by Kris Pearson
Dammit, I shouldn’t even be interested.
She conceded the land area was ideal—much wider than it was deep. Anton could certainly squeeze quite a number of apartments onto it. She bent over, considering colors. If he surfaced each a slightly different shade from its neighbors it would break up the frontage and add some individuality. Ivory, soft clay, oatmeal...maybe the palest watery green and subtle gold...
“Anton,” she called. “Have you chosen colors yet?”
“Coconut Milk with accents of Burmese Bronze,” he yelled, thumping about in the kitchen.
“For the lot?”
“Yup. Why?”
She heard his swift footfall, and he reappeared. The delicious fragrance of freshly ground coffee beans followed him into the bedroom.
“Typical of a man,” she sniffed. “One easy solution. Well, I’m still not the least bit interested in owning one...but—”
“Hmmmm?” he queried, leaning in far too close and sending her the same sizzling bone-melting grin he’d flashed at his tall, blonde girlfriend. Jetta was neither tall nor blonde, and a nasty unexpected jolt of jealousy had raced from her inky hair to her bright silver toenails as she’d peered through the jasmine at them.
As close as this it was one hell of a smile, and although it was difficult staying so near without flinching, something held her there.
“You need to individualize them a bit,” she said, tamping down the surge of unsettling attraction. “Make each a different shade from the one next door. They’re horrible they way they are. Far too intrusive in the streetscape.”
“Planners didn’t seem worried.”
“They don’t have to live in them. Heaven knows what the rest of the neighbors will feel. You should use some visual trickery to break up their size and blocky look. That might make your damn apartments more bearable. Only slightly though.”
His arm settled against hers on the plans, warm, muscular and tanned. He didn’t seem to notice, but Jetta certainly did. She had an overwhelming urge to inch aside, and she also wanted to press much closer. She concentrated on his arm and kept her eyes well away from his face.
He wore a chunky brushed-silver watch. There were scattered dark hairs on the back of his hand, and higher up on his forearm they were finer and felt soft. Her groin heated and moistened—attracted, turned-on, yearning—but she knew if Anton ran his fingers over her skin, her brain would stage a close-down and yet again it would be body nil, brain the winner.
She clenched her hand shut until her nails pressed hard into her palm. Why had that unexpected sexy tingle zinged through her?
Right through her.
She moved restlessly and pressed her thighs together to squash the effect away. Instead, the pulsing intensified into a delicious insistent beat.
Worse. Much, much worse.
She eased her legs apart again, but it really didn’t help. She began imagining things that might. Things involving Anton instead of Uncle Graham.
“I don’t want it to look like Toytown,” he objected after a few seconds consideration.
She attempted to drag her brain back to the task at hand, far too unsettled by the kiss of his flesh against hers, but somehow not willing to move away. “What?”
“The different colors.”
“Oh. Um—I’m not talking red-green-yellow. Use your common sense. Subtle shades. Soft earthy tones just to make them seem more like separate properties.”
His eyes locked with hers for a few moments, bright and blue and searching. “Nice. It’ll cost a bit extra, but we’ll do it.”
“Just like that?”
“I’m flexible—sometimes.” Again the wicked grin. “So you’ll sell yours instead of living there, but it’s full steam ahead now.”
A statement, not a question.
“No!” she exclaimed. “I haven’t agreed to anything. Nothing at all. I’ll have some coffee with you seeing you’ve made it now, but then I need to get back to my kitchen.”
“Our kitchen. I’ll give you a hand.”
“My kitchen. I don’t want a hand, thanks. I’m quite happy puddling around on my own.”
He didn’t react to that; simply turned and waved her out to a long sofa covered in pale grey suede. She breathed deeply, inhaling the rich coffee aroma, and enjoying the way the well-worn denim hugged his butt and long thighs as he returned to the kitchen. Then she heard the clink of china being set on a hard surface.
