Husband Under Construction

Roxie’s brows dipped. “What?”

“There some unfinished business between us I’m not remembering?”

The pink turned scarlet. Huh. “Not really. Anyway,” she said with a pained little smile, “the kitchen is the worst. But the whole house—”

“Not really?”

If those cheeks got any redder, the gal was gonna spontaneously combust. “Figure of speech. Of course there’s nothing between us, unfinished or otherwise. Why—?”

“Because it’s kind of annoying being the target for somebody else.”

Dude. You had to go there.

Roxie’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

Noah crossed his arms, the list dangling from his fingers, his common sense clearly hightailing it for parts unknown. “God knows, there’s women with cause to give me dirty looks. If not want my head on a platter.” At her incredulous expression, he shrugged. “Misunderstandings happen, what can I say?” Then his voice softened. “And rumor has it you’ve got cause to be pissed. But not at me. So maybe I don’t appreciate being the stand-in, you know?”

After a moment, she stomped back to the dining room to dig deep into one of the boxes, muttering, “Now I remember why I left. The way everybody’s always up in everybody else’s business.”

“Yeah. I think that’s called caring,” Noah said, surprised at his own defensiveness. Even more surprised when Roxie’s gaze plowed into his, followed—eventually—by another tiny smile, and he felt as if his soul had been plugged into an electrical outlet. Damn.

“No, I think that’s called being nosy,” she said, and Noah chuckled over the zzzzzt.

“Around here? Same difference.”

The smile stretched maybe a millimeter or two before she dropped onto a high-backed dining chair with a prissy, pressed-wood pattern along the top. “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but…you’re right. And I apologize. For real this time. It’s not you, it’s…”

She rammed a hand through her curls, grimacing when she snagged the cobweb. “This hasn’t been one of my better days,” she sighed, trying to disengage the clumped web from her fingers. “Sorting through my aunt’s stuff and getting nowhere in my job search and thinking about…my ex—and trust me, it’s not his head I want on a platter—” A short, hard breath left her lungs. “I feel like somebody’s weed-whacked my brain. Not your fault you’re the weed-whacker.”

“I’d ask you to explain, but I’m thinking I don’t really want to know.”

“No. You don’t.” Once more on her feet, Roxie returned to the kitchen, leaning over the counter to scratch at something on the metallic, blue-and-green floral wallpaper over the backsplash. “I promise I’ll be good from now on.”

“That mean I have to be good, too?”

“Goes without saying,” Roxie said, after a pause that was a hair too long, before her gaze latched onto his Tootsie Roll pop. “Got another one of those?”

Lord above. Noah had gotten tangled up with some dingbats in his time, but this one took the cake. Not even the cute butt could make up for that. Even so, this could shape up—heh—to be a pretty decent job, so he supposed he’d best be about humoring the dingbat.

“Uh…yeah. Sure.” He dug a couple extras out of his pocket. “Cherry or grape?”

“Cherry,” Roxie said, holding out her hand, not speaking again until it was unwrapped and in her mouth, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment in apparent ecstasy. Then, opening her eyes, she grinned sheepishly around the pop. Mumbling something that might have been “Cheap thrill,” she slowly removed it, her tongue lingering on the candy’s underside, her gaze unfocused as she dreamily contemplated the glistening, ruby-red candy on the end of the stick, which she gently twirled back and forth between her fingers. “Can’t remember the last time I had one of these,” she sighed out, then looked at him again, her pupils gradually returning to normal. “Well. Ready to see the rest of the house?”

Holy crap.

Lust run amok Noah could handle. Electric jolts he could ignore, if he really put his mind to it. But the two of them together?

This went way beyond unfamiliar territory. This, boys and girls, was an alternate universe. One he had no idea if he’d ever get out of alive.

If he even got out at all.

Chapter Two

The longer Roxie trailed Noah through the house, batting away the pheromones like vines in a jungle, the easier it became to see why the man had to fight ‘em off with sticks. Not that he’d ever seemed to fight too hard. His reputation was well documented. But holy moly, the dude exuded sexual confidence by the truckload. As opposed to, say, herself, who did well to summon up enough to fill a Red Rider Wagon. On a good day.

