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She looked warm and sleep-tousled, and he was back to thinking about how great she’d look in bed. Not a direction he wanted his thoughts to go. What the hell had he been thinking—that he could ignore a woman like Sylvie?
He slipped Moonbeam off his shoulder and edged toward the coffee, planning to grab a cup and run. With his back safely to her, he continued, “It didn’t occur to me to tell you I decided to take you up on your offer to use the house until I walked in this morning. Sorry.”
“Make yourself at home.”
He stiffened. Was she being sarcastic? Had he crossed some invisible boundary? People questioning his integrity was a by-product of the life he’d lived, but somehow he’d gotten it into his head that life would be different here. He would be different. Resigned to the inevitable, he put a half teaspoon of sugar in his coffee and turned to face her.
“I’ll get out of your way. Sorry to wake you.”
“No, I’m sorry. That sounded rude. I didn’t mean to imply you weren’t welcome. I’m not my best in the morning.” She smiled. “Where’s Romeo?”
“Outside.” He allowed himself to relax against the counter as he suppressed a laugh. Wow. It suddenly dawned on him that he was playing in a whole new ball game now. One where people didn’t automatically assume the worst of each other. That someone would apologize to him for indicating, not assuming, but only hinting he may be out of line, brought home how much he wanted to live here. “We went for a five-K run already, so he’s pretty pooped. That’s such a great beach. It’s amazing not many people use it.”
“One of the perks of living in a sparsely populated area, I guess. Romeo’s a great dog. Did you train him?”
“No. I got him from the animal shelter when I knew I was moving to the country. The previous owners loved shepherds, but having a large dog in the city is difficult for even the biggest dog lover.” He sipped his coffee. “Cal says you live in Toronto.”
“Yeah.” She let out a weary sigh.
He watched as she slipped into a chair at the table and leaned her head on her hand. Either she hadn’t completely woken up yet or living in T.O. wasn’t doing it for her.
“What part?”
“Yorkville.”
He raised his eyebrows. “That’s a classy part of town.”
“It’s okay.” She stared into her coffee.
He moved to the stove and turned the heat on under the frying pan. He might as well cook the pancakes he’d started. Sylvie didn’t seem to mind him being there, and he could use a big breakfast to start his day. He poured a scoop of batter into the pan and watched it sizzle along the edges. “Any idea when you’re moving back?” None of his business.
“Haven’t a clue.” When she continued to stare into her coffee, he felt a wrench in his gut. The same feeling he’d had a couple of days ago in the backyard when she’d looked sad. He flipped the pancake over. She had a family to support her—hell, she probably had the whole village at her beck and call. It wasn’t his responsibility to cheer her up.
He slipped the pancake on a plate and placed it in front of her, then poured more batter into the pan. “You don’t want to move back to Toronto?”
Her head jerked up. “I didn’t say that.”
No, she didn’t, and if he were smart he’d stop talking right now. What Sylvie felt or didn’t feel was none of his business. “You don’t sound very enthusiastic at the prospect.”
“There’s nothing to go back to.”
“Cal said you have a boyfriend. A doctor?”
“You and Cal had quite the conversation.”
He turned his attention back to the stove. “Cal—” did not find a halfhearted sketch of him doing tai chi “—just mentioned you were a really good artist and lived in Toronto.”
She lathered butter and maple syrup on her pancake. “That’s all in the past. I’m going to have to figure out something else to do now. Mmm,” she said around a mouthful of pancake. “These are fantastic. I don’t suppose you want to work at the café? We’re desperate to hire a second cook.”
“Sorry. I’m too busy right now.” But once his house was finished, he’d consider it. The café was probably the hub of the village, and that was the kind of thing he’d like to get involved with.
He put another pancake on her plate, poured more batter into the pan and expertly cooked up a stack of pancakes as Sylvie ate hers. When he had what he hoped would be enough, he sat at the table, slipped a couple more to her and added syrup to his.
“Thanks.”
Adam forked up a mouthful and sat back to watch her eat. He was a good cook and he liked feeding people. He might not be able to help Sylvie with her problem, but at least he’d made sure she started the day with a good breakfast.
When she finished eating, Sylvie shoved her plate to one side and leaned toward him. “Would you teach me how to cook?”
Feeling as if he’d been dropped into the middle of a minefield, Adam placed his forkful of pancake back on his plate. “You don’t know how?”
