Her Man Upstairs (9 page)

“Just beans, tomatoes and okra.”

“Let me know if you have any trouble with deer. I've found something that works pretty well.”

At the drugstore she smiled and nodded to Mr. Horton who lived in the same trailer park as Faylene. Judging from the books he read, the old man was considerably more adventurous than he looked.

Marty headed for the middle aisle where she picked up a bottle of ibuprofen and a microwaveable heat pack in case her lower back started acting up again. Passing the cosmetics display, she impulsively picked out a frosted pink blusher.

And then she saw the condoms.

Oh, for heaven's sake.

All the same, what if…?

A few minutes later she walked out with the blusher, the back-wrap, a bottle of ibuprofen and a box of condoms. With her cheeks burning like fire, she hardly needed the blusher.

It was late afternoon by the time she got back home, having stopped by the bank to order checks for Marty's New and Used at the new address. If everything went according to schedule she would soon be needing them.

Bursting through the front door, she met Cole coming down the stairs with a stack of broken plasterboard. “I told you to toss that stuff out the bedroom window. You don't have to be so careful. I can clean up.”

“No problem,” he said coolly.

His brusque response did little to quench her optimism. “You know what? I'm going to meet my deadline.”

He nodded and waited for her to open the door for him.
She did, and then stood there like a lamppost, clutching her catalogs and her drugstore purchases.

“In case you were worried,” she said when he came back inside, “I'm keeping track of all the time you've spent on extras.” When he greeted the news with only the lift of one dark eyebrow, she hurried to explain. “I mean stuff that wasn't in our contract.”

“Trade it for a few meals. Just remember what I said.”

What the devil was bugging him? Remember
what?
She was having trouble remembering her own name at the moment.

“Oh, you mean if I hear someone trying to break in, I'm to call Betty Mary. Got it.”

“And then call me.”

“Why? You'll be miles away, sound asleep in your boat, and anyway, the local law can handle it. In case they're late and someone does manage to break in, I'll lean over the banisters and drop books on his head.” She tried out a perky smile just because he looked so grim.

“Dammit, Marty, I'm serious!”

“Well, you don't have to yell at me. I just meant I could stall him until help arrives. Of course, paperbacks might not do the job. Heavy literature might work better.” She was deliberately being facetious and she didn't really know why. Because she was embarrassed? Because she was still clutching her packages, including the box of condoms? Because what she really wanted was for her swashbuckling carpenter to ride in on a white stallion, sweep her off her feet and save her from the bad guys?

That didn't even make sense. What evildoer worth the title drove around town at twelve miles an hour in an elderly Mercedes? The thing didn't even have tinted windows.

As if he had all the time in the world, Cole hooked his thumbs in the low waist of his jeans and waited for a reaction. All eight remaining fingers pointed toward ground zero. When Marty realized she was staring she quickly lifted her gaze in time to see his lips twitch, but when no smile was forthcoming, she thought maybe she'd just imagined it.

Why the heck wasn't the man easier to read? He was a carpenter, for Pete's sake, not one of those superheroes who managed to save the world with one hand tied behind him. The type who could last all weekend in bed without the benefit of any little blue pills.

“Well. That pretty well settles it, then, wouldn't you say?” she huffed. It was the best she could come up with. He could take it any darn way he wanted to.

Oh, yes, that was definitely amusement she saw sparkling in those eyes. If he laughed at her she'd kill him.

He didn't laugh. Soberly, he said, “There's only one more thing I need to do.”

She was afraid to ask.

“You might as well come with me to the marina while I throw a few things in a bag. We can pick up some barbecue on the way back.”

She took a step back and bumped into the hall bench. Once a klutz, always a klutz. “Oh, now wait a minute, maybe we'd better rethink this—what you said earlier. About spending the night here. Most of my second floor, in case you haven't noticed, is pretty well uninhabitable.” Since she'd moved into the spare room, her old bedroom—the one that would soon be her new living room—was the repository for roughly a ton of paperback books, not to mention stacks of assorted building material.

“I'll sleep on the sofa.”

She said, “Ha! I can just see you leaping up to go into action with a hammer and screwdriver against an armed intruder.”

That drew both a twitch
and
a twinkle. “Just don't go dropping any books on my head if I need to use the john in the middle of the night.”

All she could do was shake her head. Wasn't being broke and racing to beat a deadline so she could do something about it enough excitement, without throwing in car chases and sexy carpenters? Who the devil was plotting this life of hers, anyway?

“Another benefit,” he said calmly, “is that I won't waste so much traveling time. I can get started as soon as we walk Mutt, and work as late as necessary, or at least until you go up to bed.”

