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“Go to your room.” Jack wasn’t sure where the order came from, or even why he was involving himself in a situation that was definitely none of his business. But he had, and though he’d come to the kid’s defense, he knew the boy was in the wrong and needed a good reprimanding.
The boy swelled up as if he wanted to argue Jack’s right to tell him what to do, but Alayna quickly intervened. “Go on upstairs, Billy, and put your school things away. And take Molly with you. I’ll be up in a minute.”
Though Jack could tell the boy didn’t want to obey the order, to his credit, he followed Alayna’s instructions. “Come on, Molly,” he muttered, stooping to scrape his book bag from the ground. “Something stinks out here,” he added, shooting a dark look Jack’s way.
Molly sidestepped her way past Jack, her eyes wide and watchful as she stared up at him. When she’d made it safely past him, she tucked her teddy bear tighter against her chest and ran to catch up with Billy. On the porch, she bent and scooped up the cat, then, with a last nervous glance at Jack, she slipped inside the door.
Alayna watched her charges disappear into the house. “I’m sorry,” she said, then turned to look at Jack. She sighed when she saw his disapproving scowl. “I’m afraid my children didn’t make a very good first impression, did they?”
One thick eyebrow shot up in surprise. “Those two are your kids?”
“Technically, no. They are my foster children.”
His scowl returned.
Alayna wrinkled her nose as she continued to peer up at him. “I guess you don’t care for children any more than you care for cats, huh?”
“Not particularly. And that boy there,” he said with a jerk of his chin toward the house, “needs to have the seat of his pants warmed. He’s got a mouth on him.”
Alayna nodded her agreement, though already dreading the confrontation. “Yes. I’ll talk to Billy.”
Jack grunted, indicating his doubt on the effectiveness of having a talk with a kid like Billy.
“You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” Alayna asked uncertainly. “You’ll stay and do the remodeling?”
Jack glanced toward his truck, the temptation to climb back in it and drive away so strong he had to brace his knees to keep from giving in to it. “I gave my word,” he said, setting his jaw. “I’ll see the job done.”
Jack awakened early, as was his habit, to find the sky beyond his window washed with the pinks and lavenders signifying dawn’s arrival. The bed he slept on was an old one, but comfortable, and a definite improvement over the bedroll he’d been sleeping on for the last couple of months, spread out over the bed of his truck. He rolled to his side, tucking an arm beneath his head, and stared out the window, praying that the events of the day before had never happened, that he’d wake up any minute and realize it was all a bad dream.
But he wasn’t asleep, and this was no bad dream that he’d wake from. The view of the Pond House through the cabin’s window was proof enough of that.
The Pond House. A fitting—if simplistic—name for the house, since the structure had been built beside a pond. Yet, the name was a poetic one, too, reflective of the setting and the natural materials that had been used in its construction. White limestone, rough cedar, combined with a lot of glass to take advantage of the views. It was a beautiful place, well constructed, though still in need of repair. There was a peacefulness about the place and its setting that seemed to tug at him.
Peaceful. That word again. He frowned, thinking how the day before he’d thought the same thing about the town of Driftwood when he’d been staring at its main street through the café’s window. Now here he was planted right smack-dab in the middle of it all—the town, the house, the pastoral setting—and he sure as hell didn’t feel very peaceful. Not when he considered the kids who inhabited the house...or the woman who cared for them.
He glanced at the bedside table and at the bottle of whiskey sitting on top of it. His friend. His companion. His catharsis for a pain that just wouldn’t go away.
He frowned and reached for the bottle, curling his fingers around its neck. Amber liquid sloshed against its side as he leaned over and shoved the bottle underneath the bed and out of his sight. The whiskey had failed to work its magical charm for him this time. His dreams during the night, though different from his past ones, were no less disturbing. They had been filled with an angel-faced woman with eyes so deep a blue a man could drown in them, and a gentle touch that made his skin heat and his heart yearn for things that could never be.
