Holding Out For A Hero: SEALs, Soldiers, Spies, Cops, FBI Agents and Rangers (23 page)

“You didn’t call to let me know whether you were going to be late,” a voice said from behind her. “There’s a sandwich in the fridge.”

“Thanks,” Jaymee said, turning around to look at her father. “You could have washed the dishes, you know.”

He shrugged, sitting at the kitchen table. “Didn’t feel like it.” He took a swallow from the long-necked bottle in his wrinkled work-worn hand.

He probably didn’t feel anything at all. “How many beers did you have today, Dad?” She sat down on the other chair at the table. “You’re going to give yourself another stroke.”

“That would make you happy, wouldn’t it?” he asked, and coughed hard. “Then you could just up and go.”

It was fortunate she also couldn’t feel a damn thing, she thought, as she studied the man who sat there carelessly drinking himself into oblivion. Very little could hurt her these days.

“It’s been eight years,” she quietly reminded him, “and I’ve almost gotten your business back in the black. It would be a shame, don’t you think, to die on me when I’m just about to finish paying off every dime I owe you?”

“Damn right,” her father agreed. “My daddy always taught us to pay for our mistakes, and that’s how things are done. Your bad judgment near destroyed the business my daddy and I built, girl, and don’t you forget it.”

“My bad judgment,” Jaymee countered, emphasizing through clenched teeth, her face a frozen mask, “was foisted on me by you. You used to like him, remember? Enough to encourage him to come after me.”

“Don’t you go putting blame of your mistakes on me,” the older man exclaimed, then started to wheeze again. When the coughing subsided, he continued, “You liked his pretty face and damn near gave away the business with your shenanigans. Killed your ma. Left me unable to work.”

She wasn’t in the mood to defend herself. She had grown immune to her father’s brand of punishment in the past eight years. And perhaps she was partly guilty for some of the bad luck that had fallen on the Barrows, and that was why she had slaved for eight years. To pay her debts for past mistakes, she repeated her father’s litany. It wouldn’t be too long now — two years, maybe sooner — now that she had gotten the Hidden Hills subdivision account, and the business would be in the clear again. Then she could leave.

Finishing her drink, Jaymee got up and turned the water on at the sink, clanking the dirty dishes loud enough to drown out the drunken accusations behind her. She was simply not in the mood to go on being the scapegoat. Maybe it was because she was so near to her goal she was losing her usual calm acceptance of her father’s anger. A year and a half, she promised herself. If she pushed, she would be free in a year and a half. The Hidden Hills subdivision account had fallen into her lap like a sudden lottery windfall, and with Excel Construction promising her at least three houses a week, twenty thousand dollars as projected profit wasn’t too difficult a goal.

She frowned at the memory of firing Chuck and Rich. She couldn’t afford to let them go, but they were simply doing shoddy work these days, hoping she didn’t notice. Catching them “undernailing” the shingles was the last straw. With the strict regulations after the hurricanes these days, a failed inspection for improper nailing could cost her thousands of dollars in fines. So now she was two men short and one house behind. Then she remembered Mr. Roofer Wannabe. How could she have forgotten, when he had spent the better part of the day following her every move? She couldn't forget those eyes. The incredible long lashes. The easy smile with the knowing eyes, the kind she usually avoided meeting because she knew what they did to a woman’s logic.

Nicholas Langley. Jaymee silently mouthed his name as she piled the dishes into the dishwasher. She wondered how long he would last. Wannabes like him usually lasted a day, three at the most. They weren’t interested in sweating it out in this kind of weather for so little money, so they were gone after the first paycheck.

Nothing like roofing to equalize all men, she thought, a slight grin forming on her lips. They could be beach bums, young surfer boys, college kids on vacation, or like this Langley, transient workers. However, once she put them through the routine of walking up and down a six/twelve pitched roof on their knees for a couple of days, they all usually made their exits in the same way—in a big hurry. And sometimes, limping, she added, her grin becoming wider.

