ALSO BY BARBARA LONGLEY
Love from the Heartland series, set in Perfect, Indiana
Far from Perfect
The Difference a Day Makes
A Change of Heart
The Twisted Road to You
The Novels of Loch Moigh
True to the Highlander
The Highlander’s Bargain
The Highlander’s Folly
The Highlander’s Vow
The Haneys Series
What You Do to Me
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2017 Barbara Longley
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781477824054
ISBN-10: 1477824057
Cover design by Eileen Carey
To all the craftsmen and craftswomen who build and fix things
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter One
Wyatt sat at his drawing table and worked on a panel for his latest comic book series. Elec Tric, his super hero, had been hit by an otherworldly bolt of lightning one sunny day. Twice. Since then, he’d been able to generate his own electricity. Even stranger, an unseen world of demons and super beings had become visible to him from that day forward. Tric had been forced to make a choice: join the forces of evil who intended to reign supreme over the innocent inhabitants of earth, or join the forces of good who kept the evil at bay.
“Join me, Tric, or I will destroy you,” commanded Delilah Diabolical, the demon queen.
“Never!”
“One demon down; three to go.” Tric pivoted to shoot a bolt of deadly electricity at his archenemy. He couldn’t destroy her, but he managed to send Delilah reeling, which bought him enough time to obliterate her remaining minions. ZAP! SIZZLE! ZAP-ZAP! Gone.
Wyatt finished inking in the bolts of lightning shooting from Tric’s hands and eyes to where the superhero had reduced another pesky lower-level demon to a pile of glowing embers and ash. Then he moved on to the next panel, and a new challenge for his superhero.
“Help!” a pretty blonde cried, as two of DD’s minor demons attempted to drag her off to the underworld. “Somebody, please help me!”
Elec Tric once again rushed to rescue the Mysterious Ms. M, which gave the superhero pause. Why did fate keep throwing the pretty blue-eyed blonde in harm’s way? In his way. Was she another distraction sent by the evildoers to keep him from finding out what they were really up to? If not, what did the demon realm want with Ms. M?
Cue dramatic foreshadowing music. Da-da-duhhh.
Wyatt grinned. Sometimes his stories played through his mind like cheesy movies, and when that happened, he was in the zone. Nothing made him happier than working on his comic books while in the zone.
Noise at the back door leading to the parking lot pulled him out of his imaginary world. He rose from his stool and moved to glance out the window. There she was, the blonde who lived in the apartment above his—the pretty neighbor who’d been his inspiration for the Mysterious Ms. M. Her little boy carried a jug of laundry detergent, while K. Malone—he’d read her name on the mailbox more than once—lugged two large plastic tubs full of laundry, one stacked on top of the other.
K. Malone did her laundry every Saturday morning. Wyatt knew this because he took the opportunity to observe her as she left. And every Saturday morning he wondered the same thing: How would she react if he ran downstairs and out the back door to help her with her heavy load? Would she turn her thousand-watt smile his way, introduce herself and ask if he’d like to get together with her soon? He wished. Oh, how he wished.
Longing stole his breath, and he moved back from the window—as if K. Malone might be able to see him watching her from his apartment. “Curse this wretched shyness,” he muttered in his best cartoon character voice.
He wanted so badly to talk to her, to introduce himself and maybe ask her out. He’d even tried a few times, but the words stuck in his dry mouth, his face turned to flame, and his lungs refused to do their job. He was a hopeless mess when it came to women. Hell, he was a hopeless mess when it came to people in general.
He peered out the window until mother and son drove off to the laundromat. Letting loose a heavy sigh, he returned to his drawing table and immersed himself in his made-up world of alter ego, heroic deeds and feats of superhuman strength. It sure beat losing himself in his usual diatribe of self-castigation.
A couple of hours later, Wyatt got up to stretch. He’d finished the panel he’d been working on, and his stomach had been grumbling “feed me” for the past fifteen minutes. He walked to the kitchen to make a turkey sandwich, when he smelled . . . smoke? A second later, the fire alarm went off in the kitchen above his.
“Cripes.” K. Malone’s apartment was on fire. Wyatt took his cell phone from his pocket and dialed 911. As he gave the dispatcher all of the pertinent information, he grabbed the fire extinguisher from under his kitchen sink. Snatching his keys from the table on the fly, he dashed out into the hall and down the stairs to the caretaker’s apartment.
He pounded on the door and listened for signs of life from inside. No movement. Not a sound. He tried once more just to be sure. “Floyd!” he shouted, getting no response. “Shit.” There were three floors with four apartments each. Wyatt took the stairs three at a time, racing to the top floor. “Fire. Get out!” he pounded on the doors of each apartment. “Fire!”
“What the hell, man?” The old hippie guy who wore his long hair in a ponytail, even though he was bald on top, walked out into the third-floor hall in his shorts, no shirt and barefooted.
