[Bayou Gavotte 00.0] Back to Bite You (2 page)

His smile widened. “Nah,” he said, casting an expert eye over her pile of both full and trimmed shingles. “You just need a little help.”

Damn it all, had she let some allure escape? She’d gotten good at holding it in, or so she thought. But he didn’t look dazzled, merely friendly.

She
was the dazzled one, which was totally bizarre. Not only did he smell deliciously male, but he seemed so
nice
, and she positively
yearned
for nice, and—

Her heart plummeted. The last thing she needed right now was to get involved with a nice guy.

“Luckily for you, I’m in the construction business,” he said. “I’ll hook up my nail gun, and we’ll be done in two shakes.”

With difficulty, she refrained from smiling back. If she did, he really would be dazzled. She’d finally broken up with Sergio, but she couldn’t risk a new man yet.

On the other hand, if she didn’t get the shingles onto this section of the roof, the sunroom would be a lake in another half hour. She’d totally run out of buckets, and the towels were all in the wash. She’d never heard of a nail gun before, but it sure sounded good.

He was halfway down the ladder before she thought to thank him.

“No problem,” he said. “Do you have a key to the house? I need to plug the compressor in.”

“Of course I have a key. I own the place.”

He did a double take, stumbling a bit as he hit the ground. “You do?”

“I inherited it a few weeks ago.” She clambered down after him to open the door. He looked so damn good, and judging by his aroma, his blood would be sweet, sweet, but—

No, even if her fangs—and other parts of her anatomy—were in the mood, she couldn’t indulge herself with some guy she’d just met.
No risks, Mirabel, not with the lives and safety of other men
. If Sergio found out where she was, it didn’t matter. She could handle him, and he would think twice before harassing her in Bayou Gavotte, with the underworld here so vigilant and all. That’s why she had come here two months ago to wait out his separation angst. The town might be full of sex and fetish clubs, but it was also extremely safe.

However, if Sergio found out she had a new man, he would lose what little cool he possessed. Besides, what was she thinking? She didn’t need someone else fixating on her, and she didn’t even know this guy’s name.

Sweetheart
would suit him, she thought.
Honey bunch
. Yeah, that was a bit much, but it felt
right
. Even better:
forever lover
.

She caught herself. This was beyond weird. She couldn’t have fallen in love just like that!

Just as he’d said, behind the house the sky glowered heavy and gray. By the time she got the door open, the man was striding up the walk with an air compressor in one hand and what must be the nail gun in the other. He set the compressor on the porch, handed her the power cord, attached the compressor hose to the gun, and
ran
up the ladder. “After you plug it in, flip the switch and then cut enough shingles to complete the last three or four rows.”

Yes, sir
. She plugged in the compressor and turned it on. It chugged into cacophonous life, and by the time she’d gotten situated with the ruler and X-acto knife, the steady whap of the gun shooting nails into the roof sounded from above.

It took more like twenty minutes. The rain held off for nineteen minutes and thirty seconds. They scrambled down the ladder, already soaked, while the heavens broke above them.

“Woo-hoo!” said her rescuer when they reached the shelter of the porch, raising a hand to high-five her. “Well done, team!”

Oh
God
, he had a gorgeous smile.

Unfortunately, her answering grin was not only gorgeous but irresistible as well.

* * *

Her smile made Gerry dizzy.

A gold digger, huh?

Hell
, he thought,
I’d tunnel into her gold mine any day. And stay there forever
, his dazed mind went on.
And ever
.

Whoa
, he told himself. He’d just met her. This reaction was crazy—and probably stupid, too. He was still getting over the revelation that this knockout twenty-something chick was Grandpa Arthur’s girlfriend. The others had all been attractive but middle-aged at the youngest.

With a muttered curse, Mirabel Lane took off her sunhat and shook out the drips, revealing dark hair coiled on top of her head, with tendrils plastered on her neck and in front of her ears. She smelled of sweat and woman. She’d lost the smile and said, “I really appreciate the help. How much do I owe you?”

“Nothing at all. My pleasure.” He ducked his head to detach the hose and let the air out of the compressor. She didn’t need to see thoughts of other pleasures revealed all too clearly in his eyes.