“No, and I want to learn.”
“Um...” He looked everywhere but at the hint of sadness in her eyes. “Teressa. Ask her. She’s a cook.”
“Teressa hates me. She won’t teach me.”
“I met her yesterday. She seemed like a nice person. I doubt she hates you.” When Sylvie skewered him with a snarky look, Adam smothered a smile. He liked her sass.
“Okay, she doesn’t hate me. She thinks I’ve got it made, and her life stinks. She loves her kids, but having two different fathers for them is hard. Nothing’s ever come easy for her.”
“And it has for you?”
“No. I’ve worked my butt off. But no one sees that, or at least wants to see it. I’m the one who left and made it in that big, cold world out there.” The corners of her mouth crimped tight. “Sorry. I don’t usually indulge in self-pity.”
He had to admit that he didn’t understand what her problem was—she was young, beautiful and apparently successful. What he did know was he needed to come up with a reason why he couldn’t teach her how to cook.
No way could he spend time around this woman and not have rampant fantasies about her. She was just too damned hot. It wouldn’t take long for him to want to act on those fantasies, and then he’d be back to the Carson men wanting to know exactly who he was and where he’d come from. Assuming, of course, Sylvie was interested in him. “Your father and brothers don’t know how to cook?”
“They do, and they won’t teach me, either. Everyone either thinks I should be painting all the time, or they’re afraid I’m going to slice a finger or hurt myself if I work in the kitchen. But they don’t get it. I need to know I can do something other than paint.” As Sylvie paused, the pleading in her eyes damn near broke his heart. “We don’t have to tell anyone. It would be our little secret.”
No. He tore his gaze away from her angel-blue eyes and said the word inside his head again to make sure he got it right. No.
“Sylvie, I—”
“Please don’t say no.” She reached across the table and grabbed his hand. “I’ll get up early, and I’ll clean up whatever mess we make. And I promise I’ll be really, really careful so I don’t hurt myself.”
Because if she did, the Carson men would fry him alive. “You don’t know how to cook anything?”
“I can make coffee. And scramble eggs. Sandwiches, of course.” She shot him a crooked smile. “And I excel at ordering takeout.”
Her smile hooked into him and his resolve softened. “You’d think your family would want you to know how to take care of yourself.”
“I was always good at drawing.” She dipped her finger into the pool of syrup on her plate. “I won an art contest when I was nine. That’s the year my mom died, and somehow my family saw that contest as my consolation prize for losing Mom. Or so my therapist tells me. After that, Pops and Dusty and Cal couldn’t do enough to...I don’t know, nurture my talent, I guess. I was the baby of the family and the only girl, so... They were all hurting, and maybe it was easier to concentrate on me rather than deal with their own pain.”
She stared at the pattern she’d drawn in the syrup. “It eased their grief every time I drew a picture, so I kept drawing and drawing and drawing. I thought—I don’t know—that if I kept it up everything would be okay, and we’d be happy again. I drew my way into a scholarship when I was sixteen, and I’ve been living away from home ever since.”
He’d left home at fifteen for entirely different reasons, and he was sure he’d been a lot tougher than her. Even with his false bravado, it had been a rough go sometimes. Sixteen was a tender age. Too young to leave home.
His unexpected anger at her family caught him by surprise, and he stood and picked up the plates to dispel the feeling. The world was full of nasty, dangerous people. What had her family been thinking to let Sylvie leave at such a tender age?
He let the dishes clatter into the sink and turned on the water as he did his deep breathing exercise. Okay. None of this was his business. Keep things on track and get out.
“They never had a chance to teach you how to cook,” he said as he started washing the dishes. “Doesn’t mean they won’t now. You should ask them.”
“I have.”
Adam closed his eyes and prayed he hadn’t heard her voice tremble. He grabbed the frying pan, scrubbed it with more gusto than necessary. “I gotta go. Cal’s going to be here soon.” He drained the sink and bolted for the door, keeping his back to the table where Sylvie sat.
Not sat, huddled.
Man, why did he look at her? He’d almost made it out the door. What was it about this woman that unhinged him? He liked women well enough, had even fallen victim to a few and had a couple of semiserious relationships. But he’d always felt a measure of reserve with them, because truthfully, he didn’t quite get women, and that usually resulted in him saying as little as possible. So far, that didn’t seem to be happening with Sylvie. If anything he had to work at keeping his mouth shut.
