by Fiona Lowe
She hadn’t told her parents the real reason for her return, because she didn’t need to see or hear their disappointment that she’d failed, especially as she’d been heard to say more than once that she preferred living in the city. Instead, she’d skirted the truth and told them she was burned-out from her high-pressure unit manager job and she was taking a break to visit with them and work on the cottage. They’d immediately suggested she work at the Bear Paw hospital like she’d done when she’d graduated, but she was determined to avoid anything to do with doctors and hospitals. Instead, she’d gotten a part-time job at the diner and at Leroy’s. Although her parents had never been thrilled she’d left Bear Paw and they’d been the ones to urge her two years ago to buy the cottage, they’d silently accepted her decision, but she caught their troubled gazes on her from time to time. She hated that. Hated that her inability to make the right choices in her life had landed her back at home.
Giving Boy a thank you but I’m fine rub around the ears, she grabbed the roller with a jerk and quickly made short work of the rest of the walls. By the time she’d finished and was surveying her handiwork, she’d found a modicum of hard-earned calm. The new paint had gotten rid of the nicotine stains left by the stressed-out accountant who’d run from town the moment tax season was over. He’d been a lousy tenant despite Walt, her Realtor, promising her six months ago that he came with great references. After the mess he’d left behind, Katrina was convinced the previous landlord wrote the glowing report just to get rid of him.
The fact that her tenant had broken the lease was timely, because as much as she loved her family, she’d lived alone too long to go back to living in the ranch house. Coming home for short visits was one thing, but there was something about moving into her childhood room that turned back the clock. She ceased being Katrina McCade, independent career woman, and became Katrina—dutiful daughter, sibling mediator and general go-to person. It was all wrapped up with a distinct lack of privacy and it was wearing her out.
The moment the paint fumes had vaporized, she was moving in, and she’d repair the other damage that had been inflicted on the house. She’d even use some of her savings to renovate the kitchen. After that, she might go to Ecuador and be useful or she might head to California or . . . She had no clue. All she knew was that her plans were open-ended.
You’ve never done fluid. Her mind went straight to the very scheduled life she’d shared with Brent over the past eight months. She immediately hauled it back. She could do fluid. She could try and go with the flow with one exception. Lesson learned—no matter how much she enjoyed being in a relationship, she was not getting involved with another man anytime soon.
She pulled a screwdriver out of the tool belt around her waist and levered open the paint can containing the lavender paint for her bedroom. She suddenly smiled. At least Bear Paw didn’t have a surgeon with devastating charm, or for that matter a physician under sixty. She was totally safe on that front, and for that small mercy, she was truly grateful.
—
JOSH drove down a long gravel road seriously doubting the directions the hospital administrator had e-mailed him. Surely, the house that came with the job would be in the town and close by the hospital? Only he’d passed the hospital, two miles back, where he’d be reporting tomorrow morning at eight. Now Main Street, with its mixture of flat-fronted brick and clapboard shops, was well behind him, too. He appeared to be heading for Canada.
He hit a pothole and his front fender scraped the road. Shit. He slowed his speed and zigzagged his way around another four potholes before he pulled over to face the intensive stare of a jackrabbit, whose large ears mocked him. This was ludicrous. It was one thing for his student loans to have mortgaged his life, bringing him to a small town in the middle of nowhere, but surely the hospital wouldn’t have rented him a house way out here. He must have missed the turn back in town.
At least he now had one bar of service on his phone. He plugged the GPS coordinates of the house into the app. The melon-colored exclamation point magically appeared one-quarter mile away from his current blue location dot. He looked to his left. He needed to turn onto a driveway that had never seen blacktop or gravel.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he muttered as he threw the gear stick into first. No wonder the hospital administrator had said the house would be open and not to worry about a key. It was in the middle of damn-well-nowhere.
Five bone-shuddering minutes later, he pulled up outside a house or a cottage—he wasn’t sure which, and he wasn’t certain the builder had known, either. It was a mishmash of design and was neither attic cottage nor log cabin. One section was cladding and the other logs, and he thought he glimpsed some exposed house wrap between the two. The eaves extended over a door that was offset, in fact the whole side of the house he was facing looked as if it had been tacked on as an afterthought. A small satellite dish clung precariously to the roof, and Josh was surprised it hadn’t been blown away and taken the house with it.
The property screamed first homeowner’s dream, renovator’s delight or student housing. It had been a very long time since he’d been a student, and the gloss of living in a house that had seen better days had well and truly lost its shine. A few scraggly trees attempted to survive to create a much-needed windbreak, but most looked like they’d given up on the job. Weeds dotted the short path to the house, and a rusted-out truck was parked outside, possibly abandoned. Just fabulous.
The property was wrong on so many levels that it had to be a mistake. Reaching for his phone, he prepared to call the hospital administrator to complain when he remembered he’d gotten a message from him saying he was out of town today. Reluctantly, Josh pushed himself out of the car, locked it behind him and walked directly to the door. He knocked and waited but no one came, so with a firm grip, he turned the handle. Surprise jolted him when it opened smoothly and without a squeak.