“The thing is,” he called through the doorway, “the demolition crew starts here on Tuesday. So I’ll need to move in with you on Monday night at the latest.”
Chapter Two — Finding ‘That Book’
“What!” she squealed, jolting upright, appalled at the thought of being alone and helpless with him. “You can’t move in with me. You absolutely can’t.”
Anton in pajamas? Does he even wear pajamas?
Anton sprawled on that huge bed in the room next to mine?
Tousle-haired and sleepy-eyed at breakfast? Bounding into the house after an early morning run? Bare chested and wearing shorts low on his sexy narrow hips?
Naked in my bathroom? A man?
She flushed hot, then turned icy cold. Beads of sweat broke out along her spine and started to trickle downward.
She was well-used to these familiar old symptoms—but not to the dark insistent pulse that stuttered to life deep inside her. Throbbing. Thrilling. Female. Tempting.
Damn—would her brain ever grant her the courage to truly relax with a man?
“You can’t,” she repeated weakly.
“Sorry, babes, but that’s the deal,” he said, arriving with two big brown cups full of killer coffee. He set them on the low table in front of the sofa. “All above board—don’t worry about that.”
Jetta shook her head, sick, confused and disoriented. How could she dissuade him?
“You’ve got three bedrooms, right?” he continued, dragging a matching grey suede footstool around in front of her and folding down onto it.
He was so close. With his legs parted like that, her gaze could do nothing but zero right in on the crotch seam of his jeans. A helpful ray of sun shone across him, emphasizing the snug bulge between his thighs. Jetta swallowed, both fascinated and repelled. It was impossible not to look.
Anton kept talking, showing no reaction to her discomfort. “One room for you, one for me, one for a temporary site office. But we need to make the place a bit more attractive.” He took a sip of his coffee. “So we’ll start by cleaning up that mess you’ve made in the kitchen. Have you got other stuff to throw out?”
Her head spun, and she tried to put the last half-hour into perspective.
First, her house was not truly hers.
Now she’d have to tell Bren and Hallie they couldn’t live with her after all.
Which meant she wouldn’t be going to New York yet to further her studies.
And on top of everything, Anton expected to move in when she was still so far from ready to share space with a man. Any man. Especially this man, who already had her brain spinning and her body sliding out of control.
With a supreme effort, she dragged her mind back to his question. Did she have other stuff to throw out? God, yes! She’d piled the third bedroom half-full of Gran’s old clothes and the worst of the furniture. All the things that were far too rubbishy to donate to the charity shop.
“Some,” she agreed.
“Okay, I’ll order a dumpster first thing Monday. And I’ll get some white paint onto the walls as soon as. Lighten the place up a bit like this. Your wallpaper looked pretty dire.”
“It’s very early Mason Handprint,” she retorted. “Expensive in its day.”
He grinned at her defense of it. “Its day has well and truly gone.”
“And you’d know all about that, would you? From the look of this place, you wouldn’t have a clue about heritage décor. That’s my specialty.” She peered around at the pristine walls. “Did you paint this?”
“Tape
d the edges, a day with a roller, and it cleaned up well,” he confirmed. “You tape next door and I’ll paint.”
“Not in my room, thanks.” The colors she’d been allowed to choose at fifteen after she’d arrived to live with Gran and Grandpa were still there. The memories were too strong to obliterate—even if one wall was the most spectacular out-of-date watermelon pink. She needed a big secure lock on that door for sure.
“How bad is the carpet?” he asked.
“You saw it. It has brown leaves on it,” she muttered, still trembling, still wondering how the hell she could cope with this even-worse intrusion into her life. “Gran loved it.”
“Old-lady-ish then. We might get shot of that too. Any objections?”
She shook her head. Getting rid of the threadbare carpet had been one of her priorities. If Anton was willing to provide the labor that was fine by her.
At least her house couldn’t be demolished as long as they were living in it, so maybe she should actually encourage him to move in? Her tummy clenched just thinking of it, but if she put the lock on her bedroom door...if she gained some time to find out her true legal position...if he really did keep his distance as he claimed he would...?
