Airman To The Rescue
Heatherly Bell
It was supposed to be easy. Sarah Mcallister was going to flip her late father's house and head back to Colorado for a fresh start.But when her shady contractor gets arrested, taking most of her budget with him, she's at risk of losing everything. Enter Matt Conner…sexy pilot, single dad, Sarah's brother's best friend…and far too good with his hands for her peace of mind.Moving into Sarah’s spare bedroom is just asking for trouble, but Matt’s trying to make amends with his troubled teen son, and a key step is finding a decent place to crash for as long as it takes. And the woman needs his help.
She’s off-limits...and perfect for him!
It was supposed to be easy. Sarah Mcallister was going to flip her late father’s house and head back to Colorado for a fresh start. But when her shady contractor gets arrested, taking most of her budget with him, she’s at risk of losing everything. Enter Matt Conner...sexy pilot, single dad, Sarah’s brother’s best friend...and far too good with his hands for her peace of mind.
Moving into Sarah’s spare bedroom is just asking for trouble, but Matt’s trying to make amends with his troubled teen son, and a key step is finding a decent place to crash for as long as it takes. And the woman needs his help...
“I have a proposition for you.”
The way those sensual lips said proposition had her wishing he was about to say something quite different from what he was probably about to suggest. Definitely not that they should get naked and test out her new kitchen counters.
“Yes?” she squeaked out.
“I’ll do the work in exchange for being able to rent the spare bedroom from you. This way, I don’t have a landlord breathing down my back while I look for another place to live. A win-win for both of us. You’re helping me out.”
Sarah couldn’t speak for a few seconds. She’d never imagined he would suggest living here. With her. But of course, this was no big deal to him. He was not picturing accidentally running into her coming out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around her naked body the way she’d been imagining in the few seconds since he’d mentioned the idea.
“This house has one bathroom. One.”
He grinned. “I was taught to share.”
Dear Reader (#ucce6c31a-0766-50a6-86f5-fcabf3fce650),
Welcome to the second book in the Heroes of Fortune Valley series. In Airman to the Rescue, we get to know Matt Conner, a hero after my own heart. Matt is a single dad trying to reconcile with his troubled teenage son. If you have ever raised a teenager (guilty), you will relate to Matt’s struggle. But what he doesn’t expect is for Sarah to be the one who will help him understand the depth of a father’s love.
While Sarah Mcallister can’t resist her simmering attraction to former air force pilot Matt Conner, the road to love is never a smooth one. Have you ever met a man who can “fix” anything? Our hero doesn’t just pound nails in his spare time. He also single-handedly manages to restore Sarah’s bitter heart.
Welcome to Matt and Sarah’s romance. May we always celebrate second chances and the restorative power of love.
I hope you will enjoy!
I love hearing from readers. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter (@heatherlybelle (https://twitter.com/heatherlybelle)), Instagram (heatherly.bell (https://instagram.com/heatherly.bell)) and Pinterest (heatherlymbell (https://pinterest.com/heatherlymbell)). Email: Heatherly@HeatherlyBell.com.
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Heatherly Bell
Airman to the Rescue
Heatherly Bell
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
HEATHERLY BELL tackled her first book in 2004 and now the characters that occupy her mind refuse to leave until she writes them a book. She loves all music but confines singing to the shower these days. Heatherly lives in Northern California with her family, including two beagles—one who can say hello and the other a princess who can feel a pea through several pillows.
For James, who can fix anything.
Contents
Cover (#udabe0a24-9423-5289-b856-f7637af1e5c3)
Back Cover Text (#u2821d537-061b-5b38-8978-a5da50ad36d6)
Introduction (#u1cf3ac3d-cdae-5077-8ce6-b28037048c98)
Dear Reader (#u8870a889-e80c-5547-852f-2aadc740ad4d)
Title Page (#ub8e18c98-d4d9-5290-8233-3694f2a0f886)
About the Author (#ub276bd77-7fd9-5a0f-b495-0ae0d1d5847a)
Dedication (#u28b72ee7-96cf-5222-9618-181dea4c2b4f)
CHAPTER ONE (#ue1f5e3bf-1458-5f84-97d5-b5fbab87d3b7)
CHAPTER TWO (#u5e7641ee-ea27-5e4f-b6ae-e7f1bfbdc42d)
CHAPTER THREE (#ueaeb354f-8957-5f32-8caa-adfb00e60f38)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ue29458e8-19b3-564a-b7ad-a1b89f5805a9)
CHAPTER FIVE (#u2250471b-f2f7-52d8-b658-1ab021ee26fa)
CHAPTER SIX (#uad7c3f88-3fbb-54fe-9453-bbeb3934f8b2)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#u4dbcbb35-fb3a-536b-a1b8-d2d92101da01)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#u912cc977-625e-5395-8bc3-ce6381db9a4a)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
EPILOGUE (#litres_trial_promo)
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ONE (#ucce6c31a-0766-50a6-86f5-fcabf3fce650)
SARAH MCALLISTER’S EYES fluttered open and her gaze landed on the first items in her line of sight: several exposed wires crawling out of the socket in the ceiling above her bed like a spider’s creepy legs.
She hated spiders almost as much as she hated contractors.
Her brand-new ceiling fan and light fixture combination belonged where those wires were, but instead it sat in the as-yet-unopened home improvement store box. She had Gus “should be murdered in his sleep” Hinckle, her hired contractor, to thank for that.
Sarah sighed and rolled over on her side. She startled at the sight of Shackles, her shaggy rescue mutt, sitting on the floor near her bed staring up at her. Unblinking.
A month after adopting Shackles, Sarah and her rescue were still getting used to each other. He’d been through a great deal, she got it, but was it her fault he’d been flown to California by Paws and Pilots only to have his forever family change their mind? In the end, she’d agreed to adopt Shackles and had given him a name worthy of their mutual situation. He was unwittingly tied to her and she was tied to her father’s old house and the small town of Fortune, California, for reasons that didn’t seem to make sense any longer.
“Time to get up.”
Sarah fought with the white cotton sheets wound twice around her legs since she’d tossed and turned throughout the night. In other words, the usual.
First order of business today was to put in a call to Gus and ask him for the tenth time this week when he planned on getting his ass over here to finish the job she’d hired him to do. Paid him to do, in fact, with a nice little deposit for his troubles. She stumbled over the unfinished flooring in the hallway where the hardwood slats were propped against the wall, waiting.
The last time Gus had been here a week ago, he’d given her high hopes he might actually finish the job. What he’d done looked promising because, when she could get the man to work, he knew his stuff. Eventually her father’s old house, a relic of the sixties, would be updated to the twenty-first century. Then she’d be able to flip the house for a tidy profit and get out of dodge. Back to Fort Collins, Colorado, since there was nothing left for her here in Fortune.
She grabbed her cell phone from the kitchen counter and hit her speed dial for Satan. As had occurred every day for the past week, the call went immediately to Gus’s voice mail.
Blah blah blah I’m a contractor. Blah blah blah not just a contractor but an artist. Blah blah blah I’ll finish your project in time and under budget.
Oh yeah, that last one was hilarious.
“Get your ass over here and finish what you started or I swear I’m calling the cops! And I mean it this time.”
As if the cops cared about a shifty contractor. The jails would be overflowing if that were the case. “I’ll call the Better Business Bureau and file a complaint! Did I mention my brother is an Air Force pilot? He’s big and bad and he’ll kick your ass. Get over here!”
She hung up and threw the phone toward her couch. Her brother might be a badass but he was too busy running their late father’s flight school, Magnum Aviation, chartering flights through his new company and spending every other moment with the blonde who had tamed him. Sarah wasn’t going to ask him for any more help. He’d already done enough by installing the granite countertops after she’d bought him out of his half of the house.
Shackles stared from his empty dog bowl to her and back again. “All right, all right,” Sarah said, filling his bowl. Never let it be said he couldn’t communicate. In fact, he was better at communication than most men.
On the off chance he’d changed his routine, that he’d finally begun to trust her a teensy bit, she went back to the counter and started the coffee. But true to his idiosyncrasies, Shackles wouldn’t eat with anyone else in the room. He stood, guarding the bowl, less Sarah should suddenly be taken with the desire to start eating kibbles for breakfast. And he had still not touched the food.
“Where’s the trust?” Sarah grumbled and headed to hit the shower, grateful Gus had never even started on her bathroom project.
The small south county airport where Sarah worked was bustling with activity when she arrived for her morning shift at the Short Stop Snack Shack. Since her brother had started Mcallister’s Charters, he’d managed to infuse the struggling airport with a needed shot of adrenaline. Now they didn’t just have the aviation school and an air museum on site, but the Short Stop Snack Shack had been revamped into more of a coffee shop.
Their clients were now not only composed of adrenaline junkies seeking the thrill of skydiving or flying lessons, but Silicon Valley high-tech gurus who worked from home on their sprawling hilltop homes and were occasionally needed in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Then there were the legal professionals. She’d heard Gerald Firestone was a tyrant in the San Francisco County civil courtroom where he’d recently been made a judge, but he’d never been anything but kind to Sarah. He had a ten-acre farm in Fortune he retreated to every evening, and he chartered a flight from her brother Stone’s company every morning and afternoon. She couldn’t even imagine how much that would cost a person, but by the looks of his Rolex watch, Judge could afford it.
The Shack was not much more than a countertop in the middle of the small converted hangar with bar stools circling it and one small makeshift wall. She’d talked the manager into an espresso machine, which made the passengers happy. However, the Shack was definitely still low-tech. But it was either their fresh-brewed coffee and shrink-wrapped pastries or a vending machine.
“How much would it cost to sue someone, Judge?” Sarah asked him, as she poured more coffee.
“That all depends.” Judge Firestone glanced at his watch. “Why?”
“Just curious.”
Even if it would only cost one hundred dollars to sue Gus—she didn’t have the money. She’d worked through most of her savings to buy Stone out, and then taken out a short-term adjustable-rate bank loan to help with renovations. If Gus didn’t materialize at some point, Sarah didn’t know what she would do. She didn’t want her brother to know about any of this. If Stone were to find out about the mess she’d gotten herself into, he’d only remind her he’d never thought it a great idea to remodel the place. No, the whole thing had been her idea and now she had to deal.
But surely Gus would show up. He had a reputation to protect. Besides, she’d recently decided to believe in the goodness of people. She was going to stop being so angry at the world and its inhabitants. Stop being antisocial and learn to be friendlier. Fake it till you make it. Judge was a big part of the change, and he made the chitchat easy. On the other hand, Gus reminded her that no matter what kind of magical fairy dust she wanted to sprinkle all over, people like him turned it into sparkly pollution.
She was a work in progress.
Judge opened his mouth, but the loud speaker squawked and Emily’s soft voice called out, “Chartered flight two-oh-three passengers, please come to the tarmac for boarding.”
“Guess you better go,” Sarah said.
Judge slapped his always excessive tip on the counter and smiled. “Wonder if she’s flying me today.”
“That happened once.”
“A man can dream.” He picked up his briefcase and waved to Sarah.
It didn’t surprise her that Judge carried a little torch for Emily Parker, soon to be Emily Mcallister. Most men crushed on Emily. And Sarah understood crushes. Unfortunately, she understood them far too well. Crushes didn’t go anywhere because at heart they were nothing more than fantasies. Judge had to realize he didn’t stand a chance with Emily. But the bald, sweet, fifty-something Judge probably loved a gratifying fantasy as much as the next person, and as long as the make-believe never converged with reality it was usually a safe and predictable situation.
