Chapter Eleven
Find the threat.
Protect Jade.
Hunter scanned the room, his gaze darting between Jade huddled on the floor and the disaster she was surrounded by. Something had clearly happened. Metal and plastic parts were scattered everywhere.
Who had made her scream? Had someone broken in and attacked her?
Because he would fucking kill the bastard.
“Hunter?” she asked in a stunned voice. “What are you…what…?”
He didn’t waste time trying to decipher the question. He needed to find the danger and make it disappear. “What happened?” he barked.
Her eyes widened at his ferocious tone. “Wh-what do you mean?” Her voice was shaking badly.
Damn. He needed to cool it. She was already freaked out. It wouldn’t do any good to add to her stress level.
“I heard you scream,” he said, fighting to control his outrage at seeing her curled in on herself like that. “What’s going on?”
I’ll make it go away, baby. Just tell me what scared you.
Her eyes stayed glued to him. “I-I saw…a spider.” She whispered the last word like it was blasphemous. As she said it, her eyes lowered to the hardwoods, flitting back and forth in panic.
Wait.
“A spider?” he demanded, incredulous.
She nodded vigorously, and carefully eased herself off the floor and up onto the sofa. “A big one. We have to kill it.”
He had to make sure he was understanding this right. “But…you’re okay?”
She looked up at him, terror etched in every line of her face. “Of course I’m not okay! There’s a freaking tarantula in my house!”
“Considering those are usually found in the Southwest, I highly doubt that’s what it is,” he said gently, his nerves slowly easing back to normal.
She swiped up a long piece of metal from the floor and held it above her head, poised for attack. Apparently, in case he needed backup. “Are you going to play Trivial Pursuit, here, or are you going to help me kill this terrorist?” Her voice actually squeaked.
He wouldn’t laugh.
He wouldn’t. Considering her state of hysteria, he didn’t think she would appreciate that.
But the image she created on that sofa with her fiery red hair splayed around her shoulders and her frantic eyes was definitely the highlight of his day. Once his pulse had returned to normal.
There was just one tiny thing he needed to address with her, though, before he went all Dexter on the arachnid.
“Why wasn’t your door locked?”
“What?” she asked distractedly, peeking over the sofa’s armrest.
“Why wasn’t your door locked, Jade? Anyone could just barge right in. What if I had been a crazed serial killer?”
That finally got her attention. Her eyebrows pulled together as she considered him. “You told me this is a safe town. That most people don’t even bother locking their doors.”
He pushed out a breath. “I didn’t mean that as a single woman, living by herself, you shouldn’t lock your doors. No, I don’t think most people here would bother you, but you never know. There are weirdo transients out there passing through towns all over the country. You hear about them all the time.”
He was surprised when she gave a quick nod. “You’re right. I need to keep my doors locked. Now, can we please get rid of this thing? I’m not going to be able to sleep tonight if— There it is!”
He whipped around to where she pointed, spotting the little bugger making its way toward the window. And little was the appropriate word here. The thing couldn’t have been bigger than the size of a nickel. Tarantula, my ass.
He quickly disposed of it before she spiraled into a full-on meltdown, then freed the grin he’d been fighting to hold back. “Oh, sweetheart. You really are a city girl, aren’t you?”
She scoffed, and primly sat back down on the sofa. “Are you telling me that women around here willingly invite spiders into their homes?”
His smile spread. “Not really, no. But I don’t think a lot of them would climb the walls to get away from one. I guess they don’t have fly swatters up North?”
She avoided his gaze. “I got scared and I panicked, okay? I would have eventually calmed down and killed it if you hadn’t shown up.”
“Ah, but aren’t you lucky I was here to save the day?”
Though, that still didn’t explain what he was doing here in the first place. It was a good thing she didn’t ask, because he wouldn’t have had an answer. He’d just been thinking about her and the paint incident at her store—more like obsessing over it—and he’d somehow wound up at her front door.
Although she rolled her eyes, the corner of her lip twitched. His chest warmed. He would take a smile if he couldn’t get a laugh.
He then took in the carnage of metal and plastic parts littering her floor. “What, exactly, have you mutilated in here?”
She sighed heavily and slid back down to the floor, crossing her legs in front of her. “It’s supposed to be my new elliptical, but the instructions might as well be written in Swahili. The letters look like they’re in English, but don’t be fooled.” She waved her arms around at the assorted parts. “It’s like putting together a giant adult erector set.”
His grin widened. “It really is your lucky day. I happen to be excellent at erecting things.” His dick twitched in his jeans. Down, boy.
She nervously bit her lip, missing the double meaning entirely. “You’d help me with this?”
The vulnerability he heard in her voice squeezed around his chest, stealing his breath. Was she not used to people offering their help?