Aunt April’s voice piped up inside his head:
She seduced him into changing his will
. He’d never really been on April’s side, but now he was one hundred percent on old Arthur’s. Good for him for having a bit of fun at the end.

“Do nail guns cost a lot?” the girl asked with a rueful hint of that astonishing smile.

I’ll nail you with
my
gun. Anytime. Totally free. Forever
.

He tried to tear his eyes away. What the hell had gotten into him?

The quirk in her mouth was gone now, her lush lips pressed firmly together. Either she read minds, or, more likely, guys were totally predictable where she was concerned. Ah, well. He wasn’t looking for a woman, and she would dislike him anyway, once he introduced himself.

Oh, and she might be a murderer. Better not forget that.

He coiled the compressor hose. “This is a roofing nailer. It’s about two-fifty new. A lot cheaper at a pawn shop. Some places have them for rent.” He shot a glance at her, trying to figure out exactly why he was so blown away.

Well, the wet T-shirt plastered against her breasts for starters
.

Glancing at this chick was damned dangerous.

Auntie June had said something about that. Not about hot women, of course, but she’d warned him to be careful.
I know you have to go to Bayou Gavotte
, she’d said,
but I’m frightened for you
. For a moment he’d thought June would burst into tears—that she
really believed the gold digger might get her claws into him and kill him for the rest of the inheritance: the damned Pie Club, which he didn’t want anyway.

He shook himself again. Gold diggers didn’t climb onto the roof of the dump they’d just rooked an old man’s heirs out of and nail new shingles down themselves. He had to stop thinking about sex and murder and act on the assumption that even though she’d had a few thugs for boyfriends, she was a decent woman like all Grandpa Arthur’s lady friends. He owed that to Grandpa just as much as he owed his aunts for taking in a bereaved ten-year-old all those years ago and doing their screwed-up best with him. Just as much as he owed his mother for bringing him up strong enough to survive his crazy aunts.
Be patient with my sisters, Gerry
, she’d told him when she knew she was going to die.
And always, always let Grandpa know you love him
.

Thunder crashed; rain descended in sheets, coursed in torrents through the downspouts, and ran in rivulets under the house. “Ordinarily, I adore this kind of weather,” Mirabel said, squeezing the water from her T-shirt. It ran over the hem of her shorts and down her shapely legs. She shivered, and her husky whisper bathed him with untold promises. “It’s so
invigorating
.”

This girl was nothing like the others.

“But when the roof leaks . . . Oh! I can move the buckets!” she cried.

She took off into the house, leaving the door ajar, so Gerry followed. “Anything I can do?”

She stopped in the doorway to the living room and motioned down the hall toward the kitchen. “Check the buckets in the pantry and make sure they’re under the drips. Thanks!”

He hadn’t been to Grandpa’s in over six months, and then only for a minute or two in the vestibule before taking Grandpa out for dinner and a reluctant hour at the club.

He knew the old place was falling apart; he’d offered again and again to help fix it up, but he’d had no idea how bad it had become. The lean-to addition at the back of the kitchen wing, which served as a laundry room and pantry, no longer had a ceiling except for a few acoustic tiles lingering in the corners. A row of buckets caught the steady drips from the leaky roof.

Easily fixed, though. New plywood, tar paper, and shingles, and the room would do. He moved a few buckets this way and that and found a pot in the kitchen to catch what must be a new leak. Back through the clean, dry kitchen, also minus its ceiling, but new plywood above showed the roof had already been repaired. He took a quick tour of the rest of the main floor.

The little sitting room where Grandpa used to watch TV seemed fine, but mildew blackened the front corner of the formal living room, indicating a leak inside the wall―not surprising, since the sunroom was on the other side of that wall. One end of the crown molding had come loose. Wallpaper had peeled back at the seams, and patches of damp spotted the ceiling. A nuisance, but fixable. In the sunroom beyond, Mirabel was scanning the ceiling for signs of leaks. Gerry crossed the hall to the dining room.

What a crying shame. Much of the ceiling had collapsed; someone had cleared the plaster away and pushed the table and chairs to one side. A steady trickle flowed down the wiring to the chandelier, and from there dripped into a rusty old tub on the floor. Another leak splashed crazily into the bottom of a teakettle, while a third dripped onto a towel in a cardboard box.

