Gimme Some Sugar Page 2

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Jackson grinned and slid into the driver’s seat. At six foot four, fitting his large frame behind the wheel wasn’t an easy job. “Tell old man Logan his deck is in good hands. Or what’s left of it, anyhow. I’m on my way.”

  One of the beautiful things about living in a small town was that it was just that, and the trip out to Rural Route 4 took less than ten minutes. Jackson pulled up to the tasteful little bungalow and got out, inhaling the fresh summer air as he sauntered to the front of the house to ring the bell.

  The strains of some old R&B song were clear from the porch, even through the firmly closed front door. Jackson rang the bell anyway, but after the second try, he gave up. Clearly, someone was home and having the Tuesday morning of a lifetime. He chuckled, picturing some hard-of-hearing old lady getting her Motown groove on inside the house. Far be it for him to interrupt a good time, he thought as he ambled around toward the backyard. All he needed to do was to take a look at the damage, anyway. In and out, no problem.

  “Huh,” Jackson murmured, realizing that the muffled music was decidedly clearer back here. He recognized the song blaring through the open windows as an oldie his sisters used to sing along with on the ancient boom box in their bedroom. Right, yeah. Kind of a girl mantra, something about being a natural woman. He whistled along with the song as he approached the deck, most of which was thankfully still attached to the house.

  “Well, at least it’s ground level.” He shrugged and examined the deck with a practiced eye. Although much of it was still intact, the tree had taken out the entire far row of railings and pickets, along with a good couple feet of floor boards, clipping what had once been a square into a rectangle with one hell of a rough edge.

  The three stairs leading from the yard to what remained of the deck were still anchored in place, and Jackson mounted them easily even though the far side of the deck had sustained enough damage to make it a bad idea. It was the only way he was going to get a good enough look at the point of impact; plus, if the boards ended up giving way, it wasn’t as if he’d fall more than a foot or two.

  He was crouched down low to examine the missing boards and busted railing when the most horrific attempt at song filtered loudly through the screen door.

  “Ouch.” Jackson winced at the spectacular racket over his shoulder, biting back a laugh. It was absolutely wrong to eavesdrop on a client belting out oldies in the privacy of her own home, even if she was doing it with nothing but the rolling screen that accompanied her sliding glass door between them. The woman’s voice was an audio train wreck, and his curiosity jumped like a trout at daybreak. One peek wouldn’t hurt, would it?

  As soon as he caught sight of the woman through the screen door, all bets for a quick look-see were off. The image of an old lady went up in smoke, replaced by a curvaceous, dark-haired woman in a skimpy bathrobe. Her eyes were shut tight, pretty face turned up to the living room ceiling as she wailed out the song with all her might. Common decency dictated he step back from the house and pretend he hadn’t seen her. He needed to walk away, and he needed to do it pronto.

  Nope. Not happening. This woman was fucking beautiful . Even if she did sound like a bag full of pissed off kittens.

  Jackson stood, mesmerized, as she moved in place to the slow beat of the music. She was a little slip of a thing, but an air of strength belied her size. Muscular calves tapered gracefully into slim ankles, nearly covered by a pair of floppy yellow socks. A handful of dark tendrils came loose from the knot on top of her head, perfectly framing her Mediterranean features. She stood in the middle of the living room, eyes squeezed shut to serenade God knows who, and propriety be damned, he couldn’t rip his eyes from her.

  Every time she undulated to the sultry rhythm of the song, the belt on her bathrobe slipped lower over her hips, loosening it just enough to reveal the thin tank top beneath. The cotton stretched over her chest as she swayed, and she crooned again to the climbing music.

  “You make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like a natural womaaaaaaan!” With each breath, the generous curve of her breasts pressed against the fabric, clearly outlining the woman’s tight, shadowy nipples.

  For a split second, all Jackson could think was oh, hell yes.

