Mismatch (6 page)

Wade couldn’t say he had ever been in love with anything other than his job. He was, as Murphy had pointed out, a man with a healthy libido, and women were attracted to him. The few women he dated when he had time were career women, as wrapped up in their jobs as he was in his. They provided each other with intelligent company and mutually satisfying sex. His were always very discreet, very practical arrangements.

Very discreet, very practical arrangements that he was suddenly dissatisfied with.

And it was all Bronwynn Pierson’s fault—somehow.

A plumber’s van roared past, headed in the direction of Bronwynn’s house. He laughed. He knew exactly what was going to happen. The house had taken her fancy for the moment. By Wednesday she was going to realize fixing it up was a dirty, messy job that couldn’t be done overnight no matter how much money she spent, no matter how many people she hired. Then she would quit and go home. Something else would catch her interest, or some
one
else.

As he went to the kitchen to pour himself another cup of coffee, he wondered about the fiancé—Ross. They hadn’t had a passionate relationship, Bronwynn had said. Lord, Wade shook his head, the guy must have had one foot in the grave. Just thinking about the way she had fit against him made his blood heat.

“So quit thinking about it, Grayson,” he ordered himself, frowning at his coffee cup.

One of the great mysteries of the world, he thought, was how a man with a college education and a law degree couldn’t manage to make a decent cup of coffee. The stuff he’d made could have stripped paint.

He looked at his dog, who was sitting on a chair at the kitchen table, obviously hoping to bum a Danish once Wade got them down from the top of the refrigerator. “If you could make coffee, you’d be worth something.”

Tucker grumbled.

“I know I’m not supposed to drink it,” Wade muttered, taking a seat across from the dog. “Who are you now, the surgeon general? I wonder if Bronwynn can make coffee. Oh, hell.”

It had been forty-eight hours since he’d walked out of her house. He could have cut a chunk out of the national debt if he had a dollar for every time he’d thought of her since. It was so absurd. She was the last woman he would be attracted to, yet he seemed to be developing some kind of weird obsession with her.

He was going stir-crazy. The whole problem stemmed from this relaxation business. His vacation was ruining his temper. He got up as the front doorbell rang, ignoring the forlorn look Tucker cast him as the dog dropped his head to the table and sighed.

“Delivery for Pierson,” the man said as Wade swung the door open. He was a small, bespectacled man with thinning brown hair and
Norm
embroidered in red above the pocket of his coveralls.

“Wrong house,” Wade said, his gaze straying to the white delivery truck parked in the driveway. The logo for Hank’s Hardware was emblazoned on the side. “I’m Grayson not Pierson, Norm.”

“I’m not Norm, Grayson.” The man smiled pleasantly, revealing a space between his two front teeth. “Name’s Wilson. Norm’s having his gallstones out. Where’s the Pierson place?”

“Up the road,” Wade said, tilting his head in the direction of Bronwynn’s house.

“Wanna ride along? I could use a hand unloading this stuff.” Wilson pressed a hand to his back. “Sciatica.”

Wade blinked at the man. Oh, what the hell? He was dying to know what was in the truck. He wouldn’t admit to himself that he was also dying to see Bronwynn again.

There probably wasn’t as much activity going on at a three-ring circus, Wade thought, although he couldn’t remember the last time he’d been to a three-ring circus. A man on a tractor was mowing the knee-high lawn. There were people going in and out the front door of the house. In addition to the plumber’s van, there was a phone company truck and an electrician’s van parked in the driveway next to a rusted blue Ford pickup. It took him several minutes to pick Bronwynn out of the crowd, and when he did, he hardly could believe his eyes.

She didn’t bear much resemblance to the magazine cover girl. Her face was streaked with dirt, her red hair was up in a haphazard ponytail. She wore a yellow T-shirt which was three sizes too big and faded denim cutoffs that made him choke.

Holy Mike, she had a pair of legs . . . they were long, long,
long,
and slim. They ended in a pair of sneakers that were so battered they were held together with adhesive tape.

As Wilson parked the truck, Bronwynn dropped the hedge clippers she’d been butchering a shrub with and came toward them. Right on her heels was a sheep with a blue velvet ribbon around its neck.

