Sloane’s smile died as swiftly as that fantasy she’d been constructing. Surprised, she wondered if she’d misheard or misunderstood. “You’re what?”
“Moving out and moving on.”
Nope. No misunderstanding. That deep certainty in his voice left her with zero doubt. He was serious about walking away and abandoning all this history…abandoning the love that abided here. How could he? How could he walk away from all this for something sleek and modern with…with a trash compacter, probably, and one of those keg coolers in the kitchen and…
“Hey,” Eli said, concern crossing his face. “Don’t look so sad.” He reached out to take her hand.
She stared at his, how it cradled her smaller one, how the fit looked so natural, how the touch seemed innocuous and didn’t betray that it caused a ribbon of heat to unfurl throughout her system, a sweet burn that any woman would recognized as trouble.
Because it was concrete proof. A demonstrable fact that no matter what she learned about the man, no matter how he shattered her illusions and poked holes in her daydreams, so far none of that was killing the crush she had on him.
Chapter 5
The sound of heavy footsteps in the hallway reached Eli’s office. He looked up, unsurprised when his friend Boone appeared in the doorway, wearing clothes appropriate for a construction site, including a pair of shit-kicking, steel-toed boots.
He gave them a study, then transferred his gaze to the other man’s face. “What the hell size shoe do you wear again? You could stomp my Jeep to a pancake in those.”
Boone ignored the question and threw himself into the chair across from Eli’s desk.
He winced. “Christ, be careful. I don’t want my office furniture turned into kindling.”
“What’s got you so cranky?” Boone demanded, frowning. “You were supposed to be riding high with the sisters on vacation. You mentioned something about striving to get your dick wet as often as possible.”
He glared at his old friend even as guilt tasted sour on his tongue. Yes, that might be a crude-but-true version of a goal he perhaps had articulated on a poker night before Nora, Allison, Lynnie, and Molly had left town, but even when the cards were being dealt he kept it cleaner than most of their friends. “I don’t talk shit like that.”
“Okay, you don’t,” Boone conceded. “But word on the street is you’re wasting no time in the pursuit of your heart’s desire.”
Eli glanced at the paper cup of something steaming in his friend’s hand, the logo on its side making clear he’d stopped at Harry’s, the coffee place in downtown Sawyer Beach where he’d likely encountered their favorite barista. “You mean you had a word with Sophie.”
“Was that where I heard it?” Boone titled his shaggy head in a vain attempt to look uncertain. “Maybe, but—”
“Shut up, just shut up,” Eli muttered, fully aware he was being needled, but unable to curb his response. Christ, he was cranky. On a sigh, he decided to start over.
“Hello, Boone,” he said. “How’s your day so far and what brings you to my office on this fine morning?”
The other man glanced out the window that showed the deep blue sky and scuttling clouds. He returned his attention to Eli, and with a shrug seemed to indicate he was willing to go along. “You asked me to take a look at the house across the street—I was there first thing this morning. By the way, the back door was open, but I locked up after I left.”
“Shit,” Eli said, disgusted with himself for not double-checking.
“Frankly, there wasn’t much to steal.” Boone rubbed his palm across his gritty jaw. “Even the TV…”
“Yeah.” Eli had noted the Spartan surroundings himself. The young single mom probably kept the household going on a shoestring. “What can you tell me about the storm damage?”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get to it until today, but what you managed yesterday with your foray onto the roof—”
“I did what I could before work.”
“You did well. I added another tarp and tacked it down so even the briskest wind won’t dislodge it. But the electrical...” He shook his head. “It’s old school, Eli, and the service panel is shot. I think there’s a whole replacement and rewiring job in the future.”
Shit. “So Sloane won’t be moving back anytime soon.”
The other man shook his head. “Not if she likes lights on.”
“Damn.” He tapped a pencil on the desk. She’d tried calling her landlords the night before but they were on vacation in an RV and were likely out of cell phone range as they traveled through the desert.
