Just One Taste Read online

  “Don’t you worry about me, Mrs. A. I’ll be just fine. Now let’s go see what we can salvage from the mess in there. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day.”

  Chapter Two

  Jesse rocked back on the heels of his standard-issue work boots, surveying the front of his Army buddy’s lakefront duplex with the first glint of hope he’d felt since his rude awakening that morning. Sure, the clapboard exterior had seen more than a few calendars’ worth of better days, and okay, Gabe had warned him that both apartments inside needed an equal and not small amount of TLC. But there was a sturdy roof overhead and a clean, dry living space below it, which was more than Jesse had been guaranteed during the six years he’d spent in Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention the twenty he’d spent in Pine Mountain before that. Outdated furnishings and appliances of questionable functionality were hardly roughing it as far as he was concerned.

  Especially since right at that moment, all his worldly belongings were crammed in the duffel bag sitting on the passenger seat of his beat-up old Dodge Challenger.

  “Like I told you on the phone, it’s not much.” Gabe folded his arms over the front of his olive drab T-shirt¸ frowning down at the overgrown patches of crab grass taking over the front yard.

  “It’s not swimming under two inches of water,” Jesse reminded him. “As far as I’m concerned, that makes it paradise.”

  “Yeah.” His friend’s expression slid toward sympathy. “I guess that’ll happen when your water main is pushing forty years old and it decides to bust in three places. Did your landlord give you a repair timeline?”

  Jesse’s mind spun back to the news Mr. Watkins had delivered to all the affected residents a few hours ago, and his gut squeezed. The squeeze tripled up when he thought of the crestfallen look on the blonde’s face when they’d gone over the worst-case scenario.

  Hi gut went ballistic when he recalled her hands on his biceps, clutching his T-shirt with hot fists as they’d stood toe to toe on the sidewalk.

  “Sort of,” Jesse said, clearing his throat to lock in on the here and now. “They’ve got to dry everything out before they can figure out if they’ll need mold remediation. The water damage looks pretty significant, though.”

  “Meaning the place is likely trashed even if there’s no mold?”

  Leave it to Gabe to zero in on the bottom line. Gabe had been no bones about it since the minute Jesse had met him as a fellow combat medic on a ring flight out of Uruzgan Province in Afghanistan. No great shocker they’d become fast friends. “Yeah,” Jesse said. “The building is pretty old, so I doubt much can be salvaged. Looks like it’s going to be at least a month before anyone can go back.”

  “Well, you’re welcome to Shangri-La here ’til then.” Gabe tipped his light brown crew cut at the dilapidated porch leading to the duplex’s front door, and Jesse’s curiosity got one up on his mouth.

  “How’d you fall into a lake house like this, anyway?” he asked. “It’s pretty secluded out here.”

  Gabe smiled on his way to the main threshold. “This was our vacation place when my sister and I were growing up. The colonel left it to us a couple of years ago when he died.”

  Jesse mounted the creaky wooden steps, brows shooting upward in surprise. “Your father was a colonel?”

  Not that they’d had cause to get overly chatty in the belly of a CH-47 Chinook, but still. Gabe had never mentioned any family other than his wife, kids, and sister when they’d been stationed in Afghanistan together.

  Gabe nodded. “Colonel Nathan McMarrin. Served for twenty-seven years.”

  “How come you never said anything about it?”

  “The old man was more highly decorated than a Christmas tree,” Gabe said with a shrug. “I respected the hell out of him, but so did a lot of people. I wanted to work my way through the Army on my merit, not my name.”

  He pulled a set of keys from the pocket of his cargo shorts, the metallic clatter punctuating his matter-of-fact words. “Katrina and I are total Army brats. Lived in more cities than I can count. This lake house is really the only place we ever came back to more than once. We don’t get out here much now, though, so you’re welcome to stay as long as you need to.”

  Relief uncoiled, low and warm in Jesse’s gut. He might not be a wordy guy, but some things needed proper air time. “Thanks. I’m happy to pay rent. You’re really bailing me out.”