“There’s a fire on the second floor. Get out. As old as this building is, it’s going to spread fast.” Extinguisher still in hand, Wyatt dashed down the stairs and did the same on each floor. Then he ran back up to the third floor and herded his neighbors along until he was sure every last person in their twelve-unit building was out the door.
The blare of sirens reached their quiet street, and by the time he made it to the sidewalk, the engines were close. Two trucks with red lights flashing pulled up to the curb next to the hydrant on the corner. Wyatt stepped forward to meet the firefighter who appeared to be directing the crew. “The fire is in the apartment on the southeast corner of the second floor.”
“Your place?” the fireman asked, as the rest of the crew scrambled with gear and attached a hose to the hydrant on the corner.
“No, my neighbor’s. She’s not home and neither is the caretaker. Otherwise I would’ve tried to put it out myself.” He lifte
d his extinguisher. “I’ll open the security door.” Wyatt ran to unlock the dead bolt. He held the door wide as two firefighters rushed in, dragging the hose with them. “It might be electrical,” he called after them.
“Got it covered,” one of the two firefighters following the first pair told him. They had canisters strapped to their backs and axes and crowbars in their hands.
“Stay out of the building until we give the all clear,” the firefighter in charge yelled.
Wyatt cringed at the sound of K. Malone’s door being hacked open, but what choice did the firefighters have? Floyd had the master keys, and he was nowhere to be found. As usual. The guy was so lame. He did a piss-poor job of keeping the place up, and Wyatt often smelled pot smoke coming from the caretaker’s basement apartment. He’d turned Floyd into a sluglike demon in his comic books. Might be time for Elec Tric to turn that particular demon into a pile of ash.
Wyatt had complained to Floyd about the wiring in the building several times, and each time he’d asked him to contact the owners about the danger. He’d noticed right off the building didn’t come close to meeting code. When his requests failed to produce the necessary updates, Wyatt had resorted to sending letters to the city. When that proved to be unproductive as well, he’d done some research through city tax records and sent letters to the holding company in Chicago that owned the building. That got him nowhere either.
If his suspicions were correct, and the fire started because of the faulty electrical wiring, something had to be done. What if a fire broke out in the middle of the night when everyone was sleeping? He couldn’t count on all the ancient battery-operated smoke detectors to work. His hand went to the scars on his neck, ear and jaw. Burns were excruciatingly painful, and things happened so fast. He didn’t wish that kind of misery on anyone.
“Hey,” one of his neighbors said, coming to stand beside him. “You’re the hero of the day. I’m Mariah Estrada,” she said. “Thanks for pounding on my door.”
Hero of the day? He hadn’t really done anything heroic. No people, puppies or kittens had been pulled to safety from a building engulfed in flames. Still, the words trickled through him in a pleasant rush. “No biggie.”
“I’ve seen you around. You live in the apartment beneath Kayla’s. I guess you heard her alarm go off, huh?”
Wyatt nodded. Kayla. Kayla Malone. He liked the way the syllables rolled around in his head. The Mysterious Ms. M had a name to go with his fantasies, a name that would lend itself well to a heroine in his comic books. Maybe he’d give her superpowers in the next story.
“You gonna introduce yourself? I know you only as Hoodie Guy, because you always have that hood up even when it’s hot out. Like today.”
Heat crept up his neck, and he tugged said hood forward. Did the rest of the residents know him as Hoodie Guy too? Great. His neighbors probably thought he had a few loose wires. He couldn’t help himself. The hoods were a habit he couldn’t break. That’s all. Glancing at her, he expected to find derision. Instead, her espresso eyes held only a teasing sparkle. “Wyatt Haney,” he told her.
“I’m a nurse at Fairview Riverside Hospital,” Mariah continued.
Not knowing how to respond to that, he nodded again, and other neighbors drifted over, thanking him for alerting them to the fire. The two silver-haired ladies who lived on his floor even patted his shoulders. Face flaming, he nodded, mumbled and edged away as best he could. He even pulled out his phone, pretending he had important texts to read, so they’d leave him alone. What he wanted right now was to go into the apartment above his to see where the fire had been and to discover the cause.
Of course he couldn’t do that, not without Kayla’s permission. His heart thumped. Dammit, he’d find a way to ask her, because if he was right about what caused the fire, Wyatt intended to raise a ruckus. Something had to be done about the substandard wiring in their building.
All he had to do was find out which insurance company to contact, and he’d mention the many letters he’d sent to the owners. He’d even provide copies and pictures. Then he’d have his family’s company, Haney & Sons Construction and Handyman Service, bid on the job. The outlets weren’t even grounded, for cripes sake.
His heart thumped again. Harder this time. If he got the job, he’d be spending time in his pretty neighbor’s apartment. If he had any luck at all, she might be there some of the time, and maybe . . . just maybe . . . he could muster up the courage to ask her out.
Kayla unlocked the back door to the apartment building and propped it open with one of the tubs of clean, folded laundry. She returned to her car to help Brady out of his booster seat before grabbing the second tub. “Let’s get these things put away, and then we can go to the playground at the park.”
