King's Million-Dollar Secret. Maureen Child

water off and the three men in the kitchen were left standing around as what looked like the incoming tide rolled across the floor and under the house.

      “That fitting wasn’t on there right, damn it,” Steve muttered and dropped through the hole in the floor.

      “Should have checked it out with the water on low,” Joe pointed out and got a glare from Rafe in response.

      “What happened?” Katie asked and both men turned to look at her.

      “Nothing huge,” Joe assured her. “Just got to tighten things up. Looks worse than it is.”

      Katie hoped so, because it looked like a lake was in her kitchen and she couldn’t think that was a good thing.

      Joe slapped one hand on Rafe’s shoulder and said, “I should have checked his work personally before we tested it. Rafe’s been out of the game for a while, so he may be rusty. But he’s got potential.”

      Katie saw the flicker of annoyance cross Rafe’s features and she shared it.

      “Isn’t Steve the plumber?” she asked pointedly.

      “Yeah,” Joe said, “but Rafe did the joint work on that pipe.”

      “It was fine,” Rafe said. “That shouldn’t have happened.”

      “Sure, sure,” Joe told him, then looked at Katie. “My fault. Like I said, I should have kept a closer eye on the new guy’s work.”

      Rafe was biting his tongue, no doubt worried about defending himself and maybe losing his job. Then she realized that he could be fired anyway, if Joe decided that his work was too sloppy. So before she could stop herself, she stepped in to defend him. “Rafe does excellent work. He set up my temporary kitchen, allowing me to keep my business going. He’s stayed late everyday cleaning up and making sure I’m inconvenienced as little as possible. I’m sure that whatever happened with that pipe was unavoidable.”

      “Yeah,” a voice came rumbling up from under the house. “Found the problem. The first joint worked itself loose, so the water had to go somewhere. My bad. I’ll get it fixed and we’ll be back in business.”

      Katie gave Joe a look that said quite clearly, See? You blamed the wrong man. She smiled at Rafe and left them to clean up the mess and get back to work.

      “What was that all about?” Joe wondered.

      Steve poked his head up from under the floorboards and smiled widely. “Sounds to me like the boss lady has a thing for Rafe. Lucky bastard.”

      “Shut up, Steve,” Rafe said, but his gaze was locked on the empty doorway where Katie had been standing only a moment before.

      Joe was riding him because he could and Rafe would take it because it was all part of the bet he’d lost. Good-natured teasing was all part of working a job. But Katie’s defense of him had surprised him. Hell, he couldn’t even remember the last time someone had stood up for him—not counting his half-brothers and cousins.

      Katie Charles was like no one he’d ever met before. She didn’t want anything from him. Wasn’t trying to get on his good side. But then, that was because she thought his name was Rafe Cole.

      It would be an entirely different story if she knew he was a King.