Then she mentally smacked herself for giving in to the woe-is-me’s, because nobody knew better than she that the road to hell was paved in self-pity. And, um, yearnings. Reciprocated or otherwise. Especially for a man she’d likened to gardening equipment.

Anyway.

“Wow. You weren’t whistling Dixie about the condition,” Noah said, practically leering at the peeling wallpaper. The worn wood floor. The disintegrating window sills—ohmigod, the dude looked practically preorgasmic as he fished a penknife out of his back pocket and tested a weak spot in a sill in the living room. Years of neglect eventually took their toll.

In more ways than one, Roxie thought, savoring the last bit of her cherry-chocolate pop as she tossed the bare stick in a nearby trash can. “How bad is it?”

Noah flashed her a brief smile probably meant to be reassuring. “Fortunately, most of the it seems to be more cosmetic than structural.” Now frowning at the sill, he gouged a little deeper. “I mean, this is pretty much rotted out, but…no signs of termites. Not yet, at least.” A stiff breeze elbowed inside the leaking windows, nudging the ugly, heavy drapes. “Windows really need to replaced, though.”

“You can do that?”

“Yep. Anything except electrical and plumbing. That, we hire out.” He glanced around, frowning. “Sad, though. Charley letting the house get this bad.”

Out of the blue, a sledgehammer of emotions threatened to demolish the “everything’s okay” veneer she so carefully maintained. “He didn’t mean to. Basically, he’s fine, of course, but his arthritis gets to him more often than he’d like to admit. Then Mae got sick and he became her caregiver….” First one, then another, renegade tear slipped out, making her mad.

“He could’ve asked for help anytime,” Noah said quietly, discreetly looking elsewhere as he snapped shut the knife and slipped it back into his pocket. “My folks, especially—they’d've been more than happy to lend a hand. If they’d known.”

Swiping at her cheeks, Roxanne snorted. “Considering neither Charley nor Mae said anything to me, this is not a surprise.”

Noah’s gaze swung back to hers. “You didn’t know your aunt was sick?”

“Not for a long time, no. Although, maybe if I’d shown my face, or even called more often, I might have.”

“You think they would’ve told you if you had?”

Her mouth pulled tight. “Doubtful.”

“Then stop beating yourself up,” he said, and she thought, And you, stop being nice. A brief shadow darkened his eyes. “My folks don’t tell us squat, either. And all four of us are right here in town. In fact, a few years back my brothers and I figured out they were in the middle of a financial crisis they didn’t want to ‘burden’ us about. Had to read ‘em the riot act before they finally fessed up.” He half smiled. “Keeping the truth from the ‘kids’ is what adults do.”

A bit more of the veneer curled away, letting in a surprisingly refreshing breeze. “I guess.” She sighed out. “I mean, even when I came home for Thanksgiving a couple of years ago and could sense something was off, that Charley was being more solicitous toward Mae than usual—and that was going some—they both denied it. I finally browbeat him into telling me what was really going on—” she swallowed back another threat of tears “—but whenever I suggested taking a leave of absence, or even coming for the weekends to help out, he refused.” A humorless laugh pushed from her throat. “Very emphatically.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way…but Dad says Charley’s known for being a little, ah, on the stubborn side.”

“A little?” She chuckled. “Why do you think it took so long before he’d let me go through Mae’s things? Or even think about fixing up the house? Although, considering it had only been the two of them for so much of their marriage, I honestly think they simply didn’t want anything or anybody coming between them, even at the end. Especially at the end.”

After a moment’s unsettling scrutiny, Noah squatted in front of a worn spot on the flooring. “And that made you feel useless as hell, right?”

“Pretty much, yeah. But how—?”

“Like I said, I’ve been there.” He stood, his fingers crammed into his front pockets, watching her, like…like he got her. And how ridiculous was that? He didn’t even know her, for heaven’s sake. The logic of which didn’t even slow down the tremor zapping right through her. Well, hell.

“Maybe I should’ve been pushier, too,” Roxie said, thinking she’d take remorse over this tremor business any day. “By the time your mother called me, Mae was nearly gone. And even then, even though Charley obviously couldn’t handle things by himself that last week, I still felt in the way.” She backed out of Noah’s path as he moved into the dining room, rapping his knuckles once on Mae’s prized cherrywood dining table before crossing to the bay window, a DIY project that hadn’t exactly stood the test of time. “Like I was infringing on their privacy.”