He had to duck his head as he walked through the small entrance with its coat hooks and a boot box, before stepping into a pine-clad kitchen. Circa 1970, it came complete with faded lime green counters and a breakfast nook. It was a far cry from the granite countertop kitchen with all its modern stainless steel appliances back in his Chicago apartment.
Her Chicago apartment.
Not wanting thoughts of Ashley to creep into his mind, he decided that even though there was no way in hell he was going to live here, he’d explore the house and list all the reasons why the place was unsuitable. Paint fumes hit him the moment he crossed into the living room, and moving carefully, so as not to get paint on his chinos, he soon found himself facing a small, steep staircase.
Years of experience running between floors of the many different hospitals he’d worked in had him taking the stairs two at a time. His head suddenly slammed into the sloped ceiling. “Jesus.”
His vision swam and he rubbed his scalp, already feeling a lump the size of a golf ball rising under his fingers. He mentally added another reason to his mounting list. Not only was the house in the boonies, it was built for dwarfs. Moving decidedly more slowly, he took the rest of the stairs one at a time with his head bent low. He didn’t risk straightening up until he was well and truly on the landing.
Raising his head, he realized there was no landing—he was standing in a room. A dormer bedroom. He blinked in surprise. An old dog lay sleeping on a rug, and a short woman stood on a ladder with her back to him and with white earbuds in her ears. She was carefully painting the area where lavender walls met the white ceiling. Her heavy leather work boots gripped the second-top step and thick, bright red socks peeked out over the top. A paint can perched precariously on a board near her knees.
He almost called out but he didn’t want to startle her and risk her falling off the ladder and breaking something. Plus, his gaze seemed fixed on her bare legs. They weren’t model-long, but the calves were muscular and sculpted as if they worked out often and were strong for the effort. And the skin was tan. A beautiful, golden tan from s
unshine, not the orange tint from a bottle like he’d noticed on some patients after the long Illinois winters. Just as his mind and gaze slid upward, hoping to glimpse what he imagined would be the sweet curve of her ass, denim cutoffs rudely broke the view.
Damn. Still, the shorts hinted that the naked view might well be a good one. A bright blue paisley blouse that didn’t remotely match the shorts—and reminded him of his grandmother—flowed over the waistband at complete odds with the wide black band of a tool belt. His brain jolted, trying to merge the juxtaposing images of modern meeting old-fashioned. His gaze had just reached short, glossy black hair when she turned and saw him.
Before he could raise his hands to show her that he came in peace, her enormous green eyes—the color of spring—dilated in shock.
The dog barked.
She moved abruptly, her actions jerky, and her knee caught the edge of the board, sending the paint can flying.
Two seconds later, Josh was wearing lavender paint.
Chapter 2
Good manners almost made Katrina splutter “I’m so sorry,” but self-preservation generated on the back of fear stopped her. Her heart was hammering so fast she could hear it whooshing in her ears. There’s a stranger in my house. A very tall, broad-shouldered man whose height and breadth blocked her only exit. A man with a menacing two-day growth of dark stubble.
Think! Boy was too old to protect her, so she plunged her hand into her tool belt, her fingers gripping the plastic handle of the screwdriver. “Don’t move. I’ve got a gun.”
Boy barked with all the menace of an aging biker.
“So why the hell did you incapacitate me with paint?” Incredulity dripped from his words as paint dripped off him onto the floor.
His eyes were scrunched tightly shut, and he frantically tore his shirt off over his head, exposing a chest with well-developed muscles that bunched and rippled with the movement.
It was poetry in motion.
First rule of safety: Don’t ogle the house invader.
He pressed the shirt to his eyes. “God damn it. This stings like a son of a bitch.”
“Don’t do that.” The nurse in her overrode her fear that he might have arrived with intent to harm her and she jumped down from the ladder. Grabbing the tail of the shirt, she whipped it out of his hands. “You’ll make it worse. Don’t move and I’ll help you.”
“Yeah, like I’m going anywhere when I can’t damn well see.” His voice rose, edged with pain. “I need water. Get me to water.”
“The bathroom’s downstairs.”
“Of course it is,” he muttered as if the bathroom’s location was yet another inconvenience on a very long list of many. “Take me there.” He shot out his arm.
She stared at his broad hand. A hand that wide should have chunky fingers, but his were long and tapered with neatly cut nails.
“Hello? Miss? I’m going blind here.” His voice combined a thread of anxiety with absolute, authoritative control. “Let’s go.”
“Sorry,” she said, snapping to attention. She slid her hand into his and gripped it firmly, reasonably confident he was too distressed to be of any danger to her. His palm wasn’t calloused like a cowboy’s, but it wasn’t soft and smooth, either, and it utterly consumed her smaller hand. “There are ten stairs.”
He immediately grimaced. “The fourth’s a bastard. We’ve already met once and it wasn’t pretty.”
“Did you hit your head?” she said, thinking of the barely legal height clearance, which conveniently wasn’t an issue for her but was for most everyone else. “You need to duck.”
“You think?” His exasperation rolled into her as he stooped down in preparation.
Ignoring his grumpy rhetorical question, she talked him down the stairs and into the small bathroom where she turned on the water. “It’s probably best if you tilt your head under the shower head.