She sighed and sipped her coffee, and as she raised her eyes again, she stole another quick peek between his parted thighs. It wasn’t such a threatening bulge. She flexed her fingers, imagined cupping them around it, feeling him safely contained behind the warm old denim. That wouldn’t be too bad. Nowhere nearly as scary as Uncle Graham. She shuddered at the memory and dropped her eyes to her coffee again.
But maybe she could use Anton to overcome some of her fear? She shrank from the thought of anything suggestive or dirty, but if she could just get used to a man’s presence, surely that would help? It looked like she had no option anyway—he seemed determined to move in with her, so she’d have to make the best of it.
“Gran has a terribly retro dining setting,” she said, deciding to pretend to fall in with his plans for now. “So bad it’s kind of good. There are several nice old occasional pieces—antiques really—but the sofa and chairs are terrible.”
“So they’re gone. We have what we’re sitting on and a decent TV. We’ll survive.”
Jetta was far from sure about that. And then she discovered she still had Grandpa’s awful old hat on.
*
Half an hour later, Anton departed to buy paint and she sank down on her hands and knees to haul out the last items from the floor of Gran’s wardrobe. This was the only room Anton’s overgrown bed would fit into. It seemed he was serious about moving in.
Well, if he was so keen to help he could take over the tough job of the kitchen floor after all. She’d have a while longer with Gran and past memories. It looked like nothing had been cleared out of the room in many years.
She tried to picture Anton sleeping here. Would his blonde girlfriend be overnighting? She’d better not be!
On the other hand, it might help to know he intended to live at number fifteen platonically. That would make things easier for sure. But did she want him having someone else?
“Oh, grow up Jetta,” she snapped as she ferreted out empty boxes, and dusty plastic shopping bags and ancient shoes from the wardrobe floor. She gave a couple of violent sneezes. Then she found the book.
Even through its coating of fluff, she could read the title. ‘The Joy of Sex’ by Alex Comfort MD.
“Grandma!” she exclaimed, picking it up and then tossing it down again as though it was radioactive. A cloud of dust rose, and she blinked to protect her eyes.
She’d heard of it of course. Hadn’t everyone? It was only thirty seconds before her curiosity got the better of her and she reached for it again. She opened it at random and found a beautiful pencil sketch of a naked man sitting on the side of a bed with an equally naked woman kneeling in front of him. And she was—
Jetta snapped the book closed, heart racing, brain refusing to believe. Surely Grandma hadn’t done that with Grandpa? Slowly she opened it to check its date of publication. 1972, so it was more than forty years old. Her grandparents would have been in their forties. Their young and still-sexy forties apparently. That didn’t seem quite so bad, but...
She forced herself to flip through more of the pages. The drawings were soft and loving, and there were plenty of them, but soon her stomach started to clench, and the old sick feeling rose up her throat. This was so far out of her comfort zone, so far from anything she’d ever done—or imagined doing.
Trepidation suddenly hit. What if Anton found her looking at it? He’d said he wouldn’t be long. She banged it closed again with a small explosion of dust, hurried back to her own room, and buried it deep in her underwear drawer. One day soon, she’d have another look. Maybe.
She returned to Gran’s wardrobe.
“Ow!” she exclaimed as her hand hit something hard. An old suitcase. She gave the handle a tug. The case barely moved. Probably full of old clothes and mothballs. She tossed the other dross out of her way and pulled it out so she could open it, but the old-fashioned catches wouldn’t budge.
“Where have you put the key, Gran?” she muttered, heaving it up and dragging it into the hallway.
*
Anton whistled as he carried the big pail of paint across the hot asphalt parking lot outside the DIY store. Stage one was out of the way.
He’d been surprised to find the girl he’d seen occasionally, and assumed to be the old lady’s caregiver, was in fact her grand-daughter.
Her very young and nervous grand-daughter. She didn’t look twenty-six.
