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“Any disturbances last night?” he asked from behind her.
“Not a one. Or else I slept through it.”
“Good. I’m going to work on your plumbing this morning, okay?” They’d reached the kitchen, but she didn’t really want to face him yet, so she didn’t. “That’s a priority in these old houses,” he continued, “keeping them dry and free from the elements. Hank’ll be up in a couple of hours with some supplies—wood, hardware, new tank innards.”
“That’s fine.”
Wow. Her handyman was actually stringing sentences together. Yesterday’s communication had been all clipped phrases, and curt, need-to-know answers to her questions. Hank had done most of the talking. The selling, really.
She wished the kitchen were larger; it was still way too small to hold him. He stood just behind her as she poured him coffee from the pot; again, she could feel the heat from his big body, could smell his lime after-shave, could hear the sound of his breathing.
And was she totally insane or was his breath caressing the back of her neck? The sensitive skin there felt all tingly. Again, she couldn’t fail to notice that this much closeness, rather than feel threatening today, made her body shift and sing in odd places.
That connection again. Oh, lord, she really did have a problem here.
“Black, right?” she asked him.
“Excuse me?”
“Your coffee.”
“Oh. Yes.”
After handing him his cup, Kayla sidestepped him, turned and leaned against the counter, keeping her gaze chest-level. He wore a clean work shirt of tan denim, its sleeves rolled up to reveal a light dusting of dark hair on his muscular fore-arms…and on the left one, a fierce-looking tattoo of a hawk and a knife intertwined.
Startled, she tried not to stare, but he caught her reaction.
“I got it when I was inside,” he told her matter-of-factly. “It was purely defensive, trust me. If I hadn’t joined one or another of the gangs, well—” he shrugged “—let’s just say I didn’t have much of a choice if I wanted to stay alive.”
“Oh.”
She shuddered inwardly at what she could only imagine the conditions must have been like for him in prison.
Don’t ask him about it, she begged herself silently. Keep your distance. Look at the tattoo, remember where he’s been. It was safer to keep an arm’s length and more between herself and potential violence, which included the men who worship it.
Sipping her coffee, she darted a quick glance at his face. His hair was so very short, so close to his head, making the bones and contours of his face seem sharply defined. It wasn’t that he was particularly handsome, only that he was so very masculine. Had he always worn his hair like this? Or was it growing out from being shaved in jail?
Another sip, eyes lowered, then another glance at him, at his face this time.
To find him staring straight at her, a look of half-lidded intensity on his face that made her breath stop. His nostrils flared, his mouth was tight with some kind of tension.
Oh, lord, Kayla thought weakly, save me.
Unable to avert her gaze, she couldn’t help noticing that he was looking at her as though she were the highly coveted grand prize in some major contest, one he was hell-bent on winning.
The heat rose to her cheeks, her insides quivered and became liquid. It was true, then. Not only was she sexually drawn to Paul Fitzgerald—despite her efforts not to be—but the feeling was definitely mutual. It was hard to miss it.
The moment was short-lived, so fleeting it might have not even happened, because in the next instant, the animal intensity of his expression was gone, wiped off his face. His gaze hardened; his mouth once again became a thin, smileless line.
He turned toward the door leading to the rest of the house. “I’ll take the coffee with me upstairs,” he said, his voice gruff as he added, “Thanks.”
For several moments after he left the kitchen, Kayla stood where she was, waiting for her breathing to return to something approximating normal.
She spent the rest of the morning doing chores and—as she had done the previous day—avoiding her new handyman. However, by lunchtime, when she was in the kitchen and he was working upstairs, she decided to stop being silly. To act like a grown-up for a change. Standing in the doorway, she called up the stairs, “Can I make you a sandwich?”
“No, thanks,” he called down from the upstairs bath. “I brought my own today.”
“Well, I’m going to sit out on the porch and have my lunch. It’s a beautiful day. Care to join me?”
It seemed to take him quite a while before he answered. “In a few minutes, sure.”
Humming to herself, Kayla brought out a tray with her sandwich and two tall glasses of freshly brewed iced tea. Seated, she was just sipping her drink when she heard the glass door slide open and close again behind her. She smiled at Paul as he lowered himself onto the matching Adirondack chair, the table between them. True enough, he had a brown paper sack with him, and when he set the contents out on the plate she’d provided, she laughed.
“Peanut butter and jelly,” she noted, holding up her own pb and j sandwich. “Great minds…”
Anyone else might have offered an answering smile, a wink, something. Not him. Instead, he grunted and took a large bite of his sandwich.
The return of the cutoff noncommunicator, Kayla observed silently. Aloud, she said, “I appreciate the work you’re doing.”
He chewed and swallowed before answering. “I’m getting paid, Mrs. Thorne.”
