It was hard to keep from snorting. Jack had been waiting for twelve fucking years to see her again, never actually believing it would ever happen. He’d dreamed of it on the cold, stony ground while undergoing weeklong training exercises. It had kept him awake in the jungles of Indonesia and for six long, freezing months in a winter barracks in Afghanistan.
And she thought a little cold, some flickering lights and broken treads could keep him away?
The hounds of hell couldn’t keep him away.
“I’m used to discomfort, ma’am,” he said. “A little cold won’t bother me, believe me. I have a laptop with good batteries and I’ll be careful on the stairs. And I’m pretty handy with my hands. Let me see if I can do some repairs around the house for you.”
“Oh.” Caroline blinked. “Wow. That—that’s very kind of you. And incredibly useful. I can only hope you’re better than Mack the Jerk, which is what I call the man who comes and fumbles around in my house and takes my money.” She swallowed, her pretty pale throat convulsing. “And of course, you can deduct any repairs you make from the rent. I insist.”
Something clenched tightly in Jack’s chest. She clearly needed the money. Even the cab driver knew she needed money, probably all of Summerville knew she needed money, but here she was, willing to give him a break on the rent for his help. It was literally impossible for Caroline to take advantage of someone.
Whatever else happened, whatever went down between them, Jack vowed she’d never have money problems again for the rest of her life.
“No problem, ma’am,” he said gently. “I like to work. I’m not used to being idle. I don’t mind making repairs, fixing things up. It’ll give me something to do while I settle in.”
She tilted her head to one side. “Were you in the military, Mr. Prescott?”
“Yes, ma’am. Army. A Ranger, for seven years. And my father was career military. Army, too. Retired a full colonel. He built up a security company afterwards, and I quit the military to help him run it. He died last week.” A spasm of grief—uncontrollable, unstoppable—crossed his face.
“Oh, my,” she said softly, reaching across to touch his hand. The touch was brief, meant to be consoling, and burned. It was all he could do to keep from snatching at her hand. “I am so sorry. I know perfectly well what it is to lose a parent. It’s incredibly painful. You have my condolences.”
He inclined his head, unable to speak.
Silence. So thick it was a presence in the room. The only sound was the wind rattling the window in its casing.
Jack had got his dick down, but in the meantime something had happened to his throat. It was tight, and hot. A wild tangle of emotions warred in his chest, emotions he didn’t dare let out, but that felt like hot knives slicing away inside him. Grief. Lust. Sorrow. Joy. He’d lost his father, and he’d found Caroline.
She watched him, saying nothing, as if she understood what was going on inside him. Finally, she broke the silence. “Well, Mr. Prescott, I guess I have a new boarder.”
He lifted his eyes to hers and coughed to loosen his throat. “Guess you do, ma’am. And please call me Jack.”
“All right, Jack. And I’m Caroline. Caroline Lake.” Jack nearly smiled. The one and only time he ever got drunk was the day the Colonel received news that he had inoperable stomach cancer. Jack accompanied the Colonel home, saw him into bed, then went right back out again. That night he got hammered and woke up two days later in some bimbo’s bed with a big ornate ‘C’ tattooed on his right biceps.
He knew who she was, all right.
Jack asked, because he knew she was expecting it. “How much is the rent?”
“Five hundred dollars a month.” She said it sorrowfully, watching his eyes again. “I know that sounds like a lot, but really—”
He held his hand up, palm out. “That’s fine. Sounds reasonable. Particularly with meals, not to mention meals prepared by a good cook. I’ll save a lot on restaurants. So…how do I get out there?” He knew perfectly well how to get to Greenbriars, but it would sound weird if he didn’t ask.
“Do you have a car, Mr. Prescott?”
“No, not yet. I came in straight from the airport in a taxi. I’ll rent something on Monday.”
Caroline stood, and he stood, too, catching the handle of his bag. He was too close to her and stepped back immediately. It was an instinctive reaction. He was so tall he had to be careful not to loom over people. He particularly didn’t want to make Caroline uneasy.
