by Nancy Warren
Her coffee ready, she took it with her out to the workshop. And she got to work.
* * *
WHAT KIND OF WOMAN got so obsessed by work that she ran out of food? Jackson shook his head as he walked around the market with a shopping cart. He’d taken a quick stock of her kitchen supplies when he’d blearily stumbled out of bed, knowing he needed to get a really early start if he wanted to shower at home and get to work on time.
As he’d taken stock, he’d quickly realized it would be easier to make a list of what she did have than what she didn’t. Lots of coffee. That was good. She liked a dark brew, and kept a few pounds of beans in the freezer. She had spices, and a few random cans of food, and her wine cellar was well stocked, but mostly her cupboards were bare.
He threw eggs, bread, cheese, fruit and vegetables into the cart. He had no idea what kind of cereal she liked, so he bought a couple of varieties. He bought steaks for dinner tonight, the fixings for Caesar salad and baked potatoes, and chicken for Saturday night. He smiled at his own domesticity as he planned wraps for lunch on Saturday and tuna salad sandwiches for Sunday.
All day, he’d alternately relived the passion they’d shared and worried about Lauren. Which was crazy. She wasn’t his girlfriend. She wasn’t his problem.
And yet he knew all about the drive to succeed because he recognized it so well. How many times had he run himself almost as ragged working on programing for a client deadline? Too many to count. Why should he be shocked that she worked as hard as he did? He supposed he’d always thought she was soft, pampered like Amy was. But the woman he’d seen last night hadn’t seemed soft or pampered. She’d looked very much like a woman who needed some pampering, and that had spoken to him on a level he understood only too well.
He was shocked to find that he wanted to make her life a little easier, to smooth her path. Well, he’d messed up their easy, uncomplicated, sex-only relationship for good. And he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Whether it would turn out to be good or bad, he doubted they could ever go back now.
And maybe he didn’t want to.
As he stood in line to pay, he tried to imagine the sharp-tongued Lauren as his official girlfriend. He winced at the picture in his head of them arguing their entire lives away.
He arrived at Lauren’s place just before eight that night, with a car full of food and a hastily packed bag of clothes and toiletries.
Her place was as dark as it had been the night before. He knew exactly where he’d find her, could picture her working in her studio, but decided not to bother her. Instead, he let himself into the unlocked cottage, flipped on lights and put the potatoes on to bake even before he unloaded the food. He was hungry and imagined she would be, too. He had no idea what she’d eaten, apart from the apple and granola bar he’d left her—all he’d been able to find in his car—but he doubted it had been much.
Once the potatoes were in the oven, the steaks marinating and the salad prepared, he walked over to the workshop. He knocked, but when a minute went by with no answer even though he could hear jazz playing, he opened the door and walked in.
Looking at a woman when she had no idea she was being observed was so different from looking at the same woman when you were engaged in conversation or she was simply aware of your gaze. Lauren was completely absorbed in what she was doing. She held a stick of lead in one hand and the hot gun in the other and she was bent forward beading solder and then using the gun like a precise paintbrush to spread the liquid metal.
The window she was working on was stunning. There was no other word for it. Even without light streaming through it, he could see the patterns and shapes, the colors. Her face was a study in concentration, her shoulders held high in a way he instinctively knew meant knotted muscles from too many hours bent forward in the same position.
She wore an old denim shirt, baggy jeans that hung on her slim frame and boots.
Tenderness washed over him, along with a desire to ease her life somehow. He frowned. He didn’t want to feel warm emotions, didn’t like the way he’d worried about her all day, wanted to feed her and rub her shoulders. When had this fun sex thing turned serious? How had Lauren, of all women, squeezed past his defenses?
As he stood there, it occurred to him that he’d never bothered with defenses when she was around because he’d assumed her sharp tongue had made him immune.
Fool that he was. Not only was he not remotely immune to her, he was half in love with her.
He gulped as the unwelcome thought hit him. Half in love? Hell, no. Where Lauren was concerned, he’d never done anything by half measures, whether sparring or making love or falling for her. He wasn’t half in love with her. He was all-the-way, head-over-heels, going-under-for-the-third-time-and-watching-his-life-rush-in-front-of-his-eyes in love with her.
Did he move? Did he howl like an animal trying to chew its own leg off to get away? Did she feel his intense gaze on her? He didn’t know, only that she stilled in her work and then slowly raised her gaze until they were staring at each other. For a second, no one moved, spoke, so much as changed expression. He felt the intensity of her gaze, the ball of barely acknowledged emotion pressing against his chest. Truth was it felt more like a panic attack than love.
He didn’t want to be in love with Lauren. He wanted to run far and fast.
But he didn’t. He stepped forward and said, “Didn’t want to disturb you.”
“How long were you standing there?” She hadn’t liked him watching her without her knowing it.
“A few seconds.” A few deadly seconds, enough time for him to realize he was in love with her. He took another step forward. “How’s it going?”
She shrugged, and then rolled her shoulders, both irritable and tight-muscled. “Slower than I want it to go. I planned to finish this window tonight.” Her tone suggested that was no longer a possibility.
