He ran his hand over his hair. “How?”
I don’t want to be attracted to you. I don’t want to be thinking of you night and day. But she couldn’t say that, could she? He didn’t seem affected by her in any profound way, unless you counted all the times he made it clear he thought she was spoiled or shallow. It hurt.
“Angelica?”
“I don’t like this—” her hand gestured between the two of them “—indebted thing we have going on.”
“I don’t know what we can do about that.” For a moment he looked as frustrated as she felt.
“Let me work for you,” she threw out. “I’m free tomorrow—no Mac and no Hallett Hardware. At least I can erase some of that debt.”
“That’s not—” he started, then gusted out a sigh and muttered something to himself. “Shit. Fine. Be ready to go at 7:00 a.m.”
It wasn’t until she slid into the booth opposite Glory that the reality of what she’d arranged sunk in. For a person who wanted to forget about her troubles, she’d spent a good part of the evening wrestling with them. And tomorrow, working with Brett all day, likely wouldn’t be any easier.
Likely. Hah.
It was a recipe for disaster.
* * *
BRETT’S PLAN FELL to pieces the minute he exited his cabin. He’d expected her to roll out of her place heavy eyed and hardly ready, but instead he found her standing beside his truck with bright eyes and shining hair. No fancy jeans and boots for her today. Sneakers were on her feet, ragged denim encased her long legs and an old, stretched-out sweatshirt reading “Blue Arrow Varsity Basketball” covered her from neck to thighs.
He narrowed his gaze. “Is that mine?”
Either embarrassment or the morning chill was responsible for her pink cheeks. “I don’t know. Mac gave it to me.”
“Huh.” With a will of iron, he tossed away the idea of his cotton fleece covering her magnificent breasts.
But he couldn’t ignore the fact that she was dressed for outdoor work when his intention had been to drop her off in his cramped office where she could go to town on his files and invoices. It wasn’t as if she could make them any messier than they already were. His glance caught on the canvas tote bag she carried in one hand, stuffed with who-knew-what.
“This isn’t a photo shoot,” he said. “No need to bring along your makeup.”
Her brows slammed together. “I made us lunch,” she said, hefting the bag higher.
“Well, then,” he muttered, feeling as clumsy as a bear in a mud field. About as good-humored, too. “Let’s go.”
Yeah, he should apologize. But the words stuck in his throat and every instinct told him it was safer to keep the barrier of his bad temper between them. If he continued acting like an SOB, then they’d both be better off.
Still, instead of dumping her in his cluttered, one-room office, he drove straight to his first job of the day. He told himself it was because the double lunch she’d packed shouldn’t go to waste.
Last night, it had been on the tip of his tongue to refuse her help altogether. But he sympathized with her dislike of feeling indebted. He would have railed against that himself.
Sighing, he pulled down the long driveway of the Forster estate. Its sturdy gates had been left open for him by the security firm that would have unlocked the wooden structures during morning rounds. Sadly, the owners rarely visited the place—the matriarch and patriarch were now closing in on ninety, and their assorted progeny too scattered or too busy to come up the hill.
So he and Angelica would be alone. Great.
She slid off the passenger seat and jumped onto the interlocking pavers, her expectant gaze on his face. “What do you want me to do?”
Such a loaded question. Visions of knees, mouths, her head bent over him tried taking hold, but he ruthlessly pushed them away. Striding toward the rear of the vehicle, he considered how to keep her busy.
“First, you rake the pinecones from the front and back lawns. After, while I’m mowing and blowing, you can pull any weeds you find in the beds.” Rummaging through a metal bin attached to the side of the truck bed, he unearthed a spare pair of leather gloves. He knocked them against his thigh to dislodge any dirt or nesting critters, then passed them over. “They may be a little big, but use them anyhow. We need to protect your skin.”
Her hands swam in them. “I don’t know...”
“I’m the boss, remember? Use them.”
