by Zara Chase
One of the kittens fell into the room and tried to climb up Harley’s leg. Harley laughed as he picked Boris up and tickled his chin. The kitten was swamped between Harley’s large hands, just the tips of his ears and a pair of huge eyes visible. Briana could see that he was being real gentle, helping to redeem him for his earlier flippancy in her eyes. Anyone who cared about her waifs and strays couldn’t be all bad.
“Cute kittens,” he said.
“I think so, although they do tend to complicate things. I can’t seem to get through to them that electrical wires are not to be chased or chewed and holes in walls aren’t knocked through just so they can hide behind them.”
The guys all laughed as they followed her through to the kitchen.
“This was always my favorite part of the house,” she said. “Gran spent half her life in here baking, and I love these old cabinets. I’m going to have them stripped back to the original maple and then varnished. They’re too good to scrap.”
“I agree,” Gus said. “They don’t make roomy larders like this one anymore.”
“Right. For years Gran didn’t have a fridge. She just used the cold marble shelf in the larder to keep things cool.”
Fergal nodded. “That would work in this climate.”
He focused brown eyes gleaming with unsettling intelligence upon her, causing havoc with her equilibrium. She was furious when the sexual magnetism that seemed to cling to him blasted shards of pleasure through her entire body. She was pathetic! All women presumably responded to their toxic charm in the same way. Well, sorry, guys, Briana thought, but I don’t have time for all that nonsense. Wilting at their feet like some sort of lovelorn heroine in a cheap novel couldn’t be fitted into her tight schedule this week.
“Now I’m going to have to get all sorts of expensive modern devices in here to satisfy the inspectors,” she said briskly, turning away from Fergal but regretting it when her gaze clashed with Harley’s. He winked at her, like he could interpret her thoughts, and her face flooded with color. Again. “I absolutely refuse to part with the cabinets,” she said, walking out of the kitchen.
She led them through to the formal dining room which was dominated by an old maple table that could comfortably accommodate twenty people.
“Great table,” Gus said, running his hand across the wood.
“It’s been here forever, and it’s where I plan to feed my guests. There won’t be lots of prissy little tables, just old faithful here.” She patted the scarred wood with genuine affection. “People can eat together or starve.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Fergal laughed at her passion as he glanced around the room, his gaze falling upon a series of framed photographs on the wall. He walked up to take a closer look. “Say, these are good. Who took them?”
“I did. Photography’s a hobby of mine.”
“You’re good enough to be a professional,” Gus said, examining a shot she’d taken of a manatee and its baby. “You took these during your conservation program in Florida, presumably.”
“Thanks, and yes, I did. That’s what I’ll do here in the winter, when there are no guests. Get involved with conservation and take pictures. I’ve managed to sell a few to magazines already. Hopefully I can shift a few more when I get time, to help defray some of the costs being eaten up by this project.”
“You could display some on the walls here,” Harley suggested. “Put price tags on them and sell them to your visitors. Or, come to that, you could take pictures of the visitors themselves. Tourists love all that shit.”
Briana blinked. “That’s a good idea. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Harley laughed. “I know I’m brilliant. There’s no need to thank me.”
She shot him a look. “I wasn’t going to. I still haven’t forgiven you for earlier.”
“You have to ignore Harley,” Fergal said. “We do. He’s a fool, but we kinda love him anyway.”
“Well, just so long as I don’t have to love him, too.”
“We wouldn’t inflict that sort of torture on you, sweetheart,” Gus assured her.
“Is this where you live?” Fergal asked, opening a door on the far side of the dining room.
“Don’t go in there!”
Too late. All three of them piled through the door to Gran’s private domain like they had every right in the world to intrude.
“Sorry,” Fergal said, backing out again. “I can see you haven’t touched that part of the house yet.”
“It was Gran’s sitting room, bedroom, and bathroom, and…well, I can’t bring myself to clear it out yet.”
“So you must be sleeping in one of the rooms we didn’t go into in the other wing?” Gus said.
“Yes. Besides, this part of this wing doesn’t have a roof.”
“The new tiles?” Harley said.
“No, the old slates are in great order. I’ll show you.” She led them outside through a side door and pointed to the slates that had been removed from the roof and piled up outside a shed. “They made stuff to last in those days. The modern ones aren’t nearly as good. The problem is that my surveyor found woodworm in the wooden trusses in this part of the roof, so the slates had to be stripped off so the beams can be replaced. That was what was supposed to be delivered today, but instead they sent me a whole pallet of tiles that I didn’t order.” Briana expelled a frustrated sigh. “They can’t deliver the timber I need until next week, which means I’ll have nothing for the guys to do when they turn up Saturday.”
“If they fucked the order up,” Fergal said, “they’ll have to put it right.”
“That’s what I tried to tell them, but they’re having none of it. This remote location works against me sometimes. They only come out this way with a particular truck that can handle the road on certain days of the week. Right now that truck is elsewhere, and they won’t call it back to correct their mistake.”
“Where does the timber come from?” Fergal asked.
“A builders’ merchant on the other side of Glasgow.”
