Feeding the Fire: A Rosewood Novel

by Andrea Laurence

  The crew split up, each of them tackling different tasks in the house. He didn’t tell Pepper about this, knowing she’d balk, but he’d had it set up from the very first day. After he’d visited her Sunday and assessed the damage, he knew this was a bigger job than just the two of them could handle. He’d gone straight to the firehouse to see what the others could do to help. The guys he worked with were all too happy to do what they could, especially with the promise of pizza in return.

  The work went a lot quicker with additional sets of hands. They had pulled down all the Sheetrock from the bedroom walls and were hauling it outside when Travis finally pulled up. They all worked to bring in the new sheets of drywall and stack them inside while Mack worked on the wiring in there. In just a few hours, they’d installed the new window, gotten the electrical outlets working again, and rehung the drywall panels on the walls.

  They were taping and mudding the seams when Pepper came into the bedroom to examine their progress. The smile on her face was priceless. It made every bit of the sweat and mostly self-inflicted pain of the last few days worth it.

  “Well,” she said, “Kyle and I have fixed the leaky faucet and the hot-water heater is shipshape. It’s about noon. I was thinking of running up the street to pick up pizza and drinks. Will you guys be ready to take a break when I get back?”

  A chorus of yeses answered her.

  “Great. Any pizza requests?”

  “Meat,” someone shouted, and his response was echoed enthusiastically by the others.

  “All right, I’ll be back.” Pepper smiled at Grant and gave him a wink before she disappeared into the hallway.

  Kyle picked up a trowel and started mudding seams with the others. Once they heard the front door slam, he turned to Grant with a curious expression on his face. “So tell us, Grant, what is this all about?”

  Grant frowned and continued to smooth mud across the wall. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  Kyle chuckled. “Come on, man. We’ve worked together for almost three years. Since that time, I’ve seen you mow through half the single women in this town. Not once have you done any hard labor for one, and you most certainly never recruited us to help.”

  That was true, but Grant didn’t want to talk about it. He had a reputation of being a ladies’ man, and he didn’t want them to know that he had a soft underbelly exposed where Pepper was concerned. “None of my other dates paid four grand for my services. I want her to get her money’s worth.”

  Paul wiped the sweat from his brow and smoothed over the last piece of tape. “Couldn’t you just give her four thousand dollars’ worth of orgasms?”

  “Well, I could,” Grant said with a wicked grin. “And I still might. But this was more important to her.”

  “You like her,” Mack said as a statement of fact.

  Grant shrugged. “I do. There’s not much more to it right now, but I do like her.”

  “Oh, how the mighty has fallen,” Travis wailed. “Could it be true that the great Grant Chamberlain has fallen prey to the clutches of a woman at last?”

  “Big talk,” Grant muttered. “Considering two of you are married, one is divorced, and one is engaged, I’d say you all are experts of falling prey to women. But I think it’s a little early to be writing a eulogy for my bachelorhood.” The guys snickered and went back to their chores, but Grant found himself struggling to focus on the drywall. Their jabs had struck a chord with him.

  Grant had lived every day of his life since he was eleven worried that one day, he would turn into his father. He wasn’t sure if his mother knew the truth and turned a blind eye, or if she lived in blissful ignorance, but he knew if his father’s infidelity became public, it would hurt and embarrass her. He couldn’t bear for that to happen to his mother or to whatever woman had the misfortune of marrying him.

  The guys ribbed him about Pepper, but the idea of getting serious with a woman was unnerving. He didn’t want to turn into his father and hurt the woman he loved and the family they’d built. Grant loved women. His father loved women. If he was the chip off the ol’ block that people always jokingly said he was, he was at risk of making the same mistakes. Grant refused to do that to someone and decided early on that if he couldn’t be faithful, he wouldn’t get in a committed relationship.

  It was an easy fix, at least until Pepper came into his life.

