She’d lost so much lately-hell, she’d lost just about everything she had to lose during her short life. He had so much to make up to her.
He studied the thin stream of smoke curling from the cigarette. Rosie had been five when his drinking had driven his ex-wife away, and Nancy had taken their daughter with her to Oregon. He’d never forget the way Rosie had clung to his pant leg that last night, sobbing, promising to be good, promising to remember to feed her turtle if only she could stay in her room, stay in her new school with her new friends. Begging him to come with them when it was time to go.
He’d promised to feed her turtle for her. But he’d been too wrapped up in his own misery, too drunk to remember, and he’d let her pet die. His daughter’s dry-eyed acceptance of this betrayal had been the turning point. He hadn’t had a drink since the turtle’s funeral.
Now Rosie’s mom had a new man in her life, a guy who didn’t want a ten-year-old cramping his style. And since his ex had never been the kind of woman who could function for long without a man, she’d sent her daughter packing, back to her father. Just for a while, Nancy had told him, just until this new relationship settled into something permanent. In the meantime, it was Quinn’s turn to deal with Rosie.
So he’d deal.
He’d had her four months now. Four long, difficult months of figuring out a new routine, of learning how to balance the long hours on the job with the responsibilities of a full-time parent. Of watching Rosie struggling with another start in a new school and the uncertain business of making new friends. Trying to deal with him.
Four long months to decide he wanted his own new relationship to be permanent, too. He was going to keep Rosie here, with him.
He sighed and fingered the cigarette in his hand, fighting the urge to raise it to his lips for just one puff, and then a streak of scarlet roared past and slowed near the end of the block. He narrowed his eyes as a familiar BMW Z4 roadster bumped over the gap in the curb at the entrance to the construction site and edged onto a patch of rough gravel.
Tess Roussel, architect. The nominal head of this project, though they both knew she couldn’t make a move without him.
The driver-side door swung open and one long, slim, short-skirted leg stretched toward the ground.
She rose, slowly, and slammed the door behind her, pausing to glare at him across the ruins. He knew her eyes were the color of bourbon and every bit as seductive, that her scent could make his mouth water and send his system into overdrive. And the fact that he’d wanted her the moment he’d set eyes on her didn’t mean spit. He’d been controlling far more serious thirsts for years.
She strode toward him on her ridiculous shoes, risking injury to one of her shapely ankles with every wobble of those skyscraper heels. The breeze off the bay tossed her short black hair across her forehead, and she lifted an elegant, long-fingered hand to brush it back into place. She wore a no-nonsense gray suit, the kind of suit a woman wore when she wanted to look like a man. The kind of suit that clung to lush, womanly curves and accentuated the fact that she was a female.
She halted in front of him and raised one of her perfectly arched brows. “Quinn.”
“Roussel.”
She lowered her gaze to his cigarette and slowly lifted it again to meet his. “Smoking on the job site?” she asked.
He brought the cigarette to his lips just to watch those whiskey-colored eyes darken with displeasure. “Against the rules?”
“Are you asking for a clarification?”
“Figured that’s why you’re here.” He squinted at her through the smoke. “To set things straight,” he said.
“Plenty of time for that later.” She slipped her hands into her jacket pockets and turned toward the bay. “It’s a great site.”
“Best in town.”
“It will be.”
She angled her face in his direction, waiting for him to comment, but he simply met and held her stare.
God, she was a looker. He’d mostly seen her in passing, striding down Main Street as if she owned the strip, or crossing those long legs on a tall stool at one of the waterfront bars. And he’d noticed the way men’s gazes followed her, tracked her, undressed her, coveted her. A real heartbreaker. A real ball-buster, too. The kind of woman who enjoyed the attention, as long as it was on her terms.
He’d never had the chance to study her like this, up close. Right now, with the sun sinking over her shoulder and setting the highlights in her hair aflame, with her sculpted chin tipped up in challenge and those thick, sooty lashes drifting low over her wide-set eyes, she was even more of a looker than he’d realized.
Her gaze settled on the six-pack nestled in a rope coil on the truck bed behind him, and her glossy red lips thinned in disapproval.
Beer for the crew, a small celebration for the big job ahead. She needn’t worry-he had no intention of joining them in the drinking part of the festivities. Not that it was any of her business. “Something bothering you?” he asked.
“Yeah.” She shifted her stance and narrowed her eyes. “Plenty.”
“Same goes.”
“Oh, I doubt that.” Her mouth turned up at the corners in a catlike smile. “I don’t think it’s the same kind of bother at all.”
He slid to the ground and moved in close, close enough to note the slight flutter of her lashes and hear the sharp and sudden intake of her breath. His blood heated with something more than the basic tension between them. In her heels, she was nearly eye to eye with him, and he wondered how she’d fit alongside him if he snaked an arm around her narrow waist and hauled her to him. “No harm in a little creative thinking,” he said.
“Is that so?”
He dropped his gaze to her mouth, testing her. Testing himself. He wanted this job, damn it. He’d just signed a contract saying he’d take it on. He wanted to earn a chunk of money so he wouldn’t have to worry about his ex’s first legal maneuver in the inevitable custody war. He wanted his daughter to be proud of the work he was doing, even if that work was going to mean long hours away from home, away from her. The last thing he needed was another battle on his hands with another woman who could pile on the guilt of his past failures.
A woman who could give him one more thing to crave.
He looked Tess straight in the eye. “Yeah.”
