The Player Next Door (7 page)

Then he grinned because Tori didn’t go inside but headed around the house to the backyard. He moved quickly around the roof, aiming for the ladder, way too excited to see her appreciate his work. It was roofing, for God’s sake. But he’d stayed away for almost three days and he was really looking forward to talking to her again.

But she didn’t climb up the ladder. It took him a moment to realize she’d kicked off her sandals and was climbing up the tree.

“You know, there’s a ladder right here…” he began, but then he took a look at her face. Oops. That was not the happy expression he was expecting but a pissed off woman face. “Um, Tori
—
”

“What the hell are you doing?”

Shit. Conversational minefield, but there was no way he couldn’t answer. “Roofing.”

“My house. My job. I don’t need your big manly hands fixing my problems, thank you very much.”

He kept his voice level, but that didn’t stop the burn of anger in his gut. “I wasn’t fixing your problems—obviously. I was working on your roof.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“I was being helpful.”

“I just want people to leave me the fuck alone!” She stomped over to his ladder and shoved it off so that it landed with a clatter on the bright pink boulder of her rock garden.

Then she whirled on her heel and stomped to the locust tree. He could have grabbed her. Hell, he was burning to grab her arm and bellow a huge WTF at her. But he’d learned long ago to not touch a woman when angry. He was too big and too strong. It was too easy to hurt people when he didn’t mean to.

So he let her go and just stood there fuming. He heard the slam of her back door and a sudden loud drumming of African music booming through the house. When the hell had she gotten speakers that capable? He didn’t remember seeing them in the house.

Meanwhile, he packed up his tools. Screw it if she—

Thunk
.

He turned to see the edge of the ladder back in place. Crossing over, he saw the other woman standing there as she stabilized the ladder. Tori’s same blond hair and blue eyes looked up at him, but this woman was taller than Tori and had a more severe presentation. Tighter skirt, shoulders that were squarer, less feminine, and hair and makeup that screamed professional.

Definitely not Tori, but close enough to be related to her. Probably a sister.

“Thanks,” he said, doing his best not to sound surly.

“Yeah, sorry about Tori. She’s feeling touchy right now. I blame Edward.”

He made it to the bottom of the ladder and turned to her. “Ex being a dick?”

“Ex needs to shit or get off the pot. If they’re breaking up, then fine. But he needs to stop hanging around. If he’s going to hang around, then the dick needs to propose.” She looked back at the house. “That’s why I took her out for girl time. I thought she’d vent, get all pretty, and then go find herself a real man. Instead, she gets all pissy and takes it out on you.” She stood back, frowning as she looked at him. “Why do you look familiar?”

He ducked his head and shrugged. “Dunno. So you’re her sister?”

“Yeah. Jessica Williams. Pleased to meet you.”

“I’m Mike. Former roofer.” He shook her hand then grabbed the ladder to take it back to his uncle’s truck.

“You’re the guy who’s house-sitting, right? The one who caught her when she fell off the roof.” She shuddered. “I can’t thank you enough for that.”

“Right place, right time.”

“Well thank God for that. Tori needs a keeper.”

Mike shrugged, beginning to be irritated by the way this woman dismissed her own sister. “Renovating a house is a big job.”

“No shit, but she gets these wild hairs when everyone knows she can’t handle it. We live in terror of what she’s going to do next. Once when she was a kid—”

“Shouldn’t you be talking to her? I mean she’s obviously upset.”

Jessica laughed, the sound brittle. “I’m the one she told to fuck off first. You were just in the vicinity to get her second volley.”

Then before Mike could respond to that, Jessica frowned at the side of his uncle’s van. Roof Doc blazed in large letters along with a bright red cross over a black roof.

“Look, I know Tori’s touchy, but I’m afraid she’s going to kill herself.” She pulled a wallet out of her purse and peeled off four hundred dollar bills. “Do whatever you can to finish her roof. She’s got a yoga class she goes to most mornings.”

Geez, what the hell was it about these people? They kept throwing money at him. “It’s her house. I can’t work on it without her permission.”

“I know, but I’m worried sick.”

He shook his head. “She’s doing fine on the roof on her own.”