“Must be scary, loving somebody that much,” he said to the window, and she had the eerie feeling hers wasn’t the only veneer peeling away that day.

“Yes, it is,” she said carefully, although her younger self probably wouldn’t have agreed with him, when she still clung to the delusion that bad things happened to other people. “Then again, maybe some people find it comforting. Knowing someone’s there for you, no matter what? A lot less scary than the alternative, I’d say.”

Noah craned his neck to look up at her, a frown pushing together his brows.

“Sorry,” she muttered, feeling her face heat. Again. “Not sure how things got so serious. Especially for your average estimate walk-through.”

Getting to his feet, Noah’s crooked grin banished the heaviness in the room like the sun burning off a fog, sending Roxie’s heart careening into her rib cage. “Oh, I think average went out the window right around the time you compared me to a weed-whacker. Besides…this is a small town. And your aunt and uncle were friends with my folks for years. So no way is this going to be your standard contractor/client relationship.” He paused, looking as if he was trying to decide what to say next. “Mom and Dad’ve mentioned more than once how concerned they are about Charley.”

Roxie smirked. “That he’s turned into a hermit since Mae’s death, you mean?”

“‘Closed off’ was the term I believe Mom used.”

“Whatever. Again, I wasn’t around to see what was happening. Not that I could have been.” She sighed. “Or he would have let me. He tolerated my presence for a week after the funeral, before basically telling me my ‘hovering’ was about to push him over the edge.”

“And now you’re back.”

“A turn of events neither one of us is particularly thrilled about.”

“You think your uncle doesn’t want you here?”

Once more rattled by that dark, penetrating gaze, Roxie sidled over to a freestanding hutch, picking up, then turning over, one of her aunt’s many demitasse cups.

“I think…he wants to wallow,” she said, shakily replacing the cup on its saucer. “To curl up with the past and never come out. I’m not exactly down with that idea. Frankly, I think the only reason he finally agreed to let me start sorting through Mae’s things was to get me off his case.”

“And you’re not happy because…?”

Roxie could practically hear the heavy doors groaning shut inside her head. Talking about her uncle was one thing. But herself? No. Not in any detail, at least. Especially with a stranger. Which, let’s face it, Noah was.

“Several reasons. All of them personal.”

His eyes dimmed in response, as though the door-shutting had cut off the light between them. What little of it there’d been, that is.

“So is it working?” he asked after a moment, his voice cool. “You trying to get your uncle out of his funk?”

“I have no idea. Opening up to others isn’t exactly his strong suit.”

A far-too-knowing smile flickered around Noah’s mouth before he glanced down at the notes, then back at her. “To be honest…this is shaping up to be kinda pricey, even though I can guarantee Dad’ll cut Charley a pretty sweet deal. And I haven’t even seen the upstairs yet. I mean, yeah, we could paint and patch—and we’ll do that, if that’s what you want—but I’m not sure there’d be much point if it means having to do it all over again five years from now. But the windows should really be replaced. And the cabinets and laminate in the kitchen. We can refinish the wood floors, probably—”

“Oh, I don’t think money’s an issue,” Roxie said, immensely grateful to get the conversation back on track. “Not that much anyway. I gather his work at Los Alamos paid very well. And he and Mae lived fairly simply. And there was her life insurance….” Another stab of pain preceded, “Anyway. Wait until you get a load of the bathroom….”

Feeling as if he’d gotten stuck in a weird dream, Noah followed Roxie up the stairs, the walls littered with dozens of framed photos on peeling, mustard-striped wallpaper. Mostly of Roxie as a baby, a kid, a teenager. A skinny, bright-eyed, bushy-haired teenager with braces peeking through a broad smile. Funny-looking kid, but happy.

Open.

Then her senior portrait, the bushiness tamed into recognizable curls, the teeth perfectly straight, her eyes huge and sad and damned beautiful. Almost like the ones he’d been looking at for the past half hour, except with a good dose of mess-with-me-and-you’re-dead tossed into the mix.

A warning he’d do well to heed.

This was just a job, he reminded himself. And she was just a client. A pretty client with big, sad eyes. And clearly more issues than probably his past six girlfriends—although he used the term loosely—combined.

