by Rush, Olivia
“Are you going somewhere with this?” The memory of distant embarrassment swam to the present. Excuse the pun, damn.
“I covered for you then, even though I knew it was you who’d done the deed. And I can hear it in your voice now that there’s something you’re not telling me about this next-door neighbor guy. So spill it.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” I said. “Just that he’s incredibly hot.”
“Ha, I knew it!”
“And it doesn’t matter,” I replied. “He could be Chris Hemsworth, and it wouldn’t matter. I have goals to achieve here. A life to start from scratch, and I won’t be distracted by some hot guy simply because he lives next door.” And because he’d made my panties nearly melt off my body.
“Right,” Peggy said. “Whatever you say. Now I know why you don’t want to come down here this weekend.”
A lethargic knock at the door saved me from having to answer that line of inquisition. “Oh, I think the carpenter’s here.”
“Sure, the carpenter’s there. Sure he is. Or is it really the hot as fuck guy from next door, come to tweak your—” I hung up before she could finish the sentence. She was teasing, of course. Peg wanted what was best for me, except she thought it included meeting another guy.
I had no interest in that. Once bitten, twice get the fuck away from me. I have a life that doesn’t need to be ruined again.
The knock came again, and I stowed my cell phone in my pocket and hurried to the front door. It opened up with great difficulty—the thing kept getting stuck in the frame—and did a double take.
The carpenter guy was at least in his sixties, bent-backed and balding on top. Is this Mason’s idea of a joke? Then again, New York had taught me not to judge a book by its cover.
I put out my hand and smiled. “Hi there,” I said. “You must be Troy.”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” The old man shook my hand, and his grip was kind of clammy and weak. He lifted a fist to his mouth and coughed into it, then wheezed.
“Shoot, are you OK?”
“Fine, fine.” He waved. “Just a mild cough. Now, it looks to me like you’ve got a lot of work that needs doing.”
“Yeah, like I said on the phone, Mr. Tombs, it’s a fixer-upper. I don’t have all that much money to pour into it, though, so I’d like all the main problem areas addressed first. Then, when I’ve saved up extra, I’ll call you back for the rest.”
“Sure thing, miss,” Troy said and coughed again. “What are the main problem areas in your mind?”
I stepped out onto the porch beside him and scanned it. I pointed to where the ladder was propped up against the overhang. “Well, the eaves are busted, see? There are holes. I don’t want to think about what made them. And then both the front and back doors need replacing. And the shutters—well, I suppose they can wait.” I had to be conservative here. I wasn’t exactly swimming in money after losing my restaurant.
“Right,” Troy said, “I hear ya. Well, the ladder’s up, so let me take a look at the damage there first.”
“Great. Thank you so much for coming out. I really appreciate it. I’ll fix you some lemonade.” Kudos to me for having remembered the hospitality bit. Troy’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.
He tipped an invisible cap my way then trundled back down the porch steps, the wood groaning beneath him even though he was thin as a rake.
I hurried back inside, ignoring the buzz of my cell phone in my pocket. No doubt it was Peggy calling back to squeeze me for more details about hot handyman next door. I hit the kitchen fast and searched through my meager boxes for the juicer. I’d pretty much lost everything of note in the fire, apart from personal effects at the apartment.
I’d had to fork out cash to buy all new appliances: cutlery, crockery—the works. I would’ve regretted parting with the money, but I loved having tools to work with in the kitchen. Cooking was my life and always had been, and the new stuff was in keeping with my “new home, new me” vibe.
I entered the pantry, which I’d stocked the afternoon before on arriving in Stoneport and grabbed ingredients—lemons and sugar. I grabbed a jug from the box nearest the—
“Fuuuuuuuuuck!” The raspy scream came from the front of the house. A thud and a crash followed it.
I rammed the jug down on the granite countertop in Nana’s kitchen and rushed to the front door.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” The groans came on repeat, and my heartbeat skipped up twenty notches. What the hell was it this time?