With a groan, he rolled to his side again, and stared out the window. As if his thoughts had drawn her, the back door of the Pond House opened and the woman who had filled his dreams stepped out onto the flagstone patio.
Alayna.
She wore a long, cotton robe, the same shade of blue as her eyes. It billowed around her legs in the early-morning breeze like a cloud in a summer sky. Barefoot and with her blond hair still mussed with sleep, she looked young and innocent...and good enough to eat. While he watched, she hugged her arms up under her breasts, tipped her face up to the sky and drew in a deep, cleansing breath. A soft, sensual smile curved her lips as she filled her lungs with the fresh, early-morning air. Even from his distance, Jack could see the rise of her breasts over her folded arms, and his groin tightened in response.
Damn, but she was pretty, and as sexy as any woman he’d ever seen. He shifted, easing the unexpected ache that jumped to life between his legs. Unable to look away from her, he continued to watch as she walked around the patio, pausing to fluff a floral pillow on a chair, then stooping to pull a weed from a terra-cotta pot filled with pink geraniums and trailing ivy. With her movements, the robe parted, revealing a brief peek at tanned legs, and when she stooped, the top gaped, baring an even more enticing view of the valley between her breasts.
Eve couldn’t have waved that apple under Adam’s nose with a greater effect.
Jack felt the desire mounting and rolled to his back and away from the tempting sight, his eyes wide, his breath coming fast and hard. He fisted his hands in the tangle of bed linens, forced his gaze to remain on the ceiling and made himself draw in three deep breaths.
Kids, he reminded himself. The woman had kids. And Jack Cordell wanted no part of them. The woman or her brood.
Alayna stuck her head out the kitchen door and offered Jack a sunny smile. “Good morning! You’re up early.”
Seeing that she still wore the same blue robe he’d seen her in earlier, Jack frowned and glanced away, setting his toolbox on the flagstone patio. “Didn’t see any sense in wasting time getting started.”
“Have you had breakfast?” She laughed before he could answer, flapping a dismissing hand at him. “Of course you haven’t,” she said, shaking her head at the foolishness of her question. “You wouldn’t have had a chance to stock the cabin with food, yet.” She waved her hand again, this time gesturing for him to come inside. “I was just whipping up a batch of pancakes. There’s plenty for two.”
Without waiting for an answer, she slipped back into the kitchen, letting the door close softly behind her.
Jack stared through the mesh screen at the shadowed form moving beyond it, his empty stomach warring with good sense, his mind worrying with the fear of facing those kids again. In the end, his stomach won out.
His feet heavy with dread, he opened the door and stepped inside. The smell of coffee greeted him first, followed quickly by the scent of bacon frying. Then his gaze rested on Alayna, standing before the stove, looking much the same as she had earlier that morning when he’d seen her on the patio—her feet still bare, her hair still tousled from sleep.
He glanced around uneasily. “Where are the kids?”
“Oh, they’ve already left for school.” She glanced over her shoulder, but missed the relaxing of his shoulders, though she must have seen the question in his eyes. “My cousin’s son drove them,” she explained, then turned back to the griddle with a sigh. “Yesterday wasn’t the first time we’ve had a problem on the bus...and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Molly says that Mr. Evert, the bus driver, picks on Billy.”
Jack grunted his doubt and won a slight frown from Alayna.
“I know that what Billy did was wrong,” she said as she turned back to the stove. “But he’s just a little boy and he’s having a difficult time adjusting to all the changes in his life. Mr. Evert’s an adult. Surely he could be a little more understanding, a little more compassionate.”
“The boy needs to learn to control his mouth and show respect for his elders.”
Alayna sighed again, and poured batter on the griddle. “Yes. You’re right, of course. Still...” She gave her head a shake, then turned slightly, offering Jack a grateful smile. “I appreciated your help yesterday. Having a male influence around will be a help to Billy, I’m sure.”
