by Vivian Arend
The sweat from her body lit his taste buds like firecrackers, all the dancing they’d done earlier combining together with the sexual dance now, and she rocked hard, breaking apart in his arms.
He thrust once more before joining her.
“Janey…”
The truck, that must’ve been bouncing, settled into quiet as they worked to catch their breath. Both of them looked thoroughly debauched, their clothing out of sorts.
Janey lifted her satisfied gaze to his and licked her lips. “Holy fuck. When you said you had the moves, you weren’t lying.”
The laughter that seemed to arrive all too easily around her was back. Len felt no shame in cuddling her close. She nestled against him, nuzzling his neck, stroking her fingers through his hair. Len stared through the front window at the house and tried not to think about everything that would change in the future.
Right here, right now, he was a happy man.
Chapter Eleven
Janey stood, stretching her back after working on the baseboards.
The list of things that needed to be finished around the house was getting shorter, and she was damn proud of everything she’d accomplished.
Janey glanced across the room at Len, mentally adjusting that last statement. She had done a lot, but she had to admit over the summer Len had stepped in often to help her with tasks. If he hadn’t done as much, no way she would be at this point.
“That’s the last baseboard,” Len offered. “What’s next, boss?”
“I think it’s quitting time. And I don’t know if you should call me boss or master. I’m paying you slave wages.”
Len smiled as he joined her. “I don’t mind lending a hand.”
She grabbed a couple of drinks from the fridge and gestured to the deck. “Come on. Let’s sit and rest for a while.”
The deck had been completed and stained, and Katy had lent her a set of lawn chairs so they had somewhere to sit while taking a break.
Janey twisted off the top and handed the beer to him. “I think I got about a week’s work at the outside to get everything done.”
He took a long drink, looking steadily into the backyard. He nodded but didn’t say anything.
She hesitated. He wasn’t a big talker, she knew that. And while they were working together, it never bothered her. Then it seemed she understood his silence was to avoid blabbing about nothing.
At times like this? It was different. Something she couldn’t quite define, but the silence sat uneasy and uncomfortable. And no matter how much she enjoyed his dirty talk in bed, and the romping between the sheets, she was sure something was wrong.
It really was time to bring up the business idea she’d been offered. She’d talked to Katy about it, but sworn her friend to secrecy until she got a chance to consider the options. But more was at stake than simply a job, and if there was one thing she admired about Len, it was how good he was at seeing the big picture.
Maybe because he wasn’t spending all his time talking, he got more of a chance to listen. She could use a little bit of his rock-solid consideration to add to her pros-and-cons list.
“Len. Can I ask you something?”
He stiffened.
The unexpected reaction was subtle, but it was there.
What the hell? She was about to ask him what was wrong when a loud hello rang out from the back gate.
“I finally caught you at the right time.” Mr. Jons stepped across the yard, his gaze darting from side to side as he checked out everything. “Looks fabulous. You’ve done a great job of getting the place up to date.”
Beside her, Len relaxed as if grateful for the interruption.
Damn the timing. Janey forced herself to be polite. “Thank you.”
Jons stopped at the edge of the decking, stomping his way up the stairs as if checking if they were strong enough. “Yes, it looks as if you’ve done a very good job.”
“You’ll have to tell my parents that.” It was too tempting to resist.
“I have been,” Jons admitted. “Just last weekend I was talking to them and said as far as I was concerned, you’ve done more than was necessary. No lipstick on a pig here.”
A rude noise escaped Len that he attempted to cover with a cough.
Jons gave him a brief glance then focused back on Janey. “Are you ready to list her?”
“Soon,” Janey admitted.
Jons nodded. “Well. There’s nothing saying you have to, but I really hope you’ll consider using me as your realtor. I have some people I think might be interested. No guarantees, but I might be able to get you a quick turnaround. Not easy in this current housing market.”
Okay. Janey owed Shannon a drink for not believing the man simply wanted her business. Her imagination had her seeing conspiracies when there were none.
Or had it been her guilt at not following the family path?
She smiled. Funny how now that she was more confident in her abilities and decision making, her parents’ supposed judgment, and Marty Jons’, didn’t bother her as much.
He was one of the top-ranked realtors in the community, so as long as he wasn’t up to any funny business, Janey had no objections with using his company. “I’ll give it some thought.”
Jons tilted his head toward the house. “I don’t want to interrupt your drink, but do you mind if I take a look inside?”
Len got to his feet. “I have to run anyway. Janey, call me later?”
“You don’t have to go,” she objected.
“Call me,” he said. “I need to get caught up on some things at home.”
He put his half-drunk beer down on the side table and then damn near sprinted off the deck, headed around the corner before she could even say goodbye.
From inside the house, Jons offered a whistle of admiration. “Is this new hardwood?”
She had to follow him to answer a million questions, and all the while she had a million more pop into her head, most concerning her future.
