until she had him on the hook. She was rapidly running out of time. If it didn’t happen with this one, she might not make the deadline, in which case she might as well have a humongous yard sale, sell off her remaining stock and then look for a job in an area where there weren’t any. Either that or pull up stakes and move, which wasn’t an option. The closest thing to roots she had was this house. Beau had tried to force her to sell it, but she’d held out. God knows, it was about the only thing of hers he hadn’t forced her to sell. The paintings and antiques he’d inherited from his own family had been sold off soon after they’d married, along with the few nice things she’d been able to accumulate.

Damn his lying, thieving hide. She hoped wherever he was now, he was married to some bimbo who would take him for every cent he had.

Marty laid a Tole tray with two mugs, sugar, half-and-half and a plate of biscotti. As a bribe, it wasn’t much, but at the moment it was the best she could do.

“Of course, I guess I could always get a camp stove and a dorm refrigerator,” she said as she joined him in the living room. “It’s not like I did a lot of entertaining.”

No comment. Was that a good sign or a bad sign? At least he hadn’t walked out after seeing her drawings. The stick figures might have been overkill. Occasionally in moments of desperation she got carried away.

“I guess we need to discuss money,” she said, searching his face for a clue. If knocking out a wall or two and putting in a kitchen on the second floor was going to cost too much, she might have to—

Might have to do what? Open her bookstore in the garage? It wasn’t even insulated, much less heated.

So then what, rob a bank? Get a loan? She hated debt with a vengeance, having been in it for one reason or another most of her adult life.

He’d taken off his leather bomber jacket. Good sign or not?

Who knows. The Sphinx was a chatterbox compared to Cole Stevens. He wore a faded blue oxford-cloth dress shirt with frayed collar, and turned back his cuffs to reveal a pair of bronzed, muscular forearms lightly furred with dark, wiry hair. She couldn’t help but notice his hands, but then, she always noticed a man’s hands. They said almost as much about him as his shoes. Shoes were something she had noticed ever since hearing her friend Daisy, who was a geriatric nurse, talk about this doctor who wore neat three-piece suits and silk ties, but whose nails were dirty and whose shoes were always in need of a polish. It turned out that for years he’d been killing off his elderly patients.

Okay, so his carpenter’s deck shoes weren’t the kind you polished. They were old, but obviously top-of-the-line. He had nice hands with clean nails, and she liked the way he handled her drawing pad, treating it as though the drawings had real value.

How would those hands feel on a woman’s body? It had been so long….

Breathe through your mouth, idiot, your brain’s obviously starved for oxygen!

She waited for him to speak—to say either “This looks doable,” or “No thanks, I’ll pass.” The faded blue of his shirt made his skin look tan, which made his hair look even lighter on top and darker underneath. She was almost positive the tan was real and not the product of a bottle. Sasha, who was a hair person, could tell in a minute, but Marty didn’t want Sasha to get even a glimpse of this guy. Her redheaded friend was a Pied Piper where men were concerned, and Marty intended to keep this one around for as long as it took.

For as long as it took for what?

To finish the job on schedule, fool!

“I didn’t know if you took anything in your coffee,” she said when he finally glanced up.

Despite a lap full of drawings, he’d made an effort to rise when she’d come in. She’d shaken her head, indicating that he should sit. Obediently, he’d sat, knees spread apart so that what Sasha called his “package” was evident.

You are not having a hot flash! You’re nowhere near ready for menopause!

“Black’s fine,” he said, and took a sip of coffee.

“I could open another window. The rain’s let up,” she said. The odor inside was still pretty awful.

“No need,” he said, and went on studying her drawings.

Hopefully he hadn’t noticed her burning cheeks. “The stick figures are silly, I know,” she said in a rush. “I was just doodling. Sort of—you know, illustrating me washing dishes, leaning over to use the under-the-counter fridge. Anything you don’t understand, I can explain.” That is, she could if she could manage to get her brain back online.

“They’re clear enough. Thing is,” he said, “this right here is a weight-bearing wall. I’ll need to leave at least three feet of it, but then I can open your entryway right here and shift this wall down to here.”

