No Flowers Required (3 page)

“Me?” She straightened and the lust drained from her eyes. “Of course I could. What do you need?”

He pointed to the tool kit. “Grab that wrench there.” When she didn’t move, he smiled and pointed to the right tool. He fully expected her to roll her eyes, but she looked interested. Fascinated even.

Damn, her quick brain turned him on almost as much as her ankle bracelet. Maybe more.

“What do I do with it?”

“First I need to take off the knob on the faucet.” He removed it and set it aside, then wrapped the rag around the spout. “C’mere.”

She put up her hair in a quick knot, then stood next to him, her head bent, mouth pursed. “Now what?”

“We’re going to remove this valve, so that I can see if the washer’s in good shape.”

Barely blinking, she nodded. “Okay.”

“You can breathe. There are no lives at stake here, Alexa, I promise.”

She jerked her chin at him. “Just do your thing, wise guy.”

“Nope, you’re doing it.” With his free hand, he motioned to the wrench she’d picked up and grasped like a weapon. “I’m holding the spout steady, so you unscrew the washer. Okay?”

She leaned in and did as he asked, hesitantly turning it clockwise. A curl fell in her eyes and she blew it away, her focus so intent she didn’t realize at first she was making the washer tighter, not looser.

He shifted behind her and placed his arm next hers to guide her hand in the opposite direction. His stomach tightened at the first contact of their skin. She smelled like summer—flowers, and sunshine, and yes, even chlorine—and he wanted to tilt his hips forward and bury his face in her hair. Not bound tightly as it was now, but loosened around her shoulders so he could use it for leverage when he—

“Oops, sorry. I was doing it wrong. Like—” She glanced over her shoulder and broke off, her question ending in a hot exhale. Her eyes narrowed as he closed his fingers over hers on the wrench. “Like this?” she asked, her voice noticeably lower. Huskier.

“Just like that. Slow and easy.” He leaned in to adjust her grip and she stiffened, her curvaceous body going rigid between him and the sink.

That wasn’t all that was rigid right now. Not even close.

“How long do I do this?” she asked breathlessly, arching just enough to bring her bottom hard against his erection.

He barely muffled an oath and leaned in closer, just enough that she made a noise in her throat he almost thought he’d imagined. Then she did it again. A sigh. A gasp. Some mixture of the two. He shut his eyes and gritted out, “Until I say stop.”

“But I think—” She broke off and shifted restlessly against him. Bringing them flush together and wiping away the last of his good intentions.

When he flexed his hips, her hand spasmed and she whimpered as the loosened piece slipped off and fell into the bowl. He let go of the spout and stepped around her, thankfully breaking the contact of their bodies, then snatched up the part.

Damn, that had been close. Too close.

Not nearly close enough.

He moved to her side, breathing hard. Trying to remember he had ethics, somewhere down deep beneath the need churning in his gut. He cast a sideways glance at her, and they tipped toward each other like bowling pins pulled by magnets. Her lips were so close, a breath away. If he leaned in, if he just could taste her once—

At the last second, he jerked back.
Christ
. Her pupils were dilated, her lips parted. She’d been ready for that kiss. Hell, she’d wanted it too.

In another second, he would’ve been in the middle of the best mistake of his life.

“Now what?” she whispered.

Dumbly, he glanced down at the part he held. What was its purpose again? Sink. Water flowing. Release.

Shit.

“Washer looks good,” he said, as he rushed to put everything to rights before his shaking fingers gave him away. “Turns out I just need a part from the hardware store. Everything else is fine. I’d be happy to go get it and take care of this for you.”

Operative word being “go.” He’d just come
way
too close to crossing the line. As much as he wanted to taste her, he couldn’t. Not until she knew he wasn’t just the plumber. Not when she’d knocked him so far off his game he couldn’t see straight and she didn’t even know his name.

“The store?” she echoed, shutting her eyes as if she needed a moment. He understood the feeling. She took a deep breath then opened her eyes. Their sheer power nailed him square in the chest. “What store would you get the part from?”