The door leading to the tarmac opened and the object of her personal fantasies strode in, as always seemingly unaware of how he made Sarah break out in a spontaneous sweat. Matt Conner, Stone’s Air Force buddy and best friend, carried himself with his usual air of confidence and easy male swagger as he made his way inside, aviator shades covering his chocolate-brown eyes. He worked for Stone, one of a handful of pilots on staff. While Matt made his way to Magnum’s offices, where he occasionally taught a lesson or two, Sarah forced her gaze away and wiped the countertop. She hated this hyperawareness of him every time he walked into a room. If her eyes were blindfolded, she’d know his presence in the room by the absolute pull of her body in his direction.
Not for the first time and certainly not for the last, she forced herself to get with the program and stop daydreaming. She was here to fix a house, and fix her life if at all possible. Not to lust after a man, no matter how hunky.
“Hey, Sarah. Turn it up, would you?” One of their regulars pointed to the flat-screen TV anchored to the wall behind her.
She usually kept the set on mute, but she now turned up the volume. Yet another car chase broadcasted on national news. California, of course. Not exactly the image she wanted her mother back home in Colorado to see. Mom believed there were earthquakes every day in California, and that everyone was blond and beautiful. Coming out a month ago to meet Emily hadn’t done much to dispel that last myth. Now she’d believe car chases were the norm, too.
“Okay, this is ridiculous. Why doesn’t he just pull over? He’s going to hurt someone,” Sarah said as she, too, became entranced. Four police cars were chasing a red convertible Corvette down a closed-off freeway somewhere in San Diego. Someone had a death wish.
“Been a while since we had one of these chases.” Jedd straddled a stool. He worked for Stone as a mechanic, and was probably on his break.
The cops surrounded the car from all directions, and when the Corvette tried to pull over, they blocked it in.
“Let me have some coffee? Not your fancy machine. Just the stuff in the pot,” Jedd said.
“Coming right up.” While her back was turned, there was a little cheer from the small group.
“Yeah! They got him. Look at him surrendering like a wimp after putting up such a fight.” Jedd stuck out his office mug. “Yeah, that’s right, sucker. Hands up in the air.”
Sarah poured Jedd’s coffee and glanced up at the TV. The man they’d arrested looked an awful lot like... But no. It couldn’t be. Everybody had a doppelgänger in the world. Right?
“Ow! Sarah!”
Sarah yanked her attention away from the nightmare occurring on national TV. She’d kept pouring into Jedd’s cup and nearly all over his arm. “I’m so sorry. Are you all right?”
“I got a splash, but I’m fine. That coffee’s hot.”
She’d also spilled all over the counter and down the floor. She grabbed a rag and ran it under cold water. “Here, put this on your hand.”
She glanced back up at the screen to see that the man was now on the ground, cops blocking him in on every direction. Maybe she was seeing things. She’d been under so much stress lately, with her father’s death and coming out to Fortune to settle his estate, that something like that could happen. She might be hallucinating.
“D-did you hear them say what the guy’s name is? The one they arrested?”
“Nah, the news probably won’t release his name.” Jedd used the wet rag she’d given him to mop up the floor instead. “Hey now, Sarah, you don’t need to cry about this. I know it was an accident.”
But Sarah wanted to cry. She also wanted to scream and curse. The ticker tape across the screen read “Contractor on the run arrested.” And the man they’d just arrested sure looked an awful lot like Gus Hinckle.
CHAPTER TWO (#ucce6c31a-0766-50a6-86f5-fcabf3fce650)
MATT CONNER HAD returned from a quick chartered hop to San Francisco and checked back in with Emily and Cassie when he heard a commotion in the converted hangar the airport used for several offices and the Snack Shack. Cheers and a few claps. In other words, not the norm at their quiet south county airport. He stuck his head out the office door, and as usual his gaze focused on Sarah like a laser beam. The waiting passengers were excited and pleased about something or other. Sarah, on the other hand, stood behind the counter of the Snack Shack openly sobbing. Jedd was doing his best to comfort her, his face broadcasting the same pained expression men all over the world wore when they didn’t know how to comfort a woman but still had to try.
In seconds, Matt made his way out the door and to the middle of the hangar.
“I don’t know what you’re so upset about. Everybody makes mistakes. It was just a little coffee,” Jedd said as he patted Sarah’s shoulder.
“What the hell happened?” Matt barked.
“She spilled some coffee on me and then she...she just started crying. I’m not hurt, I swear!” Jedd held up his hands.
“Sarah. Tell me what’s wrong,” Matt said, his voice sounding clipped and edgy even to his own ears. He tried his best to soften his tone, but she worried him. The passengers were beginning to stare, too, and she’d hate that.
This had nothing to do with the coffee. He’d only known her a few months but everything about Sarah said confident, capable, independent woman. He’d never seen her give way to her emotions like this, even after losing her estranged father and fighting with Stone over the flight school and their inheritance. Every instinct in him said this was much bigger than spilled coffee.
She shook her head, wrapping her arms around her body like she’d cave in at any minute.
Never one to lack initiative, Matt tugged her gently from behind the counter and then led her, hand on the small of her back, toward Magnum’s main office. He opened the door, and when Emily glanced up from the desk where she sat next to their office assistant, Cassie, he waved away the look of concern in her eyes.
“Need a minute.” He led Sarah inside Stone’s smaller inner office and shut the door.
“I’m okay.” She hiccupped and grabbed a tissue from the box on Stone’s desk. “R-really.”
“Yeah, not buying it. Try again.”
“Seriously. This isn’t your concern. Just give me a few minutes in here. I’ll get myself together.” She jerked away from him, but he caught her by the elbow and turned her toward him. The same energy he’d tried to ignore again and again surfaced as it did every time he touched her. A jolt of electricity coursed through him because every time he touched Sarah he got a one-two-punch reminder he was a man. And she was a hot woman. Beautiful. Smart.
But not his.
“Tell me.”
Her green eyes, now red-rimmed, found their fire again. “Why? So you can try to fix this for me? I don’t need your help.”
Good. He had pissed-off, fighting Sarah again. He could deal with her. What he couldn’t handle was falling-apart Sarah because she only made him want to haul her into his arms and kiss her until she forgot her name.
“Something happened out there, and it didn’t have anything to do with coffee.” He leaned back against Stone’s desk and folded his arms across his chest.
She slapped her forehead. “Of course it didn’t have to do with coffee! This has to do with the fact that I’m an idiot. I trusted a man. I paid him good money, and he didn’t deliver!”
At this, he was sure he’d lost a couple of brain cells. He didn’t speak for a moment, clearing his throat as he tried with a Herculean effort not to picture Sarah paying for a gigolo’s services. But that’s exactly what it sounded like even if he knew it couldn’t be true. Still, his imagination was enjoying this little side trip. Maybe a little too much.
“Oh my God! Wipe that look off your face. I hired a contractor. Somebody up there must really hate me because I picked the loser of contractors. I picked the guy who leads the police on a car chase and gets arrested on national TV!”
Crap. “That was your contractor?”
“It’s him.” She slumped into one of the chairs. “We were all watching. I tried to tell myself it wasn’t him, and that it could be someone who looked like him. I don’t know what he did, but the man got himself arrested. He hasn’t returned my calls and now I know why.”
“Great. How much did you pay him?”
“Too much. I gave him a deposit, and there hasn’t been much labor. He could never seem to finish a project. Always had to run to the store to get another nail or another stud or God knows what.”
“Where did you hear about this guy, anyway?”
“Eloise’s List. He had plenty of good reviews so either the people were being blackmailed into leaving them or he’s recently changed his work ethic.”
There had to be something else, though, or she wouldn’t be this upset. “No worries. I’ll find someone else for you. I’ll check him out first.”
“No.”
He cocked his head. “No?”
“You heard me. Unless you know anyone who works for free, I can’t afford them.”
“You run out of money?”
“You could say that. I planned on selling soon and flipping the house.” She groaned and rubbed her temples. “This is so much more complicated than on those home improvement shows.”
Those reality shows were filled with so much...fantasy. Find a fixer-upper for two hundred dollars, pour in some “sweat equity” and sell for a cool million. He didn’t know where these scenarios happened, but so far as he could tell it wasn’t planet Earth. He’d tried, of course, to warn Sarah about buying the house from Stone. To say the house needed a facelift was an understatement. Even Stone had tried to talk her out of the remodeling.
Initially Matt had believed Sarah might stay, but then she’d made it clear she would flip the house and move back to Colorado. So she’d be leaving, and he’d be staying. He only had a few more years left with his son, Hunter, before he turned eighteen. Only a few years to make a difference in his life.
He liked Sarah, but he also didn’t need the drama. Especially when she was only here in Fortune a while longer. But he wasn’t done torturing himself, nor would he stand by while Sarah lost everything. He squatted down in front of her chair, and put one hand on each of her jean-clad legs.
“I work for free.”
* * *
“FREE?” SARAH ASKED, distracted by the way his forearms connected powerfully and gracefully to the big hands on her legs. They were great forearms. Great hands, too. Great everything. Damn him. He was balanced on the balls of his feet in front of her, and she couldn’t stop thinking about the previous comment she’d made. The one he’d misunderstood so completely.
Or more than likely he was only teasing her with the fully sexual look he’d pinned her with a moment ago. She could almost see the moving frames of the porno movie playing in his mind. Why he continued to play with her like this she’d never understand. Oh yeah, that’s right, but she did understand. He was a man.
“I know my way around a hammer. I’ll help.”
She shook her head. “No. I can’t let you do this.”
“Yeah, you can.”
“No, Matt. You have enough going on in your life.”
“And I can handle it.”
If she hadn’t been trained for her work as a forensic artist back in Colorado, she might not have noticed the tells of the eyes. Matt’s were obvious to her, which made everything between them so confusing. His eyes consistently told her one thing and his words another. Right now the breath-stealing eyes said he was tired, tense, frustrated and something else she couldn’t put her finger on. Was it desire? Pity? Oh please, not pity.
Stop it. Stop trying to analyze everyone.
The problem was she knew too much about Matt Conner to believe him right now. When Matt had moved on from the Air Force, Stone offered him a full-time position piloting flights at Mcallister Charters. It had been time, Matt had said, to settle back in his hometown. The teenage son he’d had with a high school girlfriend lived nearby and Matt had been trying to reconnect with Hunter after many years of living abroad. As far as she could tell, the reunion wasn’t going well.
She did know a little about teenagers and their anger and resistance to absentee fathers.
Matt also looked in on his father, who had retired early and lived nearby. Then there was the hellish landlord she’d been hearing rumors about lately. Matt was looking for another place to rent in the area, preferably a home where he could have his son visit every other weekend. How could she, in all good conscience, take any more time away from a man who already had far too many demands on him?
“Matt,” she said slowly, drawing out his name, and peeling his warm hands off her legs.
“Sarah,” he repeated, allowing it, but giving her a slow and devilish grin that reached into her heart and gave it a little twist.
“Forget it.” She stood up, smoothing down her jeans and taking a deep and sexually frustrated breath.
She couldn’t have Matt around every day fixing her house. A woman only had so much self-control around a man like Matt. She figured within three days of him at the house, working in a tool belt and no shirt—at least in her fantasies—she’d attack him and make a fool out of herself. And she’d had enough of that in the past few months, thank you very much.
“I need to get back to work. Thanks for bringing me in here to calm down. I don’t know what happened out there. I guess I lost it for a minute.” She put her hand on the doorknob and turned to give him a small attempt at a smile. It felt tight. Fake.