She forced her eyes to focus on the area he was indicating instead of his pointer finger. Then, because they needed to share the same vantage point if they were to discuss her drawings, Marty left her platform rocker and settled onto the sofa beside him.

Even without the bomber jacket he smelled sort of leathery with intriguing overtones. Salt water, sunshine and one of those subtle aftershave lotions that were babe magnets.

“Mmm, what was that?”

“I said the space can be better utilized if you don’t mind using part of the closet for your range and oven. Stacking units would fit.”

Marty realized their shoulders were touching—in fact, she was leaning against him. She sat up straight, but as he outweighed her by at least fifty pounds, she had to struggle to overcome the slope of the cushion.

Damn sofa. She’d never liked the thing, anyway. Sasha had bought it at a huge discount for a customer who also hadn’t liked it, so she’d let Marty have it at cost.

“Well,” she said brightly, wriggling her butt away from his until she could hang on to the padded arm. “Uh, there are a couple more things we need to talk about. That is, if you’re still interested in taking the job.”



Cole flexed his shoulders and tried not to breathe too deeply. Yeah, he was still interested in taking on the job. Construction jobs were plentiful all up and down the nearby Outer Banks, but then, Muddy Landing was undergoing a small building boom as more and more Virginians moved south of the border. And while wages might be higher on the Banks, working conditions, especially in January, could be a lot worse. Climbing all over a three-story building some fifty or more feet above ground level, with a howling wind threatening to blow him out into the Atlantic? No, thanks. If he had to relearn the building trade after more than a decade in management, he’d sooner start out in a slightly more protected environment, even if his employer did happen to be a bit of a flake.

“The first man who answered my ad told me the job was a boondoggle. I’m not exactly sure what he meant. Actually, I’m not even sure what a boondoggle is, and words are my business—in a manner of speaking. Something to do with the government, I guess.”

Cole had to smile—something he hadn’t done too much of in the recent past. “I think it’s a general description of most bureaucracies. You mentioned time constraints?” He reached for another biscotti—his third. The things were meant for dunking, but he figured he didn’t know her well enough for dunking, so he bit off a chunk and tried to catch the crumbs in the palm of his hand.

“Right. There’s this deadline,” she said earnestly. “New zoning laws go into effect the middle of March, and unless I’m in business before then, I won’t be grandfathered. That means—”

“I know what it means.”

“Yes, well—of course you do. See, there are already several businesses in the neighborhood, but they won’t allow any new ones to open after the fifteenth.”

She hooked her bare toes on the edge of the coffee table, then dropped them to the floor again. She kept rubbing her thumb and forefinger together like a crapshooter calling up his mojo. Her eyes darted to the clock, and she bit her lip.

“Ms. Owens, are you sure this is what you want to do? Tear up your house so you can open—what, a bookstore?”

“I have to,” she said simply. Then, with another glance at the clock, she quickly explained about Marty’s New and Used. “Up until last fall I rented a two-room cinder-block building that used to be a garage and a bait-and-tackle shop and some other things. Anyway, the rent was cheap enough and the location was okay, I guess, but the income still couldn’t keep up with the overhead. Some days I didn’t even sell a single book.” She gave up rubbing her fingers and folded her hands together, resting them on her knees. Her toes were back on the coffee table. “So I thought if I reopened here, I’d at least save the rent because I own my house. It’s all paid off. My first husband inherited it from his mama.”

Whoa. Her first husband? He was nowhere near ready to share personal histories.

The third time he caught her looking at the clock he asked her if she had a problem.

“Not really, but there’s this dog I walk twice a day. I’m running late today because I was waiting for—”

She hesitated, and he filled in the blanks. She’d been waiting for him to show up.

“For the rain to stop,” she finished.

The rain had stopped. A few chinks of salmon-pink sunset broke through the dark clouds.

Cole said, “Then why don’t I leave you to it? I need to run a few errands if I’m going to stick around the area.”

She looked so hopeful, he could have kicked himself. They hadn’t even reached a concrete agreement yet.