He fought to get his brain back in gear as he rubbed his scruffy chin. “Uh, Haven’s only hardware store. Val—”

She set aside the wrench and crossed her arms over her chest, a move she repeated with alarming frequency. It was probably a minor miracle she didn’t have a sign across her cleavage declaring
No Trespassing
.

Clearly, the moment they’d shared over the sink was already ancient history.

“Don’t say it.” She dropped back down on the toilet, her shoulders slumping. “You are not to speak that name within these walls.”

Now this was interesting. He cocked his head, waiting for her to explain herself. Had she gotten bad service at his parents’ store or something? Maybe gotten a batch of bad paint? Even so, why would that make her face redden and her eyes burn? “You going to elaborate?”

“Nothing to say.” Her crossed arms came up again. Naturally. “I’m just not fond of that store. At all. In fact, I think it sucks mule testicles.”

He coughed and thumped his fist on his chest to get the oxygen moving again. “Haven’t heard that expression before.”

“It fits.” She frowned and fingered the short silver chain around her neck. A long, milky stone hung from the center, drawing his gaze where it had no business going. He swiftly aimed his focus back on her face and wished he hadn’t. Her direct eyes were even more dangerous than the rest of her. “I’d prefer you drive to Renault to get the part. I realize that would take longer.”

Evidently his time was not her concern. Also evidently, he would not be revealing who he was anytime soon, because as soon as she realized his ties to the store that aroused so much of her ire, odd as that was, she’d likely knee him in the balls and slap him across the face. As she should. A decent, upstanding guy didn’t lie to a girl just so he could kiss her brainless.

He needed to get out of her apartment before he did something he couldn’t take back.

And damn sure wouldn’t want to.

“By the way, you never told me your name,” she said, her tone silky.

At least he could give her his name without letting the drill out of the bag. He dropped his rag into the toolbox and shut it. Then he glanced up at her sexy smile and his hand jerked on his kit. Jesus, would he ever learn not to look at what he couldn’t touch? “Dillon James.”

“Dillon James,” she repeated, her voice a purr as she rose with the grace of a dancer. Not ballet. She wasn’t that coolly antiseptic, though she tried to be. “How many tats do you have?”

“What is this, twenty questions?”

“Just curious.” She indicated his upper arm. “There’s one. Do you have more?”

“Yeah. A couple more. A skull, and a snake.”

Interest flared across her face as she darted her gaze over his body. “Where?”

Uh-uh.
Tell
invariably led to
show
, and that wasn’t happening. Even if he ached for it to. “Leave a guy some mystery, would you?”

Something dark and wicked burned in her blue eyes, riding shotgun with the pain she’d stuffed down so far she probably figured no one saw it.

He saw.

But that didn’t mean he could do a damn thing about it, assuming he hadn’t imagined what lurked in her expression. He had no right to ask questions that weren’t the usual
getting-to-know-you
type of fare. Certainly had no cause to try to make her laugh again, just to hear that free, happy sound. To know he’d caused it, given her that moment of pleasure, egotistical bastard that he was. He cleared his throat. “I have to go.”
Now
.

“You’re coming back, though, right?” she asked, fingering her choker.

He hefted his toolbox. “Yeah. I’ll be back.” When he started to move past her, she stepped forward. His breath tripped as her hand came up to his chest. God, if she touched him right now he’d lose it.

“You forgot this.” She offered him his wrench. Their gazes collided and a slow, sly smile curved her mouth. She knew exactly what he’d been thinking. “See you later, Dillon.”

“Lock up after I go,” he said, then got the hell out of there.

Chapter Two

The smell of sawdust, fresh paint, and the clean and somehow aromatic scent of new plastic hit Dillon as he stepped into Value Hardware, as it always did. He could bring back that indefinable hardware store aroma in an instant, with all the happy memories of home and concerns for the future it brought.