It made sense…sort of. “You really do think I need a bodyguard, then?”

“Let's just say it's better to be safe than sorry.”

“To coin a cliché,” she murmured. “All right, then, but if the perp tries to climb in a window and tramples on my iris bulbs, he's going to wish he'd tackled some other mark. Believe me, I'm not helpless.”

This time his amusement was unmistakable. “Right. All those boxes of ammo upstairs. Three guesses which ones you've been reading.”

Even if he was laughing at her, it felt good. A kind of warm-and-mushy-inside good. If she had an ounce of survival instinct, she'd be out of here retroactively, stalker or no stalker. Because the real enemy was inside her gates. A Trojan horse of another color.

Marty was used to arguing with her female friends. It
was the way they bounced ideas off each other when they were trying to come up with the best way to get a couple of needy people together. Nobody's feelings ever got hurt. With Alan, they'd been too much alike to argue, even before he got sick. More like best friends—or later, like mother and child.

Arguments with Beau had occasionally been about backgrounds; her lack of one and his illustrious one. More often they had been about money. Win or lose, she'd always ended up depressed. If anyone had told her it was possible to argue with a man and actually enjoy it, she'd have said they were nuts.

 

It was after dark when they set off. Cole had hammered and sawed and done his thing upstairs, while Marty had worked on her prospective layout downstairs. Sasha would insist on feng shui along with her three shades of red. Paint was one thing, but Marty didn't have room for any feng shui. Her biggest concern was having as many books as possible exposed to as many browsers as possible, all without threatening claustrophobia.

The night was cold and luminous, the three-quarter moon set in a bed of iridescent clouds. They came to a section of soybean fields where the sky was visible practically from horizon to horizon, and Cole slowed almost to a stop. There was no traffic.

“North Star. Check it out.”

“Where?” Leaning forward against the seat belt to peer through the windshield, Marty tried to summon up her meager knowledge of astronomy. Thanks to a passing interest in astrology, she knew the names of the planets, but not how to find them.

“See the Big Dipper over by that dead tree?” He waited until she said she did. “Now draw an imaginary line through the two stars at the end of the bowl and there's your North Star.”

“I see it, I see it! I'm impressed.”

“Yeah,” he said smugly. “That's what I'm shooting for. I figured once you found out how smart I was, you'd jump to do my bidding without any more backtalk.”

In the faint light of the dashboard, she stared at his just-this-side-of-handsome profile. “Balderdash.”

He picked up speed and cut her a quick glance. “Balderdash?”

“It's a literary term. It means bull-pucky.”

“Pucky?” He was openly laughing at her now, teeth flashing white in his tanned face.

Crossing her arms over her chest, Marty said, “You know very well what I mean.” But then she was laughing, too.

“Looks like Bob Ed's entertaining tonight,” he observed a few minutes later as they turned off onto a dirt road that led past the guide's home-office.

“He's surprisingly gregarious for a grizzled old bachelor. I think Faylene might have something to do with it.”

They drove slowly along the waterfront, past several short piers to the one on the end where a low-profile boat was secured to the wooden pilings.

“Welcome to the
Time Out,
” Cole said, quiet pride evident in his tone.

The deck dipped precariously when she stepped aboard, clutching his hand for balance.

“Easy there, I've got you.”

“It's hardly the first time I've ever been on a boat,” she
said, trying not to grab him and hang on with both hands. “I rode the ferry to Ocracoke several summers ago, and I've even been deep-sea fishing.”

That was the time when one of Sasha's clients invited the decorator and any of her friends who cared to join her to spend a day fishing in the Gulf Stream. She'd been too busy throwing up to appreciate the thousand-dollar treat.

“My, it's…airy, isn't it?” she murmured, holding tightly to a stanchion while Cole unlocked a door and led her belowdeck.

When he turned on lights, she looked around, marveling at the way everything seemed to fit together.

“For an older model, she's in great shape. I've been working on her in my spare time for years,” Cole said as he opened and closed various lockers.

Marty continued to look around, curious about what it was that led a man like Cole Stevens to live aboard a boat. It could hardly be called a yacht, but his pride was obvious—even touching.

His hands came down on her shoulder and he shifted her aside in order to open the door to the tiny head. Marty was struck by the same clean, masculine scent she'd come to associate with him. She was no expert on male toiletries, but whatever brand he used, it was nothing at all like the products used by either of her husbands. Alan had favored Old Spice, claiming it reminded him of his father. Beau had doused himself in a potent cologne that she'd quickly come to despise.

