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“I’m fine, Irish. Just getting this window taped up, bud.”
As Jonas sat reviewing cases, a window at the back busted when a small branch had broken off a tree and fell through it.
Right now, Jonas was struggling to adjust the plastic sheeting to keep the rain out. He had asked Rhonda, the insurance company’s secretary, for help finding tape and plastic down in the basement all three businesses shared. She’d been on her way out, but offered to help, in the neighborly spirit of most Philadelphians.
Jonas had heard her saying something about “the kids being all right” on the phone when he had walked into the office, and told her to go, he was fine. Which he was. Mostly.
He’d cut himself once, a minor injury, and had a few bruises from getting up and down on a chair to reach the top of the window, but he’d gotten the job done. He took an odd amount of satisfaction from that fact. It was good to do something, to be competent in spite of his blindness.
When his phone rang, he frowned. He hated not being able to see the caller ID for who was calling, but just answered, since it was his personal line.
“Jonas.”
“Jonas, I was hoping you’d be there,” Senator Rose’s voice boomed across the line.
For the second time that day, Jonas was surprised by one of the Rose family. Not in a good way. He hadn’t talked to the senator since his accident, and had no idea why he’d be calling now.
“Hello, sir. Are you back in the U.S.?” he asked, trying to sound neutral. The guy had a lot of nerve, threatening Jonas’s family business, and then calling out of the blue, sounding as if nothing was wrong.
“No, no. In Italy, now, but I’m heading home early and I’ll be back tomorrow. Has your sight returned yet?”
Jonas paused, wondering at the question. The senator was calling to check on his health? This was getting stranger by the second.
“No, not yet I’m afraid.”
“Sorry to hear that. I need your help with something, Jon,” he said.
Jonas experienced a surge of excitement—had the senator decided to forgive and forget?
“I don’t know how much help I can be with anything right now, sir. But I can refer one of my brothers—”
“It has to be you. I need you to keep an eye on Tessa for me until I get back.”
Jonas paused, quite sure he hadn’t heard right.
“I’m sorry?”
“Tessa. There’s a problem in my office. I can’t say what it is yet. It doesn’t have anything to do with Tessa directly, but I’d feel better knowing she wasn’t alone for a day or so. Oh, and this needs to stay between us.”
“You don’t want her knowing she’s under protection?” He’d done undercover guard duty before, but this time he wasn’t sure that would work, or that he even wanted to do it.
“That would be best. You know how she hates my interference in her life. It’s only until I get back. Then things will be straightened out.”
“Sir, not to put too fine a point on it, but I’m blind. I can’t see how—”
“Jonas, it’s true I was less than happy to find out that you were messing around with my daughter. It could have cost both of you your lives,” Rose said. “I know she can be a handful, and she likes nothing more than to take a shot at her old man now and then. But you two fooling around plays in our favor now. If anyone has a chance of staying close to her and not raising her suspicions, it’s you. Blind or not, you’re probably twice as effective as anyone else. Just don’t let her get to you this time.”
In other words, keep it in your pants, son. Jonas heard the clear subtext.
“But, sir—”
“I need you to do this for me. Don’t let me down, Jon.”
The line went dead.
Muttering a string of curses, Jonas shook his head at the strange call. Tessa was not exactly his biggest fan right now. How could he insert himself into her life without her being suspicious after he’d thrown her out that morning?
The sound of something crashing outside the window made him spin back, and he teetered, falling to the floor, his foot still caught in the chair. The wind knocked out of him, Jonas lay there for a moment, getting his bearings. He grunted as Irish landed on his chest and began licking his face, obviously concerned for him.
Standing, he winced at the twinge in his ankle. Great. Just what he needed.
He made his way to the bathroom and rifled through everything seeking the first-aid kit he knew was there, and found the package of Ace bandages he sought, stripping his sock and shoe off. He could feel some minor swelling, but it wasn’t bad.
Trying, unsuccessfully, to wrap his ankle, he gave up and sought out the familiar feel of the jar of painkillers they kept on hand in the cabinet. It was barely a sprain, more of a twist, and probably didn’t even need wrapping, anyway.
However, it was clear he wasn’t up to doing chores around the office, and he reached for his phone to call for a taxi so he could get home.
And then he paused, thinking about the call from James.
Like it or not—and he didn’t—the request to babysit the boss’s daughter for the next few days was his second chance, his way to make amends for his screwup the first time. If nothing else, he owed it to his brothers to try to make amends for nearly losing their biggest benefactor.
But it was more than that for him, and Jonas knew it. His mind went back to that night with Tessa, to kissing her, as it had almost every day since it had happened.
He could still remember every detail of holding her. Kissing her. Her taste. Her scent.
The wind hit the side of the house hard, the thunder deafening.
Tessa hated thunder.
Maybe she needed him. If James thought she was in trouble, or even that she just needed someone close by, he couldn’t turn his back on that. But the senator was right—she’d never allow him to guard her. She had issued an invitation—one he hadn’t intended to respond to, but now things had changed. It gave him an in—cold, sure—but he had a job to do, and this time he would do it right. She’d hate him afterward, but that might be better, anyway.
Before he could think about it too much, he hit the second number on his speed dial.
“Tessa?”
She was so quiet at first, he thought they might have dropped the connection.
“Jonas?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry to bother you, but … um, I … I need your help.”
A SHORT WHILE LATER, Tessa was banging at the front door. “Jonas, are you there? Let me in, I’m getting soaked out here!”
Through the glass, she saw him limping slightly on his way to the door, which he opened. She hurried in, soaked to the skin. Rain dripped off her coat, puddling on the polished wood floors.
“The rain is coming down sideways out there,” she said, glad to have an excuse to cover her nerves about showing up.
