Kaz stuck his hands in his pockets and looked the dog over from the ripped-up ears, the scars over his face and body, and his missing hind leg. “Bait dog?”
Tynan frowned. “Yup. From that dog-fighting ring they broke up six months ago over in Winslow County. Maybe I should cancel my camping trip.”
“Don’t cancel your trip.” Kaz jingled his keys in his pockets.
Tynan looked down at Houdini, wondering who was a bigger mess, him or the dog. He knew he couldn’t cancel his camping trip because it was the only way he could get through the anniversary of the darkest day of his life.
“I’ll just come stay at your place with him instead of trying to keep him at mine. It’ll be fine.” He gave a nod and headed down the driveway toward his own truck. “But maybe cut me some slack and change the lock on your kitchen door before then.”
“Will do.” He nodded, and then he and Houdini watched Kaz drive away. “All right, Houdini, let’s go hang out and review the rules of the house, shall we? Number one: This is your home; no one will ever hurt you again. Number two: We’re bachelors. That means I get to leave the toilet seat up and you can sleep on any couch or chair in the house. Number three: Dogs stay safely indoors while the master is away….”
Chapter 2
“Well, hell, you’re a woman.” Tynan Cates narrowed his gaze at Lu.
Her new boss’s formidable frown had Lu second-guessing her plan. Then again, she’d already broken the eggs; she might as well go ahead and finish making the omelet. So full steam ahead.
“What gave me away? Was it the breasts? Because they aren’t very big and hardly get in the way at all. I mean, no more than your dick, I’m guessing.” Crap. How had Lu forgotten she yammered when she was nervous? “Not that I’m saying you have a small…uh…tool…or anything.”
Tynan’s brows lowered and his gaze hardened. Whoa. Someone’s sensitive. No more talk about his dick. His odd-colored eyes pinned her to her spot. Two different-colored eyes. One an intense blue and the other mostly green with some flecks of brown. They were so unique it was hard to stop staring at them.
The photo in the paper didn’t do the man justice. It didn’t capture the energy that surrounded him. Or his size. He was big. And muscular. Just a hard, badass-looking dude. A man who looked like he didn’t take shit from anyone, and here she was planning to shovel some his way.
“Your name sure didn’t give you away or I’d never have agreed to hire you sight unseen.” Tynan shook his head and scowled some more.
She heard the annoyance in his voice, but she was a little annoyed herself. “Whoa. This sounds a lot like discrimination. Where’s a lawyer when I need one?”
“I’m a lawyer.” The man standing next to Tynan grinned at her. He reached out to shake her hand. “I’m Paxton Cates, the possible defendant’s brother.”
“Is that why you showed up this morning? You and Sijan thought this would be funny?”
“Pretty much.” Paxton winked over at her. She could see the resemblance: dark hair, square jaw, good-looking. Only this brother had green eyes and didn’t look like he knew how to kill someone seventy-three different ways with a paper clip.
Tynan shook his head and flicked the paper on the clipboard in his hand. “I filled out this form when you called. You said your name was Lou. And your voice sounded deeper.”
“My name is Lu. Short for Lulubelle.” Joe hadn’t called her Lulubelle since she’d kicked him in the shin in fifth grade, so that sliver of truth was safe to reveal. She cleared her throat and forced her eyes to meet his. Steady, like she wasn’t about to lie her butt off about everything else. “And I had a bad chest cold when I talked to you.”
“Sure you did.” The frown said he wasn’t buying it.
“Sijan said she’s been in a mentoring program over in Half Moon, isn’t that right, Lu? So why don’t you let her show you what she can do?”
“I know a few people in the business in Half Moon.” Tynan’s gaze held hers as he tapped the clipboard with his thumb. “Who’d you mentor with?”
Crap. All she could think of were the names of famous chefs. “Bobby Flay.”
Paxton’s eyes widened, but Tynan just lowered the clipboard and tapped it against his leg while he apparently ran the name through his mental contacts list. “Huh. I don’t know him, but aren’t you a little old for the mentoring program? According to your application, you’re twenty-six.”
“Late bloomer.”
“No kidding. Have you gone through puberty yet?”
“Hey, it’s really uncool and possibly sexual harassment to comment on the size of my breasts.”
“I agree. I was talking about your height, short stack. What are you, five foot nothing? The two-by-fours are twice as big as you. I can’t picture you carrying a stack of them up to the third floor.”
Well, heck, neither could she. “So I’ll take them one at a time. I’m excellent with a hammer and probably every saw you have, nail guns, glue guns, whatever. Name it and I can do it.”
“Tile?”
She’d watched someone tile on TV once and thought it looked a lot like when she made gingerbread houses at the bakery every December. “Sure.”
“Framing?”
Had to be similar to building up the layered tiers of a wedding cake, right? “Uh-huh.”
“Plasterwork?”
Pfft. Like icing a cake. “I’m your guy. Um, so to speak.”
“Glad to hear it.” He didn’t sound glad. “Okay, you get a two-week trial period to prove you can handle the work. Go ahead and grab your tools. We’re all meeting in ten minutes by the head librarian’s desk to discuss— oh hell, tell me those aren’t your tools.”
“They’re not my tools.” Darn it. She should’ve stopped at the hardware store, but once she came up with the idea of tracking down Tynan Cates’s smiling face, she hadn’t let anything slow her down. And she had this set of pink Martha Stewart tools her mother had given her for her birthday a few years ago. The best defense was a good offense and a really good lie. “Look, mister. Mine got stolen out of my car last week. Are you going to hold that against me too?”
“No. But if you can’t pull your weight around here, you’re gone. And the fact that you have breasts will have nothing to do with it.”
“That’s fine with me. I’ll just go wait in the library with the other guys.” She walked away with a stiff back, holding her breath in case he had rabbit ears and heard her sigh of relief. Wow, she’d heard that photos revealed the truth, but she was beginning to have her doubts. She couldn’t imagine Tynan Cates, aka Mr. Short-Flat-Chested-Women-with-Pink Hammers-Need-Not-Apply-to-My-Manly-Man-Job cracking a grin without his face crumbling. He seemed just as miserable as she was.
Or maybe he was just born a butt-head.
Buy your copy today!
Also by Lee Kilraine
The Movie Star’s Fake #1 Fan (Cates Brothers #1)
Lying to Her Grumpy New Boss (Cates Brothers #3)
About the Author
Lee Kilraine is a RITA® and Golden Heart® Finalist. She lives in the pine woods of North Carolina. When she isn’t typing away at her computer with her golden retriever, Harley, destroying something at her feet, you might find her on her front porch swing plotting her next book while guarding her garden from a local gang of deer. She loves writing and reading small town contemporary romance stories with a Happily Ever After. And if they make her laugh...well, that's perfect.
Find out more about Lee and her books at leekilraine.com
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Still Crushing on His Best Friend’s Older Sister: Cates Brothers # 2 Page 27