by Fiona Lowe
And going on the way Beau had expertly disengaged himself from those women, she assumed most of them had.
Chapter 5
Katrina stuck her carpenter’s pencil behind her ear before releasing the tape measure. It shot back into its casing, and Boy raised his head at the accompanying thwack. “We’re getting there, buddy. Only two doors left.”
Boy’s tail thumped against the carpet.
She’d been at the cottage since one o’clock, and her aim was to have all the doors fitted, the curls of wood shavings vacuumed, and be long gone before Josh even thought about leaving the clinic or the hospital for the day. That was what a good landlord did; fixed problems while the tenant was out so as not to get in the way of their enjoyment of the property.
Don’t kid yourself. You’re so avoiding him.
And she was. She’d come to Bear Paw to save herself from making yet another disastrous mistake, and she’d been very confident of holding true to that course right up until Josh had flirted with her at the diner. The flutters of delight that had eddied what had been a still pool of desire since Brent’s bombshell really scared her.
Weeks ago she’d vowed to herself she was never getting involved with a doctor again, and the raw and painful memories of Brent and to a lesser degree of Andrew should have been enough to make Josh totally resistible and absolutely undesirable. When she added in his pragmatism at being in Bear Paw for utterly selfish reasons rather than altruistic ones, that should have deadened any sexual reaction to him at all.
It didn’t with Brent.
It would have if I’d known.
This time she knew up front, but for some unfathomable reason, she couldn’t squash the attraction. It bothered her a lot.
It had taken her almost eight years, but with the culmination of a series of hard-earned lessons capped off with the disaster that was Brent, she’d finally acknowledged that her body had a radar for being aroused by totally inappropriate men. Men who caused her pain and anguish. Men she allowed to draw her into their world only to find that no matter what she did they decided she didn’t fit. Men she should have avoided from the get-go.
Call her a slow learner, but she was officially done making any more stupid mistakes. This time, she wasn’t giving her body a chance to pump heady, exhilarating and addictive shivers through her that made her tumble into bed first and think second. No, this time she was being mature and sensible, and as a result, she was strategizing. It made perfect sense to her that if she was never alone with Josh then she was safe from doing anything dumb that she’d regret. On top of that plan, and to totally safeguard herself from temptation, she’d buy a whizz-bang vibrator that did double duty. An orgasm was an orgasm, right? Surely regular pleasuring of herself would diminish her reaction to Josh.
Masturbating in your childhood room with only thin walls between you and your family? Yeah, like that’s gonna totally work.
The thought curdled her stomach. How had she let her life come to this? It was so far removed from the hopeful vision she’d had at twenty-two when she’d left Bear Paw that it was unrecognizable. As she vigorously gored a rectangle into the wood of the doorjamb with a chisel to create a space for the hinge, she decided that a crash course in meditation might be her best and only option.
Today, she’d swapped her contacts for her glasses because they doubled as eye protection, and she concentrated on preparing the next door for hanging. She quickly found a sort of peace in the rhythm of moving the block plane back and forth while keeping a close eye on her pencil markings.
When she was growing up, she’d spent a lot of time with her dad in his workshop over the long Montana winters, and he’d taught her all sorts of things to do with wood and tools. She’d treasured the one-on-one time with him, not realizing until much later exactly how much useful stuff she’d learned along the way and how self-sufficient it had made her. Back in Philadelphia, she’d rarely had to call the super for anything.
Setting the plane aside, she sanded down the edges before lifting the door off the sawhorse to check it against the doorway. She was about to place it on the wedges when Boy stirred again. A second later, the sound of the front door being slammed shut by the wind made the house tremble. Footsteps immediately followed.
“Yes! Doors.” Josh’s unmistakably deep voice rolled into the room, filled with delight.
Shit. Her mouth dried as her heart leaped into her throat and she gripped the door tightly. What was he doing here at this time of day? It was barely three o’clock and by rights he should be at the clinic, knee-deep in patients and dealing with the health care needs of Bear Paw.