“Got the paperwork?”
“Sure, but what—”
“We’ll go pick your timber up for you in our truck.” Fergal took the order receipt from her hand before she could protest. “Shouldn’t be gone long.”
“I can’t ask you to do that.”
“You’re not asking, we’re offering,” Gus said.
Harley nodded. “You can repay us by feeding us tonight and letting us bunk down in one of your vacant rooms.”
Briana hesitated. Did she really want them hanging around overnight? Hell, yes! Her head told her it was a seriously bad idea. Her body reacted very differently and sprang enthusiastically to life. Besides, if they got the timbers for her, her work schedule would be pretty much back on track. She might have naughty ideas about the three of them running through her head, but she very much doubted if they were similarly minded. They were just playing nice because they’d been paid to check up on her. Flirting seemed to come as naturally to them as breathing, and they couldn’t seem to help honing their skills on her. Briana was levelheaded enough to know they couldn’t really have designs of someone who looked like she did right now—splattered in plaster, her hair a mess, her clothing worse, her attitude ornery.
She was safe from them. She’d just have to rein in her wild fantasies about the three of them and make sure the same was true in reverse.
“Okay, thanks, you’ve got yourselves a deal.”
Chapter Five
“She’s hot!” Gus smacked his lips together as they drove away from the lodge. “I’m in lurve.”
“Yeah, for once I agree with you, man,” Harley said. “I’m betting she scrubs up real well.”
“We need to keep this professional,” Fergal said from behind the wheel.
“Yeah, like you’re not fantasizing about jumping her bones,” Gus replied. “I know you, buddy, and I saw the way you kept touching her every chance you got.”
“You think she’s a player, Ferg?”
Harley asked.
“I’m not sure. She oozes sensuality, but I don’t think she actually knows it.”
“All the better,” Gus replied. “I like awaking a woman’s sensual side. Tell me you don’t, Ferg.”
Fergal hit the wheel with the heel of his hand and flashed a pained smile. “I’m trying real hard to remain objective here, but I gotta tell you, I’m getting vibes, too.”
“Yes!” Gus and Harley shared a fist pump.
“Not so fast,” Fergal said, laughing. “I don’t want to put her under any obligation.”
“Come on, Ferg.” Harley shook his head. “We’re just talking a bit of fun, if she’s willing. I know you don’t want commitment,” he added, making inverted commas with his fingers around the word commitment, “and no one’s suggesting that.”
“We’re here to do a job,” Fergal reminded them. “Someone doesn’t want her to succeed with what she’s doing, and we need to figure out who, so we can straighten them out. In order to do that we need to find reasons to hang around until we get to the bottom of things, but that doesn’t mean putting her under pressure to play with us.”
Harley pulled a hard done by face. “You mean I can’t tie her up and whip that cute butt until she begs me to fuck her?”
“She’s already got your measure, buddy,” Gus said. “She saw right through you when you came on to her.”
“Nah, she already loves me.”
Fergal shook his head. “You keep right on thinking that way, but bear in mind that she’s damaged emotionally. Her mom running out on her like that and having a part-time father who probably seemed to love his career more than he loved her is enough to make anyone insecure. That’s why she’s adamant she doesn’t want her dad interfering. She doesn’t trust anyone because no one in her life, other than her grandmother, has given her any reason to trust.”
“You saying we need to get her to trust us?” Harley asked.
“It would be a good place to start. Far as I can see, she’s clinging to that lodge because it represents the only security she’s ever known.”
“You don’t think she should do it?” Gus sounded surprised. “Seems to me she loves not just the lodge but the entire area.”
“Sure I think she should keep the lodge, but she has a few demons to face up to first.” Fergal paused. “And I know all about that shit,” he added, almost to himself.
“She won’t take kindly to us sticking around,” Gus said. “She’s too damned independent for her own good.”
“She doesn’t know what she’s taken on, any more than she realizes someone’s trying to fuck it up for her,” Fergal replied.
“My money’s on the jerk who ran us off the road,” Harley said. “I reckon he’s deliberately screwing things up for Briana so he can ride to her rescue. She’ll fall at his feet with gratitude, and he’ll get what he’s always wanted, which is to marry her.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions, bud,” Fergal said. “We’ll check him out, and if he is behind it all, we’ll pay him a friendly visit. I don’t take kindly to being run off the road.”
They found their way to the builders’ merchants and, after a frustrating delay, the correct timber was found. The guys loaded it into the bed of their truck, secured it firmly in place, and headed back toward the lodge. As they drove through Fort Peck, Harley pointed out the barber shop.
“No gossipers outside at this hour,” he remarked.
Gus, who gave the impression of being asleep in the backseat, pointed through the side window. “Well, well, look what we have here,” he said.
Fergal and Harley following the direction of his finger and saw the SUV that had run them off the road earlier. A guy with sandy hair was leaning against the open driver’s door, deep in conversation with another man. Harley snapped off a couple of quick shots of them on his cell phone. The two men finished their conversation, and the driver was about to climb into his car when he noticed them with the timber in the back of their truck. He shaded his eyes with his hand and took a long, hard look at them.