  But then his decency kicked in, hard and fast. He averted his heated face, raising one hand to knock on the metal door frame of the screen. In that same instant, a blood curdling scream ripped through the air over the music, followed by a string of curse words that made Jackson wonder if he should cower in fear or be hugely impressed.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on!” Jackson hollered, holding his hands up. He opened his mouth to tell her who he was and why he was there, but before he could form the words, she snatched something up from the side table and flung it at him with freakish accuracy.

  “Wait!”

  Too late.

  Out of instinct, Jackson shielded his face with both arms and stumbled back as the offending object smashed into the frame of the screen door that separated them, right where his face had been. His heel caught on a gap between boards, wrenching the loose plank from its place, and the sudden tilt in balance sent him ass over teakettle.

  Jackson’s breath shot from his lungs in a hard whump as he crashed, elbow first, to the remaining boards of the deck, mere feet from the jagged drop-off into the yard. Pain streaked down his arm in a snap, heating his fingers with a nasty tingle courtesy of his pissed off nerve endings, and the deck groaned in protest under the sudden shift in weight.

  “Ow! Take it easy, lady. I’m your contractor.” At least the damaged boards had withstood his crash-landing. He pulled himself to a sitting position, taking his throbbing elbow into his opposite hand for inspection. Damn, that funny bone was so not funny.

  “Get out, you fu—whaaaaat?” The woman stopped, midtirade, at the screen door, the frame over her head now skewed at an awkward angle. Her dark eyes narrowed with a mixture of anger and confusion. “What did you say?”

  “I said I’m your contractor. You know, to look at your deck. Or what’s left of it, anyway,” Jackson said loudly, pointing to the boards beneath him. “So could you do me a favor and keep your throwing arm to yourself?”

  The pain in his elbow pulsed along with the end of the song, and he flexed it a couple of times to make sure everything was where it belonged. The woman’s eyes widened until they resembled two coppery-brown pennies, flashing with sudden understanding.

  “I’m so sorry!” She whipped the screen door along its track and stepped out onto the deck, wearing a panicked expression. “Are you okay?”

  “Stop.”

  The word came out harsher than he’d intended, a fact that became even more apparent when the woman put both hands on her hips and shot him a feisty look. The deck shifted subtly beneath his body at the additional weight, and he jack-knifed to his feet. “You can’t be out here.”

  “It’s my yard,” she intoned over the music.

  Jackson shook his head and tried to shoo her back into the house. “I know,” he returned, just as forcefully. “But it’s not safe with all the damage. You could get hurt.”

  “I’m barely a foot from the door,” she said, refusing to budge. Man, she was infuriating.

  “The deck isn’t structurally sound. Ma’am, please—”

  The woman rolled her pretty brown eyes. “If that’s the case, you’d better get off it too.” Her sarcasm rang through like church bells on Sunday. Too bad for Jackson, she was right. He’d been pushing it to walk on the deck in the first place.

  “Okay.” Jackson turned toward the wooden steps to get to the yard, but the now-loose part of the deck he’d upended with his boot stood smack in his path. He started to tiptoe around it, but the adjacent boards gave an ominous groan under his weight.

  “Oh, God.” The woman’s eyes went wide, as if she’d realized all at once that he wasn’t just blowing smoke. She motioned toward the house, the sleeve of her bathrobe flopping around
her elbow. “I thought you were exaggerating. Okay, come this way. Don’t fall through the boards or anything.”

  Jackson covered the newly damaged space in one long stride and followed her into the living room. “Thanks. That was more eventful than I’m used to,” he said, fighting to be heard over the still-pumping music.

  “What?”

  “I said—”

  But she cut him off midsentence, moving toward the radio to silence it with a swift crank of her wrist.

  Jackson’s ears rang in the unexpected hush. “What I said was, that’s more eventful than I’m used to.”

  The woman frowned and crossed her arms over her chest, pulling her chin up to look at him. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people like that, you know. It’s not very polite.”

  She had to be kidding.

  “I rang the bell, twice actually, before coming around here to check out the damage.” Jackson took a step toward her, noting that she only came up to his chest. “I can’t help it if you were a little hard to miss.”

  “I . . . I was listening to the radio!”

