Page 93 of Turn Up The Heat

Bellamy laughed again, pulling back to peer up at him. “Oh, you don’t have to. As a matter of fact, you might be able to help me out. See, just today I was offered this great new job in Pine Mountain, working in the kitchen with Carly di Matisse. Maybe you’ve heard of her?” she said with a wink. “Anyway, I start next week, but I don’t have a place to stay. Can you recommend anything?”

“Oh, I think I can help you out. Whenever you want to go, my door is always open.” Shane dipped his mouth to hers, brushing her lips.

“Good. But let’s not hit the road just yet. I’m pretty sure I spilled an entire glass of wine down the back of your jacket, so you may want to take it off and stay a while.”

“Tell you what,” he said, his eyes going dark with a look Bellamy knew all too well. “How about I take off more than my jacket, and stay with you—wherever that may be—forever?”

Bellamy smiled, and eased her hands around his face to look him right in the eye.

“I say forever sounds great.”

30

Five months later

Somewhere amid thejangly throng of eight-penny nails in his tool belt, Jackson Carter’s cell phone was making one hell of a racket. He slid his hammer into the fraying loop on his hip and palmed his phone, grinning at the caller ID.

“Hey, Luke. What’s up?” Jackson wiped his brow with a bare forearm. Man, this weather was a far cry from the nasty rainstorms they’d had a couple days ago. Although considering June was half over, it was really about time for some heat.

“You tell me. How’s Mrs. Teasdale’s fence coming?” his boss replied.

Jackson took a step back to double-check his work, inhaling the crisp scent of the pine boards he’d been hammering into place for the better part of two days. “Your timing is perfect, actually. I just finished the build. All it needs is stain and seal coat, and it’ll be good to go.”

“I’m going to send Micah out there to finish it. I need you on another job, and it looks like a doozy.” The unspoken apology hung in Luke’s voice, and Jackson fought the urge to groan.

“Why does that sound like a disaster right off the bat?”

“Because it probably is. I just got a call from old man Logan about that bungalow he rents out. You know the one, off Rural Route Four?”

Jackson had lived in Pine Mountain since the beginning of his double-digit days, plus he’d done local contracting work for Luke for nearly a decade. If Jackson didn’t know every property in Pine Mountain by now, then shame on him.

“Yeah. It’s the log cabin-looking place, right?” He walked the length of freshly built fence to make sure he hadn’t missed anything before doubling back to the front of Mrs. Teasdale’s aging cottage.

“That’s the one. Well, apparently that storm we had the other night was a bit too much for one of the old oak trees on his property, and the wind actually uprooted the damned thing.”

Jackson let out a stunned whistle as he popped the locks on his pickup truck. “Did it hit the house?” Those trees had to be sixty feet tall. Oh, man, this job was going tosuck.

Luke snorted. “Relax, I’m not sending you on a demolition. The tree fell across the backyard, but it wiped out part of the deck in the process. The arborists just got done hauling away the last of the tree, and now that we can get a good look at the damage, Logan wants us to see if anything can be salvaged. I told him not to get his hopes up, but if anyone could do it, it’d be you.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Jackson grinned and slid into the driver’s seat. At six foot four, fitting his large frame behind the wheel wasn’t an easy job. “Tell old man Logan his deck is in good hands. Or what’s left of it, anyhow. I’m on my way.”

One of the beautiful things about living in a small town was that it was just that, and the trip out to Rural Route Four took less than ten minutes. Jackson pulled up to the tasteful little bungalow and got out, inhaling the fresh summer air as he sauntered to the front of the house to ring the bell.

The strains of some old R&B song were clear from the porch, even through the firmly closed front door. Jackson rang the bell anyway, but after the second try, he gave up. Clearly, someone was home and having the Tuesday morning of a lifetime. He chuckled, picturing some hard-of-hearing old lady getting her Motown groove on inside the house. Far be it for him to interrupt a good time, he thought as he ambled around toward the backyard. All he needed to do was take a look at the damage outside, anyway. Five minutes, maybe ten, no problem.

“Huh,” Jackson murmured, realizing that the muffled music was decidedly clearer back here. He recognized the song blaring through the open windows as an oldie his sisters used to sing along with on the ancient radio in their bedroom. Right, yeah. Some song about being a natural woman. He whistled along as he approached the deck, most of which was thankfully still attached to the house.

“Well, at least it’s ground level.” He shrugged and examined what was left of the thing with a practiced eye. Although much of it was still intact, the tree had taken out the entire far row of railings and pickets, along with a good couple feet of floorboards, clipping what had once been a square into a rectangle with one hell of a rough edge.

The three stairs leading from the yard to what remained of the deck were still anchored in place, and Jackson mounted them easily even though the far side of the deck had sustained enough damage to make it a bad idea. But it was the only way he was going to get a good enough look at the point of impact; plus, if the boards ended up giving way, it wasn’t as if he’d fall more than a foot or two.

He was crouched down low to examine the missing boards and busted railing when the most horrific sound he’d ever heard filtered loudly through the screen door.

“Ouch.” Jackson winced, biting back a laugh as he realized that whoever was in the house was attempting to sing along to the music. It was absolutely wrong to eavesdrop on a client belting out oldies in the privacy of her own home, even if shewasdoing it with nothing but the rolling screen that accompanied her sliding glass door between them. The woman’s voice was an audio train wreck, and his curiosity jumped like a trout at daybreak. One peek wouldn’t hurt, would it?

As soon as he caught sight of the woman through the screen door, all bets for a quick look-see were off. The image of an old lady went up in smoke, replaced by a curvy, dark-haired woman in a skimpy bathrobe. Her eyes were shut tight, pretty face turned up to the living room ceiling as she wailed out the song with all her might. Common decency dictated he step back from the house and pretend he hadn’t seen her. He needed to walk away, and he needed to do it pronto.

Nope. Not happening. This woman was fuckingbeautiful. Even if she did sound like a bag full of pissed off kittens.

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