Well, he couldn’t work miracles, but he could offer her what he had. “What can I do?”
She looked confused, as though unsure what he could do. He didn’t blame her. He’d never made a window. “I’m not sure. I don’t usually have help.”
“There must be something simple and tedious that I could do for you.”
She nodded suddenly. Decisive. “Think you can handle masking tape?”
He grinned. “I practically have a PhD in masking tape.”
“Okay.” She grabbed his hand. Took him to a second wooden table. “See these pieces of glass?” They were neatly stacked, smaller ones in boxes. They looked like collections of sparkling puzzle pieces.
“Yep.”
She grabbed a roll of tracing paper and laid it on the work bench. On it was a drawing, clearly of the window. “It’s to scale. You want to get the pieces, a section at a time, and fit them together. Once you’ve got the first section done, call me, and I’ll start foiling while you put the next section together.”
He had no idea what foiling was, but figured it wasn’t important at this stage. “I think I can handle it.”
“Cool. Let me know if you have any trouble.”
She stood for a second, watching, and he realized that she was waiting for him to prove himself. “Lot of pressure,” he said, realizing that she’d scrawled initials on the page that he had to assume represented colors. He began to pick up pieces, place them on the paper. After a couple of minutes, she patted him on the shoulder and went back to what she was doing.
They worked like that, in silence, for maybe thirty minutes. He could smell the burning metal of the solder, hear the sexy wail of the music. For someone who worked all day long, day after day, on computer codes and possibilities, a virtual world of the future instead of the real one of the here and now, it was refreshing to work with his hands, knowing that what he helped Lauren build would end up gracing someone’s house, lending it a beauty and functionality that would last well into the future.
He hadn’t slept a lot last night, had driven to San Francisco and back again, worked a full day, shop
ped for food, and yet the tiredness he’d felt melted away as he chose colored glass puzzle pieces and fitted them together according to her design.
On the page, a stylized tulip with an art deco flair began to take shape. He could see that there were panels in the door, each of which would have a similar look, but not an identical one. Interesting.
She touched his shoulder, and he was so immersed in what he was doing that he jumped. He turned to look at her, and she nodded, looking pleased. “You got it. That’s exactly it.”
“Now what?”
“Now we tape.”
They ripped masking tape into inch-long strips to hold the pieces of glass in place. Once that was done, he said again, “Now what?”
“Now we take a break. I’m starving.” She kissed him lightly on the lips, a casual little smacker that felt more intimate than some of the things they’d done naked.
“I’ll go throw the steaks on.” And rescue the potatoes.
“Steak, wow.”
“I’m building your strength for later,” he teased, and they walked back to her cottage.
Since she didn’t have a barbecue, he grilled the steaks in the oven. They drank water because they were going back to work afterward. He suspected that drinking alcohol was not conducive to working with hot irons and glass.
“Tell me everything that’s been going on,” she said as she stabbed into the salad he’d made. “I feel like I’ve been on vacation in some non-English-speaking country. I have no idea what’s going on in the world.”
“The world’s still pretty much a mess,” he warned her. “No worse or better than a week ago.”
“How about our friends? What’s the gossip?”
“I don’t really—oh, I know, did you hear about Willy?”
“No. I’ve barely spoken to Amy.”
So he told her about Willy, and she laughed as hard as he had when he got to the part where Willy was dating the cocktail waitress who’d inadvertently got him arrested. “I love it,” she said. “It’s karmic payback for him and the frat boys tricking us into spending the night together.”
“Biggest favor they ever did me,” he said before he could stop himself.
Lauren’s eyes widened and she stared at him for a moment. Then she grinned, a sexy, teasing grin. “I agree.”
Maybe she thought he meant only that he was grateful for the sex. Maybe that was good.
After they ate, they went back to the shed. She finished the window she’d been working on when he got there, and he felt that he was helping her get ahead on the next one. It was a good feeling.
It was after eleven when they called it quits. Lauren was yawning hugely as they got to her bedroom. “I was going to shower again, but I’m too tired.”
“Me, too.”
They stripped and fell into bed, and he rolled her up against him.
“Thank you,” she said, her big eyes serious as she gazed at him.
“You’re welcome.” He kissed her softly on the lips.
She snuggled up against him. “Do you mind if we don’t...you know? I am just so tired.”
“No. Go to sleep.” And strangely, as he held her in his arms and felt her soft, deep breathing, he didn’t mind that they hadn’t had sex. He felt calm, content, more right than he’d felt in a long time.
He fell asleep with the feel of her soft, warm skin against him.
16
AS A STRESS RELIEVER, great sex was right up there. But, Lauren discovered as she woke the next morning, feeling rested and alert, that simply sleeping beside Jackson all night even without the sex had done almost as good a job.
She smelled coffee and smiled. Dragged on her nightshirt and padded out to the kitchen.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t simply sleeping beside him that had lowered her stress level to the high end of normal instead of dangerously high—it was the way Jackson had come through for her.
Because of him, she’d eaten properly. He’d also helped her with her commission. To her surprise, he’d caught on right away and she’d trusted him. There was food in the house, and the smell of coffee drew her to the kitchen the way honey drew bears.
