by Janzen, Tara
There was absolutely no moon showing in the morning sky, nothing to blame it on except a budding curiosity Lila found impossible to deny.
“You’ve got a deal.” She stuck out her hand and was rewarded with his strong, warm grip.
She’d survived some of the worst life had to offer. She’d certainly survive a few hours and days here and there of Jack Hudson’s company, as long as he kept his distance. And as long as she kept hers.
The unexpected thought startled her, and she quickly dropped his hand. Say what she might, she hadn’t forgotten what it had felt like to be kissed by him. She hadn’t forgotten how she’d clung to him, or the taste of him on her lips.
“You’ll—you’ll have to excuse me, Mr. Hudson,” she stammered, backing away from him. “I need to get over to my parents’. I’d appreciate it if you could fix the hole in my house before you leave.”
Jack nodded, wishing she hadn’t released his hand and wondering what the color staining her cheeks meant. Maybe he was wrong about the photographer. Even the possibility was enough to lift his spirits. One thing was certain, though. He’d just bought himself enough time to find out.
Two
New Year’s Eve, Lila thought with a pained sigh. She pulled up next to the Hudson Construction truck and braked to a slow halt. Who would have thought he’d work on New Year’s Eve? Didn’t everyone else in the world besides her have something big planned for New Year’s Eve?
She should be used to him by now, but she wasn’t. Not even close. An all too familiar queasiness invaded her stomach.
She’d bowed out early on her parents’ yearly countdown and had planned on a quiet evening at home, reminiscing, reading Blake or Shakespeare, maybe allowing a few tears in her wine. She had hoped on this one day to avoid the curious awareness Jack Hudson’s presence had aroused in her all week.
It wasn’t to be. True to his word, he hadn’t let up, even on the holidays. In one week he’d given her more office than Dale Smith had in three months. She had more windows, bigger windows, compliments of Hudson Construction. Something that looked suspiciously like a skylight was taking shape in her roof, compliments of Hudson Construction. A delicate French door had taken the place of her cheap glass and metal sliding abomination, compliments of Hudson Construction. All the work was beautifully conceived and executed, a cut above anything else she’d seen. The man was an artist with a two-by-four and a handful of nails. She’d known an hour after he’d started that she wasn’t going to sue him. She just hoped she didn’t bankrupt him.
She stepped out of her Jeep and felt a bevy of snowflakes blow up under her wool skirt and melt on her knees. She’d ask him to leave, that was all. She’d just ask him to leave. It was her house, even if he had practically been living there since Christmas.
She closed the driver’s door and stood for a moment in the falling snow, watching him through the windows. He had practically moved in on her. He was there first thing in the morning, offering doughnuts she always declined. He’d taken to keeping a six-pack of beer in her refrigerator, after he’d asked and she hadn’t had the nerve to tell him no. Twice he’d asked to use her microwave to heat his supper. And he’d worked nonstop, hammer falling in cadence, tape measure snapping, saw buzzing through lumber.
Tonight, though, there was absolutely no reason that she should have to put up with him hanging around her house and doing all those things he did all day, like interrupting her work to ask her opinion, or making her feel guilty by shoveling the walk on his way out. He wasn’t doing penance, for crying out loud. He was trying to keep her from ruining him.
She would simply ask him to leave.
Jack poured the last of his coffee out of the thermos and looked around the office. He’d done a helluva job, if he said so himself. Walls stood where recently there had been only rubble and air.
He sipped his coffee, letting the fragrant steam warm his nose and cheeks. He’d known the instant Lila had come home, and he was trying hard not to count the minutes until she entered the house, a habit he’d fallen into. It was doubly hard this night, because he hadn’t expected her to come home at all. It was New Year’s Eve, and he couldn’t imagine even the world’s busiest photographer leaving his lady alone on the biggest date night of the year. His own dateless status was a lot easier to explain. The only woman he’d wanted to ask out for months was Lila Singer. Walls surrounding her office would have been a definite step in the right direction, if he hadn’t had the photographer to worry about too.