He walked back to the table. “I’m not saying I’ll be available every morning, but okay, maybe tomorrow. I’ll show you how to make an omelet. You’ll have to get up early, though.”
Her eyes twinkled as she beamed up at him. He sighed in resignation and tore his gaze away from the stunning picture she made, with the morning sun kissing her face. “And you’ll have to clear it with your father first,” he added.
Her twinkle dimmed at the same time the delicate line of her jaw hardened. “I’m twenty-six years old. I do not need my father’s permission.”
But he did. If he pissed off her family, he could lose Cal’s help, and work on his house would grind to a halt. Things were getting off track, and he’d just started working on his house. “We’ll try one morning, then.”
“And go from there.”
Adam backed up fast when Sylvie jumped up from her chair, looking grateful enough to give him a hug. Not going to happen.
“I’m not making any promises. Just so you know.” He rushed the door and escaped outside.
Teach her how to cook. He shook his head and headed toward his house. Most people when they met him kept their distance because of his size and because he looked like a scrapper. But for some reason Sylvie seemed to have locked right into the fact that he was a pushover. He didn’t want people to be afraid of him, but neither did he want it getting around that he was an easy mark. Saying no to anyone had never been his strong suit—another reason to stay away from Sylvie. Half an hour, and she’d convinced him to teach her how to cook. What next?
CHAPTER FOUR
THE LIGHT WAS fading from the sky when Adam made his way over to Sylvie’s house later that day. In many ways, it had been a good day. The sun had shone all day, and he and Cal had ripped the last of the shingles off the roof. Tomorrow they’d prep for putting the steel on.
Cal was a man of few words, but despite his reticence, Adam liked him. He was smart, and he had a confidence that came from knowing who he was and where he belonged. Adam had never possessed that quality. Because though he knew where he came from, he was doing everything in his power to leave that past behind. He’d always dreamed of belonging, and Collina was as good a place as any. Maybe better. Wouldn’t it be something if someday the folks of Collina accepted him as one of their own.
He knocked, waited a beat in case Sylvie was home, then shouldered his way through the unlocked door, his arms full of groceries.
He paused to listen to the quiet house. Sylvie was still working, he supposed. Hopefully he could shower, cook supper and leave before she returned home. Not that he didn’t like seeing her, but she was an unnecessary complication. Life would be a lot easier if Cal or Dusty lived next door, not their sister.
As for teaching her how to cook? Man, he still didn’t know how she’d roped him into that one. He planned on keeping his word, but he wasn’t going to go out of his way to do so. No sense looking for trouble.
It wasn’t hard to see how protective her brothers and father felt toward her, and he didn’t want them getting crazy ideas about him and Sylvie. He came with a lot of baggage, and once people realized who they were dealing with, his dream of fitting in and being a regular joe could be lost forever.
He’d done time for assault, and if his record ever surfaced, he’d hope to have the opportunity to explain how and why the fight had happened. But he’d never confess that his immediate and brutal reaction to his mother’s abusive boyfriend had confirmed what he’d always feared—he harbored the potential for violence.
His dad, Paulie Hunter, had been an enforcer for the dreaded biker gang Sons of Lethe. For the first ten years of Adam’s life, brutality, in one form or another, toward him, toward other people, toward the damned pet rabbit he’d tried to hide from his father, had been a daily occurrence.
As a child, he’d been dragged from his bed several times each year to flee with his mother and father, leaving everything he owned behind. He’d grown up looking over his shoulder, and it wasn’t always for the cops. The Raiders, the sworn enemy of the Sons of Lethe, had a price on Paulie’s head for years. They figured if they could get to his father through him, all the better.
What they hadn’t understood was Paulie wouldn’t have cared. He’d told his son straight-out if he was stupid enough to get caught by the Raiders, or any of his father’s other enemies, not to count on his old man for help. Paulie Hunter damned well wouldn’t have sacrificed his life for his son.
It had taken longer than it should have for Adam to admit his dad was a killer, probably a psychopath. Or sociopath. It didn’t matter what you called him, he’d been one sick dude who relished violence. Adam had not only feared his father, he’d also been ashamed of him. Still was, when you got right down to it. And yet, what secretly shamed him was that, in a weird way, he loved his dad. Which caused him to wonder what that made him? How was it possible to love a monster? And Adam had been running away from the thought that he could be like this monster, his father, until the day he’d almost killed a man.
