by Liz Isaacson
She nodded and got out of the truck before she did or said something she wouldn’t be able to fix.
The next morning, Navy startled when a knock sounded on the door at the exact moment the clock flipped to eight. She shook her head, unsurprised of Gavin’s prompt arrival. She’d been unable to find much to dislike about him—and she’d tried. But no one in this town had anything bad to say about him.
He went to church. Helped his grandparents. Even served as a volunteer firefighter and served pancakes during their annual Flag Day breakfast.
If anyone had wondered why Navy, a newcomer to Three Rivers, was asking all over about Gavin Redd, they hadn’t said anything.
He knocked again, and Navy bolted toward the door. She practically ripped it off it’s hinges in her haste to open it, and the stunning sight of Gavin’s handsome face on the other side should be criminal.
“Hey,” she said, leaning into the frame. It squeaked loudly, and she cringed as she straightened. He wore a blue T-shirt with the outline of Texas on it and jeans, which wouldn’t have sent her heart into palpitations if it wasn’t for the sexy tool belt slung around his waist.
“Hey.” He seemed distracted as he glanced at the roof, the doorway, and past her into the cottage. “How many nights have you been livin’ here?”
“Just three.” She eased back so he could enter. As he passed, the spicy, masculine scent of his cologne entered her nose. She took a deep breath and committed the smell to her memory. “There’re a lot of problems.”
He glanced at her, a twinkle in his eyes for only a moment before he scanned the room again. “I don’t think this is fit for human habitation.”
“I didn’t pay hardly anything for it.” She gathered her hair into a ponytail and secured it with the band around her wrist.
“How long are you going to be here?” He pulled a tape measure out of the tool belt he wore and fitted the end of it against the floor.
“Six months.” She folded her arms and leaned her hip against the kitchen counter. “I took a leave of absence from my job in Dallas.”
His gaze met hers again and something huge surged between them. She had no idea what it was; had never felt anything like it. Waves of desire pulsed through her. Desire to get closer to him. Desire to touch his hand. Desire to spend more time with him.
Please let him take this job, she thought. The Shepherd’s had authorized her to hire someone to make the improvements. Gerry had said he could spare five thousand dollars. Not that Navy was going to be staying long-term, but she’d overheard Gerry and Olivia talking about making the cottage a permanent rental, and that was when she’d entered their kitchen and asked about the remodel. With her timing perfect, she’d gotten the money and approval she needed.
Gavin cleared his throat, which broke the spell between them. “So, uh, I’d fix up these walls. Repaint.” He scuffed his cowboy boot against the kitchen linoleum where it stuck up. “Redo this floor and make it go all the way through the living room.”
He stepped toward her as the dollar signs in her head exploded. “What did you do in Dallas?” He extended that tape measure again, jumping from one conversation topic to another in a single breath.
He really must not have been eavesdropping last night, as she’d told all of this to Kelly. “I’m a pediatric nurse.”
His eyebrows went up. “Wow. Impressive.”
“I love it,” she said. “I do. It’s just….” She trailed off, not quite sure how to express how she felt about her job. She did love it. But she also knew she didn’t want to have her entire life be about a job she liked.
Her ache to be a mother hit her in the chest, made her gasp. Gavin turned back to her, his dark eyes full of concern now. “You okay?”
She nodded, because she wasn’t sure she could speak past the pinch in her throat.
“I’d replace the roof,” he said, going back to the home improvements. “And you said something about a water heater?”
“It doesn’t really work.” Navy had opted not to shower that morning, because she wasn’t sure she could stand the nearly cold spray on her back.
“Do you know where it is?”
She stepped between the dining table and the couch toward one of only two doors in the cottage. “There’s an equipment room off the bathroom.” She crowded into the small space, Gavin right behind her. Once inside, she sealed them in the bathroom together, her nerves firing things like He’s so close.
You could touch him now.
Breathe deeper!
