What a Bachelor Needs (Bachelor Auction Book 4) (5 page)

“I got him gone,” she countered hotly. “I did what I had to do to get him out of my life.”

“Is Claire his?”

“Claire’s
mine
. It’s
my
name on her birth certificate, no one else’s. Boyd has no access to her whatsoever; no legal obligations towards her at all. He was gone before she was born.”

Jett didn’t say a word.

“I was up against a family full of lawyers, three generations of them, and one circuit judge. They’d have made Boyd look like a saint, painted me as a mentally unstable whore, and taken Claire away from me, if I hadn’t given them another way to handle things – one that kept their precious family name intact. Yes, they bought my silence, but I got Claire, a quiet, fist-free divorce, and no Boyd in my life from that day forward. Boyd’s
family
handled Boyd and I, for one, was grateful. But if you want to see things differently, then yes, I let him get away with it. I let them play me. I made my choice. I’m sorry if my actions offend your sense of justice.”

She was babbling again. Or spewing out vitriol. Possibly both.

“No, I—” Jett still filled every inch of the room with the sheer force of his personality, but he didn’t look quite so carefree and happy anymore. His eyes were so dark as to be almost black, and he looked almost…worn. “I don’t have any right to judge you or anyone else involved,” he said carefully. “I let you walk out of that hospital and I never said a word. I didn’t do a damn thing about the situation as I saw it. It’s not as if I ever made anyone accountable either.”

“You did what I asked you to do.”

“You call that a defense?”

“I call it exactly the right move at that point in time,” Mardie countered. “There was no win for either of us had you tried to intervene. You’d have given the Prescotts another weapon to use against me, that’s all. They’d have bargained your reputation against theirs and I’d have stayed right where I was.”

“I’d have protected you. My brothers, my family. We all would have.”

“It wasn’t your fight.”

And still the man looked black-eyed and mutinous.

“I don’t know how you remember that night and I’m not sure I ever want to know.” Her voice had a wobble in it now, but she blundered on doggedly. “You saw me at my lowest. I was a mess. But you stopped and held me up and told me I was worth something and I clung to those words. I’m still holding to them. You have no idea how much they meant.” She took a deep breath. “So here we are. Me, with a grumpy old house in dire need of attention. You, with questions that I’ve never answered honestly before. Questions that I will never answer honestly again. Because as long as I keep my end of the bargain, the Prescotts keep theirs and stay the hell away from me.”

He held her gaze in silence and then ran a hand across his face as if to clear away the unpleasantness she’d piled on him. “I could use that coffee right about now,” he muttered.

“You want it laced with Kentucky?”

“Don’t tempt me.”

She made the coffee strong, and slid it across the counter towards him, a spoon and a sachet of sugar right behind it. “You want to keep talking about it?”

“I really don’t. You?”

“I’d much rather look forward. Good things
can
come of bad beginnings.” She looked to Claire. “There’s my proof, right there.”

“Mumumum,” said Claire.

“Hey, Claire. This is Jett.” Now would be a good time for her little girl to step up and be super cute and chatty, maybe even say his name. Dig her mother out of the hole of seriousness that pervaded the kitchen.

But Claire just stared at him.

Right then, moving on. “You want to see the to-do list?”

He nodded.

She gave him the list, and he reached for his mug and sipped while he scanned it and then glanced up.

“You got another list?”

“What are you? Speedy Gonzales?”

“I like to think so, yes.” The faint stirrings of a smile lit his eyes and she was glad of it. “Mind if I take the coffee through to the front room with me?”

“You just want to get out of my kitchen.”

He headed for the door with a grin, but he paused and turned back towards her when he reached the door and his expression morphed into something a whole lot more complicated. “I liked watching you work the bar the other night. You looked confident and you handled the rowdy groups with finesse. I like the way you handled the conversation we just had. And maybe you don’t like that I saw you at your lowest – and it’s not as if it’s something I can forget – but you stood back up and here you are, whole and unbroken, and I can sure as hell admire you for that. I like this life you’re building, Mardie Griffin. I’m glad you’re standing tall again.” He nodded. “It’s kinda beautiful.”

“You always know what to say to a girl.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“I’m sure you have.”

Mardie kept smiling until he left the room, and then, for the first time in a long time, she felt silent tears track down her cheeks.

He, of all people, had known how low she’d been and he’d looked at her this morning and seen beauty and accomplishment, not brokenness and despair.

She’d needed that acknowledgement, and not just from anyone.

She’d needed to hear it from him.

‡

I
t took Jett
twenty minutes to rip up the carpet in the front room and throw it out the door. The boards beneath were turn-of-the-century maple, by the look of them, more than a hand-span wide and solid through.

As for the porch… yes it swayed, but it too was in better overall condition than he’d been led to expect. The circular area at the corner end would make a perfect outdoor space for a small child to play in while her mama sat in a rocker and took a well-earned rest.

He could see it in his mind’s eye and he wanted to make it happen.

Jett examined the railings and the decking more carefully and thought of the little girl inside. Some of it could do with replacing. There was going to be expense.

He found her in one of the bedrooms, changing Claire’s diaper, and retreated to the hall with a haste that would have made his slalom coach proud.

“I’m, ah, just going to stay out here and talk, while you do that in there,” he said and she laughed and wasn’t that a sound he could stand to hear some more of, for it danced across his skin like a longed for breeze on a soft summer night.

“I knew it,” she said. “I knew I’d find something.”

Yeah, he had no idea what she was talking about, and judging by the smell of that diaper he didn’t want to know. “I’m going to dump the carpet and pick up a sander for your floor boards,” he told her. “I’m still thinking about your porch. It’d make a good play space for your little girl.”