“What’s that smell, Mommy?” Brady asked once they were inside their building.
She sniffed. “Hmm. Smells like somebody had a fire earlier.” Could it have been in her apartment? No, don’t borrow trouble. There were twelve units in the complex, not counting the caretaker’s. Since she hadn’t cooked anything that morning, used her curling iron or burned any candles, the odds were in her favor the fire had not been in her apartment.
“Let’s go, buddy.” She climbed the back stairs, struggling to prop the tubs against the wall so she could open the door to the first-floor landing. She nearly toppled when it swung in on its own. There stood her downstairs neighbor, holding the door open for her and Brady.
“Thanks.” She smiled. Though she’d been curious about her hooded but good-looking neighbor, smiling and the occasional “hi” were as far as they ever got. Most of the folks in their building were really friendly, but this guy kept to himself. Just as well. She had goals, and for the next few years, those goals did not include dating. She didn’t need a man getting in her way. Besides, between school and single parenthood, she had no time for anything else. She was far too busy to pay heed to the occasional bouts of loneliness that came out of nowhere to sit on her chest.
“There’s been a fire,” he said, his face turning red. “In your apartment.”
Dammit! So much for the odds. Of course the fire had been in her apartment. That’s just how her life unfolded. The minute she believed things were going great for a change and—BAM—an accidental pregnancy her senior year, with her high school boyfriend. A few years later and BAM again—she’s a war widow at the ripe old age of twenty-two.
Obviously life saw her as its own personal soccer ball to kick around, because not long after losing her husband, the only factory in her small town had downsized, and she’d lost her job. BAM. Now there’d been a fire in her apartment. At least the building hadn’t burned to the ground. She still had a home. Didn’t she?
Why couldn’t fate or Mother Nature or whatever go pick on somebody else for a while? She tried to dislodge the lump of self-pity clogging her throat. Everybody went through rough patches, but her patches always seemed to turn into acres.
“What on earth could’ve started a fire in my place?” Her neighbor took the tubs of laundry from her. She was too stunned to react for a second. “How bad was this fire?”
“I don’t know. I’m Wyatt Haney, by the way. I called the fire department when I heard your alarm.” He nodded toward the stairs. “I was hoping you might let me take a look inside.”
Her eyes narrowed. “How’d you know I wasn’t home to call the fire department myself?”
“Your apartment is right over mine. I heard you and your son leaving earlier this morning.”
“Oh.” Kayla frowned, and her son grabbed her hand. “Why do you want to look at the damage?”
Wyatt took a long breath, and his face turned a deeper shade of crimson. He pulled the front of his hoodie over his forehead. Was he painfully shy? Did he have some kind of anxiety disorder, or was she just really that scary? Maybe she gave off warning pheromones: stay away, because if you’re in my proximity, shit will happen.
“I’ve written more than one letter to the owners about t
his building not meeting electrical code,” he told her. “The wiring is really old, still the original cotton braid with rubber coating. Our building still has the original knob and tube-type electrical system from 1911, and that’s not good. The outer covering is definitely showing its age. The rubber is cracked, and the cotton loom is fraying.”
“Oh.” She had no idea what he was talking about. Knob and tube?
“If this was an electrical fire, I want to know, so I can see that something is done about the entire building before things get worse.” He shifted the tubs and propped them on the banister. “I’m an electrician.”
“Good to know.” She nodded. “Sure, you can take a look if you want. I’m Kayla Malone,” she said, glancing down at her son. “And this is Brady.”
Wyatt smiled and held out his fist for Brady to bump. “Hey, little dude.”
Brady smiled back and bumped Wyatt’s fist before moving closer to press himself against her legs. Her five-year-old had always been shy with people he didn’t know. “Thanks for calling the fire department . . . and for carrying my laundry.”
“No problem.”
Wyatt really was a handsome man, especially when he smiled. She liked the striking combination of tawny blond hair and dark brown eyes, not to mention his angular face and fine straight nose. Plus, he was tall. She was five foot nine herself, and she appreciated a man she could look up to. Though he was on the slender side, Wyatt’s shoulders were broad. Very broad, and he was well proportioned, nicely put together in fact, and . . . Stop. It.
She started up the stairs, acutely aware of Wyatt’s masculine presence behind her. What shape had she left her apartment in? She did a mental inventory: dishes in the sink, toys strewn all over the living room floor. What kind of mess had the firefighters made? Argh. Wyatt was willing to carry her tubs of laundry upstairs, and that made letting him take a look worth it, no matter how messy her place might be.
“You don’t use the machines in the basement to do your laundry?”
His deep voice caused a tummy flutter. “No. The washing machines here are really old and kind of funky, and so is the basement in general.” She shuddered. “Millipedes and spiders live down there. Besides, if I go to a laundromat, I can do all my loads at once,” she said, turning to glance at him. Was he ogling her backside? Another batch of butterflies launched into flight in her midsection. “Saves time, and I don’t have to run up and down these stairs all day.”
Whatever You Need (The Haneys Book 2) Page 1