With a slight tremor in her hand, she twisted the knob of the door behind the bathroom door. “In here.” With the door open, she stepped back, her calf hitting the toilet bowl, so he could see.
He somehow maneuvered his broad shoulders into the tiny space and peered inside. Only a moment passed before he said, “Oh, this definitely has to be replaced.” He twisted and drank in the bathroom too. “This isn’t too bad.”
“I think the toilet leaks,” Navy said.
He couldn’t get to it with her in the way, but she couldn’t get out with him blocking the door. A smile bloomed on her face. “Sorry, if you’ll just—” She silenced as he put both his hands on her waist. She gazed up at him, completely mesmerized by this man. She really needed to know his astrological sign, stat. After all, if he wasn’t an Aquarius, what would be the point of starting something with him?
What’s the point anyway? she wondered, the moments between them lengthening. He lives here. You don’t.
But she did for six months. Her smile turned somewhat wicked, and Gavin even returned it. “Ah-ha,” she said. “You do smile.”
He twisted her past his body so she stood by the door and he stood near the toilet. “Of course I smile. You think my face is broken?”
“I was starting to wonder.” She leaned into the closed door. “Besides, Chip said you’re real serious when on the job.”
“Chip Goldbloom?” Gavin rolled his eyes now. “You shouldn’t believe anything Chip tells you.”
“No?” Navy’s smile widened. “I liked him.”
“When would you have even talked to him anyway? I didn’t know the karaoke bar was open during the day.”
“I ran into him at the grocery store. Apparently there’s a big karaoke event tonight. Huge. We should go. I mean, after you tell me how much this is going to cost and I take a nap to rest my fractured hand.”
He looked at her hand. “You have a fractured hand?”
She gave a light laugh. “I think I probably gripped the saddle horn too hard. Stupid, right?”
He gazed at her with something akin to pity on his face, something soft she really wanted to get lost in.
“It’s not stupid. That horse was flying.”
Navy didn’t want to talk about it, relive it. She’d already tossed and turned most of the night, thinking she’d heard a horse nicker and then scream.
“So, karaoke tonight?”
“We are not going to karaoke night.” Gavin got down on his knees and fiddled with the toilet handle before flushing it. Sure enough, the hint of water formed around the bottom of the toilet. “What else did you need me to look at?”
There was only one other room in the cottage: her bedroom. A stream of self-consciousness stole through her before she remembered nothing in the bedroom was hers. Nothing besides the clothes, at least.
She pressed back into him in order to open the door, but he didn’t put his hands on her again. Slightly disappointed in that and his reaction to her suggestion that they go to karaoke night together, she moved quickly back into the main living area of the cottage and over to the second door.
“Walls and stuff in here,” she said once in the bedroom. “And I swear that curtain rod is going to fall in the night and impale me.”
Gavin chuckled, which sent warmth through Navy. He’d seemed so stoic in the few times they’d been together. Almost angry with her. Probably because of the birdhouse comments.
“I can fix that,” he said, moving back into
the living room.
“Okay,” Navy said. “Honesty up front. I have a limited budget. The water heater has to be done. Does the roof?”
“If you want to stay dry.” He pointed to a discoloration on the linoleum. “That’s from leakage when it rains.”
“But we’re headed into summer, so in the next six months, is the roof necessary?”
“Well, I think a roof is necessary.”
“Well, I have five thousand dollars.”
He sank onto the couch. “That does change things.” He took out a stubby pencil and a notebook the size of his palm and started writing. He muttered to himself, glanced up at the ceiling a few times, and then ripped off the page.
“For five thousand dollars, I can do it all except the roof.”
“What can you do with the water heater and the roof?” It wasn’t her cottage. The Shepherd’s could pony up more money to fix the roof. She’d lived in Texas her whole life, and she knew it hardly ever rained in the summer.
“The water heater, the roof, and that curtain rod.”