“Hi,” he said, when she entered the kitchen. He looked all morning sexy with a little stubble and mussed hair, wearing a T-shirt and shorts.
“You made coffee.”
“Which I think was very big of me since you didn’t put out last night.”
She giggled, and really, she’d never thought of herself as the giggling type, but he was so adorable and she felt a tiny bit shy. Everything was changing between them and it seemed as if it was all happening too fast. Or was nothing changing and she was reading way too much into his simple kindness? She’d never been any good at judging what men meant when they did things. Usually, she asked Amy, but since Jackson was still a big secret, she couldn’t even ask her best friend.
“I’m sorry about that. I can’t believe I fell asleep. Maybe I can make it up to you later?” He’d mentioned staying for the whole weekend, but she didn’t want to hold him to it. It was a sunny Saturday and he probably had a hundred things he could be doing.
He rose and got out one of her blue pottery coffee mugs, having headed unerringly to the correct cupboard as though he lived there. Then he poured a dark stream of coffee. She could tell it was strong, the way she liked it. “You take milk or sugar?”
“Never.”
He nodded as though she’d given the correct answer. She glanced at his own half-empty mug and saw he drank his black, as well. One thing they had in common, then.
As he passed her the coffee, she thanked him and sipped gratefully.
This morning, everything felt new and possible. How had she come to this? It was only a few weeks ago that she’d thought Jackson was an entitled ass. Now she found he had a soft side. He could cook, he’d cared enough to drive a long way to make sure she was okay. He’d done all that and then hadn’t pressured her for sex when she’d crawled into bed bone tired.
What kind of man did all that?
A good man. The kind of man a girl could seriously fall for if she wasn’t careful.
“I thought I’d whip up one of my world-famous omelets,” he told her.
“You make world-famous omelets?”
“Well, my world is pretty small.”
She smiled, walked over to him and kissed his too-gorgeous face. “I should tell you a secret,” she said.
His eyes immediately went cloudy, a sign that he was getting aroused. She loved that she could do that to him so easily. “Yeah? What’s your secret?”
“Omelets make me seriously hot.”
“Then I’ll put extra eggs in yours.”
He rubbed his lips back and forth over hers. All the sexual buzz she’d been too tired to act on last night came roaring at her. Fast and hard.
“You do that. In fact, I’ll help you. It’ll go faster.”
Had she ever cooked breakfast with a man before? She didn’t think so. There’d been times where she and her ex had both tried to make toast or get cereal in the morning, and one or the other might have made brunch for the other, but working together like this was ridiculously intimate and kind of fun.
She grated cheese and chopped some spinach, while he diced mushrooms, beat eggs and heated her heavy frying pan. While he made the omelet with the casual flair of a TV chef, she took care of making toast and setting the table.
“There’s orange juice in the fridge,” he told her.
Of course there was. She felt as though she’d fallen asleep at her workshop table and was dreaming all of this. But the smells were too real, the sizzle in her blood too visceral.
She was as awake as it got.
“You’re right,” she said, after taking her first bite of the fluffy, perfectly cooked omelet. “This is a world-class dish. Did you learn to cook so you could impress women?” She was teasing, but not completely.
“I learned to cook so I could survive on my own,” he countered. He chewed and swallowe
d. “But impressing women is a nice side benefit.”
“Tell me you’re handy around the house and I’ll call the wedding planner,” she said.
When his gaze connected with hers, all dark blue and sexy, she almost couldn’t breathe. “I can fix anything.”
She reached across with her bare foot under the table and rubbed his calf. “Good, because I have something that needs fixing.”
He sipped his orange juice and seemed to contemplate her request. “Is it electrical?”
Was he kidding? The electricity shooting between them was probably going to cause a fire. “Yes, it’s electrical.”
Her foot stroked higher and found his thigh, warm and a little hairy. She felt his breathing change. “I’m also good with plumbing.”
“Plumbing could be involved.”
“I’m really good with my hands.” As he said the words, he slipped one hand under the table and began to track warm fingers up her leg.
“I could definitely use a handyman.” Her voice didn’t even sound like hers. More like something you’d hear on a nine-hundred number. She wasn’t putting it on—the lust flowing through her had clearly gone to her vocal cords.
He pushed his chair back so suddenly her foot fell to the floor. He came around, hauled her out of her chair and kissed her fast and hard.
A moaning sound came from her mouth and she threw herself against him, kissing him, plastering her body to his. With an arm, he pushed their plates to the back of the table, where it met the wall, and then he hoisted her up so she was sitting on the edge. Her nightshirt was shoved up over her hips. He pulled her to him and pushed all the way in in one long thrust.
She was so wet, he slid easily inside her, and they started to move—crazy, uncoordinated, all need and heat. The table banged against the wall and something fell to the floor with a crash. A piece of cutlery, she thought dimly and then she couldn’t think at all.
She clung, wrapping her legs around him, leaning back on her hands so she could gain some traction and push up against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. They were both panting. He reached forward and pulled the neck of her nightshirt down so her breasts were exposed and he could touch them, play with them. As her passion built she heard herself making crazy sounds, heard him making some crazy sounds of his own.