AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Tasha was clearly a lost soul. Why else would such a beautiful, obviously capable woman run away from her career to hide in the wilds of Tahoe in a run-down shack? What had caused the pain in her eyes that had materialized more than once during their conversation?
Barely an hour ago, Daniel had been wishing for a perfect woman. What he’d found instead was a prickly yet adorably talkative new neighbor.
One whose mysteries he couldn’t help but want to unravel, even if getting involved with a woman who obviously had big problems was the very last thing he should do.
Chapter Five
Tasha opted for indoor work the next day. She was afraid Daniel would come back if he saw her outside and got worried that she might climb up on her roof again. An even more likely possibility was that she’d go running down if she caught a glimpse of him. Her self-control was barely hanging by a thread after tossing and turning all night on her freezing-cold air bed.
Any way she tried to turn Daniel over in her head, she couldn’t make him into a bad guy. Everything about him screamed helpful and kind and generous.
Not to mention the fact that his bed, she was certain, would be cozy warm.
Especially with him in it.
“You cannot think about his bed,” she chastised herself in a loud voice. “Or him working shirtless and getting all sweaty and—”
She groaned. She was so bad at this. Bad at ignoring her need to talk to another person. And also bad at ignoring other needs she’d sworn had died forever the day she’d learned what a fraud Eric was. Fortunately, thinking about her ex worked like a charm to erase the super-sexy visions dancing in her head.
Determined to make good headway, she got to work replacing the rotten boards in the bedroom. For the first fifteen minutes, everything went swimmingly. All she needed to do was keep herself from thinking about Daniel and how sweet and helpful he’d been yesterday and how much she’d wanted to—
The drill bit snapped in two.
“I’m cursed.” All she’d done was think about Daniel and the bit had broken. It was karmic punishment, she was sure.
She grabbed her toolbox and rooted around for another bit, but she was clean out. Which meant a trip to the hardware store in town, thirty minutes away.
Or, the devil inside her head suggested wickedly, she could ask Daniel if he had a bit to spare.
She groaned, dropping her head in her hands.
“Everything going okay?”
She whipped around, almost tripping. The very man who was distracting her beyond reason stood in her roughly framed doorway. Arms crossed over his chest, he wore a lumberman’s flannel shirt rolled up to the elbows and faded jeans that hugged every muscle.
Before she could reply—she was too busy drooling for her brain to work properly—he noticed the broken drill bit.
“I’ve got some extra bits if you need one.”
“I do, actually.”
“Great. I came to see if you wanted to share some breakfast with me.” He grinned, and for the life of her, she couldn’t help grinning right back. “Fresh-baked doughnuts.”
In other circumstances, she would have forced herself to say no. But she really did need that drill bit. And with all the conflicting thoughts and emotions roiling around inside her after he’d left her yesterday, she hadn’t been able to face food either last night or this morning.
Still, she reminded herself as they walked the short distance down the mountain to his house, she needed to make it absolutely clear—to herself even more than to him—that she wouldn’t stay any longer than it took to grab the drill bit and stuff a doughnut in her mouth.
But as she walked into his house, all of her resolutions disappeared. “Wow. This is amazing.”
She wanted to stay forever.
The massive room stretched from the front door to wall-to-wall windows overlooking a huge deck and stone fire pit, with a view of sparkling water and snow-drenched mountains. The great room had a twelve-foot pitched ceiling with open beams that loomed above her and a magnificent stone fireplace dominating an angled wall built specifically for it. The interior rooms were divided by log walls, and through an archway cut in the logs, she could see the space for a dining room and kitchen.
Right now, it contained only a small fridge, plus a microwave and coffee machine on a cart big enough for a cutting board and a cabinet underneath. But she could see what his home would become—and it was breathtaking.
As breathtaking as its owner.
He showed her the guest bedrooms, plus a game room large enough for a pool table, then the master suite with a sitting area in front of the huge windows and another fireplace, which had a flue but no stonework yet.