Bronwynn’s heart skipped when she saw Wade climb out of the delivery truck. She blamed it on the canned spaghetti she’d had for breakfast. At the second little jump, she decided to give credit where it was due. Wade Grayson was a good-looking man. Anyone would have said so.

The morning breeze tossed his thick hair. The sun gilded the golden strands, emphasizing the darker hair that was streaked throughout. Bronwynn suddenly was struck with the wild urge to run her hands through it. She knew it would be silky and warm. The idea made her feel silky and warm.

Get a grip on it, Bronwynn,
she told herself. What she was feeling was only a residual reaction from rejection. It was one of those Freudian things. It wasn’t because she was truly attracted to Wade Grayson—even if he was incredibly good-looking and moved with sexy grace. He wasn’t her type. All she had to do to know that was look at what he was wearing.

The man was supposed to be on vacation. Black linen trousers and a pin-striped dress shirt did not make the kind of outfit a person could wear to sprawl in a hammock or hike in the woods. His feet couldn’t do much relaxing in wing-tip shoes.

“At least you’re not wearing a tie,” she said by way of a greeting.

Wade frowned at her. “Of course I’m not wearing a tie.” He didn’t mention he’d been reaching for one earlier that morning, but had caught himself before he had a chance to tie it. He felt naked without it.

Bronwynn brushed her bangs back out of her eyes and squinted. Above the noise of the tractor and the top forty music blasting out of a boom box on the porch she said, “I thought you were supposed to be resting and relaxing, not taking a summer job delivering for Hank’s Hardware.”

“It’s a long story,” he said, his gaze falling on the animal that stood beside Bronwynn staring up at him with curious brown eyes. “What is that?”

Bronwynn glanced down then gave Wade a look. “It’s a sheep, Wade. You don’t get out of the city much, do you?”

“I know it’s a sheep,” he said irritably. “Why is it following you around?”

Dropping down on her knees, Bronwynn stroked the animal’s narrow black head and ran a hand back over the soft white wool, beaming at it like a proud mother at her new baby. “This is Muffin. She’s the first pet I’ve had since I was a girl.”

“You’re a little out of touch then, Bronwynn. Most people get a dog or a cat.”

“I’m not most people.”

Wade arched a brow. “I’ve caught on to that fact already.”

He looked around at the bustle of activity and gave his head a little shake. “You believe in diving right in, don’t you? Are you sure you want to go to all this trouble? I mean, this old building may not be able to hold up much longer. Why sink a lot of money into it unnecessarily?”

“The house is structurally sound,” Bronwynn said, standing and dusting her hands off on the seat of her ragged cutoffs. “I had a building inspector out yesterday.”

She’d stopped him short. Wade wouldn’t have given her credit for thinking of a building inspector, and it irked him. He usually didn’t misjudge people, but Bronwynn kept throwing him curves. It would have been a lot easier to dismiss the attraction he felt for her if she had cooperated and been a ditzy bimbo.

The delivery man stepped between them and handed Bronwynn a clipboard and pen. “If you’re Pierson, you can sign on line twelve. Come on, Grayson. We’ve got stuff to unload.”

Bronwynn gave Wade a questioning look.

“Don’t ask,” he said with a chuckle.

He and Wilson unloaded a riding lawn mower, a microwave oven, a stepladder, various cleaning supplies, TV trays, four big fans, and three lamps. Bronwynn stood smiling at the foot of the porch steps with her hands on her hips and her sheep at her feet as she watched them carry things from the truck to the house. She felt so positive. It was wonderful.

“Gee, Wade,” she said, handing him a can of orange soda as they watched Wilson drive away, “do you want to stick around until the furniture van gets here? You’ve got a strong back for a guy who sits around on his tush all day.”

Wade scowled at her as he sat down on a step, fishing a cigarette out of his shirt pocket. “What a compliment.”

Bronwynn held back a giggle. There was something about him that brought out the devil in her. She couldn’t seem to resist teasing him. It probably was because he seemed to take himself so seriously. “I’m sure the delivery-man union wouldn’t let you in. You overdress. What’s the deal with you, Wade? Don’t you own a pair of jeans?”

His gaze strayed from his neatly creased trousers to Bronwynn’s long silky legs. The answer to the question escaped him. She had legs like a goddess, and she was swearing off men for a year. There had to be some kind of law against that. His mouth went dry at the thought of running his hands over those legs.

