Can't Stand the Heat (6 page)

Yes, he was one handsome man—and a nicely dressed one at that. Stephanie had to admit that about the men of the church: Their hearts might lie with the Lord, but they certainly didn't skimp on themselves when it came to their clothing budgets! This guy was decked out with what looked like a custom-tailored suit, gold cuff links, and a pale blue silk tie. She glanced at his shoes.

Oh, yes, Deacon Montgomery was most definitely a baller! She was going to have to work her magic on this one.

“So you're a real-estate agent?” he asked.

“I most certainly am . . . and one of the best in town. Why? Are you looking to buy or sell a home, Deacon Montgomery?”

“Please. Please . . .” The smile on his pecan-colored face broadened and he extended his hand to her. “Call me Hank.”

She shook his large, warm hand and grinned. “Pleased to meet you, Hank.”

“Can I walk you to your car, Miss Gibbons?”

“You can call me Stephanie. And yes, you can walk me to my car. Thank you.”

They strolled down the brick pathway that was bordered by white calla lilies and irises on one side and the Baylor family's pristine lawn on the other. When they reached the driveway, he loudly cleared his throat.

“You know, I
am
interested in buying a home . . . maybe even a house that wouldn't be too far from here. You see, we moved to Chesterton about a year ago—”

“We?”
Stephanie asked with a frown. Was the deacon married?

“Yes.” He cleared his throat again. “Me and my . . . my two Jack Russell terriers. They're like children to me.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding again. She breathed a sigh of relief.

Stephanie had dated married men in the past, but she preferred not to. Husbands came with a lot more drama, and angry wives could be psychotic. He would have to be one special man for her to put up with a crazy housewife.

“I've been renting a home for a while, but I think I'm finally ready to purchase something. Lay down some roots.”

“Well,” she said as they approached her BMW, “whenever you're ready to start your search, please keep me in mind.” She dug into her purse, pulled out one of her business cards, and handed it to him.

“I'd like to start soon.”

She unlocked her car door and cocked an eyebrow. “How soon are we talking about?”

Hank licked his lips and drew closer to her. He languidly let his eyes travel over her, lingering meaningfully on her breasts. Finally, he brought his gaze back level with her eyes.

“As soon as humanly possible,” he whispered. “I'm a man who hates to wait.”

Stephanie tilted her head. So this was how they were going to play it? Well, she could do a few double entendres, too.

“If that's the case, then I think we need to get started right away. Let's schedule a meeting to discuss the details. I'm interested in finding out what you like . . . what you're craving.” She smirked up at him. “You should draw up a list.”

“Oh, you don't want that.” He shook his head and laughed. “You'd be surprised at what I'd write down.”

“Believe me, honey . . .” She opened her car door and tossed her purse inside. She turned back around to face him and pushed out her chest, giving him quite the eyeful.
“Nothing
would surprise me.”

“Nothing?”

“I cater to many tastes. It's my specialty.”

He shivered.

“Don't be scared, Hank. What's that old saying? You never know until you try. Maybe I can give you everything you need.”

“And more.” She winked. “I'm here to service you . . . and trust me, I aim to please. I'll do it on my knees if I have to.”

He hungrily licked his lips again. Stephanie could practically see the kinky fantasies that danced in his head.

“How about dinner next Sunday at eight o'clock? I'll bring my list with me.”

“Sure! You can pick me up at the address on my card.”

He nodded and smiled, tucking the card into his inner suit-jacket pocket. “I'll see you at eight o'clock.”

“I look forward to it, Hank.”

Stephanie watched as he walked down to the end of the driveway and then made a right. Inside, she did a little jig.

Her sisters could battle over Cris Weaver if they wanted to. Meanwhile, she would focus on lower-hanging fruit and put her efforts into seducing the wealthy Deacon Hank Montgomery.

“S
o explain to me why this is going to take three more weeks?” Cris Weaver asked as he crossed his arms over his broad chest and glowered down at Bill, his general contractor.

The portly man began to fidget. He adjusted his baseball cap and hoisted his jeans under his round belly. Sweat stains had formed earlier on his gray T-shirt around his belly button and under his armpits in the hot sun, but he was sweating even more now under the lavalike heat of Cris's glare. Standing there, those stains seemed to grow by another two inches.

He had a right to be scared. At that moment, Cris looked less like an annoyed homeowner who was bitching out his contractor and more like an angry Samoan warrior ready to do battle.

“Well, the custom cabinets won't arrive for another week, Mr. Weaver,” Bill nearly shouted over the clamor of buzz saws and hammers. “They're late. I can't make them come any faster than they already are. We can't outline the granite countertops in your kitchen until we get the cabinets in. So we gotta wait two or three more weeks before your kitchen's done.”

Cris nodded but still narrowed his dark eyes. “And why are the cabinets late? Is there a problem with the shipment?”

“No, nothin' like that. They're on time. It's just . . .” Bill nervously licked his lips.

“Just . . .
what?”

