All I Want Is You Page 6

  “I noticed the paintings last time,” he said, motioning to Bethany’s cityscape on the mantel. “She’s talented.”

  “She’s hoping to get a showing at one of the local galleries soon,” Christy replied.

  He held up his toolbox. “So what’s first on the fix-­it list?”

  “Um, how about the toilet?”

  He gave a short nod. “Toilets are easy. Lead the way.”

  For the next hour, they made small talk while he worked—­first fixing the badly flushing toilet and then sealing up the infamous mouse hole, a repair which flooded Christy with an even bigger sense of relief than she’d expected.

  Though in all honesty, she was thinking about Jack a lot more than she was thinking about mice. She was noticing the way his dark hair peeked and poked from beneath the old baseball cap he wore backwards on his head today. She was watching his hands as they labored, the way they maneuvered various tools. She thought they didn’t look as hard and calloused as she might expect for a guy who made a living working with them. Which kind of made her wonder how they’d feel on her.

  But yikes, stop.

  Not that it was easy to do. She couldn’t help being attracted to him, even now, despite it having been obvious the other night that it would be in her best interest to get past that.

  Then he turned to look at her from where he stood on a small step stool, inspecting the drywall problem in her bedroom. “Can you hand me that little plastic tub in my toolbox?” He was pointing at the red metal box but looking at her. And wow—­she’d simply never had so much trouble maintaining eye contact with anyone as she repeatedly did with Jack. His gaze was just so blue and intense—­she made eye contact with other ­people all the time, but something about looking into his eyes felt . . . intimate.

  Yet she knew nothing would happen between them. Because besides not meeting her current requirements, she could tell he didn’t like her motives. Even if he kept claiming he didn’t care.

  And it was still so embarrassing to have anyone but Bethany know about that. But she couldn’t put that ugly secret about herself back into the bottle she’d so carelessly spilled it from. All she could do was be grateful for his help—­and okay, maybe also enjoy the electrical charge she experienced in his presence, especially when they happened to touch.

  Which was exactly what occurred when she passed him the little tub of spackle he’d asked for—­their fingers brushed, and hot sparks raced up her arm. Oh, if only he’d entered her life at some other time—­and for some different purpose other than breaking down her door so she could go on a date with a rich man. Ugh—­talk about bad timing.

  The same grazing of fingertips happened again when she passed him the spackling knife he next requested. And she wondered if he felt it, too. Surely he had. How could he not feel so much crackling electricity?

  But stop—­you can’t want him. You seriously can’t. Because he surely doesn’t have a great impression of you, even if he’s being nice. And then there was that other more shameful reason, too. The one about him not having the important thing she really needed right now to help Grandpa Charlie. The reason that really did make her a fairly despicable girl in ways. Maybe. She was getting more confused on that by the hour. But she pushed the thoughts from her head as best she could as she watched him smudge a clay-­like goop over her wall with the straight-­edged spackling knife.

  Just like when he’d been repairing her door, she enjoyed watching him work. She liked the smooth, fluid movements of his arms, the shift of his broad shoulders, the way he used his hands. Which again made her speculate about other ways he might be good with his hands, too.

  It was jarring to suddenly find herself having such a strong sexual response to someone because . . . well, she usually didn’t. Not this much anyway. She’d dated in high school and college; she knew what it was to tingle from a kiss or a touch and to yearn for more. And there’d been Kyle, of course, her first love, to whom she’d given her virginity. But her response to Jack was different—­stronger. And ridiculously inconvenient. Now? My body and brain have to team up to scheme against me this way now? When it makes the least sense ever? When I can’t act on it?

  “We’ll need to remount these brackets,” he said.

  “Huh?” The sound echoed from her throat soft and confused-­sounding—­because he’d caught her off guard by speaking, because she’d been so caught up in the simple maleness of him.

  And as a few more minutes passed, she discovered his butt looked all too nice in the faded blue jeans he wore. Since his back was to her, it felt safe to let herself peek. And then she wondered what his butt looked like without the jeans. And what kind of underwear he wore.

  When he turned toward her from his spot on the step stool, she jerked her eyes upward, to his handsome face. Then she blinked, trying to look natural.

  “The mudding I’m doing here is more of a cosmetic fix,” he explained. “Not really strong enough to screw something into it that’s gonna hold any weight. So it’ll be better if I relocate the brackets for your curtain rods a little. Just enough to make ’em hold better, but you won’t even notice the difference.”

  “Oh,” she replied softly, “okay.” Though she still sounded far too spacy for her own liking.

  “You all right?” he asked with a slight tilt of his head.

  Oh good—­she sounded spacy to him, too. “Um, yeah—­fine.” She spoke more boldly, normally, now. “I’m sure they’ll look great, wherever you put them.”

  After that, Jack went back to work and Christy resumed watching his hands, and his shoulders, and his butt. And then she decided it would be wise to stop watching him altogether, and she was just about to excuse herself and go find something more productive to do—­when he said, “This is gonna take more than two hands—­can you climb up here beside me and hold this in place?”

  He held one of the metal brackets against the wall with one hand, wielding an electric screwdriver with the other.