“All right, then.” She turned to go, tossing a wicked smile over her shoulder. “See you around, Quinn.”
He dropped the cigarette and crushed it into the ground. “I’ll be here.”
LATER THAT EVENING, after she’d changed into her most comfortable jeans, her softest designer loafers and dined on a frisee salad with her special raspberry vinaigrette dressing, Tess drove toward Driftwood. The residential area south of the town center offered a certain rustic charm, particularly where the streetlights thinned and the pavement faded to crunchy gravel roads, where lacy-branched redwoods crowded the shoreline and cast their long shadows over wave-splashed rocks. The neighborhoods she passed wore a jumble of styles, and the houses perching in the open spaces among the trees often reflected the personalities of their owners rather than the period of their construction.
Normally Tess enjoyed a trip through Driftwood at this time of night, when the amber glow of early-evening lamplight provided glimpses of prairie-style mantelpieces, paneled doors, arching doorways and coved ceilings before the home owners drew their curtains to shut out the dark. She might have enjoyed restoring one of the vintage houses in this part of town, but she’d found a place that suited her along the river, a more practical house that wouldn’t require messy repairs or put a dent in her budget making them.
Tonight she wasn’t in the mood to notice much more than the widening pothole on Daylily Lane and her own negative attitude. Her chat with Quinn had siphoned most of the joy from what was supposed to be the first triumph of her professional career.
All she’d wanted was some time alone on the site to look at the place and to know-to truly believe-that what was in her imagination was actually, finally going to appear. A few minutes to let her imagination loose, to fill that space with all the possibilities she held inside. Her very own creation, her very own miracle-hers and hers alone, for the first and last time.
Only it hadn’t been hers, because she hadn’t been alone. She’d been forced to share it with Quinn. Just as she would be forced to share every step of its creation with him for the next nine months, to maintain her vision through his interpretation and consult with him on its progress. To share the end result, too: her design, his construction.
Quinn Construction. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. He had a lot riding on this project, too. He was rehabbing his professional reputation as well as his personal life. If he pulled off this job-the largest in the Cove at the moment-without a hitch, he’d be well on his way to establishing himself as a competent builder, not to mention banking a sizable profit.
And in order to maximize that profit, he’d want to complete the job as quickly and as cheaply as possible. Which meant they’d argue over the specs. Contractors always tried to shave their costs by changing the specs-after they’d used those same specs to draw up their bids for the project in the first place. She wanted Tidewaters to be spectacular; he’d want it to be finished.
If only he weren’t so…so…so damned
Beyond bad. A disaster, considering his problem with drinking and her problem with drinkers.
Besides, lusting after a business partner couldn’t be good for a working relationship, especially one that was so important to them both. Especially when that relationship threatened to be antagonistic. Although
Smiling grimly in anticipation of the coming battles, she pulled into the narrow gravel drive beside Charlie Keene’s tiny bungalow and plucked a dog biscuit from the box tucked behind her seat. Then she climbed from her car, lifting a pink bakery bag high above her head.
“Down,” she ordered the black Labrador retriever streaking across the shadowy yard. “Stay down, or you won’t get your bribe, you fur-faced shakedown artist.”
Charlie’s obnoxious pet rammed its wide black nose into her crotch before she could toss the biscuit across the yard. “Good riddance,” she muttered as the dog raced after it, and then she glanced at the muddy paw prints on her shoes with a sigh. At least the monster hadn’t left a matching set on her jeans and jacket. Charlie’s fiance, Jack Maguire, must have been making some progress with the obedience training.
He’d certainly made some progress with Charlie’s house. As Tess strode up the narrow path toward her friend’s freshly painted forest-green front door, she noted the neatly clipped lawn and the new willow tree staked in one corner of the yard. Charlie hadn’t done much more than dump her junk in the place after she’d bought it last year, but Jack was slowly and surely turning the fixer-upper into a charming home they’d share after their wedding. Charlie had always needed a keeper, and in Jack she’d found a man who liked to keep things the way they ought to be kept.
Actually, it had been Jack who’d found Charlie. He’d arrived in the Cove nearly three months ago, investigating the area’s sand and gravel supply for his employer. Within two weeks of checking out the local situation-and meeting Charlie-he’d quit his job, made an offer to buy out her competition and slyly cornered her with a deal she couldn’t refuse: combining their two ready mix companies with a wedding. At first she’d fought him with every weapon in her arsenal, but in the end she’d agreed to a mutually beneficial business arrangement and accepted his marriage proposal.
For a man whose words tended to ramble along in a syrupy drawl, Jack Maguire could do some fast talking when it suited him.
Tess lifted the period knocker and let it fall against the hammered plate, pleased with the solid
More than she could say for the prickly contractor she’d had to deal with before dinner. Nothing soft or charming there.
Charlie opened the door. “Thought you’d never get here,” she said as she snatched the bag from Tess’s hands and tugged her inside. “Addie brought a stack of bridal magazines, and she’s making me look at pictures again. Tell her to stop, or I’m going to shoot you both right now and eat all the cookies myself.”
Tess tossed her jacket over the arm of a club chair and settled beside their friend, Addie Sutton, on the plump sofa. Addie owned a stained-glass shop a block from Tess’s office, where she was creating some fabulous windows for Tidewaters. She had more artistic talent in her dainty fingers than Tess had in her entire body, and yet Tess loved her in spite of it. Everyone loved Addie, in the