  Grant could feel her pull on him. It was as though Pepper had hooked him and was reeling him in like a bass on an invisible fishing line. No matter how much he fought, he felt himself getting closer and closer. But unlike an unfortunate fish, Grant liked it. His original quest to bed Pepper just wasn’t enough. Now that he’d spent real, quality time with her, he wanted to keep doing it.

  That meant facing his fears of being just like Dear Old Dad.

  It also meant potentially hurting Pepper if things didn’t work out. He hoped he could be monogamous, but he’d never tried. What if he failed? His falling for a woman was just fun and games to the guys, but it was a serious concern for him.

  Grant’s ears perked up at the sound of the front door creaking open and slamming shut. “Pizza!” Pepper called from the living room.

  Everyone put down their tools and shuffled one by one into the bathroom to wash up before they ate. Grant was the last in line, giving himself plenty of time to consider his coworkers’ words. If they could see that what was going on between the two of them was different, it must be. His grandmother seemed to see it, too, and had gone to a lot of trouble to make this relationship a possibility.

  Was he falling into Pepper’s clutches? And if so . . . did he really mind?

  As the sun set on an extremely productive day, Pepper stood in one of her newly renovated bedrooms and just shook her head.

  “It’s amazing. Just a few days and we’ve done what I couldn’t do in almost a year.”

  They’d made leaps and bounds today, even with the other guys at the house for only a few hours. After lunch, Travis and Paul went home to get some sleep before their next shift at the firehouse. Mack and Kyle helped clean up, and when they finally got a call about a car accident on the interstate, they left for the day. She and Grant had completed mudding the drywall and finished up alone.

  “We’ve still got work to do,” Grant said. He came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist.

  Pepper was startled at first by the intimate gesture, but found all too quickly that she liked it. Even though she knew she should, she couldn’t pull away.

  “Once the mud is completely dry and sanded, we’ve got to prime and paint the walls in here. We still can’t move furniture in until Saturday because of the polyurethane on the floors.”

  “None of that matters,” Pepper said. “That’s all little stuff I can do on my own. I can paint and hang pictures, move furniture, and put up curtains. Hanging drywall and disassembling my bathroom faucet is another matter. I mean . . . the lights come on in here now. You don’t understand how huge that is.”

  “Well, remember, Mack says you still need to look into getting the house rewired. He was able to fix the connection so the outlets and switches would work in here again, but they’re old and really need to be replaced. If I were you, I’d contact an electrician to get a quote and start saving up to have that done.”

  Pepper turned in his arms to look at him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled her body tight against his own. “Thank you for this. For all of this. It’s more than I ever expected.”

  “Hey, when you pay good money for Grant Chamberlain, you get nothing but the best.”

  “Indeed.” Pepper leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips. A tingle of awareness surged down her arms, making her fingertips press hungrily into his neck. She felt the familiar tug of desire in her belly, even after just a few moments of touching him. He had this ability to draw an immediate reaction from her body. He always had. It was a wonder she managed to resist his advances for as long as she had. Now that she had given in twice, it was har
d to imagine ever stopping. So many women had loved and lost Grant in the past. How had they gotten through it? Perhaps they were smarter than she was.

  Grant pulled away and looked down at her. He seemed to study her face for a moment, then a small smile curled his lips.

  “I want to take you out for Valentine’s Day,” he said.

  Pepper’s brow drew together in confusion. That was the last thing she expected to hear. “You said that working on the house was my date.”

  “Yeah, I know,” he said with a dismissive tone. “And it is, technically. But I can’t spend all week with you, working on your house, making love on the kitchen floor, and then leave you alone and lonely on Valentine’s Day. It just doesn’t seem right.”

  Pepper shrugged. She had never put much value in the holiday, but standing here in his arms, she understood what he meant. She suddenly wanted to spend the day with him, too, but she wasn’t about to say it. “I told you, I’m not that big on Valentine’s Day. I think it’s just an excuse to drain a guy’s wallet on crap no one really needs.”

