Chapter Three
Jake took a sharp right onto the narrow road that led to his cliffside home. Below them, Dante circled offshore, landfall still hours away. Plenty of time to get inside and figure out what the hell he was going to do with Kate Bell until he could hustle her off his island.
“So, which is it—boxers or briefs?”
Jesus. His hands tightened on the steering wheel as he drove alongside the stone coral wall surrounding the property. Does she really expect me to answer?
She thrust her recording device toward him, all blond ambition. “Boxers or briefs?”
Apparently she does. “Don’t you think that’s a little on the personal side?”
Kate released a heavy sigh he interpreted as annoyance. “So much makes sense now.”
“What the hell does that mean?” He pulled up to the gate and punched his code into the electronic system.
“The bad attitude. The unwillingness to be interviewed.” She looked back at the tablet screen, her forehead wrinkled. “Definitely a briefs guy.”
With his grip fixed on the wheel, he drove through the open gates and parked next to his workshop. “I do not wear briefs.”
“Fine—no briefs.”
“No briefs.” He yanked at his cowlick. Glanced in the rearview. Shook his head.
With his unkempt hair and oversized clothing, he was a perfect facsimile of the brainy middle school kid he’d been, ignored by cheerleaders, reviled by jocks. It was a beautiful thing, or rather, a not-so-beautiful, thing. He’d liked that kid, the young pre-celebrity, unpackaged version of Jake Wright. That kid had dreamed about a woman like the one leaning across the console. The man he’d become turned to look at her, noticing how her jacket had slipped from her shoulder to reveal a silky, camisole-type thing, lacy, probably silk, definitely sexy.
Oh, she was something, all right. Soft green eyes, lit from within and sweet, like an updated 1950s film cutie with a dash of serious sex appeal—a blonde Natalie Wood—all soft curves and sweet Midwestern attitude. A mantrap waiting to happen. Not the tough-talking, flirtatious New Yorker he’d expected, but a definite mantrap. A real pleasure for the eyes. Unlike her persistence, which was decidedly unpleasant.
“So you sport the other ones, those cute…you know…” she said, tapping the side of her tablet, “those cute…briefy boxery kind.”
Briefy boxery kind? Seriously? Hell, next she’d be asking what size jock strap he wore. He slammed the truck into park. “There’s no way in hell I’m going to answer that question.”
“Ooh-kay, then.” She typed into an app on her tablet. COMMANDO.
Jake slipped the keys from the ignition, stared out the windshield, and tried to not to lose his shit. “No, I do not go commando, I’m not interested in love, matchmaking, or being paraded around Smart Cupid’s website, wearing a pair of star-spangled boxer shorts. Period. End.”
There was a short pause. “Well, if you don’t answer…”
“Fine.” He banged his palms against the steering wheel. “Boxer briefs. Or briefy boxers. Whatever you called them. Jesus, who cares what type of underwear a guy owns?”
She typed boxer briefs, then backspaced over it and re-typed commando. “I liked you better when you were au naturel.”
“I was never au naturel.” He spared a quick, irritated glance at her phone. “You can’t answer the questions for me. Seriously, what kind of journalist are you?” The drunken kind. The cute kind. The kind who is messing with my peaceful existence.
She let out an exasperated sigh. “The kind who needs answers. Give me something.”
“Fine.” He gritted his teeth. Literally gritted his teeth. “I prefer Coke to Pepsi.”
She batted her pretty eyelashes. “And do you prefer brunettes to redheads?”
“No, actually, I like blondes.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Blonde was not an option.”
“You wanted to know, Miss Bell.”
Her eyes narrowed further, although he hadn’t believed further narrowing was possible. “Please, please, call me Kate.” She jabbed at the application window multiple times. “Kate, Kate, Kate. Honestly, if we’re going to be sharing your blonde, Coca-Cola fantasies, a first-name basis seems appropriate.”
He kept his hands safely on the wheel. “Except we’re not going to be sharing my blonde, Coca-Cola fantasies. Not that I have any blonde, Coca-Cola fantasies, but if I did, we wouldn’t be sharing them. Once the storm passes, I’m booking you a flight straight back to Manhattan.”
She stared up at him from beneath those lashes, undeterred. “Sexting—twenty-first century turn-on or new-fangled invitation to trouble?”