Finally I thundered out onto the porch then gasped. “Shit! Are you OK? Mr. Tombs!”
The carpenter lay flat on the grass, staring up at the sky, his eyes wide open and his teeth gritted in pain. The ladder lay in the wilted flower bed beneath the porch railing.
“No, I’m damn well not OK. When I move it feels like there’s an alligator clawing its way outta my back.”
“Shit,” I repeated. “OK, hold on. I’ll call the ambulance.”
“Ambulance? I don’t need a damn ambulance.”
“Mr. Tombs, you can’t move.”
He squinted at me sideways, turning his head and wincing as he did. “Do I look like an invalid to you, young lady?”
“Well, kinda yeah.” Shoot, this was totally my fault. I should never have let him on the ladder—then again, what was I supposed to do? Hold the old guy back from doing his job?
Troy wheezed. “Call my doctor. He’s the only one I trust with this typa shit.”
“All right,” I conceded. Better his doctor than nothing at all. “What’s his number?”
Troy recited it to me verbatim, and I raised both eyebrows at him.
“What?” he asked. “When you get to my age, you gotta know your doc’s number. Now, please, you call him and you tell him it’s an emergency.”
“OK,” I said and turned my back on him, lifting the phone to my ear. I paused and looked over my shoulder. “Don’t move, all right?”
“Yeah, ’cause I was about to start square dancing down the street.”
A couple minutes later, I was back outside with a glass of water for my downed, geriatric carpenter. Holy shit, wasn’t this a week. I moved the glass toward him, and he pursed his lips to refuse it. “That doc coming, Miss?”
“Yeah, his receptionist said he’ll be here in five minutes.”
“Good, ’cause there’s two alligators now.” Troy’s loose jowls were white and waxen now, and his eyelids drifted open and shut, open and shut.
I swallowed and kept my emotions in check. The last thing I needed was this old-timer kicking the bucket in front of my house. Worst nightmare made real. An old broken house with the ghost of a disgruntled carpenter to haunt it.
Five minutes later an ambulance pulled up outside the front gate followed by a Dodge. Medics rushed down the path and across the grass toward us carrying a stretcher, but I didn’t pay them much attention.
My gaze was fixed on the Dodge, and the guy stepping out of it wearing a white coat and a grim expression.
It was my next-door neighbor.
Mason.
Doctor Mason?
“Doctor Dunn!” Troy howled as they lifted him in the stretcher. “You know how I feel about amberlances.”
Doctor Dunn. That’s not sexy at all. So not sexy that I totally wasn’t covered in goose bumps from head to toe.
The doctor—god help me—strode up to the stretcher and affected a stern expression. “Mr. Tombs, you fell off a ladder. You’re going to the hospital in New Orleans, and that’s all there is to it.”
“I’d rather not,” Troy wheezed.
“Have you been taking your antibiotic course?” Mason followed that up by folding his arms and arching an eyebrow.
Troy paled even further if that was possible and grumbled something indistinct under Mason’s stern gaze. “Fine,” he said at last. “But I don’t gotta like it.”
Mason nodded to the medics, and they stretchered the elderly fellow off to the ambulance. Doo
rs slammed, lights flashed, and a siren wailed. I could almost make out Troy’s complaints as the vehicle whizzed off down the street.
Soon it was out of sight, and it was just me and Mason.
“Thanks for calling that in,” he said. “Troy’s stubborn. If I’d known he wasn’t taking his meds, I’d never have recommended him to you. Sorry about that, Rebecca.”
“Becky,” I said, reflexively. I’d never liked my full name. “And it’s no problem. I just hope he’ll be OK.”
“Oh, he’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it.”
“Yeah, apparently that’s what you do,” I said and gestured to the doctor’s coat. “I had no idea. So this is your main passion. Saving lives?”
“I’m a GP,” he said and laughed—a warm rumble that melted my insides into a puddle. He kept his distance, though, and I was grateful for it. It was too difficult to think with him close. “Listen, I owe you for this.”
“No, no, it’s fine. Like I said, I’ll handle it myself.”