He was back to leaning against Stone’s desk, his big arms folded across the white button-up Mcallister Charters shirt. No one wore a shirt like Matt Conner did. Like Stone and the other pilots, he wore a type of uniform when he flew. The white button-up with its logo, usually sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and black cargo pants filled out in all the right places. The aviator glasses often completed the outfit, making him drool-worthy. She also knew him to be highly intelligent. A pilot. An engineer. A mechanic. Apparently also a carpenter of sorts.
And one hundred percent heartbreaker.
“Hey.” His smooth-as-whiskey voice stopped her halfway out the door.
“Yeah?”
“I’m not going to forget it.”
She didn’t answer, too tired to fight with him anymore, and made her way back to the Snack Shack. Jedd had gone back to work, and the entire coffee mess had been cleaned up as if nothing had happened at all. A couple of customers were waiting patiently, and Sarah apologized to them. Behind the counter, she stayed busy filling coffee orders and warming up pastries in the microwave.
And she tried not to notice when Matt finally emerged from Stone’s office a few minutes later, his long, lean body moving through the hangar until he disappeared out the doors to the tarmac.
Tried not to notice. But as usual, she couldn’t resist.
CHAPTER THREE (#ucce6c31a-0766-50a6-86f5-fcabf3fce650)
THREE DAYS LATER, Sarah sat in the middle of the floor in the hallway, safety glasses on, a hammer in one hand and a nail in the other. Stone had previously replaced worn, missing and loose panels in the home. She, on the other hand, had decided that she wanted brand-new cherrywood flooring throughout. Now that half of it was done and half not done, she’d need to finish the job herself. And she would make this hardwood floor her bitch. How hard could this be when Satan could do it?
“You can do this. You’re an artist. This is just a different medium,” she told herself.
This much was true at least. She had a bachelor of liberal arts from Colorado University. Because she hadn’t much wanted to starve, she’d wound up working as a forensic artist for the Fort Collins Police Department. Her work had earned her a reputation back home. She’d drawn sketches of alleged suspects worthy of an art gallery, some had said. Of course, she disagreed, but she had a higher standard than most.
Van Gogh. Monet. They were her standard.
She no longer felt satisfied or rewarded by all the hard work she’d done for the PD. No longer happy to simply collect her paycheck and call herself an artist. There was still something to be said for art that simply existed for no other reason than beauty.
But now her father’s house would suffer at the hands of an incompetent carpenter. This bothered the artist in her, but maybe her dad deserved it.
She’d read the instructions on the wood slat box. Engineer talk, all of it. Clear as mud. Sounded like they were describing how to build a ship to fly to Mars, so she ignored the stupid instructions and let common sense be her guide.
And now she was short a nail.
She fixed the last nail into a single wood slat, one little tap after another. She’d nearly bruised her lower lip by the time she was done. “There!”
At this rate she should be done in approximately six months.
Shackles came into the hallway, sniffing around her like a Hoover, as if he’d missed a crumb somewhere. When he picked up a nail, Sarah panicked. Had he already swallowed the missing one? If so, why wasn’t he lying on the ground convulsing in agony?
“Drop it! Drop it, Shackles.”
She pulled his jaw open only to be rewarded with a growl. Finally prying the nail out from between his teeth without getting bitten in the process, she carried him into the spare bedroom and shut the door. He yipped his regret from behind the closed door.
“Too late for apologies. You won’t be committing suicide on my watch.”
Turning in a circle, air coming in short desperate spurts, Sarah wondered whether she could call 911 for a dog. She finally took in a full breath when she found the missing nail sticking halfway out from under one of the floor slats. So she would now have to rip up this section and try again, but at least her dog wouldn’t die.
She had to work faster. Thankfully Gus had left some of his tools and she would be confiscating those as payment for the work not delivered. Maybe a nail gun would be the answer to going faster. Power tools. Great idea. She’d seen Satan fooling with the nail gun, and making good time with it, too. Speaking of Gus, she could no longer leave a message on his phone. Box full. Surprise. Emily had heard from one of her event planners at Fortune Ranch, her family’s business, that Gus Hinckle had indeed been arrested. Drug possession was the rumor floating around town. Suddenly the constant runny nose made sense. It was not, as he had claimed, spring allergies.
More importantly, Sarah would never see her money again. Having worked with the police department, she understood felony charges would take priority over anything else. In any case, she had neither the time nor the money to sue him. This was her hot mess, and she’d fix it.
Buying her father’s house was supposed to be about a trip down memory lane, and a time for healing. She had a chance to break from her routine life in Colorado and the job that sucked the life out of her soul. A chance to try on a new attitude in a new place. And maybe, if she could make this house her own before she had to say goodbye to it, she might be able to go back home with a renewed purpose. A new beginning. As an added bonus, she’d reconnected with her brother.
Stone had grown up with their father, and Sarah had been raised by their mother. A strange custody arrangement by anyone’s standards. Even Stone now agreed, after a difficult period of time during which he hadn’t been able to face that the man who’d been his hero had done something wrong. It wasn’t like Sarah didn’t blame her mother, too. Practically being an only child had tied Sarah to her mother in a kind of guilt bond that had lasted for years. Out here in California, she’d been free from that guilt, even if she still didn’t quite belong.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself.
She’d had a goal when she’d come out to Fortune that went beyond hammering out estate problems with her brother. Sarah Mcallister was going to stop being a prickly porcupine. The change hadn’t been easy so far. One big mistake—okay, several big mistakes in her teenage years—didn’t mean that she had to be a nun for the rest of her life. She was going to awaken her inner goddess because life was short, dammit, and she was going to get some.
Yeah, right.
Her doorbell rang. Probably Emily again, who dropped by once a week, with or without Stone. She had to give it to her sister-in-law to be. Emily kept trying her best to make Sarah feel welcome. She’d reached out and made friends, which Sarah appreciated. It wasn’t like Stone had thrown out the welcome mat when she’d arrived in town.
But when Sarah opened her front door, it wasn’t Emily behind it. Matt stood there in all his male glory. The midday June sunshine pooled through the doorway all around his big body, practically illuminating him. It was as if God was showing off, saying Behold some of my best work. You are welcome.
He grinned and whipped off his aviator glasses. “Hey.”
Sarah’s knees took the hit first. Then her mind followed. Blank. Why, oh why, did she lose several IQ points around the man?
“Are you going to let me in?”
“Oh.” Good idea. She should let him in. Why not? How much harm could that do? She moved aside.
He was dressed casually today, in dark jeans and a Giants T-shirt. Mr. Cool.
“How’s it going?”
“Great! I just put in some of the flooring in the hallway. There’s a little section I might have to redo.”
He raised a brow. “You’re doing this all yourself?”
“Sure. I can’t lie, it’s a little challenging, but I figured I’d work with what I have.” She followed him into the kitchen, where his gaze studied the cabinets. The doors were all missing. She cleared her throat. “I hope he ordered those. Maybe I’ll get a call from the home improvement store that they’ve come in.”
“Yeah. Maybe,” he said without an ounce of confidence in his voice. His hand smoothed over the granite countertops. “These came out well.”
“Yeah. Well. Stone’s handiwork.”
“I remember.”
Right. Matt had dropped by a lot during the week Stone had been helping her work on the house.
She blew out a breath, and her overgrown bangs flipped out of her eyes. “Matt, what are you doing here?”
“Came to check things out.”
“I thought I told you to forget about this.”
His dark gaze did a slow slide down the length of her body, and back up to meet her eyes. “And I told you I wouldn’t.”
“Listen, I’m not being stubborn here.”
He snorted. “No, of course not.”
“The fact of the matter is I would let you finish the job if I had a prayer of compensating you for your work. Properly.” In other words, not in long deep kisses and showers in the new bathroom stall she still didn’t have, but in actual money.
“I get that.”
“I’m not sure you do.”
Ignoring her, he walked toward the hallway. Sarah would have followed him, but humiliation kept her seated at the kitchen table, hands folded in front of her. No point in arguing with the man. She’d let him inspect to his heart’s content. Maybe he had a little free time today. She heard him curse when he entered the hallway, and a few more times as he went into each bedroom. Sarah didn’t respond. It didn’t take an engineer to know her remodel was in trouble.
He walked into the living room and cursed again. Probably at the windows. They were half framed. All the blinds had been removed, and Sarah was currently using sheets for privacy. She stared at the ceiling, trying not to think about the Swiss cheese roof above her. The roof would come later, if at all. She’d planned on giving the new buyers a roof allowance, like the real estate agent had suggested. Roofs were expensive.
A few minutes and several loud curses later, Matt rejoined her in the kitchen. She glanced at him briefly, then looked away when he shoved a hand through his honey-colored hair. She expected him to say I told you so or any one of a number of phrases he could have let loose with to prove he’d been right and she’d been wrong.
Instead, he pulled out a chair and sat shoulder to shoulder next to her, stretching his long legs out in front of him. For several minutes he didn’t speak, his arms folded across his chest as he stared at the floor.
Finally, she couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “How bad?”
His answer was to curse again and shake his head.
That bad. Sarah buried her face in her hands. “I’m screwed.”
“No,” he said simply. “Not if you’re willing to listen to me.”
“I already said I’m not—”
“Would you shut up and listen?”
She pursed her lips together and made a show of locking them and throwing away the key. If he had an answer to her predicament, she could at least hear him out. As long as it didn’t involve him working for free, she could be flexible.
“I have a proposition for you.”
The way those sensual lips said proposition had her wishing he were about to say something quite different than what he was probably about to suggest. Definitely not that they should get naked and test out her new kitchen counters.
“Yes?” she squeaked out.
“I’ll do the work in exchange for being able to rent the spare bedroom from you. This way, I don’t have a landlord breathing down my back while I look for another place to live. A win-win for both of us. You’re helping me out.”
Sarah couldn’t speak for a few seconds. She’d never imagined he would suggest living here. With her. But of course, this was no big deal to him. He was not picturing accidentally running into her coming out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around her naked body the way she’d been imagining in the few seconds since he’d mentioned the idea.
“This house has one bathroom. One.”
He grinned. “I was taught to share.”
“And how long do you think it will take to finish?”
He glanced up at the ceiling, then met her eyes. “Depends on the roof. But I’m thinking a month or two.”
“That’s about all the time I have left. And I was thinking of skipping the roof anyway.”
“We’ll discuss it.” He studied her. “This could work.”
It might work, but she hated the fact Matt was rescuing her again. She’d been an independent woman her entire adult life, but since coming to California this might be the third time Matt had stepped in. Second if she didn’t count the coffee incident. When she’d first come out to California a few months ago, after getting the news her father had died, it was Matt who had understood her grief. Not Stone. Matt who had acted as peacemaker between her and Stone. Matt who had listened to her ramble on for hours. Matt who had been such a good friend to her. He was a great guy, and she wished she didn’t feel a magnetic attraction to him. Life would be simpler if they could be buddies, and if she would never want anything more than that from him.
Fat chance.
Seated next to her, far too close, he waited for her answer.
“But you’ll only get at most two months of free rent before we have to sell the house.”
“That’s probably all I’ll need.”
“That doesn’t sound like enough for all your efforts. And then there’s the materials. The cabinets.” She sighed, not wanting to go on with the rest of the list and hear him curse again.
“I’ve got connections, and I can find a lot of the materials I’ll need for less money.”
“No.”
“Ah, hell, Sarah. Now you’re pissing me off.”