  “I know, but it’s not about the gifts, it’s about the time. I promise I won’t waste a bunch of money on inflated gestures like giant boxes of chocolate or stuffed bears. Nothing cheesy. But I am going to take you out to a nice dinner with wine and good conversation. And for dessert . . . well, let’s just say I intend to have the bed in this room and ready to be used by then.”

  Pepper twisted her lips into a smile. As much as she despised the commercial holiday, she had to admit it sounded nice after a week of working so hard on the house. The only worry was how public it would be. Once they stepped out together for the holiday, there would be no hiding that they were . . . whatever they were. Then again, the town already knew she bought him for Valentine’s Day. There would probably be more talk if she didn’t go out with him.

  “Just you and me at a relaxing dinner? No paintbrushes and no hammers?”

  “Not a one. Maybe a screwdriver, but the kind with orange juice and vodka.”

  “Okay,” she relented, trying to ignore the surge of girlish excitement that was tingling in her spine. She could feel herself getting sucked into whatever this was. “But let’s not go to all the trouble of the fancy date you offered in the auction program. Let’s just do something simple in town.”

  “I’ll see if I can get reservations at Whittaker’s. It’s a little late for that, but otherwise, it’s you and me at Pizza Palace.”

  Pepper didn’t care. “That’s fine with me. I’ll whoop you at Skee-Ball.”

  “Skee-Ball, huh? I’m pretty good, myself. But I am not getting you a Valentine’s gift I bought with game tickets, for the record.”

  “Why not? You’ve already done more than enough for me. Even with the four thousand dollars I’d saved up, I don’t think I would’ve gotten as much labor done. The floors, the window . . .” She gestured toward her brand-new, operational, and not-drafty window beside them.

  Grant turned toward it, and then jerked away from her. “What the hell?”

  Pepper stepped back, looking in the direction of whatever had caught Grant’s attention. It was just the bedroom window.

  He rushed over to it, throwing open the new pane and crawling through it, only to tear off across her neighbor’s front yard after something.

  She quickly closed and locked the window and about ten minutes later, there was a knock at her front door. Pepper opened it to find Grant standing on her porch. He was bent over, bracing his hands on his knees as his chest rose and fell rapidly with his ragged breathing.

  “What is it?” Pepper asked. “What did you see?”

  “The damn peeper!” he shouted angrily between breaths.

  Pepper stepped back to let him inside, and he immediately reached for his cell phone on the table. She stood silent as he called the police station and reported her second run-in with the notorious Rosewood Peeping Tom.

  “Simon is on his way,” Grant said as he hung up. “I almost had him.” He shook his head in dismay. “I chased him through the elementary school playground and across the park, but I lost him in the cemetery.”

  Pepper slipped an arm around his waist and hugged him. “You tried. I didn’t even see him there.”

  “I barely saw him. I only saw a face highlighted just barely from the lights, but it turned so quickly, I didn’t get any features. He was white and wearing dark clothing, but that’s about it.”

  “That window has been covered with a tarp for months to try and keep my power bills down. We fixed it today. Today! What are the odds that the peeper just lucked across that window the first night they could see into it?”

  Pepper watched Grant’s face draw down into a frown of thought. “You’re right. That’s too coincidental. Who knows what we were working on today?”

  “Everyone at the house today, of course,” Pepper said. “I might’ve mentioned it when I went out to pick up pizza. I was chatting with Pat Kincaid at the Piggly Wiggly when I went in to get drinks and plates. Then, coincidentally, I ran into his wife Jeanette on my way to the Pizza Palace. She was jogging by and stopped to say hello. We talked a little about the work I was having done. She said they were needing to have some updates done to their house, too. That’s about it. I didn’t notice anyone around to overhear the discussion, but I suppose it could’ve happened. Did you tell anyone?”

  Grant shrugged. “The guys at the firehouse, Travis’s brother who gave us the window and the drywall, but he lives in Trussville. I might have mentioned it to Blake, but it certainly wasn’t him. With Ivy in town, he’s barely left the house except to go to teach.”