“I haven't been down this way in months,” Marty said once they left the
Time Out
and headed back to Muddy Landing. “Not since Bob Ed's last birthday bash, in fact.”

Cole slowed outside the guide's living quarters, where
a flickering blue light shone through the windows. Watching basketball, probably. Faylene was an avid sports fan.

“That's Faylene's car. You met her, didn't you? She's promised to come once I'm ready to open and help with a final cleaning.”

“Blond lady in a pink sequined sweatshirt and white tennis shoes? I met her.”

The description was a lot kinder than some she'd heard. Summer or winter, Faylene's unique fashion sense tended to raise eyebrows in those who didn't know her.

Cole slowed as they neared the turnoff. Where the wooden wharf followed the shoreline, a few commercial fishing boats glowed dimly in the moonlight. At the very end, a sleek, dark-hulled yacht rode quietly on the still water. A couple of cars and trucks, rentals most likely, were parked between a stack of crab pots and a chain hoist. Some marina operators kept a few rentable wrecks on hand for layovers.

Cole said, “In case you wondered how I managed to bring both my boat and a truck south, this is one of Bob Ed's rentals. Things are slow, so I got the pick of the litter.”

“That explains the rod holders on the front bumper, then,” she murmured drowsily.

“Yep. I troll—I rarely surf fish.”

This time she didn't bother to comment, lulled by the sound of the tires and the steady presence beside her.

“Barbecue?” he asked a few minutes later as he pulled onto Highway 168 again.

She opened her eyes and yawned. “Sounds good. Tomorrow I need to make a trip to the grocers.”

“How about we run by after we do the dog in the morning.”

She was too relaxed to bother arguing. At this rate, she thought sleepily, her remodeling job was going to take a back seat to all the other activities, and as much as she enjoyed them, she couldn't afford any more delays. “How about you carp while I walk Mutt and do the shopping?”

“We'll see,” he said agreeably.

“Damn right we will,” she muttered, but there was no fire in it. Only slumbering coals. If she didn't watch out, her priorities were going to be turned end for end, and the worst thing about it was that she found the threat more exciting than frightening.

H
ow's a woman supposed to concentrate, Marty asked herself, when her sleeping dragon wakes up after a long winter's nap, only to trip over a sexy dragon-slayer?

Okay, bad analogy. She didn't think too clearly this early in the morning. Never had, actually, but now it was even worse. Now she was hungover after wrestling with a night full of X-rated dreams. Inviting Cole to move in with her had been a major mistake.

Although, come to think of it, she'd never actually issued an invitation.

Wet-haired and bleary-eyed, she made her way downstairs at a quarter of seven on Friday morning and shoved open the kitchen door. And there he was, seated at her table—the star of all those steamy high-definition dreams.

Slowly, he unfolded his taut, muscular body as she entered his room, his narrowed eyes taking in every detail,
from her towel-dried hair to her grubby cross-trainers. Four of his square-tipped fingers rested on the tabletop. “You look pale. Sure you're feeling all right? Was it the barbecue?”

Heck no, she wasn't feeling all right. Barbecue had nothing to do with it. She hadn't felt this “not all right” since she'd flunked algebra on account of the boy who sat in front of her, whose voice had already changed and who had had to shave at least twice a week.

She tried to think of something marginally intelligent to say and came up empty. “Sorry 'f I woke you. Tried to be quiet,” she mumbled. Her early morning voice was raspy to the point of surliness, but then he already knew that. Any friend who knew her well enough to drop in before noon understood. “Not a morning person. It's January—February—whatever. I'm still hibernating.”

Cole nodded. Didn't say a word but looked as if he understood. Sympathy, she didn't need. Sympathy always made her combative. When he continued to stand, she waved him back to his seat. “Just don't expect me to carry on a conversation,” she warned.

Silent as an oyster, he nodded again.

She was the only one who was doing any conversing, and for some reason she couldn't seem to shut up. “Circadian rhythms,” she grumbled as if that explained everything. Opening a cabinet, she stared at a box of dry cereal, made a face and shut the door. One thing about walking Super-Mutt—it not only woke up her appetite, it helped oxygenate her brain.

Cole sat down again and tipped his chair back. Not saying a word. Just sitting there, watching while she muttered about circadian rhythms.

“It's just that as soon as I get things sorted out,” she felt compelled to explain, “we go on daylight saving time and the whole stupid process starts all over again. If I had half a brain I'd find myself a night job. Maybe a convenience store…”

Chatter, chatter, chatter. So much for not being a morning person. She was okay with Sasha and Faylene, who knew her limitations and made allowances, but with anyone else she was hopeless.

