He pulled the board away, made his way to the side of the house for another piece of lumber, and spotted Candace and Anna walking down the driveway. A quick glance at his watch told him it was lunchtime and he wondered why Lindsay wasn’t joining them for a bite to eat. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen Lindsay in a few days. In passing, he had come across the carpenter she’d hired to help her tear down a wall, and with the way he looked at Lindsay, Marc wondered if he too was having a hell of a time focusing on the job. Then again there was always the masonry guy, who’d been keeping an awfully close eye on Anna.
He didn’t miss the sexy look Candace cast his way as she sauntered down the sidewalk. His cock thickened when she gave a sexy shake of her ass. What the hell was the little spitfire trying to do to him anyway? Didn’t she know he was working with power tools?
And one tool in particular was swelling at an alarming rate.
Fuck…
He dropped the boards and peeled off his shirt as he made his way to his van, knowing he had to follow close behind. Close enough to keep her in sight but far enough to remain inconspicuous. Perhaps a run would help him let off some steam. Before he reached the door, Pamina suddenly appeared before him, coming out of nowhere. Maybe he’d been so lost in his thoughts he hadn’t heard her approach.
“She’s a lovely girl, don’t you think?” Insightful eyes met his, and for a brief moment he wondered if she knew how lusty his thoughts had been for the last few days.
“Yeah, lovely,” he responded.
Pamina smoothed her golden hair from her face and gestured toward his pile of lumber. “She was lucky to have found someone who could build furniture on such short notice.”
He gave an easy shrug. “I guess I was at the right place at the right time.”
She pursed her lips and studied him for a long moment before saying, “Funny about that, isn’t it?”
Suddenly uncomfortable, Marc shifted. Christ, did she know who he was?
“She’s not one to just hire someone on the spot.”
“No?” Marc looked past her shoulders and glimpsed Candace before she disappeared around the corner with her friend.
“No, she’s careful who she associates with.” Pamina leaned in close and lowered her voice in secrecy. “You see her daddy is a big New York director. In the past men have tried to get close to her, wining and dining and deceiving her in order to get in with her father. Which is why she’s sworn off men, I suppose.”
“She’s sworn off men?” That must have been the guarded vulnerable look he’d spotted in her eyes. Men had been using her—betraying her. Catching him off guard, anger raced through him, and he wanted to find and pummel every guy who had hurt her. His jaw clenched and his nostrils flared, and he wondered when protecting her had become so personal to him.
“Yes, so she must really trust you if she hired you without doing a background check. You must have made a very big impression on her.”
He swallowed, guilt closing in on him from all angles. He wasn’t using her, but he was deceiving her because he’d been pretending to be a handyman. He had strict orders to keep his identity a secret.
“I see,” he said, for lack of anything better.
Pamina put her hand on his shoulder. “But you and I both know you’d never deceive her, isn’t that right?”
“Yeah, that’s right,” he agreed and sidestepped her, knowing he had to get going before Candace was too far out of his sight. “If you’ll excuse me. I’m late for my run.”
Marc slipped into a T-shirt and his running shorts, and jogged down the sidewalk. He took the corner he’d seen Candace negotiate earlier. As he made his way along the main street, he spotted the two women having lunch inside a quaint curbside café. He continued to run, keeping the door to the café within sight at all times. A short while later Candace and Anna exited the building and walked back to the inn. Maintaining a reasonable pace behind them, Marc kept her under surveillance. Once she stepped inside the inn, safe and sound, surrounded by her friends, he decided to take a quick jaunt around Blueberry Lake to give his muscles a good, strenuous workout.
As he approached the spot where Candace had pulled him into the water, his pace slowed and his mind raced, recalling the way her nipples had tightened beneath her tracksuit. He spent a long moment staring at the water and considered taking a dip to cool himself down.
“Going in?”
He tightened at the sound of her voice behind him. When he spun around and took in the warm flush on her cheeks, the sexy way her nipples pressed against her tank top and the way her long, tanned legs looked in her provocative short shorts, he almost gave in to temptation.
The hungry look in her eyes made him ache. Fuck he wanted her so badly, he could barely think straight. Pleasure raced through him, and his cock swelled inside his running shorts. Candace cast a glance down, and when her eyes traveled back to his face, they were gleaming with mischief. Okay, he needed to put a stop to this and he needed to do it now.
As he ran over every reason to back away, he said, “Candace, I—”
Jesus, what was he going to tell her? That he was hired by her father to watch over her? That he
