What a Bachelor Needs (Bachelor Auction Book 4) (4 page)

“Gone. For me, at any rate. It’s why I’m here. Looking for something to keep me busy.”

“Won’t a torn knee ligament stop you from doing handyman work as well?”

“No. Regular movement strengthens it.”

Maybe he
did
see this as the better of his two options. And as for Ella… Mardie spared a glare for her sneaky, bachelor-buying friend. Ella would keep.

“Monday morning, any time after seven,” she told Jett, and tried to sound more welcoming than she felt. “I need to get back to work now.”

“Okay.” He was all easy charm and approachability and she made the mistake of looking at him again.

One moment she was in the bar, and with the next breath she was back in that godforsaken alley, only it hadn’t been quite so godforsaken after all, because somehow Jett had found her and tethered her to the world and to him. She owed him, she owed him and Ella both, for different reasons, and a little bit of gratitude wouldn’t hurt. “I’m sorry, let me try that again. Thank you, both of you. I appreciate it.”

“Go.” Ella waved her away. “Can I give him your address?”

Mardie nodded. Smiled as if she meant it.

And then she fled.

‡

J
ett Casey knocked
on Mardie’s back door at seven thirty on Monday morning.

Not that she’d been sweating his arrival since, ooh, Saturday night. She’d slept badly since the auction, her mind full of images and memories, half real and half fantasy. She’d woken at five this morning and had spent an inordinate amount of time staring, heavy-eyed, at the contents of her wardrobe in the hope some gorgeous outfit would magically appear.

It hadn’t.

In the end, she’d reached for her favorite jeans and a watermelon pink T-shirt she’d picked up in the after-Christmas sales. The color hadn’t faded yet and the shirt hugged her small frame and showcased what meager curves she had left. Half-a-dozen slim silver bangles graced her wrist – she’d been collecting those since childhood and always returned to them when she felt like a lift.

Her house was as clean as she could get it; she’d scrubbed it raw yesterday in preparation for Jett the handyman to come and make a mess in it, which was so damn stupid it didn’t bear thinking about…

And yet.

Appearances were important.

She didn’t
want
Jett Casey to look at her and see the beaten cowering thing he’d found hiding in the shadow of a dumpster. The one who’d stared death in the eye and thought for a second that maybe… maybe giving up would be easier than staying and fighting.

That moment, that thought, had passed. Things were different now.

Mardie had built her life back, piece by piece, into something good, something worth having. Work she enjoyed and a roof over her head. A child she loved beyond measure.

She needed Jett Casey to look at her and see
that
woman this morning.

The one who was worth something.

“We have a visitor,” Mardie told her mushy-breakfast-faced little girl as she unclipped her from her high chair, picked her up and wiped her face. “Time to look presentable.”

Mardie opened the door to Jett kicking snow off her step with every semblance of boyish enjoyment.

“You know there’s a shovel right there,” she said and he flashed an easy grin and picked it up and finished scraping the step with it.

It gave her time to process the sight of him in jeans, work boots, and a black outdoor jacket, because, frankly, such beauty needed processing.

She’d thought he looked good in a suit, but the rough ’n ready look worked even better on him. Casual. Competent. Sexy. And seemingly determined to squeeze enjoyment out of every minute of his day. He’d been that way at school as well. He’d made life seem
big
.

He set the shovel aside, kicked the snow off his boots, and stepped inside, filling the room with his presence.

“Boots can stay on, jacket can come off, whatever you’re comfortable with,” she said.

It appeared he was comfortable with his boots on and his jacket off. His jacket went on a hook by the back door and its presence there gave her pause.

He saw her eyeballing the jacket. “Not there?”

“No.” She waved away his question. “There’s good.”

It had been two years since Boyd had lit out of Marietta. Eighteen months since her divorce. She hadn’t dated since. Not that she was dating Jett Casey, fun-loving darling of the alpine skiing set; it was just that a man’s coat hanging in that spot was something new and different.

Mardie decided to call it progress.

Progress also involved a decision to look upon this man and note, with no small pleasure, the way his T-shirt clung to his chest and his jeans outlined the strong bulk of his thighs. It wasn’t a crime to appreciate the beauty that was right there in front of her.

How much time and effort did it take to keep a body primed for downhill skiing competitions? Did he insure his legs? What happened when he broke something?

Which begged the question… “Are you insured? Am I insured for the work you do here? Because, I really can’t have—”

“My brother has a builder’s license and this week I’m on the books as working for him. All the insurances are in place.” Jett held her gaze. “If you really don’t want me here, I can work something else out with the Emersons.”

“No.” Way to make him feel comfortable. “Please. Come on through. I just… I’ve never had a handyman before. I’ve never owned a house until three months ago. It’s a whole new world. Shall I give you the tour?”

Mardie babbled when nervous. She was babbling now.

“Sure.” His gaze cut to Claire. “Introductions first?”

Oh. Yes. “This is Claire, my daughter. She’s one and a bit.”

“Hey, Claire.”

Her baby stared at him, wide eyed and temporarily mute. “She’ll get used to you – and then look out. Have you had anything to do with babies?”

“Not a thing.”

“Don’t you have five older brothers?”

He nodded.

“And none of them have children?”

“Not yet, much to my mother’s dismay. She wants a granddaughter.”

“Well, after five boys, who wouldn’t?”

“That’s what she says.”

She led him down the wide hallway that ran from one end of the house to the other. “The house is big – there’s a distinct possibility that I’ve been a little too ambitious when it comes to first home ownership.”

“Why this particular house?”

“Because underneath the years of neglect, there’s beauty here. The main rooms get good sun. The garden’s big. I can walk to town and the school is close by. And,” in service to honesty, “I couldn’t afford better. I can barely afford this.”

