That Mccloud Woman

Alayna poured syrup over her pancakes. “Frank took care of the major repairs before he left, but there are still quite a few things that need attention. There are two baths upstairs. The shower leaks like a sieve in one of them, though both could stand some remodeling. And there are a few changes I’d like made in the bedrooms.” She waved her fork vaguely. “Enlarging closets. Adding shelving. Painting. That kind of thing.” She parted her lips and slipped a forkful of pancakes between them. She smiled at Jack as she chewed. “But I think what I’d like to do first is tackle the wall in the breakfast nook. You really aroused my curiosity with your comments about the wood hidden beneath the wallpaper.”

The emphasis she placed on the word “aroused” had Jack snapping his gaze to hers. He immediately regretted the action. Her face was flushed with excitement, her blue eyes bright with expectancy. The craziest notion bubbled up out of nowhere...he wanted to lean across the table and cover her mouth with his, and show her what it meant to be really aroused.

Slowly he dragged his napkin from his lap and wiped it across his mouth, then across the perspiration beading his forehead before wadding it in a ball against his thigh. “Then that’s where I’ll start,” he said, picking up his fork.

“What will we need to do?”

Jack jerked his head up again. “We?” he repeated, his face going slack. “You’re planning on helping me?”

She laid down her fork, her shoulders drooping right along with her expression. “Well, yes,” she said uncertainly. “But I won’t get in your way,” she added quickly, “if that’s what you’re worried about. I just thought the work would go that much faster if I helped.”

Jack set aside his own fork, his appetite suddenly gone. The idea of working alongside Alayna and the forced intimacy involved had created another, more dangerous hunger.

Paper hung in tattered strips, already revealing sections of tongue-and-groove boards by the time Alayna returned to the breakfast room. Thankfully she had exchanged her robe for a pair of baggy cotton slacks and a man’s tailored white shirt. Even though she was now covered from neck to toe, somehow she still managed to look sexy, a fact that irritated Jack.

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched her roll up her sleeves and knew he was going to have to think of some way to dissuade her from helping him. He wasn’t sure his system could take much more temptation.

“Okay, so what do you want me to do?” she asked, her voice full of enthusiasm.

Keeping his eyes focused on his work, Jack tipped his head toward the soggy wallpaper he’d already ripped from the wall and dropped to the floor. “You can pick up the scrap paper and put it in the garbage sack I’ve set out.”

“That’s all?”

Jack bit back a smile of satisfaction at the disappointment he heard in her voice. Realizing that this might be just the way to get rid of her, he kept his gaze on the wall in front of him. “Well, I suppose you could start on the plumbing in the bath upstairs, if you’d rather do something that requires more skill.”

“But I don’t know anything about plumbing.”

Jack dropped his hand to his side, and slowly turned to look at her, his posture that of a man at the end of his patience. “Well, then why don’t you pick up the paper, like I suggested?”

To his surprise—and disappointment—Alayna dropped to her knees and began to scrape the soiled and gum-slickened paper into a pile.

“What do we do after all the paper is off?”

Jack stared down at her, watching in growing amazement as she crawled around on the drop cloth he’d spread on the floor, picking up the soggy paper and stuffing it into the garbage bag. She didn’t flinch, didn’t curl her nose, didn’t argue. Hell, she didn’t even complain! She just did as he’d instructed. A woman of obvious breeding, and a doctor, no less, willing to lower herself to performing menial labor? The woman was an oddity. A paradox. A total opposite to his ex-wife who had thought herself too good to get her hands dirty. He gave his head a shake, clearing it of the old memories, and went back to tearing off paper.

“Once the paper’s off,” he said, firming his voice as he refocused on her question, “we’ll have to clean the wall, removing all the old paste and any residue the paper left. Then we’ll give it a good rubbing with a mixture of linseed oil and a little turpentine. If you’re satisfied with the look, then we’ll brush on a clear sealer. If not, we might want to first add a stain, then the sealer.”

At his use of the word “we,” Alayna sat up and rocked back on her heels, wiping her palms down her thighs. “You’ll let me help you do all those things?”

Jack angled his head to look at her and saw the almost childlike hopefulness in her eyes. Quickly he looked away, refusing to be moved by it. “We’ll see.”

Alayna dropped back down to her knees and started picking up the paper faster. “Neat. I love to paint.” At Jack’s doubtful grunt, she scooped up a pile of paper and stuffed it into the bag. “I really do,” she insisted. “When I opened my first office in Raleigh, I was operating on a shoestring. It was a dump. Really depressing. I completely redecorated it and I did all the painting myself. I even did a mural of a jungle with all these wild animals peeking out from behind the trees and plants.”

Jack turned to look at her. A mural of a jungle? What was she, a veterinarian? “What kind of doctor are you, anyway?”

