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It must be all that coffee she’d had at breakfast, she thought suddenly as she pulled her hand away and took one involuntary step back. “It’s been nice meeting you, Mr. Travis,” she said, shoving her tingling hand into the pocket of her jeans and forcing a wobbly smile to her lips. “But as I said, I’ll have to interview some local tradesmen before I decide.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. But I promise you, you won’t find anyone better.”
“Can you fix the swing?” Jem asked as he ran over to the creaky old wooden swing that was hanging precariously on its chain at the end of the porch.
“Sure could,” Cole said as he walked over and tested the swing’s chains with a gentle tug. He looked back at Lauren. “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll give you a free sample. What harm is there in that?”
Lauren frowned. She wasn’t sure, but something about that slow, lazy smile was giving her the strangest feeling that he was making the decisions, like he was making the rules.
“And Jem can help,” Cole said and the boy’s face lit up like the night skies on the Fourth of July.
Her son glanced over at her with that same guaranteed-to-work grin, an unspoken plea to let him help beaming at her like a floodlight.
Common sense warred with her need to get Cole Travis as far away as possible. She was uncomfortable around him, and not just because the way he looked at her made her feel like her knees were made of rubber.
On the other hand, she did need a thousand and one things done around here and unless she wanted to miss the beginning of the summer tourist season in just under two months, she couldn’t afford to lose any more time. So what if she was attracted to him? she thought, mentally cracking the whip on her awakening hormones. Getting her business up and running was Priority One, dammit, and she wasn’t going to let her simple attraction to this man stand in her way. In no time at all, he would cease to be a temptation. She was sure of it. Absolutely sure…
Cole Travis leaned his head back and laughed at something Jem had said. Low, deep and heartfelt, the mere sound of it sent a shiver of pure, unalloyed longing careening through her.
She mentally shook it off, then reminded herself that if, for some unlikely reason, his appeal did fail to wane, certainly she could get a grip long enough to find The Old Man of Valle Verde—couldn’t she?
She wrapped her familiar control around her like a superhero’s cape before she spoke. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll give you an hour. If the swing’s fixed before the hour’s up, I’ll hire you for the weekend.”
Cole Travis hesitated only a moment before that lazy smile appeared and he said, “You’ve got a deal.”
She nodded, then looked back at Jem, who was now grinning from ear to ear, clearly anticipating his own participation in Cole’s work. “As for you, young man, didn’t you promise you’d help me clean that train wreck you call a bedroom?”
Her son’s expression went from sixty to zero in one second. He looked down at his feet and nodded, his voice holding about as much enthusiasm as if he were going to the guillotine. “Uh-huh,” he said.
“When you’ve finished,” she said, softening her tone, “we’ll come and check Mr. Travis’s progress.” She slanted a look at Cole. “Then we’ll see how good he really is.”
Amusement—and something else she couldn’t put her finger on—flickered in the eyes that met her gaze. His voice was soft and almost sensual when he spoke. “I think you’ll like what you see.”
Too late for that, she mused, then checked herself mentally. Lauren gave him a smooth nod, turned the key in the ancient lock on the front door and waited for Jem to precede her inside. Hopefully that gray-haired old man would show up soon, she prayed as she followed her dejected son, and then she could get started on the things that really mattered: making a house and business that would sustain her and Jem for the rest of their lives.
Cole watched as Lauren let the rickety screen door close with a wheezing clatter behind her. He made a mental note to fix the screen door next. He breathed in deeply, noticing how the sweet, citrusy scent of her lingered—as did the vision of her tossing her deep, dark-red mane of hair and sashaying away in a flurry of perfectly shaped behind and long, long legs. She reminded him of a glamorous 1940s-era pinup girl he’d fallen in love with as a boy when he’d seen her on a calendar in his grandfather’s garage.
And Jem—whether it turned out the boy was Cole’s son or not—was an inquisitive, engaging child who obviously adored Lauren, and she him. But while something about the boy might look familiar, it wouldn’t help for Cole to start imagining the boy as his own. If Cole had learned anything while he’d investigated the previous two leads, it was that until he knew for certain, it would be best to avoid any attachment.
To either of them.
