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“Apparently that storm we had the other night was a bit too much for one of the old oak trees on his property, and the wind actually uprooted the damned thing.”
Jackson let out a stunned whistle as he popped the locks on his pickup truck. “Did it hit the house?” Those trees had to be sixty feet tall. Oh, man, this job was going to suck.
Luke snorted. “Relax, I’m not sending you on a demolition. The tree fell across the backyard, but it wiped out part of the deck in the process. The arborists just got done hauling away the last of the tree, and now that we can get a good look at the damage, Logan wants us to see if anything can be salvaged. I told him not to get his hopes up, but if anyone could do it, it’d be you.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Jackson grinned and slid into the driver’s seat. At six foot four, fitting his large frame behind the wheel wasn’t an easy job. “Tell old man Logan his deck is in good hands. Or what’s left of it, anyhow. I’m on my way.”
One of the beautiful things about living in a small town was that it was just that, and the trip out to Rural Route Four took less than ten minutes. Jackson pulled up to the tasteful little bungalow and got out, inhaling the fresh summer air as he sauntered to the front of the house to ring the bell, just in case.
The strains of some old R&B song were clear from the porch, even through the firmly closed front door, and damn, guess he’d been wrong about the house being vacant, after all. Jackson rang the bell, but after the second try, he gave up. Clearly, someone was having the Tuesday morning of a lifetime. He chuckled, picturing some hard-of-hearing old lady getting her Motown groove on inside the house. Far be it for him to interrupt a good time, he thought as he ambled around toward the backyard. All he needed to do was take a look at the damage in the backyard, anyway. In and out, no problem.
“Huh,” Jackson murmured, realizing that the muffled music was decidedly clearer back here. He recognized the song blaring through the open windows as an oldie his sisters used to sing along with on the ancient sound system in their bedroom. Right, yeah. Something about being a natural woman. He whistled along with the song as he approached the deck, most of which was thankfully still attached to the house.
“Well, at least it’s ground level.” He shrugged and examined the deck with a practiced eye. Although much of it was still intact, the tree had taken out the entire far row of railings and pickets, along with a good couple feet of floor boards, clipping what had once been a square into a rectangle with one hell of a rough edge.
The three stairs leading from the yard to what remained of the deck were still anchored in place, and Jackson mounted them easily even though the far side of the deck had sustained enough damage to make it a bad idea. It was the only way he was going to get a good enough look at the point of impact; plus, if the boards ended up giving way, it wasn’t as if he’d fall more than a foot or two.
He was crouched down low to examine the missing boards and busted railing when the most horrific attempt at song filtered loudly through the screen door.
“Ouch.” Jackson winced at the racket over his shoulder, biting back a laugh. It was absolutely wrong to eavesdrop on a client belting out oldies in the privacy of her own rental, even if shewasdoing it with nothing but the rolling screen that accompanied her sliding glass door between them. The woman’s voice was an audio train wreck, and his curiosity jumped like a trout at daybreak. One peek wouldn’t hurt, would it?
As soon as he caught sight of the woman through the screen door, all bets for a quick look-see were off. The image of an old lady went up in smoke, replaced by a curvy, dark-haired woman in a skimpy bathrobe. Her eyes were shut tight, pretty face turned up to the living room ceiling as she wailed out the song with all her might. Common decency dictated he step back from the house and pretend he hadn’t seen her. He needed to walk away, and he needed to do it pronto.
Nope. Not happening. This woman was fuckingbeautiful. Even if she did sound like a bag full of pissed off kittens.
Jackson stood, mesmerized, as she moved in place to the slow beat of the music. She couldn’t be more than five feet tall, but had an air of strength belied her stature. Muscular calves tapered to her ankles, nearly covered by a pair of floppy yellow socks. A handful of dark tendrils came loose from the knot on top of her head, perfectly framing her Mediterranean features. She stood in the middle of the living room, eyes squeezed shut to serenade God knows who, and propriety be damned, he couldn’t rip his eyes from her.
Every time she undulated to the sultry rhythm of the song, the belt on her bathrobe slipped lower over her hips, loosening it just enough to reveal the thin white tank top beneath. The cotton stretched over her chest as she swayed, and she crooned again to the climbing music.
“You make me feel, you make me feel, you make me feel like a natural womaaaaaaan!” With each breath, the generous curve of her breasts pressed against the fabric, clearly outlining the woman’s tight, shadowy nipples.
For a split second, all Jackson could think wasoh, hell yes.
But then his decency kicked in, hard and fast. He averted his heated face, raising one hand to knock on the metal door frame of the screen. In that same instant, a blood curdling scream ripped through the air over the music, followed by a string of curse words that made Jackson wonder if he should cower in fear or be hugely impressed.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on!” Jackson hollered, holding his hands up. He opened his mouth to tell her who he was and why he was there, but before he could form the words, she snatched something up from the side table and flung it at him with freakish accuracy.
“Wait!”
Too late.
Out of instinct, Jackson shielded his face with both arms and stumbled back as the offending object smashed into the frame of the screen door that separated them, right where his face had been. His heel caught on a gap between boards, wrenching the loose plank from its place, and the sudden tilt in balance sent him ass over teakettle.
Jackson’s breath shot from his lungs in a hardwhumpas he crashed, elbow first, to the remaining boards of the deck, mere feet from the jagged drop-off into the yard. Pain streaked down his arm in a snap, heating his fingers with a nasty tingle courtesy of his pissed off nerve endings, and the decking groaned in protest under the sudden shift in weight.
“Ow! Take it easy, lady. I’m your contractor.” At least the damaged boards had withstood his crash-landing. He pulled himself to sitting, taking his throbbing elbow into his opposite hand for inspection.
“Getout, you fu— …whaaaaat?” The woman stopped, mid-tirade, at the screen door, the frame over her head now bent at an awkward angle. Her dark eyes narrowed with a mixture of anger and confusion. “What did you say?”
“I said I’m your contractor. You know, to look at your deck. Or what’s left of it, anyway,” Jackson said loudly, pointing to the boards beneath him. “So could you do me a favor and keep your throwing arm to yourself?”
The pain in his elbow pulsed along with the end of the song, and he flexed it a couple of times to make sure everything was where it belonged. The woman’s eyes widened until they resembled two coppery-brown pennies, flashing with sudden understanding.
“Oh, shit! I’m so sorry!” She whipped the screen door along its track and stepped out onto the deck, wearing a panicked expression. “Are you okay?”
“Stop.”
The word came out harsher than he intended, a fact that became even more apparent when the woman put both hands on her hips and shot him a feisty look. The decking shifted subtly beneath his body at the additional weight, and he jack-knifed to his feet. “You can’t be out here.”