“She’s going to have to move until the updates and repairs can be completed,” Boone said, exactly what Eli was thinking.
“Damn,” he muttered again.
“Maybe she has family in the area.”
He didn’t think so, because he thought she’d have mentioned it, but he realized she’d not talked about herself and her background much at all. Head down, he studied the dents and scratches in the battered surface of the painted metal desk. Yeah, she’d been playing it pretty close to the vest. Not even a peep about her daughter’s daddy.
“I suppose you can offer her lodging at your place until her landlord returns,” Boone mused.
“What?” Eli’s head shot up. “That’s not gonna happen.”
His friend lifted both hands. “Okay, just checking. I thought maybe you’d finally got a good look at her and changed your mind.”
“Huh?”
“I saw her once at your place, remember? Then, you said something about taking a hard pass.” A crafty light entered Boone’s gaze. “But now…maybe you have taken a second look, yet you’re afraid—”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to punch you in the head.” Eli glared.
“You’re telling me your sweet single mom isn’t tempting you in the slightest?”
Eli straightened in his chair. “This is not about…” Her impressive breasts, her scent, that brief but startling kiss they’d shared.
“Not about?” Boone prompted.
“Sloane is…” Eli frowned. Damn it, the woman was not affecting him and no one was going to get the impression otherwise. They were on two separate life trajectories. “Sloane’s a local in need of a little assistance, nothing more.”
“Okay,” Boone agreed. “And you’re right, her problem is not your problem. It’s not up to you to give her the keys to the—heh—Kingdom.”
“You’re so funny.”
Boone appeared pleased. “I thought so. King—Kingdom. I can’t wait to tell Gemma tonight.”
Eli tried withering him with a look. “I already gave Sloane a set of keys and the fact is, she’s really not a problem for me. The house has six bedrooms, for God’s sake, and I work long hours.”
“Yeah, but won’t it cramp your style? You’ve said you want—”
“I’m not planning orgies in the family room.” He set his jaw. “For the time being, my sisters still call the place home, you know.”
“There’s the child, though,” Boone said in a reasonable voice. “She’s gotta be annoying. Demanding. Loud.”
“No. She’s a little kid.” Cute, and stand-offish at times, but Eli mostly blamed Baby Sally for that.
“You’ve already raised little kids,” the other man pointed out. “I thought you were looking forward to a break.”
“And there’s a dog,” Eli said, suddenly desperate to shut down the conversation. “Boo makes it all worthwhile.”
“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” his friend raised both hands again, then got to his feet, his lips twitching. “Since there’s a dog named Boo, I’ll say no more. Give me a call if you need anything else.”
He strode from the office next, leaving Eli vaguely irritated and not-so-vaguely sure he’d just been played—reminding him a little too much of how he’d goaded Boone about his Gemma back in January. But instead of dealing with either feeling, he decided to focus on work, and didn’t look up until ano
ther set of feet quick-stepped down the hallway a couple of hours later.
A figure appeared in the doorway.
One look, and without thinking, Eli got to his feet.
Before, he’d seen Sloane in jeans and sneakers. Now she wore something filmy and flowery and fluttery, a long-sleeved dress, that veed at her collarbones and wrapped at her waist. It ended just above her knees, but her calves were sexy enough, thank you, especially when her feet were slipped into a beige pair of high heels.
Her plump mouth was rosier than ever and she’d done something to her eyes…he couldn’t look away from them once their gazes met.
“Hi,” she said, sounding uncertain as she lingered outside his office. “I had a few hours to put in at the office this morning.”
She’d explained she was working limited hours at a small accounting firm in town while her bosses were on vacation. Hired originally as a receptionist, she’d taken some online courses and now did basic bookkeeping tasks as well as managing the office.
“But Paige is in daycare until five.” She took a few steps inside, getting close enough that he could see a tiny beauty mark at the side of her mouth. “So I thought I’d stop in to find out if you’d heard anything about my house.”