  And Christy heard her voice go all whispery and light again as she said, “Yeah, sure,” and stepped up beside him on the stool that was really only meant for one person. Their hips and outer thighs pressed together.

  “Tight fit,” he said, his voice going a little softer, deeper. But he kept his eyes from meeting hers and that suited her just fine since every molecule of her body rippled with electricity now. Even more so when she lifted her hands over her head to hold the bracket, giving her the sensation of thrusting her breasts none too modestly in his direction.

  As he reached up to twist a large screw into the wall, his arms brushed warmly against her, and their hands touched a little due to close proximity. She held very still, uncertain if what she experienced was closer to pleasure or torture. But she was pretty sure she’d never been more conscious of a man’s body. Even guys she’d gotten much more personal with than this.

  She grew startlingly aware of his face, the dark, unshaven stubble on his jaw, his mouth. At the same time, she felt the presence of his bigger more masculine hands near her smaller, softer fingers, the broadness of his shoulders, the hard muscles in his arms. Everything about him was just so very . . . male. So very different from everything about her.

  She suffered the desire to lean in to him, to know that maleness more, to let it envelop her. And at the same time, she endured the awkwardness of fearing he felt her yearning—­and maybe didn’t feel it in return. Or even if he did, that he didn’t like who he thought she was—­in a girl/guy way—­so no matter how she measured it, it came out feeling one-­sided and embarrassing.

  “Okay,” he said a few agonizingly long seconds later, “now we just need to move the step stool over and do the other one.”

  “The other one,” she repeated dumbly, a little horrified to find out this wasn’t over, that there was more. And yet somehow, at the same time, she was secretly ecstatic inside. More closeness. More
drinking in the musky male scent of him.

  “The other bracket,” he clarified, stepping down to the floor.

  “Oh. Yeah,” she replied, following suit.

  And a short moment later, he was holding that second bracket in place, and she was rejoining him on that folding stool meant for one, and their bodies were brushing together again, and then—­dear God—­his forearm grazed her breast and sent a trail of fire blazing all through her. And if she wasn’t dealing with enough physical assaults on her senses already, when he said, “Um, sorry,” it came out all sexy and raspy, his hot breath warming her skin, and she looked up to see how close their faces, eyes, mouths, suddenly were—­and surged with wetness in her panties.

  After that, there was only just looking away, wondering if he’d seen the stark lust in her gaze, and waiting out the severe nearness that threatened to bury her.

  “Okay,” he said a minute later, “brackets are done.” But his voice sounded as thick as her throat felt at the moment. And then they were both stepping down, and he was lifting the curtain rod back into place, telling her, “Curtains are fixed now,” but in her mind she was still looking into his eyes, drinking in his warmth, wanting him to touch her—­everywhere.

  “Um, thanks.” Another heated whisper on her part. Because he was just so beautiful in that rugged, manly way. And it had stolen her breath.

  And she wished like mad that she didn’t need money so badly. But she did. And he knew it. And that would forever taint everything between them, no matter what happened now.

  So she took an additional step away, and she lowered her eyes, and then darted them up toward the curtain, where it would make more sense for them to be under normal circumstances. And she sensed him doing the same.

  It was clearly the best move.

  For both of them, it seemed.

  JACK was glad the days were getting warmer, and the nights, too—­warm enough to sit out on his front porch and watch the world go by. Well, maybe he couldn’t see the whole world from this one little street, but he thought it was a fair representation of ­people. It was the kind of on-­the-­edge neighborhood that held both good and bad, and a lot of in between.

  There were the kids in the big, run-­down Victorian on the corner who broke bottles in the street, and flung obscenities at every person who passed by.

  There were quiet ­couples like the Marches up the street, whom he knew only because they’d seen him doing some work on the exterior of his house one sunny winter day and Mr. March had asked for his help carrying in a heavy desk they’d picked up at a yard sale.

  And there were louder ­couples like the Harringtons, whose snappish tones could be heard two doors away—­as recently as an hour ago when they’d come home around dusk.

  There was a little old man named Mr. Garver directly in the house to Jack’s left who liked to walk to the corner market a few blocks away rather than drive, and who had fallen in the habit of stopping to chat if he saw Jack outside. He liked to tell stories about the Korean War, which Jack figured put him in his eighties.

  Mr. Garver had also told him about his late wife, Margaret, who’d passed nearly ten years ago. “Miss her every day, even now,” Mr. Garver had said, and it had filled Jack with sadness. He’d found himself wondering if it was worth it—­to let your heart go that much, to invest that much love in someone—­if, in the end, there was a pretty good chance you’d end up without them. Whether because they died or because they fell out of love with you. And he’d concluded that maybe life was easier if you just kept a certain distance from attachments that ran that deep. He didn’t ever want to find himself still missing someone ten years after they’d gone.

  And then there was Christy. Who he couldn’t quite get a bead on. The money-­chasing part of her just didn’t mesh with the rest. He wasn’t even sure why he’d helped her so much lately.

