As Max followed more slowly, branches twisted and danced in the swell of wind, a few scraping the windows on the upper stories of the house.
He planned to start a fire in the fireplace, grab the thriller he had been trying to focus on and settle in for the evening with a good book and the storm.
Yeah, it probably would sound tame to the guys in his unit but right now he could imagine few things more enjoyable.
A quick image of kissing Anna Galvez while the storm raged around them flashed through his mind but he quickly suppressed it. Their kiss had been a one-time-only event and he needed to remember that.
“Conan? Where’d you go, bud?” he called.
He rounded the corner of the house after the dog, then stopped dead. His heart seemed to stutter in his chest at the sight of Anna atop a precarious-looking wooden ladder, a hammer in her hand as she stretched to fix something he couldn’t see from this angle.
The first thought to register in his distinctly male brain was how sexy she looked with a leather tool belt low on her hips and her shirt riding up a little as she raised her arms.
The movement bared just the tiniest inch of skin above her waistband, a smooth brown expanse that just begged for his touch.
The second, more powerful emotion was sheer terror as he noted just how far she was reaching above the ladder—and how precarious she looked up there fifteen feet in the air.
“Have you lost your ever-loving mind?”
She jerked around at his words and to his dismay, the ladder moved with her, coming away at least an inch or more from the porch where it was propped.
At the last moment, she grabbed hold of the soffit to stabilize herself and the ladder, and Max cursed his sudden temper. If she fell because he had impulsively yelled at her, he would never forgive himself.
“I don’t believe I have,” she answered coolly. “My ever-loving mind seems fairly intact to me just now.”
“You might want to double-check that, ma’am. That wind is picking up velocity with each passing second. It won’t take much for one good gust to knock that ladder straight out from under you, then where will you be?”
“No doubt lying bleeding and unconscious at your feet,” she answered.
He was not going about this in the correct way, he realized. He had no right to come in here and start issuing orders like she was the greenest of recruits.
He had no right to do anything here. He ought to just let her break her fool neck—but the thought of her, as she had so glibly put it, lying bleeding and unconscious at his feet filled him with an odd, hollow feeling in his gut that he might have called panic under other circumstances.
“Come on down, Anna,” he cajoled. “It’s really too windy for you to be safe up there.”
“I will. But not quite yet.”
He wasn’t getting her down from there short of toppling the ladder himself, he realized. And with a bad ankle and only one usable arm right now—and that one questionable after the scrapes and bruises of the day before—he couldn’t even offer to take her place.
“Can I at least hold the ladder for you?”
“Would you?” she asked, peering down at him with delight. “I’m afraid I’m not really fond of heights.”
She was afraid of heights? He stared at her and finally noticed the slight sheen of sweat on her upper lip and the very slightest of trembles in her knees.
A weird softness twisted through his chest as he thought of the courage it must be taking her to stand there on that ladder, fighting down her fears.
“And so to cure your phobia, you decided to stand fifteen feet above the ground atop a rickety wooden ladder in the face of a spring storm. Makes perfect sense to me.”
She made a face, though she continued hammering away. “Ha ha. Not quite.”
“Well, what’s so important it can’t wait until after the storm?”
“Shingles. Loose ones.” She didn’t pause a moment in her hammering. “We need a new roof. The last time we had a big storm, the wind curled underneath some loose singles on the other side of the house and ended up lifting off about twenty square feet of roof. The other day I noticed some loose shingles on this side so I just want to make sure we don’t see the same thing happen.”
“Couldn’t you find somebody else to do that for you?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Any suggestions, Lieutenant Maxwell?”
“You could have asked me.”
She finally stopped hammering long enough to look down at him, her gaze one of astonishment as she looked first at his arm in the blasted sling, then at his ankle.
He waited for some caustic comment about his current physical limitations. Instead, her lovely features softened as if he’d handed her an armload of wildflowers.
“I…thank you,” she said, her voice slightly breathless. “That’s very kind but I’m sort of in the groove now. I think I can handle it. I would appreciate your help holding the ladder while I check a couple of shingles on the porch on the east side of the house.”
He wanted to order her off the ladder and back inside the house before she broke her blasted neck but he knew he had no right to do anything of the sort.
The best he could do was make sure she stayed as safe as possible.
He hated his shoulder all over again. Was he going to have to spend the rest of his life watching others do things he ought to be able to handle?
“I’ll help you on one condition. When the wind hits twenty knots, you’ll have to stop, whether you finish or not.”
She didn’t balk at the restriction as she climbed down from the ladder. “I suppose you’re going to tell me now you have some kind of built-in anemometer to know what the wind speed is at all times.”
He shrugged. “I’ve been a helicopter pilot for fifteen years and in that time I’ve learned a thing or two about gauging the weather. I’ve also learned not to mess around with Mother Nature.”
“That’s a lesson you learn early when you live on the coast,” she answered.
