an urchin, certain “J.T.” wasn’t going to care, she pulled open the door—and felt her heart slide neatly to her throat.
Nick stood on the front porch, his hands jammed at the waist of his worn jeans, and a faint V of sweat darkening the gray T-shirt stretched over his wide shoulders. The blue of his eyes looked as deep as sapphires as his glance ran from the scoop of her top, down the length of her bare legs and jerked back up to her face.
“I just wanted to let you know I was here before I started working,” he said without preamble, and turned away.
“Wait a minute.”
He was on the last of three steps leading from the wide wraparound porch when the door banged closed behind her. She stopped on the top one as he reached the walkway and reluctantly turned around.
“Grandma said no one would start for a couple of days.”
“Is my being here now a problem?”
She wasn’t surprised by the challenge in his tanned features. What struck her was the fatigue. It etched more deeply the faint white lines around his eyes, took some of the edge from his tone.
“I just wasn’t expecting anyone from your uncle’s company right now.” And I wasn’t expecting it to be you at all.
“My uncle’s already put in a full day,” he replied, explaining his own presence when she would have so clearly preferred someone else’s. “I had the time now, so I thought I’d get started.”
“So late?”
“There’re still a couple good hours of daylight left. My uncle said he’d have someone over in a couple of days,” he acknowledged, “but we can’t pull anyone off the other job we’re working just now. I know your grandmother wants to come home soon. If I work until dark for the next few evenings, I should have the ramp finished in less than a week.”
He looked from the steep pitch of the stairs to run another glance the length of her slender body. The look didn’t hold an ounce of interest or flattery. It was merely appraising, which was pretty much the same expression that had creased his features when he’d inspected the underpinnings of the side porch yesterday.
His attention caught on her raspberry-pink toenails before returning dispassionately to her face.
“By the way,” he said, looking as if he might as well get all of his business with her taken care of while he had her there, “when I ran the work order by the nursing home for your grandmother to sign a while ago, she said you were having trouble cleaning up some paint. She had me promise I’d show you the easiest way to clean it up. She also nitpicked the contract and talked me down ten percent on our bid. You can stop worrying about your grandmother’s mind,” he muttered flatly. “The woman knows exactly what she’s doing.”
He turned then, leaving her standing on the porch while he headed for the battered blue pickup he’d parked behind her bright yellow “bug.” None of the weariness she’d seen in his face was evident in his long-legged stride, or in his movements as he reached into the truck’s bed and pulled out a pick, a shovel and a bundle of wooden stakes.
She lost sight of him as he headed for the side of the house and disappeared beyond the showy blooms of the huge gardenia bush trellised at the corner of the building. From the dull clank of metal, she assumed he’d dropped what he’d carried somewhere opposite the double French doors leading from the dining room. He didn’t reappear. And she didn’t move. She just stood there staring at the foliage, feeling chastised and more than a little guilty.
There was no doubt from the fatigue in his eyes and the condition of his clothes that he’d already put in a full day. Yet he was willing to work evenings so an elderly woman wouldn’t have to spend any longer than necessary in a place she didn’t want to be.
He’d also made the effort, grudging as it was, to let her know he’d seen nothing to indicate there was a problem with her grandmother’s mental faculties. The fact that she’d insulted him when she’d expressed her worry about that particular concern only made his gesture that much more generous. He hadn’t had to bother with the reassurance at all.
She couldn’t believe how deeply his consideration touched her, or the ambivalence it caused her to feel. The thoughtfulness he’d just shown was the very sort of thing the man who’d been engaged to her sister had done in the past, the sort of consideration that had endeared him to her entire family. Yet he’d gone on to so callously betray Paige’s trust.
Amy hated what he had done. She hated why he’d done it. But if she were to be perfectly honest with herself, what she hated most was that, in a way, he’d hurt them all. He’d made himself a part of them, made them care about him, then walked out of their lives as if their existence hadn’t mattered to him at all.
The guilt she felt jerked in a different direction. Thinking of herself as an injured party was petty and selfish, and entirely irrelevant. Her dad had shelled out a small fortune in nonrefundable deposits for the wedding, so his anger had been understandable. Only the fact that Nick had sent him an unsolicited check a month later had stemmed the flow of his ire. And their mom had spent months excitedly planning with Paige, followed by weeks of consoling her heartbroken daughter. If anyone other than Paige had the right to feel injured, it would be them. Her own role had been completely insignificant.
They would be the first to point that out, too.
The hollow sensation in her stomach was too familiar for comfort. Determined to ignore the thoughts her family provoked, annoyed with herself for indulging them, she turned for the door just as Nick appeared by the gardenia bush on his way to the truck. Not caring to have him see her still standing there, she hurried inside.
She had run back upstairs to make sure she’d turned off the bathroom light and was passing through the dining room on the way to the kitchen when she caught sight of him through the panes of the glass doors. He was back on the porch, tape measure in hand.
She kept going, only to hear him tap on one of the small panes. Glancing past the long mahogany table with its white lace runner and huge ruby glass compote, she saw him hold up a quart-sized can.
“I might as well give this to you now,” he said the moment she swung in one of the doors. He held the can of solvent toward her. “Be sure to let it sit at least an hour and use it with gloves. Then scrape it off with a putty knife. If that doesn’t work, I’ll get you something else to try.”
He was doing what her grandmother had asked, telling her how to remove the paint. He also clearly intended to limit his assistance to supplying her with products and advice, not elbow grease, which was fine with her. Working with him would only add to the strain of his presence.
As long as she had advice available, however, she would take it.
“How do I make it sit on a vertical surface? It’s on the front of the cabinets.”
“She told me you were trying to get paint off linoleum.”
“That’s the only part I told her about,” she admitted, looking down at the directions. All she actually saw were the buckle of his belt, the worn white threads on the zipper of his faded blue jeans and the creases in the fabric above his powerful thighs.
“I’ll take a look at the cabinets,” he muttered, resigned.
“I need power, too.”
Her glance jerked from his groin, incomprehension covering her flush.
“Electricity,” he explained. “Is there an outlet I can use for a few minutes? I have to cut out a section of railing, and there are no outlets out here.” He nodded to the power saw and a huge coil of what looked like orange rope. “I have an extension cord that’ll reach just about anywhere.”
There was an outlet behind the buffet, but it would be easier to access one straight through in the kitchen. She told him that as she turned away, aware of his glance moving down her back as she padded across the hardwood floor and into the big, old-fashioned kitchen.