Big Bad Wolf (16 page)

“My price is very fair as it is, and he knows it,” Jaymee scoffed.
“The competition’s Gregg’s Roofing, and I know Gregg’s.
They’re a huge operation, with high overhead, and I know they can’t stay with this lower price without losing money.”

“So, either Gregg’s will raise the price later, or
Anderson
’s merely gambling on the fact you might swallow the two dollars,” Nick concluded.
There wasn’t much difference between price wars and covert wars, he surmised.
Mostly a game of chicken.

“Yeah.
Even if I’d been crazy enough to give that price, I
ha
ve no guarantee next month he won’t find another competitor with another lower price offer.
How much cheaper can I go before I cut my losses?”

“So you just walk away and find another subdivision?”

“I
ha
ve other builders that need roofers.
Don’t worry, you still have a job, Nick.
Here we are.”
She stopped the truck behind his fire engine red jeep.

Nick took her averted chin between his thumb and finger and gently tugged on it till she reluctantly looked at him.
Her eyes were that dark, murky color again, the swirl of emotions tightly hidden in their depths.
She was more upset than she let on, he realized, remembering the constant pressure of some debt she owed.

Running his thumb across her obstinate lower lip, he asked, “After work, in the evening, what other job do you have?”
At her look of surprise, he added, “You mentioned something like that last night, remember?”

Did she?
She couldn’t remember a thing about last night except...except....
She felt the telltale heat suffusing her face again.
Her wandering thoughts brought out an answering heat in his eyes, and she hastily stammered, changing the subject to anything, anything, but that, “It’s nothing, really.”

Nick wouldn’t let her chin go.
“You said about your cramp last night too,” he told her in the same quiet voice.
“You worked till your body gave out on you, Jaymee.
Why?”
His voice went lower, to a gravelly growl.
“I want to be with you tonight.”

A slow burn started at those direct words, an unfamiliar aching that pulsed inside her.
Jaymee swallowed hard, trying to compose herself.
“I...I have stuff to do.”

“You’re a non-stop working machine, but unless you tell me what job you do after work, I’m going to stay and tire you out.”
He leaned so close she could smell that intoxicating masculine scent that seemed to drive away all her common sense.
“Babe, there are shadows under your eyes at night.
You could barely stay awake when I worked with your files, and yet you still go about vacuuming and housekeeping.
Now I find out you actually work somewhere else in the evenings.
No wonder you’re always tired.
No wonder your leg cramped up.”

He made her sound so horribly ugly.
Shadows under her eyes.
Tired-looking.
She must be so boring.
When did she become like that?
Jaymee impatiently pushed away her self-pity.
She made a last resort to defend herself.
“I like to work.”

“Not till you drop,” he countered, but he didn’t sound accusing or mocking.
“Look, I’m not criticizing you.
I know how strong a person you are, but lean a little, damn it.”

“On whom?
My dad?” she shot back, one corner of her mouth lifted in disgust.

“On me.”
Nick’s hand slid from her chin to her shoulder and he pulled her even closer.
“For now.
You’re an amazing woman, Jaymee, but give yourself a break.”

Amazing?
Strong?
She stared back in confusion.
Did he just praise her?

“Your eyes say you don’t believe me,” he remarked, when she didn’t say anything.

“It’s difficult to jump from being told you’re tired-looking and owl-eyed to you’re amazing and strong in less than a minute,” she pointed out.

Nick grinned.
“Women,” he complained.
“They always zero in on the wrong things first.”

Jaymee’s eyes were green and suspicious.
“And how many women have you been telling they’re strong and amazing?”

He gave the query a long enough consideration to see her small eyes narrow into
warning slits.
She looked like a cat about to pounce, he thought, amusement rising.
This new switch was unexpected; he hadn’t realized he could make her jealous.

“Not any who
looked tired or owl-eyed,” he finally drawled out, then kissed her on the lips hard before she could respond.
“I think it’s safer for me to be in my Jeep now.
I’ll be a good worker, but you’re going to talk to me after work—” He opened the door, and added, “—boss.”

*

Not that there was much work to do for the rest of the day.
“The day just isn’t meant to be,” she said to no one in particular, as she stood in her driveway staring at the looming dark clouds descending like angry warlords.

“Where do you want us to meet tomorrow, Jay?” Dicker asked from under a tree in her front yard.

“Do we have any job, seeing that Excel’s fired you?”
Lucky wanted to know, scratching the back of his neck with a twig.

Jaymee didn’t correct the wrong assumption, that she was fired.
Still looking at the ominous sky, she said, “I’ll line up a few jobs.
We were supposed to do a roof this Friday for another builder, but I’ll see whether it’s ready for us tomorrow.
Meet me here in the morning.”

The two men moved toward Dicker’s truck.
“Who did Excel get to replace us, do you know, boss?” Dicker asked.

Jaymee shrugged.
“I think it’s Gregg’s, but I don’t really know.”

“Say, that’s where Chuck and Rich said they were working now,” Lucky commented.

“Mighty good timing, if you ask me,” observed Dicker, as he closed the big toolbox mounted behind his truck.
“See you in the morning, boss.
Bye, Nick.”

Nick nodded as he adjusted the hood that protected his Jeep from the elements.
“Yeah.
See you, Dicker.”