Then it was the rake for her and a pair of hedge clippers for him. She took hold of the wooden handle in an awkward grip, but he didn’t comment. There was nothing to it but to do it. When she tired, which he expected wouldn’t take long, she could return to the truck cab and play with her phone apps or something until he finished the work.
Leaving her in the front, he walked around to the back where he did some judicious pruning of the shrubbery. Breathing in the fresh air and reveling in the sun on his face and the beautiful vista of the doubloon-dappled lake, he achieved the Zen-like state that he often achieved by combining the outdoors and physical labor. His mind flatlined and even thoughts of his coworker didn’t intrude. When a cloud passed over the sun, the shadow goosed him. He glanced around, remembering Angelica and realizing he had a powerful thirst.
A jug of water was strapped to the back of the truck. He headed that way, presuming he’d find her resting on the seats. But the cab was empty of everything but his own discarded junk-food wrappers, and he caught sight of her near the side property line where she was fishing pine needles from beneath the fencing.
Surprised by her diligence, he filled two tall cups with water and noted the piles of cones she’d left here and there. Then he crossed to her, making noise so he wouldn’t startle her as he came up from behind.
“Wet your whistle,” he said, holding out one of the waters.
“Thank you.” She blotted her forehead with her wrist. Her hair was tied back in a high ponytail, and tendrils of it had worked free to brush against her flushed cheeks. As she drank down the liquid, he realized her nose was trending toward red, too.
“All right,” he said, when she’d drained the cup. “Sunscreen break.” Then he grabbed her arm and towed her toward the truck.
There he rummaged in the driver’s door side pocket and withdrew a bottle of the stuff that he then handed over. Still gloved, she fumbled the lotion and it landed at her feet. They both reached for it, bumping heads, and when his fingers found the plastic, he straightened with a wince.
“Here,” he said, holding it out again.
This time she got a grip on it, but when she stooped and twisted her neck to see her reflection in the side mirror, he grabbed it from her. “Oh, I’ll do it,” he said. “Stand straight and hold still.”
First he rinsed his hands with the remainder of the water in his cup and dried them on the bandanna tucked in his back pocket. Next, he squirted a dollop in his palm.
She looked at the lotion, a dubious expression on her face. “I don’t know...”
“This is the good stuff. It’s cool going on and doesn’t feel sticky afterward.” He nudged her chin with his free hand. “Turn up your face and close your eyes.”
When she wasn’t looking at him, he found he could breathe easier. With two fingertips, he painted the stuff on her forehead. She flinched at first contact, but then kept obediently motionless. Brett covered every inch of her golden-tinged skin to her hairline and then he drew a line down the straight edge of her small nose. He rubbed a circle of lotion on her chin, then used his thumbs to wipe it over her cheeks.
His heartbeat slowed as he completely, slowly, covered her skin. When it came to following the line of her lips with his fingertips, he felt half-hypnotized. Her beauty was just that enthralling. He could caress her forever.
Glancing up, he saw her eyes were open now and trained on his face. He jolted back, his guard slamming up. “Done now,” he said, spinning back to the truck to throw the bottle onto the seat. Imagining the stupid expression he’d been wearing,
he cringed and wiped his chin for drool.
The woman bewitched him.
Damn her.
“Thanks,” Angelica said. “You can actually be nice.”
“I don’t want to be nice,” he muttered, then returned to his tasks, his earlier serene mood impossible to recapture.
When his stomach growled, he knew it was time to stop for food. Usually he took his lunch late midmorning. Exertion made a guy hungry, and again he had to pull Angelica away from work. They’d traded places, she in the back of the yard and he in the front, and he took the tote bag to her and headed toward the lake.
“We can sit on the platform,” he said, pointing to the covered structure sitting over the water that included a ramp leading to the actual dock. A table and chairs sat on the wooden surface. He made a mental note to remind the Forsters via email that security should use their keys to unlock the dock box and fold the stuff into the locker for the winter.
