Cherry Adair - Slow Burn

“You’re not going to stay in here and watch, are you?” Catherine sucked in her stomach to make room for him to maneuver around her in the compact bathroom. With a neat knee bend, he set the box of tiles he carried on the floor. Catherine averted her eyes from his crotch. He looked up. Their eyes met and she blushed. She could’ve sworn she saw an answering heat in his eyes. But then, it was pretty dim in here. Much to her embarrassment, she’d mistaken that look before.

“Nick hasn’t gotten involved with anyone in the last couple of weeks, has he?” she asked, hoping to redirect her thoughts.

Luke rose slowly. “Why do you want to know?”

She laughed. “Gee, let me think. He’s tall, dark, handsome, owns his own business, is single and has most of his own teeth.”

“He owns half a business, and he’s the last man you should be looking at.” Luke bent to retrieve a large can of mastic from beneath the sink and used a screwdriver from his back pocket to open it. It smelled noxious. “You know Nick’ll never commit.”

“So? I like him.”

“Good.” Luke slapped a notched trowel down beside the can. “So do I. Let’s keep it that way.”

Catherine leaned against the doorjamb with her arms folded. Willpower kept her voice even as a bubble of laughter caught in her throat. “Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!”

“Would you move...thanks.” His sleeve brushed her chest as he maneuvered past her to the door. “Think you can handle this, or would you rather paint?”

“I’d rather talk about Nick.”

“Yell if you get stuck.”

Catherine heard his workboots pound down the hall to the kitchen. She grinned.

* * *

“I SEE NO end of problems if she stays with me indefinitely,” Luke said morosely over his shoulder as he and Nick installed custom-milled molding in the master suite. “Why couldn’t she have stayed in Beaverton where she belongs?”

Nick, standing on the ladder, took a few whacks with a hammer as he drove a nail into the twelve-inch-wide oak. “By herself?”

“She has friends there,” Luke said, then hammered a few finishing nails into the baseboard. “And she sold the house.”

“It’s not like Catherine to burn her bridges. She means to stick around, I guess.”

“She asked me to help her find a husband.”

Nick’s teeth flashed in a devilish grin. “Whose?”

Luke snorted. “That’s the problem. Everyone we know is just like us.”

“What’s wrong with us? We’re good-looking, own our own business, have decent cars and can flash the cash.” He twisted on the ladder to look down at Luke.

Luke hadn’t liked the way Nick’s eyes had danced the moment he’d seen Cat this morning. He didn’t like the way his best friend had kept his arm wrapped about Cat’s slender waist, either. He gave Nick a pointed look.

“She’s got great girl parts,” Nick said with far too much enthusiasm. “I’d be more than happy to take her out.”

“Don’t you suddenly start ogling her parts,” Luke warned. “Everything from the neck down is strictly off-limits.”

“Her lips are fair game?”

“Consider her verboten from head to toe, and all parts in between. Does Cat look desperate for a date? She wants a lifetime commitment. Someone stable. Faithful. A guy who’ll see no one but her. You aren’t even on the D list of candidates.”

“Do you have an A list?” Nick asked, amused.

“You and I are going to work on it,” Luke said with grim determination. “At first I tried to talk her out of it. But you know Cat. Once she’s set on something she’s like a pit bull.”

“More like I know you,” Nick said. “When Catherine wants something, you bend over backward to make sure she gets it.”

“She’s never asked for much, and she deserves to be happy. I’m hoping it’ll be a case of be careful what you wish for. So...how many of our friends fit the ‘decent-guy, keeps-his-hands-to-himself, faithful’ description?”

“Catherine’s a beautiful, intelligent woman. She must’ve been kidding about finding her a husband,” Nick said. “Why would a woman who looks like she does, and makes money hand over fist, want to tie herself down to one guy? She’ll have to beat men off with a two-by-four as soon as word gets around she’s available.”

“I prefer she do it in Oregon.” Luke stood, dusting off his jeans. “I’m starving.”

The bathroom door was almost closed as they walked by. “Hey, Cat.” Luke rapped on the door. “Ready for lunch?” She was on her knees behind the door. He could just see her endearingly large feet poking out.

“Yeah, I’m famished. Almost finished here. Go ahead and start without me. Hey! Make sure you guys leave something edible.”

“See, that’s the problem,” Luke said, picking up their conversation as they entered the kitchen. He dragged the lid off the cooler Nick had left on the counter earlier. “It’s gonna be impossible finding someone whose intentions are halfway honorable. Do you want tuna or...what’s this? Mystery meat? Here, take it, whatever it is.”

Nick removed the wrapping and raised his roast beef sandwich to his mouth. “Tell her you don’t want her here.”

Luke sent his friend a level look. “I can’t do that again, Nick. You know that. I have a history of telling Cat she’s not wanted. Prince of a guy that I am, I started the day her mother left...” Luke scrubbed his jaw. “She cried herself sick for four days.”

“She was seven years old.”

“Yeah. And that was the last time I saw her cry. Think of all the times she didn’t cry when I embarrassed her by telling my friends I didn’t even know her. That was even worse.”

“Give yourself a break. You were a teenager. She followed you around school like a sad-eyed puppy. Hey, I told her to bug off on more than one occasion.”

“She used to scrunch up under that berry bush way in the back of the middle school playground, remember the one? Just scrunch up under all those thorns after I’d told her to get lost. I’d walk by and see her, and feel lower than the scales on a snake’s belly. That sad little face, and all that crazy red hair. And she refused to cry. I could see she wanted to, but damn her stubborn pride, she refused. And I’d walk away, laughing with my friends, and leave her there.”

Nick bit into his three-inch-thick sandwich, catching the sliced pickle before it hit his boot. He stuffed it back between the slices of bread, then licked mustard off his thumb. “And then there’s her seventeenth birthday.”

Luke’s head shot up. “Don’t go there, Stratton.”

Oblivious to the danger, Nick continued. “You kissed her, she puked. End of story. Fine. She’s a big girl now, odds are she doesn’t still throw up when a man kisses her. But who knows? Why take the risk of her upchucking on a friend? Hey, I’m sure she’ll understand if you tell her to get lost. After all, as you say, been there, done that, got the scars to prove it. Besides, just about everyone in Catherine’s life has abandoned her. Why should you be any different?”

Luke closed his eyes. He hadn’t told Nick more than the basics. The truth was he’d allowed his passions to get away from him that night, and in the process had scared Cat to death. She’d needed her brother. Instead he’d turned into Octopus Man with suction lips and a hard-on that wouldn’t quit.

No wonder she’d been sick. And embarrassed. And disappointed in him. Luke glared at Nick, grateful in a perverse way for the reminder. “It’s taken years for her to learn she can trust me again.”

The pain he’d caused her by switching roles midstream still tortured him. They’d never talked about that night, but it lay between them like the monster in a misty bog. He’d sworn not only to be her brother, but her hero, her protector. Her champion. In other words, he’d be what Cat needed.