A few months ago, before coming to Collina to see his newly inherited house, he’d made the mistake of visiting his mother. He’d had the crazy notion that with the money he’d made from the sale of his grandmother’s house in the States he could get his mom help to kick her drug habit. Never mind that she’d switched to using prescription drugs—a junkie was a junkie.
Instead of helping his mother he’d ended up almost killing her current boyfriend. Bruised almost beyond recognition, his mother couldn’t even pull herself out of her drug haze long enough to report her condition to the police, but then again most of his family would die before asking the cops for help.
Horrified at the violence he’d unleashed on her boyfriend, Adam had turned himself in to the police and found the help he sought in the form of Jake McCoy, an ex-con who ran a center against violence.
The cops got a kick out of Adam turning himself in for a crime that hadn’t been reported, but he’d needed help, and he didn’t know where else to go. It had worked out okay in the end. His mother’s boyfriend wound up doing time for assaulting Adam’s mother. Adam had served a few months for assault, and then spent the last few months of his sentence doing community service, working with juvenile boys who came from similar backgrounds as him. He met Jake at the drop-in center for street kids, and that was when he began to see his way out of the shit pile of his life.
Adam dumped his groceries on the kitchen table and continued on to the bathroom. Now here he was, months later, ready to get on with his life. And he’d do damned near anything to fit into Collina.
Like Cal said, he’d never get back the money he was investing in the house. Which meant if things didn’t work out in Collina, he wouldn’t have the money to start over somewhere else. Sure, he could get a job and a mortgage in another town, but his heart had already picked this spot to make his home, probably because he associated it with his gram. He doubted he had the courage to start again somewhere else if things didn’t work out.
He shouldn’t have caved this morning and promised Sylvie he’d teach her how to cook. But it had struck him, despite all the talk about her talent and success, that her family hadn’t taken into account Sylvie or what she wanted. Maybe she’d change her mind and go back to Toronto like Cal said she would. If she did, it sounded like it would be better for all of them—except, maybe, Sylvie. The thought made him feel lousy, but then he’d always been a sucker for the underdog.
He grabbed a quick shower and returned to the kitchen. Over the past year, cooking had become his secret passion. Lots of men cooked these days, but every time he indulged, he heard his father sneering over his shoulder. Old Paulie would not have approved of his son cooking anything more than a hamburger on a grill.
He laid out three chicken breasts, sprinkled olive oil and rosemary over them and slid them in the oven along with a scrubbed potato. Halfway through mixing the greens for a salad, Dusty burst through the door. He grabbed a chair, turned it backward and straddled it.
The Carson boys might be interested in becoming friends with Adam, but apparently they also planned to keep close watch on him. He didn’t know if they were just curious or watching over their little sister.
“Smells good. Got any extra? I haven’t eaten yet.”
“There’re more potatoes in that paper bag.” Adam nodded at the counter. “Scrub one and toss it in the oven.”
“So, you cook, huh?” Dusty washed two potatoes and rolled them into the oven.
“Yeah. You?”
“Some.”
Adam slid the salad into the refrigerator and leaned against the counter. “Hey, I don’t know if you can help me out with this, but I’ve got a bike in the back of my truck. I need a place to park it, a shed or old barn, doesn’t matter, just somewhere to get it out of the weather. You know of anyone who’s not using their garage or shed?” He hated asking for help, but he didn’t have a choice.
“I’ve got a shed at my hunting camp where I keep my four-wheeler when I’m hunting. It’s not far from here. Fifteen minutes.” Dusty pulled himself out of his slouch. “What kind of bike have you got?”
“Harley.” He pushed the word out. He didn’t want to tell anyone about his dad’s bike, but he needed to find a place to stash it. He should have asked Cal, not Dusty. Cal might have kept it to himself.
“Cool.”
“I’d like to unload it somewhere so I can use my truck to pick up building supplies. Do you think we could shoot up there now?” Best to do it with as few people around as possible. He didn’t welcome questions about the bike.
“What about supper?”
“No problem. I’ll put the oven timer on, and the food will be ready when we get back.”
“That thing has a timer?”
