by Stacy Gail
Dreaming’s all you’ll be able to do, bitch, Chandler thought, jaw tight. Declan Thorne Seniro had owned the paper for a decade or more when the town was being established, so as far as he was concerned he had ink running in his veins. Patricia Weems could suck it.
“That article he wrote about the mansion’s reconstruction,” Monique continued doggedly. “Chandler made it sound like he had searched the world over for just the right kind of architect to rebuild his ancestral home. Some architectural genius.”
“Genius? The little missy might consider herself a genius, but it’s glaringly apparent to me that she puts far too much value in her own importance. And not enough in mine.”
Uh-oh.
“The full restoration of Thorne Mansion may or may not happen,” Mayor Weems continued, her tone so self-satisfied he could all but picture the smirk indenting the pinched corners of her mouth. “But I’m more than willing to use their rebuilding ambitions just so I can have that site cleared once and for all. It’s been a year since it burned down and I want every last part of it gone from my town.”
“It’s not your town. The town belongs to all of Bitterthorn’s citizens.” Fed up with the gush of crap coming from beyond the divider separating the dining booths, Chandler pushed to his feet and rounded the partition. Patricia Weems looked surprised but unembarrassed, while Monique Corazon looked like she’d seen a ghost. “I’m not the only one who wants to see that building returned to its former glory, Mayor. The majority of the donations we’ve received to rebuild Thorne Mansion came from people who live right here in Bitterthorn. If that doesn’t convince you this town wants it back, I don’t know what will.”
“What I’m convinced of is that this town should look to the future, not the past.” With her color rising to an unflattering blotchy red, Mayor Weems also pushed out of her seat, apparently oblivious that the restaurant had gone as silent as a muted TV. “I’ll grant you that your ancestors were once somewhat necessary when it came to founding this town. Declan Senior was a pristine cattle baron, his little sister, Addie, the delicate flower who wilted away, and Declan Junior was the visionary builder of the rest of Bitterthorn. Yay. Bully for them. But all of that is nothing more than a dusty history lesson no one wants to hear about anymore.”
“If by nobody, you mean yourself,” Chandler couldn’t stop himself from drawling. “You’ve made your feelings on the matter abundantly clear, Mayor. But then, so have the people who donated to get the mansion back, and so has the conservation architect who chose to come here over every other equally important restoration projects she has waiting for her all around the world.”
“Oh, by all means, let’s listen to someone espousing the almost holy importance of resurrecting decrepit old ruins—never mind the fact that her livelihood depends on poor idiots who can’t let go of a dead past, and fleecing them for all they are worth.”
For a full heartbeat Chandler froze, before he leaned into her until they were almost nose to nose. “Mayor,” he growled, his voice so brutal he didn’t have to wonder why she took a step back. “Say whatever you want about me, the mansion, my ancestors and whatever the hell else you want when it comes to the Thorne name. I don’t give a damn. But don’t turn your poison on to a visitor to this town, thinking you have the right to do so simply because she’s here under my employ. Parker Radclyffe is off-limits.”
Her penciled brows arched in poorly veiled outrage. “Are you telling me what to do?”
“Since you feel it’s okay to attack a visitor who’s bringing in all these workers to pump revenue into this town’s economy on a daily basis, it’s no wonder you’re not smart enough to figure out that I’m not telling you anything. I’m warning you. Don’t mess with Parker.”
Mayor Weems’s color deepened to the color of brick before she snatched up her purse and steamed out the door, head held high.
“I guess that means I’m paying for lunch,” Monique mumbled, reaching for the bill.
Chapter Five
Parker suspected she now knew what it was like to be stuck in an oven. Her brain had to be cooking under her hard hat, her jeans clung to her legs like sausage casings and the inside of her heavy work boots resembled a Florida swamp. But she overlooked her discomfort as she surveyed the site and all the work that had already been done in the past twenty-four hours. Before the work crews had arrived, she’d completed the measurements of the mansion’s original footprint and was even able to make out where the various ground-floor rooms had been situated. Much of the broken limestone walls had been hauled off to the landfill, along with the detritus that had once made up Thorne Mansion. While part of her mourned the loss that the structure had once been, now was not the time for sadness. Now was the time for rebirth.