His forehead dropped to the steering wheel. She was relentless. “No comment.”
“Not commenting isn’t an option. The women of Smart Cupid want to know details about the bachelor. Secret fantasies. Preferences.”
A low growl formed in the back of this throat. Typical. His ex-wife had exhibited preferences. She’d preferred his literary agent. No wonder he hadn’t written a book in three years. “Smart Cupid can kiss my—”
“All I want to do is ask you a few questions. Once I get your basic stats, likes and dislikes, we can move on to examining your expertise. You have so much advice to offer Smart Cupid’s readers on building strong, lovable relationships—”
“Strong love relationships.”
“Yes, exactly.” She stabbed at the air. “Strong love relationships. By a factor of sex.”
Man, she was tipsy. Bold, too, referencing the title of his book, but also determined, accident-prone, funny, and completely adorable. Insanely adorable.
He cracked a self-mocking smile. Minus the vodka, exactly his type—when he used to have a type. He hadn’t had any type for a year, eighteen months. Shoving the unwelcome knowledge out of his mind, he threw open the door of the truck and climbed out. “No interview. One night.”
“But—”
He closed the door on her protest. One minute of peace, that’s all he wanted, one minute to regroup and get a hold of his thoughts.
At the back of the truck, he untied the tarp and hoisted her bag out of the flatbed. A pink duffle bag. Honestly, what kind of woman carried a pink duffle? He slung the damn thing over his shoulder and walked around the truck, intent on keeping himself together until she was safely on a plane back to Manhattan, but as he reached the passenger side, his gaze locked onto a feminine set of legs dangling outside the door.
Damn—seriously? She leaned forward, and his attention shifted north from her slim ankles to her rockin’ curves and the inlet of her waist. Framed by the red door, all rounded and sweet-looking, blonde curls tumbling over her shoulders, she was exactly his type. He pressed his glasses against the bridge of his nose. Oh yeah, Miss Ohio could definitely break me.
He leaned in to pull an extra flashlight from the glove box. She smelled good, too, an optimistic blend of liquid soap and cherry blossoms. The last thing he needed was optimism. Between her true confessions about chips and sex-o-meters, and her off-the-charts commando commentary, he was already fighting a headache. Her brand of optimism was a luxury he couldn’t afford. Better to deal with reality. His ex-wife had taught him that. Then again, she’d never smelled like cherry blossoms. Man, he loved cherry blossoms. He dug through his pockets for the keys.
Good thing he was famous for his self-control. But watching her climb from the passenger seat, noting how the movement caused her skirt to ride a bit higher up on her thighs, an unexpected hit of desire shot through his veins. The hell with the keys. The hell with the hurricane.
Dammit, what was wrong with him? He slammed the brakes on his thoughts. No matter how enjoyable it was to look at Kate Bell, he was in a definite look—don’t touch—situation.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and as raindrops started to fall, she dashed toward the wraparound porch. He followed behind her, moving through the rain, the gravel driveway crunching beneath his feet. She waited as he unlocked the door, leaning her curves against a latticed railing dripping with bougainvillea, the flowers bending in the wind. Her body swayed along with the bright blooms. And if the leaning was amazing, the sway was fantastic.
With more effort than he cared to admit, Jake pulled his gaze away from her tipsy, seductive form and opened the heavy door of his gray saltbox bungalow. His home was one of the original houses on the island, and he’d restored it piece by piece with found wood and vintage hardware, everything from the widow’s walk to the wide-plank floors that led to the French doors and out the stone steps to Lovers Beach.
Jake flipped the wall switch. Light flooded the hard slate tile of the entry. Still had power, which was a good sign. He glanced around as he always did and felt the familiar contentment at the center of his soul. He loved this place, hidden from the rest of the island. Maybe the only place he felt at home now. And Kate Bell, well…she swayed into the place as if she and his bungalow formed a perfect match.
He watched her take in the dark floors, the peaked, turreted ceilings, and the oversized stone fireplace. Built along the cliff, the place could seem as much a fortress as a bungalow.
“Interesting place,” she said.
Jake set down her overstuffed bag, took off his glasses, and wiped the rain from the lenses with the hem of his shirt. “Thanks, I still have some work to do.”
It’d been a long time since he’d invited a woman into his bed, or rather, his home, and suddenly, the place felt significantly smaller. And much less empty.