  Note to self: the blush? Insanely hot.

  “Yeah, I got that.” Okay, so he was messing with her a little. It couldn’t be helped. “Whatever that was is probably toast.” Jackson gestured to the mangled black shrapnel at her feet. Despite her tiny stature, she sure packed a wallop.

  “Huh? Oh.” The woman danced up to her tiptoes, sock-feet pressing into the edge of the area rug beneath them. “That was the remote for the stereo.”

  “Here, let me help you.” He lumbered toward the hardwood at the exact moment she bent low to retrieve the broken pieces, and their foreheads knocked together with a startling clunk. Her hands flew to her head, and she wobbled for a second before falling smack on her butt in the middle of the living room.

  A slice of panic streaked through him from conscience to chest. “God, I’m sorry. Did I hurt you?” Jackson reached for her instantly, cradling her elbow in his palm even though the pain in his own was still banging away like a nine-pound hammer. “Are you okay?”

  “I think so.” She blinked, and both her focus and her quick frown suggested she was indeed in top working order. “Are you?”

  Relieved and dazed, Jackson bent lower to try to regain some clarity. The scent of something earthy and fresh filled his nose, like the flowers in his mother’s garden, and he blinked as he breathed it in. In her tumble to the carpet, the woman’s bathrobe had fallen all the way open to reveal that infernally sexy, nearly see-through tank top. As his eyes raked lower, Jackson couldn’t help but get an eyeful of her white cotton panties. The no-frills fabric hugged the fold where her tanned legs met her body, showing off the curvy flare of her hips with just enough suggestion to spike his blood.

  Forget trying to focus. Now he just wanted to keep from passing out.

  “You, uh . . . your, you know . . . bathrobe is kind of . . .”

  Okay. While he might earn a point or two for being a gentleman, he sure as hell wasn’t going to score high in the suave category. Not that he was trying to impress her or anything. Christ, he wasn’t still seeing stars, was he?

  “Close your eyes!” Her head-to-toe flail might’ve been amusing if Jackson’s head wasn’t now pounding as hard as his elbow, but at least she was okay. He turned his face to give her a chance to cover up, and the rustle of fabric being yanked into place told him she’d taken full advantage.

  Time to use a little humor to wrap this up, since she’d clearly recovered and he still had a job to do. “I’m going to stand up now. I just wanted to give you fair warning. You know, so we don’t bang into each other again.”

  She double knotted the belt on her robe, her blush creeping all the way to her ears. “You’re the one who smacked into me.”

  Guilt pumped through him, staying his smile. “I really am sorry. Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “Oh . . . well, yes, of course.”

  “Okay, then. You’re not going to toss anything else at my head, are you?”

  “I only did that because I thought you were a Peeping Tom,” she argued, scrambling to her feet. “You scared me half to death.”

  “Guess I deserved it, then,” Jackson replied without skipping a beat. “I’ll be here for a little while to assess the damage to the back of the house and take some pictures, but I’ll do my best not to interrupt you. Oh, and I’ll fix your screen door after I’m done. Free of charge, of course.”

  “But the tree didn’t hit the house. There’s nothing wrong with the screen door.”

  Man, he’d bet she was feisty even in her sleep. “If you say so.” Jackson trundled the door along its track, the dent in the metal frame as clear as his hand in front of him. “Have a nice morning.”

  He clamped down on his laugh as she gasped from behind him, but he didn’t turn back toward the house. It got kind of dicey when the gasp turned into a muttered curse, but when the cursing went from English to Italian, he had no choice but to bury his face in the crook of his elbow and let the laughter in his chest have its way with him.

  Chapter Two

  The sharp sound of a horn knocked Carly from the distracted fog she’d been unable to shake all day, and she gave the car behind her a guilty wave before proceeding through Pine Mountain’s only stoplight. Her cheeks prickled with warmth as she shamelessly let her mind zero back in on its new favorite subject.

  The Contractor Guy had her in the world’s weirdest tizzy.

