Ask Me Why (20 page)

“Hundreds? That's an exaggeration. But a good one.”

“For another, I think you can do something far more productive with your week off.”

“Something far more productive? Like what?” The light turned green and Nick turned left, now moving away from downtown and toward Maggie's condo. “You have a side job lined up or something?”

“Something like that.” She fidgeted in her seat. If she showed up without a man, she knew Rachel was right. Her well-meaning relatives, who had taken Maggie under their wing years ago as a sort of surrogate sister to Rachel, would find one for her. Given the debacle with Rachel's cousin Wilbur two years ago—him and his “feel my neck, see if I have the mumps” moments—she didn't want to put her destiny in anyone else's hands but her own.

“Well, if you do find a side job, let me know,” Nick said. “I can always use some extra cash. Helps me pay down the Money Pit.”

The Money Pit was a three-bedroom ranch house a half mile from the water, with a large backyard at the edge of one of the many walking trails in Rescue Bay. A foreclosure, it had sat empty for five years, decaying in the salty air and merciless Florida sun. Nick spent most of his free hours—and all of his free cash—on the ongoing renovations. Maggie had helped him out more than once on other projects he had done and had been impressed with Nick's design eye. He had a way of bringing everything together—from the flooring to the backsplash—to make a house feel like a home.

He'd flipped six houses in the time she'd known him, all foreclosures that became something amazing when Nick was done. He had claimed he'd bought each one with an intent toward a long-term residence, but he never held on to any of them. He seemed content with his life of impermanence, both in his relationships and his addresses.

Which was what made him perfect for Maggie's needs. Nick wouldn't expect anything more at the end of the week than a thank-you—and maybe a check. Rachel would be happy that Maggie had taken the dare, and in the end, Maggie would be no more committed to Nick than she was to her landlord. Win-win.

“I do have one option, if you're looking to make extra money,” she said.

“I'm all ears. And empty wallet.” Nick chuckled as he turned right onto Maggie's street and stopped the truck outside her condo. “Spent my last paycheck fixing a plumbing leak that went from one bad pipe to a strip-it-to-the walls-and-start-over-again nightmare.”

“Are you ever going to let me see that house? I could give you a hand, you know.” He'd let her help with all the other projects, but this one he'd been secretive about. Maybe he had some other girl with a hammer handing him nails. Either way, she wasn't jealous. At all.

“I'm good on my own.” He flicked a glance at her. “I'm debating keeping this one.”

She laughed. “Yeah, right. You've never kept any of your Money Pits. So I'll give you the same advice I gave you the last seven times you put a house on the market five minutes after you finished the reno. Put some flowers in pots on the front porch and in some window boxes before you hang up the For Sale sign. You want a house to say
home
the minute you see it.”

“And I should make sure I have a swing on the porch, for quiet afternoons and reading. Like you had when you were a teenager.”

She cast him a surprised glance. That swing had been the one bit of normalcy in her stark, cold childhood. For six months, they'd lived in that rental house, a campus home so unlike the usual no-maintenance apartments her parents preferred. Six months before her parents were offered jobs in California and the house had been packed up, leaving behind that swing and the window boxes. Rachel's home had been the closest Maggie had ever come to living in a house like that, but it wasn't the same, not really. Not when it wasn't her own, wasn't a place where she could put her own stamp. Hang her own swing. It was why she'd bought the silly thing years ago, though she still lived in a condo, no more permanent or homey than the places of her childhood. Some psychiatrist would have something to say about that, Maggie was sure. “You remember that? Heck, I bought that beat-up old porch swing like two years ago and made you store it in your garage. Someday it'll find a home.”

“I pay attention more than you think, M.J.” He shifted the truck into Park, then draped his hands over the steering wheel. “Anyway, the house is not ready for you to see. It's still a . . . work in progress. An expensive one.”

“Maybe if you dated a little less, you'd have more time for the Money Pit.” She put a hand on the door handle, then released it. She wasn't here to lecture him. She needed a solution to her own problem, and solutions weren't exactly falling off a bachelor tree.

She looked over at Nick, his hair dusted with a fine layer of sawdust, his gray T-shirt so worn, it was practically see-through, and his hands rough with the calluses of a man who worked hard for his paycheck. It was a crazy idea, one that could easily backfire, but if she put him in a suit and tie, and got him to shave more than a couple times a week . . . “If you come with me to Georgia, I'll . . . I'll pay you. Three hundred dollars.”

