Taming Tess (The St. John Sibling Series) (3 page)

H
e motioned her past the stairway toward a partially open door beyond the kitchen. When Tess paused in the doorway, he reached around her and flicked on the light, crowding her into the brightly tiled room in the process. "There're extra towels on the--"

She
stepped into the room, turned and shut the door in his face. He'd been about to follow her into the bathroom. Imagine, her and Roman St. John confined in this narrow space together--that towering man with the linebacker shoulders and feet half the size of the state of Illinois. He'd probably have knocked her into the tub.

Unless he caught her with those huge hands of his, like he had when he'd bumped into her on the porch.
Such big, strong hands. She wondered if what they said about the size of a man’s hands and feet being indicative of the size of another anatomical attribute was true.

"Don't go there.
Don't go there. Just don't go there," she chanted in a low voice and thumped her head back against the bathroom door.

"You okay in there?"

She spun at the door. The man was still out there, right
outside
the door. She flicked the lock into place. "I'm just fine. I don't need a chaperone to bathe."

"I heard
a thump. I was concerned. So, shoot me."

W
asn't that a thought? As if resolving this whole mess could be accomplished so simply. But there were laws against shooting a person just because he bothered you.

She could hear him
mumbling on the other side of the door. Then his footsteps faded off down the hall, heavy, hurried steps.

Tess rolled her head, the tension crackling in her ears like popcorn.
She needed a good long soak in a tub of hot water and not just because her clothes and hair smelled of smoke.

She drew back the shower curtain, not surprised to find a sparkling tub.
He had to have cleaning help…or a woman in his life. She frowned at that last thought. She frowned deeper at wasting even a second trying to recall if he'd ever mentioned a woman during his weeks working in her house. Not that Roman's eligibility status was of any concern to a woman who'd sworn off matrimony, even if the man in question had a disarmingly good-natured streak. She'd witnessed almost as much bantering between him and his crew as she did good quality work.

She plugged the drain, turned on the hot water, and scanned the back lip of the tub for bath supplies.
She wanted bubbles. Not that she expected to find bubble bath among her reluctant host's paraphernalia. A man like Ro--

Whoa.
What was this?

Between a nondescript lump of soap and a
Value Size
jug of shampoo stood a bottle whose label identified it as bubbling bath crystals. Before she could censure herself, an image of her contractor popped into her head, his brawny arms draped along the sides of the tub while one hairy leg protruded from a pile of iridescent suds. Maybe the man
was
right about her coming home with him being a bad idea. She was attracted to him. She lusted after him. Of course it was a bad idea.

But she refused to admit it to him.
That would be like admitting defeat to her father.

Tess scowled, dumped a hefty amount of bath crystals under the stream of water spilling from the spout, and turned toward the open shelves above the toilet stacked with towels.
They were a motley collection of odd sizes and dark colors, mostly burgundy. She wouldn't have pegged him for a man with enough imagination to waver from the standard blues she expected of men who wore plaid. Then again, he had surprised her a few times in the past weeks.

Curious if she'd find other surprises in the personal space of his bathroom, she opened a set of bi-fold doors opposite the tub and
sink and found a washer and dryer. Compact and orderly with a shelf of laundry supplies above the appliances. Even the dirty clothes hadn't been tossed willy-nilly. They were in a laundry basket atop the washing machine, Roman St. John's white, rumpled shorts and sweaty, navy tees.

What was she doing fingering his
t-shirts? She should be repulsed. They bore the sweat of a man who labored hard. And he did. She'd seen him, swinging his hammer and hefting massive beams, making the muscles bunch across his back beneath the tight weave of his t-shirt.

She shook off the image and concentrat
ed on the reality at hand…like smelly shirts. But his tees didn't reek of stale sweat. They smelled of the male essence of the last man on earth to whom she dared be attracted.

"What are you doing?" she muttered, holding one of his
t-shirts to her nose and inhaling.

T
orturing myself, that's what I'm doing.

She tossed the shirt back into the basket and
paced the narrow bathroom. Steam wafted from her filling bath, inviting her into the water. Yet, she couldn't resist snooping further.

The cabinet under the sink held the usual cleaning supplies. The medicine cabinet above housed a
spare supply of bandages, aspirin, floss--which accounted for Roman St. John's brilliant white teeth--and shaving cream and razor.

She picked up the razor and turned it between her fingers.
Her father used the electric version. No raw stainless steel blades threatening his pampered cheeks, unless the blade was wielded by a barber whose business it was to know the definitive cutting angle of a straight razor.

She had the distinct impression that her contractor had never wasted a minute of his time worrying about a little razor burn.
At least he and her father differed in that way.

But in other ways
…

Once he questioned the wisdom of
knocking out a wall between two bedrooms to make a grand master suite. Like she didn't know downgrading from five to four bedrooms meant value lost. She'd promptly pointed out she was no rooky architect. That she knew what she was doing--knew her target market and they wanted big masters. He'd complied with her design plan in the end. Not that he had a choice, as she'd also pointed out. She was the client.

She slapped the razor back on the shelf and all but slammed the medicine cabinet door.
She knew what she was doing and why, even if her contractor didn't approve of her design. But she didn't have the luxury of time to wait for a buyer who'd appreciate the integrity of small, Victorian era rooms. She needed that house remodeled to the upscale esthetic preferred by the modern day buyer, and she needed it on the market ASAP.

