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Rolling her eyes, Cat slipped the phone into her pocket and got to work removing evidence of her slide across the floor. As she mopped, she went over the schedule, trying to figure out how she could be in San Diego and El Cajon at the same time. She was overseeing four jobs next week, two small enough that she could set up the crew and go, but as lead carpenter on one and job supervisor on the other, her presence was sort of vital. She wished Marco would get his act together and schedule these jobs right. She had no problem calling the San Diego couple and rescheduling, but then she’d have to listen to another one of Marco’s fanatical customer relation lectures.
Debating, she tucked the mop away.
“Hey, Mom? Is tonight Aunt Ceecee’s book club or is it next week?”
“You got problems with Marco again?” Lucia Perez tut-tutted as she arranged silk roses into a crystal vase. A mirror image of her youngest daughter, her hair was black where Cat’s was caught somewhere between brown and blond, her eyes brown while Cat’s were sky blue. And while all of Cat’s sisters had inherited their mother’s petitely lush curves, Cat was long, leggy and on the skinny side of slender. And much to Lucia’s dismay, Cat’s only nod to femininity was the long hair she kept pulled into a tail.
“No problems,” Cat said, denying her mom’s accusation. “I just needed to check something.”
“If Marco is going to put you in charge of all that work, he should let you be in charge. Selfish man. He’s just a figurehead. Like your papa, you do all of the work, take all of the responsibility. He takes all of the glory and the money.”
Cat loved her job as a contractor and once she’d gotten past the heartache of losing him, she’d loved following her father’s footsteps at Peres Construction. Sure, it’d be nice if she’d been able to step into her dad’s position, but she understood the necessity of proving herself—of working her way up the ladder—until she could take her dad’s place as Marco’s partner. It was bound to happen soon, too, with her uncle making noises about retiring.
She was close. So close.
But Cat was a smart woman.
Smart enough to know that close didn’t matter to her mother.
“That’s a pretty arrangement,” Cat complimented, also smart enough to change the subject. “Are you doing a flower show this weekend?”
“Leda and I are going to Vegas this weekend,” her mother said with a worrisome look in her eyes. “You should come with us. You could drive.”
Ah, there it was. Motherly pity. If she’d stopped at fixing the leaky kitchen faucet and replacing the furnace filters instead of reframing the crawl space vent, she might have actually escaped, pity unspoken.
Oh, the pity would still be there. Just not there, out loud. After all, Cat was single, childless, with nary a date on the horizon to fix that.
“Mom, I’m not tagging along with you and Mrs. Powell.” Before her mother could say anything, Cat held up one hand. “First off, you both like fighting over who drives too much for me to take that away from you. Second, I don’t gamble and don’t want to see a show. Third, I have to work this weekend.”
“Work?” Lucia pursed her lips, too ladylike to spit out the pshaw Cat knew was on her mind. “You know, if you were your own boss instead of working for that tyrant Marco, you’d be able to take time off. You’re a smart girl, a hard worker. Why haven’t you gone out on your own yet?”
That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?
Oh, she could run her own company. And she’d be good at it. She was an excellent carpenter, a fair plumber and a decent electrician. She knew how to get respect from the crew, how to handle costing out jobs and what to send the accountant.
She’d learned all that at her father’s knee. She’d idolized him, admired him and wanted nothing more than to be like him. When her sisters were learning to flirt and wear makeup, she’d been learning the ins and outs of construction.
But she didn’t want her own business.
She wanted the family business.
Knowing her mother wouldn’t like that answer, she simply shrugged.
“Business is good,” was all she said. And it was. Real estate had bounced back over the past couple of years, but it still wasn’t near the peak it’d been during the bubble. Most people weren’t buying new, they were adding on, refurbishing or remodeling.
“You should be dating eligible men on weekends, not working. If you don’t date, how are you going to find your soul mate, Catarina? You waste your life swinging a hammer instead of dating, you’ll find yourself old and shriveled, alone in your twilight years without the joy of marriage or grandchildren to keep you warm.” Lucia stopped only long enough to take a breath before continuing her lament on her youngest daughter’s failings.
Familiar with the list, by the time it reached her choices in footwear, Cat could only sigh. She had four older sisters, each one of them fitting perfectly into Lucia Peres’s idea of what was acceptable. Three of them had provided grandchildren, two worked at the flower shop with Lucia and all four were unquestionably female, right down to their pierced ears and lipstick fetishes.
And then there was Cat.