  With no family ties and a whopping seven months back in Pine Mountain, Jesse’s options had been severely limited. He was tight enough with his coworkers at the Double Shot—no way would Adrian or Teagan leave him in the homeless category. But the head chef and the co-owner of the bar and grill had recently gotten engaged. Not a chance Jesse was going to crash that party for an entire month, and the bar manager, Brennan, had a place about as big as Jesse’s.

  His buddy’s duplex on the lake was Jesse’s only shot at a place to stay that had four walls rather than four tires. And jamming his six-foot frame into the back of the Challenger wasn’t on Jesse’s wish list, no matter how much he loved the car.

  Not that he’d never done it. After all, there were worse places to sleep than your backseat, and hadn’t he found that out the hard way.

  Gabe’s laugh popped Jesse back to the here and now. “Tell you what. How about you fix up a couple of things around here and we call it even on the rent? My sister and I have been meaning to take care of a few repairs and spruce the place up, but things are pretty hectic on my end with the new baby. Plus I’m still low man on the totem pole in the emergency department at Riverside, so the shifts are killers.”

  Jesse’s pulse stuttered, although he forced his expression to remain stoic. “I’m sure they’re happy to have someone with your skill set on staff.” Gabe had been one hell of a good medic, and Jesse had zero doubt that the guy was going to make an even better emergency physician.

  Just like Jesse had zero doubt that he’d never work another trauma himself, even if he lived to be 103.

  “Yeah. It’s a little different than we’re used to, but it’s all good.” Gabe’s pause was a beat too long to be natural, and Jesse braced for impact. “How about you? Career change still working out?”

  Jesse’s answer was as swift as his smile, although he had to work for one a lot harder than the other. “Can’t complain.”

  Explaining he’d found solace in cooking for people would make sense to precisely nobody, so he didn’t even give it a go. Hell, the way working with food had eased the gut-punching anxiety of transitioning back home even shocked the crap out of him. Especially since, when Jesse had taken a last-ditch job busing tables and washing dishes for Teagan and Adrian six months ago, he could barely slap together his sanity or a ham sandwich.

  Now he was their sous chef, and the food and the makeshift family were the only things that kept him a step ahead of the ghosts he’d brought back from Afghanistan.

  Gabe reached out, placing a friendly clap over Jesse’s shoulder that spoke volumes even though he hadn’t said a word. “Good. You’ve got the surest set of hands I’ve ever freaking seen. I’m glad you’re keeping them busy.”

  Jesse lifted the limbs in question, forcing his smile into more genuine territory. “Don’t worry. I’ll still put them to good work out here fixing the place up for you.” He followed Gabe over the front threshold, swinging his gaze from the door on their left to its twin on the opposite side of the hallway. “So there are two separate apartments?”

  Gabe twisted the knob under his palm and led the way into what appeared to be the main room of the left-hand unit. “In a manner of speaking. There’s separate living space on each side, including a kitchen, a bathroom, and a bedroom. But both halves share the same entryway from the front porch, and it’s the only locked door. They also share a common deck and backyard, along with a bedroom wall where the two units meet in the back of the house. So while they’re separate spaces, there’s a lot of mutual area between the two.”

  Jesse gave the apartment
a good scan, taking in everything from structure to specifics. Although the faded, foot-worn carpet, darkly beamed ceilings, and hulking kitchen appliances definitely marked the place as circa the Reagan administration, the large wall of windows that spanned the back of the dining area let in plenty of evening sunlight—not to mention an incredible view of Big Gap Lake and the Blue Ridge Mountains beyond. A decent layer of dust had settled over the timeworn surfaces and the furniture was overdue for a double-date with a vacuum cleaner and scrub-brush, but that was nothing Jesse couldn’t fix before tomorrow’s dinner shift at the Double Shot. A little hard work and elbow grease, and the apartment would be good to go. Probably close to perfect, even.

  “Must’ve made for a great vacation house, with all this lakefront space,” Jesse said, leaning one hip against the overstuffed sofa. Just because the phrases vacation house and lakefront space weren’t in Jesse’s wheelhouse didn’t mean he’d begrudge Gabe for having them in his. If Gabe needed the place fixed up, Jesse would make it happen.