“Well, no one else will be coming in today, not in this weather.” She gave a rueful shrug. “I think I’ll just close up the shop. You can ride home with me, Mr. Prescott.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate it.”
“Okay, Jack, and do please call me Caroline.”
“Caroline,” he said, the word passing his lips for the first time in twelve years.
She was staring up at him and seemed lost in thought.
He waited a beat, then—“Caroline? Ma’am?”
Caroline shook herself slightly. “Yes, um…Why don’t you wait for me at the front door? I need to close down my computer and change my shoes.”
She looked down at her pretty shoes, guaranteed to melt in the snow. Jack looked down, too. Their feet made an almost shocking contrast, as if they belonged to two different species instead of two sexes—Caroline’s in the pretty, small, pointy beige heels and Jack’s in his huge, ancient, battered combat boots. Their heads came up at the same time, and their eyes locked.
Jack clutched his bag tightly, because the temptation to reach out and touch her was almost unbearable.
He’d never touched her, not once, in all the times she’d visited the shelter. He’d thought about it endlessly, but he’d never dared.
Caroline moved to her office, behind a waist-high counter.
His knuckles tightened on the handle of the bag as he listened to the beeping sounds of a computer system closing down behind the cubicle wall. Her head disappeared as she bent to change shoes.
Caroline came out wearing lined boots, a wool cap and an eiderdown coat that reached almost to her ankles. Even bundled up so much it could have been a man or a Martian in there, she was so desirable it hurt. He watched her walk gracefully to a wall panel, switch off the lights and open the door.
Her gasp was loud even over the roar of the wind.
It was like opening a gateway to a freezing cold hell. The wind had risen and was howling like a tortured soul in the deepest reaches of the underworld, driving painful needles of sleet that stung the skin. It was so cold it stole the breath out of your lungs.
“Oh my God!” Recoiling as if someone had slapped her, Caroline stepped back straight into Jack’s arms.
Jack pulled Caroline farther into the room and fought the wind for control of the door. He actually had to put some muscle into it. He leaned against it, held out his hand and put command in his voice. “Give me your car keys.”
Just that brief exposure had Caroline shivering. It took her several tries to open her purse, but she made it and dropped a set of car keys in his palm. Then blinked at her obedience. “Why—”
“You’ll freeze to death out there. What make is your car and where did you park it? I’ll bring it around and park right out front so you don’t have to walk around in this weather.”
Caroline looked confused. “A green Fiat. It’s parked just around the corner to the right. But listen, you’re not dressed for the—”
She was talking to thin air.
Two
I am either very lucky or very crazy, Caroline thought, shivering in her coat. Just thirty seconds exposed to the swirling freezing hell out there, and it felt as if she’d spent the winter camping in the Antarctic. She was chilled to her bones.
Lucky or crazy? Which was it?
Lucky was a strong contender because she needed the $500 desperately, and it had fallen into her lap from the sky on a day when she could never have hoped to find a new boarder. Paying off Toby’s
medical bills had required taking out a huge loan against Greenbriars, and the money from her boarders was essential. She couldn’t possibly make the mid-January payment without the $500 in rent.
She’d been heartsick four days ago when old Mr. and Mrs. Kipping had come down to breakfast to announce that we’re so sorry honey, but we’re moving out. They were supposed to stay until May, until renovation work on their home was completed. But Mr. Kipping had lost several chapters of his biography of Alexander Hamilton to a short circuit somewhere in the house and, the crowning blow, Mrs. Kipping had contracted bronchitis because of the frequent breakdowns of the boiler.
There was no money at all to pay an electrician to test the wiring to find the source of the short circuit, and Caroline could probably fly to the moon more easily than she could afford a new boiler.
She’d still be paying off debts when she was eighty. If she lived that long. So far, her family’s batting average in terms of extended life expectancy wasn’t too encouraging.