A whiff of smoke wafted up off her clothes.
With The Castle a charred, water-logged ruin, there would be no sale, speedy or otherwise. So much for proving to her father that a woman was as capable in this business as a man, thanks to Roman St. John and his band of merry men.

"Forget St. John," she muttered, stripping off her clothes. "Forget him and his amazing blue eyes, muscled arms, and
…and his damn burgundy towels."

She sank into the hot bath,
trying not to think about his very broad shoulders in bubbles. She needed to unwind so she could think this latest problem through without letting her emotions muddle the process. Any decision emotion based could only prove her father right about women not belonging in business.

#

Roman stared at the wall above the stove as he sliced an onion into a hot skillet, the wall that partitioned the kitchen from the bathroom. The water had stopped running and he swore he could actually hear her
sinking
into the bathwater. But that was impossible. He'd insulated these walls himself. Had to be his imagination and under-used of late libido picturing Tess Abbot in the buff climbing into his bathtub.

The knife slipped and
sliced into the pad of his thumb.

"Dam
n!"

He scowled at the blood bubbling along the thin cut.
First aid kit was in the bathroom…where the inhospitable Miss Abbot soaked naked in his tub. He wondered if she'd used his bath salts, if she was buried up to her stubborn little chin in suds.

He cursed again and tossed
the knife and onion remnant onto the countertop next to the stove. If his thumb were hanging by a cord and blood spurting from an artery, he wouldn't knock on that bathroom door for her help. Nope. No way. No how.

"Get that notion out of your head right now, Roman my man, because the
acid-tongued Tess is strictly off limits."

H
e wrapped a paper napkin around his thumb then retrieved a platter of meat from the fridge. All day he'd anticipated eating the sirloin steak he'd seasoned last night and left marinating. He'd planned to celebrate the end of working with the impossible Ms. Abbott with that hunk of meat. That is until her third floor caught on fire, flames devouring her roof and the billowing smoke making her house look like a smudge pot.

That quickly,
a job done had turned into a new nightmare. Instead of putting the client from hell behind him, he now had her as a houseguest. To add insult to injury, he had to cut his steak in half and share it with his uninvited houseguest.

A
loud splash drew his attention back to the wall behind the stove and spurred his imagination into a space it had no business visiting, not when that space involved soapy bubbles and a fresh-faced harpy. Had she slipped? He banged the platter down next to the knife and cursed yet again, a speech pattern he seemed to be using with far more frequency since starting work for the tyrannical Tess.

She could drown in there for all he cared
, considering what she'd put him through. Still, he listened for movement, just in case. Given their none-too-private verbal sparring, an accident might not be the first cause of death the local sheriff suspected. And her family? They'd want to know what she was doing naked in his tub first then they would sue him for so much he'd owe them his soul.

But, if he scooped Tess Abbot's
unconscious body--slick with soap--from the tub and breathed life into it, he'd be a hero. Tess might even say something nice to him.

Running w
ater trickled beyond the wall between bath and kitchen and his fantasy evaporated.

"You are pathetic," he muttered into the stinging vapor of frying onions and potatoes.

His stomach rumbled in protest. He hadn't eaten all day. He'd been too busy scrambling to finish the last minute changes her royal pain in the butt had wanted. For a woman who found his company so irritating she couldn't say a nice word to him to save her soul, she sure found ways to keep him on the job longer.

His stomach growled again and he eyed the steak.
What if she was a vegetarian?

If she were, he might as well go ahead and cook the steak
for himself. No sense his starving while she took her sweet time soaking her pampered backside.

An image of Tess Abbot's skin flushed from steamy bath
water popped into his head. Immediately, he shook his head, shaking away the image. He had no business knocking on that bathroom door just to find out her food preference. Besides, it would be nice to eat
with
someone for change.

W
as he nuts? He was talking about the vixen with a tongue like a switchblade. Better he eat alone.

#

The knock on the door jolted Tess from her peace.

"What?" she demanded.

"How long are you going to be in there?"

Wasn't there a man on earth capable of giving a woman five minutes of peace?

"You got a hot date to get ready for, St. John?"

"I want to know when to put the steak on."

"Steak? Swell. My house burns down and you barbecue. What is it with you men and your barbecues?"

"If you don't eat meat--"

"My father barbecues a few hamburgers and hot dogs," she ranted, "and he expects the world to stand up and applaud."

"
If you're not a meat eater," he growled through a door with too flimsy a lock to keep out a strapping contractor if he wanted in, "I should tell you I don't have an ounce of tofu in the house."

"Like you'd know what to do with bean curd if you had any."

"Care to bet on that?"

Tess frowned and muttered above the grumble of her stomach, "Something tells me that would be a sucker bet."

Why was she wasting time arguing with this guy when a steak sounded so good to her? A big, thick, rare steak.

"When you hear the water draining from the tub, St. John," she shouted at the door, "you can slap the meat on the grill."

"Helpful," he muttered. "Real helpful."

Tess
heard his footsteps as he departed and sank back into the suds with a groan. Why were men so quick to take offense of a woman who knew her own mind? Why did men think they had to run her life?

Why couldn't her father see she was as capable an architect as any of the men in his firm?
But no, Dad refused to see women in any career but that of a homemaker and mother.