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“You can’t be fine,” Lucia insisted as she tucked another flower into the vase. She stepped back to give the arrangement a narrow-eyed look then nudged a flower down an inch before shifting that look to her daughter. “You work too much, so you’re a slave to the business.”
Cat pursed her lips to keep from pointing out that her mom was spending Thursday evening with the dining room table covered in silk flower arrangements, undoubtedly to be used as window displays for the flower shop. Maybe it was only slaving if she used real flowers?
“I’m fine, Mom.”
“You don’t look fine. You look tired. Why are you not using face cream, Catarina? Or better, makeup? A nice bright lipstick would show off that lovely smile.”
“I was up late,” Cat returned in excuse. She’d ended up finishing the payroll reports for Marcus.
“When was the last time you went on a date?”
Did a beer after shift with the crew count? Unless they were all naked and ingesting the beer off each other’s bodies, Lucia would probably say no.
“I date.”
But her mother kept on going.
“You’re wasting your youth with that silly business. And it’s not even yours, Catarina. You’re wasting your youth on someone else.”
“I’m not wasting anything. I’m using my youth to build up experience and knowledge so when I run my own, I’ll be a success.” Cat paused. “Like Daddy.”
Lucia gave a heavy sigh, her eyes sad as she set the flowers aside to take Cat into her arms.
“Of all my daughters, you’re the most like your father. But you need to be you, Catarina. You need to live your life. Live your dreams.”
“I am living my dream,” Cat declared.
“Don’t you have dreams of children? Of a family?” Her mother threw her hands in the air. “Or, your father forgive me, of regular sex?”
Regular sex?
With a silent laugh, Cat let her mother’s lecture wash over her while she shifted her gaze to stare through the window at the Powell house.
Yeah.
She had dreams of amazing sex.
Mind-blowingly amazing, panty-meltingly hot sex.
But all of her dreams revolved around the only man she could imagine was capable of that kind of sex.
Taylor Powell.
2 (#ulink_e3367903-eba0-5c59-add1-0036aca7d3b2)
FRIDAY EVENING, CAT, her tool caddy in hand, let herself into the Powell house. Leda had asked her to do a few repairs in the upstairs bathroom, so Cat headed right up the stairs, her boots rapping against the glossy wood. Leda and Cat’s mom had headed for Vegas around noon, but Cat had the key. And she knew her way.
She should. She’d run tame in this house most of her life. She’d taken piano lessons from Mrs. Powell for a month before they’d both realized that it was a lost cause. Then, knowing Lucia’s obsession with turning her daughters into ladies, instead of telling Cat’s mother that it was pointless, Leda had spent an hour twice a week teaching Cat to appreciate music even if she couldn’t play it herself.
It hadn’t been fear of her mother—well, not just fear of her mother—that had Cat going along with the lessons. Nope, her ten-year-old self had sat through hours of Beethoven, Bach and Tchaikovsky in the hopes of catching a glimpse of Mrs. Powell’s only son.
She’d lived for those glimpses of the fourteen-year-old Taylor coming home from baseball practice with his grass-stained knees and his crooked smile. For the offhand “hey’s,” the rare times he’d sit and chat. She’d ripped herself away from her obsession with power tools to learn baseball just so she’d have something to add to the conversation.
At twelve, she’d learned to work on engines so she could help him rebuild the engine in his ancient Chevy. When she was fourteen, she’d snuck out one night to follow Taylor on a date. She hadn’t been able to get an up-close look, but she’d seen enough going on in the backseat of that Chevy to send her budding hormones haywire. All she’d wanted, all she’d been able to think about for months, was getting him to do to her what he’d been doing to Marcy Carter.
But by fifteen, after a lot of reflection and watching of the bimbo parade across the street, she’d been smart enough to figure out that she wasn’t Taylor’s type. No amount of wishing would make it otherwise. She’d never be petite and curvy. She’d never be giggly or girly. She’d never be his girl.
So she’d settled on being his friend.
But...
At the top of the stairs Cat turned left instead of right, heading for Taylor’s old bedroom.
She and Taylor might just be friends, but they were friends with benefits. The naughty sexual benefits might all be in her mind, but that was beside the point.
She stopped in the open doorway of the bedroom and breathed deep. It smelled like the rest of the house: clean and slightly citrusy. But she liked to think that she was breathing in a little of Taylor. She dropped her tote by the door and stepped into the room.
Even though he hadn’t lived here since he’d left for college, Mrs. Powell hadn’t changed her boy’s room. Instead of sports figures or rock bands, the framed shots on Taylor’s wall were beach scenes and inspirational military posters.