“Well, the guy who measured the kitchen jiggered some of the numbers.” Bill dropped his watery blue eyes to gaze at Cris's brown leather oxfords. It was easier to do that than to stare up at the man who towered over him by a good eight inches. “When I saw the numbers on paper later, I thought it looked funny. We had to measure it again. So we put a stop order on the first set of cabinets and ordered the cabinets again. They hadn't started building the first set yet, so it won't cost you extra. But it just messed up the time line a bit.”

Cris sighed. Now he had the
real
answer for why his kitchen was delayed.

Bill looked up and shook his head. “It wasn't my fault, Mr. Weaver! I know I'm supposed to watch over these guys, but I can't be a million places at one time! This is a big property with a lot of workers and—”

“I'm not paying you to be a million places at once. I'm paying you just to make sure things run smoothly. This is the seventh time that something has been delayed because of some subcontractor's mistake. I'm paying some of these guys to do the same job twice that should have been done right the first time. All of this means more time and more money—and believe it or not, Bill, I'm not made out of Benjamins. This is
really
irritating me.”

Bill lowered his eyes again and grimaced. “Sorry, Mr. Weaver. It's all just part of—”

“Oh, come on, Cris! Lay off the man!” Cris's friend Jamal suddenly shouted over the noise as he walked into the living room.

Cris turned to find Jamal, a friend he had known since college, striding toward them in a pin-striped suit with a wide grin on his dark-skinned face. “Stop busting the man's chops! Besides, what do you need a kitchen for? It ain't like you can cook anyway!”

Bill laughed at Jamal's joke, but he stopped when Cris turned back around and glared at him. The chuckle froze in his throat.

“Stop yapping and let the man do his job!” Jamal stood next to Cris. He clapped Bill on the shoulder. “Really, man, Cris is a good guy, but he's
always
like this. I think it comes from having a dad who was in the army. He's wound up tighter than a Swiss watch until you get a couple of drinks in 'im. Don't worry about it. Just do your thing.”

Jamal then thumped Cris on the back. “Come on. Show me around the place. I bet a lot of stuff has changed since the last time I was here.”

Jamal steered his friend toward the doorway leading out of the living room and into a long corridor. Though Cris wasn't finished with Bill, he let the conversation end. As the two men retreated, Bill wiped his sweaty brow. The contractor raised his pants again, turned around, and headed off to one of the downstairs bathrooms to supervise the tile installation.

“Jay,” Cris said as they passed a group of lighting guys who were installing recessed cans, “why the hell did you tell him I'm uptight?”

“Because you are! You have been as long as I've known you.”

Of course Jamal would say that. Even in college, he had always argued that Cris needed to lighten up, to break the chains of his strict upbringing and chill out sometimes. Cris always had been the studious one, going directly from football practice to the campus library to work on an essay for American Lit or crunch for a biology test. Meanwhile, Jamal would be partying at some hangout on campus or hitting on a girl at the student union cafeteria, completely oblivious to whatever test or paper was due the next day. But the polar opposites were assigned as roommates their freshmen year and, despite their differences, they quickly formed a bond and had been friends ever since.

“I'm not uptight,” Cris muttered. “I'm just tired of being stuck in renovation that never seems to end. They told me they could do this place in two months . . . three months
tops
! This thing is already into its fourth month. I've been renting that place in DC so I wouldn't have to breathe sawdust while I slept and hear hammers banging all day! Half my stuff is crammed back at the town house. Hell, if I would have known it would take this long, I would have just ripped the whole house down and started from scratch!”

“The house had good bones. That's why you bought it. There was no reason to tear it down, and even if you did, that would have taken
another
year to build a new one.”

“But that doesn't change the fact that—”

Jamal held up a hand and waved it gently like a symphony director, silencing his friend. “Just
chiiiiiiiiiill
, Cris. Do some meditation exercises or somethin'. They're just building it the way you want it. What's the rush? I mean, what else do you have to do? You're a retired man with plenty of time on his hands. Right?
Right?”

“Yeah . . . but this just isn't how I envisioned spending my retirement,” he mumbled sullenly as they walked farther down the corridor.

“I see you have your shrine up already,” Jamal said, changing the subject. He gestured to a built-in cabinet encased in Plexiglas and filled with more than a dozen pictures of Cris with his old teammates, a football with all of their signatures, and his old football jersey.

Jamal paused in front of the built-in and Cris smiled as he glanced at the tokens of his past.

“Brings back memories every time you see it, huh?”

Cris nodded.

After fifteen and a half years in the NFL as a wide receiver and at the age of thirty-six (practically a senior citizen in football), reoccurring injuries and plain old fatigue had finally forced Cris to walk away from a game he loved so much. He had been playing football since he was seven years old. Back then, he had been an awkward half-black, half-Filipino kid who always had his nose in a book. He had decided one day to ask his father to teach him to play football so that he could make friends with the boys in his neighborhood who had treated him for months like his nerdiness was contagious. From that point on, he was hooked on football.

“You miss it?” Jamal asked, turning away from the built-in.

“In some ways . . . yeah. I miss my coaches. I miss my teammates.”

“And the crowds, brothah! I remember being in those stands during the games. Those crowds were crazy!”