“Are you? Going to stick around, I mean? Like I said, if things don’t work out just right, I’m stuck with a garage full of bookshelves and a spare room filled with thousands of used paperbacks.”

“Two things we still need to talk about—your deadline and my wages.”

Looking entirely too hopeful, she said, “When can you give me an estimate?”

If he didn’t watch it, Cole told himself, those big gray eyes of hers were going to influence his decision. That was no way to start rebuilding a career. “How about we both think it over tonight and I come back first thing in the morning with an estimate. If we reach an agreement, I can start right away. I should be able to bring it in on schedule, depending on how much time you need after the job’s completed.”

They both stood. Her eyes and her ivory complexion and delicate features called to mind the word fragile, yet he had a feeling she was nowhere near as fragile as she looked.

She said, “Come for breakfast. You’re not organic or vegan or anything like that, are you?”

“Methodist, but sort of lapsed,” he replied gravely, and heard a gurgle of laughter that invited a like response. He managed to hold it to a brief smile.

They agreed on a time and she saw him to the door and said she’d see him in the morning. It sounded more like a question than a statement, but he didn’t reply. He had some serious thinking to do before he made a commitment. One thing for certain—he was nowhere near ready for retirement. As to what he was going to do with the rest of his life and where he was going to do it, that was still up for grabs.



Standing in the doorway, Marty watched as the most intriguing man she’d met in years adjusted his steps to her flagstones. She sighed. What a strikingly attractive man—and yet he wasn’t really handsome. It was something else. Something in the way he carried himself, the way he…

Maybe Sasha was right and she was seriously deficient when it came to vitamin S.



Mutt was all over her the minute she opened his gate at the kennel. His owners, the Hallets, who lived three streets over in the development that had grown up around Alan’s mother’s old house back in the seventies, were on a two-week cruise out of Norfolk. Marty was being paid to pick Mutt up twice a day for a run, as the space provided by the boarding kennel hardly sufficed for a big, shaggy clown that looked as if he might be part St. Bernard, part Clydesdale.

“Whoa, get off my foot, you big ox.” She managed to snap on his choke collar while he did his best to trip her up. He’d started barking the minute he saw her, and didn’t let up until she opened the front door. Then he nearly pulled her off her feet trying to get outside.

She gave him a full half hour because that was what she’d agreed to do. Not a minute less, but not a minute more this time because she had to have him back by six when the kennel closed for the day. If she missed the deadline she’d have no choice but to take the crazy dog home with her, and that would be disastrous.

There had to be an easier way to earn money. If she were a diver she could drive to Manteo to the aquarium every day and scrub the alligators or maybe floss the sharks’ teeth. Unfortunately, her marketable skills weren’t all that impressive in a town where, other than flipping hamburgers, jobs were practically handed down from father to son. None of Muddy Landing’s farming, fishing and hunting applied to her.

Maybe she and Sasha could start charging for their matchmaking services. Practically everyone in town knew what they were up to, anyway. It was no big secret; they’d been at it too long. They’d been good at it, too—Daisy, Sasha and Marty, with occasional input from Faylene, the housekeeper they’d all shared for years until Marty had gone out of business and Daisy had unexpectedly fallen in love with a good-looking guy who’d come east in search of his roots. A nurse and easily the most sensible of the trio, Daisy had fallen head over heels and ended up marrying Kell and moving to Oklahoma.

Marty and her friends had been good at it, though—all the planning and finagling it took to bring two people together. Three of their most recent matches had actually ended in marriage and two more couples were still involved.

Of course, there’d been a few spectacular failures, too, but it had been great fun. Mostly they’d been forgiven their blunders.

But Sasha was up to her ears in her latest decorating project, so matchmaking was taking a time-out. “And that just leaves me,” Marty panted as she struggled to hang on to the end of the leash. She was wearing out her last pair of cross-trainers trying to keep up with Super Mutt. “Slow down, will you? Let me catch my breath!”

If she hurried, she might get home before he left for the day.

Right. Looking like she’d just finished a five-mile run. That would really impress the heck out of Cole, wouldn’t it?