  In her defense, that Aretha Franklin song begged to be turned up loud and sung along to. Still, that didn’t change how totally mortifying it was that Mr. Fix-It had caught her warbling her little heart out. And it definitely didn’t change his being as sculpted as a freaking Michelangelo, or his breathtakingly blue eyes which crinkled around the edges when he smiled. Even though that smile had been 100 percent at her expense this morning.

  Well, you know what they say. You never get a second chance to make a first impression. Not like you’d need one after that.

  Oh, Lord. The mere thought of it was going to ruin that song for her forever. At least she could hide out in the kitchen until the new deck was done.

  She pulled off the main road and onto resort property, grateful for the first reassuring thought she’d had all day.

  As much as Carly missed the bustling sights and sounds of New York, she had to admit that the grounds of the resort really were beautiful. The main lodge was set against the backdrop of the Blue Ridge skyline, with entrances on both the east and west sides of the stone façade. La Dolce Vita sat nestled on the west side of the building, which gave her the full advantage of a gorgeous mountain sunset to boost the restaurant’s cozy atmosphere.

  Carly had been pleasantly surprised to discover Pine Mountain Resort wasn’t just a tourist draw during ski season, which meant there was no terrible off-season lull in the summer. The sizeable lake and extensive hiking trails made Pine Mountain an attractive warm-weather vacation spot, and the new full-service spa at the resort added elegance and upscale appeal. With the rejuvenation of the main restaurant, courtesy of Carly’s hard work and vision, the resort was sure to become even more popular in the upcoming season.

  Which was a good thing, because the more buzz she got, the easier it would be to prove her worth and snag a primo job in New York.

  She made her way to the kitchen on cat feet, snapping on the overhead lights and giving each station a quick once-over. With the exception of the faint buzz of the walk-in fridge and freezer lining the rear wall, the kitchen hummed with eerie silence. Carly shut the door to the back office with a snick and squared her shoulders, giving the desk phone a wary look before scooping up the receiver. As much as she didn’t want to call Travis, the fact of the matter was that their divorce was still in red-tape purgatory. Until they both signed on the dotted line, she’d have to suck it up and return his phone calls.

  “Travis Masters.”

  Was it her, or had his voice gotten even more unctuous since she’d last spo
ken to him a few weeks ago? “Hi, Travis.” Carly cradled the phone between her shoulder and her ear and imagined herself on a beach in Tahiti. “Sloane said you left a message the other day. What can I do for you?”

  “Carly.” Travis’s voice was as thick as clotted cream. “How’s it going at the resort? What’s the name of that little place you’ve got up there again?” He paused for maximum condescension. “It’s so far off the beaten path, I can never remember.”

  Carly’s radar flipped into overdrive at Travis’s niceties, in spite of the veiled dig. “La Dolce Vita,” she said, trying not to grit her teeth. “You’re awfully pleasant today.”

  “What? I’m not allowed to be nice now?” His wounded tone peppered tiny holes in Carly’s carefully constructed defenses before he continued. “Just because we’re getting divorced doesn’t mean I don’t care about how you are.”

  She frowned. Maybe she was being a touch cynical. After all, not all of their five-year marriage had been set on stormy waters.

  “Sorry. You just took me by surprise, is all.” Carly twisted the phone cord between her fingers. “Everything here is great. Our soft opening in the spring was successful enough that we were able to do the grand opening in time for Memorial Day. So far, the early summer crowds haven’t disappointed, even though the weather’s been on the cool side.”

  “Well, that sounds like a nice little payoff for you, although I have to say, I’m surprised you left our stomping ground. You must miss the city something fierce.” Travis’s voice folded over the words with a little too much concern, and Carly’s unease shimmered like waves of heat on summer pavement. Travis could get as cordial as he wanted. No way was she tipping her totally homesick hand.

  “It’s actually lovely out here. I can’t complain.” Carly paused, unable to keep her mounting wariness at bay. “Look, Travis, I’m sure you didn’t call me for a game of catch-up, and I’ve got a tasting menu to prep for my dinner staff. So is there something you need?”