A California king, his bed was too big for the small room but Taylor had hit six-two in his midteens, so Mrs. Powell had probably been thinking of her son’s height. Cat, however, thought of all sorts of things when she saw Taylor’s bed.
Picturing him lying there, his blue eyes bright as he reached out to touch her. His fingers would be a little rough when they skimmed under her shirt, sliding along her skin. He’d smile, that crooked grin of his making his dimple wink when he stripped her naked.
Cat ran her hand over the denim bedspread then, with her eyes closed, sat. Her cheeks tingled with heat but she still gave the bed a little bounce. She’d been doing this since she was seventeen and had started doing repairs for Mrs. Powell. Sneaking into Taylor’s room when nobody was home, bouncing on his bed.
She justified it by accepting that this was the closest she’d ever get to bouncing on Taylor himself.
Laughing at herself, Cat gave one last bounce on the trim blue spread before jumping to her feet and crossing the room. Before she grabbed her tote, though, she took a trip through Taylor’s past via the scarred bookcase next to the door.
Trophies for everything from track and field to shooting to debate. Framed photos of Taylor and his mom over the years. Adorable at twelve in his Sea Scout uniform. Sexy at sixteen with his first car, a beat-up Chevy. Hotter than hell a dozen years ago at his high school graduation; Leda’s smile wide enough to crack her face. And Taylor in Navy whites. Cat sighed, tracing her finger over the image of that gorgeous face. His brown hair shorn so short that those big blue eyes looked huge in his serious face. It was the only photo that didn’t feature his crookedly sexy grin.
Cat sighed. Then, rolling her eyes at the silliness of her crush, reached down to grab her tote. Time to get to work.
Leda wanted the drip fixed in the bathroom sink and the broken tile by the tub replaced. So Cat pulled out her pipe wrench and started work. And if she let her imagination roam to dreaming about Taylor naked in that shower, hot water spraying over his muscular body, dripping down that hard flesh, so what?
It just proved how good she was at her job, multitasking while on the verge of a climax.
* * *
“LIEUTENANT POWELL, DO you have anything to add to your report?”
“No, sir.” Taylor stood at attention, back straight, chin high and eyes straight ahead.
He felt the stares of the chief warrant officer, of the captain, of the O5 from Naval Intelligence. He heard papers rustling, the click of the keys as someone took notes.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been called in for a personal debriefing. It wouldn’t be the last. That didn’t make it any easier.
No question about it, life was ugly.
Sometimes his part in it made it better.
Sometimes it made it uglier.
Taylor accepted that.
Debriefings only put a spotlight on the good, on the ugly.
“Lieutenant, you engaged with a minor subject. You left said subject for dead, is that correct?”
Still at attention, Taylor didn’t spare a look for the NI weasel. But he did take great pleasure in mentally flipping the guy the bird.
“The enemy was armed,” he repeated. Again. This time he added, “Said enemy had a finger on the trigger and one of my teammates in the crosshairs. According to intelligence provided by NI, everyone inside the installation was to be considered a terrorist. Standard—”
“That’s enough, Lieutenant,” the captain interrupted. “You’re not here to justify following orders or for doing an exemplary job.”
Right.
Even though it felt like it.
But Taylor was too well trained to let his thoughts, or his dislike of the NI weasel, show.
“I’m not concerned with justification,” the weasel said. “Lieutenant, given the severity of what you faced, have you requested a medical exam?”
“I wasn’t injured. Sir.” Since it was his only option for expressing his opinion of that idea, Taylor snapped out the sir with as much disgust as he could.
“And if you were ordered to report to NCCOSC?”
Damn and double damn. No way Taylor wanted to deal with the Naval Center for Combat & Operational Stress Control. He didn’t deny that they did some good, but he didn’t need it.
All he said was, “I follow orders. Sir.”
Without looking, he could tell the guy wasn’t done. But once again, the captain interrupted.
“That’ll be all, Lieutenant. Dismissed.”
Without hesitation, Taylor turned heel and strode out. He didn’t breathe until he’d cleared the room, shut the door.
He let his shoulders relax, yanking off his cover. He smacked it on his thigh then slapped it back on his head, tugging the brim low.
With a brief nod to the officer manning the desk, Taylor double-stepped it into the hallway. He didn’t make it two feet before he was hailed by his commanding officer.
“Yo, Wizard.”
“Sir.” Taylor gave Irish an easy nod before tilting his head toward the door at the end of the corridor. “I’m done here. So I’m officially on leave now, right?”