For now, he and Angelica had a comfortable place for their meal. She’d included thick sandwiches, pasta salad, cut-up fruit and a large container of cookies. “Good,” he said, after swallowing his first bite of roast beef and cheddar. “How’d you learn to cook?”
“Making lunch is not ‘cooking,’” she said.
“Still, a woman like you—”
“That’s it,” she said, dropping her own sandwich to her paper-towel place mat. Irritation sparked in her eyes. “I’m so done with you making assumptions and judgments about me.”
He couldn’t deny it—and it had been his practice to keep her at arm’s length. “I—”
“Something happened. Somebody sharpened your cynicism to a razor’s edge.”
“It’s a mountain thing—”
“Bullshit.” Her glare turned hotter. “Glory isn’t like you. Her dad didn’t mistrust me on sight. Your sisters think I’m okay.”
“They have soft hearts,” he muttered.
“Well, so do I,” she said. “And the way you treat me hurts mine.”
He shouldn’t care. He should have left her with his files. He should have turned around and walked out the day he found her nearly fainting in Mac’s place of business.
“The truth is...” He hesitated.
“Haven’t I told you my secrets?” she demanded.
Not even close. Without wanting to, he suspected there were layers left to be unpeeled, mysteries that if he knew them would only further serve to fascinate him. Ensnare him. Leave him trapped.
Yet maybe his truth—part of it, anyway—would make her understand why he resisted her with all his might. She might even cooperate and stop looking so damn beautiful all the time. Maybe she’d decide to turn off all her damn sex appeal.
Fucking stupid idea, he knew it, but at this moment he was willing to try just about anything. “When I was eighteen, I had this girlfriend.”
“Stop the presses.” Her eyes shot heavenward.
It was his turn to glare. “Are you going to listen or what?”
She rolled her hand in a go-ahead gesture.
“Summer after senior year. I was going into the army in the fall, and I met this girl...even then I was making extra money by working on a local landscaper’s crew. Her name was Gabby and she rocked a bikini.”
“And you think I’m shallow.”
He had to give her that and even smiled a little. “I fell for her like a stone in water. Her family was filthy rich, her father the commodore of the yacht club and her house the most ostentatious on the lake.”
“The one with the flags and the battlements?”
“Uh-huh.” Pausing a moment, he remembered how his buddies had congratulated him for scoring the hottest babe of the summer. As full of himself as he’d been then, he’d still managed to float on cloud nine until the end of August.
“Then her father had me arrested.”
Angelica’s eyes rounded. “For what?”
“Not what you’re thinking...we were both eighteen.”
“I wasn’t—never mind. What were you arrested for?”
“Burglary. You see, some very valuable items had gone missing from Bikini Girl’s household. I knew nothing about this at the time. But when her father asked her about the stuff, rather than confessing what she’d been up to—stealing for kicks and passing the stolen things off to an acquaintance to fence—she had the perfect fall guy...in me.”
Angelica clutched the ribbed neckline of her—his—sweatshirt. “That’s terrible.”
“Jail was kind of terrible, too. I had two days and nights to lie on a cement bed and piss in a stainless-steel toilet and think about how she’d betrayed me. I thought I would lose my spot in the army...the whole future I had planned for myself.”
“I’d like to scratch her eyes out.”
He shrugged. “The experience sure pulled the blinders from mine.”
“What happened to her?”
“I have no idea. I know what happened to me. I contacted an attorney—a local guy—and he went to bat for me against Daddy Big Bucks. Actually, the sheriff was on my side, too... He knew that kind of trouble was out of character for me. By the third day, they’d wrung a confession from Gabby, her father had withdrawn the charges and they’d put Ostentatious Manor up for sale.”
“And you went on to the army and the rest of your life.”
With a few more bumps and painful falls in between. “So you’ll excuse me my knee-jerk distrust.”
“No, I don’t know that I will,” she said, musingly. Maddeningly. “Surely you don’t think I’m going to sic the law on you.”