“Kayla, please. And I’ll call you Paul, if that’s okay.”
He hesitated before nodding. “Fine.”
“Now, back to the compliment I was paying you. I admire people who take care with whatever they do. Pride in your work is a lost art.”
In the midst of another bite, Paul stopped chewing. Her words created a small glow inside. It had been such a long time since anyone had seemed to appreciate anything he did, and hell, he was human after all.
Still, he’d decided to have lunch with Kayla Thorne for an entirely different reason. To ask her about her brother. He should have done it yesterday, but he’d gotten the feeing she wasn’t real comfortable with him yet. Today, there seemed to be a definite improvement in her mood.
Do it, he lectured himself silently. Use the time to get the information you need.
And forget about wanting her. The woman had good sense—she wasn’t about to get mixed up with an ex-con, and he wasn’t about to screw up his reasons for being here with any sexual nonsense.
But how to start? So, he could say, tell me about yourself—any sisters or brothers? Right. Like they were on a blind date or had just met at a bar. Okay, start casually, lead into it. Gazing around him, Paul said, “This place is really something.”
“Yes, I’m lucky it’s in the family. Although, given the choice, I’d rather Walter were still alive.”
It was such a sad little comment, and it took him by surprise. He studied her face, open, honest and completely devoid of makeup or artifice of any kind. “So…you loved him.”
She seemed taken aback. “Of course I did.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to get personal. It’s just—” he shrugged “—you’re so different from what the papers made you out to be.” After it was out, he wondered if it had been a wise thing to say.
But she didn’t seem to mind. Lifting one shoulder in an answering shrug, she said, “They make it up. I’m a creation of the media. They’re getting back at me for refusing interviews and insisting on my privacy. I wanted to mourn my husband’s death. They couldn’t understand why someone wouldn’t welcome their fifteen minutes of fame.”
“Yeah. Being damned in the press can really play havoc with your life, big-time.”
“Is that what happened to you? I don’t remember the details. Were you tried in public, too?”
“Believe it. It started out with one of those ‘anonymous sources’ you read about. He called a reporter with the scoop on me, how I was a dirty cop.”
Talking about it dredged up that familiar sense of outrage. He took a sip of his tea to calm himself and to watch Kayla’s face for any hint of recognition. Nope. Nothing there but polite interest.
“An investigation was opened,” he continued, “and then there was a trial. It was pretty carefully orchestrated. I never had a chance. The guy, the ‘anonymous source,’ he started the whole thing.”
She shook her head. “I hate when people hide behind anonymity—it keeps them from having to be responsible for their actions.”
“He didn’t stay hidden, trust me. He testified at the trial.” He was talking about her brother; again, Paul watched her closely, but she showed no signs of having heard any of this before. “It was all a lie.”
“But now you’re out. You’ve served your time.”
“I could still go back. See, this chief witness against me was a paid informant, working for the district attorney, and the defense wasn’t informed of that. His testimony was pretty damaging. Had my lawyer known about him, he could have impeached his credibility.”
“So, they had no choice but to release you.”
“Pending a new trial. They’ll let you out if it’s a first offense and not a crime against person or persons.” He was telling her more than she needed to know, but there was something about Kayla Thorne that made talking to her easy.
She nodded. “I see. Well, good luck.”
He gave a mirthless grunt. “I’ll need more than good luck. But we’re working on it. I want to clear my name,” he added with more vehemence than he’d intended.
“Well, of course you do.” Compassion flowed out of her. “It must have been so hard on your family, you being in jail.”
“My family?”
“Your wife, children. If you have either.”
It was one of those questions that women usually asked to find out if a guy was married before she got involved with him. However, in her case, he figured, she wasn’t on a fishing expedition; she was just being courteous.
“No kids,” he told her. “And my wife divorced me while I was in jail.”
“Oh.”
“My family stood up for me, though. My dad and brothers are responsible for me having this second chance—they’re helping to pay for the lawyer. If for no other reason, I need to prove my innocence, for them. To pay them back.”
“How are you going to do that?”
By finding out where your son-of-a-bitch brother is, he wanted to say. Jay Vinovich, aka Jay Goodall, the anonymous source and main witness. When Paul found him, he would pay, in spades.
“I’m working on a few leads,” he said, then plunged ahead with the topic that, after all, she had raised. “I can’t say enough about my family. They really came through for me. How about yours? During this whole thing, this bad rap in the press, did your family stand by you?”
If she’d been a window, at that moment the shutters would have snapped closed. “I don’t speak to my family much,” she said. “Not at all, actually.” She turned away from him, gazing instead at the vista before them.
“Oh, sorry. No mom and dad?” He made himself push it. He had no choice. “No brothers or sisters riding to your rescue?”
“My mother is gone, and I’ve lost touch with all the rest of them.”
“All the rest?”