She smiled, stupid with the satisfaction she could make him feel anything at all. “But I have a counter proposition.”
He scowled. “Let’s hear it.”
She shifted her focus away from him and those piercing eyes to stare at her hands again. “I think you should be a partner with me in this. When I sell the house, I’ll give you a percentage of the profits I make.”
He studied her. “That sound fair to you?”
“It’s the only way I’ll do this.”
“You’ve already put too much into this house. Bought Stone out of his half.”
“And because of insane valley prices, the house has already appreciated in value since I did.”
“I could only take five percent at the most. And that’s after all your expenses.”
That didn’t seem fair, considering all he’d have to put into this. “I’m thinking twenty percent.”
He grimaced. “How about ten percent?”
“Fifteen percent, and that’s my final offer!”
The chair squeaked across the tile kitchen floor as Matt stood. “You drive a hard bargain. Backward. Fifteen percent, you stubborn woman.”
Sarah stood and followed him to the front door. “I’ll clear out one of the bedrooms so you can move in.”
“Leave that for me. I’ll be by day after tomorrow.” He shoved his aviator glasses back on.
And then he was out the door, leaving her to wonder how she’d ever get through the next two months without jumping Matt Conner’s bones.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ucce6c31a-0766-50a6-86f5-fcabf3fce650)
THE IDEA OF living with Sarah already pushed boundaries Matt didn’t feel comfortable crossing. Taking money from her left him feeling disgusted for accepting her terms. But he knew Sarah would have this no other way.
Later, he’d try to find a way out of their agreement. For now, he’d take one challenge at a time. First challenge: find a way to live in close proximity with Sarah for two months without kissing her—or worse. Second challenge: fix the mess the previous contractor left for him. He was driving down Monterey Road toward his father’s house when his third challenge buzzed his cell phone.
Joanne. His ex.
He punched her through to the speaker. “What’s up?”
“We have a problem here. Junior has decided he has a new purpose in life. It’s called driving his mother to drink.”
“What now?”
“He and his friends spray-painted the long wooden fence down from the high school. Security cameras caught the little Einsteins, and now the school wants to have a conference with all the parents before the end of the year. I want you there. I think maybe having his father be an Air Force veteran could help. Can you come in your uniform?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“Why not?”
“First, I wouldn’t do that if it would get my own father off death row. Second, I’m no longer in the Air Force. I’m not going to put on the uniform to prevent my son from receiving his deserved punishment.”
“There you go again, father of the year.”
Even now it stung, despite knowing the source. Joanne had never before encouraged his relationship with Hunter. She’d simply wanted the checks sent on time, no matter what part of the country he’d been living in at the time. He’d paid child support faithfully for years, but since he’d separated from the Air Force and settled back in his hometown for good, he wanted a real relationship with fifteen-year-old Hunter. And the kid wanted to hang out with Matt about as much as he wanted to repeat his sophomore year.
“Text me the day and time and I’ll be there.” He hung up.
Hunter might not want to have anything to do with Matt, but it didn’t mean he could give up. He hadn’t worked his ass off for most of his life only to be intimidated by a fifteen-year-old kid now. Matt wanted to be some kind of an influence on his son in the next few years, maybe so the kid wouldn’t wind up making some of the same colossal “think with the little head” mistakes Matt had made in his teens.
It also wouldn’t hurt to demonstrate to a certain dark-haired beauty that not all estranged fathers were deadbeats. Matt tried to tell himself it had nothing to do with Sarah, but something about her made him care a lot more deeply for her than he wanted to. More than was probably wise. Not that he’d been able to stop. He enjoyed teasing her, playing with her, and while he told himself it was all harmless flirting, he’d have to put a stop to it if they were going to be living together. Because were he being honest with himself, he and Sarah weren’t a good idea for many reasons. She planned to leave town after selling her father’s house for a tidy profit, and for the first time in years, Matt was determined to be grounded. He’d stay here in Fortune at least until Hunter graduated from high school.
Matt stopped by the local market and stocked up on a few of his father’s favorites, and thirty minutes later he arrived at Dad’s gated condominium complex in San Jose.
“Hey, Dad.” He said as he let himself in the front door with his spare set of keys.
Dad sat in front of the TV watching an old Western. “Did you get my cookies?”
“You think I would forget after you left me ten voice mails in the space of an hour?” Matt set the brown paper bags on the kitchen counter and started unpacking.
Dad wasn’t much for cooking any longer, so Matt usually bought frozen and prepackaged meals he could heat in a microwave. The cookies were a treat he didn’t think should be in any sixty-six-year-old man’s wheelhouse but it was hard to argue with the man. Plus, Matt’s special deliveries were about the only time they spent together.
“Did you get the double-stuffs? I don’t want those little thin shits they’re trying to sell to the health nuts. I want the real deal.”
“Got the real deal.” Matt lobbed a package of the sugar lard in his Dad’s direction and the man caught them one-handed.
“Hear from your son lately?”
“I’m going to be seeing him again next week.”
“Good, good. A boy needs his father.”
A boy needed his father to show him how to be a man. Matt agreed. But Hunter didn’t need Matt to bail him out of jams he’d created for himself. “He’s got himself into some trouble and Joanne asked me to come to the meeting at the school.”
“What kind of trouble?” Dad ripped open the package of cookies.
“Something about a fence they tagged.”
“Stupid kids,” Dad muttered. “It’s good you’re going over there. Good that Joanne asked you to help. She’s a good mother. You lucked out.”
Matt supposed this was a dig at his own mother, who’d taken off when he was ten. Dad had been a single father, choosing never to remarry, and putting Matt first in everything. He’d been a Class A hard-ass, leading Matt to find boot camp a kind of mini-vacation, but he’d kept Matt out of trouble. Mostly. Until Hunter. The resulting humiliation at having failed to “keep it in his pants,” as his father had repeatedly warned him to do, still hung over Matt.
As the only son of a top-level executive in the high-tech world of Silicon Valley, Matt had been expected and groomed to succeed. And succeed big. With his grades and test scores, he could have made it into an Ivy League school, until one unfortunate night almost sixteen years ago. Shocked and disappointed in Matt, Dad had still offered to pay child support to Joanne so his plans for Matt would not have to be derailed, and had vehemently opposed his idea to join the Air Force. But no way in hell would Matt allow his father to take care of the responsibilities that were rightfully Matt’s. It meant that he’d grown up overnight. He’d have been ashamed to be off at college enjoying his freedom while his Dad sent regular checks to Joanne. While Joanne struggled to get through business school, living with her parents and raising their child.
Then again, Dad had never understood Matt’s draw to service. He’d wanted to join up, as had many of his friends in a post-9/11 world. Plan B had turned out to be the best option for Matt, who’d never much aspired to hang with Ivy Leaguers, top-tier grades or not. The Air Force had been everything to him for years. His friends. His family. His life.
Now he was out and trying to figure out life after the Air Force. Plan C.
“Why don’t you take the kid fishing?” Dad now asked between cookie bites. “I hear it’s a good way to connect.”
Good way to connect? Dad, who had always been about as warm and fuzzy as a missile, suddenly had nothing but fatherly advice for Matt. He would have loved to have gone fishing with his dad. Even once.
“Where do you hear this?”
“Dr. Phil.”
Matt couldn’t help it. He laughed. A few years ago, Dad would have laughed off TV doctor advice, too. But now that he’d retired and couldn’t spend all day on the golf course, he had turned to TV to fill some of his free time.
“All right, if you don’t want Dr. Phil’s advice, don’t ask for it.”
“I didn’t.”
“Listen, Mr. Smart Ass, I’m still your father.”
“Dad, I’m thirty-two. I’ve been lacing my own shoes for a while.”
“So I have nothing to add to the conversation?”
Matt cleared his throat. “I’ll see if he wants to go fishing. And maybe you could go with us.”
“I’ve never fished in my life. Why would I want to start now when I’m busy working on my golf game? You know what? Forget the fishing. I never took you fishing, and look how well you turned out. Except for that little hiccup, you were a great kid.”
Matt’s jaw tightened. “You mean Hunter. He’s the little hiccup?”
To his father’s credit, he wouldn’t meet Matt’s gaze. “Not him. Joanne was the little hiccup. Told you to keep it in your pants. Just because you have women falling all over you doesn’t mean you have to sow your seeds everywhere.”
Everywhere? Hardly. That had been only the second time he’d ever been with a girl, and he’d screwed up royally. Then again, his dad had never given much advice beyond his fascination with pants. Near as Matt could recall, the whole event had happened in the backseat of a truck and fast enough that he hadn’t even taken his pants off. Since then, he liked to think he’d learned a little bit more how to please a woman, and made wiser choices regarding the women he chose to spend his time with.
The thought brought him back to Sarah. With the pull she had on him, he wasn’t sure how he’d make this new living arrangement work, but he had to try. She needed him, and he wasn’t doing anything more than he would for any other good friend.
And he would keep telling himself that until he actually believed it.
Sarah was already dealing with too much. She’d felt cheated out of an opportunity to say goodbye to her father when he’d become ill with cancer and hadn’t wanted Stone to notify either his ex-wife or Sarah. James Mcallister hadn’t wanted either of them to see him withered away, which both Stone and Matt understood. Sarah, not so much. When she’d first bought the house and not long after decided to flip it for a profit, Matt had convinced himself she was doing it as a way to flip her father off, too. To let him know the house meant nothing more to her than a financial windfall. No sentiment involved. But she’d lingered for months in that old house, even getting a temporary job at the airport to stay a bit longer.
She’d flirted mercilessly with him at the beginning, and he with her if he were being honest. But he wouldn’t have a casual fling with his best friend’s kid sister. He didn’t need the drama or the guilt. Matt would simply bide his time, keep his hands to himself and fix her house. She’d be gone soon enough.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ucce6c31a-0766-50a6-86f5-fcabf3fce650)
HUNTER CONNER WAS about to blow through his next high level on “Call of Duty” when he heard his mother yelling from downstairs. She was so loud that he had to keep turning the volume up but he could still hear her voice screeching in the background. He’d closed his bedroom door and everything. This wouldn’t be a problem if he could find his earbuds but at the moment they were MIA.
“Hunter!” His bedroom door swung open.
No knock or anything. It was like living in a damn zoo. He ignored his mother and kept on shooting the terrorists. One down. Two.
“Put that stupid game down. I need to talk to you!”
Abort mission! Abort!
She ripped the controller out of his hands.
“What do you want?” The sooner she got this over with, the sooner he’d get back to killing terrorists. He could kick ass with the best of them. But his mother was all about ruining his life.
“I shouldn’t even let you play this game. You’re in trouble, mister. I talked to your father and he’s coming to the meeting with us.”
“Seriously? Why?” Mom acted like this fence-tagging thing was the end of the world. Who cared? They were talking about a fence! Everyone acted like he’d killed someone.
“Because he’s your father and it’s about time he did something. With him being a veteran, maybe they’ll take pity on you.”
Hunter snorted. His dad was no badass veteran. He’d flown fighter jets so it wasn’t like he’d gotten his hands dirty or anything. Hunter was going to enlist, too, when he turned eighteen. He hadn’t told Mom yet because she might lock him in his bedroom. She treated him like a kid, like he wasn’t almost a man. But Hunter would be a Marine or a Navy SEAL. A killer. Not some chair force guy like his stupid Dad.
“Why didn’t you ask me first? Maybe I don’t want him there.”
“Because it’s not up to you. It’s his duty as your father. Dinner’s ready.” She slammed his door shut.
