Blown Away: A Small Town Military Romance (The Moore Brothers Book 1) (6 page)

He’d have her sign a lease, but he wouldn’t really do anything with it. Just seemed like it be a better idea to keep this feeling like a business relationship. It was already going to be hard enough to keep his eyes off her tight little body. Well, not just his eyes. He’d like his whole body all over that tight little body.

So, the lease. He’d draw up a lease, make a few amendments to it so it was clear she owed him nothing but help on getting the place in order. He already had the utilities turned on and in his name. He didn’t think it’d take much effort to talk her into keeping them in his name. He suspected she didn’t was going to want to pay with cash for as many things as she could in an effort to stay off that asshole’s radar. She could just pay him each month and he’d pay the bill for her.

I could just keep the money in a little fund somewhere and give it back to her once she’s set up. Looks like she’s gonna need all the help she can get.
Ian laughed at himself and turned on the radio.
One thing at a time, Moore. How about you find out if she’s worth taking care of before you get yourself totally invested in taking care of her?

He kept an eye on her through the rearview, watched as she started bopping her head to whatever she had on the radio. Smiled as she started lip syncing. And loved it when they pulled up to a stop light and Juliet lifted her hands from the wheel, dancing in her seat and clearly singing at the top of her lungs. So much joy in that girl. A lot of it was hiding right now. Hiding under whatever fear she carried with her out the city. Or at least, he assumed she came from the city. Something about her screamed high-octane lifestyle. She was too comfortable shaking hands with a man. Her strong grip practiced, but not natural. He envisioned her wearing tight little gray suits, hair slicked back into some kind of militant bun. He liked this version of her better. Hair down and singing in the sunshine.

He finished the drive with his eyes mostly on her and pulled into the driveway of the little two story rental that Juliet was going to call home. It wasn’t much now, it truly needed a new everything, but he could see through the problem areas to what it was going to be when he was done with it.

Juliet was already out of her car, running up towards the front door with its wrap around porch, but she stopped short and just stared. As Ian climbed out of the truck, she lifted her face to the sky and spread her arms out to the side. Turned in a circle, eyes closed, white dress flaring out around her gorgeous legs. She came to a stop and beamed up at him.

“Oh, Ian,” she breathed. “It’s perfect.”

As she turned back to stare at the house, Ian had to admit, it really was.

Chapter Seven

Juliet

Ian left her to unpack while he went to go get a lease drawn up and Juliet wandered the house, pinching herself from time to time to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. It definitely needed work. Lots and lots of work. But, she could just see what it was going to be when they were done with it. Almost every room had floor to ceiling windows and the ones in the living room and master bedroom looked out over the beach. The kitchen was super dated and the stove could use one heck of a cleaning, but it had ample cabinet space and even more windows.

Juliet laughed. Ample cabinet space for all the stuff she
didn’t
have to put in them. Oh well, those things, the material things, she’d gather more of that along the way. For right now, she had all that needed and that was more than enough.
Well,
she thought,
let’s not take that positivity too far. Because right now, you don’t have a couch or a bed and that’s definitely gonna suck.

Determined not to let anything ruin her mood, she reminded herself that she at least had a roof over her head. “I’ll figure out the furniture thing soon enough,” she said to Lulu who perked her little ears and cocked her head to the side. “Maybe someone will have a yard sale or something. Or I could check out a Goodwill.” Now that she wasn’t going to have to use her money on rent each month, she had just a little more disposable income. If she could even find a decent couch, that’d serve as a bed, too, until she was more settled.

It took her all of four trips to bring her stuff into the house. She opened up the box labeled Kitchen and pulled out the dishes that Michael wouldn’t let her unpack at his penthouse. It felt really damn good to slide them up into a cabinet near the sink. Same thing with her silverware and the chunky coffee mug she’d bought from a street vendor when she’d first moved to the city. This stuff might not cost thousands of dollars, might not be fine china or name brand anything, but it was hers and that meant a lot.