Maybe the house was ready to sell, but she wasn’t ready to leave. Not after the summer and the time she’d gotten to enjoy with Len. And that wasn’t even counting how much she would miss her other friends.
When she’d planned to move to Calgary, it had been a necessity for work. She still might have to do it, at least for a short time, but maybe there was a way around that. If the situation with Brad worked out, she wouldn’t have to leave at all.
It was so tempting, and so potentially right. She was damn near giddy as she answered Jons and considered her future.
Maybe she wouldn’t discuss it with Len yet. He obviously had something on his mind, plus she needed to make sure she was doing this for the right reasons, i.e., just because she’d been having an amazing time with the man didn’t mean she should base her future decisions around him.
Making a huge change in plans, like where to work and where to live—she needed to base those decisions on what she really wanted. It had to come from her heart.
Even as the little voice inside her informed her Len Thompson was a part of her heart…
He’d escaped, thankful in a way for the interruption. It had stopped him from coming too close to once again blurting out a request for Janey to change her mind and not sell the house.
He had no right to be dictating things to her. Being with her had become an addiction.
Heading home was out of the question—he didn’t want to see any signs of her right now, and in subtle ways, she was everywhere. The shampoo she’d bought and left in the shower, the spare shoes she’d lined up at the front door next to his.
He turned into the shop intending to finish some extra work when he spotted a light on in his dad’s apartment over the garage. Keith Thompson had moved into the place once Katy was old enough to live in the family home on her own.
Len paused. He’d never given it much thought before, how his dad chose to live in a cramped, one-bedroom space right over the shop instead of remaining in the house across the yard where the entire fam
ily had grown up—
His feet moved involuntarily toward the stairwell, and he found himself knocking on the door. There was no answer, but a low pulse of music carried through the wood, so Len opened the door cautiously and made his way inside.
“Dad?”
His father turned from the window, a tortured expression on his face and sorrow in his eyes. He didn’t answer, just shuffled across the room to settle in his chair. The single light in the room glowed down on the framed picture of Len’s mom and dad on their wedding day. Bright faces shining. Hope and love so clearly visible.
Shit. This could get rough.
A nearly empty bottle of whiskey sat next to the chair, and his dad tipped a little more into his glass, hands shaking as he raised the tumbler toward the picture.
“Meg said yes. On this day, all those years ago. I thought for sure she was smarter than that—thought she would tease me for a little longer before she agreed we should get married. I mean, I was this dumb hick grease-monkey, and she was so smart and beautiful, and she could have had anyone she wanted.”
“Of course she said yes. You were in love.” Len gingerly lowered himself into the chair opposite his father and prepared to babysit for a while—the man was drunk enough to need to be watched. “I can’t believe you remember the anniversary of the day you proposed.”
Keith sighed. “I remember it all, far too much, because memories are all I’ve got left.”
His voice cracked for a second, and Len swallowed hard.
Silence reigned before his dad started talking. Stories about courting Len’s mom. Dances and parties, and walks down country lanes. Len sat and listened. He wasn’t quite sure what to do with his hands as the bands around his heart tightened more with every moment of painful remembrance.
And then it happened. His father strolled straight into the fire, hauling Len with him. “I don’t know if I’ve ever said thank you.”
Len stiffened in his chair, staring across at his father as a sense of dread rushed in to fill his soul. “For what?”
Keith stared at the glass in his hand as if it held the secrets of the universe. “I know what you did. More than you should’ve had to at your age.”
Utter dismay washed over Len, a sense of nausea rising. “What are you talking about?”
“The night your mom died.” Keith took a long drink, staring out the window at the clouds gathered like dark omens over the mountains. He shook his head. “I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.”
Len’s body shook as he waited, careful not to say anything out of place. Careful not to give any opening or assume what his father was talking about even as his emotions whirled in turmoil.
It was the same sense of fear and self-loathing he’d lived with for years as a teenager. The way his heart would stop beating every time the police would walk by, or someone paused and looked at him for too long.
He’d gotten past that, he’d thought. Past the nausea and the pain. But it was right back strong as the day it had first slashed him to the heart.
Keith shook his head, his lined face tight with emotion. His voice breaking as he spoke. “I miss her so damn much. Why’d she have to die, Len? Why’d she have to go and leave me without my heart?”
“She didn’t want to, Dad.” Len stared across at his father, a strong man broken by an event that had happened more than ten years earlier. And like back then, Len did what he could to bring peace. “She fought, she fought hard.”
“Fuck cancer. Stole the heart of our family. Stole my heart until I’m nothing left but a walking husk. If I could change places with her, I would, in a second.”
His father put his face in his hands and the tears began to fall.
Len wiped his eyes, fighting to stay in control. There was nothing he could say. Just like there’d been nothing he could do so long ago, nothing except be there and offer a warm body in the room.
He didn’t know the words, and he didn’t know how to cut out his father’s pain like they’d tried to cut the cancer from his mother’s body.
In the end, both were killers.