By the time Cole got back to the small marina with a take-out supper consisting of barbecue, fries, hush puppies and slaw, the last vestige of daylight had faded. And second thoughts were stacking up fast. Not about the work itself, although it had been a while since he’d done any actual construction work. That wasn’t what had him worried.

As he stepped aboard his aged thirty-one-foot cabin cruiser, he waved to Bob Ed, who was outside sorting through a stack of decoys under the mercury-vapor security light.

The friendly guide called across the intervening space, “You see her?”

“I saw her.”

“Ya gonna do it?”

“We’re still negotiating,” Cole called back.

Nodding, Bob Ed went back to checking out his canvasbacks. He was a man of few words. Which was just as well, Cole thought, amused, as Bob Ed’s better half appeared to be a woman of many. Cole had met her only briefly, but she’d made an indelible impression.

What bothered him, Cole admitted to himself once he was inside, the lights on and his small space heater thawing out the damp cold, was the Owens woman. Or rather, his reaction to her. Before meeting her he would have sworn he was permanently immunized. Trouble was, Marty Owens and Paula Weyrich Stevens, his high-maintenance ex-wife, were two different species. If Paula had ever lifted a hand to do anything more strenuous than polish her nails, he’d missed it. Even for that she usually depended on a manicurist. Paula’s idea of a perfect day started at noon with a three-daiquiri lunch at the club, followed by a shopping marathon, followed by dinner out with whatever poor sucker she could reel in to escort her while her poor slob of a husband worked late. Actually, Cole had been consumed those late nights with digging into the mess at Weyrich, Inc.

Marty Owens, on the other hand, varnished bookshelves in her spare time and tried to cover the smell by setting a pan of cinnamon on fire. She walked a friend’s dog—at least, Cole assumed she did it for a friend. If she was hard up enough to do it for money, she probably couldn’t afford the remodeling job she wanted done.

On the other hand, if she didn’t get it done, what would happen to her business? Reading between the lines, he could only conclude that she was pretty close to the edge. And, like a certain ex-builder he could name, looking for the best way to revive a career that had collapsed through no fault of her own.

Not that he could swear to that last, but from what he’d seen so far, Ms. Owens was industrious, intelligent and not afraid to get her hands dirty. The fact that she was also sexy without making a big deal out of it wasn’t a factor in any decision he might make. No way.

Definitely not.

As for the demise of his own career, Cole freely accepted the blame. All he’d had to do was turn a blind eye to what he’d uncovered—the good-old-boy bidding system, the under-the-table payoffs, the shoddy workmanship that had eventually resulted in three deaths and a number of injuries when the second floor of a parking garage collapsed due to insufficient reinforcement.

Oh, yeah, he’d blown the whistle on Joshua Weyrich, but by that time his marriage to Paula was washed up anyway. Looking back, about the only thing he and Paula had ever had in common was a serious case of raging hormones. Once that had died a natural death, there’d been nothing left to sustain a relationship. The only reason they’d stayed together as long as they had was that breaking up required more time and energy than either of them was willing to spend.

But once he’d blown the whistle on her father, détente had ended. He had gladly ceded to Paula the showy house they’d been given as a wedding present, plus all furnishings, including the baby grand piano she didn’t play, the art collection she never bothered to look at and a bunch of custom-made furniture designed not for comfort but to impress.

With the help of a good lawyer, Cole had managed to keep his boat, his old Guild guitar, his fishing gear and roughly half his investments—which was all he really needed. He considered himself damn lucky to walk away with that much.

Now he looked around for a place to set his supper. The fold-down table was covered with fishing tackle. He made room for the take-out plate and a cold beer, shucked off his shoes and slid onto the bench. To say his living quarters were compact was putting it generously, but then, he didn’t need much space. The wet slip, utilities included, cost a lot less than he’d been paying at his old place on the Chesapeake Bay.

