What a Bachelor Needs (Bachelor Auction Book 4) (7 page)

He came back towards her, stood at the bottom of her front step while she leaned against her front door and smiled because she couldn’t help it. “Thanks for all your hard work today.”

“If I stayed another hour I could get that stain on the floor and then it could dry overnight.”

“You want to keep going?”

“It’s not finished.”

She was beginning to get a hint as to what made this man a World Champion. “All right. Anything I can help with?”

“Good answer,” he said.

Ten minutes later, Claire played in her playpen in the hallway, in full view, while Jett showed Mardie the fine art of applying paint stain to slightly damp, pre-conditioned timber.

It was all about having the right tools for the job.

And an eye for detail.

And patience.

And music, by way of the classic rock that emanated from the battered radio sitting on the window sill.

“How did you hurt your knee?” she asked, because he was favoring it slightly as he worked the applicator mop over the floor boards.

“Couldn’t land a jump.”

“I thought you were a downhill skier?”

“Hence my aerial landing problems.”

“Do you get injured often?”

“More and more as I get older. I’ve been pushing my luck and my body for a lot of years now.” He dipped his applicator in the paint and loaded the amount he wanted. “Might need to call it a day soon. Go out while I’m on top. Try and win one more World Championship and then stop.”

“Is that even in your vocabulary?”

“Getting too old to compete is in every athlete’s vocabulary.”

“Will you miss it?”

Jett shrugged. “The competition, yes. As for the skiing, I’ll keep doing it for as long as I’m able.”

“Will you teach skiing?”

“Why? You want to learn?”

“I didn’t mean me. I can get down the side of a mountain in time for dinner, thank you very much.”

“You ski?” Jett’s face lit up like a kid’s at candy time.

“Would you think less of me if I say that I do it for the scenery rather than the physical endeavor?” she said, and waited for him to wince.

He didn’t wince.

“A perfectly valid reason to ski,” he said placidly.

“As for speed, a gentle, well-worn slope suits me perfectly… Did you just shudder?”

“Yes. With delight because I know you’re only teasing.”

“You wish.”

“Yes, yes I do.” He nodded. “Frequently. Earnestly. Please tell me that your heart doesn’t beat a little faster at the sight of an isolated mountain range covered in a foot of fresh powder. How can you not look at it and immediately want to put tracks in it?”

“I have my comfort zone, you have yours. We can’t all be speed demons.”

“Floor’s done though,” he said with no little satisfaction, and indeed they’d stained their way to the door. “What do you think?”

“I think it looks beautiful.” She’d painted the walls in this room the first week she’d moved in, back when she’d had more hope of getting rid of the carpet smell without having to get rid of the carpet. The walls glowed ivory and she’d painted the window frame white. One day there would be drapes to cover that big bay window and they would be exactly what she wanted and she’d never get sick of looking at them. She’d bring the couch and the chairs in; she’d buy an old sideboard. Scatter soft blankets and cushions around within easy reach. “How much do I owe you for today’s materials?”

He fished a receipt from his back pocket and handed it to her. It was a receipt for a four gallon tin of walnut wood stain. “So who paid for the rest of it?”

“Oh, you mean the mops?”

“Yes. And the sanding machines and the sandpaper, and the tin of whatever it is that you’re going to put on the floor next.”

“That went on my brother’s account. It’s stuff we use all the time. It’s not specific to this job at all.”

“Unh huh,” she said dryly.

“Did I mention that this brother bought me my first set of pro skis? I didn’t have the money. He did. Did I mention that he wanted to expand the business a few years back, and I bought in?”

“You’re trying to sidetrack me with information that’s irrelevant.”

“Yes, yes I am.”

“I want that other receipt.”

He took the paint mop from her hand. “I’ll try and find it.”

“Try real hard. Meanwhile, would you like a chocolate éclair? I meant to offer earlier, during the afternoon break you didn’t take.”

“You bought me a treat?”

“I did.”

There was the kid in the candy shop again. “Let me clean this up,” he said. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

“You want coffee with it?”

“If you hand me coffee, I will love you forever.”

“I bet you say that to all the baristas.”

“And you would be one hundred percent correct.”

No shame, just a smile and a view of him walking away, and, oh, she could get used to ogling that perfect rear end.

“Handsome man,” she murmured, as Claire lifted her arms towards her. “Is that what you’re thinking, baby? Want to play eat the spaghetti and flirt with the pretty man who flirts right back at you? Yes?”

Yes.

“I’m out of practice when it comes to flirting,” she said. “And I’m counting on you to weigh in when the going gets awkward.”

Her baby let forth with a string of incomprehensible encouragement.

“Perfect.” Yes. “That’s very helpful. Do that.”

*

It wasn’t any
great desire for sweet pastry and custard that made Jett head round to the back door once he’d finished stowing his gear. It was his ever-growing interest in the woman who offered it. Slender to a fault and far more serious than he was used to, there was something about Mardie that made him want to know more. Even at school, there’d been something there, on his side at least.

He’d looked. And he’d liked what he’d seen.

He liked the way she moved – a pleasing mix of grace and economy. He liked that she worked hard for what she wanted and that she had goals for the future. This house. Claire’s well-being.

He liked the way she looked at him when she thought he wasn’t looking.

He was waiting for a cue from her as to what she wanted from him, beyond his handyman skills.

If anything.

He kept the kitchen bench between them as he took a seat. He gave her the space to make coffee and set an éclair in front of him, fresh from the box it came in, and now young Claire was eyeing him narrowly and looking down at her plate of spaghetti and then back at what he was eating. She was trying to eat hers with a spoon, heaven help her, and she was mum mum mum-ing her way towards actually getting some in her mouth until he picked his éclair up in his hand and bit into it and then, yeah…it was all food and fists and completely not his fault that she abandoned the spoon in favor of gathering up her spaghetti in her hand and shoving it directly in her mouth.