He’d spotted her several times letting herself into the house next door, sometimes carrying lunch, so she’d been very close to her grandmother.
Okay, their discussion hadn’t gone quite as he’d expected. Horrie had assured him the girl knew all about the fifty-fifty split, but either she was the world’s best actress or she hadn’t had a clue. Whatever, once he’d started his explanation he was committed, and he’d plowed on through her distress and disbelief until he’d put his side of the case. He’d not felt able to do that until old Lucy was off the scene, and was glad now that he’d held back. Another day or two would have been better, but he really didn’t have the luxury of much time on his side.
Shame about Jetta not seeing sense though. Why couldn’t she agree she’d be a lot better off with a brand new apartment instead of a decaying old house? Or half a house, to be precise. And if he was being really precise, not a decaying house, just a run-down one. There was a lot of good timber to salvage, Marseilles tiles on the roof that the recyclers would jump at, and some of the fancy leadlight windows would fetch big bucks, too.
He stopped whistling and compressed his lips in a determined line. It had to happen. His apartment project had been years in the making. It would bring the rewards he deserved after all the intense years of study and slog and saving.
Soon, he’d offer to move his mother to a better part of the city. Upgrade his beloved old car to a model that showed everyone his success. In a few months, no-one would look sideways at the shy skinny math-whizz who hadn’t known who his father was.
He opened the Porsche’s passenger door and waves of heat flooded over him. It was too good a day to be inside, but the sooner he had the old house cleaned up, the sooner he could move in.
He lowered the pail of paint onto the floor, and braced it with the bag containing tape, and a new paint tray and roller. Number fifteen was in for a fright.
But when he strode up the front path, pail of paint in one hand, bag of gear and bottle of champagne in the other, Jetta’s door was closed. He set the bag and bottle down and raised the old brass knocker for a hail of noisy raps.
Nothing.
The back garden? He dumped the pail, grabbed the bottle by its neck, and paced along the overgrown strip of lawn on one side of the old house. Long vine tendrils reached out from the fence and would have whipped him across the face if he hadn’t ducked and dodged. The place wa
s out of control. Jetta couldn’t hope to restore it.
He found no sign of her anywhere, although he’d half-hoped to find her stretched out enjoying the sun—wearing somewhat less than the morning’s shorts and T-shirt.
Lunch on the lawn in the shade of the peach-tree he’d spotted from the other yard had seemed an ideal plan. Surely if he redoubled his efforts, he could soften her up and convince her not to rock his boat.
But he heard only unnerving silence—no music, no running water, no thump of spade on linoleum—nothing except the drowsy buzz of bees in the lavender and the muted drone of a lawnmower on the far side of the park.
He pounded on the back door with a clenched fist, angry now, and losing patience. Where the hell had she disappeared to?
*
Jetta stepped off the bus and hummed along with Jason Mraz as she strolled the two blocks to her old flat. She needed sympathy and advice in equal doses, and her long time flat-mates were just the girls to provide both. Volatile Greek Hallie and no-nonsense Scottish Bren had been dependable anchors for several years. How would they deal with this new storm in the suddenly tossing sea of her life?
She’d been deliberately mysterious on the phone. Indicating there was a change of plans and a man was enough to have them both panting for more.
And sure enough, Hallie threw the door open before Jetta drew level with the flat, dark eyebrows arching up with questions. “What?” she squealed. “You can’t just throw hints around like that, Jetta Rivers!”
Jetta removed her earbuds and grinned. “Interesting news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
“The interesting,” Hallie begged.
“Get the bad over with first,” freckled Bren said, arriving beside Hallie in the doorway.
“It’s not terribly bad—well, not for you two. But it’s pretty shattering for me.”
“So?” Hallie demanded, as soon as Jetta stepped inside.
“Coffee?” Bren asked.
“Please.” She flopped down on the navy-blue sofa, registering that someone was still bothering to arrange the throw and cushions nicely.