“And wind up on your back like Troy?”
On my back. Oh, don’t think of that and look at Mason.
“I’ll help you,” Mason said. “I’m free this weekend. On call for emergencies like this, but this town’s usually pretty quiet. Unless someone blows up another pressure cooker or gets their dong stuck in a Jacuzzi vent.”
“What?!”
“I shit you not.”
I burst out laughing, and he joined me, both of us sweeping our gazes over each other as we did. This was crazy. The desire to be closer to him, to touch him, was too much. I’d already been burned. I didn’t need this.
“I’d better get back to the practice,” Mason said and dragged back his cuff to look at the expensive watch on his arm. “I’ll be around tomorrow morning at eight a.m. sharp. Sound good?”
“Sure,” I managed. “Thanks a lot.”
“No problem, Becky.” He gave me a sexy half-smile before heading for my one-hinged fence. He paused there and looked back at me. “You bring the lemonade, I’ll bring the wood.”
God, save me.
Chapter 3
Rebecca
I placed the tray on the small table I’d set up on the porch then wiped my palms off on the fronts of my cutoff jean shorts.
God, I had never been this nervous in my entire life.
It was ridiculous. I’d been through enough. Experienced firsthand what it was like to trust and reap the pain from it. Crushing on the hot doctor next door was ridiculous. Totally out of the blue. “And not happening,” I muttered, and reached into my pocket to check the time on my cell.
The rumble of a truck drew my focus back to the road, and the man of the hour—god, the century—trundled to a halt in front of the rickety front gate. The sleek black Dodge was loaded up with wood and heaven knew what else.
It didn’t matter. I couldn’t tear my gaze away from the front of it where Mason sat behind the wheel. He cut the engine, gave me one of those sexy half-smiles through the window, and waved the keys at me.
I lifted a palm and waggled it like a wet rag. Oh my god, get it together. A blush crept up my cheeks, and I looked down to keep him from spotting it.
The truck door slammed, and his footsteps crunched over the sidewalk. The hinge on the gate creaked, wood slapped against wood, more footsteps, and finally I forced myself to look up again.
His bright green gaze cut into me, swept up and down my body and rested on my face again. “Morning,” he said. “I see you took me literally about the lemonade.” The words came out hitched, almost a growl.
I cleared my throat. “Yep.”
“Shit, I probably shouldn’t have brought these then.” He gestured to whatever was in his hand, but how was I supposed to focus on anything other than his eyes, his strong nose and jaw, and the tight blue cotton shirt that bit into his biceps?
“Huh?” I blinked and looked at the coffees he’d brought in Styrofoam cups. “Oh! Thanks!” I hurried forward just as he did, and we collided on the bottom step.
The coffees tipped toward me, but Mason shoved them aside at the last second, and they splattered to the ground instead. I slipped backward, the steps careening toward my ass.
Mason’s arm whipped out, caught me around the waist, and he righted me again. “Whoa, there.”
I was one step above him. My breasts grazed the top of his chest, my eyes slightly higher than his.
We stared at each other. Heat built again. I didn’t squirm, even though every inch of my body was aflame.
“I’m not usually this clumsy,” I said.
“Is that a compliment?” His breath brushed my skin and made everything so much worse—and better.
I tightened up for him, my pussy clenched, and I squeezed my eyes shut to regain control of myself.
“Hey, are you OK?” His fingers walked down my back and stroked against the fabric of my camisole. “Are you feeling faint?”
“No,” I said and opened my eyes, placing my hands against his chest—goddamn, it was hard as rock. “Sorry. Shoot.” I shifted back, out from his grip, and inhaled. “My fault. But I have a coffee pot in the kitchen. I can whip us up some while you, um, unload the truck.” I hurried back inside before he said anything else to stop me in my tracks all over again.
This was nothing more than raw, animal attraction.
He was unbelievably hot, and I was unbelievably deprived. That was all there was to it. It had nothing to do with the way he smiled, or his sense of humor, or the fact that he’d saved me from falling, what, two times already?