The door opened behind him, and he slowly turned.
The first thing Lila noticed was the music. It was always the same, oldies rock and roll, and more than once she’d caught him tapping his feet or swinging his hips with the beat. She preferred her music with a little more age on it, about two or three hundred years’ worth, and she couldn’t remember the last time she’d swung her hips to anything other than an aerobics routine.
The second thing she noticed was the temperature in the office. The place was almost warm again. The third and most striking thing she noticed was his smile. He never failed to smile, and she never failed to notice it. Never failed to notice his mouth. Never failed to remember that kiss . . . The queasiness in her stomach increased. The man was going to drive her right over the edge.
“Hi.”
“Hi,” she answered. “I . . . uh, didn’t expect you to be working tonight.”
“No date.” He shrugged and blessed her with another easy smile. “How about you?”
The man was too direct for polite company, but Lila managed to hold her own. “I don’t date.”
If she’d said “I don’t rape and plunder,” Jack might have understood the frostiness of her tone, but she’d said “date” and made it sound like the sin of the century. He was confused . . . and intrigued.
“Engaged?” he asked, and took another sip of coffee.
“I beg your pardon?” she replied, and it was the only reply she intended to give. With the right inflection that phrase could effectively shut down any conversation.
“Engaged,” he repeated. “As in fiancé.”
She’d obviously missed her inflection. “No. I am not engaged.”
How anyone could look so cuddly and be so damned prickly was beyond him, Jack thought. “So, you’re not engaged and you don’t date.” He broadened his grin. “What do you do on Friday nights, and Saturdays, and New Year’s Eve?” What he didn’t ask, though it was at the top of his list, was—Who is the photographer and what does he do to make you look like that? If the truth be known, when she wasn’t home he’d stood in her sitting room more than once and stared at the photograph.
Lila let out a small sigh. She had not only failed to kick Jack out or at least shut down the conversation, but in less than a minute he had directed said conversation beyond her range of approved topics. She should never have allowed him to kiss her. It made him think he could take all sorts of liberties.
“I work, Mr. Hudson,” she said, drawing herself up to her full height, “which is what I need to do now, without the distraction of your work. So if you don’t mind, I’d like you to stop for the evening.” Two, she decided, could play at being direct.
“Fine with me,” he said, still grinning, “but what are you going to do about him?” He lifted his coffee cup and gestured toward the driveway.
Lila turned her head, and an unintentional groan escaped her lips. She’d thought Jack Hudson was the last person on earth she’d want to see tonight. She’d been wrong.
Trey Farris, her very own personal, overardent teaching assistant, stumbled twice in the snow while trying to find the makeshift porch of concrete blocks leading to the French doors. He waved after each stumble, and Lila lifted her hand in return, plastering a false smile on her face. She had hoped to have the four weeks of Christmas break as a vacation from fending off Trey’s not very subtle advances. Jack Hudson may have outmaneuvered her for a few minutes, but she couldn’t let Trey have even an inch of leeway. The gra
duate student had the camping instincts of an Eagle Scout. Once he settled in, she’d never get rid of him, and if he breathed on her neck one more time, she’d probably hit him. She had about thirty seconds to think of an excuse to get rid of him.
“Do whatever you have to. I’ll back you up.” Jack’s voice came from behind her, and she gave him a startled glance over her shoulder.
No, she thought, looking into those hazel eyes shot through with flecks of green and gold. She’d be crazy to make any kind of illicit pact with him, or to engage in anything as intimate as a lie. One kiss had been more than enough of that kind of business.
Jack saw a slight tension tighten her mouth and the barest hint of desperation darken her eyes. He’d caught her between a rock and a hard place, between himself and the gangly young man flailing his way through the snow. By her reaction, Jack surmised the teaching assistant obviously was not the photographer, and Jack was powerfully curious to know which path Lila Singer would find the least dangerous.