“Everything but the roof then.” Navy extended her hand for him to shake, and he got to his feet.
He studied her fingers for a moment and then put his in hers. A zing shot up her arm and down her ribs, and a spontaneous smile spread her lips.
“Deal,” he said, pumping her hand.
“When do I pay you?”
“When the job’s done.”
“How long will that be?”
“Three weeks.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “Unless I get that job at Three Rivers.”
She wanted to ask him all about that, but she decided she didn’t have to do it right now. “Do I need to be home?”
“Why? You have big plans for while you’re here in Three Rivers?”
“Yes,” she shot back. “I’m planning to read a book a day, soak in the sun, and maybe do a little touring around this historic town.”
Gavin laughed, the sound fun and filling the cottage in only a moment. Navy tried not to bask in the tonalities of his voice, let them infect her, but it was entirely impossible. Gavin Redd possessed some serious Southern charm, and she had no defense against it.
“We really should go to karaoke night,” she said when he’d quieted.
“I believe you promised me dinner. But I don’t sing.” He inched closer to her.
“How about breakfast?”
His gaze turned into a glare again, but it softened after only a few seconds. “Sure, breakfast. But no karaoke.”
She giggled and resisted the urge to slip her hand into the crook of his elbow. “You’re no fun.”
“I’m a lot of fun.” He followed her outside. “Want me to drive?”
She waited until he’d closed the door before asking, “So what’s your story?”
“My story?”
“Yeah, why are you here? How long are you going to be here?” She watched him find something else to look at. Watched that strong jaw tighten and release.
Navy sensed a really juicy story. She tipped forward onto her toes because she didn’t want to miss a single word.
6
Gavin couldn’t ignore the chemistry between him and Navy. He wanted to, if only to protect himself. For all he knew, Grandmother had matched them and he simply didn’t know it yet. Good thing was, Navy didn’t either. That, or she showed an incredible amount of restraint.
Grandmother didn’t normally match women with a specific man anyway. No, Navy had probably gotten some advice about where to hang out to meet her match. Or what cologne to watch for. Or even something like a star sign or a birthstone.
“I was born in Amarillo,” he started. “My aunt still lives there, but my parents are in West Virginia now.”
“Siblings?”
“No.”
“Intriguing.”
He wasn’t sure why being an only child mattered at all—unless it was something Grandmother had told her to watch for. He suddenly didn’t want to share anything about himself with her.
“And now I live here to help my grandparents. They’re getting older.” He nonchalantly waved one hand and pulled it off pretty well. “I mow the yard and fix up things around the house. That kind of stuff.”
A hundred yards passed under the truck’s tires before she said, “That’s it?”
“I’m pretty boring.”
“You are not,” she said. “There’s more, and you’re just not telling me.”
Gavin’s teeth worked against themselves. “What did my grandmother tell you?”
“I—well—”
“See, I’ve been approached by her clients before, and well, I’m not interested in that. To be blunt.”
Navy sputtered for a moment. “That was blunt.”
“And I’ve dated a few blondes too,” he said. “Didn’t end well for me. I’m thinking I need a brunette. No offense.”
“No offense?” Navy sounded incredulous. “Well, then, none taken.” But she clenched those arms tighter around her body and stared out her window.
Minutes passed while he navigated the roads down by the Bark Park. He cast a look at the dogs running in the morning light and realized it had been too long since he’d brought Blue to his favorite patch of earth: the dog park on the outskirts of Three Rivers.
He would tomorrow, after church. He cast Navy a glance as she watched the landscape pass. “Do you have dogs?”
“Three,” he said. “Well, really only one. The other two are my grandparents’, but they’ve sort of adopted me as their dad.”
“I had a cat in Dallas.”
He detected the note of sadness in her voice. “What happened to her?”
“I had to give her to my aunt so I could come here. But my aunt loves cats, and she really wanted me to come, so it’s okay.” She tucked her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “She was matched here, you know. Fifty years ago.”