Yeah, right. Duty. He didn’t need his father anymore. Maybe when he was a little kid he wanted to spend more time with him, back when all they’d had was an occasional weekend when he was home from flying all over the world. He still had those little Air Force toy jets somewhere in the back of his closet. Point being, he wasn’t a kid anymore. He didn’t need his father. Didn’t need his mother, either, but try convincing her of that.
All of a sudden this summer, Mom wanted him to spend more time with his dad, so they could “get to know each other” again. She only wanted Hunter to spend more time with Matt so she could spend more time with her new boyfriend. He played baseball, a loser who couldn’t make the major leagues so now he was trying to break into the minors. If his Mom wanted to follow Chuck the Loser around, she was welcome to it. Hunter could stay alone in his own house. He was too old for a babysitter.
No way, no how would he hang out with Dad and try to be best buddies like he was a little kid again.
Those days were gone.
* * *
“THAT’S IT?” SARAH followed Matt to the bedroom he’d be staying in.
The man traveled light. Within a couple of hours he’d moved his few belongings into the spare bedroom. A king-size bed, which took up most of the small bedroom, a dresser, a lamp. His laptop and a flat-screen TV. A few boxes that couldn’t contain much of anything.
“You forget I flew fighter jets. Tiny cramped spaces.”
“You didn’t live in them, did you?”
“Nah, I wish.” He grinned. “That would have been cool.”
That boyish grin went all the way to her womb.
One of the boxes was open and on top were a few framed photos. She picked one of them up. A fighter jet in the background, Matt and Stone suited up. “You and Stone.”
“Yep.”
“Where was this taken?”
“Afghanistan.”
He didn’t smile and didn’t elaborate. Of course he wouldn’t. She’d already learned from Stone that part of their lives was off-limits to discussion. She picked up another one, a photo of him and Stone and another guy she didn’t recognize. “Who’s this?”
He glanced over her shoulder. “That’s Levi. He’s still in.”
“Handsome guy.”
“Yeah. He thinks so, too.”
He didn’t hold a candle to Matt in that department, but of course that was only her opinion. She picked up another photo, not done discovering Matt through a journey of a few snapshots. Images, as she realized all too well, told a story. And everyone had a story to tell. She picked up another framed picture of a little boy missing his two front teeth. It was obviously a school photo. His hair was mussed up like he’d just come back from recess, an adorably devilish grin on his face.
“Is this Hunter?”
“Yeah, when he was six. It’s probably my favorite picture of him.”
“He sure looks like you.” She put the photo down on Matt’s dresser and cleared her throat. “Okay. Maybe we should discuss, uh, you know, some kind of...you know.”
“Some kind of...?”
There went the IQ again. “Rules, Matt. Rules.”
“I’m not big on rules. You should know this about me.”
“G-ground rules.” She continued to stammer and sputter like the village idiot. “House rules.”
“Ah.” Matt winked. “You don’t want me to ruin your game.”
“My game? No, I mean I don’t want to ruin your game.”
He put up a hand. “Wait. Let me see if I understand you. You’re saying I can bring a woman over here if I want?”
“Sure.” Her hand traced the smooth edge of his dresser. “I don’t want you to neglect your...needs. Or anything.”
Oh God, was she blushing? Please let him say he won’t bring a woman over. She’d offered but she didn’t want him to accept. Was it too late to take it back?
He quirked an eyebrow. “That’s generous of you.”
“You’re helping me out in a big way.” Probably not in the way she’d prefer, but she didn’t want to be greedy. That would be wrong.
“And you’re helping me. You should have seen my landlord’s face when I told her I wouldn’t be renewing my lease.”
“Oh, good! Anyway, I don’t want you to feel like this isn’t your house, too. As long as you’re here, this is your house.”
“So kick off my shoes and stay awhile?”
She lifted a shoulder. “This is all I’m saying.”
“Sounds good. And, Sarah?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not going to be bringing any women over. But thanks for the offer.”
Offer? She hadn’t made an offer yet. Had she been handing out offers, she might have asked Matt if he’d consider door number two: Sarah Mcallister, thirty years old, single, no kids. Dark brown hair, green eyes. Five foot eight in stocking feet. Comes with her own toothbrush. Doesn’t steal the covers.
“So I guess if you want to see a woman, you’ll go over to her place.”
His eyes narrowed. “Did you bring waders for this fishing expedition?”
Busted. She had to remember she wasn’t dealing with the type of man-child she dated back home in Fort Collins. When she could get a date. Matt was nothing if not direct.
“Uh...”
“For the record, I’m not seeing anyone. How about you?”
She folded her arms across her chest. “I’m not seeing anyone, either.”
“That’s what I thought, but as long as we’re clearing the air...”
“Air cleared!” She waved her arms and moved into the kitchen.
He followed her. “I’m going to get started on those floors in the hallway first. Before one of us trips.” Already making himself at home, he reached for a glass from the cupboard.
“Sounds good, and I’ll help.”
“No worries. I’m going to need to rip up everything you did. Don’t take this the wrong way, but carpentry is not your strong suit.” He filled his glass with water from the sink.
She laughed like a loon. “I know.”
“So, I’m good.” He leaned back against the countertop and guzzled water.
She watched as his throat muscles moved and constricted, fascinated. He had a powerful neck, and she watched the way he gripped the glass in his big hand, like it was never getting away from him. She found the way he drank water to be incredibly sexy. Almost sensual. And also, she was probably going to need to visit a psychiatrist soon. She’d never found a man’s Adam’s apple particularly stimulating but there you go. She was a very sick woman.
She pulled her gaze away from his neck and forced herself to pick up a spoon and pretend she would do something with it. “But I feel like I should help.”
“Nah, this is why I’m here.” He set the empty glass in the sink and his shoulder bumped hers. “Let me earn my ten percent.”
“Fifteen percent, you mean.”
He grinned. “Thought I might slip that by you.”
She giggled like a schoolgirl, but then she remembered...underwear. Shit! She almost ran into Matt trying to race past him to the bathroom.
“What the hell?” He moved out of her way.
Of course today had to be underwear day. She had all her thongs and bras airing out in the bathroom she hadn’t had to share with anyone else for weeks. Naturally he was right behind her, probably wondering if she’d accidentally set his fifteen percent of the house on fire. She snatched red push-up bras and satiny black thongs off the towel bars as fast as her two hands could move, but it still wasn’t fast enough.
If the unsuccessful way he tried to contain his grin was any indication, he’d seen everything.
“Sorry.” She clutched her bras and panties in both hands. “I forgot. I’ve been living alone for a while.”
Matt shook his head slowly, his large body filling the doorway. “That’s...not a problem.”
“I’ll just put these in my bedroom.”
She couldn’t look at him as she rushed past him. They’d never even kissed and he’d already seen her panties.
An hour later, Matt had set himself up in the hallway and ripped up all of her handiwork. Sarah kept busy by keeping Shackles away from nails and other life-threatening injuries, letting him outside in the backyard and back in again about a hundred times per hour. She needed a dog door, but it was low on her list of priorities. For now, she was Shackles’s door woman.
“How long have you had him?” Matt asked.
She’d just let Shackles in again from the backyard and hadn’t heard Matt come up behind her. “It’s been over a month now. The adoptive family who brought him out with Paws and Pilots changed their mind. Guess their kid turned out to be allergic.”
“It was good of you to take him in.”
Matt had worked up a sweat and his white T-shirt stuck to him like a second skin. His handyman tool belt hung low on his hips.
“Emily has a way of being pretty persuasive.”
“Stone has shared that with me more than once.” Matt grinned and squatted down. Shackles came right up to him, sniffing. “I would have taken him except for my old landlord. No pets allowed.”
“He likes you.” Who wouldn’t? She imagined all pets and children would find him approachable. He looked so safe, so solid and...solid. She swallowed.
“I didn’t think you’d want to take him in since you’re moving.” He scratched between Shackles’s ears and her dog melted into Matt, rubbing against his leg.
“We have dogs in Colorado, too.”
“Right, of course you do.” He gave Shackles one last pat and then straightened to his full height. “And this lucky little guy gets to go back with you.”
It had to happen sooner or later and had been the plan all along. She had to go back to Colorado. Even though she’d enjoyed her freedom out here, with Mom safely back home where she’d learned she wouldn’t die if her daughter wasn’t a thirty-minute drive away. But Sarah was a freelance forensic artist with a nice regular gig in Fort Collins. She was supposed to get back to all that at some point. Back to her life, which, even if it was a little boring, was at least stable. Certain.
When Matt went back to the flooring, Sarah followed Shackles outside again and this time made her way to her father’s garden shed. She unlatched the hinge and stepped inside, clicking the overhead lightbulb. Out here, she’d stored all of her father’s mementos right alongside the old lawnmower and rusty garden tools. These were all the items she wanted to keep. Maybe it didn’t make sense to anyone else, surely not to Stone, who’d called most of it junk. And she had to admit, none of it had been exactly what she’d been searching for. An old fishing pole, a worn-out set of skis and poles, a broken snowboard. Numerous model airplanes. A framed velvet picture of Dogs Playing Poker. She smiled, remembering when Stone had requested to be able to keep the picture, in front of Emily. The poor girl’s eyes had widened in horror but she’d smiled and agreed until Stone told her he’d been joking. Emily was too nice sometimes.
Not like Sarah. Back home, she’d been called “prickly” and that was the nice word for her. Another more common word rhymed with witch. Behind her back, she understood coworkers feared her, and not just because they were afraid she had the power to make the likeness of their face appear on a forensic sketch of a criminal suspect. As if she would ever be that unprofessional. Please.
The plain truth was that it wouldn’t hurt her to be nicer and more open. Less bitter and prickly. She was working on it.
Her recent sketch work was in a corner next to the easel. All she’d worked on in the months she’d been here. Mostly landscapes, because far be it from her to get too personal. Anyway, she’d had her fill of portraits. Wide eyes, narrow eyes, threatening eyes. Thin lips. Thick lips. Pug nose. Crooked nose. Shaggy-haired strangers. She was sick of drawing alleged criminals based on a witness’s description. They almost never got the eyes right, which meant Sarah never got them exactly right, either.
Still, she’d been one of the best sketch artists in Fort Collins. Once caught, the suspect’s actual photo would be almost a duplicate of her sketch, except for the eyes. So she got criminals almost right time and again. Unlike men in her personal life. Her handful of friends would say it was because she was too picky. Sarah would say it was because she no longer believed in fairy tales. At thirty, all she wanted was a grown-up relationship between two consenting adults who could bring each other a little bit of pleasure. She didn’t need long-term.
And, at least for the short time she had left here, she wondered if maybe Matt would be game for a little harmless fun.
CHAPTER SIX (#ucce6c31a-0766-50a6-86f5-fcabf3fce650)
THE NEXT MORNING, Matt made sure to be out of the house as dawn broke over the horizon. He wanted zero chance of running into Sarah in the hallway, half-dressed and stumbling into the bathroom. The underwear had been bad enough. He would have never guessed straitlaced Sarah owned sexy underwear, but thanks to the Pantie Gods she did. Holy crap she did. Barely-there thongs and bras in red, black and pink that he had a good feeling were going to headline a few fantasies in his near future.
The wild look in her eyes as she’d tried to hide them from him had him caught between wanting to laugh and the raw desire to haul her off and kiss her senseless.
Didn’t bode well for keeping it friendly.
He arrived at the airport early enough so only Stone was in the office. “Mornin’,” he mumbled and helped himself to the coffee in the carafe.