“Would it kill you to stand in the shade?”
Something wet and icy touched her cheek, eliciting a squeak from her even as she hopped back and whirled. “Chandler.” She glared at him as he held up an unopened bottle of water already sweating heavily in the heat. “Not nice.”
“Now, now. I’m always nice.”
“Except when you’re not.” But she snatched up the offered bottle and nodded her thanks before pressing it to the side of her neck. “Ooooh, I take it back. This was nice of you. If I weren’t wearing a white T-shirt under this safety vest, I’d pour this all over myself.”
“Oh yeah. That’s just what I needed, a wet T-shirt mental image to get me even hotter than I already am. Thanks for that.” As he spoke, he caught her hand and pushed a small tube into it. “Here.”
“What’s this?”
“Sunscreen. I’ve never met anyone who needed it more than you.”
She stared at the tube in disbelief while something stirred in her chest at his thoughtful concern. “You brought me water and sunscreen?”
“Only because you insist on being out in this blistering heat when your presence isn’t even necessary. Isn’t there someplace you can go that’s not going to get you fried?”
“I have a trailer office out at the back of the property.”
“Then why the hell are you standing here broiling?”
She couldn’t help but laugh, clutching the tube of sunscreen as if it were a priceless treasure. “This is the job you’re paying me to do.”
“Wrong. I didn’t pay you to come to Texas to die of sunstroke.” He once again caught her hand in his with a look that dared her to object. In less than a minute they were in the refreshing coolness of the mobile trailer office she’d rented for the duration of her stay. Approximately half the size of a commercial cargo container, there wasn’t much to it. There was a closet-sized bathroom, a workstation complete with folding chair, a counter area with a microwave on top and a mini-fridge below, and walls the color of eggshells. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead and an air conditioner plugged into a window hummed as it pumped lush coolness into the work space. Until that moment she hadn’t minded the tiny area, but with Chandler’s unashamedly masculine presence eating up the room she was suddenly overwhelmed with a breathless kind of claustrophobia. Never in her life had she been so vividly aware of another person, to the point where her nerves tingled at his nearness. Hitherto unknown instincts kicked into overdrive, and a strange fight-or-flight sensation thrummed through her until she was half-sure he’d see her vibrating with it. And all he was doing was standing there. Close enough to touch. Close enough for her to touch him.
The heady thrumming increased, and finally her slow-on-the-uptake brain found a label for it.
Anticipation.
“I don’t believe it. You’re supposed to be smart.”
Her attention snapped to him. For the life of her, she couldn’t help but wonder if he felt the same giddy slamming of senses whenever their eyes met. “What?”
“You have this cool haven to retreat to, and you’re standing out there in the sun
like an idiot.”
Her high-flying excitement did an undignified face-plant. “Don’t worry, Dad, I know how much heat I can take.”
“If you could see yourself right now, you’d get why I doubt that.” His expression darkened, and he touched a fingertip to her cheek. Without warning, her heart executed a perfect triple flip. “I’ve never seen a redder face.”
“I have to do my work.” She also had to calm the hell down. How was it possible that a mere touch of a finger against her cheek was enough to make her swoon?
“Unless I’m not understanding the situation, all that’s being done now is hauling away the debris, right? Most architects don’t hover around the job site during this initial phase, do they?”
“I want to make sure none of the pieces I’ve tagged to be salvaged somehow wind up being hauled off to the dump.”
“This project needs your highly specialized brain to be in tiptop shape from start to finish, which means you’ve got to take care of yourself. If you’re not going to do it, I’m happy to pick up the slack.”