New concerns had crowded in, and he’d come there to satisfy some of them. Where, exactly, did Alexa’s hostility toward Value Hardware come from? Maybe it really was just because the two stores had some business overlap and therefore a rivalry, but he had his doubts.

When his brother was involved, anything was possible. If Alexa was feeling the squeeze from Value Hardware, Cory probably knew about it. Hell, he’d probably tightened the screws, especially considering they owned the building that housed her store. Cory wouldn’t tiptoe around wanting to cut out the competition. Just not his style.

Time to find out what the deal was. Maybe in the process he’d even lose the damn erection he still hadn’t been able to shake since he’d left her.

At the rate he was going, maybe he never would. He’d die hard and unfulfilled and feeling somehow cock-blocked by his shark of an older brother. Not the first time either.

He took the quickest route to his office and booted up his computer. As usual his e-mail was a hot mess, full of “urgent” things he’d already ignored for several days. They’d wait a few longer. He logged into the server and accessed his accounting program, running her name first. A genius data monkey had set up the system to cross-reference details practically down to a client’s billing preference.

He grinned. Days like today he appreciated his own genius.

Too bad his grin didn’t last.

She was in trouble, the kind that even a big night at the casino wouldn’t touch. Notices had stacked up, their language becoming increasingly more confrontational. That they’d never crossed the line beyond what was legal was a small comfort.

Not much of one, though, when he could still smell her on his clothes. Her fragrance was a palpable thing in his office, wrapping around him until he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

So much for a harmless flirt-and-run. Dammit. And his day was about to get a whole lot worse, because he needed to talk to Cory.

His mistake was taking a quick loop of the store before he headed toward Cory’s office. He’d needed to work off some of his frustration, and instead he got an armload of his mom.

“Sweetie!”

Dillon grinned at his mother’s warm hug. “Hiya, Mom.”

“You haven’t lost weight, have you?” She moved back to hold him at arm’s length, her blue eyes radiating worry. “You don’t come over for dinner enough.”

“I’ve been working on the apartments most nights lately. With Cory’s insistence that we get them up to full occupancy, I’ve been scrambling to get them ready.”

And apparently not succeeding, considering the sorry state of Alexa’s apartment. But he’d been doing triage on the Rison’s worst ones first, and hers hadn’t been among them. He’d make it up to her, one way or another. If he had to slip into the place when she was at the floral shop and do the improvements piecemeal, he would.

“You could hire help. No one ever said you had to handle it all yourself. Not that you’d have any trouble, strong, strapping guy like you.” She squeezed his biceps and made him laugh.

He loved hanging with her, something he hadn’t been doing nearly enough of lately. He’d buried himself in fixing up their income properties and at the house he was helping to rehab for a returning veteran for more than one reason. He loved the work, true, but he was also trying to avoid—

“Such a strapping guy should have his pick of dates for the Helping Hands benefit.” She tilted her head and gave him a sweet, disarming smile. Her narrowing-in-for-the-kill-you-with-kindness look. “Have you found one yet?”

That
.

“Do we have to talk about this right now?” He scraped a hand over the back of his head and resisted the urge to scuff the toe of his boot along the floor. Almost thirty or not, when Corinne Santangelo gave him that look, he regressed to about fifteen in his head. Especially since he knew it was just the beginning.

“Yes, we do. It’s in just a couple weeks. I know you’ve been tied up, sweetie, but maybe if you put half as much effort into finding a date as you did in planning the fund-raiser, you’d have a better selection of dates to pick from.”

Yep, here it came. She was about to chide him about bringing what his stepfather, Raymond, called “floozies” to the event. They both claimed they just wanted him to be happy with someone who wasn’t a gold digger, as the so-called floozies usually turned out to be, but he knew the company’s reputation was also on the line.

As Value Hardware’s primary annual fund-raising benefit, the Helping Hands charity got a lot of notice. It was Dillon’s brainchild, his baby, the part of the business that made sense to him beyond the profit-and-loss statements that Cory lived and breathed. But it was also his yearly chance to remind his parents he wouldn’t embrace a role in the spotlight, even if that meant hearing an earful afterward about whom he selected to accompany him.