“Hey,” Stone said as he looked up from his desk. “I’m filing a few flight plans. What are you doing here? First flight isn’t till seven thirty.”
“I have to head out of here around noon for a meeting at the high school.”
Stone looked over the schedule. “Yeah, that’s cool. You should be back by then. Meeting at the high school, huh? Do they want to erect a statue of you?”
“Ha, ha. Good one.”
Stone hadn’t grown up in the Bay Area, but he knew Matt had. His reputation in their small bedroom-community town went far and wide...which is why Matt had been particularly outraged when Joanne suggested he wear his service dress uniform. He’d attended Fortune Valley High School, where most everyone knew he’d joined the Air Force right after graduation. It wasn’t something he could hide, nor would he, but he certainly wouldn’t use it as an advantage.
“Uh-oh.” Stone looked up and met Matt’s eyes. “It’s about the kid. Isn’t it?”
Matt nodded. His kid. His troubled son. It was hard to think about, much less say out loud. Hard not to believe it was somehow all Matt’s fault his son was acting out. “Hunter seems to think a brown fence is boring and needs some color.”
Stone laughed. “You would have never been caught.”
True enough. He had his father to thank, who’d been scarier than any high school principal. When Matt considered his father’s example, he realized he had to fall somewhere between his father’s hard-ass tough love and Joanne’s enabling.
He guzzled the coffee, hoping it would wake him up. He hadn’t slept easy last night, thinking of Sarah in the next bedroom. They’d had a light dinner together, and later she’d sweetly come to say good-night to him and thank him again. She apparently had no idea of the effect she had on him, which was good. Meant he’d done a bang-up job of hiding it. He just had to keep it up for another two months. Piece of cake.
“Meant to tell you, too, finally got out of my lease. I have a new address.”
“Oh yeah? Where?”
Tread lightly, Matt. Easy does it. “It’s temporary. You know the place. Your father’s house.”
Stone’s forehead wrinkled. “With Sarah?”
“I’m sure you heard about her situation.”
“Emily mentioned something. Her contractor got arrested on national TV? Why do I always miss all the good shit?”
“Consider yourself lucky. She was a mess.”
“Heard that, too.”
Matt waited a beat. He wasn’t sure how much he should tell Stone, best friend or not. He’d warned Sarah repeatedly not to get in over her head with their father’s home, and knowing Stone he too might feel responsible for her situation.
“Doesn’t sound much like her.” Stone squinted. “Why was she so upset?”
“There’s a little more to it than losing one contractor.”
Stone covered his face in his hands. “Aw, man. Don’t tell me.”
“I won’t tell you. Just so you know, it’s taken care of. Covered.”
“Thanks, bro.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“So living with her, huh? What’s that about?”
“It was a compromise. She’s helping me out of my current situation. My way of getting her to let me work for free.”
“Smart. Or not smart, as the case may be.”
Matt refused to comment on the grounds his answer might incriminate him.
“Look.” Stone threw up his hands. “I don’t care what you and my sister do behind closed doors. Between two consenting adults.”
Matt held up one hand. “Hey—”
“Don’t even try it. I’ve seen the way you look at her. Like I said, consenting adults. None of my business. Doesn’t mean I want to hear about it.”
“Understood. But nothing’s going to happen. I have no free time. Plus it’s my last chance with this kid and he’s not making it easy.”
Stone stood and went for the coffee. “Don’t blame yourself. It’s a tough age. I was a dick. I’m sure you were, too.”
While Matt hadn’t been the wild kid Stone had reportedly been, he’d hardly been the good kid his father described. Matt had excelled at more than academia. He’d achieved a level of discreetness rarely seen in a teenager. His father didn’t know the half of it and never would.
Matt spent the rest of his morning piloting two chartered flights, one a hop to San Francisco to drop off a couple of businessmen and the other for a couple he recognized from the supermarket tabloids. He was to land them at LAX because they’d missed their flight on their equally wealthy friend’s private jet. LAX was the kind of airport made for former Air Force pilots. The air traffic was intimidating to most but Matt loved the challenge. However, the turbulence he ran into came from the couple behind him, not the weather.
“If you hadn’t been too busy staring between that woman’s giant ass and your stupid phone, we wouldn’t have missed our flight,” the woman said.
“Can I help it if I like a nice ass?”
“No, apparently not. And I obviously like an ass, too, or I wouldn’t have married you.”
“Funny. Maybe if you stopped your constant yo-yo dieting you’d also have an ass.”
“Sure! Let me go ahead and eat like you do so you can just call me fat again.”
“You gained forty pounds, and it didn’t go to your ass.”
“I was pregnant!”
Apparently Matt became both deaf and invisible when he put on his headset. This was what he hated about people who possessed no filters. Simply because Mcallister Charters signed nondisclosure agreements, it didn’t mean he wanted to hear all this.
He cleared his throat. “Excuse me.”
“Yes? Is there a problem?” the man demanded.
Your mouth. Your existence. “There could be.”
“You idiot!” the woman whined. “Why did you make me take this little plane? Now there’s a problem.”
“Shut up,” the man said to his woman/wife/verbal whipping post.
“No problem,” Stone said with his most authoritative tone of voice. “But there could be. I need absolute silence to land this plane. I have to concentrate.”
He could land this plane in his sleep, but after a sharp intake of breath, there was not another sound from either of his passengers the rest of the trip.
By noon, the entitled celebrity couple long out of his mind, Matt sat in the high school’s office lobby waiting for Hunter and Joanne. They were both late.
“Matt Conner,” said a voice he recognized. It was none other than David Cross, his former Calculus teacher and a good ally should Matt care to have one.
Joanne would love this.
Matt stood up and shook the man’s hand. “Good to see you, Mr. Cross.”
“And you. We’re waiting on Hunter and...and...”
“His mother. Joanne. Joanne Fisher.” They’d never been married. Matt had dutifully offered but Joanne had refused him. Didn’t want to be a military wife. Lucky him.
Matt followed Mr. Cross into his office. “I’m sure she’ll be here any minute.” He drew his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. Ten minutes late. Shit.
“I’m glad we have a chance to catch up. I heard you’ve been overseas for years.”
Matt nodded. “True.”
“I was shocked to hear you’d enlisted. I never had a chance to tell you how sorry... I mean, after graduation you enlisted so quickly. There wasn’t time to...”
The typical awkward stammering happened whenever he ran into someone from his past. Someone who couldn’t reconcile Matt Conner from the Principal’s Honor Roll with the Matt who had knocked up his girlfriend. Correction, not girlfriend. Date. Matt glanced at his phone again. Had Joanne planned this? He didn’t want to rehash the past with Mr. Cross right now.
Hunter’s frame darkened the doorway of the office. “They said for me to go in.”
“Hunter.” Mr. Cross pointed at the seat next to Matt’s. “Your father’s here on time so we’ll just get started.”
Hunter grunted and wouldn’t make eye contact with Matt, which was fairly typical.
Joanne arrived as Hunter was taking his seat. “I’m sorry I’m late. I’m sure you remember Matt, Hunter’s father? Lieutenant Conner, I mean.”
“Just Matt,” Matt said with a tight jaw.
“He was in the Air Force,” she said, sitting between Matt and Hunter. “A veteran.”
Hunter rolled his eyes. Mr. Cross smiled. Matt said nothing, but gripped the armrest of his chair tighter.
“As you all know, there was spray-painting done on the fence and our cameras caught Hunter and two of his friends in action.”
“And Hunter’s so sorry about that,” Joanne said.
Matt stared at her, trying to silently communicate that she should let Hunter talk. Helpfully, she then tapped Hunter’s shoulder. He gave her a look that could kill and said nothing.
“Where are the other kids and their parents?” Matt asked.
“We met with them earlier in the week, but Mrs., uh... Miss Fisher kept rescheduling. So here we are.”
“All I did was paint a fence. It’s not like I killed someone,” Hunter finally spoke.
Matt had to give it to the kid. When it came to Hunter, what you saw was what you got. No subterfuge whatsoever. If it wasn’t for the fact that Hunter was Matt’s dead ringer, he’d have to wonder if the kid was his.
Joanne hit his shoulder again. “He doesn’t mean it. Actually, I blame myself. He grew up without a father.”
“What?” Hunter and Matt spoke at once.
“Let’s discuss our options,” Mr. Cross said. “We were able to keep this out of the police’s jurisdiction. I like to handle these matters, much as possible, in house. The other parents paid for the damages.”
Hunter snorted. Joanne tapped him again and then started rifling through her purse. Presumably for the checkbook.
“But someone will have to paint the fence.” Matt leaned forward.
“Yes,” Mr. Cross said. “We’ll hire someone.”
“How much?” Joanne already had her checkbook out.
Matt reached out to stay her arm. “Hold on. Why doesn’t Hunter paint the fence?”
Mr. Cross didn’t speak for a moment. “It would have to be after school is out for the summer.”
The kid stared at him, jaw dropped. “Seriously?”
“I’m not sure if...” Joanne said, and then, catching Matt’s stop-talking look, stopped talking.
Finally. “I’ll supervise,” Matt said.
“Actually,” Mr. Cross said, “what a good idea. I wish I’d thought of it myself. Of course, the Jacksons go to Europe for the summer, so not all the boys would be available anyway.”
“Fortunately, Hunter has no plans,” Matt said. “Do you?”
Hunter gave him one of those looks-could-kill scowls but didn’t speak.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought,” Matt said.
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ucce6c31a-0766-50a6-86f5-fcabf3fce650)
“WAS THAT NECESSARY?” Joanne asked. “You’re not exactly Mr. Popularity around here.”
After the meeting, all three of them had walked to the school parking lot together. Hunter had climbed into Joanne’s SUV and slammed the passenger door shut without a word.
“Not interested in winning a contest.”
“I know you’re trying to be a hard-ass but he already doesn’t like you. So ease up on the boot camp stuff and let’s see if we can at least get him to want to spend time with you that isn’t forced labor.”
Shit. Was he being a hard-ass? He hadn’t meant to be. He’d reacted in a similar fashion that any of his COs would have to a rookie, to teach him a lesson he wouldn’t soon forget. Obviously Matt was still feeling his way around being the father of a hormone-driven teenager.
“I said I’d supervise. More likely, I’ll help.”
Joanne sighed and leaned against the driver’s-side door. “How much longer before he can spend a weekend with you?”
For months he’d been trying to find a suitable place to rent. At least two bedrooms with a backyard. Everything he’d located had been rented by the time he called. “No luck so far, but at least the lease is up on my apartment.”
“He would have been fine in your apartment. You’re so picky.”
“It’s a one-bedroom.”
“He would have been fine on the couch.”
“What’s the rush, Joanne?”
“Fine. If you must know, Chuck has a chance at the minors this summer.”
“Chuck?” That must be the new boyfriend he’d heard about, but let her tell him that.
“We’ve been seeing each other. Hunter doesn’t like him much, but as you can see he doesn’t like anyone. Anyway, I want to meet up with Chuck at one of the games, and it’s not like Hunter wants to go with me. All he wants to do is hang out with his friends, tag fences and play ‘Call of Duty’.”
Great. His kid was getting an education in military combat with little if any basis in reality. “I’m working on it.”
“Work harder.” Joanne slipped into her sedan and they were off.