“Bossy.” Of course he wanted her to be up and running at optimum speed—for the Throne Mansion project, and not because he was worried about her. The flash of disappointment she suffered surprised her enough to make her catch her breath. A stupid response if there ever was one, she thought, half-turning away. It shouldn’t matter that he was motivated to look after her out of a desire to see the project completed. It wasn’t like she gave a damn what his motivation was when it came to looking out for her. That kind of rosy, romantic thinking wasn’t like her at all. “I’ve been looking after myself for a long time. I’m good at it.”
“Prove it.” He reached over and cracked the bottle open, then slid his fingers over hers in a near-caress before he guided her hand up. “Drink.”
Without a word she obliged him, unable to stop herself from looking into his eyes as she swallowed the icy water. He looked back, a bold, unself-conscious challenge that at turns made her want to look away and lean closer just to show him she’d never be easy to tame. Only when she realized her temp was rising again did it hit her that simply tangling her gaze with his was enough to get her motor running.
Eye-sex. The man had such mad skills, he redefined the term.
“There we go.” His voice seemed deeper. A low, velvety tone that belonged to a lover bent on seduction, not the man who’d hired her. “Better?”
“Mm.” She didn’t trust herself to talk beyond single syllables and grunts. Her pulse hammered so hard she was sure nothing but mortifying stuttering would come out. To save herself, she half-stepped back to peel off her hard hat, only to wonder in a thoroughly absurd and girly way if she had an ugly case of hat hair going on. “Thanks.”
“My pleasure. I should have put together a Texas summer survival kit for you sooner.”
His eyes were still on her. She could feel their intensity sizzling over her even as she focused a ridiculous amount of attention on setting her hat on the counter. If she didn’t say something to break the tension, she’d freaking shatter. “I’m more worried about how you’re surviving the demolition and salvaging phase.” There. That sounded normal. Too bad she didn’t feel anywhere near normal. “Now that the site’s getting cleared down to the foundation, do you have any regrets?”
“The regret hit when some asshole set it on fire. I never knew I loved Thorne Mansion until it wasn’t there anymore. When it burned down... It’s safe to say I didn’t handle it well.”
That had the ring of an epic understatement, and it was enough to bring her back around to face him. “So, your stress levels aren’t the reason why you’ve taken to yelling at the mayor in public?”
“Aha.” She had to admire how he didn’t dodge her searching glance. If anything he looked bored. “Someone’s been blabbing.”
“That skinny guy in your office. Oliver, I think.”
“Yeah, that’s Oliver, the town crier. Or gossip. Choose your label.”
“What I’d like to do is point out that feeding trolls only makes for bigger, fatter trolls. Which means that mayor person will keep trying to hit whatever button she pushed just to make you miserable.”
“That mayor person, huh? It’s Mayor Patricia Weems, in case you don’t know.”
“I don’t want to know, to be honest. I’m not going to be here long enough to remember everyone’s name.” For some reason it seemed important for her to remember that. “Is it true my name came up during your public squabble?”
“Remind me to have a little talk with Oliver about how dangerous it is to gossip about his boss.”
“Is that a yes?”
“It’s none of your business, other than I can assure you Mayor Weems won’t stop you from proceeding with the reconstruction. Do you need help putting on that sunscreen?”
The suddenness of the change of subject nearly gave her whiplash, but she gave in with good grace. “Thanks, but I’ve got it.”
“What about your face?” Before she could figure out what he planned to do, he took the tube from her and squeezed a small amount into his hand. “Look at me.”
He didn’t give her a chance to do anything else, as he caught the point of her chin. For a fleeting moment she thought to put up another protest that she could take care of it herself, but he was already stroking the creamy lotion over her cheeks. There shouldn’t be anything sexy in the contact, or so her brain insisted while her eyes closed and the breath backed up in her throat. After all, sunscreen usually left her feeling sticky and in need of a shower. So it baffled her as to why she was enjoying this as much as she was. With her eyes closed she could feel the glide of his fingers over her face all the more acutely—the almost teasing zigzag pattern he drew down her nose, the circles his thumbs made over her cheeks, the caress of his fingertips along her brow. He traced the line of her jaw before his thumb rubbed over her lips. The sensitive flesh buzzed as if with a low jolt of electricity in the wake of his touch, shocking her eyes open to find him looking at her as if he couldn’t see anything else.