“I’m the only girl of five children.”
He already knew that, but he whistled and said, “Big family.”
“Too big.” Her smile was inward, and bitter.
“And you don’t see any of them?”
“No.”
“That’s a shame,” he said with a sinking heart.
A damned shame, in fact. In more ways than one.
As though, after the flurry of dialogue, they’d each agreed to a time out, conversation stopped. Paul went back to his lunch, barely tasting his sandwich, and wished he knew what to ask next. What he’d learned so far from Kayla Thorne was exactly zip, and he tried to fight the growing sense of despair in his gut. Maybe she was exaggerating the estrangement; maybe she’d lost touch, but you could always find out where your family was, couldn’t you? If you really needed to…?
But he’d prodded about as much as he could at this time. Besides, he’d never been good at fishing expeditions. He figured if a person wanted to talk about a difficult subject, then they would. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t. He personally hated to have his privacy breached, but that was what he was trying to do to her right now.
For extremely important reasons, he reminded himself. The difference between a second chance at life and the possibility of going back to hell for several more years.
The sun felt good on Kayla’s back as, later in the afternoon, she pulled weeds from the garden on the far side of the house. Rich autumn smells filled her nostrils, from a neighbor burning leaves to the wild onions that grew at the edge of the porch. She listened to the sound of sawing and nail-pounding from upstairs, birds twittering in the trees all around. It was like surround sound for nature. She sighed. It had been a long time since she’d felt such contentment, such a sense of peace….
“Kayla!”
The harsh sound of her name made her jerk her head up. No, she thought, standing, wiping her hands on her jeans, pushing her hair off her face, no doubt leaving traces of dirt on her cheeks as she did so. She’d been so absorbed in her role as the happy gardener, she hadn’t heard his car drive up.
“Steven,” she said, turning to face the newcomer, who stood a few yards away, and wishing she were clean and nicely dressed. Walter’s son always made her feel as though she’d thumbed a ride on a cabbage truck and didn’t know enough to clean up afterward.
She said nothing other than his name, not “It’s good to see you” or “How nice of you to stop by,” because neither were the truth, for either Steven or her.
She’d tried, in her years with Walter, to let his older son know that she had no intention of trying to replace his mother, that she had no interest in Walter’s money, and that she truly cared about his father. But Steven, stiff-necked and given to deep grudges, had never bought it. So to keep the peace, Kayla had learned to be civil to him. But it wasn’t easy.
He was dressed today as he always was, in an exquisitely tailored designer suit and tie. His cuff links were gold, his loafers soft Italian leather. His salt-and-pepper hair was perfectly styled, his face showed nary a whisker on its clean surface. Nothing was out of place, which was how he wanted his entire life to be. Twice married and twice divorced, Steven hated messiness and loose ends.
Which was how he viewed his father’s widow.
He stared at her and she stared back. She considered not opening the conversation, but she’d been placating him from the day they’d met, and old habits died hard. “I didn’t expect you,” she said with composure. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes.”
“Well then, shall I make us some coffee?”
“No, I don’t want coffee.” He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her.
“Then just what is it you do want, Steven?”
He wanted his father back. She knew that, and wondered if he did. Kayla was enough of a student of human nature to know that first his mother’s death, then his father’s, had shaken Steven to the core, and in his pain he’d lashed out at the nearest target: Kayla. She’d withstood many of his verbal assaults; some she’d answered, at other times, she’d just walked out of the room, leaving him frustrated and probably even angrier.
“My lawyer tells me you haven’t responded to our suit yet,” he said.
“My lawyer tells me he’s taking care of it.”
“I thought, maybe, we could speed things up.”
“Oh, did you?” She, too, crossed her arms over her chest. “And how exactly did you think we might do that?”
“I’ve hired a new firm of private detectives,” he said with an air of gotcha! “They’re researching your entire life, top to bottom, beginning with your birth, through the day you were hired to take care of my mother and on to when you supposedly walked in on my dead father. There are a lot of gaps in your story. This time, they’re going to find the truth.”
She’d heard these threats before. When Walter had told his sons, Steven and Joe, that he was marrying Kayla, Steven had had her investigated. What showed up was all there was to know—she’d led a life that had its share of pain, limited success, some tragedy, some joy. There were things that she’d thought were her right to keep private, but not according to Steven. Still, insofar as proving her a gold digger, the most innocent of the accusations, or a murderer, the least, they’d come up with exactly nothing. Because there was nothing to come up with.
The deaths of both Sonny and Walter Thorne had been completely natural. Sonny had had terminal cancer; Walter had an embolism that burst loose and caused instant death. Kayla had played no part at all in either.
But Steven couldn’t hear that. Wouldn’t.
“Are you through?” she asked him.
