Stroke of Love (6 page)

“That’s a hell of a leak,” he said.

“The bucket caught the water this time, but I kicked it over by accident.” She sipped the coffee. “Mm. Thank you for this.”

“You okay this morning? Sleep okay?” He walked around the room, looking up at the exposed beams in the wooden ceiling. The wood was drenched right through in certain spots, with nails poking through. “Is Oscar around?”

“Yes. Right here.” Oscar entered the room with a mop in hand.

“Morning, Oscar. Can I get up on the roof?”

“Wait, Sage. That’s not your job. Oscar knows what he’s doing.” Kate set her coffee down and leaned on her mop.

“I’m sure he does. I have a little experience in this area, too. Do you mind? One quick look?”

Kids would be arriving shortly, and she had more pressing worries than him poking around on the leaky roof. “Be my guest. Just don’t fall off.”

A few minutes later, she heard their heavy footsteps overhead. Kate was just happy that he hadn’t made any mention of how drunk she’d been the evening before. She hardly ever had more than one beer, and four—or was it five? She couldn’t remember—whatever it was, it was over her limit. She hadn’t even known she had a limit until last night.
Of all the nights to find out
. She sighed, remembering the heat of his breath as it brushed her lips. The way she’d wanted to touch the sprinkling of whiskers along his jaw and the way he smelled when he’d settled her on the bed. Masculine. Virile. So damn sexy.

Holy cow. What am I doing?

A loud metallic sound rang out above, followed by a muffled dragging sound, startling Kate. She listened to the men shout and then the sound of…digging? In wood? Scraping? Heavy footsteps crossed the roof. Kate closed her eyes. The last thing she wanted to do was question Sage after she’d embarrassed herself the night before, but with kids coming in for classes, she had to know what was going on and if the noise would continue after the kids arrived. She went outside and looked up at the two men bending over the aluminum sheathing on the roof with heavy tools in their hands, looking very macho. She shielded her eyes from the sun to get a better view, and oh, what a view it was! Sage had stripped off his tank top. His broad, muscular chest and narrow waist glistened in the sun. She couldn’t help but follow the line of his abs to the waist of his cargo shorts, which had slipped dangerously low.

Focus, focus, focus
. “How’s…how’s it going up there?”

Oscar waved. “He has found the problem. He is very good with his hands.”

I bet he is
.
Two minutes on a roof and he can fix the problem that we’ve been dealing with for two years?
“Really?”

Sage glanced over, wiped his brow with his arm, and nodded. “Give us an hour. We’ll get it fixed, good as new.”

Kate could think of a bunch of things she’d happily give him an hour to do, none of which included a roof. Or tools.

A little over an hour later, Kate had just finished cleaning up the classroom and rearranging the desks when Sage and Oscar appeared in the doorway. Sage had put his shirt back on, and it clung to his glistening muscles.

“How’d it go?” she asked hopefully.

“You should be good to go. There were nails that had been hammered through the wood. At some point the roof must have been replaced, and…” Sage shrugged. “I guess they never replaced the wood beneath. They just covered over it. The nails were encased in dirt and muck, so there’s no way Oscar would have known to even look for them.” He slung an arm around Oscar’s shoulder. “You did a great job, Oscar. Thanks for letting me help you.”

“
You
taught
me
. I am grateful.” Oscar had fashioned a rope into a tool belt, twisting the rope around the head of the hammer, which hung from his hip.

Kate watched the two men bond and felt the walls around her heart loosen just a little. “Sage, thank you. We’ve been dealing with that forever. So you think we won’t need the buckets?”

He had such an easy, sincere smile. It reeled her right in.

“Hopefully not, we’ll see.” He wiped a hand on the bottom of his tank top, lifting it just enough to flash a strip of ripped muscle.

Kat couldn’t look away. How long had it been since she’d seen anything so wickedly sexy?
Shit. Never
. She forced herself to turn away.

“So, what’s next? When do the kids arrive? What should I do?” Sage asked.

“I’ll be on my way. The store in town had a leak, too. Okay?” Oscar waited for Kate to respond.