“I know we’re in your office, and I know you’re on the clock.” His voice was a low rumble, no louder than the hum of the AC, yet it still managed to block out every other sound in her world. “But right now it’s all I can do to stop myself from kissing you into a coma.”
“You think your kisses are that powerful, huh?” She wasn’t about to admit that, while not coma-inducing, the memory of his last kiss had definitely deprived her of sleep. One way or another, the man packed some serious mojo when it came to locking lips. “My, my. Aren’t you impressive.”
“I’m a Thorne. Impressive is our natural default.” The cocky lift of his chin and quick smile had her torn between pushing him away and leaning in to capture that mouth with her own. “Are you impressed enough to spend some time with me tomorrow? I’m going out to cover a story for next week’s edition, and I want to make sure you’re not killing yourself in the heat while I’m gone.”
Good grief. “I do know what I’m doing, you know.”
“Did I say otherwise?”
“What’s more, you’re paying me quite well because I know what I’m doing,” she went on, ignoring him. “I don’t like being away from a site for too long. That’s how irreparable damage gets done.”
“So is that a no?”
“It’s...” The idea of spending time with him held just as much temptation for her as the ruins of Thorne Mansion. That was something new, not to mention vaguely disturbing. Since when had she enjoyed a person as much as she did a project? “How long will it take?”
Whoops. That wasn’t what she’d wanted to say at all.
“An hour. Two, tops.”
“Well...” Damn it, she needed to tell him no, if only because she wanted to be with him so much. This wasn’t turning out to be an easy summer fling that kept loneliness and
boredom at bay. She knew what those felt like, because that epitomized just about every relationship she’d ever had.
This was... something different.
“Parker.” He caught her hand and brought it to his mouth, and it stopped everything inside her as if she’d gone into shock. Had anyone ever kissed her hand before? It was an archaic gesture that didn’t mesh with her here-today-gone-tomorrow lifestyle. The brush of lips against her hand was a wooing caress, and she’d never stayed in one spot long enough to be wooed.
She didn’t know if she was wooed. But she sure as hell was wowed.
Over the top of her knuckles, he looked at her with eyes that smoldered hot enough to set her on fire. “Say you’ll come with me. Please.”
“I won’t really be needed tomorrow, so...yes.” The words came out without bothering to check with her cautious side for verification. But in the end she couldn’t regret it. She’d be in this part of the world for just a few short weeks, so where was the harm in spending as much time as she could with a man who made her feel so alive it almost hurt?
It took effort, but she managed to ignore the sound of alarm bells going off in her head.
* * *
“An actual Texas ranch.” Eyes alive with interest, Parker looked out the passenger window at the passing scenery. “I’ve always wanted to see a real Texas ranch for myself. It’s on my bucket list.”
“I don’t know if you’ll be able to cross that item off after today. I get the feeling you’re expecting something like Southfork.” Behind the wheel, Chandler slid a glance Parker’s way and was happy to note there were no signs of sunburn. Unlike yesterday, she seemed cool and content, with a smile playing around the corners of her expressive mouth.
Ah, that mouth. It was going to be his downfall, he was sure of it. Those lips were made to create pleasure wherever they touched, and he wanted them to touch him everywhere. His mouth. His neck. His chest. His dick. Just the thought spawned an exquisite heaviness in his groin, a deep, muted throbbing that promised to be so much more. Inconvenient, he thought, scowling as he shifted in his seat. And definitely something he didn’t fantasize about with every woman he ran across, but he had already resigned himself to the fact that Parker had to give off some wild pheromone that tripped his trigger in the worst way. There was no fighting it. All he could hope for was to survive until she was gone.