Husband Under Construction. Karen Templeton

little smile, “the kitchen is the worst. But the whole house—”

       “Not really?”

      If those cheeks got any redder, the gal was gonna spontaneously combust. “Figure of speech. Of course there’s nothing between us, unfinished or otherwise. Why—?”

      “Because it’s kind of annoying being the target for somebody else.”

      Dude. You had to go there.

      Roxie’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me?”

      Noah crossed his arms, the list dangling from his fingers, his common sense clearly hightailing it for parts unknown. “God knows, there’s women with cause to give me dirty looks. If not want my head on a platter.” At her incredulous expression, he shrugged. “Misunderstandings happen, what can I say?” Then his voice softened. “And rumor has it you’ve got cause to be pissed. But not at me. So maybe I don’t appreciate being the stand-in, you know?”

      After a moment, she stomped back to the dining room to dig deep into one of the boxes, muttering, “Now I remember why I left. The way everybody’s always up in everybody else’s business.”

      “Yeah. I think that’s called caring,” Noah said, surprised at his own defensiveness. Even more surprised when Roxie’s gaze plowed into his, followed—eventually—by another tiny smile, and he felt as if his soul had been plugged into an electrical outlet. Damn.

      “No, I think that’s called being nosy,” she said, and Noah chuckled over the zzzzzt.

      “Around here? Same difference.”

      The smile stretched maybe a millimeter or two before she dropped onto a high-backed dining chair with a prissy, pressed-wood pattern along the top. “It’s a bit more complicated than that, but…you’re right. And I apologize. For real this time. It’s not you, it’s…”

      She rammed a hand through her curls, grimacing when she snagged the cobweb. “This hasn’t been one of my better days,” she sighed, trying to disengage the clumped web from her fingers. “Sorting through my aunt’s stuff and getting nowhere in my job search and thinking about…my ex—and trust me, it’s not his head I want on a platter—” A short, hard breath left her lungs. “I feel like somebody’s weed-whacked my brain. Not your fault you’re the weed-whacker.”

      “I’d ask you to explain, but I’m thinking I don’t really want to know.”

      “No. You don’t.” Once more on her feet, Roxie returned to the kitchen, leaning over the counter to scratch at something on the metallic, blue-and-green floral wallpaper over the backsplash. “I promise I’ll be good from now on.”

      “That mean I have to be good, too?”

      “Goes without saying,” Roxie said, after a pause that was a hair too long, before her gaze latched onto his Tootsie Roll pop. “Got another one of those?”

      Lord above. Noah had gotten tangled up with some dingbats in his time, but this one took the cake. Not even the cute butt could make up for that. Even so, this could shape up—heh—to be a pretty decent job, so he supposed he’d best be about humoring the dingbat.

      “Uh…yeah. Sure.” He dug a couple extras out of his pocket. “Cherry or grape?”

      “Cherry,” Roxie said, holding out her hand, not speaking again until it was unwrapped and in her mouth, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment in apparent ecstasy. Then, opening her eyes, she grinned sheepishly around the pop. Mumbling something that might have been “Cheap thrill,” she slowly removed it, her tongue lingering on the candy’s underside, her gaze unfocused as she dreamily contemplated the glistening, ruby-red candy on the end of the stick, which she gently twirled back and forth between her fingers. “Can’t remember the last time I had one of these,” she sighed out, then looked at him again, her pupils gradually returning to normal. “Well. Ready to see the rest of the house?”

      Holy crap.

      Lust run amok Noah could handle. Electric jolts he could ignore, if he really put his mind to it. But the two of them together?

      This went way beyond unfamiliar territory. This, boys and girls, was an alternate universe. One he had no idea if he’d ever get out of alive.

      If he even got out at all.

       Chapter Two

      The longer Roxie trailed Noah through the house, batting away the pheromones like vines in a jungle, the easier it became to see why the man had to fight ‘em off with sticks. Not that he’d ever seemed to fight too hard. His reputation was well documented. But holy moly, the dude exuded sexual confidence by the truckload. As opposed to, say, herself, who did well to summon up enough to fill a Red Rider Wagon. On a good day.

      Then she mentally smacked herself for giving in to the woe-is-me’s, because nobody knew better than she that the road to hell was paved in self-pity. And, um, yearnings. Reciprocated or otherwise. Especially for a man she’d likened to gardening equipment.

      Anyway.

      “Wow. You weren’t whistling Dixie about the condition,” Noah said, practically leering at the peeling wallpaper. The worn wood floor. The disintegrating window sills—ohmigod, the dude looked practically preorgasmic as he fished a penknife out of his back pocket and tested a weak spot in a sill in the living room. Years of neglect eventually took their toll.

      In more ways than one, Roxie thought, savoring the last bit of her cherry-chocolate pop as she tossed the bare stick in a nearby trash can. “How bad is it?”

      Noah flashed her a brief smile probably meant to be reassuring. “Fortunately, most of the it seems to be more cosmetic than structural.” Now frowning at the sill, he gouged a little deeper. “I mean, this is pretty much rotted out, but…no signs of termites. Not yet, at least.” A stiff breeze elbowed inside the leaking windows, nudging the ugly, heavy drapes. “Windows really need to replaced, though.”

      “You can do that?”

      “Yep. Anything except electrical and plumbing. That, we hire out.” He glanced around, frowning. “Sad, though. Charley letting the house get this bad.”

      Out of the blue, a sledgehammer of emotions threatened to demolish the “everything’s okay” veneer she so carefully maintained. “He didn’t mean to. Basically, he’s fine, of course, but his arthritis gets to him more often than he’d like to admit. Then Mae got sick and he became her caregiver….” First one, then another, renegade tear slipped out, making her mad.

      “He could’ve asked for help anytime,” Noah said quietly, discreetly looking elsewhere as he snapped shut the knife and slipped it back into his pocket. “My folks, especially—they’d've been more than happy to lend a hand. If they’d known.”

      Swiping at her cheeks, Roxanne snorted. “Considering neither Charley nor Mae said anything to me, this is not a surprise.”

      Noah’s gaze swung back to hers. “You didn’t know your aunt was sick?”

      “Not for a long time, no. Although, maybe if I’d shown my face, or even called more often, I might have.”

      “You think they would’ve told you if you had?”

      Her mouth pulled tight. “Doubtful.”

      “Then stop beating yourself up,” he said, and she thought, And you, stop being nice. A brief shadow darkened his eyes. “My folks don’t tell us squat, either. And all four of us are right here in town. In fact, a few years back my brothers and I figured out they were in the middle of a financial crisis they didn’t want to ‘burden’ us about. Had to read ‘em the riot act before they finally fessed up.” He half smiled. “Keeping the truth from the ‘kids’ is what adults do.”

      A bit more of the veneer curled away, letting in a surprisingly