“Yeah, there was nothing like that roar or the nervous energy before every game. There is no high that's better than the one you get after a touchdown, Jamal. They need to sell that stuff in a bottle or in dime bags,” Cris said wistfully, running his hand over the glass.

Jamal slowly shook his head. “How could you walk away from all this?”

“Easy. I
had
to,” Cris said as they continued to stroll, passing a window where they could see the groundskeepers taming overgrown hedges. “My body couldn't take it anymore, Jay . . . getting tackled by some three-hundred-pound linebacker . . . and all the bruises, sprains, and broken bones. In some ways, I'm . . . I'm glad to finally get my life back. I mean, for more than a decade, I was football's bitch. It told me where to live, where to travel,” he said, enumerating the list on his fingers, “what to eat, and even how much to exercise. I'm looking forward to finally planting some roots”—he slapped his firm stomach—“and getting fat while I'm doing it!”

“But what about the
girls
, Cris?”

“What about them?”

“You don't miss the groupies? Hell, even
I
looked forward to your castoffs!”

“You know groupies were never my style, Jamal,” Cris said with a laugh.

While his other teammates collected jump-offs like they were Beanie Babies, Cris had always been one of the few monogamous guys on the team. But football didn't make having a serious relationship easy. Because of the pigskin, Cris had had his share of women come and go. The sole exception had been his last girlfriend, Alex—Alejandra Marisol Delgado de la Cruz, according to the business card she proudly brandished to whoever asked. He had met the former Miss Dallas and current marketing executive at an ESPY awards after-party three years ago. Of all his girlfriends, Alex had stuck around the longest.

Most of Cris's exes had hated having him disappear for more than half the year, but Alex had taken flights to games to be with him. She had always put him first. That's why he was shocked when she broke the news that she was not coming with him to Virginia.

She told him only two days after they had finished packing everything they owned in boxes and suitcases that she had too much family and too much going on in the Dallas–Ft. Worth area to just pull up stakes. If he wanted to move halfway across the country, she said, he would have to do it alone.

They would have finally had unhindered time together. She would have finally gotten his full attention, and
now
she wanted them to go their separate ways?

Cris had been disappointed and angered by the news, but he wasn't resentful anymore. Besides, his relationship with Alex had been good, but not perfect. She had a fiery temper. Also, she was beautiful and she
knew
it. Her vanity could get annoying sometimes.

“So is this the great room?” Jamal asked as they left the corridor and stepped through a doorway. Jamal looked around the cavernous space as they descended a series of steps. “Nice. Very nice, man! I'm diggin' it.”

The drywall had been finished days ago, the hardwood floors were almost done, and the timber beams had been installed along the ceiling a week before, giving the room the masculine, rugged feel that Cris wanted. A massive stone hearth stood in the center of the room, giving the space the look of an old Viking hall.

Cris nodded and smiled as he gazed up at the ceiling. “Yeah, I like it, too. It turned out good, didn't it?”

Jamal nodded and nudged his shoulder. “You're making some progress, Cris! The place looks hot!” He paused. “But you haven't been cooped up in here every night that you're in town, right? Have you had a chance to look around Chesterton? Walk around Main Street?”

“Yeah, I went out to dinner yesterday. I was going to just pick up something quick, but decided to try one of the restaurants.”

“Did you like the food?”

“Oh, yeah,” Cris uttered distractedly as he walked over to the fireplace.

Among other things,
he thought as he ran his palm over the stone.

For the first time in Cris's life he had enjoyed a meal so much that he felt compelled to praise the chef personally, and later, he was profoundly glad he had. When he'd wandered into the kitchen looking for the chef at Le Bayou Bleu, he had expected to find one of those beefy Cajun chefs you always see on the food channels. Instead, he found a tiny woman (she didn't even reach his shoulder) with a sienna-hued face, huge doelike eyes, and delicate hands that looked better fit for playing the piano or the violin than boning fish. She was certainly pretty—even in her stained chef jacket and jeans—but Cris was surprised by his reaction to her. All lingering thoughts of Alex had finally disappeared.

He had told her that he would come back to the restaurant, and he would, but not just for the food. The petite chef intrigued him. He wanted to know more about her and take it from there.

“Cris? Cris!” Jamal cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Huh?” Cris said, suddenly coming out of his daze. He stepped away from the hearth he had been leaning against, lost in thought.

“You drifted off for a second there, man. You're thinking about her, aren't you?”

Cris did a double take.
Am I that obvious?

“You gotta let her go, man.” Jamal laid a hand on his friend's shoulder. He squeezed it reassuringly. “It's messed up that Alex didn't come with you, but I guess she thought it was the best thing for her. You couldn't force her to come.”

“Uh-huh. I know.”

He didn't tell Jamal that Alex wasn't the girl he had on his mind right now. He had only met this Lauren woman yesterday. He didn't even know her last name. He wasn't sure whether, if he told Jamal about how intensely attracted he was to her, Jamal would say he was crazy or just going through withdrawal from being away from Alex too long.

“So the only thing you can do is get back out there. Have some fun. Meet some women.”