"Damn you, Roman," she muttered, swiping the sweat from her brow. "You get your wish. I'm outa your house and outa your life."
Yep, as soon as she hobbled back to the house, she'd call around and make arrangements for a place to stay. Decision made.
A big, shiny black truck eased around the corner behind her. It slowed in the far lane on the narrow road. Where was her pepper spray when she needed it?
Most likely back at The Castle, discarded among a multitude of other city-born defenses.
She glanced at the highly polished vehicle with its extended cab and chrome running boards. Not a rusted out junker like the one the teenager drove. Not the kind of truck that ran mud races. The window powered down and the driver leaned out the window, a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses obscuring the intent in his eyes while his broad grin stretched the limits of charm.
"Need a ride, ma'am?"
Ma'am? If he was a pervert, he was a polite one.
"I'm fine, thank you."
"You're limping. I thought you might appreciate a ride."
"I'm fine. Really."
"I'd hate to leave a pretty damsel in distress in the middle of nowhere."
Tess gauged the distance to Roman's driveway as she answered. "I'm no damsel. Nor am I in distress."
"At least you're not arguing with the pretty part."
Her attention snapped to the driver. Clean cut, chiseled cheeks, and no requisite baseball cap covering the wide brow or the healthy crop of dark hair. Just those pricey sunglasses hiding his eyes.
"Save the flattery for someone who's impressed by it, Bubba," she lobbed back at him without slowing her pace.
He laughed a deep, rich laugh. "No one's ever called me 'Bubba'."
"Guess there's a first time for everything."
The truck rolled slowly along in the far lane, keeping pace with her. She was still several yards from Roman's driveway. Would he hear her if she screamed? Would he come running if he did hear her? Of course he would, even after how she'd treated him. He excelled in damsel rescues.
Maybe she could cut through the woods between the house and road. She eyed the tangled foliage along the roadside.
"That blackberry brush will tear those lovely legs all to hell," her stalker said.
She tilted her head toward the stranger in the truck. "Do most of the women you try to pick up run off into the woods?"
Laughter rolled up from deep in his chest. "That's not the usual effect I have on women."
"You can move along, now. I'm fine and really can take care of myself."
"Even an independent woman needs assistance now and then," he drawled.
Didn't she know it?
She shook off the image of Roman's broad shoulders and strong arms and picked up her pace, insisting, "I'm fine."
"I'm sure you are."
"I am."
"I'm just offering a ride."
"I'm not far from home." She lifted her chin toward Roman's driveway, the only one in sight on the stretch ahead. "That's my drive right there," she said.
"Right there?"
She didn't like the interest with which he noted the driveway and added, "My husband is expecting me."
"Husband?"
She gave herself a mental head slap. What was she doing conjuring up an imaginary spouse? She was supposed to be an independent woman capable of defending herself.
A man to lean on.
She winced at the thought. But, since she conjured him up, she might as well make use of the charade.
"Yes. My husband. He took advantage of my injured state to beat me back to the house. He so seldom wins our races."
"Competitive. I like that in a woman. Maybe we could run together sometime."
"I'm sure my husband would enjoy that."
The stranger's grin twitched. "If you're okay then--"
"I'm okay."
He gave her a nod, pulled out ahead of her and…turned the big black truck into Roman's driveway.
Tess stopped on the shoulder of the road and uttered an oath. She doubted she'd be lucky enough that the stranger in the black truck would turn around and pull back out of Roman's drive.
By the time she hobbled up to the driver's side of the truck, the stranger had both arms folded over the window frame, his grin crooked.
"You're a friend of Roman's, aren't you?" she demanded.
He nudged the Ray Bans onto the top of his head. "Guilty as charged. Brody McCain."
Mischief twinkled from Brody McCain's blue eyes. She accepted the fingerless leather gloved hand he held out to her and confessed, "And I'm not Roman's wife."
"No kidding."