“Grandmother did it then,” Gavin said. “She just celebrated her fifty-second anniversary as Three Rivers’s matchmaker.”
“I know. My aunt told me all about her.”
Gavin wasn’t sure where this conversation was going and if he’d like it. He glanced way down the block to where the karaoke bar sat, and he turned away from it. Anything was better than that. He didn’t want to tell Navy that he actually sang just fine. He just didn’t do it in public after the Debbie Debacle.
The karaoke bar wasn’t even open in the morning, thank goodness. He parked in the lot at the pancake house, which was packed with Saturday morning customers, and got out of the truck. “Did your aunt find her match?”
“Yep. She and Uncle Marvin have been married for forty-nine years.”
He froze, his heart rat-a-tatting in his chest. “Uncle Marvin?”
Forty-nine years screamed through his mind.
“Not only that, but Aunt Izzie found Uncle Marvin the very next day after your grandmother’s matchmaking reading. The very next day!” Navy sounded absolutely delighted and hadn’t seemed to notice that Gavin’s muscles had seized.
Navy was the niece Izzie was always mentioning. His “Aunt Izzie” and “Uncle Marvin” were her blood relatives?
What were the chances of that?
Gavin didn’t know, but the scientist in him told him that it was probably a really minuscule percentage. The romantic side of him whispered that maybe he and Navy were meant to be. The realist wanted more time to explore, to hold the woman’s hand, to maybe see if a beautiful blonde woman wouldn’t chew him up and spit him out.
“Marvin worked at Three Rivers and then Sterling Silver Ranch,” Gavin said, his voice tinny. “When it was still a working ranch. They live somewhere in Hill Country now.”
Navy froze too. “Wimberley. How do you know that?” Her lovely eyes widened and searched his.
“I stay with them every year when I go do auctions down there.” He took at step, but Navy didn’t. “I need to call them, in fact. Make sure I can stay this year too.”
Nav
y caught up to him. “But she’s not your aunt.”
“No, but I call her that. She’s my grandmother’s best friend.”
“She is my aunt.” Navy’s voice sounded strangled, alien. “She’s the reason I came to Three Rivers.”
Gavin couldn’t believe that, if only because it made things a lot more complicated than they needed to be. He didn’t believe in magic, or myths, or matchmaking. He barely believed in coincidences. He shook his head. “You came to Three Rivers because you work a demanding job and needed a break.” He’d heard her say that last night, whether he wanted her to know he’d listened to almost everything she’d told Kelly.
“I came to see your grandmother.”
Gavin’s jaw hardened. He really wished Navy would’ve come for another reason. Any other reason. “Whatever,” he said, pulling open the door to the pancake house. “Let’s take our food over to the park. You want to?” He didn’t want to eat under the scrutiny of the townspeople for a second time. Thankfully, Navy agreed, but a wall of applause hit them the moment they stepped into the pancake house.
There was no way he was escaping with a to-go box of blueberry pancakes now.
“There he is!” someone yelled, and an older gentleman clapped Gavin on the shoulder.
“You’re a hero, son,” he said.
Gavin looked at Archie Combs blankly. A hero?
“And look! He’s with the woman he saved.”
Gavin switched his attention to Navy, who looked just as baffled as he did. She smiled like a champion though, her expression turning wise and wonderful at the same time.
“Let’s go,” he muttered, slipping his hand through her elbow. Despite the dozens of eyes from seemingly everyone in town, he still felt a massive jolt of attraction move through him at the physical contact with Navy.
But she wouldn’t go with him. “Oh, come on, Gavin,” she said, laughing. “You better enjoy these fifteen minutes of fame.”
But Gavin didn’t want to enjoy even sixty seconds of it. Wished he could be that horse and gallop away from this place. Instead, he pasted a smile on his face and started shaking hands with the townspeople of Three Rivers like he’d singlehandedly solved the world’s energy crisis.