Chapter Four

 

 

Jake

Crash!

I jerked awake, one hand instinctively going straight to my Glock. A terrified scream filled the morning air. I shoved the sheets and blankets back. Years of training in the Navy SEALs pumped through my veins as I rushed down the stairs to yank the front door open. I scanned the area for the sound of the crash and scream with my Glock held in front of me defensively.

The second I rounded the right side of my house, I stumbled upon an alarming sight. There she was, my new next-door neighbor, dangling by her fingernails from the gutter with a tipped-over ladder on the ground. She gave me a frightened look, either from nearly falling to her death or because I had the barrel of my Glock pointed directly at her.

Irritation swept through me. What the fuck? I clicked the safety back on before slipping my gun into the hoister at my hip.

“What the hell are you doing?” I snapped, stalking over to stand below her. It was a damn miracle she hadn’t fallen yet.

“Hanging out,” she said, her arms shaking from holding on. “The ladder fell when I was climbing up onto the roof.”

“Why were you climbing onto the roof?”

“Does it matter now?” She looked down at me, her face cherry red from the effort to keep holding on. “If you want to watch me break my neck, stick around. I’m sure you’d be happy.”

“I wouldn’t,” I growled. I held out my arms. “Just let go. I’ll catch you.”

She shot me a skeptical look. “Yeah, right. How do I know you can even catch me?”

“I trained in the Navy SEALs,” I said. “So, you tell me if I’m able to handle catching a woman dangling from a roof.”

Her arms trembled violently. I waited patiently before she let go of the gutter, squeezing her eyes shut. She landed perfectly in my arms. She was so light that it surprised me. The smell of vanilla and coffee filled my nose. The bare skin of her back felt hot from the sun as it pressed against my arm. I caught a glimpse of her breasts jiggling slightly from the fall before I forced myself to let go of her.

“Thanks,” she said, stumbling to her feet when I practically dropped her. “At least I know you don’t want to watch me break my neck.”

She smiled in wry amusement.

“I’ve seen people with broken necks,” I said. “It’s not a pretty sight.”

“I’m sure.” She held out a small hand. “I’m Chloe Johnson, by the way. I never got to introduce myself, because you’ve either yelled at me or ignored me since I moved in.”

I didn’t take a hold of her hand. Her skin had felt way too soft and good against my own. I didn’t want to think of how those hands felt.

“Jake Mason,” I said. “What were you doing up on the roof?”

Chloe glanced up at the gutter that was now twisted from her desperate attempt to hold on. A grimace contorted her freckled face. “I was trying to fix a hole in the roof before it got too hot. I found a raccoon in my attic last night, and I’m confident it’s getting in through the hole up on the roof.”

“Do you even know how to patch a roof?” I asked skeptically. I know she had taken offense to my previous comments about her young age, but she just didn’t seem like the type of woman who could climb up on a roof and know what to do up there.

“It’s not that hard,” Chloe said, puffing up slightly. “I just have to take some of the shingles and nail it down. It doesn’t have to be perfect.”

A chuckle escaped my lips of its own will. She paused in picking up the ladder from the ground, visibly surprised at the sound.

“That is not how you patch a roof,” I said, shaking my head. “If you don’t do it right, you’ll have snow and rain leaking into your attic. That will turn into an even bigger problem.”

“Right,” Chloe said. “So I’ll do it right then.”

I admired her stubbornness and pride; we had that in common. But I wasn’t in the mood to rescue her from the roof again because she didn’t check to see if the ladder was level and steady on the ground.

“Let me do it,” I said. I reached for the hammer that was tucked in the waistband of her jean shorts.

Chloe started back from me in a panicked fashion. I looked up in mild surprise to see fear, such intense fear, flicker there briefly before shame colored her cheeks. That was when I caught sight of the faintest hint of bruises that looked exactly like fingerprints on her forearms. Realization dawned on me then. Her skittish behavior, checking the locks excessively at night, and eyeing me with wariness made sense. All of it made sense. The defiance. The sharp attitude. Every single bit of it clicked into place.

“I can do it,” she said shortly, crossing her arms to hide the bruises. “Thanks, but I’ve got it covered.”

“You’re going to break your neck if you do it,” I said.

“Not that you care if I do,” she said. She turned on the heel of her bare foot. “Sorry to have bothered you. Better get back to sleep before your son comes home.”

Observant landed on that list too, far too observant if she’d already figured out my schedule. My eyes went straight to the tight curves of her ass cheeks in those frayed jean shorts she wore. I tore my gaze away when she turned to look back at me with a frown.

“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have come out here,” I said, walking back around to the driveway. “It’s better to fix the roof when it’s cool out, too, like in the evening.”

“You only want me to fix it in the evening because you’re awake then.”

“That too,” I said. “Keep it down.”

I heard a mumbled word that sounded exactly like “asshole” thrown at my back. I slammed my door behind me. Leaning against it, I rubbed the sweat from my forehead while I willed my heart to cool. There was no point in trying to lay back down to get a few hours of sleep. I couldn’t get those images of her bruises out of my mind. Whoever had hit her, he’d hit her hard enough to put her in the house next to me. She wasn’t from around here. That much I could tell from how sun-kissed her skin was. Somewhere from the coast, I imagined. Maybe Florida.

My blood was running hot from feeling Chloe’s body cradled perfectly in my arms, a little too perfectly. I glanced down at the partial bulge in my pants. Sleep was definitely out of the question now.

“Great,” I grumbled, locking the front door. “Something I have to take care of on my own, just like everything else.”