Matt stood and watched for a moment. These were two people in his life he should somehow feel deeply connected to. He understood why he no longer felt anything for Joanne, but he was supposed to love Hunter. Did love him, in fact, or at least the kid he remembered. The little kid in that framed photo, for starters. But Hunter wasn’t a small boy he could please with shiny Air Force toy planes or help guide across the monkey bars. Matt shouldn’t have let two years go by between visits, even if Joanne had made it difficult. The last time he’d seen Hunter he’d been thirteen and just on the edge of puberty, his voice squeaking and his feet huge in comparison to the rest of him. But he’d still been at least human.
Fast-forward two short years and Hunter looked like a different kid. He was now nearly as tall as Matt himself, a man-child with an attitude. Not like he didn’t know a little bit about them, but the airmen he’d had in his wing weren’t children. Hunter was far more child than man, but Matt understood the kid didn’t see it that way.
Back at the airport, Matt finished off his day with a onetime flying lesson gifted to a woman on her fiftieth birthday by her Airman First Class son, and a last-minute charter flight to Las Vegas. He was there to pick up a couple of businessmen who’d missed their connecting flight to San Francisco, but when Matt arrived the men had instead hired a private jet minutes after placing the call.
Wonderful.
He waited in line to taxi back down the runway and took off again, fuming. The passengers would be charged, but they’d wasted precious fuel. Stone would be pissed.
Back at the airport, Matt checked out with Cassie and Emily, gathered his keys and headed to Sarah’s, prepared to spend an evening putting in the rest of the hardwood flooring in the hallway. He was tired, irritated as hell and hungry like a lion. The rest of his evening would consist of physical labor and a large dose of sexually charged frustration to boot.
And he couldn’t figure out why he looked forward to all of it.
“Honey, I’m home,” Matt said as he walked in the front door to Sarah’s place.
His place now, too. Or at least fifteen percent his place until he talked the stubborn woman out of their arrangement. Sarah should have beaten him home hours ago, and he’d seen her car outside but didn’t find her in the kitchen. Shackles welcomed him instead, wagging his tail double time and leading the way to the sliding glass door. Matt let him out, then went to find Sarah.
Where the hell was she? They had to talk about the roof, and plenty of other decisions that would need to be made about their now joint project. This house was a classic when one got right down to it. A Craftsman built in the early 1960s, it had seen better days, but from the beginning Matt had seen nothing but possibilities. He figured it was the fixer in him, but he’d always admired great craftsmanship.
He headed toward her bedroom when the bathroom door jerked open a few feet away from him. Sarah emerged. Naked. She took one startled look in his direction and streaked down the hallway toward the bedrooms. Frozen in place, he stood as still as a rock and nearly as hard. Her sweet ass was the last thing he saw before she slammed the door to her bedroom shut.
“You took the last towel!” she screeched from inside.
“Sorry,” he called out. Not sorry.
If this was what living with her would be like, maybe he should just kill himself right now and make fast work of it. Anything had to be better than letting her kill him slowly like this without any mercy.
He headed back to the kitchen where he stuck his head in the freezer. “Yep. That ought to do it.”
Next he reached inside the refrigerator for bottled water and considered whether he should drink the cold water or pour it all over his head. Choosing to drink first, he uncapped it and took a big swallow just as Sarah walked in the kitchen.
“You men are all alike.”
He turned to find her standing in the kitchen, arms folded across what he now unfairly knew was one of the greatest racks he’d ever been privileged to see. She wore a blue tank top and loose gray sweats. Was she wearing the red bra or the pink one? Black or red panties?
“I didn’t see anything,” he lied.
“That’s not what I mean. Why is it so hard to remember to replace a towel? You use one, you put another one back. It’s not rocket science.”
“You’re right.”
“I went ahead and put all your towels in the top shelf of the linen closet.” Her arms dropped to her sides. “I guess I didn’t tell you that.”
“Nope,” he said, and drained the contents of the water bottle. “But I would have brought you a towel. All you had to do was ask.”
She shifted her weight from one leg to another. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
He scrunched up the water bottle until it was an inch tall, releasing a small amount of tension and pent-up sexual frustration, though not nearly enough. “Easy mistake. Don’t worry. We’re both grown-ups here.”
“Okay,” she said, sitting down at the kitchen table. “It’s just that...well, first the underwear and now the naked thing. I don’t want to scare you off.”
“Scare me off?” Was she seriously worried about this? Did she not notice his tongue practically hanging out, mouth salivating? Or maybe that was the problem. She didn’t appreciate the salivating.
She stared at her hands. “I need your help, as you know.”
“And you’ve got it.” He took a seat next to her.
She met his eyes and a tiny smile curved her lips. “Have I said thank you enough?”
“You have.” He forced himself to relax and unkink his shoulders. “Now, about the roof—”
“You said we’d talk about it, but honestly, the Realtor I talked to said we can just give the new owners a roof allowance. Roofs are expensive, they—”
“Unless you have a roofer in your pocket.”
He smiled, because now they were in his territory. Fixing inanimate objects, whether it be a broken sink, jammed window or bad electrical wiring. Planes, cars, bicycles, vacuum cleaners; you name it, he could damn well fix it when it broke. As long as it didn’t talk back to him.
Sarah was staring at him. “Is there anything you can’t do?”
“Yeah. I’m a lousy cook.”
“I’m not half-bad, so I’ll cook for both of us.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know I don’t have to, but I want to.” The way she gazed at him with her pouty bottom lip made him think about the panties again.
He wondered if electroshock would help him with this little problem. He got up. “Sure, but nothing fancy. I better get to work.”
“Me too,” Sarah said, rising from her chair.
He winced. “What are you going to do?”
“Don’t you give me that look.”
“What look?”
“The girl-needs-to-stay-out-of-my-way look.”
Check him out, male chauvinist pig of the year. “Of course you can help. What do you want to do?”
She smiled, and she might as well have coldcocked him for the way it temporarily stunned him. “I’m going to put the baseboards back on in the living room. Stone already painted in there, but I bought new boards. They have cool edging to them.”
So she’d picked out fancy baseboards but didn’t want a new roof. Okay, he’d let her have that one. Not going to judge. “Do you know how to use a nail gun?”
If he wasn’t mistaken she blinked twice as if to signal help me but her lips didn’t move to say those words and the hell if he’d be accused of being a chauvinist.
She nodded. “Yep. I watched Satan use it.”
While that didn’t mean she could use it herself, Matt went over to the nail gun he’d brought over and handed it to Sarah. He reminded himself that while trust didn’t always come easily to him, he did trust Sarah. Mostly. The rest of it he was working on.
“Thanks. I’ll just go get dressed in my construction outfit first.”
He almost asked, but thought better of it. If she had a special outfit she wanted to wear that was probably a good idea. Maybe some steel-toed boots or something that could protect her from catastrophic injury. He was on board with protecting her from injury. A few minutes later, he was going through his tools when she emerged from her room wearing what surely was from a page in a fashion catalog. And sue him if he still thought she looked blazing hot in khaki carpenter pants, a light-colored blouse, boots and protective eyewear. Nice touch with the protective eyewear. He felt better already. She carried with her a small toolbox in one hand and the nail gun he’d given her in the other.
“Okay. I’m ready.”
“So you are.” He felt a grin coming on. “Sometimes I wear old clothes, but what you’re wearing is good, too.”
“Everything was on sale,” she said as though this explained everything. “Forty percent off with free shipping.”
She walked away from him and while he considered getting her set up, that might look like he didn’t have enough faith in her, so he hung back and let her do it all herself.
Have a little faith. Trust, Matt, trust.
Yeah. Still working on it.
Trust issues and him went way back, so it was no wonder that even with good friends he still occasionally wound up verifying. It had cost him a relationship or two in his past, but after Joanne his trust when it came to women had been compromised almost permanently.
A half an hour later, he still hadn’t heard the sounds of nail gunning in the living room so maybe Sarah was still lining up the boards. Or possibly trying to figure out a way out of this while saving face. He tacked in the last wood floor slat and determined he’d go in and pretend he only wanted to check out her great progress, then underhandedly find a way to assist her before she impaled herself.
He heard a strange whirring sound, immediately followed by the sounds of a nail gun...being operated at the rapid-fire rate of a machine gun.
Shit. Not good.
He dropped everything and ran to the living room, where he found Sarah on the ground, wearing her safety glasses, legs spread out, holding the nail gun away from herself as it shot nails out like it was possessed by the demonic soul of an assault rifle.
Fuck. Heart pounding in his ears, he yanked the electrical plug from its socket then dropped down next to her, worried because she looked shell-shocked. “Are you okay?”
“I’m s-sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. Explain what the hell happened.” He took the nail gun from her.
“I don’t really know. Maybe it jammed? Everything was going well, and then...and then...” Her safety glasses slightly askew, she pushed them up with her finger.
Thank God for the safety glasses. “Doesn’t matter. Just please tell me you’re okay.”
“Fine, but a little humiliated. This looked so easy. I read all the instructions. Well. Most of them.”
He let out an uneven breath, and took a good long look at the wall. The wall Stone had painted not long ago with a shade of brown had nails all over it in interesting random patterns.
“You killed the wall.”
She covered her face with her hands. “Oh, crap.”
Yeah. It was okay, he told himself over and over again. She wasn’t hurt, and that was the main thing. Instinctively and possibly without much thought, he pulled Sarah’s back to his chest. They both sat on the ground of the living room floor staring at the massacred wall for several silent minutes. Finally, she leaned her head back and told him she was sorry another dozen times.
“Maybe you should stay away from power tools for now.”
She nodded slowly.
This would be an interesting couple of months, if they each lived to tell about it.
* * *
“HONESTLY, MATT, YOU look exhausted. Let me help,” Sarah said. “Please.”
“I’m good,” he said from the top of the ladder where he was fiddling with the wiring coming out of her bedroom ceiling.
Good. He was always good.
The man had run himself ragged all week long, working at the airport most of the daylight hours, helping his son paint a fence—she didn’t ask because Matt didn’t look happy about it—and working on her numerous home improvement projects. Being forever banned from using power tools meant that she couldn’t help him much anymore. But no sooner would he finish one house project than another issue would present itself. Either it was a wiring problem or a plumbing problem. Rather than the list getting shorter, it got longer. Just like the summer days.
And Matt got sexier every day. Each time he recited the complex reasoning behind why the house’s electrical wiring had “issues” she’d stare at him, appreciating that he understood her to be intelligent enough to follow was the single most attractive quality about him.
Of course, his most attractive quality changed from moment to moment and depending on what the man was doing. Sometimes his forearms were the single most attractive quality about him. Sometimes his eyes, beautifully dark and edgy. She had to face it—she had a large menu to choose from.
And now tonight he’d finally put in her ceiling fan, and those tentacles falling out of her ceiling would be covered up and stop giving her spider nightmares. She’d run the fan tonight and cool down from the suddenly hot summer nights. They were having a small heat wave.
Unless that was all Matt.
She was still feeling her way around this whole friends-and-roommates thing, thinking up ways to get Matt’s attention other than leaving all her underwear out, flashing him or scaring him with her appalling lack of carpentry skills. So far she’d accomplished all of those without even breaking a sweat.
He stood now on the ladder just under the wires, balancing his weight on the second highest rung. Her only job was to keep Shackles away from him, since her dog now had a serious case of hero worship for Matt and followed him around the sometimes-dangerous house. The evening sky had begun to darken and little slits of light were all that was left of the daylight coming through the bedroom window blinds he’d replaced for her. She walked to the window, still holding on to Shackles’s collar, to open them further and give Matt more light while he worked.
