Nora Roberts - Best Laid Plans

"You all right? Hey." Arms were still around her waist, but now she was turned and pressed against a hard male body. She didn't have to see to know who was holding her.

"Yes." But her voice wasn't steady. Neither were her hands. "I'm okay. Let me-"

"Who the hell's responsible for this?" Cody shouted up, still holding Abra against him. He knew now what it meant to be sick with fear. He'd moved instinctively, but the moment the stud had hit harmlessly his stomach had heaved. Looking at it, he could envision her lying there, bleeding. Two men were already scurrying down the ladder, their faces as white as his.

"It got away from us. God, Ms. Wilson, are you okay? There was an electric box on the floor. It tripped me up, and the stud just went."

"It didn't hit me." She tried to move away from Cody but didn't have the strength.

"Get up there and make sure those floors and platforms are clear. If there's any more carelessness, people are going to be out of a job."

"Yes, sir."

The hammering, which had stopped dead, resumed hesitantly, then with more vigor.

"Look, I'm all right." She had to be. Even if her hands were clammy, she had to be all right. "I can handle the men."

"Just shut up." He fought back the urge to pick her up, and pulled her along instead. "You're white as a sheet." He shoved her down on a crate. "Sit."

Because her legs felt like rubber, she didn't argue. A few deep breaths, she told herself, and she'd be fine.

"Here." Cody pushed a cup of water into her hand.

"Thanks." She drank, forcing herself to take it slow. "You don't have to bother."

"No, I could just leave you in a puddle on the ground." It hadn't come out the way he'd intended, but he was angry, as sick with anger as he'd been with fear. It had been too close, way too close. If he hadn't glanced over at her… "I could've stood there and watched you get smashed, but it seemed a shame to get blood all over the fresh concrete."

"That's not what I meant." She swallowed the last of the water and balled up the paper cup in her hand. He'd saved her from a major injury. She'd wanted to thank him, nicely. And she would have, too, Abra thought, if he hadn't been scowling at her. "I would have gotten out of the way myself, in any case."

"Fine. Next time I'll just go about my business."

"Do that." Biting off the words, she tossed the paper cup aside. She rose and fought back a wave of giddiness. Hammers were still pounding, but more than one man was watching out of the corner of an eye. "There's no need to cause a scene."

"You've no idea the kind of scene I can cause, Wilson." He was tempted to show her, to release some of the fury that had boiled together with the fear and let her have a good long look at what he could throw. But her face was chalk white, and whether she knew it or not her hands were shaking. "If I were you, I'd have your foreman drill some safety rules into these men."

"I'll take that under advisement. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to work."

When his fingers curled around her arm, she felt the temper in them. She was grateful for it. It made her stronger. Very slowly she turned her head so that she could look at him again. Fury, she thought with a kind of edgy curiosity. The man was absolutely furious- more than a few cross words warranted. His problem, Abra told herself.

"I'm not going to keep telling you to back off, Johnson."

He waited a moment until he was sure he could speak calmly. In his mind he could still hear the sickening crack of metal hitting concrete. "That's something we can agree on, Red. You won't keep telling me to back off."

He let her go. After the briefest hesitation, she strode away.

She wouldn't keep telling him, Cody thought as he watched her disappear outside. And even if she did, it wasn't going to do her any good.

He had other things to think about. Cody let the hot spray of the shower beat over his head and reminded himself that Abra Wilson wasn't his problem. A problem she undoubtedly was, but not his.

Women that skittish were best avoided, particularly when they had those pretty feminine looks that contrasted with a mean temper. The Barlow project was giving him enough headaches. He didn't need to add her to the list.

But then, she was mighty easy to look at. Cody smiled to himself as he turned off the shower. Easy to look at didn't mean easy to handle. Usually he appreciated challenges, but just now he had enough on his plate. Now that his partner was married and expecting his first baby, Cody was doing what he could to shoulder the excess. With business booming, the excess meant twelve-hour days. In addition to overseeing the construction of the resort, there were innumerable phone calls to make and take, telegrams to send and receive, decisions, approvals and rejections.

He didn't mind the responsibility or the long hours. He was grateful for them. It didn't take much prodding for him to remember the boy who had grown up on a muddy farm on the Georgia-Florida border. The boy had wanted more, and the man had worked to get it.

Come a long way, Cody thought as he knotted the towel at his waist. His body was lean, the torso tanned. He still worked outdoors, though that was from choice now, rather than necessity. It wasn't only drawing boards and dreams with Cody. There was a house on a lake in Florida that was half-built. He was determined to finish it himself. A matter of pride now, rather than lack of funds.

The money was there, and he'd never deny he enjoyed its benefits. Still, he'd grown up working with his hands, and he couldn't seem to break the habit. He corrected himself. He didn't want to break the habit. There were times when he enjoyed nothing more than the feel of a hammer or a piece of wood in his hand.

He dragged his fingers through his wet hair. They were callused, as they'd been since childhood. He could run a tractor even now, but he preferred a slide rule or a power saw.

He strode into the bedroom of his hotel suite. The suite was nearly as big as the home he'd grown up in. He'd gotten used to the space, to the small luxuries, but he didn't take them for granted. Because he'd grown up skirting poverty he's learned to appreciate good material, good food, good wine. Perhaps he appredated them with a more discerning eye than someone who had been born to the good life. But he didn't think about that.

Work, talent and ambition were the keys, with a bit of luck thrown in. Cody remembered that luck could change, so he never avoided work.

He had come a long way from digging in the mud to make a living. Now he could dream, imagine and create-as long as he didn't forget that making dreams reality meant getting your hands dirty. He could lay a score of brick if it was required, mix mortar, pound in a stud or drive a rivet. He'd worked his way through college as a laborer. Those years had given him not only a practical bent toward building but a respect for the men who sweated to create them.

Which brought him back to Abra. She understood construction workers. He knew firsthand that many of the people who worked at drawing boards forgot the men who hammered the nails and hauled the bricks. But not Abra. Thoughtfully he slipped into a white terry-cloth robe with the vague notion of calling room service and eating in. Abra Wilson, he mused. She would have gone to the wall to get an extra thirty minutes' break for the men. She was a fiend about checking the water supply and the salt tablets.

She was also a woman who would step in between two angry construction workers to break up a fight. Or pour beer over the head of an insubordinate employee. The memory made him grin. No drinking on the job. And she'd meant what she'd said.

He appreciated that. He was a man who preferred frankness to subtleties in both his business and his personal life. She wasn't a woman who would play flirting games or give teasing hints. She would say yes or she would say no.