“No.” He cleared his throat.
“What is it then?”
Hell. She wanted the truth? “I thought you were bored. This summer, I thought you wanted to add a little novelty to your life by going slumming with the guy who had dirt on his hands, sweat on his back and scars on his face.”
Her cheeks flushed. “That wasn’t...it wasn’t the dirt or the sweat or the scars.”
Then he said the five damning words. They weren’t planned, but they came from the heart of him, that dark place beneath his hard soul as he thought of how he’d resented the temptation of Angelica all summer—of how resisting her was imperative because of the lessons another woman had taught him about trust and betrayal. “I don’t like being used.”
Her breath sucked in, an audible gasp. The flush on her face leeched away. “You think that’s what I’m doing.” It was a statement. “Using you.”
“No. Not exactly that.” He wanted to pound his head against the table. Someone else had taken advantage of him, and he’d been playing defense with Angelica because of it. “It’s—”
“I’m going to pay you rent, I swear it. Soon. I have money coming in from Mac now, and from the hardware store.”
Shit. Shit shit shit. “That’s not what—”
“Don’t concern yourself with what it is exactly.” She jumped up from the table, her sandwich just a couple bites less than whole. “I’ll get back to work now.”
Brett let her go. Because for the first time he’d found the right—though wrong—thing that would keep her at bay.
CHAPTER NINE
AFTER HIS LONG HOURS with Angelica had ended, Brett couldn’t settle. She’d gone silent after their lunch, no surprise, but he couldn’t fault her work ethic. Without complaint, she’d followed his directions the entire day.
But the physical labor had exhausted her. He’d seen it in the slow way she’d climbed out of the truck. Her gait had been halting as she made her way into her own cabin.
So here he was, showered clean and tired himself, unable to do anything but stare through the windows to the place next door. He’d yet to eat, though the homemade chili on the stove was heated through.
There was enough for two.
He had the wherewithal not to tempt fate by bringing both their dinners to her door. Instead he ladled a generous but single serving into an oversize mug and tucked a sleeve of crackers in his sweatshirt pocket. He’d pass the
food over the threshold and leave her alone just as soon as he made sure she hadn’t done herself any lasting injury.
On her porch, he hesitated. She’d been bushed. Maybe the princess was already asleep.
Then he heard music. A voice. She was singing.
He grinned. She really shouldn’t. It broke off when his knuckles rapped on the door.
“Yes?” Angelica called out.
“I’m from the TV show The Voice,” he called. “Here to beg you not to audition.”
The door swung open. “The Voice?” she repeated, one dark eyebrow winging up.
“Yes, darling, and you don’t have one.”
She pursed her lips as if she was trying not to laugh. “What are you doing here?” Her glance took in the steaming chili.
“I brought dinner in case you were too beat to make some for yourself.”
Her big browns flared wide with surprise. “You brought me dinner.”
He shrugged, uncomfortable. “The least I could do.”
“You brought me dinner.” She sounded pleased now.
“As an apology,” Brett muttered. Then his gaze slid past her to see that the living room furniture had been pushed together and covered with an old sheet. A ladder stood in the middle of the room and there was paint, brushes and a roller arranged nearby. “What are you doing?”
“Poppy said I could,” Angelica answered quickly.
He brushed past her to put the food he’d brought on the kitchen counter. “I’m not accusing you of anything.” Then he crossed to the paint can and peered into it. The color was a pale, creamy gold, the color of the sunlight through the trees on an autumn afternoon. “I like that shade.”
She hovered by the open door.
“Are you going to shut that?” He realized he should take the hint and head back out. But his curiosity was roused. A long day of manual labor and she was willingly embarking on yet another task? “Can’t this wait until tomorrow...or the one after that? Your muscles must be sore.”
I can massage the hurt out of them. Go in the bedroom, strip down and let me put my hands on you. He recalled the little fantasy he’d had the day he thought she was going to the spa.
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