An enormous spark popped out of the ceiling, and Matt cursed as he fell from the ladder. Letting go of the dog, she lunged for the ladder to steady him, but he grabbed it and took it with him, presumably to keep from falling on them. Shackles yelped and ran out of the bedroom. Somehow Matt managed to topple onto her bed, at the last minute throwing the ladder away from them both. It landed with a crash against the far wall.
Matt lay on his back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Recovering from her small heart attack, Sarah rushed to him. “Matt! Oh my God, Matt, are you okay?”
“I’m good,” he said, wincing.
She climbed on the bed with him. “If you say you’re good one more time I’m seriously going to have to kill you.”
He groaned his response.
“What can I do? Do you need me to call 911? Should I get you a cold wet rag? How about a warm one? Talk to me!”
It took her a minute to realize that in her panic she’d crossed a dangerous line. She was pretty much straddling his hips. Not exactly how she’d pictured winding up in this position, with all her clothes still on, but damned if she would move now. She had a perfectly good excuse to be hovering over him, in care and concern over whether he’d managed to electrocute himself trying to fix her money pit of a house.
“I’m okay.”
“What happened?”
“It’s worse than I thought.” He looked at the wiring above them, then at her. “I’m not sure I can move my legs.”
Sarah drew in a sharp breath. What had she done? Why, oh why, had she let him help her? “You...you can’t m-move your legs?”
He didn’t answer, but in one swift move he flipped her and now she lay under him.
“How about that? Guess I can move them. Just needed a little motivation is all.”
She pushed on his chest, marveling at how quickly he’d switched gears. “Not funny, Matt! You scared me.”
But his eyes were serious now, incredibly so, as he braced himself above her. She shivered when one hand skimmed down her arm until he came to her wrist and cuffed it. Sarah didn’t breathe. Didn’t move. Letting go of her wrist, Matt’s hand went to her hair clip and he removed it. He made an innately male sound as her hair tumbled down around her shoulders, loose. His finger traced the edge of her jawline and he followed with his lips. Oh boy. She’d wanted this for so long that the moment they were both caught in seemed surreal. But these were her hands moving under his shirt to touch the solid planes of his muscular chest, luxuriating in how warm and hard and positively male he was. This would finally happen. Happen now. Any minute he’d kiss her senseless, unless she kissed him first. Any time now.
The doorbell rang.
Shackles yipped and barked, doing his job and sounding the alarm. People! People! Hurry and let them in so I can sniff them!
Matt removed his hand from her ass. “You expecting anyone?”
“No.” She tried to tug him down by his powerful neck while she prayed silently that whoever was at the door would give up and go away. Fast. But Matt wasn’t giving an inch.
The doorbell rang again. Shackles became hysterical with the barking. Matt moved off the bed. And Sarah decided whoever was at the door would be dead in two minutes flat.
“Okay.” She rose from the bed and smoothed back her hair. Licked her unkissed lips. “I’ll go see who that is.”
But no one was dying tonight, because behind her front door stood Emily and Stone.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ucce6c31a-0766-50a6-86f5-fcabf3fce650)
SARAH RELUCTANTLY OPENED the door because Emily and Stone had already seen her through the front paned window. All she had hanging there was a mostly see-through white cotton sheet. Besides, she should let her brother inside. He was blood and all that.
“Hi!” Emily said. “We thought we’d come by to help.”
“Hey,” Stone said to Sarah. “I don’t want to be here.”
Sarah smiled at her brother’s honesty and waved them both inside.
“It will go faster if Matt has some help.” Emily squatted as Shackles yipped and yapped his welcome.
“He doesn’t want my help,” Stone protested. “I’m telling you, his exact words were ‘I’m good.’”
“I brought some beer, too.” Emily held up a six-pack. “As a reward for when the guys are done.”
“That’s not what I want as a reward and you know it,” Stone said to Emily. Then he caught sight of Matt coming out of the bedroom. “What’s up?”
“Electrical,” Matt said and they both disappeared back into Sarah’s bedroom.
“How’s it going around here?” Emily handed Sarah the six-pack.
“Super.” She’d just been in Matt’s arms and about to kiss him. It was the best thing that had happened all year, hands down. Sarah opened the fridge and set the beers inside.
“Boy. You look...flushed,” Emily said as she studied her.
“This is hard work. And Matt got zapped.”
“Uh-oh.”
“He’s good, though.” Now she was adopting Matt’s pat phrase. “But I’m guessing my electrical isn’t.”
She was back to thinking about the house’s many problems when she would have preferred to still be wondering whether Matt wore boxers or briefs. She might even have been about to find out.
Shackles trotted to the sliding glass door leading to their backyard and Sarah followed, Emily behind her. Sarah stopped at the edge of the lawn and turned west to watch the sun begin its slow sink over the horizon. The painted skyline over the hills was awash in red and gold tonight and woke her up a little bit. She’d been about to cross a line with Matt, maybe even two or three, and somehow this should bother her. Worry her.
Only it didn’t. She’d wanted to cross lines with him for a long time. Erase them, if she were being honest. He’d been the one constantly holding back. Flirting but only to the edge and no further. But something had changed tonight. She hoped it had nothing to do with an electrical shock.
“You guys didn’t need to come over, you know.”
“Why? Did we interrupt something?” Emily grinned.
“Uh...no. It’s just... Stone has done enough. He put in the kitchen counters, and he basically sold me his half of the house for below market value. I don’t think he realizes I know.”
It was better, too, not to admit she’d figured it out. When she’d first come out to California, Fort Collins real estate prices were all she had to compare with. Bay Area prices for the oldest and smallest houses had been like a jolt of ice water on a cold winter day.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
Sarah toed the edge of the lawn with one bare foot. “Okay, yes. Nothing happened. Something...almost happened. Am I that obvious?”
“It took you a while to get to the door, and once you did...your face. It’s flushed but in a nice way. And your hair. It looks good down like that. You look great, by the way.”
Her hair clip. Sarah’s hand went self-consciously to her wild and crazy mane of hair. It was so unruly she always kept it in a bun. “Well, as long as I look great. I don’t know what I’m doing, actually. Pretty sure he’s clueless, too.”
Emily gave the look of a woman who knew about these things. “Oh, I can guarantee you that.”
“Matt has a lot going on right now. All I did was become one more item on his list.”
“I don’t think so. I think he likes you.”
“I know that he probably doesn’t want to hurt me. That’s just who he is.”
“Who says he’s going to hurt you? Maybe you’ll be the one to hurt him.”
She shook her head. “I’m not going to hurt him. I couldn’t do that.”
“When you leave.”
It was difficult to believe. Matt was such a confident, assured man. But it occurred to Sarah that she’d never spent much time thinking about how her leaving might affect him. Maybe it was why he’d kept a healthy space between them, despite the occasional flirting. A space which had taken a bit of a hit tonight. She understood he didn’t want a fling with his best friend’s sister. But if she was leaving eventually, and no one but the two of them had to know, why did it matter?
As a light came on inside, Emily turned toward the house, then met Sarah’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I just think that Matt really needs someone. He doesn’t act like he does, sure, but he’s lonely.”
“Emily, he could have anyone he wanted. If he’s lonely, it’s by choice.”
“Or maybe he just hasn’t had the best luck with women. Might have some abandonment issues, even. His mom left them when he was ten and he hasn’t heard from her in years. There’s really no relationship there. And then his ex Joanne. She never made it easy for him to see Hunter.”
Sarah had wondered about Matt’s past but beyond light conversation they hadn’t delved deep. They’d been too busy talking about her problems. Her grief. But she wanted to go deeper with him. Hear all of his secrets and painful mistakes. The kind of private, personal matters only lovers knew about each other. But in order to have that level of intimacy, she might have to tell him her biggest regret, and she wasn’t quite ready for that.
“Have you found anything else about your dad?” Emily nudged her chin toward the shed. “Anything important?”
“Nothing.”
It was too late now. He was gone and Sarah had to move on. Sell the house and go back home to Colorado and her life back there. The change she’d wanted, the one that could only happen from the inside out, hadn’t happened. She wanted to feel alive again. She’d traded her pantsuits for jeans and tank tops. Her framed glasses for contacts. But still nothing. Those were all external changes, and she had to work on her heart. It had to be more open...or something.
“I’m sorry.” Emily squeezed Sarah’s shoulder. “I had hoped maybe there was something in this old house.”
“Besides memories and a bunch of junk? Probably not.”
Shackles, done with sniffing every square inch of his territory, joined them on the patio. He whimpered at Emily’s feet until she bent down to scratch behind his ears. “Sometimes we just have to find a way to lick our own wounds. Huh, Shackles?”
Sarah was familiar with being her own hero. She’d done that for most of her life. Each time she had felt a little more dead inside as she proved over and over again that she didn’t need anyone. For once she’d wanted something, someone, to rescue her so she could stop being so tough and strong all the time. But that had been a mistake. There would be no rescue for her. She’d do her own saving again.
Emily straightened. “One thing you should know about Matt. He feels like a total screw-up.”
“Why?” Not Matt Conner. Air Force pilot Matt? Mechanic? Engineer? Single father? He’d already done so much with his life.
Perhaps that was why she’d been so drawn to him from the start—because it took a screw-up to see a screw-up. She didn’t see a screw-up, though. She saw someone who’d made mistakes and lived with the consequences. It was quite possibly the most attractive quality about him. Maybe because she’d been struggling to do the same for years.
“Matt was raised by a single father. Mr. Conner was tough. He was a top-level executive in Silicon Valley for years. And he expected a lot out of Matt. More than the Air Force, that’s for sure.”
“What’s wrong with the Air Force?”
“Nothing, but when you’ve been groomed to go to an Ivy League school, I guess it can be seen as a step down. At least it did to Matt’s father. And probably most of his teachers. Matt was on the Principal’s Honor Roll every semester. His SAT and ACT scores were near perfect. He was supposed to do better.”
“But then Hunter came along.”
The screen door opened and both Stone and Matt joined them on the patio. Within seconds Stone had drawn Emily into his arms like the two of them were magnets.
“Are you guys already done?” Emily asked.
Stone, who had his head partially buried in Emily’s neck, could barely be heard. “More than we can fix tonight. Babe, I need to go home. Come with me.”
Emily turned in his arms. “Of course I’m coming with you, silly.”
“Score.”
Oh, sigh. Those two were so adorable, and yes, at times irritatingly so. Sarah turned away because no matter what those two did, even if it was simply holding each other’s hands, it carried with it an air of jolting intimacy. She glanced toward Matt, assuming he too would be smiling at the display, but instead caught him studying her, his head cocked. He didn’t look away but his head straightened and his gaze slid up to meet her eyes. He had a beer in his hand and took a pull of it without breaking eye contact.
Sarah swallowed and wanted to get Stone and Emily out of her house even faster than they were moving. “Gosh, thanks so much for coming by. I’m getting tired, too. Early day tomorrow and all.”
“Oh yeah,” Emily said. “We should go.”
“This is what I’m saying.” Stone took Emily’s hand and led her through the house.
Matt said good-night and Sarah followed them to the front door. But Emily wanted to talk wedding plans, and so Sarah followed them out to the truck where she stood next to Emily’s rolled-down passenger-side window. She listened for ten or more minutes to talk of tulle, lace and satin, and whether or not it was a good idea or not to have Emily’s almost two-year-old niece Sierra be a flower girl. Listened as Emily considered whether they should be married outside at her family’s ranch, or perhaps the Methodist church, or maybe someplace completely different. She listened until Stone turned on his truck and began to slowly inch away from the curb while Emily kept talking.
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