  That didn’t leave many suspects. “If it wasn’t one of the guys from the firehouse—”

  “And it wasn’t,” Grant insisted.

  “Then all I can think of is that the peeper lives somewhere nearby and saw us working. If they lived on the next street back, they could see the light coming through the window.” There was a loud, official-sounding rap at the front door.

  “That must be Simon.”

  Pepper paused as she opened the door. The last time Simon had come to the house, after her first peeper incident, she’d spoken to him on the porch. This time, her house was still in shambles, but she’d already let everyone else in. At least this time, she could use the excuse of renovation for why her house was a mess.

  Gripping the knob, she opened the door. Simon was standing there, looking very much like an officer of the law. He was similar in height and build to Grant, although a touch leaner. The Kevlar vest, uniform, and coat he was wearing made him look bulkier, but she knew beneath that was a twenty-two-year-old kid with a loaded gun and a thirty-two-inch waist.

  Even the gun couldn’t make Simon look menacing. He had the handsome, boy-next-door good looks that all the Chamberlain boys had, although facially, he took a little more after Helen than Norman. He had the blue eyes that all the boys were known for, but he had higher cheekbones, a narrower nose, and his hair was a slightly lighter brown than the other kids.

  “Good evening, Miss Anthony.”

  “Hi, Simon.” Pepper opened the door and stepped back.

  “Come on in.”

  Simon came in, eyeing his brother, who was sitting in a chair in the corner. Pepper brought another chair from the kitchen into the living room. “I’m sorry everything is torn apart right now. Have a seat.”

  Simon sat down and pulled out his notebook. “The dispatcher said you saw someone looking in the window.”

  “Yes,” Grant said. “We’d just finished installing a new one in the bedroom today. It had been covered up prior to that. When I turned and looked, there was a face in the window for just a fraction of a second. I have no idea how long he was watching us.”

  Simon hesitated, biting his lower lip anxiously before he spoke. “Were the two of you doing anything worth watching?”

  Grant perked up in his chair. “What does that matter?”

  “Don’t get defensive. We’re trying to est
ablish a pattern and determine what it is he’s watching for. Most reports have been of women home alone doing everyday things. This is the first report we’ve gotten where there was a man in the house, too. That changes things.”

  “I was in there alone at first,” Pepper said. “I was sweeping up the last of the dust. Grant came in behind me. It’s possible the peeper started watching me when I was alone and stayed when . . .”

  An uncomfortable flush rose to Simon’s cheeks and Pepper felt exactly the same way. “Kissing,” she said. “We were just kissing. Nothing scandalous.”

  Simon sighed in relief and made another note. “Grant, could you make anything out about the prowler?”

  “He was wearing dark clothing. He was Caucasian. That’s about it. I climbed out the window and chased after him. Whoever it is, they’re pretty quick on their feet. They had a good head start on me, but I’m certain this was no old man. I lost him around the graveyard and came back to make sure Pepper was okay.”

  Simon kept writing, making notes of everything Grant said. “Can I get an imprint of your shoes?” he said at last.

  “Yeah,” Grant said. “Why?”

  “Well, I’m going to go around the side of the house and see if there are more footprints. One was left at another house, so I’m hopeful there will be another that matches, so we can tie the incidents together. Having your imprint will help us eliminate your shoes from any I find out there.”

  Pepper listened to the brothers talking, but she found she didn’t have much else to say on the matter. She hadn’t seen the peeper this time. All she knew was that she had been targeted twice by this pervert. Her house was in better shape than it had ever been and she was so close to making it the home she’d always dreamed of.

  But how could she ever feel comfortable or safe knowing that guy was still out there?

  Chapter 9

  “Have you always had that dress?”

  Pepper looked down at the outfit she’d selected for their Valentine’s Day date and frowned. “Well, I’ve had it for a year or so. Why? Is something wrong with it?”