“Your daughter has a fine appreciation for food,” he murmured once he’d swallowed his first mouthful of éclair.

“Is that what you’re calling it?”

Yes. A firm nod and a snort as Claire offered him a handful of her spaghetti and dropped it on the floor when he didn’t take it. “Can she have some of mine?” He made sure to break some éclair from the clean end. Hygiene, and all that.

“There’ll be no going back if you give it to her,” Mardie said solemnly. “You’ll be custard man.”

“Meaning?”

“There’ll be adoration. Squealing. The expectation of more custard. And heartbreak when you leave.”

“Well, that sounds… familiar. I’m all in.” He’d been called worse. He handed a piece of the sweet over to Claire without dropping it. Ever the competitor. He gave Mardie some éclair too and the slow smile that spread across her face dug deep into his gut and stayed there.

“Do you ever take anything seriously?” she asked.

“Sure I do.”

“Name something.”

“Safety. You need a new lock for your front door. And locks on all your windows.”

“It’s on the to-do list.”

“It’s not on the one you gave me.”

“Moving on,” she said. “What else do you get serious about?”

“Competition.”

“Are you a sore loser?”

“Yes.” Jett offered up a wry smile. “If I don’t ski my best it takes me a while to get the disappointment out of my system.”

“I can see how that might be essential for someone who competes at your level.”

“I’ve got my sulking down to approximately the time it takes me to rub down, take a hot shower, get dressed, and find whoever’s celebrating their win.”

“Sounds like you’ve got it sorted.”

“Been working on it for years.” He watched her smile play peek-a-boo with her mouth again. “My turn. What do you take seriously?”

“Everything.”

“Really?”

“Pretty much.”

“That’s not how I remember you from school.” She’d been vibrant and fun-loving back then. Daring, even. “Weren’t you the girl who used to sneak into the Wolf’s Den to play eight ball?”

“That was a seriously considered plan,” she said with exaggerated gravity. “Jack Carlton played there, and the only way I was ever going to get him to give me a game was to beat everyone else at the table. I did it. I beat everyone else.”

“Did he play you?”

“He had to. Wolf’s Den rules.”

“What happened?”

“He ran the table. I never even got a shot in.”

“Ouch.”

Mardie sighed heavily. “Tell me about it.”

“Did you try again?”

“No, I got banned from the Wolf’s Den for being underage after that.”

“Of course you did.” Jett smothered a grin by taking a huge mouthful of éclair, and it took him some time to swallow it, especially given that Miss Mimic over there in the high chair had decided that she too would stuff her mouth with more éclair than she could manage.

He chewed.

She chewed.

He kept his mouth closed, just.

Claire…tried.

Resolutely, he averted his gaze so that he didn’t choke on his stupid smile and spoil everything. He swallowed hard. He tried not to notice a small copycat cherub.

“Do you still play?”

“I’ll play my father every now and then but I’m embarrassingly out of practice.”

“Do you still love to play?”

“Yeah.” She smiled ruefully. “It never gets old. But you have to put the time in, and I don’t have that kind of time anymore. You also have to have someone who wants to give you a game, and I got sick of begging.”

“No women’s comp?”

“Not around here. All the big comps are mixed, by the way, not that women put in much of an appearance come finals time.” She shrugged. “In the end, I didn’t want the dream bad enough to accept the challenges. No regrets.”

“Give me a game one day? Show me a few tricks to impress fellow skiers with?”

“You’re on.”

“You have a little bit of cream,” he said, and touched his finger to his upper lip. “Right there.”

It was very distracting.

She tried to wipe at it with the pad of her thumb.

“Wrong side.” And now he was wholly fixated on her lips. “Remember that night half-a-dozen of us caught a lift out to River Bend in the back of someone’s pickup?”

She found the cream, transferred it to her thumb and stuck her thumb in her mouth. When her thumb reappeared moments later, the cream was gone. “I remember.”

“I nearly kissed you.”

“I nearly let you.” She lowered her gaze to the cracked Formica benchtop. “Why didn’t you?”

“Too many people.” For some reason, he’d wanted their first kiss to be private. He leaned forward, elbows on the counter. “We could try again now. Could prove interesting.”

“Jett Casey, are you between girlfriends again?”

“I am,” he confessed gravely. He hadn’t hooked up with anyone for well over six months. “I’m free and clear. You?”

“Yes. Well clear. Why do you want to kiss me?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“I’m just curious.”

“You want my honest answer?”

“Yes.”

All right. Or maybe it wouldn’t be right at all. “Don’t get mad.”

“Oh, this is going to be good,” she mumbled.

“When I held you that night in the alley, I—” There was really no delicate way to say it. “Responded. Slightly. And it wasn’t with disgust. And ever since then I’ve wondered whether I have this… let’s call it a kink…for a woman who’s leaning all over me.”

“Dazed and half unconscious?”

“I’m skipping that bit.”

She looked a little horrified.

“You did ask,” he reminded her. “And seeing as we’re doing honesty… This is the honesty kitchen, I’m sure of it. There’s nothing
anyone
can do in this kitchen except retreat inwards and engage in self-reflection—”

That one got a smile out of her.

“—so seeing as we’re doing painful honesty, I figure this for a perfect opportunity to test my, er, preferences.”

“By pretending that we’re sixteen again, in the back of a pickup and it’s summer time and we’re about to kiss?”

“Perfect.”

“We have an audience,” she said, glancing towards her daughter.

“I’ll keep it PG. We should probably determine what
you
want from this kiss as well.”

“I’m in it strictly for the potential pleasure and the curiosity,” she said. “Word has it that your kisses are excellent.”