When she’d seen his number on her caller ID, she thought maybe he’d had a change of heart—that he wanted to take her up on her invitation from earlier.
When he’d said he needed her help, she’d been worried sick, imagining every terrible thing possible between her store and the office, but from what she could tell, he looked in one piece, more or less.
“I’m sorry to drag you out in this, but you were the only person I could reach,” he said.
His last resort, she thought, her hopes dipping. This wasn’t exactly what she’d counted on. “What happened?”
“I turned suddenly, and I think I sprained my ankle. I tried to take care of it myself, but couldn’t. If you could help me out with that, and getting me home, I’d appreciate it.”
“What’s been going on here?”
“A tree limb broke the window. I managed to get it covered.”
She walked to the edge of the room on her left, seeing leftover bits of broken glass.
“You’re going to trip yourself up again.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re standing here with one bare foot and an Ace bandage twisted around it and trailing behind you.” She couldn’t help but smile as she watched a big cat turn into a kitten as he followed the edge of the strap, chasing it. “Your cat seems to think it’s great fun, though.”
“Oh. Yeah, he would.”
“How could your brothers leave you alone in this storm? You shouldn’t have been climbing up on a chair—you could have hit your head.”
“I’m not completely helpless, you know. I shouldn’t have called you,” he said stiffly.
Tessa took a breath, and swallowed her disappointment. He obviously hadn’t wanted to ask for help, and in particular, he didn’t like asking her for help. But he had, and she’d do what she had to do.
Still, she wished it was because he had actually wanted to see her. Her pride kept her from saying as much.
“I don’t mind helping. Let me find someone to take care of the mess and fix up your ankle. Then I can make sure you get home safely.”
She led him back to the bathroom and while she worked on his foot, he talked to Ken, their handyman. It gave her a chance to concentrate. Apparently the handyman lived close by and assured Jonas he would come over to take care of the window and everything else.
“This doesn’t look too bad,” she said, trying not to feel ridiculous that the sight of Jonas’s naked foot was enough to make her pulse jump, but it was a very nice foot, by all estimations.
“Do you have any liniment?” she asked.
“Probably,” he responded tightly. “I left the first-aid kit out on the desk.” She pulled her hands back, and he seemed to relax a little. Did he not want her touching him even that much?
She got up and went to look, coming back a few minutes later. The cat purred around her feet and blinked up at her, clearly flirting.
“What’s your cat’s name?”
“Irish.”
“Interesting.”
“Fighting Irish, given his battle scars.”
“Ah, that makes sense,” she said, taking a break to scratch the cat behind the ears. At least one of the Berringer men liked her attentions, she thought.
“You’re pretty good at this,” he said.
“I dated an EMT once. I used to ride the ambulance with him when things were slow. I even thought about getting my certification,” she said absently, focusing on the task as a way of resisting the urge to slide her hand up his muscled calf.
“Isn’t that against the law?”
She snorted. “We weren’t too worried about that back then. I wish I had known what happened. I have an organic eucalyptus oil that works wonders, and smells a lot better than this stuff.” She hated the stench of the ointment she was applying. Running her hand over the back of his strong calf to steady his leg, a desire shot through her.
She was supposed to be attending an injury to a blind man, and even that had erotic overtones for her. How pathetic was that?
“You can probably manage your sock and shoe alone,” she commented, “though I’m not sure the shoe will fit unless you unlace it.”
“I have a pair of work boots over in the mudroom. Could you grab them for me?” he asked.
“Sure.”
She made her way through the classic rooms of the old Victorian, admiring the way they had remodeled and updated it without erasing its original character. The last time she’d been here had been to try to get someone to tell her what was happening with Jonas, how he was. Where he was.
The brothers had such a strong bond, seemed so loyal to each other that she found it surprising they would have left Jonas here all alone, dealing with the storm. Still, as she’d recalled earlier, he wasn’t a guy who liked accepting help. She was just amazed he had called her instead of hobbling home on his own.
“Thanks,” he said grudgingly as she handed him the boots.
“You’re welcome,” she responded in the same tone. “Let me see if I can just reinforce that plastic around the window to keep the rain out, and I’ll call a cab.”
“You don’t have to do that. Ken will be here soon.”
“It will only take a few minutes, and it will keep your floors from being ruined.”
He nodded reluctantly, and resumed trying to get his boots on. So much for him wanting her around—he seemed happy to have any excuse to ignore her.
Tessa busied herself adding more tape to the plastic around the broken window. When the job was done, she phoned for a cab. It took three calls to find a company who had someone available.
“Our ride will be here in a bit. Things are getting rough out there,” she said, jumping a little as a crack of thunder sounded as if it was splitting the world in two.
“You shouldn’t have gone out in this,” he said, sounding as if he regretted calling her. “I know you hate storms.”
“Emergency Services has enough on their plate right now, and I didn’t mind. Don’t worry, you’ll be away from me soon enough,” she couldn’t stop herself from adding, hurt and disappointed that he was so obviously displeased by her presence.
She knew he believed the worst of her, but she didn’t deserve it. She also knew from a lifetime of being a politician’s daughter that once people’s minds were made up about you, they rarely changed their views. When she had been bandaging Jonas’s foot, it seemed as if he could barely stand her touch.
“Listen,” he said, running a hand through his already wild hair. “I’m … grateful you came.”
She didn’t say anything, and the silence stretched between them.
“You’re welcome,” she said eventually, and was relieved to hear the honk of a cab outside. She didn’t say anything else, either. What was there to say? She thought that she cared for Jonas; they definitely had chemistry, or so she thought. But she wasn’t going to beg him to be with her. Still, it hurt.
“What about Irish?”