The few clothes she’d brought with her looked silly hanging in the monster closet. Didn’t matter if she spread them all out or bunched them together, it just looked sparse. She looked around the empty master bedroom. Looks like sparse was going to be her new normal.

She laughed and it echoed in the vast room. The vast room with huge potential. It needed new paint, and the hardwood floors were damaged under the massive window, but paint was easy. And she bet that Ian knew what to do about the floor. She could just see some gauzy white fabric draped around the window, pooling on the floor and framing the view to the ocean. She’d angle her bed so it was the last thing she saw each night and the first thing she saw each morning.

There was only one thing left to do before she could consider herself completely moved in. She bounded down the stairs, and out the front door, crossed the sun-scorched porch and took the steps two at a time. Lulu chased after her, barking in confusion at her excitement.

The houseplant she’d had since college was in the backseat, probably wilting in the heat. She yanked open the car door and picked the thing off the floor behind the driver’s seat. It had started as just a little shoot of a plant in a pot that fit on her desk near her computer. Now, it was almost waist high and in a pot so heavy, Juliet grunted with effort as she pulled it out of the car. It would go right under the windows in the living room, so that when she looked out towards the water, she could see her old life and her new life at the same time.

The pot hit the ground with a heavy thunk and the leaves shook with the impact. With a gentle heave, Juliet slid the thing into place and stood back to admire her handiwork. Not bad, if she did say so herself.

“So,” came a voice behind her, “what do you think?”

Juliet whirled and her heart stuttered when she saw the shape of a man in the door she’d left open while dealing with the plant. Logic told her it was Ian, but fear told her it was Michael and it took her a second to get logic and emotion on the same page.

“I love it,” she said. “I mean, I know it needs work, but I can just
see
what it’s going to be when we’re done, you know? Those windows! And the wrap around porch. And the kitchen … Ian, it’s a dream come true.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far quite yet. You haven’t seen the work we’ll have to do to get us from where we are to where we’re going.”

“I’m not afraid of a little hard work.” She couldn’t wait to show him how much help she could be. She could do the painting in the evenings while he wasn’t here. And she might not have done a lot of construction work in the past, but she was a fast learner and not afraid to sweat. He only needed to tell her what to do and she’d be there, ready to help.

“We’ll see how you feel about that tomorrow afternoon.”

Clearly, Ian was going to need some convincing as to her worthiness as an assistant. “Never underestimate a girl who’s survived in the city for more than a year and hasn’t started talking to inanimate objects yet. You gotta have some fight in you to survive that place.”

“I don’t doubt it. But Juliet?” Her heart surged to hear him say her name. “You talk to that little dog all the time.”

“That’s not the same!”

Ian pushed off the wall and sauntered over to drop some paperwork on the kitchen counter. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. I’m just saying, maybe you’re not as tough as you think you are.”

Juliet made a face. He was trying to be silly, and she wouldn’t dare show him that he’d hurt her feelings, but he’d touched a nerve. That’s all she ever heard in the business world.
You’ve gotta be tough. Don’t let them see you cry. Be stronger than the strongest man.
She’d taken all that advice to heart and built a totally impenetrable wall of sturdy resilience around herself and donned it each morning like armor. She’d show Ian Moore just how tough she could be.

Keeping a smile on her face, she crossed the room to lean on the counter next to him, fully aware of the millimeter of space between their shoulders.  “Tell me what we have here.”

Ian straightened and Julz immediately missed having him in her personal space. “What we have here, Ms. Lane, is a not so standard rental agreement.”

He walked her through the thick packet, highlighting the fact that Lulu was allowed, but would henceforth be called Chopper. Juliet held up a hand. “Hold on Lt. Moore, I absolutely will not agree to call Lulu Chopper.” The little dog perked up and ran over to Julz, her nails clicking across the wood floors.

“I’m not sure how you came to the conclusion that this contract was negotiable, Ms. Lane.”

“Every contract is negotiable.”

