Heatherly Bell - Airman To The Rescue

She had to work faster. Thankfully Gus had left some of his tools and she would be confiscating those as payment for the work not delivered. Maybe a nail gun would be the answer to going faster. Power tools. Great idea. She’d seen Satan fooling with the nail gun, and making good time with it, too. Speaking of Gus, she could no longer leave a message on his phone. Box full. Surprise. Emily had heard from one of her event planners at Fortune Ranch, her family’s business, that Gus Hinckle had indeed been arrested. Drug possession was the rumor floating around town. Suddenly the constant runny nose made sense. It was not, as he had claimed, spring allergies.

More importantly, Sarah would never see her money again. Having worked with the police department, she understood felony charges would take priority over anything else. In any case, she had neither the time nor the money to sue him. This was her hot mess, and she’d fix it.

Buying her father’s house was supposed to be about a trip down memory lane, and a time for healing. She had a chance to break from her routine life in Colorado and the job that sucked the life out of her soul. A chance to try on a new attitude in a new place. And maybe, if she could make this house her own before she had to say goodbye to it, she might be able to go back home with a renewed purpose. A new beginning. As an added bonus, she’d reconnected with her brother.

Stone had grown up with their father, and Sarah had been raised by their mother. A strange custody arrangement by anyone’s standards. Even Stone now agreed, after a difficult period of time during which he hadn’t been able to face that the man who’d been his hero had done something wrong. It wasn’t like Sarah didn’t blame her mother, too. Practically being an only child had tied Sarah to her mother in a kind of guilt bond that had lasted for years. Out here in California, she’d been free from that guilt, even if she still didn’t quite belong.

Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

She’d had a goal when she’d come out to Fortune that went beyond hammering out estate problems with her brother. Sarah Mcallister was going to stop being a prickly porcupine. The change hadn’t been easy so far. One big mistake—okay, several big mistakes in her teenage years—didn’t mean that she had to be a nun for the rest of her life. She was going to awaken her inner goddess because life was short, dammit, and she was going to get some.

Yeah, right.

Her doorbell rang. Probably Emily again, who dropped by once a week, with or without Stone. She had to give it to her sister-in-law to be. Emily kept trying her best to make Sarah feel welcome. She’d reached out and made friends, which Sarah appreciated. It wasn’t like Stone had thrown out the welcome mat when she’d arrived in town.

But when Sarah opened her front door, it wasn’t Emily behind it. Matt stood there in all his male glory. The midday June sunshine pooled through the doorway all around his big body, practically illuminating him. It was as if God was showing off, saying Behold some of my best work. You are welcome.

He grinned and whipped off his aviator glasses. “Hey.”

Sarah’s knees took the hit first. Then her mind followed. Blank. Why, oh why, did she lose several IQ points around the man?

“Are you going to let me in?”

“Oh.” Good idea. She should let him in. Why not? How much harm could that do? She moved aside.

He was dressed casually today, in dark jeans and a Giants T-shirt. Mr. Cool.

“How’s it going?”

“Great! I just put in some of the flooring in the hallway. There’s a little section I might have to redo.”

He raised a brow. “You’re doing this all yourself?”

“Sure. I can’t lie, it’s a little challenging, but I figured I’d work with what I have.” She followed him into the kitchen, where his gaze studied the cabinets. The doors were all missing. She cleared her throat. “I hope he ordered those. Maybe I’ll get a call from the home improvement store that they’ve come in.”

“Yeah. Maybe,” he said without an ounce of confidence in his voice. His hand smoothed over the granite countertops. “These came out well.”

“Yeah. Well. Stone’s handiwork.”

“I remember.”

Right. Matt had dropped by a lot during the week Stone had been helping her work on the house.

She blew out a breath, and her overgrown bangs flipped out of her eyes. “Matt, what are you doing here?”

“Came to check things out.”

“I thought I told you to forget about this.”

His dark gaze did a slow slide down the length of her body, and back up to meet her eyes. “And I told you I wouldn’t.”

“Listen, I’m not being stubborn here.”

He snorted. “No, of course not.”

“The fact of the matter is I would let you finish the job if I had a prayer of compensating you for your work. Properly.” In other words, not in long deep kisses and showers in the new bathroom stall she still didn’t have, but in actual money.

“I get that.”

“I’m not sure you do.”

Ignoring her, he walked toward the hallway. Sarah would have followed him, but humiliation kept her seated at the kitchen table, hands folded in front of her. No point in arguing with the man. She’d let him inspect to his heart’s content. Maybe he had a little free time today. She heard him curse when he entered the hallway, and a few more times as he went into each bedroom. Sarah didn’t respond. It didn’t take an engineer to know her remodel was in trouble.

He walked into the living room and cursed again. Probably at the windows. They were half framed. All the blinds had been removed, and Sarah was currently using sheets for privacy. She stared at the ceiling, trying not to think about the Swiss cheese roof above her. The roof would come later, if at all. She’d planned on giving the new buyers a roof allowance, like the real estate agent had suggested. Roofs were expensive.

A few minutes and several loud curses later, Matt rejoined her in the kitchen. She glanced at him briefly, then looked away when he shoved a hand through his honey-colored hair. She expected him to say I told you so or any one of a number of phrases he could have let loose with to prove he’d been right and she’d been wrong.

Instead, he pulled out a chair and sat shoulder to shoulder next to her, stretching his long legs out in front of him. For several minutes he didn’t speak, his arms folded across his chest as he stared at the floor.

Finally, she couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “How bad?”

His answer was to curse again and shake his head.

That bad. Sarah buried her face in her hands. “I’m screwed.”

“No,” he said simply. “Not if you’re willing to listen to me.”

“I already said I’m not—”

“Would you shut up and listen?”

She pursed her lips together and made a show of locking them and throwing away the key. If he had an answer to her predicament, she could at least hear him out. As long as it didn’t involve him working for free, she could be flexible.

“I have a proposition for you.”

The way those sensual lips said proposition had her wishing he were about to say something quite different than what he was probably about to suggest. Definitely not that they should get naked and test out her new kitchen counters.

“Yes?” she squeaked out.

“I’ll do the work in exchange for being able to rent the spare bedroom from you. This way, I don’t have a landlord breathing down my back while I look for another place to live. A win-win for both of us. You’re helping me out.”

Sarah couldn’t speak for a few seconds. She’d never imagined he would suggest living here. With her. But of course, this was no big deal to him. He was not picturing accidentally running into her coming out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around her naked body the way she’d been imagining in the few seconds since he’d mentioned the idea.