“Well, I can’t really leave you alone with it. I think you’ve tortured the poor thing enough.” He belted out a laugh when she glared at him. “Just let me go get my tools from my truck.”
Twenty minutes later, the pile of parts was actually starting to look like an exercise machine. He figured it would have taken her days to put this together if he hadn’t shown up. And he was realizing pretty quickly that he liked doing those types of things for her. Helping her out with something that was difficult, showing her new things she’d never experienced before, teaching her about things she knew nothing about.
It made him feel…needed.
Now, if only he could make her want him, he’d be in good shape.
The question was, what did she want in a man? What did she look for? And would he meet her expectations?
If she was looking for someone dependable, she could always count on him. If she wanted a faithful companion, he was her guy. The sweet and caring type? He could definitely be that. Though, he had no problem being the dominant, possessive type, either…
But if she wanted a guy who could provide her with lavish surroundings, someone who would keep her wrapped in fine silks and expensive furs—not to mention buy her a new BMW every few years—he didn’t stand a chance.
He couldn’t explain the wave of disappointment that rolled over him at the thought. The realization that he was most likely not good enough for her, and never would be.
But he did his best to ignore it and enjoy the time he had with her, however brief that might be.
“So what brings a city girl like you down to our neck of the woods, anyway?” he asked, wanting to learn more about Jade Hollingsworth and who she’d been before her life in Shell Grove.
She looked at him as though the answer was obvious. “To open the shop. You know, the job you quit working on before ever starting it?”
He rolled his eyes, nudging her with his shoulder, looking for any excuse to touch her. “No, that’s what happened after you’d already decided to move here. I’m wondering what made you want to move here in the first place. You don’t have any family or friends down here. It just seems like a really random place for someone coming from DC.”
She was quiet for a minute before she responded. “To be honest, it pretty much was. Random, that is. I was getting tired of my life in DC. My boss at the bakery took advantage of me and didn’t appreciate how much I actually did for her. I got sick of the clientele, and I just felt like getting out altogether. I used to visit my aunt and uncle up in Maine all the time when I was young and I’d always loved the beach, so I knew I wanted to move somewhere with sand and surf.”
“Why not choose Maine, then?”
She fidgeted with a screw in her hands. “They died years ago. And I couldn’t handle the winters in Maine, anyway. Shell Grove was kind of a close-my-eyes-and-point-to-a-spot-on-the-map kind of thing.”
“Do you not have any other family?”
He immediately regretted the question when he saw her eyes fill with sadness.
“Not blood family, no,” she answered soberly. “My mom died when I was young, and my father passed away six months ago. I have a stepmother and stepbrother back in Connecticut where I grew up. But other than that, there’s no one.”
His heart broke for her. He couldn’t even imagine having no family. Aside from those he had in Shell Grove, he had aunts and uncles, grandparents, and numerous cousins scattered all over the South.
“I’m sorry about your father,” he said softly. “Are you close with your stepfamily?”
Her sarcastic laugh told him that was a big no. “Not particularly,” she replied. “We never got along, even before my father passed away. They’re spoiled, entitled jerks, and I want nothing to do with them. The feeling’s mutual.”
Damn. She really was all alone.
And someone like her shouldn’t be. She was too good, too sweet and kind, funny and smart, not to share all of that with others. Had no one ever told her that? Because he would be more than happy to be the first.
“That must be tough,” he murmured.
She shrugged, the gesture half-hearted. “I’ve gotten used to it. I just decided one day that I needed to get away from all the bullshit. The move down here was supposed to be like hitting the restart button on my life. New town, new job, new friends.”
Guilt swarmed him about his role in partially upsetting her plans. “Aside from the new job part, how is it going?”
She turned her head toward him. He was relieved when he saw the upward curve of her lips, her expression imbued with an undercurrent of emotion. He was determined to discover what the ulterior meaning there was.
Her eyes flicked down to his mouth for a brief second before focusing back on the half-built machine in front of them.
“Well, we’ll see how the store does after it opens,” she said. “My life in Shell Grove could be really short-lived if I can’t even get my floors done.”
A slice of pain stabbed through him at the mere notion that she might have to leave Shell Grove. He couldn’t understand why that bothered him so much, since he hardly knew the woman.
But it did.
“Have none of those contractors I recommended worked out?” he asked.
She chuckled as she helped him screw a piece onto the elliptical, the way he had showed her. The way she’d been following his instruction felt good. Too good.
“Which one?” she mused. “The one who threw up in my toilet because he was still half drunk? Or the one who was more interested in my ass than quoting me a price?
“What?” Rage slammed to the surface. “Who the hell was that?”
Because he was going to go pay the bastard a not-so-friendly visit.
She waved him off. “Artie Lomax. It’s not a big deal, though.”
It damn well was to Hunter. And he was going to take care of it.