But as he walked down to his truck, he still couldn’t help remembering how Lauren had looked a few minutes before. She’d gotten all feisty, crossing her arms, forcing up those amazing breasts that just about every red-blooded male in America had dreamed of at least once.
Lauren Simpson was one of the world’s most beautiful lingerie models, with absurdly full lips and dark green eyes that slanted up at the corners and teased men from the printed page. But that wasn’t what had surprised him. What had surprised him was that she was also smart, confident and incredibly spirited for a woman he’d assumed would be as one-dimensional as she appeared in print.
And that was not to say that he hadn’t noticed her actual dimensions, too.
He wiped beads of sweat from his forehead. Why in the hell was he so hot? He looked up at the sky, expecting to see that the reason for the heat pouring through his body was just the sun, blazing overhead. But it was still midmorning, and the feeble, pale sun was still lying low in the eastern sky. He couldn’t deny it. Lauren Simpson was making him sweat. And he didn’t like that fact one bit.
He’d come here with one thing in mind, Cole reminded himself as he grabbed a toolbox and threw the necessary tools into it with a clatter, and he wasn’t going to stray from it. To get what he wanted, he needed this job. And he’d do a lot better work if his mind wasn’t filled with images of her in the silky, flimsy, barely there stuff she wore in that damned catalog.
He cursed under his breath as he grabbed a hacksaw. Knowing just what she looked like under her harmless frayed jeans and blue T-shirt wasn’t going to help him find out what he needed to know. Nor would it help him to stay focused on finding what had been taken from him, prove it was his and head home.
Toolbox filled, he walked back to the house and took the swing down. In less than twenty minutes, he’d filled the damaged holes where the threads had been stripped, drilled new holes for a stronger chain he’d found in his truck, attached the chain with sturdier bolts and hung the swing back up.
He sat down to test the swing’s strength and was surprised by the satisfaction he’d taken in performing the simple task. Obviously it had been too long since he’d put his hands to actual labor. He sized up the front of the house and made a mental list of what needed to be done with an eye trained by over fifteen years in the construction business. The roof leaked, the porch boards were warped, the paint was peeling, the windows needed glazing—and that was just what he could see from where he sat.
He sighed as he got up and pulled a big, flathead screwdriver out of his toolbox. He was seriously over-qualified for this job, he thought as he began to unscrew the screen door’s hinges. But Lauren would never know that. At least not until it was time for her to know.
Suddenly, Jem peeked around the doorsill, his smile shy. “Whatcha doin’?” the boy asked as he inched his small frame outside the house.
An odd turbulence rocked through Cole as he remembered his own fascination with tools and construction when he was a boy. “I’m fixing the screen door,” Cole said as he pulled the wooden frame away from its moorings and leaned it up against the house. “If you’ve finished cleaning your room, why don’t you go get your mom to come check out the swing. It’s fixed.”
Jem spun on his heel and ran back into the house. “Mom! Mom! The swing’s fixed. C’mon!”
The boy’s enthusiasm tugged at Cole’s heart, but he continued working until he saw Lauren appear in the doorway, her son pulling her hand. She was smiling that cool, composed smile he’d seen so many times in print. She’d put an old-fashioned apron on over her jeans and top, but she still managed to look like the picture of a very sexy housewife who was meeting her man at the door.
And he’d be damned if he didn’t want to be that man for one crazy second.
“You’re finished already?” she asked as she stepped out onto the wide porch.
Cole nodded as he moved aside to let her past. But when she squeezed by, she lightly brushed one curvy hip against his thigh, making the heat in his veins spike dangerously. He felt as much as heard her sharp intake of breath, then saw her glance at him from wide, surprised eyes.
“You first, Mom,” the boy said, pulling them from the undertow created from their simple contact.
Lauren moved away from Cole quickly, then lowered herself into the swing gingerly and gracefully, crossed those long, lovely legs, then patted the space next to her for Jem to sit down. The boy plopped down enthusiastically and Cole noticed Lauren wince as she looked above her head to see if it would fall from the rafters at the impact.
“Awesome,” Jem said as he perched at the edge of the swing and dangled his legs.