"I'm his…houseguest. Tess Abbot."
He stopped pumping her hand and the laugh lines around his eyes deepened. "Abbot? The architect who hired Roman to renovate The Castle?"
"He told you about me, huh?"
He released her hand, his grin twitching. "Seems he left out a few details."
"Like the fact I don't really have devil's horns?"
"Like the fact you're the gal sharing his house."
He was thinking something else. She saw it in his eyes. Sex. That's what any friend of Roman's to whom he might have gone in the middle of the night for condoms would think.
"You must be a pretty good friend of Roman's," she prompted.
"I like to think of myself as his best friend."
She grimaced. "The kind a guy can turn to in the middle of the night for help…or to borrow something?"
"That's the kind."
"Uh huh."
Brody opened the truck door but didn't jump out. Reaching behind his seat, he lifted out a folded wheelchair. Only then did she notice the additional controls on the steering wheel and the strap holding Brody's legs together.
Tess frowned at the chair popping open as it hit the ground. "I thought you said you run."
"Run. Roll. It's all the same to me." He swung himself down into the chair with practiced ease and grinned up at her. "Guess I'm kinda like the Trojan horse."
"Trojan, huh?" Tess laughed. "Brody McCain, you are a man full of surprises."
"I was trying for a man of mystery."
"Right." She studied the man who claimed to be Roman's best friend. For an instant something in his eyes hinted there was a lot more to Brody McCain than glib charm. Then it was gone behind a dazzling smile.
He patted the flat black framework of his chair. "What do you think of her?"
"Snazzy rig."
"State of the art design. Titanium frame. Composite wheels." He patted his lap. "Hop aboard. I'll give you a test ride."
"In your dreams," she retorted and limped off toward the house.
"Roman said you had a wicked tongue," he called, rolling after her.
#
Roman watched Tess and Brody from the kitchen window. She'd handled Brody's wheelchair well. Maybe too well. He didn't like the way the two of them laughed together. She never laughed like that with him. Though he'd seen her laugh with her neighbors and occasionally Raymond or another crew member.
He stepped out onto the porch. "You two going to spend the rest of the day out here jabbering?"
"That depends," Brody called from the ramped end of the porch. "Is that fresh baked bread I smell?"
"It is," Roman said.
Brody rolled up the ramp toward Roman, chirping, "I'd have expected you to be in a good mood today, not a bread-baking one."
"Bread-baking?" Tess climbed the stairs toward where Roman stood, glancing from him to Brody. "I wouldn't call what he was doing this morning before I left for my run 'baking'. It was more like bread dough pounding."
"A man can work off a lot of frustration kneading bread dough," Brody said.
"Watch it," Roman growled. "I can still replace that ramp with steps."
"Do I frustrate you, St. John?" Tess goaded, stopping in front of him, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
"You could frustrate a curse out of monk, Princess?"
"Princess?"
Brody asked, approaching them from the side. "Is that official?"
"Only in Roman's mind," she said.
"Ms. Abbot," Roman expanded, "comes from a privileged background. She thinks the world is at her beck and call and us common folk are meant to serve her."
"Another fabrication of his feeble mind," she said and wrinkled her nose at Roman.
"Must be this country air fogging up my head," Roman said. "No, wait, it's smog that chokes out oxygen; smog in the cities."
Brody paused beside Roman and motioned Tess ahead of them through the open door. "Ladies first."
"Stick it in your ear, St. John," Tess lobbed at Roman as she strode past the two men.
Tess disappeared into the house and Roman realized he wasn't the only man on the porch checking out how the bicycle shorts molded to her backside. The hairs on Roman's arms bristled. But before he could say anything about it, Tess trumpeted from inside.
"You baking to feed an army, St. John? There must be half a dozen loaves of bread in here rising or cooling."
Brody grinned up at Roman as he rolled across the threshold. "I'm beginning to understand your baking binge."