  Well, wait—­that wasn’t true. He’d helped her because she’d seemed sweet, and because he genuinely liked her. And he also supposed he’d helped her because . . . hell, every time he was near her he felt a certain zing—­something he hadn’t experienced in a while, that excitement of new attraction, chemistry—­and despite his best intentions, it drew him in.

  It’s okay, though. Her problems were her problems, not his. He wasn’t getting any further enmeshed in her life. So it was no big deal.

  Even if he kept thinking about her.

  Even if his gaze drifted to her house, her windows, too often.

  Even if he’d found himself keeping an eye out for her car, aware of when she came and went.

  Since he’d done those repairs for her a week ago, they’d exchanged a few waves, and they’d had one brief conversation on the sidewalk during which he’d asked if everything he’d fixed was holding up. She’d said yes and thanked him again.

  And hell if he didn’t find himself wishing he had another reason to see her again now. Something else to fix.

  Darkness had fallen when he looked up to see a late model BMW turn onto the city street, coming to a rough halt in front of Christy’s house. He couldn’t see into the car, but a few seconds later a door slammed and the Beamer accelerated roughly, screeching away. And then he made out her silhouette standing across the street from him, and though he couldn’t see her face, something in her posture gave the impression she might be a little shaken up.

  “Rough night?” he called.

  “You could say that.” Her voice sounded small.

  Quit noticing that part. “At least you don’t have mice anymore,” he reminded her matter-­of-­factly. “And your toilet works.”

  “You’re right. Thank you.” But she still sounded a little beaten, and—­hell—­it pulled at his heart more than he liked.

  So as she turned to head inside, without planning it, he heard himself say, “Want some ice cream?”

  She stopped, peered back toward him in the darkness. “Huh?”

  “I said—­do you want some ice cream? I was about to fix myself a bowl. Chocolate.” It was the truth, about planning to fix himself some—­but the sharing part came as a surprise, to him as much as her.

  “Okay,” she said, and it made him feel good that she sounded a little cheered by the invitation, reminding him that during life’s rough spots, sometimes it was the little things that kept you going.

  As he watched her walk toward him, he couldn’t deny how pretty she looked—­she wore a summery blue dress with white sandals and her cheeks appeared sun kissed, like maybe she’d been out in the bright, warm sun they’d had the last ­couple of days. A breeze lifted the blond locks from her shoulders as she ascended the steps onto his porch.

  Though it was only as Jack stood up and opened his front screen door for her that he realized—­she was coming into his house. Which contained an office filled with the latest, greatest computer and enough other high tech gadgetry and charts and paperwork that even a glimpse of it might tell her he was more than just a handyman.

  “Kitchen’s that way,” he said, pointing and pretty much herding her in that direction before she could start sneaking peeks anywhere else.

  As he grabbed the carton of ice cream from the freezer and started scooping from it into two glass bowls, she commented on the new sink and faucet he’d put in and asked what else he’d done in the room. He pointed out other changes he’d made in the kitchen, and as they passed back through the living room, he took pride in showing her the hardwood staircase he’d refinished, and some beams he’d exposed by removing a dropped ceiling someone had put in, probably during the seventies.

  And he’d thought he’d done an admirable job of distracting her from the doorway to his office—­when something even much more damning came into view: a picture of his wife.

  “Curiouser and curiouser!”

  Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

  Chapter 5

  WELL, SHE was
n’t still his wife. And the picture shouldn’t have been out, but his mother had unpacked it when helping him move—­it was one she’d framed and given to him, of him and Candy on their honeymoon in Hawaii. When he’d spotted it, he’d picked it up and stuck it on the bottom shelf of a bookcase, figuring he’d put it away later. And he’d given it little thought since then.

  Less than two years after that magical honeymoon, the bad parts had taken place—­the gut-­wrenching parts. To this day, he remained unsure how much of their relationship had been real and how much fabricated.

  “Let’s go back outside—­it’s still nice out,” he told Christy, ready to usher her right back out the door before she spotted this other big thing he’d kept from her. Not that it was any of her business actually, not any more than who she dated was his. So it wasn’t exactly like he’d kept it from her—­but now he realized he preferred her not knowing.

  Even though he knew he could just blow it off, just say, “Didn’t work out,” or “Got married too young,” the fact was that he didn’t want to talk about it at all, to her or anyone else. He didn’t particularly like being reminded of his own pain, or that he’d failed at something that big.

  Outside, they settled in the wooden swing he’d hung from the wide porch’s awning a ­couple of months ago. It situated them closely together, reminding him of the day he’d moved her curtain rod. She smelled sweet, like something slightly flowery, slightly fruity, and he liked it too much. Just be careful here, dude.

  He asked if she knew Mr. Garver, and she relayed some funny stories about her downstairs neighbor, Mrs. Hart, who he’d quickly figured out was a busybody. They talked about the odd combination of scents created by the distillery and the flavor factory nearby, and she declared the one floating through the air tonight “strawberry bourbon, I think.” She asked him why on earth he’d chosen a house in this crazy, run-­down neighborhood to refurbish, and he’d told her, “Price was right. And I think with a little positive attention, this neighborhood could turn around.”