Sweeping The Bride Away. Michele Dunaway

don’t need back plates. We pull trailers.”

      “Oh. So that plate really isn’t a sexual thing at all.”

      “Uh, well,” the contractor began.

      Cassidy rolled her eyes and stepped closer. Time to interrupt before someone got himself in deep trouble with the matriarch of the Houston morality police. “Hi, I’m Cassidy Clayton. I believe you’re looking for me.”

      As he turned around, she gasped. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Jake had said…

      Mistake number five didn’t look surprised to see her. Instead he gave her a wide smile.

      “Hello again,” he said. “I’m here to do your work.”

      LILLIAN GLANCED over her glasses, her gaze speculative. “You two have met?”

      “Yes,” he said, his gaze never leaving Cassidy’s.

      “No,” she said, wrenching hers away.

      Lillian’s head turned from one to another as if she were watching a championship Ping-Pong match. “So which is it?”

      “No, we haven’t met,” Cassidy inserted quickly. She gave the man a wide smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She had never thought she would see him again! After all, wasn’t he a president? He really was a one-man, well, a two-man operation. After talking to a receptionist, and then Jake, she’d hoped otherwise.

      “We just talked on the phone today. This is my contractor, uh…” After rolling his name on her tongue all day, now she couldn’t get his name out.

      “Blade,” he finished smoothly, returning her fake smile with an infuriatingly real, and extremely sexy, one of his own.

      “Blade,” Cassidy repeated. She shot him a warning glance and hoped the man had enough brain cells upstairs to figure out what she meant—keep quiet.

      Seemingly satisfied with the explanation, Lillian broke into a small smile. “So, you’re doing all the repairs on Cassidy’s house?”

      “That’s what I intend on doing,” he replied. His tone insinuated to Cassidy that there might be more to his plan. Cassidy shifted on her feet.

      “Oh, good,” Lillian said, seeming not to notice the sexual undercurrents as she warmed to a topic she knew way too well. “Cassidy needs to get rid of this house quickly. Thank goodness it closes in two weeks. I mean, you heard why she has to sell it didn’t you? Her philandering father left her mother for a younger woman and…”

      Great. One more complication to her already hectic life. Now the infernal contractor, Blade—she got his name right this time—knew her personal business. First things first. Time to get Lillian moving toward her own home.

      “I doubt he really cares about my parents’ problems, Lillian,” Cassidy said. Relying on her training as an image consultant, she froze her smile in place and hoped that Lillian would get the subtle message. Instead Lillian looked confused.

      Cassidy wanted to scream. Did no one around her understand body language? This was her career, and she was good at it. Somehow she managed to keep her voice calm. “I’m sure he’s on the clock, and I’m sure he wants to go home soon. I’ll see you at five tomorrow.”

      “Five,” Lillian repeated. She let her gaze rove over Blade one last time. Cassidy bristled. Did every woman stare at him like that? Then Lillian straightened as if the moment hadn’t occurred and gave Cassidy a stern look of warning. “We need to be on time tomorrow. Monica’s is open only to us, so don’t forget. Five.”

      “As if you’d let me forget,” Cassidy said under her breath after Lillian slipped through the gate in the hedge between the two side yards.

      His voice was right by her ear. “So I take it that’s the infamous mother-in-law-to-be.”

      “That’s her.” Cassidy whirled around and found herself facing Blade’s chest. Whoa. She took a step back “Would you care to explain what you are doing here?”

      “I’m the contractor.”

      Why did he upset her equilibrium so? “Yes, well, your card said you’re the president.”

      He grinned, and Cassidy wished she’d never called him. “Oh, that’s a little joke Jake and I have. We own the company together. He’s also a president. But I can assure you, I’m a contractor.”

      She struggled to regain control of the mess she was now in. “Well I can see that. You have a truck, and you’re dressed in—”

      “They’re called carpenter whites. Whites for short.”

      Cassidy swallowed. Never had a pair of dirty white pants and a dirty white T-shirt looked so good. They hinted too well at what lay beneath. And just when had he gotten so tall? And his chest so broad? She gathered her wits, and rallied.

      “Well, why didn’t you say something on the phone when I called?”

      His greenish-blue eyes twinkled, drowning her. “And ruin the surprise?”

      She found a life preserver. “I don’t like surprises.”

      His cheek dimpled as his smile curved upward. “I do, especially when it was a phone call from you. Imagine you calling me, especially after insisting you didn’t need my help last night. I thought you’d just throw my card away.”

      She had, but she wasn’t going to let him have the satisfaction of knowing that.

      His voice washed over her. “Ironic isn’t it, how fate works?”

      “Look, this is a business arrangement.” She stressed the word business.

      He shot her another infuriating grin, as if he knew exactly what she was really thinking. “Never said it wasn’t.” He sobered his expression for a second. “Look, do you want me to do this work or not? Or would you rather hire someone else?”

      Cassidy drew herself up. As if she could find another contractor on this short notice, and he knew it. After all, she only had ten business days until closing. “Fine, then. Come inside and I’ll show you what that infernal city inspector is referring to.”

      With a huff she turned and walked toward the house.

      IT WAS ALL BLADE COULD do to stop from humming to himself. He’d made one change to Jake’s misguided plan.

      He’d borrowed one of his foremen’s trucks for the occasion, and from the expression on Cassidy’s face, it had been worth it. While Jake wanted him to reveal who he was, Blade didn’t. Why spoil her preconceived notions? No, his plan of appearing like the everyday Joe that Cassidy had pegged him for had gone off perfectly.

      Blade grinned at his success. Earlier that day he’d considered Jake’s suggestion of driving his own truck, but the more he thought of it, the more he had decided not to.

      She already thought he was just a blue-collar workingman. While Blade had a diesel Ford 350 himself, he knew it didn’t look like what Cassidy thought a contractor’s truck would look like, not with leather seats and being loaded with every known option.

      Besides, she’d never believe his truck cost almost as much as a Corvette.

      So, instead he had borrowed Frank’s truck, and of course, the forty-year-old Frank had been only too happy to exchange his work truck for Blade’s new BMW convertible, which, too, had cost a few hundred less than Blade’s truck.

      “I’ll even take the wife on a date,” Frank had said with a grin. “I’ll tell her I sold the truck. It’ll pay her back for my license plate.”

      Blade had laughed. Everyone knew Frank’s wife was a practical joker, and she’d gotten him the plate as a gag gift for his fortieth birthday.

      Blade snapped to attention as Cassidy began talking. “This is the first predication,” she said as she came to the front steps.