She fumbled in the dish cabinet for her favorite mug, wishing she had her house to herself again.

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Nobody should look that good this early. The brass lamp over the table shone down on his head, making his hair glisten with moisture. He must have already showered. Which meant he'd been standing there stark naked only a few feet away from where she was sleeping. No wonder she'd woken up panting and throbbing.

“What ever happened to the sun?” she muttered.

“It's on the way. Give it a few more minutes.” He reached for the drawing pad that was spread open alongside his coffee mug, while Marty filled her mug from the fresh pot of coffee, the fumes of which were just now reaching her caffeine receptors. She added two heaping sugars and a dollop of milk.

“Toast, or something more substantial?” he asked genially as if she hadn't practically snarled at him.

She focused on the two slices of whole-wheat waiting at half-mast in the toaster. “No solids, not this early.”

Clearing her throat, she asked him what he was working on, and Cole slid the pad over so she could see it. She stared at the lines on the paper until the elegant drawing
began to make sense. “Nice,” she murmured. “Compact. Not exactly what you'd call a family room, but I guess it's all there.”

Which was actually a fairly coherent response, all things considered.

Okay, so he could draw as well as take things apart and put them back together again. He could talk about things like coffee and toast and still manage to look like the kind of guy who devoured fair maidens for breakfast.

She took another rejuvenating sip of coffee, sat her mug on the table and cleared her throat. “Cole…am I making a monumental mistake here?”

His eyes widened. The dark centers seemed to expand.

“What we're doing upstairs, I mean.”

She closed her eyes, Not
that,
she nearly said, stopping herself just in time. They hadn't done a darn thing upstairs—not together, at least. If you didn't count a few territorial skirmishes.

Leaning back, he thumbed his freshly shaved chin and studied the drawing. He'd even gone so far as to indicate a small ceiling fixture over the table. “What's the matter—you're having second thoughts?”

“Only a million or so,” she confessed.

“A little late, isn't it?”

“Actually, it's too early. I usually sleep until seven-thirty or so, but since I've been walking the dog, I have to get up in the wee hours.”

“Any reason why he can't wait until later in the day?”

Deep breath. Oxygenate that old brain.
“Annie said he liked to go out for his first run before breakfast, but that might be so they could both get to work on time.” Two slices of medium-crisp whole-wheat toast popped up, and
without thinking she reached for the butter and the fig preserves. A little sugar rush wouldn't hurt, since she was being forced to sound rational before she was even awake.

With Sasha, who often dropped by on her way to work, depending on where her current client was located, Marty could be as grumpy as she liked. Her friend understood and never took it personally.

With Cole it was different. She hated for him to see her as she really was—a puffy-eyed, raspy-voiced going-on-thirty-seven-year-old woman.

Oh, yeah? How do you want him to see you? Naked and in his bed, all ready for a few rounds of whoopee?

Shut up, dammit, who asked you?

Who just bought a whole box of condoms?

Still tipped back, with his long legs stretched out before him, he said, “I haven't started on the cabinets yet. If you're not comfortable with the plans we agreed on, now's the time to say so. I can put things back the way they were, but it'll take a few days.”

“I'm not,” she protested quickly. “That is, I am. Comfortable, that is.”

What she was not comfortable with was sharing breakfast with him, smelling his aftershave, his soap—actually her soap. He'd evidently forgotten to bring his own.

That was the trouble with dreaming the kind of dreams she didn't even know how to dream—it left her imagination susceptible to the slightest provocation. One whiff of the same brand of bath soap she'd used for years and she instantly pictured a naked carpenter standing in her shower with water streaming down on his broad shoulders, his narrow hips, his taut butt, his—

Okay, got the picture.

“No, it looks great,” she croaked earnestly. “Really. I like what you've done here—this little space over the sink.”

“In most kitchens you'd have a window there. You don't want a cabinet in your face.”

She didn't particularly want a mirror in her face, either. “There's no room for a dishwasher, I guess.” She had one, but never used it. Living alone, she ran out of clean dishes before she could ever get a full load. “That's okay. I'd probably never use it anyway.”

“It might come in handy for holiday entertaining.”

“Just make room for a double sink, that's all I need.”

For no reason at all, he smiled at her across the table then, and she got tangled up in his eyes. His laugh lines, even his squint lines were sexy. Pity the same couldn't be said for her own. Double standards were the pits.

“Finish your toast and let's pick up Mutt. You think he's truck trained?”

“You mean, like housebroken?”