Then they reached the landing, where, on a wall facing the stairs, Roxie and her parents—she must have been eleven or twelve—smiled out at him from what he guessed was an enlarged snapshot, taken at some beach or other. Her mother had been a knockout, her bright blue eyes sparkling underneath masses of dark, wavy hair. “You look like your mom.”

Roxie hmmphed through her nose. “Suck-up.”

“Not at all. You’ve got the same cheekbones.” He squinted at the fragrant cloud of curls a foot from his nose, and a series of little pings exploded in his brain. Like Pop Rocks. “And hair.”

“Unfortunately.”

“What’s wrong with your hair?”

“You could hide a family of prairie dogs in it?”

If he lived to be a hundred he’d never understand what was up with women and their hair. Although then she added, “But at least I have no issues with my breasts. Or butt. I like them just fine,” and the little pop-pop-pops become BOOM-BOOM-BOOMS.

Before the fireworks inside his head settled down, however, she said, “Mae and Charley really were like second parents to me. Even before…the accident. If it hadn’t been for them I honestly don’t know how I would’ve made it through that last year of school. All I wanted to do was hole myself up in my bedroom and never come out. Until Aunt Mae—she was Mom’s older sister—threatened to pry me out with the Jaws of Life. So I figure the least I can do for Charley is return the favor.”

“Whether he likes it or not,” Noah said, even as he thought, How do you live with that brain and not get dizzy? Because he sure as hell was.

“As I said. And the bathroom’s the second door on the right.”

To get there Noah had to pass a small extra bedroom that, while tidy to a fault, still bore the hallmarks of a room done up for a teenage girl, and a prissy one at that—purple walls, floral bedspread, a stenciled border of roses meandering at the top of wall. None of which jibed with the woman standing five feet away. Except the room made him slightly woozy, too.

“You like purple?”

She snorted. “Aunt Mae wanted pink. I wanted black. Purple was our compromise. Didn’t have the energy to fight about the roses.”

“Somehow not picturing you as a Goth chick.”

A humorless smile stretched across her mouth. “Honey, back then I made Marilyn Manson look like Shirley Temple. But…guess you didn’t notice, huh?”

A long-submerged memory smacked him between the eyes, of him and his friends making fun of the clot of inky-haired, funereal girls with their raccoon eyes and chewed, black fingernails, floating somberly through the school halls like a toxic cloud. One in particular, her pale green eyes startling, furious, against her pale skin, all that black.

“Holy crap—that was you?”

To his relief, Roxie laughed. “‘Twas a short-lived phase. In fact, I refuse to wear black now. Not even shoes.” Grimacing, Roxie walked to her bedroom doorway, her arms crossed. “I put poor Mae and Charley through an awful lot,” she said softly, looking inside. “I even covered up the roses with black construction paper. Mae never said a word. In fact, all she did was hug me. Can you imagine?”

His own childhood had been idyllic in comparison, Noah thought as a wave of shame washed over him. Man, had he been a butthead, or what? “What I can’t imagine, is what hell that must’ve been for you. I’m sorry. For what you went through, for…all of it.”

“Thanks,” she said after a too-long pause.

“So you gonna paint in there or what?” Noah said, after another one.

Roxie turned, bemusement and caution tangling in her eyes. “Why? Not gonna be around long enough for it to matter, God willing. So. The bathroom?”

Yeah, about that. Nestled in a bed of yellowed, crumbling grout, the shell-pink tiles were so far out of date they were practically in again. As were the dingy hexagonal floor tiles. And way too many vigorous scrubbings had taken their toll on the almost classic pedestal sink, the standard-issue tub bearing the telltale smudges where a temporary bar had been installed. And removed.

There was way too much pain in this house, like a fungus that had settled into the rotting wood, lurking behind the peeling wallpaper, between the loose tiles. Noah pressed two fingers into one pink square; it gave way—probably far more easily than the bad vibes clinging to the house’s inhabitants.

At least he could fix the house. The other…not his area of expertise.

“Since the tile’s crap, anyway—” He flicked another one off. “Why don’t we do one of those all-in-one tub surrounds? Although it wouldn’t be pink.”

Roxie leaned against the doorjamb. “I sincerely doubt Charley would miss the pink. Although…could we install grab bars at the same time?”

Noah got the message. “They’re code now, so no problem.”