She lowered the ladder and he grabbed the front end with his left hand and followed her around the corner of the house. The house’s sturdy bulk sheltered them a little from the wind here but it was still cold, the air heavy and wet.
“I thought you said you kept a handyman on retainer,” he said as together they propped the ladder against one corner of the porch.
She smiled. “No, you’re the one who said I should. I do have a regular carpenter and he would fix all this in a second if he were around but he’s been doing some work for my friend Sage’s husband on one of Eben’s hotels in Montana.”
“Your friend’s married to a hotel owner?”
He pretended ignorance while his stomach jumped as she ascended the ladder again.
“Yes. Eben Spencer owns Spencer Hotels. His company recently purchased a property here in town and that’s how he met Sage.”
“She’s the other one who inherited Brambleberry House along with you, right?”
She nodded. “She’s wonderful. You should meet her in a few weeks. She and Eben bought a house down the coast a mile or so and they come back as often as they can but they travel around quite a bit. She called me this afternoon from Patagonia, of all places!”
She started hammering again and from his vantage point, he had an entirely too clear view of that enticing expanse of skin bared at her waist when she lifted her arms. He forced himself to look away, focusing instead on the Sitka spruce dancing wildly in the wind along the road.
“Does she help you with the maintenance on the house?”
“As much as she can when she’s here. And Julia helps, too. The two of us painted my living room right after Christmas.”
“She’s the one who lives on the second floor, right? The one with the twins.”
“Right. You’re going to love them. Simon will probably talk your leg off about what it’s like to fly a helicopter and how you hurt your shoulder and if you carry a gun. Maddie won’t have to even say a word to steal your hear
t in an instant. She’s a doll.”
His heart was a little harder to steal than that. Sometimes he wondered if he had one. And if he did, he wasn’t sure a little girl would be the one to steal it.
He’d never had much to do with kids. He couldn’t say he disliked them, they just always seemed like they inhabited this baffling alien world he knew little about.
“How old are the twins?” he asked.
“They turned eight a month ago. And Sage’s stepdaughter Chloe is nine. When the three of them are together, there’s never a dull moment. It’s so wonderful.”
She loved children, he realized. Before he’d gotten to know her a little these last few days, that probably would have surprised him. At first glance, she had seemed brusque and cool, not at all the sort to be patient with endless questions or sticky fingers.
But then, Anna Galvez was proving to be full of contradictions.
Just now, for instance, the crisp, buttoned-down businesswoman he had taken her for that first night looked earthy and sexy, her cheeks flushed by the cold and the exertion and her hair blown into tangles by the wind.
He wasn’t interested, he reminded himself. Hadn’t he spent all day reminding himself why kissing her had been a huge mistake he couldn’t afford to repeat?
“There. That should do it,” she said a moment later.
“Good. Now come down. That wind has picked up again.”
“Gladly,” she answered.
He held the ladder steady while she descended.
“Thank you,” she said, her voice a little shaky until her feet were on solid ground again. “I’ll admit, it helped to know you were down there giving me stability.”
“No problem,” he answered.
She smiled at him, her features bright and lovely and he suddenly could think of nothing but the softness of her mouth beneath his and of her seductive heat surrounding him.
They stood only a few feet apart and even though the wind lashed wildly around them and the first few drops of rain began to sting his skin, Max couldn’t seem to move. He saw awareness leap into the depths of her eyes and knew instinctively she was remembering their kiss as well.
He could kiss her again. Just lean forward a little and all that heat and softness would be in his arms again…
She was the first one to break the spell between them. She drew in a deep breath and gripped the ladder and started to lower it from the porch roof while he stood gazing at her like an idiot.
“Thanks again for your help,” she said, and he wondered if he imagined the tiniest hint of a quaver in her voice. “I should have done this last week. I knew a storm was on the way but I’m afraid the time slipped away from me. With an old place like Brambleberry House, there are a hundred must-do items for every one I check off.”
She was talking much more than she usually did and seemed determined to avoid his gaze. She obviously didn’t want a repeat of their kiss any more than he did.
Or at least any more than he should.
“Where does the ladder go?”
“In the garage. But I can return it.”
He ignored her, just hefted it with his good arm and carried it around the house to the detached garage where Abigail had always parked her big old Oldsmobile. Conan and Anna both followed behind him.
Walking inside was like entering a time capsule of his aunt’s life. It looked the same as he remembered from four years ago, with all the things Abigail had loved. Her potting table and tools, an open box of unpainted china doll faces, the tandem bicycle she had purchased several years ago.
He paused for a moment, looking around the cluttered garage and he was vaguely aware of Conan coming to stand beside him and nudging his head under Max’s hand.
“It’s a mess, I know. I need to clean this out as soon as I find the time. It’s on my to-do list, I swear.”
He said nothing, just fought down the renewed sense of loss.
“Listen,” she said after a moment, “I was planning to make some pasta for dinner. I always make way too much and then feel like I have to eat it all week long, even after I’m completely sick of it. Would you like some?”