Jack intended to set her straight real quick about his willingness to get involved in the kids’ lives, but her movement caused her robe to gape a bit, revealing the swell of a breast, the shadowed cleavage that lay between. The sight burned away all rational thought. He ripped off his cap and gripped it by its bill, needing to fill his hands with something other than tempting flesh. “Is there something I can do to help?” he asked, forcing his gaze away from her and to the clock on the wall.
“You can set the table, if you like. The plates are in the cupboard—” she gave her head a nod in that direction “—and the silver is in the first drawer to the left.”
Jack tossed his cap to the counter, crossed to the sink and began to wash his hands.
“You know,” she said thoughtfully as she turned thick strips of bacon in an iron skillet, “it’s really foolish for you to even consider stocking up on a lot of groceries. Cooking for one is difficult, I know, and awfully lonely.” She tossed a sympathetic smile in Jack’s direction. “Why don’t you just plan to eat your meals here with us?”
Jack’s fingers slipped on the bar of soap and it shot out of his hands, smacking against the side of the chipped porcelain sink with a loud thunk. He swallowed hard, trying to think up an excuse to decline. “I wouldn’t want to put you to the trouble,” he mumbled and stuck his hands beneath the water, wishing he could stick his head beneath the cool spray, as well.
“Oh, no bother.” She graced him with yet another smile.
Without answering, Jack tore off a strip of paper towels and dried his hands, already regretting accepting her invitation for breakfast and wondering how he was going to wiggle his way out of sharing meals with her and her brood. He reached for the plates, then opened the drawer she’d indicated and stacked the necessary utensils on top. Crossing to the table, he arranged place settings on opposite sides of the table.
“There’s coffee already made, or, if you’d prefer, there’s orange juice in the refrigerator.”
Hoping the caffeine would clear his head a little and settle his nerves, Jack mumbled, “Coffee’s fine,” and headed for the coffeemaker on the counter. By the time he’d poured himself a cup, Alayna was setting a platter of bacon and stacks of golden pancakes in the center of the table. She took a seat, gesturing for him to join her.
“Have you decided where you’d like to start work today?” she asked as she served first his plate, then hers.
Jack pulled a napkin across his lap, but kept his gaze fixed on his plate. He wasn’t sure he trusted that robe of hers to stay in place, not with the way she was flapping those arms of hers around, and he didn’t think he could handle another glimpse of those creamy breasts. He had to get out of this place, he told himself, and the sooner the better. “You never said what all you wanted done.”
Alayna poured syrup over her pancakes. “Frank took care of the major repairs before he left, but there are still quite a few things that need attention. There are two baths upstairs. The shower leaks like a sieve in one of them, though both could stand some remodeling. And there are a few changes I’d like made in the bedrooms.” She waved her fork vaguely. “Enlarging closets. Adding shelving. Painting. That kind of thing.” She parted her lips and slipped a forkful of pancakes between them. She smiled at Jack as she chewed. “But I think what I’d like to do first is tackle the wall in the breakfast nook. You really aroused my curiosity with your comments about the wood hidden beneath the wallpaper.”
The emphasis she placed on the word “aroused” had Jack snapping his gaze to hers. He immediately regretted the action. Her face was flushed with excitement, her blue eyes bright with expectancy. The craziest notion bubbled up out of nowhere...he wanted to lean across the table and cover her mouth with his, and show her what it meant to be really aroused.
Slowly he dragged his napkin from his lap and wiped it across his mouth, then across the perspiration beading his forehead before wadding it in a ball against his thigh. “Then that’s where I’ll start,” he said, picking up his fork.
“What will we need to do?”
Jack jerked his head up again. “We?” he repeated, his face going slack. “You’re planning on helping me?”
She laid down her fork, her shoulders drooping right along with her expression. “Well, yes,” she said uncertainly. “But I won’t get in your way,” she added quickly, “if that’s what you’re worried about. I just thought the work would go that much faster if I helped.”
Jack set aside his own fork, his appetite suddenly gone. The idea of working alongside Alayna and the forced intimacy involved had created another, more dangerous hunger.