“Get down, Gus!” Fergal barked. “I don’t want him to see you.”
“Why not?” Gus asked, ducking down as ordered.
“I’m guessing that Romeo there knows who the timber’s for. Briana said she’d told him earlier that it hadn’t turned up. He must know someone around these parts with a truck, and if he really wants to help her, he could have offered to have it picked up. He didn’t do that, which kinda makes you wonder.”
“It sure does,” Harley agreed. “You think he’ll go to the lodge and check it out?”
“Nope, but I’m betting he’ll be on his cell to Briana before the next signal changes.”
They turned a corner at the end of the street, out of sight of Greg.
“You can get up now,” Fergal said to Gus.
“So, you think this guy will call Briana and quiz her about us,” Gus said. “Hope she has the sense to tell him to go fuck himself.”
* * * *
Briana spent an hour finishing up her plastering, and then hit the shower. She absolutely wasn’t doing so to make an impression upon her guests. Obviously she washed the muck off at the end every day, once she finished the grimy workload she’d set herself. Today she washed her hair as well, but only because she needed to get the dried plaster out of it. She really ought to get into the habit of wearing a hat when she worked.
“Okay, now what?”
Briana rummaged through her meager selection of clothing. Since she’d anticipated living on a glorified building site for the foreseeable future she’d only unpacked jeans and one pair of smart pants. Smart was out of the question. She didn’t want to send out the wrong message, so clean jeans it would have to be. She paired them up with a long-sleeved T-shirt in a pale shade of green, thrust her feet into comfortable mules, and ran a brush through her damp hair. She’d leave it to its own devices, which meant it would dry into corkscrew curls that hung halfway down her back because that was who she was—wild and screwed up. Makeup was out of the question. So, too, was perfume.
“This is me,” she told Max and the kittens. “Take me or leave me.”
Briana made her way into the kitchen, wondering what to give the guys to eat. She had steaks in the freezer. Big men like them were bound to like steaks, so she took three out and set them in the microwave to defrost.
She’s just thrown a salad together when the phone rang. It might be the guys calling with a problem about the timber, so she took the call.
“Hey, babe.”
Shit, it was Greg! “Greg, how you doing?”
“Have you got visitors, or something?”
“Excuse me?”
“I saw some guys driving up to your place when I was leaving. I just wondered if you were okay.”
“I’m a big girl, Greg,” she said, trying her best to keep her temper in check. “I can take care of myself.”
“I know that, honey. It’s just that I care about you, stuck out there all on your own. Wouldn’t want anyone taking advantage of you.”
Briana exhaled. She knew that was true, although she suspected it was more than that. She’d stupidly been out with him a couple of times since his divorce, believing him when he said he wanted to be just friends. Was it ever possible for a man and a woman to be just friends, especially when they had a history? She suspected now that he wanted more than that and had no intention of encouraging him, persistent though he was. She also had no reason not to tell him about the guys.
“They’re friends of my dad’s, just stopped by to say hello.”
“I see.”
Greg didn’t sound happy about that. She wouldn’t put it past him to come on out and check up on her, so Briana explained. “They’ve done me a favor and run over to the builders’ merchants to pick up that timber for me.”
“That’s kind of them. I should have thought to arrange it myself. I guess they’ll be gone once they drop it off.”
“Yeah, they will.” That ought t
o satisfy him. “Anyway, if there’s nothing else you need to know, I have stuff to do.”
“Sure I can’t tempt you out to dinner this evening?”
“Absolutely. Gotta go.”
Briana cut the connection. The guys would be back any time now. Hell, she hadn’t made up beds for them. She ran back to the bedroom wing, found sheets and blankets, and made up one room with a double bed and another with two singles. No prizes for guessing who’d take the double, she thought, rolling her eyes. She put fresh towels in the only working bathroom. All four of them would have to share. Well, at least the door had a decent lock.
Briana stifled a yawn, only just realizing how tired she was. She’d been up since dawn and hadn’t stopped all day. She now had three guests to entertain and wouldn’t last another hour unless she closed her eyes—just for a moment or two.
She went back to her room, lay on top of her bed, and was asleep within seconds.
* * * *
Fergal stopped the truck outside the wing of the lodge without a roof. Might as well unload the timber where it was needed. The three of them completed the task with swift economy, stashing it in the shed close to the roof slates. Fergal was surprised Briana didn’t hear them and come out to make sure everything was all right. When they entered the lodge and there was still no sign of her, he became concerned.
“There are steaks defrosted in the microwave,” Gus said, heading straight for the kitchen, “and she’s made a salad. She must be here somewhere.”
Fergal found her, lying on her bed, dead to the world. His cock stirred at the sight of her hair spread across the pillow beneath her like a fiery halo. She was one hell of a beautiful woman, and he’d always had a thing for redheads. The temptation to lean down and kiss her awake was compelling, but Fergal couldn’t take the chance of spooking her.
He crept from the room and closed the door as quietly as he could, leaving her to sleep.