“What? Why?”

“Two reasons. One, I have my general contractor's exam in two weeks, and I need a study partner . . .”

“Something I've already been doing every day with you for free.”

“And two . . .” She sucked in a breath and decided to just say it, fast, like ripping out a splinter. “If I show up without a date, everyone in the town of Chatham Ridge is going to try to fix me up with their toothless second cousin or newly widowed great-uncle.” A believable enough reason. She sure as hell wasn't going to tell Nick that Rachel had dared her to do it. Knowing him, he would tease her for the next ten years. “I need you to pretend to be my . . . boyfriend.”

“I asked you out five seconds ago and you said no.”

“I didn't mean my real boyfriend. I said pretend.” She shook her head and cursed. “Forget it.”

Nick turned in his seat, draping an arm over the back of the crimson vinyl bench seat. His fingers rested inches from her shoulder, so close she swore she could feel the heat from his skin. He quirked that lopsided grin at her, and something in Maggie's gut flipped. “Let me get this straight. You want me to go with you to this wedding and pretend to be madly in love with you?”

“If you think you can pull that off.”

“You doubt my acting skills?”

“If this was a carpentry job, I'd have no worries, but you aren't exactly . . .”

“Exactly what?”

She arched a brow and waved at his torn, faded work clothes, the Slovenly Bachelor look he'd perfected. It was how he looked when he went to work, to lunch, heck, to his grandmother's church picnic. If Nick owned a single thing with buttons, she would be shocked. “Devoted boyfriend material.”

“You're worried I can't convince a bunch of Southern women that I am your one true love?”

“A little.” She took a second glance at his attire and the rough stubble on his chin. “Okay, a lot.”

“Really? Maybe I should prove it to you. I do, after all, love a challenge.”

The way he'd said
challenge
, with a low, tempting growl, temporarily wiped her brain clean. All she could do was sit there, her heart thudding with anticipation. “Prove it? How?”

Nick's eyes met hers, intent, serious. His arm slid off the back of the bench, his hand coming up to gently cup the back of her head. His fingers tangled in her hair, and he brought his face within inches of hers. She caught the scent of his cologne, dark and woodsy, and watched his ocean-colored eyes draw closer and closer. Her heart began to race, and her breath got lost somewhere in the small cab of the pickup. His lips whispered against hers, and she found her eyes closing, her body dissolving into goo. She wanted him to kiss her, to back away, to kiss her—

Definitely
to kiss her.

“You are my one true love.” His voice was husky, his words hot against her cheeks.

She swallowed hard. “Very . . . uh . . . believable.”

He drew back and smirked. “I told you so.”

Just like that, he was back to Nick her friend, her buddy, her coworker. A part of Maggie was still simmering—which had her wondering if this plan was a good idea. But wait, this was
Nick
. The last man in the world she would ever date. There was no worry about falling for him, or believing his act, not for one minute.

Besides, she had her priorities—get her contractor's license, then build her own rehab business. Work was number one on her plate, not Nick, who couldn't plan for anything further than twenty-four hours out.

“Quit gloating. It was just a kiss, not an Oscar performance,” she said. “Do you want the job or not?”

“I'll do it, but . . .” He raised a finger in warning. “It's going to cost you. My fee for hot-lover acting is seven hundred dollars. Because Daddy needs a new hot water heater, too.”

She eyed him, debating. “Four hundred.”

“Six.”

“Five.”

“Deal.” He grinned and shook with her. “Do I get hazardous-duty pay?”

She blew her bangs out of her eyes. “Don't make me regret this already. Just be ready to go Wednesday morning,” she said. “Eight
A.M.
And for the love of all that is holy, please try to have a wardrobe that doesn't look like it came out of a shredder at the Goodwill.”

“Trust me, M.J. I can clean up pretty damned well. You won't even recognize me.”

She pulled on the door handle and grabbed her tool belt as she climbed out of the truck. “That's exactly what I'm afraid of.”

NICK PATTERSON HAD
made a lot of bad decisions in his life. Enough to write a list as long as his arm. But agreeing to go to Georgia as M.J.'s infatuated date had to be the worst.

On Friday, he'd thought this would be the perfect opportunity to give her a taste of what they could have together. In the light of a new day, though, he worried that he was going to screw it up and lose M.J. forever.