Paper hung in tattered strips, already revealing sections of tongue-and-groove boards by the time Alayna returned to the breakfast room. Thankfully she had exchanged her robe for a pair of baggy cotton slacks and a man’s tailored white shirt. Even though she was now covered from neck to toe, somehow she still managed to look sexy, a fact that irritated Jack.
Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her roll up her sleeves and knew he was going to have to think of some way to dissuade her from helping him. He wasn’t sure his system could take much more temptation.
“Okay, so what do you want me to do?” she asked, her voice full of enthusiasm.
Keeping his eyes focused on his work, Jack tipped his head toward the soggy wallpaper he’d already ripped from the wall and dropped to the floor. “You can pick up the scrap paper and put it in the garbage sack I’ve set out.”
“That’s all?”
Jack bit back a smile of satisfaction at the disappointment he heard in her voice. Realizing that this might be just the way to get rid of her, he kept his gaze on the wall in front of him. “Well, I suppose you could start on the plumbing in the bath upstairs, if you’d rather do something that requires more skill.”
“But I don’t know anything about plumbing.”
Jack dropped his hand to his side, and slowly turned to look at her, his posture that of a man at the end of his patience. “Well, then why don’t you pick up the paper, like I suggested?”
To his surprise—and disappointment—Alayna dropped to her knees and began to scrape the soiled and gum-slickened paper into a pile.
“What do we do after all the paper is off?”
Jack stared down at her, watching in growing amazement as she crawled around on the drop cloth he’d spread on the floor, picking up the soggy paper and stuffing it into the garbage bag. She didn’t flinch, didn’t curl her nose, didn’t argue. Hell, she didn’t even complain! She just did as he’d instructed. A woman of obvious breeding, and a doctor, no less, willing to lower herself to performing menial labor? The woman was an oddity. A paradox. A total opposite to his ex-wife who had thought herself too good to get her hands dirty. He gave his head a shake, clearing it of the old memories, and went back to tearing off paper.
“Once the paper’s off,” he said, firming his voice as he refocused on her question, “we’ll have to clean the wall, removing all the old paste and any residue the paper left. Then we’ll give it a good rubbing with a mixture of linseed oil and a little turpentine. If you’re satisfied with the look, then we’ll brush on a clear sealer. If not, we might want to first add a stain, then the sealer.”
At his use of the word “we,” Alayna sat up and rocked back on her heels, wiping her palms down her thighs. “You’ll let me help you do all those things?”
Jack angled his head to look at her and saw the almost childlike hopefulness in her eyes. Quickly he looked away, refusing to be moved by it. “We’ll see.”
Alayna dropped back down to her knees and started picking up the paper faster. “Neat. I love to paint.” At Jack’s doubtful grunt, she scooped up a pile of paper and stuffed it into the bag. “I really do,” she insisted. “When I opened my first office in Raleigh, I was operating on a shoestring. It was a dump. Really depressing. I completely redecorated it and I did all the painting myself. I even did a mural of a jungle with all these wild animals peeking out from behind the trees and plants.”
Jack turned to look at her. A mural of a jungle? What was she, a veterinarian? “What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”
“A child psychologist.”
Jack’s stomach plunged to his feet. He quickly turned away and picked up the brush and put it in motion.
Intent on gathering up the paper, Alayna went on with her explanation, unaware of his reaction to her choice in careers. “I specialized in cases of abuse and neglect. My clients were usually sent to me by the courts.” Having picked up all the paper he’d discarded, she rocked back on her heels and watched while he brushed water over another section of the wall. “My husband thought I was crazy.” She chuckled, remembering. “He hated painting with a passion.”
She slowly sobered as other memories of her ex-husband slipped into her mind, and she dropped her gaze to her hand, unconsciously rubbing at the spot where she’d once worn his ring. “In fact, he hated my office, my career, my clients. He couldn’t stand imperfection in any form.” A shiver chased down her spine at the unwanted reminder, and she straightened, lifting her gaze to Jack...and found him staring at her.