“Someday, yes.”

Was it safe for him to stick his head around the door yet? He didn’t want to risk it.

He studied the ceiling instead, noticed the paint peeling away from the elaborate plasterwork around the light fitting. There’d probably been a chandelier there at one point in history. Now there was a cheap circular paper shade covering a naked globe.

“Was there something you wanted? Claire and I are about to head for the park and then Main street to do some shopping,” she said from within the room.

“In this weather?”

“Why? Is it snowing?”

“Not yet.” He liked people who got out and about in all weather. He particularly liked skiers who didn’t let the weather get in the way of their plans. And yet… “You’ll be careful, right? Take a coat. Two coats. Each.”

She poked her head around the door, baby on her hip, and it was a pretty picture. Two enquiring, elfin faces guaranteed to brighten a man’s morning. “What was that about coats?”

“Nothing.” The presence of the baby was messing with his boundaries and making him channel his parents. “About your floor…it’s going to need a finish on it for protection. Satin or gloss? Maybe even a stain, if you want one.”

“Won’t it just…buff up?”

“No.”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed.

Money, he thought grimly. Or lack of it. “Come and take a look.”

She followed him to the front room – with her little girl balanced on one slender hip. He pulled out his phone and found a color chart for wood stains. “I can cut a lot of corners for you when it comes to fixing the things you want fixed. Most of it won’t cost you a cent.” He’d make sure of it. “But when it comes to this floor, it’s going to need cutting back, conditioning, possibly re-staining, and then a clear topcoat of polyurethane for added longevity. It’s good wood. Old wood. And it’ll look good, but you have to treat it right. No cutting corners.”

She bit her lip and looked around, looked at the floorboards and all the flotsam that he hadn’t yet swept away.

“I don’t like the cherry-wood colors or the yellows,” she murmured. “I don’t like the color it is now.” She shifted closer and glanced at the color chart on his phone.

“It’s a big room. You could go darker, cooler, with the floor,” he said. “To this day my mother still chooses dark floor coloring. Something about five sons and dirt magnets.”

“Makes sense. Would you price the walnut colored stain for me? It seems a shame to waste your saintly mother’s advice.”

“She’s not really a saint,” he pointed out helpfully. “Trust me, when we do something stupid, she’s a tyrant.”

“Does she consider skiing off the side of a mountain with a parachute strapped to your back an act of stupidity?”

“That one’s close to the top of her list, yeah. That and trying to befriend bear cubs. My brother Mac led that one. There were two of us, two of them. We thought they’d been abandoned. We were going to have our very own pet grizzlies.”

“I remember that about you,” she murmured. “A story for every occasion.”

“I’m taking that as a compliment.”

“Of course you are.” Her voice was dry, very dry, and he grinned.

“My brothers are going to love you. They’re forever trying to cut me down to size, too. I like to think it’s because I loom large and magnificent in their imaginations.”

The smile in her eyes gave way to a frown and then awkward silence.

“You loom pretty large in mine,” she said finally. “And you’re right – I did just snipe at you as a way of making you seem less impressive. I’m sorry. I’m going to stop that now and get on with being a grown up.”

“No. Hey, uh…” One minute she was warming to him and the next she was apologizing? For what? “Don’t sweat it. I’m usually the one inviting the pile on. I like it.”

“Why would you want to invite someone to mock you?”

Maybe because when he came home from this or that championship event, win or lose, he needed a way for his family to connect with him again, without all the awkwardness that came of him having gone places and experienced things they hadn’t. Likewise, they needed a way to touch base with him, a way back
in
to him. “Sometimes it’s about finding my way home,” he offered. “Staying in balance. Sometimes I need a reminder
not
to believe my own press. I need to remember that, more often than not, the life I lead is ridiculous.”

He could see the confusion in her face, the desire to understand. “The point is you didn’t offend me. You’re not
going
to offend me if occasionally I invite mockery and you deliver it. We’re coming at this from different places.”

“Yes.” But she was still wearing a frown. “Yes, we are. If someone tries to cut me down I take it as
meant
. Not a touch base. Not rebalancing. Criticism. And I don’t
want
to criticize you in order to make me feel…big.”

“Then I guess we’re going to have to find some other way of dealing with each other,” he offered after a moment’s pause. “Bear with me. I’m changing the habits of a lifetime here.”

“How about you just do what you do and say what you say, fanfare or otherwise, and I’ll try and reply honestly?”

“Can there be flirting?” He really needed to know. “Because if you tell me there can’t be flirting I’m likely to be struck speechless.” Her baby had started blowing bubbles at him and humming something that was definitely
not
the American anthem. Jett eyed the baby warily. “Is that normal?”

“Perfectly. She wants you to notice her.”

“Oh,
baby
flirting. Well, then. Hey, munchkin.”

Mardie smiled, and
there
was the sweet spot he wanted to be in when it came to this woman.

But then she looked at her feet, or maybe at the floor again, dark lashes sweeping down over those burnt-toffee colored eyes and he thought that maybe, just maybe, he could leave the automatic flirting with anything sentient at her front door in favor of actually figuring out how she might
like
to be treated instead.

“Yeah, so I’ll be away about an hour,” he muttered. “I’ll dump the carpet; get what I need from the mercantile. It’s going to get dusty once I get back and start sanding so I’ll shut the door and try and keep it contained to the one room. There’s a broom in the truck but I’m going to need a bucket and a mop. I might get a stain on by the end of the day, I might not. If not today, it’ll happen tomorrow.”