Either way, it was over before it’d begun. This was just me being horny.
I took my time whipping up the coffee, put that on another tray with cream and sugar, and carried the mugs out to the porch. I froze on the top step, the mugs clinking on the tray.
He was half-naked now. Sweat glistened on smooth abs, and his chest bore a smattering of hair. Mason’s massive hands carried a ladder, and he strode toward the side of the house, unaware of my presence or my constant gawking. Thank god for that.
Every movement he made was pure fucking temptation. My nipples puckered up, and I took it as a wake-up call.
I cleared my throat. “Coffee,” I called out.
“Great.” Mason set the ladder against the side of the house, then strode on over.
“Cream? Sugar?”
“Sure,” he replied.
I prepared his coffee for him and handed it over, the cup shaking slightly in my grip. Our fingers brushed, and I bit down on my lip to keep from making a noise. Mason took a sip and grinned at me over the rim. “It’s great. Way better than the shit I brought over. Thanks for this.”
“There’s lemonade too,” I said. “And if you want me to whip up something to eat, I’m more than happy to. I’ve got a whole kitchen full of new utensils.”
“Why’s that?”
“Oh, well, I lost all my old stuff. There was a…fire,” I said.
“Damn, I’m sorry to hear that.”
He had no idea how deep it went, or how sorry I was, and he didn’t need to. “No biggie,” I replied. “It was past time I got new stuff anyway.”
Mason nodded and took another sip of his coffee. “So, this is a fresh start for you, huh?”
“Yeah.” I forced myself to look at his face, rather than his body. God, what was wrong with me? Since when was I a friggin’ hound dog? “I’m looking forward to fixing this place up, and once I have the capital, maybe turning it into a bed and breakfast or something. I was a chef before I came here, so I figure I can incorporate that into this, somehow.”
“That’s awesome,” Mason replied, grinning again. “And I’m feeling even more excited about lunch now.”
At the word excited my gaze wandered down his body to the top button of his jeans. I glanced aside and looked out over the neighborhood.
The street was pretty empty, the houses set apart from each other to accommodate for massive lawns. It was quiet out here, peaceful. Just what I’d w
anted after the big city. My memories of this place were scant. We’d visited here a few times as kids, and I’d always loved the solitude. Right now, that helped me lift my mind out of the gutter.
“You’ve got a gorgeous piece of land here,” Mason said after a beat. “I think a bed and breakfast will work just fine in this area. My only worry is it’s a little quiet.”
“Why is that a worry?” I frowned and focused on him again, swallowing hard.
Mason shrugged. “Just that you’re alone out here.”
“Not alone, alone,” I said. “You’re just up the street, and there are neighbors across the road over there.”
“The Jill House? That’s been empty for years,” he replied. “It’s just us out here.”
I shivered and resisted every primal urge I’d ever possessed. “So?”
“So, you might consider getting a dog. Or a snake. Fuckers in these parts are afraid of big snakes.”
“A snake? Are you trying to scare me or something?” I folded my arms and cocked an eyebrow. “Because I don’t scare easy.” After what I’d been through, how could I?
“No, I’m just being cautious. You’re a young woman on your own out here. Getting a guard animal would be wise,” Mason replied matter-of-factly and set down his mug on the tray. “Never mind the snake. Get a Rottweiler.”
“How do you know I don’t have a gun?”
“You packing?” Mason’s laugh was a throaty rumble. “Even if you are, Becca, you still need an early warning system. Let’s call it that. An alarm, too. Damn, I have a friend in town who can hook you up with one.”
Becca. I like that. No one’s called me Becca before. “Is this friend on his last leg like the last one?”
“No.” Another throaty chuckle. This one sent a shiver up my spine. “No, he’s not. I’ll call him on Monday and ask him to come over. I’m here all weekend, so I doubt you’ll need extra protection till then.”
“Here all weekend?” I asked, and my heart tha-thumped against the inside of my rib cage. “You’re not here at night.”