“Hello?”
She heard him come closer and hoped he was in one of his aloof moods. A standoffish, superior Josh was much easier to resist than the Josh who had a twinkle in those gunmetal eyes and a dancing dimple in his chin. She told herself sternly none of it mattered because they both had their roles to play. She was the landlord, he was the tenant and she had a door to hang. A door that right now made a handy barrier between them but whose weight was making her arms burn.
She glanced down and saw his fashionable black suede shoes complete with a film of Montana dust appear in her line of vision. She adjusted her hands on the door and sucked in a calm breath so when she spoke she wouldn’t sound breathy. “Hi, Josh.”
“Katrina?” His surprise bounced around the room. “You’re fitting the doors? I thought you’d get a handyman to do it.”
“Why pay someone when I know how,” she said as her now burning arms gave out. She half lowered, half dropped the door onto the wedges. The impact knocked them over and the door followed.
Josh yelped in pain as the wood hit his foot.
“Oh God. Sorry.” She hastily adjusted her grip on the door. She was about to lift it when his hands closed over the top of hers, trapping them in place on the door. Traitorous warmth stole through her, turning her legs to molasses.
Suddenly, the door rose, and with it, she was being turned as Josh directed the play. His hands and his strength forced her to just follow. The next minute the door was leaning against the wall and she was caught between the two.
His hands fell away and her legs firmed up. When she ducked out from behind the door, Josh was rubbing his foot against the back of his calf.
She couldn’t believe she’d inadvertently hurt him again, and she immediately went into fix-it mode. “Take off your shoe and I’ll get you some ice to slow any bruising.”
One brow rose sharply. “And risk you causing me more damage? I don’t think so.”
“The ice will help. You know it will.” His grumpy tone steadied all tingles and shimmers, and she walked to the kitchen and pulled open the freezer. As he’d been in town a week and a half, she’d expected it to be full of food, but the only contents were a can of orange juice concentrate, a loaf of bread and, fortunately, a full ice cube container.
She dumped the contents into a cloth and returned to the living room to find Josh sitting on the sofa wriggling his toes. He gave her an accusing look. “Nothing appears to be broken.”
“That’s good. Here you go.” She sat down next to him and handed over the homemade pack.
He grudgingly accepted it from her and rested it on his foot. “What is it with you and inflicting pain?”
Her shoulders rose and fell. “Just lucky, I guess. In my defense, my plan was to be finished and gone way before you got back from work, but you’re early.”
He gave her a long, penetrating look from those rich, expressive eyes. “Are you saying that my getting hurt is my own fault for taking an afternoon off?”
She grinned. “If you say so.”
He blinked as if he hadn’t expected the answer. Slowly, the tension in his face faded and then he laughed. A full, loud belly laugh that rocked his body and shifted his weight.
One minute there was a safe and healthy distance between them, and then the old sofa cushions caved inward, rolling her sideways. Her shoulders bumped into his
arm and then she fell across him. Suddenly, she found herself sprawled half on his lap.
“Sorry,” she spluttered as her body squealed in delight. “This sofa is a disaster.” She tried to move but the sucking cushions pinned her against him—a solid wall of muscle radiating heat. Heat that wove through her, taunting her with delicious quivers that danced and swirled before rushing straight to the apex of her thighs.
His laughter moved his body under hers and the hard muscles rubbed against her breasts. Her nipples hardened so fast they ached as they scraped against her bra, seeking to touch him. Wanting to break free of the confines of the fabric and feel him, skin on skin. Sensations hammered her—his heat, the collision of his woodsy cologne mixing with a hint of the freshness of antiseptic, and the wondrous feel of him. Her mind clouded around the edges.
