Big Bad Wolf (4 page)

“All my tees are in large and extra large sizes,” she countered, starting up the truck.
“Unless you’re a three hundred-pound football player, you’ll fit.”

“Why the large size?”
It fit fine, although the printed message—‘I’m woman.
I’m strong.
I’m tired.’—didn’t.

“Comfort.
I like my clothes loose about me.”
She looked at the message emblazoned across his chest and laughed in surprised amusement.
“I’m sorry.
That’s the only clean shirt I ha
ve left.”

Nick liked the sound of her laughter.
It was a low bubbly chuckle, like a child’s.
“I hope you aren’t inviting other workers to lunch,” he said.
“I hate to declare that ‘I am woman’ at first introduction.”
The dimples appearing in her cheeks were captivating.
He wanted to make her smile like that again.
“Where are we going?”

“We’re going to Hungry Boys,” Jaymee announced, still grinning, “a great diner.
Full of macho men at lunch.
You’ll like it.
Of course,” she added considerately, giving him a sidelong glance, “you might be too tired—”

He looked down at his shirt again.
“It all depends,” he said lightly.

Dangerous ground, she told herself.
She endeavored to change the subject.
“So, Langley, where were you before you arrived here?”

“Nick.”

“Hmm?”

“Call me Nick.
Or Nicholas, if you like.
”

“OK, Nicholas.
”

Interesting.
She didn’t choose Nick, like most people would.
“Is Jay your real name?”

“No.”
She frowned.
Maybe he didn’t want her to know anything about him.
“And
you’re changing the subject.”

“What is it?”

Two could play at being obtuse.
“What, you mean
the subject?”

“You know perfectly well I was asking about your real name.”
The thread of mockery in his voice was unmistakable.
“Is it a roofing secret?”

“A roofing secret?”
She was beginning to enjoy bantering
with him
.

“Yeah, like why not cutting the valleys would leave stains on the roof,” Nick replied.

Jay pulled into the parking lot of Hungry Boys.
She got out and rolled up th
e window
.
“If you leave the valley uncut in the summer,” she explained, “the sun melts the tar strip on th
e underside of the shingle lying on
the roof.”

“Ah, I get it.
The sun bakes it and the tar sticks on the roof, staining it.”
He locked up his side of the truck and fell in stride with her.

“Strong, as well as smart,” Jaymee quipped.
“The men are going to love you in there.”

“Then I’m going to have to place myself in your care,” he calmly retorted.
“I can’t fight them off all by myself.”

Somehow, she had the impression he wouldn’t have any problems fighting off anyone,
male or female.
At the entrance, she held out a protective hand, a grave expression on her face.

“Walk behind me then, Nicholas
.
The best way to ward off unwanted attention is to let them know you belong to me.”

She strode in through the doors without a backward glance.

Stupid, stupid, stupid.
What the hell made her say that?

Hungry Boys was its usual crowded noon business.
Jaymee liked it there—the food was a disgustingly generous portion for a decent price and just the way she liked it, with no thought for one’s health.
And the desserts would defeat the most voracious appetite.

They both sat at the counter.
Two tall glasses of iced tea immediately appeared in front of them and the waitress patiently waited as they drained them of the sweet liquid.

“Thanks, Mindy.”
Jaymee smiled.
“You’re an angel.”

Mindy, a tall platinum blond with bold eyes, refilled the glasses.
“I’m the angel among the animals,” she acknowledged, grinning back, then slid a long look at Nick.
“And what type of animal is he?”

Jaymee chose to ignore the question. “What’s the special today?”

Her friend wasn’t the type to back away when something caught her interest.
Mindy turned to Nick, jutting out her generous bosom.
“Do you want to have the special today?
It’s definitely for a hungry boy.”

Jaymee sighed.
She recognized that particular look.
Mindy was going to have her claws in her new worker and no one was going to stand in the way.
Somehow, the idea didn’t please her, but before she could say anything, Nick drawled, “I’ll take what the boss is having.”

Mindy’s eyes narrowed.
“The boss, huh?” she scoffed at Jaymee.
“Baked chicken and vegetables.
Chicken rice soup.”

“I’ll take it,” Jaymee told her.

“And you, sweetheart?”
Mindy’s bright red lips pouted prettily.
Jaymee rolled her eyes.

“Sounds good,” answered Nick, returning an easy smile, amusement lacing his low, gravelly voice.

Mindy scribbled the order down and handed a straw to Jaymee, poking it right under her nose.
“Looks good too, girlfriend,” she said loudly, then disappeared.

She allowed the embarrassed silence to hang as long as she could, then finally mumbled, “Sorry, Mindy is just a joker.”
The last thing she wanted was for him to think she was after him.

“That’s OK.
After all,” he solemnly reminded her, “I needed to establish I belonged to you.”

Her tan couldn’t hide the deep blush staining her cheeks.
She shouldn’t have joked with him.
Now he was too familiar with her, and that was always a no-no in her book about wolves.
She decided to change
the subject back to him again.

“Tell me, what exactly do you do?
I know it’s not construction.”
She looked at those elegant hands.
If not for the calluses, they could have been a surgeon’s hands, with those long artistic fingers that made her look down forlornly at her own short ones.

