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“I’ll do them while you’re at the store. You’re not hiding in the office like you did last night. These chores were your idea. You need to contribute to the planning.”
Her cheeks burned at being called out in front of Gavin, but again, Pops spoke the truth. Refusing to join them would be both ungracious and cowardly. She retrieved her coffee, a carafe of orange juice and three glasses, stalling, she admitted, before returning to the table.
She had no appetite. How could she when awareness of Gavin made her jittery? Russell had never made her uncomfortable. He’d been dynamic and exciting, but he’d never made her feel crowded, breathless or restless.
She forced down a pancake without tasting a bite. She’d almost finished when Pops pulled his checkbook from his back pocket. She smiled at his old-fashioned gesture. Almost everyone she knew used debit or credit cards these days. No one wrote paper checks anymore—except Pops.
“Pops, I can charge our purchase to the inn’s card.”
“Don’t trust that electronic junk. Too many accounts get hacked.” He made the check out to the store and signed it, leaving the amount spaces blank, then tore it out of the book. She put down her fork to take it, but he passed the check to Gavin.
Tension snarled in Sabrina’s stomach, turning her fluffy pancake into a lead brick. How could Pops be so trusting to a virtual stranger? He’d literally handed Gavin a blank check.
It was up to her to make sure Pops’s trust was not abused. She wasn’t letting Gavin Jarrod out of her sight until this job was done and he crawled back under the rock from which he’d come.
Sabrina surreptitiously checked her watch, willing time to pass quickly.
“Relax and drink your coffee. The cashier said our order would be ready in an hour,” Gavin said from across the table.
She pleated her paper napkin. “I’ve never known them to take so long to pull an order.”
“They only have one guy licensed to drive a forklift working today. Are you sure you don’t want something to eat? You barely touched your breakfast.”
“I’m fine.” With her nerves already stretched to the breaking point, the last thing she needed was more caffeine. As for eating … no way. Her stomach churned like the cement mixer rattling the diner’s windows as it thundered down the street.
Gavin’s calmness only agitated her more. But then he was getting his way. “Dragging me to a restaurant has been your goal all along. Congratulations. You’ve succeeded.”
“And the enthralled expression on your face will make every woman on the sidewalk want my phone number.”
His dry sarcasm made her lips twitch. She wasn’t going to like him. No way. Not after the past hour.
In a store as large as the one they’d just left, how could there have been such a shortage of space that she and her unwanted shopping partner had repeatedly made contact? But they had. Their hands had bumped over banisters and their hips by the hedge trimmers. Every time she’d turned around he’d been in her personal space, crowding her and not giving an inch.
Her pulse hadn’t been in the normal range since she’d climbed into his cramped truck cab, and she’d gasped so many times while shopping that anyone who didn’t know her would think she had a chronic lung condition.
How could she get rid of him and still protect Pops? She traced the lip of her mug, then glanced at Gavin. His attention seemed riveted to the movement of her finger, and then abruptly shifted to her face. The impact of his dark gaze swept her into an out-of-control, lighter-than-air feeling that made no sense considering she was sitting in a diner in the middle of downtown Aspen. But she felt as if her parasail had suddenly been caught by a strong gust and she’d been lifted off her snowboard, off solid ground and carried up the mountain.
She snatched her hands from the table and gripped the booth’s bench waiting for her breathlessness to ease. She scrambled to find a rational thought. “Did you have to order top-of-the-line everything?”
“The more expensive products have better warranties. If you have problems the replacements are free.”
That much was true. But still … the total of the supply bill had been about twenty percent higher than she’d anticipated. Luckily, she’d balanced the checkbook last night and knew the account had enough to cover the amount. The inn wasn’t hurting financially yet despite some zero occupancy days, but it was the principle of Gavin being so free with someone else’s money that bothered her.
She sipped her unwanted coffee, grudgingly admitting the brew he’d made this morning was better than the trendy diner’s—maybe even better than hers, and she prided herself on making great coffee for the inn’s guests.
So the man made decent coffee. Big deal. That wasn’t a reason to keep him around.
“What do you want from my grandfather?”
“I told you. The mine and the acreage surrounding it.” He sounded sincere, but the way his eyes turned guarded and he tensed ever so slightly contradicted his words.
With almost fifty years between him and Pops, the men’s sudden friendship seemed unnatural and calculated. Gavin had to be up to something. That blank check he’d managed to get from Pops spoke volumes. There had to be more. She just didn’t know what yet, and the only way to figure out his agenda was to get to know him better. Not a project she relished.
What made Gavin Jarrod tick? “Where do you live when you’re not here?”
“I divide most of my time between Vegas and Atlanta.”
“Why two such different places?”