Ignoring his thoughts, he shoved his glasses back on, picked up the duffle, and strode through the entry into the house. Kate trailed behind him, shoes in hand, her bare feet quiet against the tile. A collection of gray clouds created shadows over the skylights of the beamed ceilings, and the rain pressed hard against the wall of windows at the back of the house.
“Nice work on the tongue-and-groove hardwoods.”
His head swiveled in the direction of her voice. “Excuse me?”
“Tough to match the original floors in a restoration.” Her pink painted toes drew an invisible semi-circle on the polished wood. “You did a good job.”
“Thanks,” he said, surprised and pleased to have his handiwork appreciated.
She crisscrossed the floor, moving unsteadily toward the fireplace. “Strong effort on the mantle and the marble facing here, too. Did you install the French doors?”
Hypnotized by the sashay of her hips and her amazing knowledge of home restoration, he blinked his way back to the bungalow. “Yeah…I did.”
Head tilted to the side, she said, “See, there. At the bottom of the piston travel, if you install that up against the door the way you have it, the door won’t close properly.” She grabbed a leveler from the open toolbox next to the fireplace. Not sure tools and martinis mixed, he stepped toward her, but she swiveled by and walked to the doors. “Put more tension on the piston, bring the stop out a quarter of an inch past the groove, and the door will be in better opposition with the closer.” She tossed him a crazy-cute smile. “Rookie mistake.”
Jake ran a hand over his jaw and considered her surprisingly sound advice.
“Take a lookie here,” she continued, waving the leveler dangerously close to the hinge. “The speed adjustment screw at the end of the closer allows you to adjust how fast the door closes. If the door is closing too fast, jus’ tighten up the screw. If you need more speed, loosen the screw ’til you’ve got it right.”
Speed. Tighten. Screw.
She leaned against the doorjamb, all inadvertent seduction, and his effort to avoid picturing her wearing nothing but his tool belt failed.
Drunk, he reminded himself.
Hands off.
He cleared his throat. “Where did you learn…?”
“My dad owns a construction firm back in Arcadia, built it from the ground up. I’m an only child, so he wants me back in Ohio running the company.” Her shoulder shrugged against the doorjamb. “Katie Bell Construction, named after me and built by my dad’s own workmanlike hands. His dream.” She stared down at her pink toes. “I wish it were mine.”
He nodded. “Explains the whole ‘stuck in Ohio’ comment.”
Kate slanted him a look. “So you were listening.”
“You don’t want the job?”
An uncertain expression worried her pretty features. “I don’t want to hurt him.”
Another nod. He shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his rain-spattered chinos and offered a teasing smile. “I bet you look cute in a hard hat.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Let’s just say yellow’s not my color.”
“Aw, I bet you look cute in yellow.” After an awkward silence, he jerked his chin toward the front windows. “I need to finish installing the storm shutters, so…” He indicated an archway that led to the bedrooms. “Bedrooms are that way. If you need to get into some dry clothes.”
“Or I could help board up the windows. Prepare for the storm?”
Jake gave her a dubious look. She was cute, but there was no way he trusted her with a power tool after three martinis. “Maybe you should take a nap, sleep off the vodka.”
“You mean the Russian courage.” She peeled her body away from the door, tripped toward him, and handed over the leveler. “Maybe you’re right. Probably too tipsy for general contracting,” she said, winding her way toward the archway.
Yeah, she’s tipsy, all right.
And sweet.
And sexy.
And so not what I expected.
He set the tools on the mantle and followed her zigzagging form toward the bedrooms.
Halfway down the hall, she unbuttoned her suit jacket and slipped it off her shoulders, revealing a lacy camisole-type thing that nudged his natural reserve along a dangerous road.
“Ya know what, Jake?” A laugh bubbled up from her chest, and the sound was so out of the blue, so adorable, it stopped him in his tracks. “I bet you’d look cute in a hard hat, too. Not all brooding and sexy and hot, like the pathologically vain, run-of-the-nightclub types I have vowed to avoid…” She swayed farther to the left and tossed a wink at him over her shoulder. “But cute. Definitely cute.”
And that’s when it hit him.
Of all the trouble his sister had dished out in the years since his divorce, sending this woman to Paradise Cay was the kind of trouble that might just bring him to his knees.