Page 22 of Take Me Tender

Or maybe she could give up men forever.

What had they ever done for her anyway—shiny hair and rubbery muscles excepted—besides disappoint and diminish her confidence?

Plenty of women were happy without a man. She could be one of them.

Shanna slid lower on the lounge and stared unseeing across the pool, contemplating a new kind of life. She was a blonde because everyone knew men liked blondes best. Her generous C-cups were thanks to what men wanted, too. A friend of hers had augmented all the way up to Ds to please her man, but in the end he’d deserted her anyway, leaving her with a closetful of shirts that wouldn’t button across the chest unless they came paired with maternity waistlines.

The denizens of fashion design needed to share a few beers with their breast-obsessed brothers, Shanna concluded. Maybe then they’d add “Augmented” to the usual size scale of Small, Medium, and Large.

In her new life, though, the one where males mattered not at all, she could eat more, highlight less, and never wonder at what age collagen injections became a Glamour “do.”

The wind shifted direction, drawing her hair across her eyes, and as she fingered it away, she noticed movement at the property next door. One of the massive and snarled bougainvillea bushes between her house and the next was waving and shaking, as if sending out signals by semaphore.

Curious, she hurried through her gate and down the beach toward the old Pearson place. There, a man was half-buried in the bougainvillea beside the back deck, his head and shoulders embedded in the massive bush and only his denim-covered butt and long legs visible.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

A voice cursed—it sounded like a curse, anyway—in muffled Spanish. The leaves shook some more and blossoms drifted onto the pale gray deck like scarlet snowflakes. There was another curse, and then the man backed out of the tangle of green leaves, red flowers, and nasty thorns. He turned to face her, his hand cradling something to his chest—an orange marmalade kitten.

It was Jorge Santos, holding the small creature as close as she’d wanted Jay to hold her, before she’d sworn off men.

“Ms. Ryan,” he said, nodding.

“Shanna,” she corrected, her gaze on his scratched brown hand and the creature that was struggling to free itself from his grasp. “A new friend?”

He grimaced as its claws sank into the thin cloth of his workshirt. “She thinks I’m the enemy, I’m afraid. I’ve seen her running between Jay’s place and this one. I thought I could find her a better home with my niece. But she’s not going along with the idea.”

As if to prove him right, the kitten gave another all-body squirm and broke free of Jorge’s hold. Tiny paws bolted down his leg and the animal disappeared into the bush.

Hah, Shanna thought. So young, and yet already the kitten had decided she didn’t need a man. Smart. Smarter than Shanna had ever been.

The rejected rescuer sighed, then muttered something unintelligible.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head, as if ridding himself of frustration. “And how are you? How is your project coming?”

A flush of embarrassment crawled up her neck. Her project. He was looking over at the Pearson house now—the house she’d claimed a few days before she wanted to rehab. The house he’d encouraged her to work on herself.

But she didn’t know how to work. So she’d done nothing more since then other than moon about Jay and contemplate getting him back.

“I, um.” Her hand lifted and then fell to her thigh. “I haven’t had a chance…”

“Well, good.” He smiled at her.

“Good?” She’d forgotten how very white his teeth were and how very dark his eyes.

“Then you haven’t had a chance to buy any brushes or scrapers.”

“No.”

“I brought some from home.” He gestured toward a cardboard box sitting on the deck. “I thought…I thought I could help you get started.”

Surprised, Shanna took in the mishmash of tools he’d indicated. Brushes, rollers, other things she couldn’t identify. They weren’t new, but items that had been used, and more than once, judging by the multicolored layers of splatters left on wooden handles.

She swallowed. “I couldn’t…”

“Of course you can accept my help. I’m offering it.”

What she’d started to say was she couldn’t paint. That she didn’t know how. That she couldn’t do anything, actually, if it required more than an in-depth knowledge of cocktails and the latest issue of People magazine.

“Get your keys,” he said, his voice brisk, as he crossed to the box and hefted it into his grasp.