Mrs. Kipping had been in tears at the thought of leaving, and it had taken all of Caroline’s self-control not to break into tears herself. The Kippings were a lovely couple and had been with her for almost a year. They’d been delightful company and had provided enormous comfort to her during Toby’s last days. Caroline didn’t know how she could have faced coming home to an empty house from the hospital. And after Toby’s funeral…she shivered.
In the beginning, the Kippings often remarked that they could never remodel their home into anything as beautiful as Greenbriars. That was before the lost files, the constant cold showers and waking up to ice in the bathroom sink. Caroline knew that Mr. and Mrs. Kipping were very fond of her and loved her cooking and that it was only Mrs. Kipping’s bout of bronchitis that forced their decision. Anna Kipping was fragile and Marcus, her husband, was afraid of losing her.
Still, he’d had tears in his eyes at leaving, too.
Finding a new boarder on Christmas Eve in this terrible weather was like a wonderful miracle.
Not to mention the biggie—not being alone on Christmas Day. The day she’d lost her parents to a hideous car accident. The day Toby was so injured he never walked again. It had taken him six pain-filled years to die.
So that was the lucky theory.
Then, of course, there was the crazy theory, which was probably the correct one. She was probably crazy to accept a man who looked as dangerous as Jack Prescott into her home and, as if that wasn’t enough, handing him the keys to her car half an hour after meeting him.
Marcus and Anna Kipping had been the safest people on the face of the earth—two darlings in their late sixties whose worst vices were Double Chocolate Fudge ice cream and an unholy passion for Gilbert & Sullivan. Marcus could recite the lyrics to H.M.S. Pinafore at the drop of a hat.
Jack Prescott, on the other hand, looked anything but safe. She’d felt her heart speed up as they talked, ridiculous as that sounded. Yes, he looked rather scary. He was rough-looking, tall, with the kind of muscles you can’t buy in a gym and an air of rocklike toughness.
He was also attractive as hell, which was something she’d never encountered in her boarders. Frightening, but sexy. So there might be a third theory to add to the lucky or crazy explanations—sudden hormonal overload.
When she’d briefly touched his arm, a shiver had run down her spine. She’d felt the steely muscle through his shirt and jacket, the hardest man she’d ever touched. And a flash of heat had run through her at the idea that he was probably as hard as that…all over.
Not that he’d done anything to make her uncomfortable, other than being so frighteningly large and…and dangerous-looking.
The exact opposite of Marcus Kipping, with his predilection for cardigans encasing sloped shoulders and thin arms. Jack Prescott’s massive musculature was visible through a shirt and a jacket. He was the most thoroughly male man she’d ever met and sexy as hell.
And Caroline, who never lied to herself, realized that in the end, it was the reason she’d said yes. God help her, that flash of heat had been the reason she’d said yes. It had been so long since she’d felt it.
If she had the sense God gave a duck, she should have said no to him. No to him as a boarder and certainly no to handing over the car keys to a perfect stranger. Who knew who he was? Maybe he was a serial killer or…or a war veteran suffering from posttraumatic stress disorder and who would one day soon crack and climb a tower and start sniping at passersby. Maybe one day they’d find her lifeless body in a pool of blood, or he’d make off with what very little family silver remained.
No one took in a boarder without references. Mr. and Mrs. Kipping had been recommended by the head of her bank and had known her parents.
Who knew Jack Prescott?
But his deep voice had been so calm, that big body so still. And the look of grief that had crossed his face when he spoke of his father’s death…that had been real, and deep. Caroline recognized true grief—she was the world’s greatest expert.
He looked scruffy and tired, as if he’d been traveling for a long time. His jacket was way too light for the gelid temperature outside, and his clothes were rumpled, as if he’d slept in them. His boots were old and worn. Those old boots had been the last straw.
They were the boots of a man down on his luck.
Caroline knew all about being down on your luck.