“Oh, yes, of course. Thank you, Oscar.” She watched him leave, then reminded herself that Sage was just like any other six-foot-four mass of gorgeous muscle who had ever volunteered with AIA.
Yeah, right. Tell me another lie
. She began moving the desks back into position to avoid staring at him again.

“The kids will be here any minute. Their teacher is in the office, so she’ll handle their lessons, and your art classes will take place around one.”

“Great, so we have a few hours?”

“Mm-hmm.” She put the mop in a closet in the back of the room.

“I need to go into town. Want to come along?”

How can you be so casual when all of my womanly hot buttons are going off?

He softened his gaze. “Please? I need to go to the Internet café, and I want to refill your secret stash. Waddaya say?”

“Um…sure?”
What am I doing?

During the half-mile walk into town, Kate felt oddly rigid beside Sage, who was excruciatingly relaxed.

“There’s something about being here that’s so much more…I don’t know…real, than New York.” Sage breathed in deeply.

Kate tried not to notice the muscles in his chest expanding, or the way his biceps twitched when he drew his arms out in a stretch. She had to get her mind off his body.

“How did you hear about AIA?” she asked.

“I was talking to a friend about wanting to do something more than give money to charities and he mentioned AIA. He said he’d read an article about it, so I looked it up, and here I am.”

She listened for a hitch in his voice, a hesitation, something that didn’t follow his story from yesterday about wanting to find a way to pay his good fortune forward. He had to be putting up a front. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d met a volunteer at Punta Palacia who was there for reasons other than their own reputations.

“Is it what you expected? What did you think it would be like?”
A vacation?

He shrugged. “I didn’t really think about it. He said AIA brought artists into developing nations to work with the communities, and I figured anything they needed me to do, I would be happy to.”

Damn if every word didn’t seem sincere. The celebrities and artists who had volunteered would never have climbed on a roof—even if she’d asked them to. He hadn’t thought twice. He’d even insisted after she’d tried to deter him. Sage was definitely different.

“Do you like living in New York?”

“Everyone thinks living in New York is glamorous and exciting, and I think for many people it is. But for me, it’s just the place that made the most sense to settle down. I grew up about an hour outside the city, and the galleries and clientele I work with are there, so moving there seemed like the right thing to do. But now, after five years, I feel like a caged tiger.” He looked away. “Not that I’m complaining, because I know how fortunate I am. Anyway, thanks for coming with me. How’s your head?”

“
Ugh
. A few Tylenol and a Motrin helped. I don’t usually drink like that. I’m not sure why I did.”

He narrowed his eyes, but his lips curled up in a smile. He knocked his elbow softly against hers. “We both know why you did.”

Gulp
. “We do?”

“Sure. You help others all day long, and then you have to deal with the…personalities of all of us. Luce is here, and she’s obviously a friend. You were just having fun. By the way, I had a really nice time last night. Thanks for letting me crash your reunion.”

Okay. Sure. I’ll go with that reasoning.
“I don’t mind the personalities.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Okay, maybe some of them. But it is nice to have Luce here.”
And you
. The silent acknowledgment rang true and brought a smile to her lips.

The road widened, and the jungle to their right gave way to a clearing of grass, which led to a small town where a strip of low concrete buildings lined the dirt road.

“So this is Punta Palacia?” There was a fruit stand in front of the first store, bursting with bananas, oranges, papayas, mangos, noni, and pineapple. There were only a few people on the street.

Kate waved to a woman in a colorful dress. “Hi, Maria.”

The woman waved back. “Good morning. Glad for the rain.”

“Yes. We needed it. How is Lorena?” Kate asked.

Maria nodded. “Better. Thank you.”

Kate turned her attention back to Sage. “Lorena is her mother. She was sick for a few days last week. I’m glad she’s better. Anyway, this is our little town, population of a few hundred.” She knew that to someone from New York, there was nothing particularly impressive about the small town, or the people, but Kate took pride in the area. She’d come to love the close-knit community and the ease of their lifestyle. “See beyond the strip of stores?” She pointed farther down the road. “If you follow the road, you’ll come to a small group of homes at the base of the mountains, and that’s where most of our students live.”

“I’d like to see that sometime.”

“Sure.” She couldn’t find one thing to dislike about Sage so far, but Kate was still wary. “Let’s go to the Internet café first. The Internet’s not always great, so don’t be surprised if it’s spotty.”

