Taming Tess (The St. John Sibling Series)

by Raffin, Barbara

  Regret shivered through Tess and she wasn't sure why.

  Wrong. She knew exactly why, and it had nothing to do with an investment reduced to ashes and a lawsuit. There'd be no more contact with the man…except maybe in court.

  "St. John, you are costing me big time grief."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Roman gripped the truck's steering wheel, scowling as the truck trundled toward home. Today had nearly rivaled yesterday for worst day of his life, and not because the humidity level had turned an unseasonable warm spring day sauna-like.

  He'd moved the crew to a new job site. But the building center hadn't delivered the necessary materials. By the time he had straightened out the mix-up and gotten the materials delivered, he also had three over-caffeinated employees. He didn't even want to think what that hour-long coffee break cost him.

  Then he'd phoned the Fire Chief and gotten his preliminary findings regarding the fire at The Castle. It was little consolation to learn Raymond's cigar wasn't the cause of setting Tess Abbot's walk-up attic with its sheet-draped dusty boxes and tinder-dry antique furniture on fire, but that one of his electrical extension cords was.

  While the boys took their lunch break, he'd headed over to The Castle. He'd expected to run into Tess Abbot there and thought they might discuss her current living arrangement and how they might change it. But she wasn't there and her car still was.

  He'd eaten his lunch there and waited. He'd waited until he ran out of time, something Tess Abbot apparently had an abundance of. Money, too, if she cared so little about additional damage standing water would do to her floors. Not that she considered any damage to The Castle her problem as long as he was responsible for the fire.

  Looked like it was up to him to prevent further damage. He called his friends with the water extraction equipment, begged them to set aside their afternoon cleaning job and make The Castle a priority.

  Then, just as the workday was winding down, Cousin Raymond runs a skill saw up his thumb. Two hours of hospital coffee and Roman had a caffeine buzz of his own that could have lit up Tess Abbots' beloved Chicago. At least Ray's thumb would heal, provided he didn't mind missing half a fingernail.

  By the time Roman had secured the building site for the night and boarded up The Castle entry, he'd crashed from his caffeine high. But his head still felt as though someone was tightening a vice around it. Could this day get any worse?

  #

  The second Tess heard the rumble of a truck in the driveway she dropped the broom and ran to the front door. Forget the burnt toast crumbs, Roman was home. At least she hoped it was Roman's truck behind the blinding headlights and Roman inside it.

  Anger had goaded her into invading his privacy, eating his pantry bare, and leaving the mess for him to clean up. It was the least she owed him. Or so she'd rationalized during her fits of temper.

  But, as day faded into evening and he didn't return, her curses metamorphosed into concern. Maybe the reason he hadn't phoned to tell her he'd be late was because he'd had an accident on the way home. Or maybe he couldn't get through because she'd been on the Internet all afternoon vetting renovation companies that could repair The Castle. It wasn't her fault he lived so far out in the boonies he was still on dial-up service.

  When she had realized how late it had gotten and she called his Cousin Raymond's number, the only other St. John listed in the phone book, she'd gotten some cocky kid who said they were all at the hospital and he didn't know anything else. The Hospital!

  She called the hospital and been told no one by the name of St. John had been admitted. The ER department refused to give her any information since she wasn't a relative. She should have lied and said she was his sister or something. At least she'd have some information to assuage her concern, not that she could do anything to help him. Cleaning up the kitchen at least provided her some distraction while keeping her close to the phone in case someone might think to call her with information about an injured Roman.

  Finally, the truck door opened and the interior light revealed a set of broad shoulders that could belong only to Roman. Tess let out a relieved breath. He appeared in one piece.

  Halfway to the house, he bent and plucked the smoke detector off the ground. Tess winced. Here he might be hurt and she'd left his house a mess the better part of the day because of her stupid anger.

