Too Friendly to Date. Nicole Helm

didn’t care for her answer, but kept the easy smile on his face. “Good. Probably be like kissing my sister.” Yeah, not by a long shot.

      * * *

      LEAH KICKED HER heels off the second her door was open. They landed with a thud in a pile of other shoes and clothes in her entryway. Some magazines and junk mail littered the floor, too. She was really going to need to clean up before her family arrived.

      She could have had them stay in a hotel, but she knew how much Mom and Dad hated hotels. Or, more accurately, the expense of them.

      The fact they had to pinch their pennies was one in a long list of things that were Leah’s fault, so she owed them.

      Maybe Grace could help clean up. Maybe Kelly and Susan, too, if they were surviving their first month as new parents. MC’s interior designer and administrative assistant hadn’t been around much since they’d adopted their baby, taking maternity leave and switching off days when they did work. Leah had missed having them around as she was almost as close to them as Grace.

      But Leah’s place was definitely not suited for a baby, so they’d probably have to pass. At least for a little while longer.

      Leah dropped her keys on the cluttered kitchen table, then remembered how she’d been late to a job last week because she hadn’t been able to find them. She retraced her steps, found the bag she took to work every day and tossed them in there.

      The house itself was a work in progress. A falling-down English cottage–style one-story built in the ’20s, it had been abandoned for ten years before she’d bought it, and the price had been right for a handy woman making a modest living. The past five years she’d put a lot of work into it, but she cringed at the thought of Mom and Dad seeing it. Her salary and Jacob’s help only went so far.

      Maybe if she showed her family “before” pictures, they’d be impressed with how far she’d come.

      On a sigh, Leah stepped into her room. Yeah, she was definitely going to need some help in the cleanup department. She smiled a little. It was nice knowing she’d have friends who’d chip in without a second thought.

      MC and its employees had become her second family. For a while, she thought it’d be enough. She could do without her parents, and the brother she’d never been all that close to, because she had friends who cared about her. She didn’t know when that suddenly hadn’t been enough. But it wasn’t anymore.

      She slipped out of the dress and examined the long white scar down the center of her chest. Mostly she tried to pretend it wasn’t there. A reminder of too many things she wanted to forget.

      Fifteen years. For fifteen years someone else’s heart had beat in there. The five years directly following the transplant, she hadn’t treated it or herself or her family well. In fact, her careless, selfish, destructive behavior had almost broken them all apart as much as it had almost killed her.

      So, she’d left Minnesota and moved in with the black-sheep aunt no one in her family talked to. She’d gotten her life and health together, put herself through electrician training. And without her and her health issues in the way, Mom and Dad had gotten back together after the stress of her health and hospital bills had caused them to separate.

      Now she had this life. And it was good and enough time had passed that she wanted to heal. Wanted to have a family to spend holidays with. Wanted her brother to forgive her for wrecking their family. She wanted to make up everything she’d ruined.

      So, if she had to lie, cheat or steal to accomplish it, she would. Hopefully it ended with the lying. Even more hopefully, it ended without her even more screwed up about Jacob than she already was.

CHAPTER TWO

      JACOB STOOD IN front of the dilapidated old Victorian on Jasmine Street in the heart of Bluff City, Iowa. It was surrounded by renovated or completely rebuilt houses and small businesses. It was an eyesore and for sale.

      Perfect.

      Leah stepped out of the house followed by Henry, MC’s plumber. They were both covered in dust and wore hard hats. Jacob had already toured the place twice before he’d brought out Leah and Henry, so today he’d stayed outside, not wanting to hover over them while they checked it out.

      “Have to rewire everything, and I mean everything. There’s not crap for restoring, electrically speaking.” Leah stood next to him, squinting at the old house.

      “Plumbing, too. Have to redo everything. Shit hole.” Henry’s plumbing estimation.

      “Pipe dream, boss.” Leah clapped him on the shoulder, but he barely felt it.

      Yeah, pipe dream, but he could see it. He could see it fully restored and absolutely perfect. With Grace and Kyle—his business partner and now also his sister’s boyfriend—moving out of the main house once their house was finished being built back in their hometown of Carvelle, Jacob was thinking about selling that first project. Without people sharing the same roof, the big house on the bluff was too much for him. MC had a strong enough reputation he didn’t need the grand showpiece as an office anymore, and he really didn’t want to think about living in that monster by himself.

      This house would be a better size. He could work and live there like he did at the main house. It could still be a bit of a showcase of what he could do. Right in the heart of town. And if he bought it, it wouldn’t be demolished and turned into a strip mall.

      “Jacob.”

      “Hmm?”

      “It’s a money pit.”

      Jacob spared Leah a glance. “My favorite kind.”

      She shook her head. “One of these days it’s going to blow up in your face. You can’t keep taking risks like this.”

      “What’s life without a little risk?” Jacob turned his attention back to the house. Especially when the risk was this perfect. “I’ll put a lowball offer in. See what happens.”

      “What about the Perkins house?”

      “I can do both.”

      Leah shook her head again. She did that a lot when he got on one of his extracurricular projects, but she also always pitched in. She’d complain and poke fun until she was blue in the face, but she’d be the first one there with him and the last one to leave. He supposed that was how she’d somehow suckered him and Grace and Kyle into helping her clean up her house before her family’s arrival.

      Speaking of that. “You gonna have food tonight?”

      Leah slid the hard hat off her head, began tapping it against her thigh. “I’ll order some pizza. Buy some beer and sodas.”

      “Dessert?” He grinned over at her when she scowled. She had a big, dirty coat on over her sweatshirt. Her hair was a static mess from the hard hat. Her cheeks were pink from the cold.

      Jacob looked back at the house. This sex drought was really, really getting to him.

      “I’ll get some snickerdoodles.”

      “If it doesn’t contain chocolate, it is not a dessert.”

      “I’m not buying a bunch of chocolate and watching you guys scarf it down when I can’t have any. Cruel and unusual.”

      “Not our fault you’re allergic to everything.”

      “One pan of brownies. Store-bought. And you’re taking all the leftovers home with you.”

      Jacob grinned, slung his arm over her shoulders. “You drive a hard bargain. Guess I can live with that while I’m slaving away cleaning your pigsty.”

      She wiggled out from under his arm. “Think of it this way. You get a front-row seat to the look on Kyle’s face when he sees how messy I really am.”

      Yeah,