“Except when she falls off.”

Well, she had a point there, but he still wasn’t taking her money. “Why don’t you offer her the cash? She can hire me if she wants.”

“I already have, but she won’t take it. I had to strong arm her into the facial and hair appointment.” She pulled another hundred out of her purse. “Come on. Just do it. Contrary to her little fit there, she likes you. You can convince her to let you work.” She grabbed his hand and pressed the bills into his palm. He could have avoided it, but she didn’t seem like the kind of woman to take no for an answer without a fight. There were better ways to deal with this particular problem. And now that he was thinking more clearly, he knew what to do.

So he held up the money before her, giving her the opportunity to take it back.

“I’m just going to give this to Tori. Let her decide.”

“Just be charming when you do it.” She glanced back at the house as the drum beats ratcheted up another notch. “But I’d wait until she switches to something less tribal.”

He was about to say something. He was the last person to get in between sisters, but she had to know that throwing money at a stranger was the wrong way to handle things. Except the moment he started to talk to her, she looked at her watch.

“Oh shit. I’ve got to get to O’Hare. Here’s my card—” She handed that to him. “Call me and let me know how it goes. I can cover any other reasonable roofing expense as well. But make sure to keep it reasonable.”

She pointed a finger at him for emphasis, then softened it with a laugh. Jesus, she was acting as if she’d just given her assistant an order. Then she rushed back to her sedan and peeled out of the driveway.

Which is when he headed over to Tori’s. Tribal music be damned. Her friends and family were all nutcases. He was going to throw her sister’s money at her and wash his hands of the lot of them.

Chapter Five

Tori was taking great satisfaction in slamming down floor tiles and banging them in place with a specially designed rubber mallet. Her expensive salon hairstyle was now gone, pulled back into a ponytail that didn’t get into her eyes. And as for the hundreds of dollars of makeup that her sister had convinced her to buy? They were thrown into the lowest drawer in her bathroom. She might look at it again next millennium.

Which is when she was stopped by the appearance of a pair of big basketball feet right in front of where she was about to hammer. She was still deciding how to react when five crisp hundred dollar bills floated down.

She looked up in confusion.

He said, “
Garble burble
your sister.”

With a grunt, she pushed up from her knees and crossed to the stereo she’d just stolen back from Edward. She flicked it off but the sudden silence seemed to pound in her ears louder than the drum beats.

Finally she took a breath. “What did you say?”

“That’s from your sister. She says you need to hire a professional roofer.”

She rolled her eyes. “Jess says a lot of things. And like good little minions, we’re all supposed to fall in line.” Then she flopped down on a chair and wiped away the sweat on her forehead, no doubt smearing her expensive liquid pearl foundation in the process. “Thank you for trying to help with the roof, but—”

“You don’t need any help. I got that.”

She swallowed. The anger in his voice was clear, but he wasn’t stomping around in a fit like Edward would. He was just standing there with his big feet and his broad shoulders. He wasn’t even saying anything, but she felt guilty for yelling at him earlier. It wasn’t his fault her sister was a bossy know-it-all who drove her insane.

“Sorry I snapped at you,” she finally said. Then she looked back down at the pile of money. “I’m surprised she didn’t hit you up for an endorsement deal or something.”

“She didn’t recognize me.” He sounded a little miffed about that.

“People don’t expect a multi-millionaire to be roofing someone else’s house.” Then she grinned, feeling evil for the petty revenge. “She’s going to kick herself when she finds out who you really are.”

“What does she do?”

“Mergers and acquisitions in New York.” She pitched her voice high, imitating her sister at the woman’s most pompous. “Never underestimate the appearance of status. A woman who looks like a million bucks is going to be valued at a million bucks.” She jumped up from her chair and stomped to the kitchen for a glass of ice water. “Jesus, do I look like someone who wears Valentino pumps? My department chair is happy when I don’t show up barefoot.”

“You go to school barefoot? In Chicago?”

“Never.” Then she leaned back against the refrigerator. “But you know, boots get hot. I kick them off. The kids do, too.” She sounded like a three-year-old. Joey ate a bug so I did, too. She sighed. “Keep the money. Consider it payment for catching me out of the air.”