“Oh. Good.” Roxie sighed. “Charley’s far from decrepit, heaven knows, but I know he wants to live on his own, in his own house, as long as possible. So I’d like to make sure he can do that.”

Noah looked at her. “Because you won’t be around.”

A dry laugh escaped her lips. “To be honest, when I was eighteen and stuck here…oh, Lord. I thought I’d been consigned to hell. It was one thing to come for vacations, but I couldn’t wait to get back to the city. I love the energy, the way there’s always something going on, the choices. Heck, I even like the noise. So no, I can’t see myself calling Tierra Rosa home for the long haul. Besides, I have to go where the work is. Work in my field, I mean. And so far, I haven’t even been able to find anything close by—”

“Roxie? You up there?”

Blanching, she whispered, “Crap. He wasn’t supposed to be back for another hour!”

“Should I hide in the closet?”

“Believe me, it’s tempting,” she muttered, then pushed past Noah to call from the landing, “Up here, Charley. With…Noah Garrett.”

“Noah? What the Sam Hill’s he doing here?” Charley said, huffing a little as he climbed the stairs, only to release a sigh when he saw the clipboard in Noah’s hand. “Ah.” A bundle of bones underneath badly fitting khaki coveralls and a navy peacoat probably older than Roxie, the older man turned his narrowed gaze on his niece. “Thought you’d pull a fast one on me, eh? Guess I fooled you. No offense, Noah. But it appears the gal was getting a little ahead of herself—”

“But you agreed to let me get an estimate—”

“I said I’d think about it. Honestly.” Again, his gaze swung to Noah, as if he expected to find an ally. “What is it with women always being in such a rush?” He glared at his niece. “Bad enough you act like you can’t get rid of Mae’s things fast enough, now you want to change everything in the house, too? And what’s up with you being here and not your daddy?” he said to Noah, who was beginning to feel as if he was watching a tennis match. “You sniffing around Roxie, like you do every other female in the county?”

“For heaven’s sake, Charley—!”

“I’m only here on business,” Noah said, getting a real clear picture of what Roxie must be going through, dealing with her uncle every day. If it was him he’d be looking for out-of-town jobs, too. At the same time the near panic in the old man’s eyes was so much like what he saw in his father’s—that threat of losing control, of everything changing on you whether you want it to or not—he couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the guy. “Because Dad’s tied up. And Roxie only has your best interests at heart, sir. To be honest, I’m seeing a lot of safety issues here. And the longer you put off fixing them, the worse they’re going to get. And more expensive.”

“Well, of course you’d say that, wouldn’t you? Since it’s you standing to make money off me—”

“Charley,” Roxie said in a low voice, gripping his arm until, mouth agape, he swung his pale blue eyes to hers. “Listen to the man. The house needs work. A lot of work. And if you don’t take care of it you’re not going to be able to stay here.”

Her uncle slammed his hand against the banister railing. Which was missing a couple of stiles, Noah noticed. “I’m not leaving my house, dammit! And you can’t make me!”

“Then let’s get it fixed,” she said gently but firmly, “or you may not have any choice in the matter, because no way am I letting you stay in a pit—”

“Choice?” Her uncle yanked off his snow-frosted knit cap and slammed it to the floor, freeing a forest of thick, white hair. “What kind of choice,” he said, wetness sheening his eyes, “is railroading me into something before I’m r-ready?”

“Oh, Charley…” On a soft moan, she wrapped her arms around him, her tenderness in the face of his cantankerousness making Noah’s breath hitch. Then she let go and said, “I know this is hard. And you know I know how hard.” She ducked slightly to peer up into his averted face, thin lips set in a creased pout. “But sticking your head in the sand isn’t going to solve the problem. And we can’t put it off much longer, since I have no idea when a job offer’s going to come through. I’m trying to help, Charley. We all are.”

Several beats passed before her uncle finally swung his gaze back to Noah. “It’s really that bad?”

Catching Roxie’s exhausted sigh, Noah said, “Yes, sir. It is.”

Charley held Noah’s gaze for another moment or two before shuffling over to a small bench on the landing, dropping onto it like his spirit had been plumb sucked right out of him—a phenomenon he’d seen before in older clients, his own grandparents. As somebody who wasn’t crazy about people telling him what to do, either, he empathized with the old man a lot more than he might’ve expected.