With his focus on her delectable lips, his office space seemed suddenly too small, even smaller than when mountainous Boone had occupied one visitors’ chair. Eli gestured with his arm. “Would you like a tour?” He glanced out the window noting the mix of sun and clouds. “I can lend you a jacket.”
She let herself be directed toward the exit, and ignoring the interested looks from the front office staff, he ushered her out the double doors to the nursery grounds, his denim jacket thrown over her shoulders. He noticed her taking a surreptitious sniff of the collar, grimaced.
“I may have worn that while moving some bags of fertilizer.”
Her face turned pink. “That’s not it…it smells like you.”
“Oh.”
“And I’m not accustomed to male…smells.” She slapped one hand on her forehead. “Did that come out wrong? That came out wrong.”
Laughter eased the tension that had gripped the base of his skull upon her entry into his space. He sucked in a breath of fresh air, cool, clean, and with just the barest hint of salt from the ocean a couple of miles away. “Would you like to see the vegetable seedlings?”
She obediently headed in the direction he indicated. “What I meant was, your jacket smells like your aftershave. I like it.”
Okay, good to know. But it also provided a convenient lead-in to a subject he’d yet to broach. And under the circumstances, he told himself it was a natural question. “When you say you’re not accustomed…well, has Paige’s daddy not been in the picture for a while?”
“We were…separated at the time she was born. And then he died in an accident without ever getting a chance to meet her.”
“I see. And I’m sorry. What about other family members?”
“I don’t have any,” she admitted, pausing to touch a fingertip to a tender shoot, the beginnings of a zucchini plant. “There’s my in-laws, though. Paige’s father’s parents who live in Florida.”
Okay, so he’d been right when he told Boone he suspected she had no relatives in the area. With that information obtained, he switched topics, and explained the layout of the nursery. In the distance he could see one of his younger workers surrounded by a passel of school-age kids, maybe first or second grade. Another group of them with another staff member gathered by the flowering shrubs.
That field trip, he recalled, and walked her toward some of the most interesting hybrid citrus trees. “You can get an orange, a lemon, and a lime, all three grafted together,” he said. “It’s known as a cocktail tree.”
Without warning, she grabbed the hand he’d used to gesture. “What aren’t you telling me?” she asked, her fingers cold on his, her gaze trained on his face. “I can tell you’re stalling.”
Yeah, he was. He turned his wrist, so that his warm palm met her cooler one. He squeezed. “It’s going to sound like bad news.”
Her eyes briefly shut. “That means it is bad news.”
Eli gentled his voice. “It’s not safe to return there, Sloane. The damaged roof might not hold up. At the very least, you’d have to do without electricity.”
She bit her bottom lip, her eyes opening though her gaze appeared unseeing now, as if looking into a distance where he couldn’t follow. “Okay.” Her voice sounded a little shaky, a little weary, but she slipped her hand from his hold. “I’ll think of something—”
“I’m already working on that,” Eli assured her, thought processes moving at warp speed. “You and me…together we can figure something out.”
Her eyes sharpened again, pinned him. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “You can’t do anything more for me.”
“Why not?”
Instead of answering, she was on the move, speeding in the direction of the exit in those high heels. “Because,” she said over her shoulder.
“That’s no answer,” Eli retorted, already frustrated, and then lengthened his stride to catch up with her. Reaching out, his hand found denim. But when she yanked her arm to loosen his hold, her shoes slipped on a skim of muddy ooze left over from the storm. As she lost her footing, instinct made him lunge for her with his other hand too, and then he jerked her close, righting her balance.
Steadying her against him, her back to his chest.
They were both breathing too hard, but it wasn’t from exertion. He knew that. Emotions were running high as he turned her, fingers gripping each of her shoulders. “Sloane,” he began, his protector instinct taking over, a compulsion honed by eleven years of being in charge.