Roman stepped in behind his friend, shut the front door, and grabbed the back of Brody’s chair, stopping it with a suddenness that almost left skid marks on the linoleum. He'd gone to Brody in the middle of the night for those damn condoms because he was his best friend, his only unmarried friend, and because he had thought Brody could be discreet. He gave Brody a glare that said all that and more.
"You going to make like a good host and feed me?" Brody asked with mock innocence, his eyes on Tess who stood in profile between them and the kitchen table, slim, firm, fetching. "Or just hold me captive inches from heaven?"
"Brodyyyy."
Brody grinned up at him. "Can't wait to sink my teeth into--"
Roman let out a low warning growl.
"--Some of that fresh baked bread," Brody finished.
"It does smell heavenly in here," Tess murmured, nose in the air sniffing.
Roman's growl turned moan-like. She was heaven.
…And hell.
Life was not fair.
She smiled an inscrutable little half smile in his direction. "That's a lot of bread you kneaded there, St. John."
"I've got an unwanted houseguest who's frustratingly stubborn and kneading is a great way to burn off my frustration."
"Stubborn?" she returned, planting her hands on her hips.
Brody opened his mouth, but Roman jabbed a silencing finger at his friend. "You just get the butter."
Brody winked and wheeled around the table toward the fridge.
To Tess he said, "I'd ask you to slice one of those loaves of bread, but we don't have all day to argue the point."
"Slicing bread is hardly an issue," she snapped as he strode past her toward the knife block on the countertop beside the stove.
"And I do not argue every point with you," she continued, following him, crowding him.
Roman drew a knife from the block and turned to Tess. She had her hands on her hips and her chin tilting that infuriating challenging angle he'd grown accustomed to. "This isn't arguing?"
"Dammit, St. John. I can slice bread."
"See what I've had to put up with," Roman said in Brody's direction.
Brody grinned around the refrigerator door at them, waving a shrink wrapped package in the air. "This the only cheese you got?"
"I haven't had a lot of time to stock my cupboards." Roman looked at Tess. "And with an extra mouth to feed these days, supplies don't seem to last as long."
Tess wrinkled her nose at him. "Oh yeah. I eat so much."
He pointed the tip of the serrated knife at her. "You eat plenty for someone who doesn't cook."
"I cook."
He snatched one of the baked loaves of bread off the counter and snorted. "That's why your garbage was always full of fast food containers."
"You snooped in my garbage?"
"I wrapped it up, as per your orders, then hauled it out to the curb for you."
"I never ordered you to wrap up my garbage. I asked you to do it once. As for taking it out to the curb, that was only once a week."
"You hauled out her garbage?" Brody asked with obvious interest, wheeling up to the table with his lap full of condiments, spreads, and cheese.
"I did a lot of things for her that weren't part of the renovating."
Brody grunted. "Don't I know it."
Both Tess and Roman gaped at Brody, and Roman got the distinct impression that Tess had figured out Brody was the guy he'd gotten the condoms from. She was sharp and Brody was playing it unusually obvious today.
Brody dumped his cache of foodstuffs onto the table and nodded at the knife Roman held between him and Tess. "Why don't you let her slice the bread before you wind up doing something that could be construed as assault?"
"Fine," Roman muttered, dumping the loaf of bread and the knife into Tess' hands. "I hope you can handle a knife without hurting yourself."
Tess' right shoulder came up, the one the coat rack had jabbed. "As long as you don't sneak up behind me and startle me, I'll be just fine."
"When did you sneak up on her?" Brody asked.
"I didn't sneak up on her," Roman insisted.
"Yesterday at The Castle," Tess said, cutting him off almost simultaneously.
"All I did was come up to the attic to tell you I was leaving. Maybe if you weren't someplace you weren't supposed to be, you wouldn't have been so jumpy."
She dropped the loaf of bread onto the table. "I had every right to see what damage had been done to my house."