She stared. There it was again, that manly, possessive stance that kept calling out to her. Though it was just an ordinary cardboard box he was holding, it still struck Shanna like an arrow through the heart. Jorge cradled the tools against his body like he’d cradled the kitten, like Jay had cradled his chef, like Shanna wanted to be cradled in order to keep whole.

Before she’d given up on men, that is.

“Go get the keys,” he said again.

Was it because she was weak? Was it because she didn’t know what else she could do without being out-and-out rude? For whatever reason, Shanna found herself retrieving the keys, all the while telling herself that taking a man up on his offer of aid didn’t equate to taking up with the man himself.

Not that she thought Jorge wanted her.

And not that she wanted him back.

Back at the Pearson place, she dithered again. Really, she should thank him politely and then reject his services, but man of action that he was, he was already spreading a dropcloth and then opening a paint bucket to pour a creamy yellow river into a shallow pan.

“Do you like the color?” he asked, turning his gaze on her.

The paint looked like summer sunshine à la mode and would brighten the dingy living area walls. “Yes,” she admitted, though instantly regretted the word. She should have said she hated it, she realized, and thus put off this little work event he was orchestrating. But, she thought quickly, she had a way to save the situation.

Not that she’d admit to giving up on men. Instead, she’d merely confess she didn’t know how to work the paint roller or even where to start. Her ineptitude would drive him in the same direction every other man who’d known her had eventually taken—far away.

He put a brush in her hand. “You cut, and I’ll roll.”

Cut what? And with a brush?

The questions didn’t come out of her mouth fast enough. Before she could express them aloud, a little smile crossed Jorge’s mouth and he recovered the paintbrush from her and then dipped it into the can. As he ran it along the wall, he outlined the molding of the doorjamb. “Cutting,” he explained. He smiled at her again, that white flash creating deep slashes in his tanned cheeks.

Ignoring the little tingles prickling her skin, Shanna looked away from his handsome face to the line of paint he’d just made. Truly, it looked so easy. How could she possibly claim it was beyond her abilities to attempt?

Her self-esteem wasn’t that low. And shouldn’t a woman determined to boot men out of her life be able to make some simple improvements on her own?

Careful not to make contact with his skin, she took back the paintbrush and continued moving it alongside the door molding. It required more concentration than she’d expected to keep it steady, but she focused on the job and almost forgot the person working nearby.

Except he smelled like a man, even over the odor of the paint. It wasn’t an expensive, designer scent—God, she’d sniffed enough of those at velvet-roped L.A. nightclubs, always mixed with the sharp bite of liquor and the lingering earthiness of luxurious leather bucket seats. Jorge Santos, by contrast, smelled like plain soap and masculine shampoo and it was so wholesome and…dependable that she couldn’t stop herself from drawing it deeply into her lungs.

Then he started talking in that deep, slightly accented voice. He spoke of a mother and sisters and his extended family living in a small village outside of Mexicali. Of the grandmother who made the best tamales in the universe and of his grandfather, who had recently taken to wandering away from home and forgetting who he was and how to get back to the house.

“So far, a cousin or a great-nephew or one of my aunts has quickly tracked him down,” he said, worry furrowing his brow, “but soon we’re going to have to convince my abuela he needs a more secure situation.”

Shanna looked up from the paint can she’d just dipped her brush into. “You mean you’re going to have to convince your grandmother.”

That incredible smile dug dimples in his lean cheeks again. “What makes you guess that?”

“Because you strike me as the responsible older sibling everyone expects to handle every problem.”

That smile flashed again. “Guilty as charged.”

She went back to cutting around the window she’d moved on to. “Oh, it’s not an accusation.”

“Ah. From one who knows the weight of responsibility, then. I recall that your father put this house project in your lap.”

And it was the only thing Shanna’s father had ever asked her to do for him. And only because if she didn’t do anything about it—which he probably suspected would happen—it would mean nothing more than a slight delay in his grand master plan of destroying this warm, unpretentious dwelling in order to build something on scale with his blockbuster ego.

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