He was still willing to bet money she and the photographer had something going, but she’d just admitted to not being engaged, and he knew she wasn’t married. He would have noticed a husband, or at least signs of a husband. The lady lived alone . . . and she looked great in peach-colored sweaters with pearly sequins. Really great.
The sequins swirled down one shoulder and across the front of the sweater. The matching peach-colored skirt was tight, his favorite style. Gray suede high-heeled boots gave her a few more inches, and her full-length mink coat looked like just the sort of thing he’d love to wrap his arms around, especially with her in the middle of it. All in all, he was probably outclassed, and his imagination was definitely out of line.
And she was out of time.
At the sound of a knock, they both shifted their attention to the door and the young man letting himself inside.
“Hi, Dr. Singer.” He stamped his tennis shoes on the bare plywood floor, leaving behind big clumps of snow. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d better come by and see how you were doing. I hated to think of you snowed in all by yourself, especially on New Year’s Eve.”
“How thoughtful,” she replied in her usually cool tone, and Jack had to give the kid a couple of points for sheer guts or sheer idiocy. The young man must have known what he was getting into with Miss Prickly Puss, and he’d still dragged himself through the biggest snowstorm of the century to get out there and be shot down. He must want her very badly. Jack didn’t blame him for that. The more he saw of Lila Singer, the more he thought about wanting her too. As a matter of fact, that was exactly what he was thinking about even as the kid was making his big play.
“I brought some wine,” he said, pulling a bottle out of his voluminous, heavy wool coat. “A gift, actually. I came by Christmas Day, but you weren’t here. Glad to see your house is getting back together.”
Jack refrained from a snort of laughter. The kid was about as smooth as corn whiskey. Jack hadn’t used the old “don’t call first or she’ll make an excuse” ploy since high school, and “gangly legs” had just admitted to using it twice. The wine, though, didn’t bring laughter to mind. He raised one eyebrow as he saw the two-digit price tag, then gave the kid a more thorough assessment, wondering if there was more competition in the room than he’d thought.
“Thank you, Trey,” Lila said, accepting the wine bottle, “but we were just getting ready to—”
“Oh, wow,” Trey whispered, touching his fingers to his head and bringing them away smeared with blood. Jack had to give him two more points for originality, but he could have killed the kid for interrupting her. She’d said “we,” and he was the only available “we” around, and he sure would have loved to hear what they had been just about ready to do. On the other hand, he was a little disturbed that she thought he’d be easier to handle than the novice he was up against.
“For goodness’ sakes,” she exclaimed, using the soft, soft tone he heard all too rarely. “Come inside where it’s warm. What happened? Did you do that on the steps?” She tucked her arm through Trey’s and led him into the main part of the house, leaving Jack standing alone, in the roughed-out addition. But not for long.
He finished his coffee with one swallow and set the cup on a stack of lumber. Then, without hesitation, he followed the wounded dove and Florence Nightingale inside, flipping off the switch to the single bulb hanging in the office. The kid may be up on him about four to zip, but he hadn’t won the war. And Jack’s masculine instincts told him this was war, the real simple two men, one woman, and one night kind of war.
* * *
“Lila went to get some first aid supplies,” Trey said to Jack when he entered the kitchen. Trey looked smug and as happy as a tick on a dog, despite the thin trickle of blood coursing down his brow. “You must be the guy fixing her office.”
“Yeah.” Jack gave him a big smile and a good, firm handshake. “Jack Hudson. And you are?”
“Trey Farris. Lila’s teaching assistant. We work together at the university.” He opened a cupboard door and lifted down two wineglasses. “She’s helping me with my master’s thesis. We get together quite a bit to toss around ideas and things. I don’t suppose you know much about nineteenth-century British literature.”
“Not much,” Jack agreed, not fooled by the younger man’s line of bull. He’d caught the formal greeting of “Dr. Singer” at the door. The only thing Trey Farris had sewn up with Lila Singer was a job. Which was about the same thing Jack had sewn up with her.