“That’s okay. I have an international phone plan, so I can always call, but my mother wants to see my face and know I’m alive.”

Kate looked at him out of the corner of her eye. “Your mother? How old are you?”

He laughed. “I know. I know. Twenty-eight. But hey, it’s better than her not caring, right? Besides, she’s the one with the artistic talent in the family. She was kind enough to pass her talent down to me. I think I owe her the peace of mind of knowing that I’m okay. My older brother Rush is visiting them for a few days, so I’d like to see him, too.”

“You have a brother?”

“Actually, I have four brothers and a sister. Rush is a competitive skier, and he’s the second oldest. How about you? Any siblings?”

Kate shook her head. “Nope. Just me and my parents.”

He nodded. “That must be nice. All that attention.”

She felt a smile press forth. “Yeah. My parents are great. Although, I have to admit, I’ve often wondered what it would be like to know there was someone out there that I could call and they’d know exactly what I was feeling before I said a word. I hear it’s like that with siblings.”

“It can be. They can also be a pain in the ass. But I swear my mother knows things about each of us no matter where we are. She has some motherly sixth sense or something.”

Two plump, short women waved to Kate.

“Hi. Good to see you.” She leaned closer to Sage and whispered, “Adela and Indira. Mother and daughter. They speak Belizean Creole, but with a much thicker accent than Oscar does.” Both women wore cotton shirts, skirts that hung below their knees, and identical expressions that were common to the area: a permanent squint to ward off the sun and a ready smile. Adela’s face was heavily wrinkled, giving her a much older appearance than her fiftysomething years, much different from Indira’s smooth, soft-looking skin.

Indira touched Kate’s arm as she passed and glanced up at Sage. Kate had an easy six inches on each of the women. She squeezed Indira’s hand and said, “Sage Remington. He’s an artist from the States. Here to work with the children.”

Indira looked up with her beady, yet friendly, dark eyes and nodded. “Thank you,” she said just above a whisper.

“Thank you for sharing your beautiful country with me,” Sage responded.

Kate felt her skepticism of Sage chipping away.

They entered the Internet café, and Kate waved at a tall, slim man sitting behind the counter. “Hello, Makei. Sage is a new volunteer and he needs to use the Internet.”

Makei pushed himself up from the cushioned stool with great care and walked across the concrete floor one careful step at a time, moving as slowly as a sloth. Sage looked at Kate, and she knew he wondered if Makei moved like he did for a medical reason. She’d wondered the same thing when she’d met him, but she’d quickly learned that this was simply Makei’s normal pace.

“You’re not in New York anymore. We move a little slower around here,” she said to Sage.

“Actually, I like the pace around here.”

Once again, he surprised her with his answer. She could practically hear the pieces of her steely resolve hitting the floor as they fell away.

“Sit.” Makei motioned to two stools by the counter.

“I only have U.S. currency.” Sage slid worried eyes to Kate.

“That’s okay. They take it here,” she assured him.

Sage paid him, and Makei pulled a computer monitor from beneath the counter and set it up on the thick wooden counter. Then he set a keyboard down in front of Sage and nodded. “Go ahead.”

“That’s it?” Sage asked.

“Yeah. Easy. But don’t expect too much. Like I said, coverage is spotty at best.” She looked around the small café. “Do you want me to wait over there? I don’t mean to hover.” She rose from her stool, and Sage touched her arm, sending a goddamn shiver down her back.

“No need. Stay. Makei, can I buy Kate a cold drink?”

Makei smiled, his dark eyes slanting to near closed. “Yes, my friend.”

“Oh, you don’t have to.”
But thank you.

“You bought last night,” he reminded her.

Makei held up a finger. “Banana papaya. Kate’s favorite.”

“Ah, you have a favorite.” Sage smiled as he looked around the empty café.

Behind the counter, cups, plates, bowls, and napkins were stacked on wooden shelves. The concrete walls appeared textured, though Kate knew the uneven finish was due to poor workmanship or lack of proper tools rather than created by design.

Sage checked his email as Makei put the ingredients in a large plastic cup, then turned a larger cup upside down on top of it and shook the contraption for a minute or two. Then he poured them each a full cup.