Plus, he’d discovered one indisputable fact—“bad” girls were better in bed. So shoot him.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to find someone.” He smothered a grin. Whether she approved of his choice, however…

His parents were picky. If he didn’t bring just the right kind of woman to the event to get his folks off his back, pretty soon they’d start setting him up on blind dates with “suitable” women he didn’t even want to share a meal with, never mind seriously date.

He’d gone out with those women before. Ones who pretended to really enjoy watching the sun set on a rickety old fishing boat, at least until they thought they had him snagged.
He
was the prime catch, not the fish.

“Uh-huh.” She waved at a passing customer and chitchatted for a moment about an arthritic poodle, then returned her attention to Dillon. “I’m onto you, kid.”

“Oh really?”

“Come back to my office.”

Uh-oh. Not good. Office talks were only one step better than when she called him by his full name. “I have this part I need to get—”
And some questions I need to ask your
other
son
.

“It’ll keep for a few minutes.”

Smiling at more customers, she led the way down the power tools aisle. She inspired waves of greeting in almost everyone she passed. Such was her magic. Just because he didn’t think he was cut out for the corporate blueprint didn’t mean he couldn’t appreciate all the hard work his mom and stepfather had put into making the company a success.

People stopped him as well, and he couldn’t say he minded talking tools. Haven was a small, close-knit town, and he’d known many of these people since he’d been in diapers. The three years he’d spent living in New Jersey had been a welcome getaway, but he’d always known he’d come back. This was his legacy.

Once they reached the back of the store, they bypassed Dillon’s own closet-sized office and continued on to her larger one. At the end of the hall were his stepfather’s office and Cory’s lair. It was easy to differentiate the two. From Raymond’s open door came the low tones of the Beatles’
White Album,
whereas Cory never played music. He also never opened his door.

His mom led him inside her office, then circled her wide carved rosewood desk to take a seat behind it. The room held all the touches of home—framed pictures, a soft, knitted blanket over the back of her chair for when the AC made it too cold, a few thriving plants. Even the sea-green walls made the space seem soothing rather than like an office.

But Dillon still knew what it was. And every time he locked himself inside one of these enlarged coffins, he couldn’t stop thinking about everything he was missing. Sunshine. Fresh air. The burn of his muscles as the hours passed in a blur of exertion.

She leaned forward, her auburn bob swinging against her jaw. Though she and her husband were near retirement, something they told everyone who would listen, she fought the battle against gray hair and wrinkles with steely determination. “Dad and I want to sit down with you and your brother sometime in the next few weeks.”

Though outwardly he gave her a calm nod, inwardly his stomach clenched. It was too soon. They’d made him think there was time before he’d have to assume the reins along with Cory, and from her expression, there clearly wasn’t.

If their retirement was progressing faster than Dillon had assumed while he’d been up to his elbows in copper pipes and linoleum, that meant Cory had to be drowning in paperwork. Not that he’d complain or ask for help. He’d seethe. His older brother was an expert at that.

When she gripped her hands together, his petty concerns fell away. “Is everything okay?”

“Yes. Yes,” she repeated as he edged forward on his seat. “Everything’s fine. Dad’s asthma is a bit worse than it was.”

“Is he all right? He never said anything—”

“He’s fine,” she soothed, giving him a reassuring smile. “But since we’re looking at retirement anyway, his doctor recommended we try a different climate. Dry air would help his condition, we’re told, so we’re considering a move.”

“To where?”

“A few places are on the list. Scottsdale’s leading it.”

“Scottsdale, Arizona?” Across the country? “What about the house?” And his mom’s horse, and the acreage, and… Christ, a clusterfuck of a headache was about to pound through his left eye.

“Yes, Arizona. If we decide to move, we’ll be putting the house up for sale, unless one of you boys wants it.”