He turned on the twelve-inch TV and caught up on the news while he ate. When the talking heads turned to the latest celebrity trial, Cole’s thoughts drifted back to the woman he’d just met. After hearing about the job prospect from Bob Ed and his lady, Ms. Beasley—mostly from the lady—he hadn’t known what to expect. Julia Roberts with big gray eyes and a brown squirrel’s nest dripping down her back didn’t fit the image he’d conjured up when he’d spoken with her briefly on the phone.

When she’d asked to see his references, he’d mentioned Bob Ed.

“Any reason why I should trust your word?” she’d asked.

The answer, of course, was that she shouldn’t—but if she didn’t know it, he wasn’t about to tell her. If he’d learned one thing from the mess he’d been involved in over the past eighteen months, it was to listen to his instincts.

And right now his internal weather vane was telling him there was more at stake here than just a chance to see if he could still do the work. Without bothering to think further, he grabbed a paper napkin and started listing the tools he’d need to buy.

Halfway through the list his mind began to wander, distracted by thoughts of a pair of gray eyes, and the way they could go so quickly from suspicion to amusement to…interest?




Three


Sasha showed up for breakfast with a box of Krispy Kremes and a copy of Architectural Digest. “Check out page sixty-eight and think about the color scheme for your front room. I’m headed to Norfolk—just thought I’d stop by on my way.” Her cheeks were pink from exposure to the damp, cold air, her eyes avid for anything that even hinted at romance.

While Marty was still trying to nudge her brain awake, her early morning visitor planted beringed fists on her rounded hips and said, “Let’s hear it. Start from the first and don’t leave out anything. If he’s as prime as Faylene says he is, we might want to add him to our list. Is he taller than five-ten? Because Lily Sullivan over on Chelsea Circle is at least that. She towers over me, even in my new green Jimmys. I’m thinking of finding someone shorter to do my taxes. It’s bad enough to be intimidated by the IRA without—” She blinked a battery of fake lashes and said plaintively, “Wha-a-at? Oh, Lord, you’re still sleepwalking, aren’t you.”

Still wading through her usual morning fog, Marty refused to be intimidated by the five-foot-three-inch steamroller. “Look, I’ve got a date with a dog, so make this fast. Exactly what do you mean by ‘prime,’ and what difference does it make what he looks like?”

“Actually, none, I guess. We just thought—that is, Faye said—and I was thinking that if he was going to be hanging around long enough to destroy your second floor and put it back together again, he might like to join in a few social activities. You know what they say, ‘all work and no play’?”

Marty sighed. “It bugs you, doesn’t it? The fact that somewhere in three counties there’s a competent, independent woman who gets along perfectly without the benefit of a man. Did it ever occur to you that some of us like our lives just fine the way they are?”

The redheaded interior designer tried looking innocent and gave it up as a lost cause. “You’re talking like you never did any matchmaking. How about Clarice and Eddie? How about Sadie Glover down at the ice-cream parlor and—”

“How about stuffing a doughnut in it?” Marty poured coffee, adding half-and-half—which her guest called diet cream—to both mugs. “Mutt’s waiting, so eat fast.”

“Gross. Do you have one of those scoopy things in case he does his business in somebody’s yard?”

Marty rolled her eyes. “Sash, I really need to get this job done in record time, and once y’all start messing around with my carpenter, you’re going to scare him off—so quit it, okay? Just knock it off. At least wait until I’m finished with him.”

Sasha began licking the sugar coating off another doughnut. “Just thinking about poor lonesome Lily, that’s all. I ran into her at the post office the other day and she happened to mention that she hadn’t had a date since last summer.”

“Just happened to mention it, huh? Like you didn’t pry it out of her with a crowbar?”

“Would I do that? Anyway, we’re running short of bachelors and I thought I’d get your take on whatshisname, your new carpenter. So? What’s he like? Faylene says he’s a hunk.”

“Dreadlocks, whiskers, ragged Brooks Brothers shirt, worn-out L.L. Bean shoes and no calluses. Which probably means he buys his clothes at a thrift shop using money he stole instead of working for it.”

“You jest.” Sasha licked her fingers, showing off inch-long nails and a glittering array of jewelry.