He and M.J. had the perfect relationship—they worked together, joked together, and didn't screw things up with sex. Not that he hadn't thought about sex about a hundred thousand times since the first time he saw her, wearing a tool belt slung low on her hips and a can-do attitude all over her face. There was something insanely sexy about a woman who could hold her own in a difficult, male-dominated arena. He'd had his doubts about a female coworker, but M.J. had proven herself just as capable and knowledgeable as anyone else. Not to mention the way she filled out those denim shorts, or how amazing she looked with a fine sheen of sweat glistening on her skin, or when—

Damn. This was a bad idea. If she was even one-tenth as sexy in a dress as she was in shorts, then there was a damned good chance he was going to screw things up one way or another. Because that almost kiss—

Treaded too close. Way too close. Even with a dusting of sawdust in her hair and a mustard stain from lunch on her sleeve, M.J. had turned him on. He'd almost—almost—kissed her for real.

Not that it wasn't something he hadn't thought about, oh, twelve million times in the last two years. He'd asked her out over and over, but M.J. had always turned him down, making it clear she wasn't looking for a one-night stand, and that she thought he was the king of love-em-and-leave-em.

Okay, so maybe it was a well-deserved reputation. But he was a changed man—

Correction.
Working
on becoming a changed man. Sort of like the Money Pit. In serious need of a major overhaul, from the ground up.

He glanced around the fixer-upper he had bought six months ago. It was getting there, one room at a time. Stacks of supplies, accumulated over the past year, lined the hallway. Losing the few days to the Georgia trip would put him behind in his plan, but he couldn't turn down the much-needed cash infusion. Renovations didn't come cheap, especially not the kind he wanted to do.

Renovations that he hoped would show M.J. he wasn't the man she thought he was. In the last two years, Nick had realized he wanted more than just a temporary girl on his arm, a temporary place to hang his hat. Most of all, he wanted M.J.

He wasn't quite sure when his interest in her had gone from friendly to something more, something deeper. It had evolved, like him, he supposed, after a hundred afternoons in the sun with her, a hundred lunches when she remembered his favorite snack because she knew he would forget to buy it, a hundred evenings when she'd stayed late at his current Money Pit to help him flip a profit. M.J. had been there, through thick and thin, as steady as a stream.

These few days might be just the chance he needed to let her see he was a changed man. New and improved, like the Money Pit would be soon. Pretending to be her boyfriend could maybe lead to the real thing . . .

Which wouldn't be so bad. At all.

Nick zipped up his suitcase, then stepped out into the hot Florida sunshine. He'd lived in Rescue Bay all his life, yet the summers still took him by surprise. The weight of the heat and the thickness of the humidity always rolled in like a wall and took a man's breath away.

M.J.'s car came screaming into his driveway. She drove that Mazda like a demon ditching the fires of hell, careening around corners, braking too fast, parking like it was a contact sport. She rolled down the window. “You ready?”

“Only if you let me drive.”

“Ha. Fat chance.”

“Seriously. You drive like a . . .”

“Like a guy?”

“Exactly.”

She grinned. “Which is why it shouldn't matter who drives. Besides, if we sit here debating any longer, we'll be late arriving at Rachel's grandparents' house, and you know how I hate to be late.”

He tossed his bag in the back, then buckled up and held on for dear life as she zipped down the street and onto the highway. Today M.J. had her dark brown hair back in a low ponytail that exposed the graceful curves of her neck, and led his eye down to the V of her T-shirt. Her shorts rode up in the seat and exposed the pale strip of skin at the top of her thighs where her suntan stopped. Damn. She was an incredibly beautiful woman.

He shifted in the seat. Maybe not such a good idea to stare at her, or it would be one hell of an uncomfortable five-hour ride. He glanced to the backseat, where he spied a dog-eared copy of the
Contractors Business Manual
for the state of Florida. “Want me to quiz you for a while?”

“Sure.”

He flipped to a random page. Took a moment to focus on the words instead of thinking about that sexy, pale strip of skin. “Okay. Uh . . . When trusses are stored horizontally, blocking should be used on what size centers? Six to eight foot, eight to ten foot, ten to—?”

“Eight to ten foot.” She grinned.

“Right. Okay. Let's try something harder . . .” He flipped ahead, quizzing her about reinforcing bars for a few minutes. She sailed through every answer with confidence. They switched to questions on elevations, then a few on framework, sampling from each section of the thick book. “You know all these.”