“Because Vegas is where my brother’s hotel is located and Atlanta is close enough to the Appalachian Mountains for hiking and river rafting and has a major airport hub.”
“You’re an outdoorsman?” The breadth of his shoulders implied as much.
“Yes.”
“A hunter?”
“I shoot nature with a camera these days, although I have nothing against putting food on the table through hunting.”
Good answer. She’d have to find something else to dislike about him—other than that he was rich, he’d forced his company on her and she didn’t trust him. As if that weren’t enough.
“What makes you think you’re qualified to be our handyman? Aren’t construction engineers pencil pushers?”
“I’m a hands-on manager. I work with my team, and I worked part-time construction jobs during college.”
He worked construction? That might explain the faded scars on the backs of his hands. So much for proving him unqualified for the job. “Didn’t your father pay your bills?”
“He paid tuition, and for that I had to come back and work at The Ridge every summer. But during the academic year I earned my own wages rather than answer to him on how I spent my money.”
So maybe Gavin hadn’t lacked responsibilities the way so many of her parents’ wealthy students had. “Why engineering?”
“I like figuring out how things work and finding ways around obstacles that others consider impossible. What about you?”
She startled. “What about me?”
“Did you always want to manage the inn?”
She bit her tongue on the automatic no. In high school all she’d cared about was getting as far away from her parents and their stilted, judgmental university community as she could. She’d had no grand goals beyond escaping. Initially, she’d been drawn to Russell because he’d been everything academics were not—big, brawny, into action more than higher learning. He also wanted out of their small college town, and he’d had a plan to achieve his getaway.
She’d fallen head over heels in love with him and ended up pregnant. Her parents’ ultimatum—terminate the pregnancy or get out of their house—had left her with no choice. She and Russell had eloped on her eighteenth birthday—just days after her high school graduation. She’d planned to be a good military wife and raise Russell’s babies. But that hadn’t happened.
She pressed a hand to the empty ache in her belly, then blinked to chase away the past. “Does it matter? I’m where I’m needed right now, and I’ll never let my grandfather down. Nor will I let anyone take advantage of him.”
“What would you do if your grandfather sold the business?”
Alarm raced over her. She’d come to love making a warm, welcoming home away from home for their visitors, the way her grandmother had always done for her. She couldn’t imagine doing anything else now, nor did she have the qualifications for anything else. “He wouldn’t do that. He knows I love Snowberry Inn.”
Pops knew the inn was her refuge, the one place she’d always felt wanted and loved regardless of her choices. But she’d seen that blasted pamphlet and she had her doubts. However, she wasn’t giving Gavin Jarrod that information.
His brown eyes searched her face. “What if you marry someone who lives elsewhere?”
“I won’t.”
“You sound certain.”
“I am.” She’d done that before, and during her four-year marriage she hadn’t seen Snowberry Inn or her grandparents. Russell had been stationed in North Carolina, too far from Aspen to drive the distance in their old car, and she’d been too proud to tell her grandparents she couldn’t afford the airfare for a visit. During that time her grandmother had died, and Sabrina hadn’t been able to say good-bye. She’d had to borrow money from Russell’s friends to come to the funeral because her own parents wouldn’t loan it to her.
Time to change the subject. “Why did you leave Aspen?”
His face hardened. “My father was determined to turn us into clones of himself.”
“And that was a bad thing?”
“Yes. He was excessively controlling. But I escaped. We all did. Until now.” Anger flattened his lips into a thin line.
Demanding parents and a desire to escape were two things they had in common. Her perfectionist parents had never forgiven her for failing to meet their standards. They’d considered her an embarrassment and she hadn’t spoken to them in years.
But this wasn’t about her. “What about your mother?”
He focused on the mug cradled in his big hands. “She died from cancer when I was four. I barely remember her.”
Her mother may not have been the milk-and-cookies type, but she’d always been there at least physically … until Sabrina had needed her the most. “I’m sorry.”
“It happens. If we finish the repairs on time you’ll have a few days to relax before your guests arrive. What will you do with the time?”
Relax? What was that? She’d been so busy doing her job and picking up Pops’s slack that she couldn’t remember the last day off she’d had. She shrugged. “I don’t know. I used to ride horses on the trails, but—”
She bit off the thought. She didn’t want to imply the inn wasn’t financially secure to a shark like Gavin. Besides, her hobbies were none of his business.
“I didn’t see any horses.”
Busted. “Pops sold them after my grandmother died because they were too much work for him to manage alone and they reminded him of her.”
“We have horses at The Ridge.”
They had everything at the resort. “Goody for you.”
“That was an invitation, not a boast. If you want to ride I’ll take you.”
Tempting—except for the part about having to endure his company. The man irritated her like a blister forming on her heel halfway through a long hike. She just knew he wasn’t going to get better as time passed. “Thanks, but no.”
