Darlene Graham - Dreamless

He gave a hoarse whisper. “Of course.” And he stepped aside.

She glanced back and saw that he was still studying her with that look of concern. She stopped in her tracks and drew a great shuddering breath.

His lips opened and he hesitated, as if he wanted to say something important but wasn’t sure how. Then he simply said, “I hope the young man will be okay.”

“Me, too.” Cassie’s tears threatened to spill over and she covered her mouth with her hand.

Jake stepped forward and wrapped warm fingers above her elbow. “Are you okay?”

Cassie nodded, then shook her head as the tears came. She swiped at them and glanced up at the rooftop, where the wirey young carpenter who’d handled the hot wire was standing, braced at the edge, staring down at the two of them. She turned her face away from the house so the men couldn’t see, and Jake pulled her around in front of him, shielding her from view with his huge shoulders.

Cassie dropped her eyes, ashamed of her unprofessional behavior, but he said, “It’s okay to cry.”

She shook her head. “It’s just that so many things have been going wrong lately. One little thing after another. And now this.” She swiped at her eyes again.

To her astonishment, he produced a clean red bandana from his back pocket. “Here.”

She took it and swabbed her cheeks. “Thanks.” She handed it back.

He stuffed it back into his jeans. “Accidents happen, Ms. McClean, especially on construction sites.”

Cassie sniffed. “I know that. But ever since I started this development, it seems like it’s been one calamity after another. I admit I’m a bit of a perfectionist, and I’ve planned and saved and dreamed about this project for so long…but I’m beginning to think my dream is turning into a nightmare.”

“Look, I don’t want to add to your stress today,” he offered gently. “We can finish our business another time.”

“Okay,” Cassie said. But she was so upset that she couldn’t even recall what business, exactly, they had been discussing. Dynamite. Oh, damn. She had pitched that word out like a lit stick of the stuff. And she hadn’t remained civil like she’d planned, not at all. And now she’d started to shake and cry like a fool because one of her men got hurt. Jake Coffey had certainly seen her at her worst, and now, she’d have to face this man—this handsome, intimidating man—in civil court, the day after tomorrow.

Seeing him again felt like the last thing she needed. And yet, as she watched him walk away, it felt like the only thing she wanted.

JAKE COFFEY STEERED THROUGH THE LABYRINTH of streets in The Heights, fighting down a strange mixture of low arousal and high confusion. Since the day the sign went up announcing The Heights, he and architect and home builder C. J. McClean had been on a collision course. He’d spoken to her on the phone several times. But nothing in her smooth, confident, businesslike and occasionally caustic voice had indicated that Ms. McClean was so young…and so very beautiful.

What a face! Even without a speck of makeup, it was a face so fresh—so beguiling—that no healthy, normal man with two eyes in his head was likely to forget it.

Her eyes, he’d noticed the instant she removed the sunglasses, were deep set, blue as a cloudless Oklahoma sky, full of intelligence and fire. And when they’d filled with tears, he’d had to fight the urge to cradle her in his arms.

She sported the kind of thick, bushy blond ponytail that he was a sucker for—a wild, unselfconscious mane that broadcast vitality. That straight, little, barely freckled nose enhanced her look…and to top it all off, she had those full, ripe lips. She was his all-American type, all right. The kind of lively doll he’d tried to impress at high school football games and rodeo championships ever since he was a randy kid.

His type. Complete with that fit, curvy little body. Even those ridiculous overalls couldn’t disguise her curvy bust, especially after she’d stripped off that baggy shirt to help the injured man. With only a thermal undershirt hugging her torso, it was easy to see that Cassie McClean had the goods. What was a woman like that doing sashaying around among construction crews all day long? Breaking lots of hearts, he bet. He’d done enough checking to know she wasn’t married, but he wondered if she had a steady boyfriend.

What the heck was he doing, thinking about her in this vein? He didn’t know a thing about C. J. McClean, except that she had the kind of rare good looks he’d once been a complete sucker for. And behind that pretty face, she had a mean-as-a-junkyard-dog business style.

Cowboy, he reminded himself sternly, for the foreseeable future, you’ve taken yourself out of circulation.

He’d sworn off dating as long as he had Jayden and Dad and the horses to worry over. And besides, since his divorce, he’d discovered that it was damn crazy out there in singleland. Scary, in fact. Cute little numbers wrapped in spandex could turn into a sane man’s nightmare after only a couple of casual dates.

The last sweet young thing in his life had, in fact, ended up being a genuine stalker. Sitting outside the ranch gates in her darkened car. Calling late at night and scaring Jayden with her whispery questions: “Where’s your daddy tonight, honey?”

After he’d finally gotten rid of that weirdo, he decided he would live without women for a while. At least until Jayden’s life was more stable. Truth was, being single wasn’t an impossible lifestyle—if a man kept himself real, real busy.

Your life might not be fun— he recited his familiar self-lecture —but it’s sane. It’s healthy. It’s simple. Well, okay, maybe not simple. He gripped the steering wheel and gritted his teeth as he drove past the rock crushers. They banged so loudly they made his truck windows vibrate. It took enormous self-control not to flip the bird at the cussed things.

What was this business about dynamite?

He grabbed the cell phone off the seat and dialed his attorney.

Yes, Edward Hughes reported, they’d just now received a fax from C. J. McClean’s lawyer. She’d filed a countermotion to force open the road and she’d apparently beaten them to the draw on the noise injunction by planning to bring forth evidence that the noise was not excessive.

“Not excessive!” Jake hollered into the phone. “Listen to this!”

He rolled the truck window down to give Edward the full benefit of the crushers. “And apparently,” he said as he rolled it up again, “she plans to do some blasting with dynamite to finish the job.”

“I know. I know,” Edward Hughes groaned. “But my guess is they’ve got enough crap in this motion that the judge will be forced to conduct a trial. And there is no way the court can hold a trial before a week from now, because Jewett is in the middle of a big criminal case.”

“Can’t some other judge do it?”

“No. The district court is one judge short. Judge Baker is recovering from a heart attack.”

Jake sighed into the phone. He was headed for a heart attack if he didn’t get a grip. “A week from now, none of this will matter. If she starts dynamiting, my mares all will have lost their foals by then.”

“I expect she’ll have succeeded in getting her rock out of there in a week and the whole thing’ll be moot. Pretty sharp maneuvering. Is that McClean woman a total hellcat or what? Chip off the old block, I say.”

“How’s that?”

“She’s Boss McClean’s daughter.”

“That name rings a bell.”

“The old man went to prison a few years back for insurance fraud…and there was something else. I can’t recall. But he was the same way. Anybody who got in Boss’s way paid for it.”