“Everybody at the university heard about the screwup on the construction,” Trey continued, working the cork out of the wine bottle. He stopped every twist or two to push up the sleeves on his fuzzy gray sweater. Everything he wore bagged and sagged, and he seemed incapable of keeping his glasses on his nose. “Lila was pretty upset. We all thought she should get somebody else to . . .”
Trey droned on and on, but Jack quit listening. He was too busy wondering if he should pop the kid, or just grab him by the collar and scare him enough to make him rethink his conversation. The kid had nerve, too much nerve, and he was beginning to irritate the hell out of Jack, especially with the two wineglasses bit.
Lila came back in the nick of time, saving Jack from some macho foolishness and Trey from getting his intellectual attitude mussed up.
“Have a seat over here, Trey,” she said, “by the breakfast counter. I’m so sorry about those steps. Mr. Hudson?” She turned to Jack, and he knew he winced. Mr. Hudson, Mr. Hudson. It was going to drive him crazy. “Maybe you should build a handrail to keep any more accidents from happening.”
Jack stopped himself from saying something about lovestruck young studs forgetting where their feet were and said only, “Good idea.”
Trey smirked behind Lila’s back and began pouring wine into the two glasses he’d taken with him to the breakfast counter. Jack did his best to level him with a dark glare.
For her part, Lila concentrated on her ministrations. She possibly dabbed at Trey’s forehead with more force than was necessary, but she was upset. She wasn’t blind or comatose. She felt the undercurrents running between the two men, and she found them incomprehensible, disconcerting, and somewhat scandalous. No one had a claim on her. What were they thinking?
On second thought, she didn’t want to know.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Trey,” she said when he picked up one of the wineglasses. “You have a nasty bump on your head, and the roads are treacherous.”
“Nasty bump,” Jack repeated with another big smile, leaning over to relieve the younger man of his wineglass. “Treacherous roads.” He settled his hips back against the counter and sipped the wine.
“I’ll be back in a minute,” Lila said. “I forgot the antiseptic.” She swept out of the kitchen, ignoring both of them as best she could.
Trey didn’t waste a moment staking his claim. “I’ve known Lila for a long time . . . a very long time,” he said meaningfully, pressing forward on the cou
nter. “And I don’t think she’s ready for some guy like you to push his way into her life.”
“What kind of guy is that?” Jack wasn’t offended by the kid’s bluntness. As a matter of fact, he gave him a few more points for audacity and astute intuition.
“Well,” Trey started slowly, as if measuring his words and the distance between himself and Jack. “You’re a carpenter, right?”
“Right.” Jack was beginning to get offended.
“Well, Lila isn’t exactly the carpenter type. I mean, Danny Singer wasn’t what you’d call an average Joe . The man had shows in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago. The photographs he took of Lila sported price tags of five thousand dollars, and that was before he died. The stuff is probably priceless now, and . . . Well, that’s the kind of man Lila is used to. Cultured, intellectual, academic even. Have you caught my drift?”
Jack was busy absorbing the ton of information he’d just received, about rich photographers who were dead and Lila Singer being a widow, but he’d caught the kid’s drift loud and clear. “I think so,” he said carefully, then paused for a swallow of wine. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but what we’ve got here is a kid who can’t even dress himself right hiding behind a hundred years of overseas fiction and trying his damnedest ‘to make’ the teacher along the way, a kid who can’t even find four feet of concrete porch without falling on his swollen head, and somehow this jerk thinks he’s got something over a guy who works for a living. Does that about sum it up?”
Lila’s return stole Trey’s chance to answer, which was probably just as well. The lady’s timing was proving to be the only thing keeping the evening at all polite and civil.
“This may sting a little, but it’s all I have.” She poured the antiseptic on a cotton ball and squashed it onto Trey’s forehead. “I’m very sorry this happened, but if you’ll go straight home and take a couple of aspirin, you’ll probably feel fine in the morning.”