There must be considerable damage to the bedroom on the second floor above the dining room—and the roof above that—to cause a leak this bad. Jeez, what a mess.

“There aren’t any more leaks in the sunroom, so maybe the living room is safe now, too.” Mirabel skidded past Gerry, who still gaped like a fool in the dining room doorway, and replaced the box with a bucket and the teakettle with a plastic tub. She dumped the towel into the tub—“to catch the bouncy drips”—and turned to him with a smile that made his heart somersault with love.

Love?
He was out of his frigging mind.

“Oh, no!” She clapped her hands over her mouth. “I keep forgetting not to smile. I’m so sorry!” She put out a hand as if to touch him, but quickly dropped her arm again.

He wiped a hand across his brow. “Sorry for smiling? Why?”

She shrugged uneasily. “I can’t explain, but there might be consequences. Unpleasant ones. It’s only for another month or so, and then I’ll be good to go.” Her lips quirked irrepressibly, but immediately she straightened them again. “I guess you want to get yourself into dry clothes, so I won’t keep you.”

He’d completely forgotten that he was soaking wet. “You’re going to deprive the world of your beautiful smile for a whole month?”

He hadn’t meant to say that. It just popped out.

She bit her lip, clearly stifling a grin. “It might be taken the wrong way. Like, for example, as if I was flirting. Which I’m not.”

“Ah,” Gerry said, accepting the strangest brush-off he’d ever experienced, telling himself it was only his libido that felt a pang of loss. He was used to disappointing his
libido. Aunt April might believe him to be discriminating, but when it came right down to it, women were simply too much work.

“I’m just being practical,” she said, nibbling on her lip. He stared at her mouth and the pull of her teeth, entranced. She said, “I don’t want anyone else to get hurt.”

Oh, hell
.

“Somebody got hurt?” Grandpa Arthur, for instance? Such a flippant reference to death couldn’t possibly come from that kissable mouth. He didn’t believe it.

“Many men.” Her delectable lower lip trembled in the slightest pout. “Badly hurt or even dead.”

Maybe he had to believe it. A slow burn of anger uncoiled inside Gerry, tinged unmistakably with regret.

She shook her head, as if to dispel her own regrets about the unfortunate necessity of murder. “That’s just the way it is. Thanks again. I’m Mirabel, by the way.”

Fortunately, she’d already brushed him off, so he didn’t feel the least bit bad about telling her who he was. About making her sorry she’d as good as confessed to putting on an act, to pretending she’d loved Arthur when she’d actually done away with him.

Unbelievable. To think Gerry had almost fallen for that humdinger of a smile. She wouldn’t smile when he introduced himself.

“Nice to meet you,” he lied. “I’m Gerry Kingsley.”

* * *

“You’re Gerry? I’m so happy to meet you!”

Oh, crap!
She’d grinned again. Mirabel never knew for sure how she would affect a man, but a vampire smile was pretty much guaranteed to dazzle. Unfortunately, this guy was affecting her right back. Something about him made not just her body sing but her heart as well. This was the third time she’d smiled without meaning to, and she was doing a terrible job of keeping her vampire allure under wraps.

It was way too soon. If Sergio found out, he would hurt Gerry Kingsley, and it would be her fault, which would totally suck. Gerry was a sweet, adorable, regular guy, not a tough, and Arthur had loved him. She couldn’t let him come to harm.

At the moment, Gerry looked mighty pissed off.

Oh, right. Gerry was a control freak.
He has a poker up his ass
, Arthur had said.
That’s one reason I’m giving him the club
.
He needs to loosen up and enjoy himself
.

Funny, though: Gerry hadn’t looked like a control freak until just this second.

“Arthur told me so much about you,” she said, trying to keep a straight face. What could she say that wouldn’t make her giggle, or maybe jump him? She certainly couldn’t mention the club. Just the thought of Gerry wallowing in dirt cake or slathered with pie had her close to cracking up.

She straightened her mouth. “He told me I would like you, and he’s so right.” Not that Gerry looked all that likeable at the moment. That scowl might have frightened a lesser woman. Or a woman who hadn’t fallen in love at first sight.