Before she could direct him, he’d kicked off his shoes, turned toward the running water and stepped into the shower. “Fuck!” A shudder ripped across his body. “It’s freezing? Are you trying to kill me as well as blind me?”
“I never told you to get in,” she said, her annoyance with him edging out her guilt about the paint. “It takes a few minutes for the hot water to kick in.”
“You’re a sympathetic woman, aren’t you?” he muttered sarcastically.
A retort rose to her lips but she cut it off. Treat him as a patient. “Let the water flow over your eyes to rinse out the paint and everything will feel better.”
To her surprise, he did exactly as she instructed. Water sluiced over his face, around the dimple in his chin and then ran in lavender rivulets across his chest and down his flat abdomen before sliding in under the waistband of his chinos. Within moments, his pants were soaked and clinging to him like a second skin. The wet cotton outlined perfectly his tight behind, his solid thighs and the substantial package between his legs.
Big hands mean a big—
Shut up! That’s a myth. Be professional. Look away. Look away now!
She dragged her gaze to the faded and peeling wallpaper near the vanity that screamed to be replaced, and she focused on the dated geometric design. “I’m Katrina, by the way.”
“Josh.”
At least she thought he said Josh. It was hard to understand him with water rolling through his mouth. Her eyes strayed to the mirror where she could see him in the shower. “You need to stay under there for twenty minutes, Josh.”
He nodded, blinking furiously as the water cleaned his eyes.
“It was water-based paint,” she said, trying to reassure him, “so that’s a good thing. Much better than oil based.”
He grunted and she interpreted it as “if you say so.”
She checked her watch. “Is the water a comfortable temperature now?”
He nodded again.
Granted, he had water flooding his face, but he seemed to lurch between stoically silent and issuing curt instructions like a drill sergeant. Her gaze stalled on his tribal band tattoo, which hugged his left upper arm. Its intricate black design seemed to come to life when he flexed his biceps.
Perhaps he was in the forces after all. No, his hair’s too long. His sable brown curls, which had bounced in shock and then quivered in indignation when the paint had landed on him, now lay flat and black against his head.
A definite zing of sensation buzzed deep down in her belly and she blew out an unhappy breath. No way. Not cool. Not even safe. She refused to recognize that the tingle might be attraction because it made no sense. He was a stranger and she knew absolutely nothing about him.
Remember the top tips to keeping safe.
Rule one was trust your instincts. She took another surreptitious glance at Josh. There was something about him that made her feel he wasn’t dangerous or a psychopath. Then again, perhaps even psychopaths were rendered powerless by paint in their eyes.
She hauled her gaze away again and tried to be rational. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a good-looking guy before. She’d even had the opportunity to wrap herself around one or two. And then there was work. As a nurse, she’d seen naked men of all ages, shapes and sizes without breaking out in a sweat. Yet, right now she had a definite glow happening, and this guy wasn’t even naked.
There’s only one small step between wet cotton and nakedness.
Okay. Time out. Go to the kitchen.
I’m fine. I can stay here and—
“I need saline.”
His deep voice made her jump. “Excuse me?”
He sighed. “Say. Leen,” he enunciated slowly as if she were slow. “Salt water. I’ve got some in the blue bag on the backseat of my car. Take my keys and bring in the bag.”
She concentrated on his request, glad that he couldn’t focus yet and see her burning cheeks. If he had saline, he must wear contacts and by now they’d be long washed away. Great. She knew intimately how bad it was to be without backup prescription eyewear and had the physical scars to prove it
. She hoped he had a spare set in his bag. “I’ll go grab it.”
Once outside, she sucked in some calming breaths, glad to be out of the close confines of the hot and steamy bathroom. She hadn’t felt this rattled in a long time, but then again, she wasn’t used to strangers appearing unannounced in her house. That was all this was about; the leftover effects of adrenaline making her skittish and on edge.
She glanced at the yard and blinked. Parked next to Bessie, the old ranch truck, she saw a sports car with Illinois plates. Bessie suddenly looked like a monster truck in comparison to the low-slung vehicle. Given his type of car and the fact that he’d locked it, he had to have just arrived in Bear Paw, because otherwise he’d be the talk of the town. New men were always a very popular point of discussion everywhere from book club to the Pioneer Women’s association bake sale, and at any other venue where women gathered. So why was Josh here and, more importantly, why had he walked uninvited into her house?
Slinging what looked like a large, multipocketed athletic bag over her shoulder, she stopped off at Bessie and grabbed a blanket out of the cab. She returned to the house, adding a kitchen chair to her haul, and carried it all into the bathroom. Josh was out of the shower, standing half naked and buff with the thin, old towel she kept for hand drying wrapped low around his hips.
A hot flash of lusty appreciation socked her. No. Please, no. “I’m back,” she said, her voice coming out in a squeak. She forced it down four notches as she offered him the blanket. “What have you got in this bag? Weights?”
Squinting, he accepted the blanket and pressed it to his face. He seemed to stop and breathe in deeply.
“Are you okay?” Worried he might faint, she shot out her hand and gripped his arm. One very solid arm. “You’re not feeling dizzy from all the steam and the heat?”