“Fine. How about you can continue to call her Lulu, but I get permission to call her whatever the hell I feel like?” He paused, pen poised over the paper, a charming smile warming up the whole empty house. Juliet couldn’t help but compare this experience with signing a contract with Ian to her Dominant/submissive contract with Michael. It was night and day. Cold and hot. She couldn’t imagine Michael having the confidence to joke around like this.

“Fine, I’ll agree to that,” said Juliet and Ian dropped his pen to the paper, scribbling an addendum into the margin.

“Initial here,” he said, all business. “And here,” he said, pointing to a different box after she scrawled her JL underneath his tight handwritten note.

“Not so fast, my friend. I never sign something without knowing what I’m agreeing to.”

“Savvy business practice, Ms. Lane.” Ian lifted the paper from the counter and cleared his throat, and intoned in a deep, overly professional voice. “The tenant,” he paused and looked up from the paper. “That’s you.”

“Thank you for clarifying.”

“Of course. That’s what I’m here for.” He cleared his throat again and continued reading in his silly deep voice. “The tenant agrees that the owner…” He paused again. “That’s me.”

“I’ve signed a lease before, you know.”

“Just don’t want you to get into anything you’re not prepared to handle.”

“I think I’ve got this. Please continue.”

“Alright. Just trying to be helpful.”

Juliet made a face and slapped Ian on the arm. “You’ve been very helpful. Now, would you please just read the item?”

“As you wish. It says here that the tenant agrees that the owner has the right to furnish the space as he sees fit at any time during the term of this rental agreement. If the owner doesn’t believe that the resident’s furnishings are fit for the space, he has the right to replace them.”

Juliet worked hard to keep her face from showing the great big
go to hell
that came roaring up from somewhere deep in her belly. How dare he assume that she wasn’t going to be able to furnish the place properly? He sounded like Michael now, assuming that he knew what was best and her stuff most definitely wasn’t. Although, he
was
going to want to rent this place out eventually. It did make some kind of sense that he’d want to make sure the interior was ready to wow the clients who walked through the place. It wasn’t fair to take her issues with Michael out on Ian.

That didn’t mean she had to like it. With a curt nod, she initialed the stupid box.

“Excellent, Ms. Lane,” he said, drawing out the first syllable of the sentence and rubbing his hands together, looking perfectly diabolical.

“Something tells me I’ve just walked right into a trap.”

“Whatever would make you believe such a thing?” he asked, putting on a wounded face. He walked her through the rest of the agreement, which was pretty standard except for the parts that outlined that she was to keep any receipts for items purchased for the renovations and that the utilities would stay in his name and she was to pay him.

It all looked on the up and up and she signed without hesitating, thinking again of the last agreement she’d signed. There’d been butterflies in her belly back then, too. A sense of starting out on a grand adventure. Hopefully, this agreement really was the beginning of something wonderful.

Ian gathered the papers in his hand and then took his time surveying the empty living room and adjoining dining room. “You know what? I officially deem your furnishings unfit for this space.” He looked towards the still open front door. “James!” he called. “It’s safe. You can come in now!”

Juliet blinked as a slightly smaller version of Ian bounded through the front door. “Hey there,” he said, extending a hand and exposing a tattoo that worked its way from his wrist up into the sleeve of his t-shirt. “I’m James, Ian’s younger, and totally better than him at everything, brother.”

She shook his hand, her mouth still hanging open, looking from James to Ian. “Pleased to meet you,” she muttered, her manners on auto-pilot.

“Back atcha,” he said and winked before turning to Ian. “Does she know? Where do we start?”

“Does she know what?” asked Juliet, totally confused.

Ian took both her shoulders in her hands and smiled. “Like I said, I’ve deemed your lack of furnishings unfit and have brought you some replacements.”

Shock dropped her jaw again. “I can’t … I mean, I don’t need …” She was at a loss. She totally needed furniture, but she really didn’t want to take
more
from this guy than she already had.
No more handouts, remember?