“I jest not. I might exaggerate now and then—I might even occasionally speculate—but please, Sash, don’t go trying to distract my carpenter. He’s my last chance.”

“No problem, hon, he’s all yours during business hours. Did you say he was tall?”

“Let’s just say he’s taller than you are.”

“Everybody over the age of twelve is taller than I am. Is he good looking?” She wriggled her generous curves. “Faye says—”

Marty hesitated just a second too long, and Sasha pounced. “He is! Admit it, you’re hot for him and you don’t want him exposed to Lily until you’ve had time to make an impression on him yourself.”

“Will you stop it? It’s nothing like that! He’s supposed to come by to give me an estimate early this morning, and I’ve got to walk Mutt first and get back here—so if you don’t mind, you need to leave now and so do I. Five minutes ago, in fact.”

Sasha grinned, her eyes sparkling like faceted gemstones. Today they were aquamarine. Tomorrow, they might be topaz or sapphire. The woman had never met an artifice she didn’t adore, regardless of the time of day.

Marty, on the other hand, was barely able to find her mouth with a toothbrush, even after she’d stood under the shower for five minutes. A morning person she was not. The time had long since come and gone when she could stay up half the night reading and wake up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the crack of dawn.

“Look, just let me get him on the hook and then you and Faye can have your way with him. All I want is his skills.”

“What else is there?” the redhead murmured.

“His carpentry skills!” Marty all but shouted.

“Shh, calm down, honey—no need to get all excited. You can have him during working hours, but Faylene and I want whatever’s left over for Lily. She needs a little R ’n’ R before the tax rush starts. We tried Egbert on her, but it didn’t work out.”

In the middle of a jaw-cracking yawn, Marty had to laugh. She edged her best friend toward the front door. “No kidding. I wonder why?”

“Hey, when you’re wired for one-ten, you don’t go fooling around with two-twenty. I learned that from husband number two, the electrical engineer.”

“I thought number two was the con man.”

“Aren’t they all?” Sasha called cheerfully over her shoulder.

Marty watched her friend sashay down the flagstone walk hitting about every third flagstone, not even bothering to look where she was going. That was Sasha—stiletto heels, red leggings and faux fur at a quarter of eight on a cold, gray Monday morning, leaving in her wake a trail of Nettie Rosenstein’s Odalisque. She might look purely ornamental, but when she was on a job, she worked harder than any woman Marty knew—including Faylene, Muddy Landing’s unchallenged queen of housecleaning.

As soon as the red Lexus convertible disappeared around the corner, Marty grabbed a coat and a pair of gloves. Cole had said he’d be here between eight-thirty and nine, which barely gave her enough time for Mutt’s half-hour gallop.

“You’ll make it, easy,” she assured herself as she waited for her cold engine to turn over. “Think positive,” that was her motto. It had to be, because any negative thinking might send her into a serious decline.

There were several doughnuts left in the box. Still breathless from the dog walk—or in Mutt’s case, dog gallop—Marty left them on the table as she hurriedly washed the mugs and turned them down in the dish drainer. A moment later she heard the truck pull into the driveway behind her minivan, which meant she’d run out of time. Her hair was a wild, windblown tangle, her nose and cheeks red from the cold, and there was no time to dash upstairs for a quick fix.

Probably just as well. No point in giving him the wrong impression. Inhaling deeply of the air that now smelled only faintly of varnish and burnt spice, she braced herself for bad news. It was called hedging her bets. Deliberately not getting her hopes up. If so-and-so happens, she always reasoned, I can always do such-and-such, and if that doesn’t work out, I’ll just fall back on my contingency plan.

What contingency plan? This was her contingency plan.

She opened the front door before he could knock. “Good morning, have you had breakfast?”

He raised his eyebrows. They were almost, but not quite black. Thick, but not unkempt. “Did I misunderstand? I thought—”

Oh, shoot. She’d told him to come by for breakfast. “The bacon’s ready to pop in the frying pan, the eggs ready to scramble and there’s doughnuts to start with. Toss your coat on the bench or hang it on the rack and come on into the kitchen.”