She was quite sure Mr. Langley was going to show up for the first day. While he’d been studying her, she’d also been keeping him within sight all day, and it hadn’t escaped her notice when he’d picked up a shingle wrapper from the ground and took it with him when he left. She had grinned then too, hiding it under the shadows of her wide-brimmed cap. Mr. Langley was going to read the instructions off the wrapper on how to lay shingles. Somehow, that pleased her. At least, the man was trying.

After wiping her hands dry, Jaymee proceeded to get the vacuum cleaner out of the closet and dragged it into the living room, leaving her father at the kitchen table.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” he called after her.

She plugged the cord in and turned the machine on, the high screechy sound keeping out his voice. If Mr. Langley was willing to learn, she concluded as she pushed the vacuum back and forth, then she supposed she should give him a chance. Even if he meant trouble.

***

Nick showed up for work the next day, looking just as good as he did the day before. Jaymee wrinkled her nose. Well, at least he had the sense to keep his pants on, she noted with morose resignation, as she looked at her new helper. He had gotten out of his Jeep with the lazy grace of a prowling animal on the hunt. The hair on the back of her neck had stood up the instant his eyes met hers and he gave her a knowing, careless smile.

Uh-oh. That was what her warning system had been trying to tell her all yesterday. She should have known, she privately groaned. With those blue-gray eyes, why hadn’t she paid attention? Wolf. She had seen his kind before.

The temperature was already in the mid-eighties, even at that early hour, and the wet sheen of perspiration gleaming off his exposed skin made her suddenly aware of how much skin and muscle there was on Nicholas Langley. He was wearing one of those muscle tank tops, revealing wide shoulders that rounded off into beautifully sculpted arms. A light sprinkling of black hair temptingly beckoned above the low neckline. Her eyes moved lower, helplessly drawn to the length of him, taking in the long, long legs to his feet. Like she’d called it. Hot. And getting hotter.

It didn’t help he stood there like some cadet under inspection. He was, she realized, mocking her. It was there in those wolf eyes, with their strange, intense light gleaming at her.

“Are the shoes right?” he inquired politely.

She hadn’t missed the new shoes. “Show me the bottom,” she said.

“The bottom of my shoes?” he asked, as if to make sure.

Jaymee glanced up at him sharply and saw the gleam in his eyes was now full-fledged laughter. Her chin jutted up. “Yes,” she told him in her firmest tone, and hastily stepped back when he moved unexpectedly in her direction, bumping into the tailgate of her truck. To her dismay, he put a hand right next to her, braced his weight on it, and obediently lifted up a foot for her inspection.

If she moved six inches forward, she would be up against his chest. Her senses were on overload, amped-up and uncomfortable. She didn’t like her reaction at all, not one bit. She didn’t like how he had managed to make her feel small and helpless. Didn’t like that she noticed the way the muscles rippled in his forearm that was bearing his weight. Didn’t like the delicious scent of male and cologne that crowded her mind like an instant logic-erasing spell. Hated, hated, those blue-gray eyes giving her their own lazy perusal.

“Does it look good to you?” he asked, still polite.

She was sure they weren’t talking about the same thing, but Jaymee hadn’t stayed unattached at the advanced age of thirty without good reason. She knew men and all their rotten little games, and had been given an excellent lesson in the particular area of wolves in sheep clothing. She considered that the one main important point under the topic of Past Experience in her resume toward singular living.

Breathing out easily, she replied, “Looking good won’t help you, Langley, when you’re slip-sliding off a roof.” She gave a brisk nod. He smelled too damn good for a roofer. Time to make him sweat. “You can put your foot back down. Your shoes look fine. You can start by taking the toolboxes and air hoses up onto the roof.”

It wasn’t easy to sound businesslike when she was talking to an expanse of male chest, but she didn’t think leaning back and looking up would give her any advantage. Moving sideways, she eased out of the warmth of his male body and made her escape with a pretended air of looking busy.

Nick followed the sway of those enticing hips for one moment longer before turning to look into the back of the truck. If he weren’t careful, he was going to get himself fired before he’d even started on his new job. He didn’t know why he took such perverse delight in trying to rile up Jay Barrows, but the deliberate cool and distant attitude of hers was like an itch just out of reach.