Dillon snorted. “Cory lives in the biggest penthouse in Haven. You honestly think he’d give a rat’s ass about tending some chickens and a horse? He’ll sell Misty before you’re on the plane.” The sadness he glimpsed in her eyes shut him up, and fast.

“Cory knows his duty,” she said quietly.

Alexa flashed into his mind. Her smile. Her brief laugh. Especially her weary blue eyes. Did Cory’s duty include antagonizing dedicated small-business owners struggling to stay afloat?

And if so, he’d be shouldering that duty alone, because Dillon would have no part.

“Yeah, and I don’t.” He worked his jaw as he stared out the window beside her desk, noting the mocking cluster of smiley-face balloons by the welcome sign out front. Everyone was welcome at Value Hardware. His family had embraced the community, and in turn the community had embraced them.

“You’re not like your brother, and your dad and I understand that. You’ve always wanted to do your own thing. That’s why you kept Tommy’s name when your brother took Raymond’s. You never—”

“That’s not why.”

“No?” She appeared genuinely curious.

“No. I didn’t want Tommy to think we were both abandoning him.” Saying it aloud, knowing it was sterling truth, made him grind his teeth.

It figured he’d effectively excluded himself from his family to try to show solidarity with a man who thought being a dad meant visiting once a year on birthdays and giving his boys magazine subscriptions for Christmas—Cory got
Sports Illustrated
; Dillon got
Popular Mechanics
.

His mother sighed and rubbed her temple. Maybe he’d somehow telepathically shared his headache. “You’re a good boy, Dill. You always have been. You’ve also always been incredibly stubborn.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” With her smile, the thread of tension in the room eased. “You’re a rebel, baby, with the motorcycle to prove it. And the tattoos. Don’t you remember when you came home with that tribal thing on your arm and tried to convince me it was the greatest thing ever?” She shook her head, still smiling fondly. “Wings so you’d never be stuck in any one place.”

“I remember.” As a teenager, he’d chosen tattoos he probably wouldn’t now. But those markers on his body were permanent reminders of who he’d been—and who he wanted to be.

She reached out to straighten one of the family photos scattered across her desk. The one she touched was of Dillon and Cory as kids, standing in front of the paddock behind their family house. Arms around each other’s shoulders, grins as wide as the sky.

It had been years since they’d been that close. There had been a time in high school when they’d even talked about going to the same college, but that had disappeared after the differences growing roots between them had choked most of the friendship out of their relationship. Eventually Dillon had headed to NYU to study business with a focus on corporate social responsibility, and Cory had gotten an MBA from Wharton.

His idea of heaven was several hours on his bike, winding through the Pennsylvania mountainside with no agenda. Or venturing to the roof of the Rison to look out over the city and think. Not making plans to take over the world and glad-handing like Cory. Not sitting down for cozy fireside chats like his parents. Helping others—through his charity work, or hell, even when he assisted a customer at the store—made him happy, but when the world got to be too much, he escaped with his fishing pole to the lake. He wasn’t lonely, most of the time. The absence of people meant no expectations. And no chance of not meeting them.

When the silence stretched, she sighed. “Sweetie, Cory’s Cory and you’re you. Your dad and I love you, just the way you are.” She rose and came around the desk, then cupped his cheek in her hand. “Fighting to show everyone what you’re not isn’t going to prove your worth. Only you can do that.” Her smile was indulgent. “Someday you’ll realize.”

When he rose, she enfolded him in a healing hug, saturating him in her comforting rosewater and vanilla scent.

“Let me know when you want me at the house.” He nearly groaned at the sound of the door across the hall opening and shutting with a slam. Cory on his way out, no doubt, which meant there’d be no cornering him about Alexa today. “I’ll be there.”

“I will, just as soon as we wrangle up that workaholic brother of yours.” She stepped back and patted his cheek. “I love you, Dill. You’ll always be my baby boy.”

Though the back of his neck prickled uncomfortably with embarrassment, her words settled in his chest. There it was, the acceptance he’d always sought. All he had to do was figure out how to take it.