Lauren looked at Cole and repeated, “Awesome,” then put her arm around her son and smiled down at him. Cole felt like a boulder the size of Cleveland had settled in his stomach as he watched them but he quickly shuttered his expression as she looked up at him, her exotic green eyes troubled.
“Thank you, Mr. Travis,” she said, her voice wrapping itself around his name so sweetly he almost felt like she’d reached out and touched him. “We’ve wanted to use this swing every day since we moved in.” Her smile wavered and she lifted her chin a fraction. “I’ll hire you for the weekend. But I still intend to conduct interviews and I’ll still need to see your references.”
The stubborn tilt of her chin warned him to tread lightly. “You interview everyone you can find,” he said as he turned and began to remove the hinges from the screen door. “I’ll just keep working until you find someone who can do the job as fast and as well as I can.” He paused, then glanced over his shoulder at her. “Or until you don’t.”
Two
By four o’clock the next afternoon, Lauren was so frustrated she wanted to cry. She peered over the top of the dog-eared, grease-stained piece of paper at the two potbellied brothers sitting on her antique settee who were, unfortunately, only the latest marchers in the parade of inexperienced candidates who’d come to apply for her job. But these brothers were different. While the others had been merely amusingly underqualified, these two were downright offensive.
From the moment she’d answered the door fifteen minutes earlier, she’d felt their oily gazes as distinctly as if they were touching her. Luckily, only a few minutes after they’d arrived, Cole had come in to change the lock on her front door. And though it pained her to admit it, having him there was reassuring.
As she pretended to read the Beer Boys’s list of references, she glanced over at Cole. He was entirely too sure of himself—and probably getting a good laugh out of this, she thought, her gaze lingering on him for a moment as he worked with graceful efficiency. Sitting before her was graphic proof that Cole Travis was the best man for the job. And let’s face it, she told herself, when it came to everything she was looking for in a man…er, handyman, these two lumps weren’t even in the same galaxy as Cole.
Suddenly, as if he could hear her thoughts, Cole looked over at the brothers and a deep frown settled in between his brows. Even in profile, his posture and demeanor were intense, ready.
In spite of a little voice inside her that tried to assure her with, “I can take care of myself, I always have!” she felt a warm sense of ease settling over her as she lowered the paper.
“So, ummm…” She looked back down at their “resume.” “Bobby, Johnny.” She looked up at them. “All the people you have listed as references seem to have the same last name as you do.”
They grinned at each other, displaying crooked teeth yellowed, she assumed, by chewing tobacco. “Yeah. We been working around our daddy’s place all our lives.”
“I see,” she said as an image from Deliverance flashed through her mind. She glanced at Cole again before trudging on with the interview. “And what kind of work do you know how to do?”
“We can do anything you want us to do,” Bobby said. Beside him, Johnny wiggled his eyebrows at her and added suggestively, “And then some.”
And even as the meaning behind his words sank into her consciousness, she saw Cole shoot to his feet, a muscle working in his jaw like a two-ton piston. When he spoke, there was a dangerous timbre to his voice. “I think the lady is asking if you understand the most basic things about construction. Like repairing lath and plaster walls?” Their expressions were blank. “Or glazing windows? Replacing tongue-and-groove flooring?” Their faces were as unresponsive as monks in a deep trance. “How about something simple, like hanging and taping drywall?”
After several long moments of silence, Lauren heard Cole make an impatient noise that sounded almost like a snort before going back to work on the lock, now with a little more vigor. Annoyance at Cole’s interference warred with amusement at the idiocy written on the Beer Boys’s faces as they exchanged nervous glances.
“Who’s he?” Bobby asked, looking over one sloped shoulder at Cole.
“I’m the interim handyman,” Cole said in a loud growl.
The brothers went cross-eyed as they struggled with the word “interim.”
“He’s doing the job temporarily,” she interpreted.
“Oh,” they said in unison. “Okay.”
She stood up. “Well, I think I’ve got all the information I’ll need. I’ll call you if you get the job.” Or if you’re the last men on earth, whichever comes first.
Moments later, Lauren watched the two men amble out the front door and wondered how one little town could have so many inept handymen. Her hopes for getting Simpson’s Gems ready on time were beginning to wane.