Only one reasonable path out of her dilemma presented itself, and he prepared now to make the case.
“Sloane,” he began again, staring into her face.
But then his words died on his tongue, his brain turning off as his body registered the warmth of hers as well as the slight tremor running through it. Her blue eyes went wide, diverting his focus, and then it was her mouth, that rosy, plump mouth, that he suddenly needed to communicate with more than he needed his next breath.
He swallowed a low groan. “Sloane…” he whispered, knowing he was going to kiss her. Knowing he had to kiss her. His head bent.
His dick buzzed.
Startled by the novel response, he froze, then it buzzed again.
Revealing it wasn’t his penis, but another p-word. His phone.
Coming aware of his surroundings once again—daylight, family business, children not far off—he tore his gaze from her lips and reached for the device with one hand, keeping his hold on Sloane with the other.
“We’ve got a problem,” his head cashier said.
He nodded in grim agreement. “Yes, we do.”
* * *
Sloane allowed Eli to tow her toward the structure housing his office. It wasn’t fancy, but the wooden building was freshly painted a clean white and was comprised of a large area up front for customers to special order and submit payment, then a long hall that she’d noticed before had rooms on either side, desks and file cabinets in most. One had to be a break room because there was a plastic-topped table, a couch, a microwave, and refrigerator.
At the very rear was Eli’s office, and that was the direction he was hauling her toward now.
She tried resisting. A moment ago they’d been poised on the brink of something dangerous, intimate, signaling it was imperative to put distance between them. “Look, we can talk later.”
“Yeah, we will talk later, after I handle whatever caused Lara to call.”
At the open doorway he halted, and Sloane took in the sight of a nursery employee—likely Lara—who stood over a child huddled in one of the visitors’ chairs. Both woman and little girl appeared deeply unhappy. A small pile of candy bars and gum sat on the ugly metal desk.
Sloane looked from the snacks to the child, whose dirty h
ands were folded into a Sunday school prayer bundle. The rest of her didn’t look clean either, her pilled leggings stretched out at the ankles, her thin hoodie with a front pocket stained, no warmer jacket in sight.
“What’s going on?” Eli asked, his hand releasing Sloane.
Liberated, she stepped back, ducking into the hallway. Eli flicked her a quick glance over his shoulder so she didn’t run like she wanted to, but whatever was happening, it wasn’t her business to witness.
And the defeated expression on the child’s face made her want to stick her fingers in her ears and hum.
“Lara?” Eli prompted. “What’s going on?”
“She’s supposed to stay with her assigned group,” the woman said. “They get a tour, have a taste of some of the herbs we grow, then they come inside and we give them juice and long-stemmed strawberries.”
“I know this,” Eli said. “You went over it with me.”
“Little missy here,” Lara said, her voice turning hard, “isn’t keeping up with the others.”
Sloane cringed at the disparaging tone. It made her feel five again, and seven, and seventeen, judged by all those people who didn’t find her clean enough, her clothes trendy enough, her living situation not up to their standards.
Lacking.
Unloved.
It didn’t take being a genius or even well-fed to understand when you weren’t wanted where you laid your head at night and to sense others’ subtle disdain everywhere else in the world. Some strangers were just out-and-out offensive, right to your face.
“Can we reconnect her with her group?” asked Eli, then his voice changed and Sloane knew he addressed the child. “What’s your name?”
“Annie.”
“Lara, can we reconnect Annie with her group?”
“She said she needed the bathroom,” Lara explained. “I pointed her toward the restrooms myself.”
You often needed the bathroom when you lived like she guessed Annie lived, Sloane thought. It was a place of peace, away from at-home sniping or schoolyard tormenters. Sometimes you just needed to run the hot water over your very cold hands. Sometimes you needed to see your face in the mirror to remember you weren’t invisible.
NO LIMIT (7-Stud Club Book 2) Page 7