That Mccloud Woman

She glanced away, looking down the street and away from him. “There’s a small cabin on my property,” she said thoughtfully. “I lived there until Frank made the house habitable.”

Since she’d offered the information as a statement and not an invitation, Jack wasn’t sure what kind of response she expected from him, so he remained silent.

“I suppose you could stay there,” she said, turning her gaze back to him. “It isn’t much, but it offers the essentials.”

“I’m used to making do.”

“Are you a man of your word?”

His chest swelled as if in asking the question she’d insulted him. “My word’s as good as any legal contract you could have drawn.”

“And I have your word that you’ll see this remodeling job through to its end?”

He gave his chin a tight jerk of assent. “You have my word. I’ll see the job done.”

“When can you start?”

“When do you want me?”

She arched a brow, a smile teasing one corner of her mouth. “What are your plans for this afternoon?”

Jack shrugged. “Nothing in particular.”

She quickly dug pen and paper from her purse, then turned the bag over, bracing it against her stomach while she used its side for a writing surface. “I have a few more errands to run,” she told him as she jotted down directions to her house, “but I should be home by three.”

She held out the slip of paper and Jack took it, studying her neat handwriting. When he glanced up, he saw that her hand was extended toward him. Along with it she offered him a smile. “I’m Alayna McCloud.”

Up close, he found her eyes an even deeper blue than he’d thought before, and he quickly decided that a man could probably drown in their depths if he cared to look long and deeply enough. Thankfully Jack didn’t He took her hand, if a bit reluctantly, and shook it “Jack Cordell.”

Her smile broadened, dimples winking at him from her cheeks. She added a squeeze to the shake. “I’m pleased to meet you, Jack.”

The warmth of her hand slowly worked its way up his arm while the added pressure in her grip seemed to draw his insides into a knot. Frowning, he uncurled his fingers from around hers and dropped his hand to his side, slowly flexing his fingers. “Same goes,” he murmured, then abruptly turned away.

Jack sat on the porch steps, waiting...and slowly melting. He shoved his cap back on his head and used his shirtsleeve to mop the sweat from his brow. She’d said three, and it was already almost half past

On a sigh, he stretched out his legs and tucked his pressed hands between his thighs, hunching his shoulders forward. Had he been too hasty in taking on this job? he asked himself. Was it the job itself that had appealed to him, the chance to work with his hands again? Or had it been the woman? It had been a long time since a woman had caught his attention enough to make him look twice. Even longer since he’d worked with his hands.

Maybe it was a mixture of the two, he decided, squinting his eyes thoughtfully as he stared out at the drive that led to the house. He gave his shoulder a lift, then shook his head. Didn’t matter, he told himself. Either way, he had a job to do, a place to stay for a while. And a pretty woman to look at. Not a bad deal all the way around, no matter which way he looked at it.

While he was pondering all this, a cat slipped from beneath the porch steps and wound its way around his feet. Jack scowled at the scraggly-looking cat and nudged it away with the toe of his boot. At the sound of an engine, he glanced up, standing when he saw a minivan coming up the long drive. It stopped at an angle in front of the picket fence that surrounded the house, and Alayna slipped from behind the wheel and to the ground. She quickly ducked back inside, stretching to grab a sack of groceries from the passenger seat. With the movement, the hem of her dress rose, exposing a tanned calf, then the tender flesh behind her knee. At the sight, Jack felt his pulse kick and heat crawl up his neck.

“Hi!” she called brightly as she turned and headed toward him. “Sorry I’m late.”

Jack frowned, tugging the bill of his cap low over his forehead as if to hide the truth of where his eyes had strayed. “No problem.”

She stooped to give the cat that greeted her a loving pat. “I see you met Captain Jinx.”

Jack’s frown deepened as he watched the flea-bitten, stump-tailed cat arch beneath her hand, purring its contentment. “Yeah.”

She straightened, lifting her gaze to his, a teasing smile curving her lips when she saw the look of disgust on his face. “You don’t like cats?”

He lifted a shoulder. “They’re okay.”

She laughed softly as she shifted the sack of groceries to her hip, then looked back down at the cat. “He’s not really mine. He just appeared one day and stayed.”