“I mean, if we anchor him in the back of my truck, will he try to jump out?” Rising, Cole reached for the coffeepot, shot her a questioning look and, when she shook her head, switched it off. He glanced at the back door, and seeing the chain still in place, set his mug in the sink and put away the butter, cream and preserves.

How the devil, Marty asked herself, could a man look sexy doing kitchen chores?

“In case your stalker shows up again, we might want to turn the tables and follow him. It'd be easier with wheels.”

“Don't even think about it. All these chains and whatchamadoodles on the windows are one thing, but I didn't hire you as an extra in my tiny little melodrama.”

“Not even as a walk-on? Not even if I agree to let Mutt have all the best lines?”

She couldn't help but laugh. What else could a woman do? Any way you looked at it, the man was irresistible.

“There, that's better,” he said, pausing behind her chair to lay hands on the area where stress had her tight as a bowstring.

One of the areas, at least.

When his thumb began to work on her taut trapeziums she tipped her head back and closed her eyes.

In a soft voice that bordered on a growl he said, “We'd better get a move on. I like to be on the job by eight.”

“I told you, there's no need for you to go with me. I've been walking him for a week. Now that I know how to control him, I don't need you.”

As if she hadn't spoken, he said, “You want to run upstairs before we leave?”

“We. It's always first person singular when it comes to what you're doing upstairs, but the royal ‘We' when it comes to everything else.”

He nodded judiciously. “Sounds about right,” he said just solemnly enough so that she knew he was joking.

“You're a chauvinist, you know that, don't you?” Brushing his hands away, she got up, rinsed her mug and plopped it in the drainer.

Hips braced against a counter, he grinned. “What tipped you off?”

She felt like frapping him with the hand towel. Instead, she dried her hands and reached for the bottle of jasmine-scented lotion on the shelf behind the sink. Then he got out both their coats and held hers while she slid her arms through the sleeves. She could feel him grinning at her as if she had eyes in the back of her head.

By the time they got out to the truck, the eastern sky was streaked with gold.
February,
she thought.
That's almost spring. Pretty soon it will be summer, and by then I'll be back in business.

And where would Cole be, cruising down the intrastate waterway? Tied up at another marina, tearing up and rebuilding some other woman's house? For some reason spring didn't feel quite so promising.

The walk went surprisingly well, even after Marty insisted on taking charge of Mutt. The only time things threatened to get out of control was when a pack of strays showed up and the dog went crazy, yapping and jumping, ignoring her shouts, which of course he couldn't hear.

“I forgot how to make him look for my signals,” she exclaimed when Cole stood back, making no move to take control.

“Give the leash a sharp jerk,” he said.

She did. When Mutt looked around as if to say, “Wha-at?” Marty sliced off a hand signal, the rough translation of which was
Straighten up and fly right or I'll pull your eyelashes out!

“That dog must be in heat,” Cole said when they resumed the brisk pace.

Not that she'd give him the satisfaction of saying it, but Marty hated to think what would have happened if she'd been alone. “Yeah, I figured that's all it was.”

“Probably going to be some free pups in a few months. You did say you're thinking of getting a dog?”

“No time soon,” she said grimly, shortening the leash when Mutt got a little too interested in inspecting the tires on a rusty Fairlane that was parked illegally. “Speaking of
time, we can head back now. It'll be a full half hour by the time we get to the kennel.”

“Honor system?”

“Darn right,” she said. “Besides, he's a big guy. He needs the exercise.”

Outside the canine boarding house, Cole reached for the leash. “You want to wait in the truck while I take him inside?”

“No, thanks.” She was cool. In control. Mutt was seated on his overgrown haunches, grinning up at her as if to say
You go, girl!

So what did Cole Stevens do?

The one thing designed to shatter her composure. Laying a hand on her, he leaned over and kissed her.

Right there in broad daylight, in front of a stream of traffic. Or if not exactly a stream, at least a bread delivery van, a bicycle and Susie-at-the-bank's new hatchback.

Oh, my, if she'd been turned on by his looks, by his voice and his touch, his taste sent her sailing over the edge. Whose heart was it that was thundering between them? Beating hard enough to be felt even through two layers of coat? His or hers?

Or both?

They were standing toe to toe. One of his hands moved up to her back, holding her close. The familiar taste of him—coffee, mint and something essentially personal, was as intoxicating as any whiskey.

Not until he stepped away did Marty realize that she had a death grip on his arms. She stepped back, forced herself to breathe normally and tried pinning on a smile. Her lips were tingling. She only hoped they weren't trembling.

Cole licked his lips and said casually, “Mmm, nice. Coconut?”

But his eyes had gone dark on her again. She took a modicum of satisfaction in that, at least.