Oh, my mercy, he looked even better than she remembered! She was no expert, but after two husbands and several near misses, she’d learned a few things about men. For instance, she knew the really handsome ones were about as deep as your average oil slick, having spent a lifetime getting by on their looks. Cole Stevens wasn’t that handsome. Whatever it was that made him stand out from all the men she’d ever met, it was far more potent than a pleasant arrangement of features.

“Do you have a phone where I can reach you if I need to?” she asked.

He gave her his cell phone number and she hastily scratched it down on the bottom of a grocery list. Then he followed her into the kitchen.

“Warming up out there,” he said. It wasn’t.

“Spring’s on the way,” she replied. It wasn’t. “Where are you staying, in case something comes up and I need to reach you?”

“At this place down by the river. Bob Ed’s. I thought I mentioned it yesterday—I’m living aboard my boat at the moment.”

Right. Bob Ed and Faylene had sent him, after all. There’d been a few distractions yesterday, including the man himself.

“Isn’t it cold?”

“Yep.”

And that was the end of that…unless she wanted to invite him to move into her warm, insulated house, which wasn’t even a distant possibility.

Back to business. “How long do you think it will take to tear out what needs tearing out and turn my upstairs hall into a kitchen?” She placed three strips of bacon in a frying pan and turned on the burner. At the first whiff of smoke she remembered to turn on the fan. The cover and batteries for her smoke detector were still on the counter where she’d left them.

Spotting them, Cole replaced the batteries and clicked the cover in place.

Marty smiled her thanks. “I was just getting ready to do that,” she lied.

“As to the tear-down, it shouldn’t take more than a day or two.”

Was that a yes, he’d do it, or an answer to a rhetorical question? Forcing herself not to sound too eager, she said, “That sounds great.”

He stood beside the table staring out the window, his hands tucked halfway into the hip pockets of his jeans as the tantalizing aroma of frying bacon filled the room.

“Forecast is calling for more rain,” he said.

Marty glanced over her shoulder. Oh my, honey, I hate to tell you this, but those jeans are a little overcrowded. “It’ll be February in a few more days, and after that, March—that’s when spring starts for real. Of course, we get those Hatteras Lows that can hang around for days, beating the devil out of any blossom that dares show its face.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured.

Mr. Enigma. The fact that Marty tried not to look at him again didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of him with every cell in her undernourished body.

She took up the bacon and placed the strips on a folded paper towel. Whipping a dab of salsa con queso into the eggs, she tried to focus her mind on the estimate and not on the man. The fact that he’d showed up meant he was ready to talk business. Whether or not she could afford him without taking out a loan remained to be seen.

“Have a seat. D’you need to wash up first? The bathroom’s upstairs—but you know that, of course. Or you can use the sink down here if you’d rather. The hand towel’s clean—or there’s paper.”

Excuse me and my big, blathering mouth, I always talk like this when I’m on the verge of losing my mind.

A few minutes later, Marty popped two slices of bread in the toaster and filled two plates. Cole had excused himself and gone upstairs, either to wash up or to take another look at the job before committing himself. Thank goodness she’d made her bed as soon as she’d crawled out of it. Was her gown hanging behind the bathroom door? Had she put the cap back on the toothpaste?

Well, shoot, did it matter? At least she was wearing shoes and socks today. He had no way of knowing she just happened to be wearing the only pair of jeans she’d ever owned that cost more than a hundred bucks. She’d bought them on sale two years ago, just to prove something or other to Sasha—she’d forgotten now what it was.

“I’ve got strawberry jam, marmalade and homemade fig preserves,” she told her guest when he came back downstairs. “Help yourself.”

Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, that was her motto. He would hardly eat her food if he intended to turn down the job, now would he? Or price himself out of the market. Unless he was broke and hungry or totally lacking in ethics.

He might be broke, and he was certainly hungry, judging by the way he was packing away his breakfast—but she’d be willing to bet on his ethics. Something about the way he looked her square in the eye told her that much.

Right. And Beau hadn’t looked her in the eye and lied like a rug?





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