“I've been studying.” She flashed him a smile. “And you ask me questions every five seconds at work every day. And every Tuesday and Thursday night at Flanagan's.”

“That's my job as study partner extraordinaire.”

“Extraordinaire?” She laughed. “Okay, you are pretty good.”

“Pretty good? I want to be epic. I want to be so good, you never want another study partner but me.”

“After I take the test and get my contractor's license, I won't need a study partner.”

The thought saddened him. He didn't tell her that he'd volunteered to help her months ago because it gave him an excuse to spend more time with her. That he looked forward to their study sessions as much as he did the start of the weekend. That going to Flanagan's wouldn't be the same without M.J. across the table from him, teasing him about his choice of pizza toppings. “Oh, I'm sure there's something I could help you study for. Maybe there's a Kama Sutra quiz available.”

She rolled her eyes and zipped into the next lane without signaling. “Good Lord, you always come back to sex. Do you think about anything else?”

She was right—that was his default position. It was like he couldn't figure out how to be anything other than the womanizer she thought he was. For the first time in Nick's life, he had met a woman who made him feel unbalanced, and that led to him saying the first, and sometimes the second, stupid thing that came to his mind. “Okay, more studying.”

Maybe then he wouldn't be such a moron. Nick reached in the back for the second workbook. As he did, he spied a paperback. The cover sported a man holding a woman to his chest, her head thrown back in ecstasy while he kissed her neck. Holy cow. He'd never seen anything like this in M.J.'s possession before. He arched a brow and glanced over at M.J. “Is this yours?”

“Yes. No. Sort of. Why are you asking me?”

“I didn't realize you read . . . I mean, stuff like this.”

“Yes, Nick, I read. Real books.” She grinned. “I'm in a book club and everything.”

“A book club?” That surprised him. Especially that it was a romance novel, not the typical nonfiction he'd seen her with from time to time. “
Dared to Love.
What's it about?”

Her face reddened. “Nothing.”

M.J. was embarrassed? She never got embarrassed. He glanced back at the cover. Looked like a close-up of an HBO late-night special. “Oh, I get it. It's something dirty.”

“It's just a book for book club. Put it back and ask me some more questions for the contractor's exam.”

“In a minute.” He flipped the book over and read the back cover. Something about a woman in high society who was dared to be a millionaire's lover for a weekend. “Hmm . . . maybe I should read this. For research, of course. After all, a certain someone I know said I don't make a very convincing lover.”

She reached for the paperback, but he yanked the book away. “I never said you weren't a convincing lover. Exactly.”

“Then what are you saying? That I can't be as sexy as . . .” He glanced at the book. “Logan here?”

“Give it back!” She reached out again, but he held the novel out of her reach. The car swerved on the highway. “Nick!”

“Watch the road. I want to read.”

“Nick, don't you dare.”

He shifted his shoulder to come between them, then opened to a random page in the book and started to read. “‘He was mesmerized by her eyes, her deep green emerald eyes. She had captured his heart, his soul, and he knew resisting her would be impossible. He closed the distance between them, and touched her cheek. God, he wanted her. His hand trailed along her jaw, down the valley of her neck, then slipped between—'”

“Nick, give me that back!”

“‘Between her generous breasts.'” He glanced over at M.J., his gaze dropping to the V in her shirt, his imagination picturing his hand there, touching her. He jerked his gaze back to the book. “‘His thumb traced a lazy circle over her pert nipple. She let out a gasp and—'”

M.J. yanked the book out of his hands and shoved it into the storage space on her door. The tires squealed against the road. “You are incorrigible.”

“That's what my mother says.” He grinned, then leaned in close to her ear. “So did that turn you on?”

“God, no. Not when
you're
reading it. You're my friend, not my . . . lover.” She made a face and turned back to the road. “Now, can you just go back to the contractor's exam questions for the rest of the ride? Please?”

He dug out the sample tests and went back to quizzing M.J., but his mind stayed distracted. Because a tiny part of him was disappointed that reading the love scene hadn't turned M.J. on. It sure as hell had his mind going down some dangerous paths. Not just because M.J.'s eyes were green, like the woman in the book, and not just because he had noticed M.J.'s breasts pretty much every five minutes—

He needed a drink. Something with a high alcohol content. Then he'd be ready to face the week ahead, pretending to be in love with the one woman in the world who refused to see him as anything other than a friend. A woman who was paying him to pretend to love her—something he gladly would have done for free.