  “Actually, it did.” His buddy’s smile was wistful, and he flipped the keys in his palm before passing them over. “We don’t use the place much anymore, since I’m so busy with my family and work, and my sister’s got an apartment of her own. But I replaced both of the beds last year, just in case one of us got a wild hair to stay out here on the lake. Can’t say for sure that either one of them has ever been slept in, though.”

  “Your sister doesn’t come up here at all?” Jesse asked, waiting out Gabe’s burst of you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me laughter before his buddy responded.

  “She’s a bit of a free spirit, so I’ve learned to never say never with anything she does. As far as I know, she hasn’t been up here since we winterized the place last fall, although she keeps threatening to come and do some bigger projects. She’s pretty ensconced in her own place, though. I doubt you’ll see hide or hair of her.”

  But before Jesse could open his mouth to reply, he was interrupted by a very smooth, very female, and very familiar voice.

  “Sorry to prove you wrong, dear brother, but this place is half mine. And both my hide and my hair just moved back in.”

  Kat stood in the door frame to the south side of the duplex with a grocery bag on her hip and a repeating chorus of this isn’t happening running through her head. But she’d overheard enough of Gabe’s conversation with the guy standing next to him to understand where this was headed, and she needed to put the kibosh on the whole sure-you-can-stay-here thing, like now.

  And then her potential roomie swung all the way around, and the argument on her lips spontaneously combusted.

  “Jesus, Kat. Make some noise next time,” Gabe managed to say over a laugh, shaking off the ingrained defensive stance he took on the rare occasion someone was able to sneak up on him. Funny, 1B had a carbon copy of the same maneuver. “And what do you mean, you just moved back in?”

  Her brother’s boots thumped over the thinning carpet as he crossed the room to kiss her cheek and take the bag from her hands, and Kat fast-tracked herself back to reality.

  “I mean exactly that. How do you two know each other?”

  “Jesse and I were in Afghanistan together,” Gabe said, and Kat gave herself a mental head slap. It certainly explained Jesse’s reaction to being taken by surprise a minute ago, not to mention the way he stood at attention 24/7.

  And the fact that she’d never seen him express an emotion, good, bad, or ugly? Yeah, it explained that too.

  Gabe’s forehead creased as he took in her expression, then Jesse’s non-expression, and he traced an imaginary loop between the two of them with his index finger. “I think the bigger question is, how do you two know each other?”

  Kat hesitated, but of course Jesse chose precisely that moment to finally get gabby. “We live in the same building,” he said, shoulders locked and loaded beneath his white T-shirt. “Your sister’s apartment is directly above mine.”

  Gabe’s hands found his hips in all their big-brother glory. “You were flooded out of your apartment this morning, and you didn’t tell me?”

  Oh hell. “Maybe?”

  “Maybe.” A flare of big-brother protectiveness flattened his stare to a steely blue, and Kat caved.

  “Okay, yes. But I didn’t want to tell you because I knew you’d only worry. I figured I’d come up here and get settled in, then tell you. No harm, no foul.”

  “Well, that’s going to make life interesting, since I just promised half the place to Jesse here.”

  Kat sucked in a breath to respond—how was she supposed to know Gabe had been Army buddies with Mr. Calm, Cool, and Gorgeous—but Jesse stepped in, beating her to the punch.

  “It’s okay. The house belongs to you.” He dropped his chin in a tight nod. “I’ll work something out.”

  The hitch in his coppery stare lasted for barely a second, but Kat caught it all the same. “Wait. Do you have another place to go?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Do you have another place to go that isn’t your car?” Gabe amended, and Jesse ran a hand over the back of his neck as he shifted over the threadbare carpet.

  “Not really.”

  Well, shit. Didn’t Kat know just how that felt.

  “Okay, look,” Gabe said, dividing his gaze between her and Jesse. “Clearly, I didn’t know you’d be up here, Kat. But there are two sides to the duplex, with plenty of room on each. You’ll be at the PT center with your clients during the day, and Jesse mostly works nights at the Double Shot.”