If she wanted the job done she was going to have to hire Mr. Tempting. She knew it, but it still bothered her—because hell, he still bothered her. But as she turned to face Cole, the words, “you’re hired,” died before they could be uttered. His thunderous expression was enough to stop her cold.
“What were you thinking?” he demanded, his lips drawn into a tight line.
For a moment, Lauren could only stare. What was his problem? “What are you talking about?”
“Those two, that’s what. What were you thinking inviting those two losers into your house?”
Her temper flared up then, and she narrowed her eyes and straightened up to her full five foot nine. “Thinking? I was thinking of hiring a handyman, Mr. Travis.”
“The name’s Cole,” he said, a muscle jumping at his jawline. “And if you were really looking for a handyman, you would have seen that there’s one standing in your living room right now.”
“I think I made it clear that I’d be interviewing before I made a decision. And I don’t require your help with the interviews, by the way.”
Cole’s laugh held not a single ounce of humor. “Well, it sure looked like you needed help with those two.”
Lauren planted her fists on her hips. “I was handling it fine, Cole. Believe me, I’ve been handling that type for a long time.”
“It sure didn’t look that way to me.”
Pure, unmitigated exasperation made her blurt out, “Then maybe you shouldn’t be looking.” She took a deep breath before she spoke again, cooling her voice by at least twenty degrees. “Besides, don’t you have work to do?”
His eyebrow arched up, questioning her. “Are you saying I’ve got the job?”
Cole watched Lauren’s straight white teeth bite softly into her lush lower lip, the mere sight of which sent a streak of heat whooshing through him so fast, he felt like he was a match and she was the striking plate.
Several long tense moments hung between them before she said, “I have several other people coming today.”
“Really?” He leaned his shoulder against the doorframe with an ease that he didn’t come anywhere near feeling. “Another high school boy, like the one this morning? Or,” he said with a twist of his head toward the porch, “more victims of inbreeding like those two?”
She let out a little hiss of annoyance. “I have a very qualified man coming any minute.” She tipped her chin up in a way that he now recognized as a sign of stubbornness. “And I’d appreciate it if you weren’t underfoot when he gets here.”
Underfoot? He’d never been underfoot in his life. Granted, he had stepped over the line with his spontaneous interview of the two liquored up, would-be handymen. But what she didn’t know was that he’d heard them talking about her as they’d gotten out of their truck. And what he’d overheard had been enough to make him grab the first project he could find and head inside.
If he hadn’t been there, how far would those beer-soaked pinheads have taken their drunken ramblings? It didn’t really matter, of course. The fact was that he had been here when they’d undressed her with their eyes and he’d seen her reaction. And that’s when he knew he had to get this job for another reason: whether Lauren liked it or not, he was going to make sure nothing happened to her or to Jem—at least until he found out what he needed to know.
Cole put his own anger on ice, knelt down and began to put his tools away. “How long are you gonna keep this up?”
“Until the pool of applicants is exhausted,” she said, her worn-down voice lacking the conviction of her words.
“They looked pretty exhausted to me.” He tossed her the new keys to the house and she caught them handily. “C’mon, Lauren, you know I’m the best man for you.”
As her eyes darkened and her lips parted in surprise, Cole felt another flash of heat pass between them for the briefest moment. Just a moment, but long enough for him to glimpse a vision of her beneath him, her moan of pleasure, her long legs tangled with his—and then she composed her face into that damned serene expression she’d obviously developed for the cameras long ago and the image was gone.
“You really do have the most awful ego, Cole.” She shook her head in wonder and the action spilled her dark hair around her bare shoulders in a fluid drape.
Although he had a sudden urge to reach out and touch that silky mass of hair, he managed to dredge up a laid-back smile, the one he used when he told one of his subcontractors that their bid was out of line with reality. “Thank you. One of my many strong suits, I assure you.”
She was smiling, but as her chin tipped up again in defiance, he realized just how much he was enjoying their sparring. He was still anticipating her return volley when the doorbell chimed with a sad, mournful clunk. He put the doorbell on his mental list of projects and reached for the crystal knob.
“The next man must be here,” he said, smiling. “I’ll get it.”
“Don’t you dare!” She swept down on him, grabbing his hand where it was wrapped around the doorknob.