She nudged him with her shoulder. “Despite what you think, I can actually handle myself. We city girls have more spit and fire than you might think.”
Oh, he’d seen it, all right.
And he’d fucking loved every bit.
She reached up to stretch her back, and his eyes automatically drifted down to her exposed stomach.
“Anyway. It’s all a moot point if the business isn’t there,” she said.
“It’s a beachwear shop. On the beach,” he drawled. “I think you’ll be okay.”
“If people like my style,” she said. “It’s not going to be your run-of-the-mill swim shop that most beach towns have on every street corner. The suits will be retro chic and unique. Different from your everyday variety.”
“Kind of like the things you wear?”
She looked up in surprise. “Yeah, pretty much. I’m shocked you even know what I’m talking about.”
He wasn’t proud of the fact that his face heated. “Only because I’ve heard too many conversations over the years between my sister and cousin about clothes. I guess it soaked in, even when I was trying to zone it out.”
Not that he cared much about a woman’s style, but he really liked Jade’s. She always looked like some kind of rockabilly pin-up girl, and it got him hard like no one’s business. Whether it was her curled red hair, or Bette Davis makeup, or short dresses that showed off those creamy thighs, the woman inspired images of her body spread out on a calendar, wearing nothing but a smile and a sailor hat.
“You mean Mia, your sister, and Maggie, your cousin, right?” she asked.
“Yeah. And do me a favor, if Maggie ever asks if you want a ride on the welcome wagon, please say no.”
The look she sent him was slightly fearful. “Uh, what?”
He shook his head. “Nothing. Those two are like Hurricane Katrina and Mount Vesuvius all rolled into one. So just have your wits about you if they ever come trampling through your store with offerings of endless margaritas.”
“I love margaritas.”
“Not when you’re sucking them back through Maggie’s snorkel gear after she forgot to clean it, you don’t.”
He was pretty sure his heart stopped when her head flew back and laughter burst from her mouth. He was a big fan of that laugh. A big fan of a lot of things she did.
“They should have been sand-grias,” she quipped. “Get it?” She broke out into more raucous laughter, and his heart swelled bigger.
“Your attempt at humor is cute.” He shoved her lightly as she fought to catch her breath. “You weren’t the one swallowing down who knows how many tiny sea creatures. I think it gave me a temporary case of gingivitis.”
She laughed harder.
He didn’t mind a bit.
He had the machine complete and functional in another thirty minutes. Although, it would have been worth working on for ten hours straight if it produced the same dazzling smile she had on her face when he was done.
“Oh wow. Thank you so much,” she said as she gave the machine a test run. “This would have taken me forever.”
He was entranced by the way her ass cheeks moved beneath the thin material of her shorts as her legs glided back and forth on the pedals. The way her movements made her muscles tighten, showing off her toned limbs.
Where could he sign up for a membership to this gym?
“Nah, you would never have finished it,” he said when he came back to his senses. “At the rate you were going, the parts would have eventually risen up and revolted against you.”
She stopped pedaling and hopped off the machine. “Ha-ha-ha, the Southern boy has jokes.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “And the city girl can’t stop laughing at them.”
She pursed her lips as if trying to hold back a laugh. She was quick to change the subject. “How can I repay you for helping me out?”
He took a step toward her, his expression hot and full of intent. He saw her breath quicken and her eyes glazed over—just a little, but it was there. She swallowed twice as she watched him approach, though she didn’t retreat. Not even an inch. He got close enough that she had to crane her neck to look up at him.
There were a lot of things his subconscious was pushing him to say, but… His father’s words from the other night flashed through his mind, too.
Maybe she had just provided him with the perfect opportunity to ask her out. Maybe he needed to heed his dad’s advice and befriend her first, establish a solid friendship before moving on to anything else. Prove to her that he could be the man she needed. That he had more to offer a woman than just a warm bed and a few orgasms. Then, at the right time, he’d ease it into something more.
On the other hand, maybe it was the perfect time to act like an ass…
“Model some of those bikinis for me sometime, and we’ll call it even.” And because he couldn’t seem to stop himself from pushing the envelope, he winked at her.
That got him shoved right out the door.
The woman may have been a tiny little thing, but she had some power in those skinny arms.
“Why don’t we say this was your payment for leaving me high and dry at the shop, and we’ll call it even.”
“So does that mean the modeling is completely off the table?”
“Good night, Hunter!” she said firmly and slammed the door in his face.
He took solace in the fact that her blush had spread from the top of her forehead all the way down to the neckline of her shirt when he’d suggested the modeling.
She may have been embarrassed, but she hadn’t totally hated the idea. Blushing was good. It meant he affected her, which was what he desperately wanted.
So, summing up…she’d laughed at him, and blushed at him, then kicked him out.
He could work with that.