  “The bar and grill down by Pine Mountain Resort?” She hadn’t been there in ages, although one of her clients worked there too, and he was a decent guy.

  Jesse nodded, and wasn’t shy about looking her right in the eye. “I’m their sous chef.”

  Talk about your curveball. “Seriously?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  Despite the fact that she knew it was an ingrained response, the word scraped over her ears. “Kat,” she said, her bangle bracelets jingling over her wrist as she extended a hand. “I’m just Kat.”

  “Jesse Oliver.” His handshake was the perfect blend of strong and steady without threatening to crush her. “Listen, I really don’t want to impose.”

  The way he said the words, so quiet and devoid of pretense, told Kat beyond the whisper of a doubt that he really meant them, and damn it, there went another chink in her armor. “Can I have a second with my brother, Jesse?”

  “Sure.” Jesse kicked his boots into motion, taking a direct path to the sliding glass door at the back of the kitchen. As soon as the door shushed back into place, Kat gave Gabe a dose of his hands-to-hips medicine.

  “You seriously don’t have a problem with this?”

  Honest as always, Gabe simply shrugged. “Actually, Kat, I don’t. You’ll both only be here temporarily, and Jesse is a good guy. He had his platoon’s six in Zabul more times than I can count. I trust him 100 percent.”

  “So you want me to live with him?” She threaded her arms over her chest, her voice pitching downward despite her best effort to keep it level. “You know how I feel about my space.”

  “I do, and I get that being displaced isn’t a walk in the park for you,” her brother agreed, his expression punctuating the pang running from her belly to her breastbone. “But it might not be all bad. Jesse agreed to help fix up the duplex in exchange for rent.”

  Kat took a stutter step back over the creaky linoleum. “I told you I’d do that.”

  “Exactly. So maybe if both of you stay out here, you can help each other out.”

  “I don’t need any help,” she argued. Leave it to Gabe to baby her over something as ridiculous as a few fixer-upper projects.

  But he didn’t stand down in the big-brother department. “Just because you can do the work by yourself doesn’t mean you should. Look, there are two separate living spaces out here, and we can install locks on the doorways leading to each for added privacy. But Jesse doesn’t have anyone else, and he’s a brothe
r, Kat.”

  Something Kat couldn’t quite identify flashed over Gabe’s stare, disappearing an instant later as he continued. “I can’t leave him twisting in the wind. Plus, this place is pretty far off the main road, and it’s halfway to falling down. I’d sleep a little better knowing Jesse’s just a holler away in case you need help.”

  Kat planted her sandals into the linoleum and huffed in disbelief. “Jeez, Gabe. Sexist much?”

  “Oh, there’s no denying you’re tough.” Her brother stepped in to place a healthy nudge on her shoulder. “But Jesse did multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m pretty sure that’ll beat your moxie and your can of Mace if some idiot tries to break in.”

  She slid a covert glance at the six-foot package of hard, lean Army soldier on the flip side of the sliding glass door, and crap—Gabe kind of had a point. And as much as she wanted some peace to offset the sting of being booted from her home, leaving the guy to sleep in the dented old muscle car she’d seen in the driveway didn’t feel right. If he worked nights, chances were she’d never even see him unless she made it a point to.

  Which she wouldn’t. Sneaky peeks at his biceps notwithstanding.

  “Fine. I’ll share the duplex with him, and I’ll fix up my half while he fixes up his.” Kat nudged Gabe back with a sigh. “But those locks need to go up ASAP. I wasn’t kidding about wanting my own space.”

  Chapter Three

  Jesse squeezed the trigger on the power drill in his hand, sawdust tickling his knuckles as the last screw in Kat’s new lock wound firmly into place.

  How the hell he’d landed himself seven floorboards away from the hottest woman he’d laid eyes on since coming home, Jesse had no clue.

  Especially since Kat was now very, very off-limits.

  Jesse triple-checked the locking mechanism before lowering the drill into its sturdy black case and kicking his thoughts back into shape. He’d promised Gabe he’d fix up the duplex while he looked out for the guy’s little sister. Jesse was pretty sure that didn’t include looking at her, at least not in the way he was tempted to.