And then she froze right there, practically holding his hand. Searing heat bulleted up his arm as he breathed deeply of the sweet scent of her, but he, too, seemed incapable of movement.
Finally, after what seemed like a hundred years of silence stretched out between them, he managed to rally his vocal chords. “Lauren,” he said, “let me be a gentleman.”
“You, Mr. Travis,” she said as she let go, “are no gentleman.” She was smiling again, but he saw her eyes burning with the same fire that continued to rage inside him.
With a Herculean effort, he turned away from her, opened the door—and saw a nervous, pimpled teenager, his baseball cap turned backward, his baggy jeans hanging low on his hips.
Cole smiled widely. “Good afternoon,” he said, relief filling him at the certainty that he was one step closer to the job. He turned to Lauren. “I believe your next applicant is here.” Then he leaned toward her and said in a whisper, “And I think it’s going to be okay to leave you alone with this one.”
By the time the sun had begun to hang low in the mottled-orange western sky, Lauren was at the end of her rope. And it had been a surprisingly short trip.
She stood up and showed her final applicant to the door. “Thank you for coming by,” she said as she shook yet another teenage boy’s slim, soft hand.
“Thank you, Miz Simpson,” and his voice was so uneven she thought it must’ve changed just last week.
As the eminently unqualified boy walked down the driveway, she saw Cole working on shoring up the ram-shackle barn doors in the dim light of dusk. Her pulse sped up as he turned around, and gave her a half smile that had “why on earth are you making this so hard?” written all over it.
Why, indeed, she thought to herself as she watched Cole turn and lift one of the huge doors off its hinges and carry it inside the barn. The references he’d slipped under her door before he’d left the previous night had checked out beautifully. The four people she’d called had been so rhapsodic in their praise, she’d thought perhaps he’d written their scripts himself. But even if that were so, she’d already seen what he could do. He was a good worker, and he was fast. At the rate he was going, he could have the barn and the house fixed up in plenty of time for her grand opening, then he’d fire up his beater of a truck, scoot out of town and her life would return to normal.
Or at least what she imagined was normal, she thought as she turned to go back into the house. After all, she was only just starting to get her life back together after her highly publicized breakup with Miles Landon, the man who’d finally broken her Jerk-O-Meter—not to mention her heart—with his betrayal.
Lauren sat down on the antique sofa she’d bought for a song at a tag sale in Maine and pulled her legs up beneath her. The broken heart was her own fault, of course. Growing up as she had, she’d always been wary of close relationships, but when she’d met Miles, the lure of his personality and magnetism had been undeniable. Like an idiot, she’d let her guard down and taken the chance. And then, predictably, it had all gone to hell.
Miles was a Rock Star—with a capital R and a capital S—and even though he’d been on the road or in the studio much of the time, she’d thought they’d loved each other. Then, two hundred and twenty-two days ago, while standing in line at the grocery store, Lauren had read all about Miles’s infidelity in People. She’d found out in a glossy, two-page spread that Miles, who was supposed to be recording in London, was living right there in Hollywood with a wispy, redheaded A-list actress.
That was Day One of Lauren’s yearlong sabbatical from men. Three hundred and sixty-five days of no distractions, of peace and quiet to spend with her son, building a new life and a thriving business.
Lauren straightened and gazed out at her front yard that lay beyond the living room’s ancient leaded glass windows. Where in heaven’s name had her control gone? Where was that familiar, dependable control that had practically been her shadow since she was about Jem’s age, living a chaotic life in home number five with that hardhearted alcoholic couple? Her experience with them had been awful, but it had taught her to be pleasant, even-tempered and totally in control, no matter what life threw at her.
Don’t get too close and don’t rely on anyone. Those were her rules. Unfortunately, she’d broken them not only for Miles, but also for a few other handpicked jokers—and she’d lived to regret it. Oh, they’d all seemed normal at first but each and every one had turned out to be jerks or philanderers, and one had been struggling with his sexual identity. When she was twenty, it was a photographer; at twenty-one, she’d taken a chance on a much older magazine editor; at twenty-three, it’d been a fashion designer and a professional baseball player; then, at twenty-five, the coup de grâce, Miles.