He slapped a cutting board down next to the bread. "The Fire Chief told you to stay out of the attic."
"I was just looking," she countered, driving the knife into the bread, the escaping tendrils of steam reminding Roman how hot she'd been two nights ago and how eager he'd been.
"You disturbed the fire scene," he growled.
"Only because you startled me," she argued, sawing at the bread, "making me trip and fall into that rack so it tipped over on me, skewering me where I couldn't reach!"
An image of her bare flanks and creamy shoulders flashed across the backs of Roman's eyes. Why'd she have to bring up that business that led to her removing her shirt? She slapped a steaming slab of bread into his hand, which all but scalded him.
"See what I've had to put up with all these weeks?" he howled in Brody's direction.
"And you still moved her into your house?"
"She moved herself into my house."
Tess threw the knife onto the table and jabbed Roman in the chest with her finger. "You'd said that if you didn't have the remodeling job done on time, I could move into your house."
"Does somebody here need a lawyer?" Brody interjected.
"No," Roman said.
"Maybe," Tess said, at the same time.
"I have some experience arbitrating," Brody supplied.
Tess and Roman both turned on him, but Tess was quicker to speak. "Tell him a verbal agreement is as binding as a written contract."
"You actually told her she could move into your house if the job wasn't done on time?"
"The job would have been done on schedule if not for the fire."
"Which was his fault," she argued.
"Do I smell a lawsuit pending?" Brody quipped.
"Here's your chance, Princess. You, me, and a lawyer all in the same room."
She nodded at Brody. "Is that why you invited him here?"
"I didn't invite him. He showed up on his own."
"Uh huh." She planted her hands on her hips and raised her chin. "Does he do that a lot, show up at opportune times?" She didn't give him time to answer before charging on. "How convenient for you that your best friend is a lawyer. Does he litigate all your lawsuits?"
"I've never had to go to court for a lawsuit."
"Of course not. Your personal lawyer shows up and scares the opposition into settling, ri
ght?"
"That's not--"
"Maybe you think this is the way to get me to leave."
"I'm not--"
"Damn right, you're not going to force me out."
She looked so damn smug with her chin thrust out at him, her pupils filling her eyes, and her chest all puffed up. He poked her in the breastbone, the way she always did to him. "If you weren't so damned stubborn, you would have seen how ridiculous your moving in here was in the first place."
"Ridiculous?" Her neck stretched, giving the illusion that she'd grown another inch. "Ridiculous is my being burned out of my house by my contractor."
She jabbed a finger back at him. "Ridiculous is you thinking you're more inconvenienced by this than I am."
He closed his hand around her finger, held it against his chest as he gazed into her eyes. What would she do if he leaned forward right now and kissed those taught lips? Would they go slack? Would their tight line part to admit his tongue? Would she close her eyes, tilt her mouth to the fit of his, and slump against him?
More likely she'd knee him in the groin.
"What's ridiculous is you staying in my house when you can afford the best accommodations any city could offer. In fact, why don't you go back to the city? Given all your complaints about Pine Mountain and its air, you'd be happier."
"You'd like me to disappear, wouldn't you?"
"It's my fondest wish."
She leaned into him, thigh brushing thigh, breast bumping chest. Only the anger sparking from her eyes, the jutting angle of her chin, and click of her teeth gnashing together kept him from enveloping her in his arms and rolling her to the floor beneath him. And Brody’s presence. The woman needed to be made love to, and badly.
"Too damned bad," she said, her words squeezing out from between clenched teeth. "Because I'm not going to disappear. I'm not going to leave. I'm going to be a thorn in your side until my house is repaired."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Why had she vowed to stay until her house was fixed when she'd had it all settled in her mind that she was leaving?
Because Roman St. John aggravated her and the oaf didn't deserve a break. Never mind that nagging notion in the back of her mind that there was something else driving her change of mind.
Taming Tess (The St. John Sibling Series) Page 11