He forced his gaze to settle on her worn-out sneakers. “I see you ran right out to Goodwill and went on a shopping spree.”

“Actually, I had my sister express me a few essentials,” she said, unperturbed. “Cutoffs are a little more suitable for yard work than evening gowns.”

Practicality wasn’t their only virtue, Wade thought as his gaze strayed again.

With an effort, he turned his head and focused on the various vehicles parked in the driveway. “Whose junker truck?”

“Mine,” Bronwynn said proudly, glad something had distracted him from staring at her legs. In another minute she might have gone nuts and attacked him.

“You traded your Mercedes for
that
?” The thought made his stomach churn even worse than usual. He’d always had a soft spot for a flashy car.

“Don’t get a rash, Wade.” Bronwynn chuckled at the look on his face. “I’m storing the car at a garage in Shirley until I can make space for it here. I thought a truck would be the ideal thing to have, considering the amount of stuff I’ll be hauling around while I’m renovating the place. I picked that little beauty up for four hundred bucks. Isn’t it great?”

Wade reserved comment. What could he have said? Not one woman of his acquaintance would have thought a rusting Ford pickup with half the front grille missing was great.

“I call it the Blue Bomb,” she went on. “Muffin likes to ride in the back. Don’t you, Muffin?”

Bronwynn glanced at her new pet just in time to see the sheep nip Wade’s unlit cigarette out of his hand. She grabbed it away before the animal could devour it. “Muffin, you bad girl. I don’t want you taking up a filthy, disgusting habit like smoking; it’s bad for you.”

She offered the cigarette back to Wade. He scowled at her and popped an antacid table.

Bronwynn was appalled. Was his stomach so screwed up he had to eat antacid tablets the way she normally ate butterscotch drops? She found the prospect oddly distressing. “Jeez, you chew those things as if they were candy.”

Wade glanced at the roll of tablets before slipping them into his pants pocket. “Do I?” He shrugged. “Force of habit.”

“Wearing neckties and munching on antacid. It’s none of my business, but you’ve got some bizarre habits, Grayson.”

“You’re the one leading a sheep around,” he pointed out. Muffin raised her head from grazing to stare at him in a most disconcerting way. “Where did you get this animal?”

“From Myron,” she said with a sunny smile, waving to the middle-aged man on the tractor. As the latest tune from Def Leppard blasted out of the boom box behind them, Bronwynn’s shoulders started moving with the beat.

“Myron,” Wade said blankly.

“Yeah. He has the farm across the road from you.” She gave him an incredulous look. “You’ve been here longer than I have and you haven’t met Myron?”

“I don’t think that’s a capital offense,” he said. “I’ve been busy.”

Bronwynn probably had met everybody in Shirley by now, he thought sourly. She was one of those people that others gravitated toward naturally. Wade knew; he was one too—when he chose to be.

He couldn’t believe she’d moved so fast to start fixing the place up. Truthfully, he had expected her to junk the idea and go back to Boston before making one inquiry about hiring help. She hadn’t—that was another curve ball she’d thrown him. “Zanie went home, I take it.”

Bronwynn nodded, absently pulling up tufts of grass and feeding them to her sheep. It hadn’t been easy to convince her sister to leave, but she’d finally managed to get through to her. “She came to see if I was all right and to try to convince me to go home with her.”

“Why didn’t you?

She heaved a long-suffering sigh. “I don’t know how many times I’ve explained this in the last three days. I intend to stay here and fix this place up. It’s what I want to do. It’s what I need to do. It’s what I’m going to do. I may not have known why I was coming up here when I left my wedding Saturday, but I have given it considerable thought since I got here. I’m going to use my own two hands to strip wallpaper and sand floors. I may even try reupholstering some furniture.”

“You’re talking about a tremendous amount of work, Bronwynn.” And a jump in the value of the property he wanted, he thought. “If I were you, I’d give it another long hard look before I found myself hip-deep in sawdust and tile grout.”

Damn the man. He didn’t think she was capable of doing the job. Even after what he’d seen today, he still thought she was some bubble-headed debutante who would run home crying the second she broke a fingernail. She glanced down at her hands. Three nails were broken and two were chipped, and she was damn proud of it.

“Well, you’re not me,” she said. “I’m fixing this place up whether you think I can do it or not.”