“Did you feed him?”

Alayna glanced up, her forehead wrinkling at the unexpected question. “Well, yes. As a matter of fact, I did. Why do you ask?”

He lifted a shoulder again. “That would be enough to convince him to stay.”

Alayna stared at Jack a moment, caught once again by the sadness in his eyes, the emptiness there, wondering what had robbed them of their life, their sparkle. She wondered, too, if she fed Jack, as she had the cat, would he stay long enough to finish her remodeling job?

At the outrageousness of the thought, she shifted the sack of groceries in her arms. “What would you like to see first? The cabin where you’ll be staying, or the house?”

Jack glanced over his shoulder toward the house. He didn’t care one way or the other about his own accommodations. But the house and its distinct architecture had intrigued him from the moment he’d first caught sight of it. “The house, if you don’t mind.”

“The house, it is.” Alayna led the way, with Jack following. When they reached the kitchen door, she juggled sack and purse, and he quickly stretched an arm in front of her, caught the screen door handle and pulled it open. “Thank you,” she said, offering him a grateful smile as she passed by him.

Feeling the warmth of her smile and catching a whiff of the flowery scent that trailed her, Jack stared after her a second, watching the subtle movement of her hips beneath the sacklike dress, and the rhythmic sway of her hair across her shoulders and back. He wondered what the texture of her hair would feel like between his fingers, what she’d taste like when aroused. When he realized where his thoughts were taking him, he frowned and quickly stepped inside, letting the door close quietly behind him.

In the kitchen, Alayna set the bag of groceries on the counter, then began to dig out the items that needed refrigeration. “Would you like something to drink?” she asked, crossing to the refrigerator. “I made lemonade this morning, or I might be able to scare up a beer. Frank might have left one or two behind.”

Jack looked around the kitchen, admiring the old glass-front cabinetry. “Lemonade’s fine,” he murmured absently. He crossed to the breakfast nook, tucked into a bay window, and ran his hand across the faded wallpaper, letting his fingers tell him the wall’s history.

Alayna watched him as she pulled the pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator. “Frank didn’t do much in there,” she offered. “My first priorities were the kitchen, my bedroom and bath.” She took two glasses from the cabinet and filled them with ice.

“There’s beaded paneling beneath this paper.”

In the midst of pouring lemonade, Alayna glanced Jack’s way and saw that he had pulled a knife from his pocket and was carefully scraping at the paper near the window frame. “What?” she asked, wondering what he was doing.

He folded the knife and stuck it back in his pocket. “Wood,” he explained, plucking with a fingernail at the paper he’d loosened. Then added, “Two-inch tongue and groove.” He gave his head a regretful shake. “Somebody papered over solid wood walls.”

Intrigued, Alayna caught up their drinks and crossed to him. She offered him a glass, which Jack took, then she leaned to peer closely at the spot of wood he’d uncovered. “Is that bad?” she asked in concern.

The heat and intimacy of her body pressed against his had Jack sidestepping away from her, giving her room and himself the opportunity to breathe a little easier. “Not necessarily bad. Just stupid.”

Alayna choked back a laugh upon hearing her ancestors referred to as “stupid.” The McClouds were a proud bunch, and probably wouldn’t think kindly of a man who questioned their intelligence. She took a sip of her lemonade. “So what do you propose we do about it?”

Jack turned his head to look at her, surprised by the “we” in her statement, but decided to take it as a sign that she trusted his opinion. “It’s your house. But if it was left up to me, I’d rip that paper off and let the wood breathe. It’d be a pretty sight, I can promise you that.”

Alayna looked at him, surprised by the level of emotion in his voice, his passion for something as innocuous as a wall of wood. “Will it cost much?”

He lifted a shoulder, which seemed to be his favored means of communicating with her. “Elbow grease, mainly. ’Course you never know what problems you might find when you start uncovering things.”

Alayna turned to look at the wall again, trying to imagine it without the faded paper, and wondering, too, what other things she would discover that Jack felt passionate about... and she would find out. There was still life inside him. The emotion he’d just displayed over her breakfast room wall proved that. “Okay,” she said, with a decisive nod at the faded paper, then turned to smile at him. “Let’s do it.”

“Now?”