  She slipped the dishes into the sink and squared the toaster on the back of the counter. The front door opened and Roman stepped in, frowning at the blipping smoke detector in his hand. The hell with dirty dishes. He could be stitched together somewhere.

  She moved around the table toward him, noting he still had a mouth, a nose, and two complete sets of eyes and eyebrows in perfect order. He, on the other hand, looked at the wires hanging from the hall ceiling where his smoke detector had formerly been anchored then at the broom and the burnt toast remnants at his feet.

  "What the hell is this, your version of payback? I burn your house, so you set fire to mine?"

  Wasn't that nice? Here she was, worried about him, and what did she get for all her concern? Criticism.

  Tess stopped dead in her tracks in front of Roman and planted her hands on her hips. "I didn't do it on purpose."

  "That's comforting. I'd hate to think I have a pyromaniac for a houseguest."

  He slammed the smoke alarm down on the table and she jumped…then counted the fingers white knuckling the smoke detector against the tabletop. All five fingers accounted for. The other set was curled into a fist at his side. A fist. How dare he be angry when she was the one with the charbroiled house and no way to escape this wooded hell while he could have been languishing in the hospital?

  "Look here, St. John," she shot. "Maybe if you hadn't stranded me in the boonies--"

  "Boonies? Stranded?" He snorted. "I left you sleeping in a warm bed and--"

  "You looked in on me while I slept?" A strangely pleasant sensation tickled her ribs.

  "--And the phone number of the local cab company." He plucked the sticky note off the table and flapped it in her face. "Here."

  She snatched the note from his fingers and flung it aside. "Their fleet of one is getting a new transmission."

  "Is that my fault? Does that give you the right to trash my home?" He squatted and swept the toast remnants into the dust pan.

  "I didn't trash your house," she said, surveying the top of his head for bumps and stitches. "I made a bit of a mess. I'll clean it up later. Just drive me to town so I can get my car."

  He reared up before her, the dust pan of blackened crumbs wafting their ominously smoky odor up between them. "You expect me to drive you to town…now?"

  "Yes, now. I want my car and I want it tonight."

  He shook his head and headed for the sink under which the garbage can was neatly tucked out of sight. "It's late. I'm hungry and I'm tired."

  "And I've been stuck here all day." She trailed him, perusing the contours of his close fitting jeans for tears and dried blood.

  "I noticed you didn't arrange for anyone to start cleaning up the fire damage at The Castle."

  "You said you knew some people who did water extraction," she said.

  He faced her and blinked. "I mentioned them but you never gave me the go-ahead to hire them."

  "Wasn't it obvious?"

  "You're so dead set against accepting help, how was I supposed to know?"

  "So my vintage wood floors are still sitting in a stew of sooty water?"

  "No." He turned to the cabinet door. "I called the company. They started on the house this afternoon."

  "Good. Now take me to The Castle so I can get my car."

  "Your keys inside the house?" he asked as he emptied the dust pan.

  "Of course."

  He nudged the cabinet door shut with a perfectly working knee and faced her once more. "It's dark and they've turned off the power to The Castle."

  "I'll use a flashlight."

  "A flashlight? With your phobia of the dark?"

/>   "I don't have a phobia," she said with only the slightest of hitches to her voice. "I just don't like the dark."

  He stared at her, unmoving.

  "Then take me shopping," she said, breaking the scrutiny of those eyes. "I need clothes and toiletries."

  He brushed past her to the closet where he stored his broom and dust pan, giving her a good chance to sniff for hospital antiseptic. "Get out of bed before noon tomorrow and I'll drive you to The Castle. You can pick up your car and shop all you want then."

  She trailed after him. "I didn't sleep till noon. And I refuse to wait until tomorrow for a change of clothes. I've been in this shirt of yours twenty-four hours straight."

  He opened the fridge, bent, and peered inside. "Looks like you cleaned out at least one thing today, Princess."