“I do all kinds of things,” Nick answered.
“It all depends on where I am.
”
He wasn’t technically lying.

Jaymee too
k
a sip of her tea.
He was hiding something, and must have been doing it for some time, sliding easily out of answering questions with hardly a pause.
She didn’t want to pry, rarely cared about her workers’ sordid pasts, but his deliberate evasions challenged her.
It had been too long since she had been so intrigued.

“What sort of things?” she probed.
“And where were you when you were doing them?”

Nick’s slate-colored eyes were a few degrees cooler as he contemplated her.
“I survive,” he said, quietly, remembering the fiery explosion
which had
nearly killed him.
He grimly wondered about the others.
Had their boats blown up too?
“I always survive, no matter where I am.”

Before she could push further, the food arrived, all at once—soup, meal, vegetables, potatoes.
Mindy arranged the dishes in front of them.
“Anything else?” she asked.

“No, thanks, Min,” Jaymee said, digging into her food.

“You eat too much,” observed the waitress.

“I’m a hungry woman,” retorted Jaymee, slurping up her soup.

Mindy’s eyes twinkled back at her.
Leaning forward, she jerked her head meaningfully in Nick’s direction and stage-whispered, “You’re hungry for the wrong thing.”

Jaymee choked on her soup.
Nick obligingly patted her on the back.
To her relief, the waitress left them alone for the rest of the meal, only coming back to refill the glasses with iced tea, casting obvious glances at Nick.
Jaymee ignored her and concentrated on eating her lunch in a hurry to avoid another comment from her friend.

Nick ate quietly, studying the woman next to him.
That temporarily put off her questions.
She was persistent when she decided on something, and downright as good at evading questions as he was.
She sidestepped any gestures to get closer to her like a seasoned defensive tackle.
It was fear that lurked in her eyes whenever he manipulated their conversation off safe topics.
It was the kind of wariness that was very seductive to a man like him, who made it his business to find out what put fear in the opposition.

It wasn’t just
the
obstinate touch-me-not façade she put up that attracted him.
He wasn’t sure what it was about her that made him want to find out more.
He had a weakness for tall, leggy blondes, and she definitely didn’t fit that description, but every time she threw him one her wide-eyed challenging looks, his body tightened up in male response.

She wasn’t exactly beautiful. Her eyes were small and slightly tilted at the corners, but they were bright and inquisitive like a bird’s.
A strange muddy color, sometimes hazel, sometimes almost green.
She had an expressive nose that she wrinkled whenever she was thinking, and a willful pouty mouth, the kind that belonged to a woman used to getting her own way.
Her hair, N
unruly mop
which
was always secured behind her, was thick and irresistibly unmanageable.
Just like the owner.
All willful and unmanageable passion held back by a dirty, frayed ribbon.
He wondered what it would be like to snap that ribbon, and let loose all those glorious emotions she was desperately keeping under control.
It was that edgy wariness that added fuel to this strange urge growing in him—to go after and pounce.
He blinked at the image those words brought up, recalling quite easily the toned body under the baggy tee
-
shirt and the surprising swell of her breasts.

Jay Barrows was a contradiction in demeanor and attitude.
Her body language was carefully asexual.
Everything about her was concentrated on being efficient and professional.
Yet he still noticed those little feminine things about her—the way she took off her shirt to clean herself, like any typical woman would after a hot workout, the way she moved, and most telling of all, definitely the way she kept him at a distance.
Again, he felt the urge
to find out what made her tick.

They were almost done with their meal when someone came to stand between them at the counter.
“How are you supposed to make money wasting time sitting on your butt?”
The voice was slightly slurred.

Jaymee stiffened and slowly whirled her stool around to face the intruder.
Nick looked at the weather-beaten face with the bloodshot eyes.
The telltale odor betrayed the old man’s condition, even though he appeared steady enough, glaring down at Jaymee.

“I’m having lunch,” Jaymee calmly stated the obvious.

“You can’t eat at the job?
Do you think you can get work done driving around town in
the
truck?” the man sneered.
Nick considered interrupting, but Jay’s reaction stopped him.
Somehow, he knew she wouldn’t just take that kind of talk from anyone.
Therefore, this older man must be—what, a relative?
When Jay still didn’t say anything, the old man continued, “And what is this about firing Chuck and Rich?
They’ve been working for me since you were still Miss High and Mighty College Student.
How are you going to get work done shorthanded?”

“I was wondering when you’d show up.
I have a few errands to run and I felt like eating here,” she finally cut into the tirade.
“As for firing Chuck and Rich, it’s none of your damned business.
Everything’s taken care of.”

“It’s my business and don’t you forget it, Jaymee girl!”

Jaymee, Nick repeated silently.
Jaymee Barrows.

“You need to go home, Dad,” Jaymee quietly said.

“Don’t talk down to me!”
His voice was higher now, attracting attention.

Nick came to a decision.
“Come on, let’s go,” he said, standing up.

Jaymee knew,
any minute now, her father was going to go into one of his rants.
She hadn’t told him about her decision to fire the old-timers precisely to avoid this.
She nodded and caught Mindy’s quick eyes.