Hoisting three coiled air hoses onto one shoulder, he picked up a box of nails under his free arm, his mind still on his new boss. She might not know it, but Jay Barrows affected him too. He’d watched her a long time yesterday. She was cool as the ocean breeze in the summer heat, working with silent determination while others wiped away their sweat, and seemed to be all business, rarely smiling. However, Nick had been trained to look for the weak links in his opponent’s armor; it was his job to break in, examine, and leave his mark.

Erase, replace, destroy. That was his core job in his unit. There were nine of them, and each was programmed in one specialty, although essentially, they had been trained for one thing.

Nick put that subject out of his mind for now. He would worry about getting his hands on a computer later. Right now, he had to concentrate on his newly-chosen line of work. After reading the instructions on the shingle wrapper he’d picked up the day before, he now had a basic understanding of how to install shingles on a roof, but suspected on-the-job training was very different from mere words written by some technical writer. He, the Programmer, should know that.

And he was proven right.

A few hours later, perspiration pouring down his face, stinging his eyes, his tank top drenched into a useless rag, he marveled at the inhuman coolness of his boss. The other roofers, Dicker and Lucky, were taking a cigarette break, sitting on top of several bundles of shingles, but Jay Barrows was methodically laying her shingles one after another, moving in a crab-like manner across the roof.

His current duty was to tear open a bundle of shingles and put several within her reach all the way up the roof, so that she didn’t have to stop to get the shingles herself. She had given him a utility knife with a hooked blade, showing him how to cut “starters” out of the fiberglass shingles for each row.

She was a good teacher. Instead of explaining and instructing in the sweltering heat, she went straight to work, leaving it up to him to watch her, pointing out ways to do things quicker in short sentences. Too much explanation usually distracted from physical work and roofing, he quickly found out, was all about working efficiently and constantly.

The starter shingles went on first, over the drip edge, then the first course, six inches or so off the left side. Each time, her nail gun flew over the shingles with a precision and speed that belied the difficulty of being in such a cramped and awkward position while wielding the tool attached to the air hose. All in humidity-drenched hundred-degree heat.

“We break for lunch in half an hour,” Jaymee said, as she continued laying shingles without looking up. “You can stay on the site or go to a diner. Up to you.”

“What do you do?”

She gave him a brief glance, then resumed nailing. “I go to a diner. It’s good to get out of the heat.”

The heat had turned her ponytail into a mass of unruly curls, and Nick felt the urge to run his fingers through them, to feel what those little corkscrews were like.

“Can I come along? I’m still quite lost around town.” It was a small lie, but he wanted to see that delectable mouth chewing on food.

Jaymee hesitated. It would be ungracious to refuse. “Sure,” she told him, and changed the subject. “Get me a lead boot for the plumbing pipe from the box, will you?”

He was a good worker, she thought. He hadn’t complained about the heat yet, and followed every order without question, an essential requirement while roofing and dying of thirst. The latter was somehow surprising to her, as he didn’t strike her as someone who took orders easily. It was there behind that lazy grace—a man who did things his way—and she had the feeling he was merely biding his time.

For what, she hadn’t the faintest idea, but one thing was certain. Nicholas Langley definitely had never been a construction worker. Why was he working as a laborer? There were only a few reasons people picked her kind of work. They were uneducated, or addicted to drugs and thus couldn’t find a steady job, or they started really young and had made this their livelihood, or they were running from the law. The first three reasons didn’t fit. Nick Langley appeared educated and his body certainly didn’t look abused. He didn’t look like some roofing apprentice, since he was probably a few years older than she was, which left one last alternative theory.

Somehow, he didn’t fit the description of a hardened criminal either, but Jaymee had seen them come and go enough these past years to know not to be surprised. Perhaps Langley was a criminal. That would make perfect sense, since she, Jaymee Barrows, was attracted to the criminally inclined, and would do well to remember her debts from that one mistake.

Nick lifted a brow when she finally waved him to stop, stood up and stretched. “Lunch?” he asked hopefully. He was getting hungry.

“Lunch,” she agreed, then disengaged the nail gun from the hose. She pulled out the foam plugs protecting her hearing.