  "Don't call me Princess," she muttered, distracted by his backside as he pushed condiment jars around on the refrigerator shelves. She'd admired that narrow hipped butt countless times during the renovation…and daydreamed even more often about cupping those buns--

  He straightened and caught her staring. "What are you looking at?"

  She blinked at him, feeling every bit the petty thief caught with her fingers in the cookie jar. If he didn't stop staring at her, the heat blossoming in her cheeks would turn into a full-blown blush; and, hell, she never blushed.

  But she would now, if he kept looking at her the way he did…if she didn't answer him. Damned thing was, she couldn't think of anything to tell him but the truth.

  "When you weren't home by dark, I called your fire-starting cousin's house looking for you. His son said you were at the hospital. I was looking you over for injuries," she said.

  A smile ghosted across Roman's lips. "Why Princess, I wouldn't have figured you for the maternal type."

  She let the Princess reference slide, this time. But, maternal? Her? Never in a million years, especially not where a contractor with a butt you could bounce a quarter off of was concerned.

  Tess folded her arms across her chest and lifted her chin. "Don't get a swelled head over it, St. John. My only concern was that you might not have told anybody you'd left me here and I'd be stranded until Penetti's Cab Company repaired its fleet."

  His smile faded and he turned back to the sink for a damp rag. "Naturally it's all about you."

  She frowned. "So why were you at the ER?"

  He squatted over the crumbs that had evaded being swept up and wiped them up. "Raymond cut himself."

  "Not bad, I hope."

  He glanced up at her. "Careful there, Princess. You almost sound like you care."

  "I do care," she said. "I don't wish injury on anyone."

  He rose and went to the sink. "He cut his thumb bad enough to need stitches."

  "And you took him to the ER," she said, relief replacing worry. "That's why you were there."

  "Yeah," he said, rinsing off the cloth and draping it over the faucet.

  "I'm sorry about Raymond but glad you're okay," she said.

  He faced her. "You are, huh?"

  There was something in his eyes, a probing look that made her feel like he was peering inside her. No man had ever looked at her like that before and she wasn’t ready for any man, especially this one, to see too deeply into her. She blinked.

  "Did you leave anything for me to eat?" he asked, moving to the cupboard beside the fridge.

  Peering over his shoulder, she saw a smattering of canned and boxed goods on the shelves. She pointed at a rectangular box. "You've got macaroni and cheese there."

  "For when my nephew visits," he said.

  "You can't replace it if you eat it?"

  "Come on," he said, heading for the door. "You want clothes and I want food."

  #

  "It's this or nothing, Princess," Roman said, the giant letters of The Bargain Mart glowing through the truck windshield and washing Tess' face in a hue blue as her funk. "I'm not driving across town to The Castle."

  "Pine Mountain isn't Chicago," Tess said, sounding every bit as annoyed as she'd been when she found out his truck didn't have air conditioning. "Across town here can't be more than ten minutes."

  "Get up earlier tomorrow and I'll take you to your car then. I'm too tired tonight."

  "You weren't too tired to go through that drive-through for burgers and fries," she said.

  "You weren't complaining when you were wolfing down that mega meal and malt you ordered and I paid for," he said.

  She glowered at the boxy building in front of them. "This can't be the only place even in this burg of a town where I can buy a change of clothes."

  "It's not," he said and she lifted a hopeful eye his way. "But it's the only place open this late where you can get clothing and stuff."

  She huffed and released her seatbelt. "Then make like a gentleman and open my door."

  He raised an eyebrow at her. "Open your door? I thought you were a diehard woman's libber?"

  Her head snapped in his direction, her ponytail swishing across her back as if in exclamation. "Men who use women's lib as an excuse not to open a lady's door are clods who didn't open doors before women's lib."

  He put his drink cup in the cup holder, opened his door, climbed down from the truck, traipsed around the front bumper, and opened her door. "Let it never be said I was a clod."

  She rolled her eyes, exited the truck, and headed for the store. He headed back toward the driver's side of the truck.