Jaymee watched him for a moment.
“Need help?”

“No, I’m almost done.”

“I’m going inside for a late lunch.
Hungry?”

He gave her a look that sent her scrambling toward the back of the house with his laughter following her.
How did he do that?
She nervously rubbed her hands on her pants.
One look, and she felt like a tar kettle on fire.
Where were her well-practiced rebuffs?
A few weeks ago, she’d have squashed such blatant come-ons like a gnat, and the poor man would have left her alone after that.
But of course, Nick was a humongous gnat, and
she
laughed at her silliness.
Another thing—where did this silliness come from?

Big plops of rain came down just as she climbed up onto the back porch.
She waited for a minute or two, but he didn’t turn the corner.

“Nick?” she called over the rush of wind that usually signaled the beginning of a
Florida
summer storm.
It was suddenly dark outside, all sunlight curtained off by rain-swollen clouds.

“Get inside, Jaymee.
I’ll be there,” she heard him answer.
Satisfied, she went into the kitchen to prepare a quick snack.

Finishing his task, Nick glanced around the front yard, ignoring the fast falling rain.
He had an uneasy feeling he was being watched, and he scanned the terrain carefully.
With the wind picking up, he couldn’t really see anything among the moving clumps of trees in the acreage.
Big sheets of rain descended suddenly, ferociously, and he hurried to the back of the house.
Too late, he was instantly drenched to the skin.

Jaymee took one look at him and shook her head.
“What were you doing out there?”
She put away the bread and screwed the cap back on the jar of mayonnaise.
“Guess I’ll get you a towel first, and something dry to wear.”

She disappeared in the direction of her bedroom.
Opportunity
knocking, he quoted his favorite saying under his breath, and promptly followed her.

Jaymee had a suspicious inkling she was walking into a trap of her own making.
He didn’t make a sound as he casually walked behind her, past the sofa in the living room, round the corner, past the spare bedroom.
Her room at the back of the house was down a long corridor and it usually only took a minute from kitchen to bedroom door.
Today it appeared to last forever as she trotted down seemingly narrowing walls.

She stopped outside, turned around and firmly said, “You can’t come in here.
I’ll get the towel and a shirt.”

“I’ve been in there before,” he reminded her and came closer.

Was that thunder from outside or was t
hat her heart?
“Nicholas...you’re
not making this easy,” she breathed out.

Nick gently reached behind her and opened the bedroom door.
“Easy is laying shingles in the summer.
Easy is working till you drop.”
He backed her into her own room, drops of water trickling onto her dry clothes. “Handling me should be a piece of cake, Jaymee.”

Despite the precariousness of her situation, she couldn’t resist a small smile.
“So you compare yourself to a job for me to handle?”

“Don’t you take care of every detail in your work?”

His drenched shirt contoured the muscles of his chest and stomach.
His long hair, dripping wet and blown by the wind, looked like a mane.
She could see the tic under his ear again, the sudden flair of his nostrils, the tightly-drawn passion on the plains of his face.

“Yes,” she answered.

“Don’t you make sure everything is perfect when it comes to your work?”

She couldn’t deny her obsession for getting things right.
“I...try.”

“Don’t you remember everything there’s to know about every one of your roofs?
The color, the square footage, down to the day you were on it?”

She stared into those blue-gray eyes, drawn by their seductive power.
“Yes,” she said again.

Nick’s eyes became intensely, fiercely demanding.
“That’s how I want you to handle me, Jaymee.
As easily as you handle your perfect roofs.”

He didn’t have to tell her her time was up.
He’d waited and patiently let her get used to him, as he had so arrogantly told her.
It must be magic.
He’d brought out the Jaymee she’d desperately tried to hide and now, he summoned her like a pagan
witch
calling for a spirit under his power.
The rain outside drummed on the roof and danced against the windowpanes, like some incantation that rendered her powerless to this man.
His foot kicked back, and the door behind him clicked shut.

The bedroom was darkened by the storm outside, and Jaymee couldn’t see Nick’s face.
In the shadows, his words coursed through her veins like warm brandy, and she felt hot and out of breath, like she’d been running fast.
Except she couldn’t run any more.
She realized
he’d stalked her all this time, allowing her to move away only because he wanted to.

Now, with her bed behind her, the door shut, the rain a steady rhythm outside, and no job to finish, there was nowhere she could hide, no work for her to use as an excuse.
With small, jerky movements, she backed away.
Nick’s hand snaked out and held her arm, pulling her inexorably closer.

“Easy,” he repeated softly, as if she was a nervous mare.
“Easy, sweet Jaymee.
We’ll do it slow and easy.”

“You’re all wet,” she said belligerently.

Of course he was all wet.
She was going to get him a towel and that was what got her into this situation.
Her mind fought for control over the internal storm muddling through her system, as she allowed herself to be backed all the way into her bathroom.

“Dry me,” he murmured in that soft, gravelly tone of voice.
The look in his eyes made her gut clenched.
She swallowed.

Without thinking, she automatically pulled the towel hanging on a hook, then stupidly stared at the wet clothes on him.
Her eyes followed the heaving motions of his chest, moving up to study with fascination the droplets of water that were still running down his strong neck, and still higher, all the way to the wet lock of dark hair curled over his forehead.