She had to get out of there and away from him even if all she did was freeze her fanny off with an hour of window shopping. The waitress provided an opportunity when she strolled by with the coffeepot. Sabrina caught her attention with a wave. “Excuse me, could I get the check, please?”
“Sure.” The woman peeled off the ticket and laid it on the table.
Sabrina reached for the bill, but Gavin moved a split-second faster. Her hand landed on the back of his. The contact uncorked something in the pit of her stomach, releasing a flood of fizzy heat that gushed through her like froth from an ineptly opened bottle of champagne.
She snatched back her hand, severing the connection, but her palm continued tingling, and her body bubbled with excitement she never expected or wanted to experience again. “Hey, I was going to pay that.”
He shook his head. “I’ll get the coffee. It’s the least I can do considering you’re going to be feeding me three meals a day for the next three weeks.”
Horrified, she stared into his dark eyes in dismay. “Says who?”
“Henry. He actually offered me room and board, but I already have a place to stay.”
Thank God for small favors. “I’m sure the food will be more to your liking at Jarrod Ridge.”
“I’ve been eating gourmet food for months. It’s time for a change. I’m looking forward to your good home cooking.”
At that moment she didn’t like her grandfather very much. What had he gotten her into?
Five
Caldwell’s old bones had been right, Gavin concluded as a cold gust of wind cut through his turtleneck, chilling the sweat he’d worked up while unloading the building supplies from the truck bed.
He monitored Sabrina’s progress as she carefully picked her way down the brick sidewalk through the snow that had begun feathering down five minutes ago. The stubborn woman had insisted on helping him empty the truck despite the worsening weather. And while he admired her grit, as Henry called it, Gavin didn’t want her doing any heavy lifting or slipping and cutting herself on the pane of glass she carried toward the porch. If that made him a male chauvinist too bad.
After he stacked the last two gallons of paint inside the storage closet he grabbed his coat from the railing where he’d tossed it then let himself into the warmth of the cozy, good-smelling kitchen. The kitchen at Jarrod Manor had never had this welcoming atmosphere.
The glass pane lay on the table, still in its brown paper wrapper, but there was no sign of Sabrina. He caught the tap of her boots down the hall as he hung his coat on a peg by the back door, shed his gloves and mentally shuffled the chore list. Having weather change a timeline on a job was nothing unusual for him, but usually there were tens of thousands of dollars in penalties at stake. This time the delay was a reward rather than a punishment because it worked in his favor.
Sabrina returned. “Pops is napping.”
Her discarded knit cap had ruffled her curls, giving her a sultry, just-out-of-bed look that contrasted with her reserved expression. She’d shed her outerwear giving him another chance to appreciate her lean curves in a body-skimming sweater, this one a pale blue that accentuated her eyes. Her gaze met his and he experienced a now-familiar punch to the solar plexus.
“Go home, Gavin. We can’t work in the snow.”
She wasn’t getting rid of him that easily. If the only thing they had going for them was chemistry, then he intended to exploit it shamelessly to get what he wanted. “We can’t paint when it’s snowing. I’ll start with replacing the window.”
Her breath hitched. Wrapping her arms around her middle, she briefly glanced away. “That can wait.”
“It’s the quickest job on the list, and with the temperature dropping it makes sense to fix the broken glass rather than lose heat. Show me which room.”
She pinched her bottom lip between her teeth and shifted on her feet. “Pops can do it. Or you can tell me how and I will. It’s something I need to know anyway.”
“It’s easier to show you. Sabrina, I’m here to work. I can either get on with it, or I can spend the afternoon sitting in the kitchen watching you cook and waiting for the weather to clear enough for me to tackle another job.”
Wide-eyed horror morphed into resignation in her features. “This way.”
He’d never encountered anyone so determined not to like him, and he had to admit the novel experience wasn’t an enjoyable one. He picked up the glass, points and glazing compound and shadowed her down the hall instead of upstairs as he’d expected. He took the opportunity to enjoy the angry sway of her hips. She had a nice butt—slender, but with just enough meat on it for a man to grip.
She paused, puffed out a breath and then pushed open a door and motioned him to go ahead. He stepped through the doorway. A subtle, but unmistakably familiar scent filled his nose and stopped him in his tracks. Sabrina’s cinnamon, vanilla and flowers scent. This wasn’t a guest room.
“This is your room,” he stated.
“Yes.”
His attention shot to the bed—a bed they would share in the near future because, damn it, he would not fail. He couldn’t wait to see her hair spread across those pristine white pillows and feel her naked body against his beneath the old-fashioned quilt. He might even shove one of those prissy lace pillows under her shapely behind to improve the angle when he drove into her. The pressure in his groin increased and his pulse pounded in his temple.