  "I need you with me, St. John," she called over her shoulder.

  "What? The automatic doors don't open fast enough for you?"

  She didn't slow down. She just held up her arms and kept marching toward the store, barking out, "Do you see a purse? No, you don't because my purse and credit cards are still in The Castle waaay across town."

  He groaned and headed after her. So much for the compassion she expressed toward him when she thought he'd been the ER patient. It hadn't occurred to him that her concern might be for her own ends.

  Inside the Bargain Mart, she strutted past the shopping carts. Good. That had to mean they wouldn't be here long. Right?

  She went straight for the clothing section and stopped at a rack of skimpy undergarments. She selected panties made of a slick looking fabric, their high cut leg openings trimmed with wide bands of lace. She tossed them at him with a flippant, "They aren't silk, but they'll do for now."

  "Maybe if you took only one pair instead of three, they wouldn't be too heavy for you to carry," he said, fumbling to grip the panties by their hangers and keep his fingers out of them.

  She gave him a smirk and moved on to a rack of filmy nightwear. The muscles low in his groin twitched. There was only one thing worse than lying in his bed thinking about her asleep in the room above his in his t-shirt, and that was thinking of her asleep in one of those frilly contraptions. It was going to be an even longer night.

  Correction. There was one thing worse. Thinking of her asleep in nothing at all. But right now, he needed to deal with the effect those lacy nighties she fingered were having on his deprived male parts.

  He plucked a full-length nightgown from the clearance rack and held it up. "How about this one?"

  She eyed the nightgown with distinct disdain. "Polyester may suit your type of woman, but it's not my style."

  "What do you mean, my type of woman?"

  "The marrying kind."

  "As opposed to you?" he asked.

  Her big brown eyes narrowed at him, almost wounded looking. Then she blinked and the sharp edge of her voice sliced through the cooled air between them.

  "Yes, St. John. As opposed to a woman like me who chooses career over marriage--a woman who isn't about to hide her talents behind a husband's ego."

  She flicked aside the slinky nightgown and moved on, grumbling, "Is it too much to ask for something in cotton?"

  "How about your mouth wrapped up like a mummy's," he muttered under his breath.

  By the time the fifteen minutes to closing announcement crackled o
ver The Bargain Mart PA system, he was beginning to feel like an overloaded coat rack.

  "Come on," he urged, "they're closing."

  She held up two shorts and crop-top sets. "Which color best suits me?"

  The pink set made him think of cotton candy…and about nibbling the sweet confection off her body.

  "The gray set," he said.

  She smiled slyly. "I think I'll take both. After all, it's not like I'm paying for them."

  "I'm paying for basics," he called as she traipsed off toward the front of the store. "Just the basics."

  She didn't answer. He hung one of the crop-top sets back on the rack, the gray one, and followed her. At least she was headed in the direction of the cash registers.

  But she ducked into the cosmetics department. Shoulders drooping, he followed as she piled herbal this and pomegranate that onto the clothes in his arms.

  "You don't need all this stuff," he said as he eyed the bottles and jars identified as deep cleansing lotions, skin softening creams, and pore tightening astringents.

  "Trying to save money, St. John?"

  "I could remind you that most people don't have trust funds to fall back on. I should point out that, in the real world, money doesn't grow on trees, and that I work hard for the dollars you are so cavalierly spending."

  "Cavalierly?" She hitched one eyebrow onto her high, flawless brow.

  "Besides--" He put his face close to her scrubbed clean one with its sun-kissed cheeks and bare, burnished lips. "You don't need that gunk because you're beautiful without it."

  #

  He'd called her cosmetics gunk. She'd concede that the products the discount store sold weren't the best.

  But what had stayed with Tess long after she'd left Roman signing the credit card receipt at The Bargain Mart checkout wasn't the gunk part of his comment. Nor even his lecture about money. What she couldn't stop thinking about was that he'd called her beautiful…without make-up.