His mother hadn’t lasted past that summer. His father had never been the same, and once again a part inside of Len grew cold with fear and frustration.
He crossed the room and wrapped an arm around his father’s shoulders. The same way he’d done when his mom had died. Sobs wracked Keith’s body, and Len sat there, trying to offer something to bring back his father from the dark pit of despair.
In that moment Len’s resolve stiffened. The pleasure and joy he’d found over the summer in Janey’s presence was temporary and fleeting, and he needed to cut loose as soon as possible.
Because that’s all his soul could take.
Chapter Twelve
Her fingers were numb from clutching the phone so tight. “No way. You’re serious?”
Mr. Jons chuckled. “I joke about many things, but house sales are not one of them. Congratulations. If everything works out, you’ll be the proud ex-owner of your place by the end of the month.”
Shock and joy danced together all the way to her feet until Janey couldn’t keep still. She bounced down the hallway. “I thought you said the market was slow these days. We only listed the house last weekend, and I didn’t expect any serious offers for a few days if we were lucky.”
“Doesn’t take luck when it’s a great house and someone’s looking. They pretty much accepted your terms. I’ll bring by the paperwork to show you what’s happening, and we’ll take it from there.”
“You’ll come here? Or do you want me to come to your office. I can come to your office.” She could fly to his office she was so full of adrenaline.
Jons laughed. “You’re going to be out of a place to sleep. Now you really need to tell me if you want to consider renting that apartment.”
Janey resisted answering his question, because she and Brad hadn’t finished working out the details, but there was a good chance she would need to find a place to rent. “I’ll be at the office in a few minutes.”
As excited as she was, she resisted calling Len.
Something strange was going on with him. At first she’d thought it was her imagination, or an exhausted assumption on her part. The final week of getting the house finished had turned into a few near-twenty-four-hour workdays. Len had still come around and helped her, but they’d been swamped at the garage as well, so their moments together had been few and far between. They hadn’t once had sex during that time, either, which was kind of like going from a feast to a famine. Pretty much, they’d talked a few times, and once they’d gotten together to sit quietly on the deck.
Janey had fallen asleep in his arms and discovered herself alone in her bed hours later.
But everything, as confusing and unsettling as it was, could be pushed behind her now. There was no more rush, there were no more reasons they couldn’t go back to having a good time together, and maybe more.
She laughed with relief as she hopped into her truck, forcing herself to stay under the speed limit all the way to the realtor’s office. She couldn’t resist grabbing her phone and calling Katy, though.
“I got an offer, and he says it’s really good, and I’m going to the office to see if I’ve actually sold the house.”
Katy squealed loud enough to satisfy Janey. “That is so awesome. Do you know who bought it? Do you know when they’d be moving? Oh man, you haven’t figured out where you’re going to live yet. What you gonna do with your stuff? If you need somewhere to store it, you can stick it in my garage, or I bet there’s room down at the shop—”
“Let’s wait until things are actually in place before we worry about where my boxes have to go,” Janey warned. “But, yes, I am so excited. And I don’t know what’s coming next, but it’s like doors are opening.”
“This is when I start singing ‘The Sound of Music’ to annoy you, right?”
Janey didn’t think anything could ever annoy her again. “You can ‘Do-Re-Mi’ anytime you want. I�
�m at the office, I’ll call you soon as I find out the rest of the news.”
“Congratulations, though. You worked really hard, and I’m so glad it’s paid off.”
A cloud of warmth surrounded her as Janey floated into the office, the little bell over the door buzzing softly. Mr. Jons beckoned her from the back, and she walked straight in and sat down at the broad boardroom table.
“The offer is for your asking price, which is less uncommon than you’d think,” Mr. Jons shared. “The purchaser has financing in place with the bank, so all they need is your agreement with the price.”
“That’s it?” Janey hesitated. “There’s no house inspection as a condition?”
Mr. Jons shrugged. “I guess they trust your building ability. No inspection, as is, and a two-week possession date.”
It was a dream offer. Janey shook her head. “Well, I don’t want to complain about the basket of gold I’m being offered. Is it someone from out of town who’s looking to move in so quickly?”
Mr. Jons flipped through the papers in his hand to where the information was, laying the forms in front of her. “No, local fellow. You know him.”
Janey spotted the name on the papers the same moment Mr. Jons announced Len Thompson. The warmth and buzz of excitement inside her changed to confusion. “Len put the offer in on my house?”
“Yes. Obviously knows it’s a high-quality location, and really, a great deal.”
Janey wasn’t sure what to say anymore. “Len Thompson wants to buy my house.”
The information stuck in her brain like a broken cog clicking over again and again, and never moving forward. She couldn’t imagine why this was happening.
Len buying a house wasn’t out of the question. The place was a little bigger than a single guy needed, but it would be quieter than his apartment, and…
She didn’t want to make any assumptions, but damn her brain for going down paths it shouldn’t. What if he wasn’t planning on having the house to himself? What if there was someone else he wanted in the house with him?