“You’re married?”
At the stunned look on his face, she quickly shook her head. “No. Divorced.” When he continued to stare at her, she returned the question. “Are you married?”
“No.” He turned back to the wall, and peeled a strip of paper from it, letting it fall to the drop cloth, then added, “Divorced.”
She stared at his back, wondering if the sadness, the emptiness she’d seen in his eyes was a result of the divorce. “Were you married long?”
“Long enough.” Jack ripped another strip of paper from the wall and dropped it to the floor and, along with it, it seemed, the topic of discussion. “There’s a scraper in my toolbox. Get it for me.”
Alayna saw the tenseness in his shoulders, heard it in his clipped order. Avoidance. She knew the symptoms well. And knew, too, how unhealthy the tactic was.
She crossed to his toolbox, found the scraper he’d requested, then returned, holding it out to him as she studied his profile. “Divorce can be painful,” she offered quietly, hoping to draw him back into the conversation. But he didn’t bite. The only sign that he’d heard her was an increased tenseness in his jaw. His gaze remained fixed on the wall.
“Was yours a painful divorce?” she asked, angling her head to better see his face, his expression.
Jack flung the paper he’d just torn from the wall to the floor and bent to pick up the paintbrush again. His lips remained stubbornly pressed together as he swiped water over a new section of faded wallpaper with angry strokes.
His refusal to talk about his divorce told Alayna what he refused to admit. His divorce had been painful. From experience, she knew that talking helped. “Jack?” she prodded gently. “Was it painful?”
He tossed his paintbrush back into the can, then looked at her over his shoulder. “Don’t try crawling around in my head, Doc. You might not like what you find.”
Alayna refused to let him intimidate her. “Sounds as if you’ve had experience with a psychologist. Judging by your tone, it wasn’t a very happy one. Is that true?”
“Bingo,” he muttered bitterly and picked up his paintbrush again. “Paid a damn fortune to spill my guts to some tight-assed, sanctimonious stranger who sat in a chair and mumbled ‘hmm’ all the time. When that didn’t work, I paid another wad of money in attorney fees.” Slowly he turned to look at Alayna, his mouth thinned in a grim, thin line. “Now there’s somebody you might enjoy psychoanalyzing, Doc. My ex’s divorce lawyer. Smiled the whole time he was ripping out my heart and draining the blood right out of me. I’ll bet you’d get a kick out of digging around in his gray matter.”
Unaffected by his bitter tone, Alayna listened, enthralled. Jack was talking. This was good.
“Cats, children, divorce lawyers.” She ticked off each on her fingers, as if making a list, then glanced up at him, teasing him with a smile. “Is there anything or anyone else I should add to your list of dislikes?”
His scowled deepened. “Yeah. Angel-faced psychologists. They really get under my skin.” He picked up the scraper and tossed it to her. She caught it deftly in one hand. “Now, are you going to yap your jaws all day, or are you going to work?”
“Oddly enough,” she replied, unoffended, “I can talk and work at the same time. Can you?”
“Yeah,” he replied irritably, “if the topic’s interesting.” He stooped to pick up his paintbrush again, then turned his back to her. “Unfortunately, this particular one bores me stiff.”
Three
“Maudie tells me that you’ve hired a new remodeler.”
Alayna handed Mandy a glass of iced tea, then shuddered visibly as she sank onto a patio chair opposite her cousin. “Yes, and I can just imagine what all Maudie had to say on that subject.”
“Oh, let’s see,” Mandy replied, tapping a finger against her chin, as if trying to recall the details of the conversation. “Something about Frank scamming you out of thousands of dollars, and what a softhearted little fool you are. Then I believe she mentioned something about this man you hired to replace Frank being a good-looking hunk, and that she is sure you hired him just to satisfy this insatiable need of yours for wild sex and—”
Alayna snorted. “Oh, yeah,” she said sarcastically, “that was it, all right.”