“Bullshit. That’s your money and you can do what you want with it.”

She frowned at him. “You kept Edward’s hundred.”

He grinned. “That’s ’cause I won our bet.”

God he looked great when he grinned. She’d watched some clips of his basketball games on YouTube. He shaved his hair during the season and showed off a tat on the back of his head that looked like a tribal eagle. But now he was on break, so his hair was growing in thick and dark. A tight skull cap of barely an inch long, but it drew her gaze in the way it framed his face. Cut square across his forehead, it made the angles of his cheeks and jaw seem crisp and hard. When he’d stomped in here, his brows had been lowered in anger and his jaw clenched tight.

Scary on a man his size. But when she’d looked into his eyes, she’d seen a patient intelligence. Not that she was the best judge of character, but that didn’t seem to matter. Even when his hands were clenched, all she had to do was look in his eyes and she’d relax. She had nothing to fear from him because he wasn’t a man to let his emotions run away with him.

Which meant he was darkly attractive when angry. But now that his grin softened the harsh cut of his face, his whole demeanor seemed to lift. Fortunately, the crow’s feet kept him from appearing too movie-star handsome. But that was nothing compared to what she saw in his eyes.

This time the intelligence shifted to something devilish. Part mischief, part seduction, and filled with challenge. He was daring her to join him. Not just in the laughter, but in something much more. She wasn’t a competitive person. Challenges usually left her bored. But this was a temptation.
He
was a temptation, and that was a wholly new experience.

“Do you know why I was given this house?” she asked. As usual, her words had only a vague relationship to what she was thinking.

He shook his head.

“Aunt Mabel married a dreamer. Uncle Bob never followed through on anything. He was smart and had really good ideas, but he never accomplished anything because he could never focus long enough to finish it.”

“Hard man to live with,” he said, and he sounded like he knew.

“They had two kids, Sam and Robbie. Both have good careers and live elsewhere. She could have sold the house and split the money between them. Uncle Bob died years ago of heart disease, so he wasn’t a factor.”

“But she gave the house to you. Why?”

Tori looked down at the empty glass in her hand. She could still see the words typed in clear black letters. “Her will said that the house goes to me because
every dreamer needs a place to call home
.”

“She called you a dreamer?” He sounded shocked. As if he couldn’t believe it. “Don’t you have a PhD? A year with the Dalai Lama and all that?”

She looked at him, startled that he could wonder at the word. “My whole family calls me a space cadet. Dreamer is the nicest—”

“Well, then I wish my cousins were ditzes. Jesus, no wonder you want to rip this house up from top to bottom.”

He understood. When everyone else in her life was treating her like a two-year-old out on a dangerous daydream, he understood exactly what was driving her. This was her house now. And she would fucking prove to everyone what she could do.

He stood up and crossed into her kitchen. He grabbed a glass and headed for the tap, but she gestured to the refrigerator. “There’s homemade lemonade in there, but it’s kind of tart.” She shrugged. “I forgot to buy sugar.”

He paused. “How tart?”

She held up her own glass. “I’m drinking water.”

“Water it is.”

“I was going to buy beer for you, but I don’t know what kind you like
—
”

“I’m not picky.”

“
—
so I bought a variety. Thought I’d start experimenting. Edward always called it a blue collar drink, but I was surprised at how much some of it costs.”

“Edward doesn’t know shit.” He opened her refrigerator and let out a low whistle. “When you experiment, you don’t go halfway, do you?”

She looked over. She’d bought one bottle of thirty-two different brands of beer. She hadn’t even started on the cans, but this was every brand the small liquor store had. “It was a whim.”

“I’m not complaining. So which one do you want to try first?”

She didn’t understand what he meant but then he gestured to the beer array.

“I’ve become a little stuck in my beer choices too,” he continued. “Why don’t we split the bottles? Expand our palates together?”

She thought about it for a second, her gaze slipping to the five hundred dollar bills on the floor. “The World Beer Cup competition has over ninety categories of beer. And beeradvocate.com has reviews of over thirty-two thousand different labels.”