Kathy Altman - Staying at Joe's

“Goodness gracious me. I see what held you up.”

Hell. The Castle Creek paparazza had arrived. Joe shook out his shirt and scrambled to find an opening. Hazel, meanwhile, was brandishing her cell phone.

“Why didn’t you text me?” she fussed at Audrey. The moment before Joe shoved an arm inside his T-shirt he heard a chiming sound, and Hazel shot him a wicked wink. “You’ve been holding out on us, Joe Gallahan.” Squinting at her phone’s display, she hummed her approval at the photo she’d just snapped. “We’ve got that fund-raiser for the citizens’ center coming up. What do you say we have a wet T-shirt contest? You know, the man-chest kind? Honey, who are you?” Another chime as she snapped a pic of Allison.

“She’s a friend of Joe’s, visiting from Virginia. Allison Kincaid, meet Hazel Catlett. She and her sister, June, have the most adorable salt-and-pepper schnauzer named Baby Blue.”

Allison blinked. Joe did his best to turn a laugh into a cough and Audrey thumped him on the back. With her purse.

Ouch.

Hazel glanced from Joe to Allison and back again. “You really have been holding out on us.” She sidled closer to Allison, keeping her gaze on Joe. “Tell me the truth, hon. Does the bottom half look as good as the top?”

“Let’s go get that mousse,” Audrey said, and tugged on her friend’s arm.

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Hazel flapped a hand at Joe then elbowed Allison. “Ironic, isn’t it? A piece of beefcake like that, being a vegetarian?”

“I’m standing right here,” he said.

“And God bless you for it,” Hazel beamed.

Audrey led Hazel out the door while Hazel played with her cell phone, no doubt sending copies of that damned photo to the entire population of Castle Creek. As soon as they cleared the door, Allison rounded on him.

“I’m not staying.”

“And I’m not going back. Glad we understand each other. Goodbye.”

She let loose a strangled sound of exasperation and stalked over to the window. The fan-borne breeze huffed through her hair and his traitorous fingers itched to follow. His gaze skimmed downward. Damn. He shoved his hands in his pockets and forced himself to look away from the luscious lines of her ass. Tried to focus on the probability that the pants hugging that class-A ass had cost more than what he’d shelled out to tile ten bathrooms.

Then again, hadn’t he spent thousands on suits during his stint at T&P?

He scowled. If he’d lost her that promotion, then he damned well owed her. He hadn’t said a word to Danielle. But she’d been hovering over him as he cleaned out his desk and the instant she spotted the photo of Allison she’d figured it out. And apparently had gone running straight to Tackett.

And Allison thought he’d turned tattletale. Because she’d rejected him. Because the company had stripped him of his clients. Not a bad way to get revenge, if he’d been that kind of man.

But things had changed since then. He’d changed. And right now revenge was sounding pretty damned good.

“I’m serious.” She turned from the window, her arms wrapped around her waist so tight it was a wonder she could breathe. “I have to get back. And you have to come with me.”

Obviously, she wanted to be here as much as he wanted to be back in the nation’s capital. Maybe Audrey’s idea wasn’t such a ball-buster, after all. Keeping Allison around for a while would be hell, yeah, but he could string that old bastard Tackett along and at the same time score some free menial labor. He pictured Allison trying to handle a roller while fighting to protect her manicure and smiled inwardly. At the very least, he’d get some comic relief.

And maybe, just maybe, she’d see that life in the country—life with him—wouldn’t have been so bad after all.

Scratch that. He’d keep her here because she could help, nothing more. Though he wouldn’t mind getting her naked.

His brain stuttered on the word “naked.”

“Are you even listening to me?”

The buzzing in his ears climbed an octave. As his gaze focused on Allison, he took in her furious pink face and it was all he could do to keep from grinning.

“Two weeks,” he said, then paused. Had he said that out loud? He gave a mental shrug. “You give me two weeks and I’ll give the agency four.”

He expected her to go ballistic—looked forward to it, in fact—but she didn’t give him the satisfaction.

“It’s been a year,” she said calmly. “Can you really still be holding a grudge?”

“There’s a saying. Something about a pot, a kettle and the color black?”

Her arms dropped away from her waist and she clenched her fists. “We hadn’t even been dating for three months when you suddenly asked me to dump everything and follow you up here. Expected me to walk away from my job, my apartment, my life in the city, everything I worked so hard to achieve. And for what? Cracked sidewalks and moldy floorboards? This was your dream, Joe. Not mine.” She relaxed her hands and wiggled her fingers. “But that’s in the past. In the here and now, I’m about to lose my job and you can prevent it. So will you?”

He ran his hands down the front of his T-shirt, smoothing out the wrinkles, pretending to consider. In the past, like hell.

“Two weeks,” he repeated. He pictured her trading in her designer duds for a pair of his old coveralls and this time freed the smile. She snapped her spine straight.

“I’m glad you find this amusing.” She marched to the doorway. “And I’m glad you can afford to...to humor your inner Bob the Builder fantasies up here in Mayberry-by-the-lake.” She swiveled back to face him, as graceful as a model at the end of a runway. “By the way, T&P authorized me to offer you a bonus. Ten thousand dollars. Considering you’ve already been here a year and the sidewalk has more cracks than the San Andreas Fault, I’m thinking you could use the money.”

That did it. Fury kicked at his temples and he tried for a calming inhale, but the air had turned dense. Disappointment, he realized. His throat was thick with it.

It always came down to money.

“Tackett would be proud of you, Kincaid.”

“How about you, Gallahan? Anyone proud of you?”

It hadn’t taken her long to zero in on that soft spot. In another life he would have admired her. Praised her. Pointed her out as an example to new-hires. Now he pitied her. Almost as much as he wanted to find out if she still tasted the same.

She must have seen something in his face she didn’t like because her chin went back up in the air. “So you won’t consider coming back.”

“The moment you consider picking up a drywall taping knife.”

She stared at him for a couple of beats. “Afraid you lost your edge? That you can’t do the job?”

He grunted. “Your job security depends on two weeks of kissing up to the guy who screwed you out of a promotion. Literally. Maybe you’d better stick to worrying about yourself.”

“I had to try.” She hesitated. The already rigid line of her shoulders tensed. “You’re looking good, Joe,” she said quietly. Her gaze locked on to his. “I’m glad.” She turned and walked out, her posture suddenly soft.

He reclaimed the paint roller, dipped it and faced the wall. Struggled to find the strength to raise his arms.

She still talked a good fight, but sometime during the past year her confidence level had taken a massive hit. How much of that was his fault? He looked over his shoulder, at the empty doorway.

He needed a whiskey.

Make that a double.

* * *

ALLISON SEETHED AS she guided her Camry around the pits in the motel parking lot, then slowed for a pair of squirrels that tumbled across the pavement toward a scraggly pine.