There was something else about the man, too, besides his sexiness and steadiness. Something almost…familiar. Which only reinforced the crazy theory, because she’d never set eyes on him before in her life. She’d never even set eyes on anyone like him before.
None of the men she knew had hands that large and that strong, or shoulders that broad. None of the men she knew moved with an athletic grace and tensely coiled energy, like a blaze that was temporarily banked but could flare into life at any moment.
Not in the military anymore, he’d said, but he still had a military bearing—square-shouldered, ramrod-straight back, great economy of movement. And saying ma’am all the time. It was sweet, but not exactly the favored mode of address of men talking to women in the twenty-first century. Obviously, living with a colonel for a father had rubbed off on him.
The man she knew best was Sanders McCullin, and he was as far from Jack Prescott as it was possible to be. Sanders was tall, though not as tall as Jack, blond, classically handsome and impossibly elegant.
If Caroline had only half the money Sanders spent each month on clothes, her financial worries would be over. Of course her financial problems could be over tomorrow, Sanders made that clear enough, particularly now that poor Toby was gone. If she married Sanders and became Mrs. McCullin, life would go back to what it had been before her parents died. Safe, secure, comfortably wealthy.
On bad days, like this one, with the Kippings gone, the possibility of coming home to a freezing house that would stay freezing until Monday afternoon because the Jerk was the only person on earth who could coax her boiler back to temporary life, and he didn’t make house calls on holidays, a Christmas Eve with no sales at all, the prospect of being alone on Christmas Day, of all the days in the year—well, on days like this, the thought of marrying Sanders made a lot of sense.
Except, of course, for the minor fact that her skin crawled at the thought of kissing him, let alone sleeping with him, which just went to show that she was crazy. Half the women in town wanted to sleep with Sanders, and the other half already had, putting Caroline, as always, in the minority.
And now, in a bid to shore up the crazy theory, she’d just given a man she didn’t know her car keys. The only things she knew about Jack Prescott were that he was a stranger in town and had very little money. Knowing that, what did she do?
Hand him the keys, politely, because he’d asked.
How smart was that?
If he stole her car, how could she get home? She’d be stranded until the weather cleared, with only the weeks-old yogurt, Diet Coke and wizened apple in her small fridge
for food. There was no way a taxi would come out in this weather and—
A sharp rap on the window made her jump. A second later, Jack Prescott was back in the room, covered in snow. His long black hair was dusted with white. Even his black eyelashes had turned white. He gave no sign of being cold, however. He gave no sign of even being uncomfortable. He looked exactly as he had before—tough and self-contained.
“I’ve got the car parked right outside.” He was so close Caroline had to tip her head back to meet his eyes. “It’s hell out there, so we’ll have to hurry. Are you warm enough in that coat?”
That was rich, coming from someone wearing a denim jacket. “Yes, I’ll be fine.” She shifted her heavy briefcase from one hand to another, surprised when he simply took it from her. He was already carrying his own duffel bag and a suitcase. “That’s okay,” she protested. “I can carry that.”
He didn’t even answer. “Do you need to engage the security system before we go out?”
Security system. Right. Uh-huh. As if she had $3,000 to spare for a security system to stave off wild-eyed thieves just slavering to rob her complete collection of Jane Austens and all her Nora Robertses.
“No. I—uh, I just lock the door.” She held up the Yale key. “It’s got a dead bolt, though.”
He just looked at her, dark eyes fathomless, then nodded as he took the key. “Okay. I’ll lock up. If you’ve got gloves, put them on. I left the engine running, so the car is warm. Let’s make it quick.”
He seemed to have just…assumed command. The Army and that colonel father had really imprinted him.
Still, the idea of having someone else in the car with her in this weather was such a relief. Bad weather terrified her, and this weather was off the charts. Her Fiat was temperamental and ornery and used to the temperate climate of Italy. It intensely disliked being taken out in the cold. Breaking down in the middle of a snowstorm was just the kind of thing her car enjoyed doing.