“These people mean business, Kayla. They’re going to find out every black moment in your life, everything you’re ashamed of and want kept hidden. Why did you run away from home at sixteen? How did you support yourself as a runaway?”
“Steven—” she said warningly.
“How many lovers did you have before you met my father? I know you killed him, and I won’t let you profit from it.”
She held up a warning hand. “Stop it. Just stop it. Go away.”
Instead, he began to walk toward her, the look in his eyes threatening. For the first time in her dealings with Walter’s son, she wondered if she was at physical risk.
She held up both hands now, palms outward, toward him. “Please don’t come any closer.”
“You heard the lady.”
The menacing voice from behind startled her. Turning her head, she saw Paul standing back a few feet and to her left. He was shirtless, the muscles of his upper torso gleaming with sweat. In his hand, he held a hammer.
Teeth clenched tightly, Paul had to fight the rage building inside him. He wanted to rip the guy’s heart out.
When, from the upstairs window he’d been working on, he’d heard a murmured conversation between Kayla and a man she called Steven, he’d figured it was none of his business, so he’d kept on working. When the man’s voice had grown louder, he’d decided to make it his business and, picking up a weapon, tore down the stairs.
Just in time to hear the last few threats and Kayla’s answers. He held the hammer down, by his side. For now.
The minute the guy in the suit saw Paul, he took a step back. His eyes raked him up and down, then took in the hammer. “Who are you, her bodyguard?”
“Does she need one?”
“Or maybe you’re her lover. How long has this been going on? And doesn’t that add a nice little wrinkle to my father’s death?”
“Listen, you little creep—”
Paul started toward him, but Kayla put up a restraining hand. “Paul, don’t,” she said, then turned back to the “suit”—Steven, she’d called him. “This man is doing work for me, Steven, for you and Joe and me, taking care of the things that need repairing in the house.”
He greeted her statement with marked skepticism. “Yeah, right. Well, when I’m through with you, your name will be off the deed—it’ll be Joe’s and mine alone.”
“Why? You’ve never liked this place or wanted it.”
“Now I do. And I’ll fight you tooth and nail for it.”
“Why don’t you take a hike?” Paul said, having kept his mouth shut long enough. The guy was really irritating him.
Kayla shot him another cautioning look. “Please, Paul, you’re not helping.” Again, she addressed Steven. “You’re free to do whatever you want. But I need you to leave. Now.”
“You can’t throw me off my own property.”
“We have a deal, remember? Whoever is staying up here is in charge. I’m here now. Please, just leave.”
Paul had to restrain himself from making an I’m-backing-her-up threat, but he managed to keep his mouth shut. Still, he trained his gaze on the guy in the suit, letting him know if he didn’t get his ass off the property pronto, he’d have him to deal with.
Steven’s eyes narrowed while he considered his next move. Then he said, “I’ll leave. For now. But this isn’t over,” he added, and turned to go.
As he strode briskly away, Paul followed him around the house to the driveway and, slapping the side of the hammer into the palm of his free hand several times, watched as Steven slid into a sleek Jag, gunned the motor and backed down the driveway before turning and heading down the mountain.
Shaking his head, he stalked back to where he’d left Kayla. She was still there, her hands in fists at her side, a look he hadn’t seen on her face before. She was quietly furious. He couldn’t blame her.
He shook his head again. “What a creep.”
“How dare you?” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“What gave you the right to say what you said to him? Who gave you permission?”
Paul was so taken aback by her attack, he could barely speak. He’d expected, at the least, agreement on Steven’s lousy personality; at the most, maybe a thank you or two. He had not expected to see this slender woman shaking with a silent rage aimed squarely at him.
“Well, excuse me,” he said when he managed to find the words. “I thought I was helping you.”
“By doing your caveman routine? I don’t want that. I don’t need that.”
“Listen, lady, you might think you don’t need it, but the guy was—”
She made an impatient gesture with her hand, cutting him off. “Spare me. I know how to handle Steven.”
“Didn’t look like you were doing much of a job.”
Her chin jutted out in defiance. “All right, then, I wasn’t doing much of a job. Either way, it’s my business. If you’d had your way there would have been a fight. I don’t like fights. And I don’t like men who engage in them. When and if I need your help, I’ll ask. Do you understand?”
He glared at her, all kinds of hostile responses whipping through his head, but none he would say to a woman. He ground his back teeth together and clenched and unclenched his jaw muscles several times before he was able to say, “Yes, ma’am. I most certainly do.”
Chafing at her dressing-down and his impotence to respond, he stormed off, heading for the stairs and the resumption of his chores. Damned if he’d ever come to the widow Thorne’s aid again.
In fact, he decided, he didn’t need this stupid job at all. He could find Jay Vinovich without Kayla’s help. It would be difficult; but he could do it. He’d have to, because when he was done here for the day, he was done here for good.
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