His hand gently cupped the back of her neck, halting her slide across him, and at the same time it made her look up. Up into his handsome face now creased by laughter. Up into eyes full of comedic joy at the ludicrousness of the situation. He met her gaze and a slow, smoldering burn edged out the laughter, turning his eyes the color of silver.
Her body ignited. She recognized that look—primal attraction. Chemical. Sparked by a rush of endorphins and deliciously addictive. She also knew without a single doubt that her expression matched his.
Her fingers spread, pressing against his chest, feeling his heart thundering against them, full of vitality. Calling to her. I’ve missed this. Her resolve never again to trust primal attraction tumbled backward, falling fast and far, far away from every decision she’d made about her life since leaving Philadelphia. Since leaving Brent.
His face was now so close to hers that his breath was caressing her skin. All she needed to do was tilt her chin a couple of degrees and her lips would brush his. She already knew his touch and his scent. Now she craved to know his taste.
One tiny kiss and she’d know.
Are you completely self-destructive? Stop it. Go now!
The protective scream in her head penetrated the fog that had encased her mind. She moved abruptly, wriggling against him and trying to stand.
“Shit! You’re stabbing me with a screwdriver.” Josh’s hands gripped her and suddenly she was up and on her feet.
Her body wept. Flustered, she stammered out, “I’ll get out of your way before I cause any more damage. There are only two doors left to hang and they’re all trimmed and ready. You fit them and I’ll come by tomorrow when you’re at work to pick up my gear.”
“I don’t fit doors,” he said, his voice sounding both curt and strangled all at the same time.
The relaxed, sexy and laughing man whose desire-filled eyes mere moments ago had beamed “I want you as much as you want me” had vanished. In his place was the tense and detached doctor who was used to ordering staff around.
Irritation at his terse tone prickled along her skin, colliding with her own frustrations at her inability to control her loose libido. She crossed her arms over her aching breasts, which were sobbing at the loss of all that delicious contact with him.
“A bit of manual labor above you, Josh?”
His shoulders squared and he looked affronted. “No. But I’m certain that’s what you want to think.”
His words jabbed at her. Oh God, he was right. She didn’t know what was worse—the fact that he was so accurately insightful or how small it made her feel. She was deliberately picking a fight with him so she could call him arrogant. It was so much safer to feel a heap of righteous indignation about him instead of the jitters that too easily tipped into overwhelming attraction.
An attraction that was so very hard to fight.
He tilted his head as if he’d recognized her acknowledgment that his assessment was correct. “You’re not in my way, and where I come from if you start a job, you finish it. Plus”—he swung his leg up onto the coffee table—“I can’t possibly do it because I have a bruised foot.”
He didn’t add “which is your fault,” but it was clearly implied. A double dose of guilt slugged her. “Fine, I’ll hang the last two doors.”
The tension left his face. “Great.”
As she prepared to fit the door, she could feel his eyes on her. Another flash of heat burst through her, flaming her face and drenching her hands. The screws in her palm slipped to the floor, rolling everywhere. “Crap.”
“I wouldn’t have picked you for being a klutz, but things are adding up. First the paint, then the door and now this.”
I’m only clumsy around you. She ground her teeth. “Perhaps if you didn’t watch my every move as if you were expecting me to mess up any moment.”
His expression was all innocence and he opened his hands outward as if he were being wrongly accused. “Hey, I’m just sitting here icing my foot like you told me.”
She mumbled, “Yeah, right,” and collected the screws before starting over. As she turned on the drill, she saw him flinch. Desperate to move the conversation away from her lust-induced lack of coordination she asked, “Does the sound give you goose bumps?”
“I did time in orthopedics.”
She recalled her time in the OR. “I was totally fascinated the first time I saw an orthopedic surgical set up.” She laughed. “It looked just like my father’s workshop with its mallet, screws, saws and bone chisels.” She drilled in the next screw. “Did you decide orthopedics wasn’t for you?”
“Something like that.” He readjusted the ice pack. “Thanks for taking care of the doors so quickly.”