She should have known that a tumbledown old house on the edge of the right side of town would be a money pit. She should have had more patience, saved a little more money, and not put every last cent she had towards buying it. Instead, she’d seen the place and fallen in love.

This old house was what dreams were made of.

“Right now, it’s dingy, but the bones are good,” she assured him.

“You like betting on dark horses?”

Not really. She thought she’d grown out of it. “I should probably warn you about the kitchen. I can’t defend it. Can’t defend the bathroom either. My rose colored glasses fail me and I may as well say it plain – I don’t have the money to do anything with those rooms. Not yet.”

“Nothing wrong with a long goal,” he murmured. “Shows focus.”

“That I have.”

“Ella Grace said something about a swaying porch.”

“Yes, but same thing again. You’d have to be a magician to fix it without going over my budget. However.” She walked him down the long central hallway that went from one end of the house to the other and opened the door to the front room – to the job she had in mind for him this week. “This is the living room.”

He wrinkled his nose.

“Exactly. And that smell is coming from the carpet and I have tried everything to make it disappear. I stand defeated. I want the carpet ripped out and I want the floorboards beneath sanded back until this room smells like a forest. Can you do it?”

He nodded, looking around. “What’s with the missing skirting board?”

“You mean, apart from the fact that it’s missing?”

“I’ll bring a piece in.”

Claire babbled at him in sudden solemn reply and Jett smiled. “What was that, baby girl? You want a safety rail around the fireplace?”

“I don’t use the fireplace,” Mardie told him. She wasn’t here enough to justify it.

“Would you like to?” He smiled crookedly. “Open fireplace, polished floorboards, a couple of comfy sofas and a coffee table…that big bay window framing it all.”

“Yeah.” She could picture it. “I have a sofa and a couple of chairs in the garage. They’re not new but I still didn’t want to put them in here until I got rid of the smell.”

“Truly, I get it. You want to show me the porch next?”

Mardie looked at him and a thought streaked through her. “You and Ella didn’t do some kind of deal whereby you fix the porch and she pays for it, did you? Because that’s not happening.”

“There’s no deal beyond me being here for the week and at your disposal, handyman wise.”

“Good.”

“I still want to take a look at the porch. If I can stabilize it without running into too much expense, I will. The floor won’t take me all week.”

“Feel free to do the floor in the hallway as well.”

“Okay. What else?”

It was official. A Jett Casey who wanted to work on her house was her favorite thing. “I made a list. Loose handles, cupboard doors that don’t shut properly, a hole in the wall…it’s a long and detailed list. In my imagination, there was coffee involved when you looked at it. So that you didn’t weep.”

“I could do coffee,” he said with a whole lot of wistfulness.

“Well, then, come and meet the kitchen.” She ushered him back along the hall and into the green and brown nineteen-seventies psychedelic swirl that was her cooking and eating space. It had bright orange counters, a light fitting that doubled as a UFO. If she had to hazard a guess, she would have said that the wall-to-wall glossy red and black cupboards were a later addition. It was glorious.

“It’s retro,” she said, and tucked Claire back into the high chair, where the congealed remains of a banana bran breakfast awaited. Yum.

“I can’t even…” Jett finally murmured. “My eyes are bleeding.”

“How do you take your coffee?”

“Black with one.”

She gestured towards a bar chair beside her orange counter and put the kettle on. “I’ll be in and out today. From Tuesday through to Thursdays I start work at eleven and finish at ten, with a mid-afternoon break. I could get back here during the break if you need me to. On Fridays and Saturdays I start at eleven and finish in the early hours of Saturday morning.” She worked Sunday too, but he’d be gone by then. “Help yourself to tea, coffee, and anything else you feel like while I’m out.”

“Long hours,” he said. “What do you do with Claire?”

If there’d been any hint of condemnation in that question, she wouldn’t have answered. As it was…maybe she was simply a sucker for a man who asked the questions he wanted to ask and seemed prepared to listen to her answer.

“Claire goes to childcare just before ten and then at three in the afternoon I pick her up, run my errands for the day and take her to my mother’s. I go back to work; mom keeps her occupied, feeds her, and puts her to bed. I pick her up again when my shift ends. It’s our routine and Claire’s used to it. She’s a good girl.” And Mardie really needed to get rid of her defensive edge when explaining her life choices. “I’ll give you a set of house keys for when I’m not here. You’ll need them to lock up when you leave.”

“You’re very trusting.”

“Look around,” she said dryly. “What are you going to steal? Besides, I know I can trust you.” Nervousness hit again with a vengeance and left her tentative when it came to broaching a subject that she, for one, would rather ignore. But there were things to be said that had to be said. Choices that had to be explained so that Jett didn’t inadvertently shatter the illusion she’d built with such care. “I know firsthand that you’re not the type to do harm. Far from it.”

“You remember that night.” He said it reluctantly, as if he didn’t like the memory any more than she did.

“You’re hard to forget.”

“Was Boyd the one that hit you?” he asked abruptly. “Was it him in the alley?”

She could have said no. God knew, she’d hidden Boyd’s trespasses from everyone else. She’d never told her parents about her nightmare of a marriage, she’d never told her friends. Only James Prescott Senior, Boyd’s father, had ever heard her say that Boyd was a wife-beater and he hadn’t been sympathetic. He’d warned Mardie, if she knew what was good for her, to never speak of it again.

And now here was Jett, wanting answers she didn’t want to give.

“I filed for a divorce the day after you found me,” she offered instead. “I’ve never confirmed who it was and I never will. People can speculate all they want.”

“You let him get away with it.” There was a darkness to Jett’s voice. Condemnation of her choices.