“A child psychologist.”

Jack’s stomach plunged to his feet. He quickly turned away and picked up the brush and put it in motion.

Intent on gathering up the paper, Alayna went on with her explanation, unaware of his reaction to her choice in careers. “I specialized in cases of abuse and neglect. My clients were usually sent to me by the courts.” Having picked up all the paper he’d discarded, she rocked back on her heels and watched while he brushed water over another section of the wall. “My husband thought I was crazy.” She chuckled, remembering. “He hated painting with a passion.”

She slowly sobered as other memories of her ex-husband slipped into her mind, and she dropped her gaze to her hand, unconsciously rubbing at the spot where she’d once worn his ring. “In fact, he hated my office, my career, my clients. He couldn’t stand imperfection in any form.” A shiver chased down her spine at the unwanted reminder, and she straightened, lifting her gaze to Jack...and found him staring at her.

“You’re married?”

At the stunned look on his face, she quickly shook her head. “No. Divorced.” When he continued to stare at her, she returned the question. “Are you married?”

“No.” He turned back to the wall, and peeled a strip of paper from it, letting it fall to the drop cloth, then added, “Divorced.”

She stared at his back, wondering if the sadness, the emptiness she’d seen in his eyes was a result of the divorce. “Were you married long?”

“Long enough.” Jack ripped another strip of paper from the wall and dropped it to the floor and, along with it, it seemed, the topic of discussion. “There’s a scraper in my toolbox. Get it for me.”

Alayna saw the tenseness in his shoulders, heard it in his clipped order. Avoidance. She knew the symptoms well. And knew, too, how unhealthy the tactic was.

She crossed to his toolbox, found the scraper he’d requested, then returned, holding it out to him as she studied his profile. “Divorce can be painful,” she offered quietly, hoping to draw him back into the conversation. But he didn’t bite. The only sign that he’d heard her was an increased tenseness in his jaw. His gaze remained fixed on the wall.

“Was yours a painful divorce?” she asked, angling her head to better see his face, his expression.

Jack flung the paper he’d just torn from the wall to the floor and bent to pick up the paintbrush again. His lips remained stubbornly pressed together as he swiped water over a new section of faded wallpaper with angry strokes.

His refusal to talk about his divorce told Alayna what he refused to admit. His divorce had been painful. From experience, she knew that talking helped. “Jack?” she prodded gently. “Was it painful?”

He tossed his paintbrush back into the can, then looked at her over his shoulder. “Don’t try crawling around in my head, Doc. You might not like what you find.”

Alayna refused to let him intimidate her. “Sounds as if you’ve had experience with a psychologist. Judging by your tone, it wasn’t a very happy one. Is that true?”

“Bingo,” he muttered bitterly and picked up his paintbrush again. “Paid a damn fortune to spill my guts to some tight-assed, sanctimonious stranger who sat in a chair and mumbled ‘hmm’ all the time. When that didn’t work, I paid another wad of money in attorney fees.” Slowly he turned to look at Alayna, his mouth thinned in a grim, thin line. “Now there’s somebody you might enjoy psychoanalyzing, Doc. My ex’s divorce lawyer. Smiled the whole time he was ripping out my heart and draining the blood right out of me. I’ll bet you’d get a kick out of digging around in his gray matter.”

Unaffected by his bitter tone, Alayna listened, enthralled. Jack was talking. This was good.

“Cats, children, divorce lawyers.” She ticked off each on her fingers, as if making a list, then glanced up at him, teasing him with a smile. “Is there anything or anyone else I should add to your list of dislikes?”

His scowled deepened. “Yeah. Angel-faced psychologists. They really get under my skin.” He picked up the scraper and tossed it to her. She caught it deftly in one hand. “Now, are you going to yap your jaws all day, or are you going to work?”

“Oddly enough,” she replied, unoffended, “I can talk and work at the same time. Can you?”

“Yeah,” he replied irritably, “if the topic’s interesting.” He stooped to pick up his paintbrush again, then turned his back to her. “Unfortunately, this particular one bores me stiff.”

Three

“Maudie tells me that you’ve hired a new remodeler.”

Alayna handed Mandy a glass of iced tea, then shuddered visibly as she sank onto a patio chair opposite her cousin. “Yes, and I can just imagine what all Maudie had to say on that subject.”

“Oh, let’s see,” Mandy replied, tapping a finger against her chin, as if trying to recall the details of the conversation. “Something about Frank scamming you out of thousands of dollars, and what a softhearted little fool you are. Then I believe she mentioned something about this man you hired to replace Frank being a good-looking hunk, and that she is sure you hired him just to satisfy this insatiable need of yours for wild sex and—”

Alayna snorted. “Oh, yeah,” she said sarcastically, “that was it, all right.”