He was being sucked into Anna’s life, inexorably drawn into her web. Seeing Abigail’s things here only reminded him of his mission here and how he wasn’t any closer to the truth than he’d been when he arrived.
“No,” he said. “I’d better not.”
His words sounded harsh and abrupt hanging out there alone but he didn’t know how else to answer.
Her warm smile slipped away. “Another time, then.”
They headed out of the garage and he was aware of Conan glaring at him.
The sky had darkened just in the few moments they had been inside the garage and it now hung heavy and gray. The scattered drops had become a light drizzle and he could see distant lightning out over the ocean.
“I should warn you we sometimes lose power in the middle of a big storm. You can find emergency candles and matches in the top drawer in the kitchen to the left of the oven.”
“Thanks.” They walked together up the front steps and he held the door for her to walk into the entryway.
He headed up the stairs, trying not to favor his stiff ankle, but his efforts were in vain.
“Your ankle! I completely forgot about it! I’m an idiot to make you stand out there for hours just to hold my ladder. I’m so sorry!”
“It wasn’t hours and you’re not an idiot. I’m fine. The ankle doesn’t even hurt anymore.”
It wasn’t quite the truth but he wasn’t about to tell her that.
He didn’t want her sympathy.
He wanted something else entirely from Anna Galvez, something he damn well knew he had no business craving.
Upstairs in his apartment, Max started a fire in the grate while his TV dinner heated up in the microwave.
The wind rattled the windowpanes and sent the branches of the oak tree scraping against the glass and he tried to ignore the delicious scents wafting up from downstairs.
He could have used Conan’s company. After spending the entire day with the dog, he felt oddly bereft without him.
But he supposed right now Conan was nestled on his rug in Anna’s warm kitchen, having scraps of pasta and maybe a little of that yeasty bread he could smell baking.
When the microwave dinged to signal his own paltry dinner was ready, he grabbed a beer and settled into the easy chair in the living room with the remote and his dinner.
Outside, lightning flashed across the darkening sky and he told himself he should feel warm and cozy in here. But the apartment seemed silent, empty.
Just as he was about to turn on the evening news, the rocking guitar riff of “Barracuda” suddenly echoed through his apartment.
Not tonight, Mom, he thought, reaching for his cell phone and turning it off. He wasn’t at all in the mood to listen to her vitriol. She would probably call all night but that didn’t mean he had to listen.
Instead, he turned on the TV and divided his attention between the March Madness basketball games and the rising storm outside, doing his best to shake thoughts of the woman downstairs from his head.
He dozed off sometime in the fourth quarter of what had become a blowout.
He dreamed of dark hair and tawny skin, of deep brown eyes and a soft, delicious mouth. Of a woman in a stern blue business suit unbuttoning her jacket with agonizing slowness to reveal lush, voluptuous curves…
Max woke up with a crick in his neck to find the fire had guttered down to only a few glowing red embers. Just as she predicted, the storm must have knocked out power. The television screen was dark and the light he’d left on in the kitchen was out.
He hurried to the window and saw darkness up and down the coast. The outage was widespread, then.
From his vantage point, he suddenly saw a flashlight beam cutting across the yard below.
His instincts hummed and he peered through the sleeting rain and the wildly thrashing tree limbs to see two s
hapes—one human, one canine—heading across the lawn from the house to the detached garage.
What the hell was she doing out there? She’d be lucky if a tree limb didn’t blow over on her.
He peered through the darkness and in her flashlight beam he saw the garage door flapping in the wind. They must not have latched it quite properly when they had returned the ladder to the garage.
Lightning lit up the yard again and he watched her wrestle the door closed then head for the house again.
He made his way carefully to his door and opened it, waiting to make sure she returned inside safely. Only silence met him from downstairs and he frowned.
What was taking her so long to come back inside?
After another moment or two, he sighed. Like it or not, he was going to have to find out.
Chapter Nine
She loved these wild coastal storms.
Anna scrambled madly back for the shelter of the porch, laughing with delight as the rain stung her cheeks and the churning wind tossed her hair around.
She wanted to lift her hands high into the air and spin around wildly in a circle in some primitive pagan dance.
She supposed most people would find that an odd reaction in a woman as careful and restrained as she tried to be in most other areas of her life. But something about the passion and intensity of a good storm sent the blood surging through her veins, made her hum with energy and excitement.
Abigail had been the same way, she remembered. Her friend used to love to sit out on the wraparound porch facing the sea, a blanket wrapped around her as she watched the storm ride across the Pacific.
Since moving to Brambleberry House nearly a year ago, Anna tried to follow the tradition as often as she could. Sort of her own way of paying tribute to Abigail and the contributions she had made to the world.
Conan shook the rain from his coat after their little foray to the garage and she laughed, grateful she hadn’t removed her Gore-Tex parka yet. “Cut it out,” she exclaimed. “You can do that on that side of the porch.”
The dog made that snickering sound of his, then settled into the driest corner of the deep porch, closest to the house where the rain couldn’t reach him.
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