Had he just changed the subject? “No problem.”
“I’ve made a list of other things that need attention.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his shirt pocket. “The rail in my closet is loose, the light bulbs in the bedroom need replacing and I need hooks put into the walls so I can hang some pictures.”
All of it was really minor stuff that tenants usually just fixed themselves. “You don’t need my permission to do any of that. Just check for a stud before hanging anything heavy.”
“I’m pretty busy, so it would really help me out if you did it.”
He gave her a beguiling smile that deepened the dimple in his chin and bracketed his lips in sensual lines. Lips she’d come so close to kissing.
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. Deep breath in . . . She worked at blocking the effects of his unfamiliar but devastating smile by focusing on logic. He was on an afternoon off and, granted, he was nursing a slightly bruised foot that was her fault, but he could hardly call himself busy. And that smile was completely different from the repertoire of smiles he drew on when he was with her. They mostly ranged from tight and tense to irritated.
He used that smile when he flirted with you at the diner. When he wanted coffee.
She smelled a rat. A rat who’d made her feel guilty about asking him to fit two doors. A rat who wanted something from her.
She slapped a hand onto her hip and pointed an accusing finger at him. “You have no clue how to fix any of those things on your list, do you?”
He had the grace to look sheepish for half a second before his eyes twinkled at her and his full lips twitched upward. “But I’m a hell of a good doctor.”
Tingles tangoed in her just like the last time his eyes had done that sparkly thing. She stomped on them hard, wondering how he’d got to thirty-something with a total lack of basic practical skills. “How have you gotten through life without ever hanging a painting?”
He shrugged as if it was no big deal. “I lived in college, then student housing where we could only afford posters. When I graduated, I moved into apartments where I paid to have someone from maintenance come do whatever I needed.”
“Didn’t you learn stuff when you spent time out in the garage with your father?”
His cheeks tightened for a moment. “My father wasn’t that sort of a dad.” He leaned forward and smiled again, although it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Can you help me out and do all that stuff for me? I’ll pay for your time.”
>
Pay me? Money wasn’t the issue. Trying to think, she closed the door, checking it latched properly, and then she opened it again, testing the swing. She really didn’t want to be coming out to the cottage to be his Ms. Fixit, because every time she was called out, she’d risk running into him. No, that was so far from being a good idea that she lodged it firmly under the category of disaster.
Think.
An idea hit. No. So not going there. But although every part of her tried to reject it outright, no matter how hard she tried to think of other ways around it or to come up with another idea, she kept drawing blanks.
A plan always has a difficult part.
And this was definitely going to be difficult, but it would be worth it in the end. It had to be. Taking in a deep breath, she said, “I can teach you to fish.”
—
JOSH stared at Katrina, convinced he must have misheard. Ever since he’d come home and found her in his living room wearing those ragged cutoff shorts and that damn tool belt, his concentration had been all miss and no hit. It had totally disappeared when she’d fallen against him on the couch—all lush and soft, and full of sweet, seductive curves he’d longed to explore. He’d almost kissed her and he despised himself for that. Hell, he prided himself on being a man with self-control. He’d managed to be faithful to Ashley for five years no matter the temptations that had presented themselves. And there’d been more than a few everywhere he worked, especially from the medical and nursing students.
So if he could resist twenty-two-year-olds, surely he could resist Katrina. Still, he gave thanks that the screwdriver handle had jabbed him in the stomach exactly when it had, saving him from making an idiotic mistake and a total fool of himself. Why would he want to kiss a woman he didn’t even like? She was difficult, at times self-righteous, and she had a way of looking at him that made him question his actions. He really hated that.
He also hated feeling this out of control. He blamed that tool belt. He had no clue why that piece of leather strung around her waist turned him on so much. And those tortoiseshell glasses she was wearing today. Damn, but they made her look sexy. He’d wanted to take them off her, pull the elastic out of her hair and—