Dawn Atkins - Room...but Not Bored!

“How’s the moving going?” she asked. “Can I help?”

“Fine.” He smiled at her, his biceps swelling with a slow curl, his triceps rippling with its release.

Her objection died on her tongue at the sight of all that power on casual display. She averted her gaze and noticed a photo on the bureau. Four people were pictured—a stern man in a uniform, a pretty woman with a pageboy cut, a young girl and a teen boy—Jake with shoulder-length hair, dark baggy clothes and a sullen expression that was the opposite of the carefree, wiseass look she’d seen so far.

“So, this is your family?” she asked.

Jake stopped lifting weights and looked over her shoulder. “Yep. Ten years ago or so. I was nineteen, I think.”

“You don’t look too happy.”

“I wasn’t.” He studied the photo. “My father and I fought—he was career Navy and I was as far from shipshape as I could get myself.”

“That must have been rough.”

“Everybody rebels,” he said, but she could tell there was more he wasn’t saying.

“So you moved a lot? Being in the military?”

“Some.”

Standing close to him, she was aware of how broad and sturdy he was and caught the warm coconut smell of his skin. “That must have been hard—leaving friends and school and all….”

“You make new friends. I learned to pack light in life.”

She thought about how much junk he’d filled the cottage with and wondered what he meant.

“I think it was harder on my sister than me.”

“Is this her?” Ariel tapped the girl in the photo.

“Yep. That’s Penny.”

“She’s pretty. Your mother, too.”

“Penny’s a great kid. If I can keep my parents from squashing her spirit.”

“Really?”

“I think they’re afraid she’ll turn out like me.”

“And that’s bad?”

“To my folks, yeah. My dad lives to lay down the law. I did okay in school, but not up to muster in his mind. And not only was I not interested in a Navy career, I made it a point to debate military spending at the dinner table.”

“Ouch,” she said.

“I figured I must have been adopted.” He grinned at her, but she saw regret in his eyes. And sadness.

“She looks happy here,” Ariel said, picking up another photo of Penny—this one a prom shot with a date.

“Yeah. But she works hard to keep the peace with the folks—and keep me from worrying about her.” He studied the photo.

It was sweet that Jake was so concerned about his sister. She noticed a more recent shot of Penny with Jake. His blue eyes gleamed with pleasure and his smile was so wide he had a dimple—as if his face couldn’t hold his happiness without crinkling.

“So now you know about my family,” Jake said, drawing her gaze away from the picture. He folded his arms and tilted his head in her direction. “Tell me about yours.”

“Not much to tell. My mother lives in Pasadena.”

“Brothers and sisters?”

“Nope. It’s always been just me and my mom. My dad died when I was three.”

“I’m sorry.” Jake stood uncomfortably close and studied her face.

She took a step back and bumped into the bureau. “It’s all right. I don’t remember him. Mom and I were a good team. Us against the world, you know?” She smiled.

“You two still close?”

“Not as much as I’d like. We’re both busy. We talk on the phone.” She felt a little guilty about that, but with the new business, she’d been obsessed. Troubled by the thought, she focused in on the task at hand. “I’d better let you get back to moving out,” she said. “How about if I empty the closet for you?”

“You always in a hurry?” he said.

“That’s how I get things done.”

“I get the feeling if I don’t look out, you’ll just mow me down.”

“Doesn’t seem likely.” She knew from crashing into him earlier that she’d just bounce off his powerful frame. The thought gave her a shiver. She tried not to picture herself falling into him anywhere near a bed.

Jake shook his head as though he thought she was crazy, but he did sweep up the shirts from the bed, gather an armful of shoes from the closet and carry the whole mess through the broken wall to the guest room.

Ariel began to hang her dresses, suits and coats in the partially emptied closet, using the metal hangers there. Tomorrow, she’d get her wooden hangers out of storage, along with everything she needed to make the place feel like home. She’d returned to her suitcase and gathered an armload of lingerie when Jake returned.

“What you got there?” he teased.

She clutched her undies to her chest, painfully aware of how many were granny panties.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.” He opened a bureau drawer and lifted out an armload of socks and underwear—boxers, she noticed—in a riot of colors, many of them silk.

“That’s okay,” she said, holding her sensible unmentionables more tightly.

“There’s nothing wrong with white,” he said.

She blushed, then just shoved the clothes into the emptied drawer. She wasn’t about to organize them with Jake watching over her shoulder.

“White is a tease,” he continued. “Simple and innocent. Take the bra you’ve got on. It’s so thin a guy might think you’re not wearing anything at all…just speaking theoretically, of course.”

“Of course.” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“You have no idea what it does to a man when he thinks a woman has nothing on underneath,” he said, watching her face.

She felt an unnerving tickle between her legs, so she turned to grab up more clothes—slips and scarves—from her bag.

She turned back just as he mused, “No snaps, no latches, no hooks…. Just one thin layer of fabric between us and glory.” He grabbed some T-shirts from a drawer, emptying it, then grinned at her, “And if there are no panties…well, that’s like winning a Powerball.”

“What makes you think I want to know this?” she said, shoving her clothes into the emptied space, unhappily close to Jake, who leaned against the bureau.

“Don’t women wonder what men think about?”

“We already know—sex…every fifteen seconds, right?” She closed the drawer with an authoritative hip check.

“Well, I don’t wear underwear.” He winked. “In case you’re curious.”

She couldn’t help glancing at the crotch of his swim trunks. When she dragged her gaze back up, he was waiting for her with a smirk. Gotcha.

“Women buy me these,” he said, lifting the load in his arms. “God knows why.”

Especially because he probably wasted no time getting out of them. He wandered away, Lucky lumbering after him. Ariel watched him go, unable to believe she was joking about underwear with a man she’d only known for four hours.

Her energy seemed to give Jake momentum, at least, and he picked up the pace. While she emptied her second suitcase, Jake dragged the weight bench out, along with some things piled in the corner—a basket with Frisbees and balls and a brightly colored fabric kite—whistling cheerfully the entire time.

Ariel was putting the photo of her and her mother on her nightstand when Jake stopped to look. “Your mom?” he said, picking up the pewter frame and examining its contents. Light flashed from the glass onto his face.

“Yeah. Christmas three years ago.” She and her mother stood with their arms around each other’s waist in front of the fake Christmas tree in her mother’s manufactured home. Myra, one of the diner waitresses, had taken the shot.

“You look like her,” Jake said, studying the picture. “Same jaw and mouth. Your eyes are the same green. Nice.”

“Thank you.” She looked down at the photo again, concentrating on her mother. “She looks tired, don’t you think? She worked double shifts to afford this Christmas.” That had to stop. Ariel couldn’t wait to make enough money to supplement what her mother made at the diner, so she could work part-time, maybe go to school, have some vacation, do something she really wanted besides work, work, work. The thought of that put the fire in Ariel’s belly again. She would make this business fly, or die trying.