Airman To The Rescue. Heatherly Bell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ hard work she’d done for the PD. No longer happy to simply collect her paycheck and call herself an artist. There was still something to be said for art that simply existed for no other reason than beauty.

      But now her father’s house would suffer at the hands of an incompetent carpenter. This bothered the artist in her, but maybe her dad deserved it.

      She’d read the instructions on the wood slat box. Engineer talk, all of it. Clear as mud. Sounded like they were describing how to build a ship to fly to Mars, so she ignored the stupid instructions and let common sense be her guide.

      And now she was short a nail.

      She fixed the last nail into a single wood slat, one little tap after another. She’d nearly bruised her lower lip by the time she was done. “There!”

      At this rate she should be done in approximately six months.

      Shackles came into the hallway, sniffing around her like a Hoover, as if he’d missed a crumb somewhere. When he picked up a nail, Sarah panicked. Had he already swallowed the missing one? If so, why wasn’t he lying on the ground convulsing in agony?

      “Drop it! Drop it, Shackles.”

      She pulled his jaw open only to be rewarded with a growl. Finally prying the nail out from between his teeth without getting bitten in the process, she carried him into the spare bedroom and shut the door. He yipped his regret from behind the closed door.

      “Too late for apologies. You won’t be committing suicide on my watch.”

      Turning in a circle, air coming in short desperate spurts, Sarah wondered whether she could call 911 for a dog. She finally took in a full breath when she found the missing nail sticking halfway out from under one of the floor slats. So she would now have to rip up this section and try again, but at least her dog wouldn’t die.

      She had to work faster. Thankfully Gus had left some of his tools and she would be confiscating those as payment for the work not delivered. Maybe a nail gun would be the answer to going faster. Power tools. Great idea. She’d seen Satan fooling with the nail gun, and making good time with it, too. Speaking of Gus, she could no longer leave a message on his phone. Box full. Surprise. Emily had heard from one of her event planners at Fortune Ranch, her family’s business, that Gus Hinckle had indeed been arrested. Drug possession was the rumor floating around town. Suddenly the constant runny nose made sense. It was not, as he had claimed, spring allergies.

      More importantly, Sarah would never see her money again. Having worked with the police department, she understood felony charges would take priority over anything else. In any case, she had neither the time nor the money to sue him. This was her hot mess, and she’d fix it.

      Buying her father’s house was supposed to be about a trip down memory lane, and a time for healing. She had a chance to break from her routine life in Colorado and the job that sucked the life out of her soul. A chance to try on a new attitude in a new place. And maybe, if she could make this house her own before she had to say goodbye to it, she might be able to go back home with a renewed purpose. A new beginning. As an added bonus, she’d reconnected with her brother.

      Stone had grown up with their father, and Sarah had been raised by their mother. A strange custody arrangement by anyone’s standards. Even Stone now agreed, after a difficult period of time during which he hadn’t been able to face that the man who’d been his hero had done something wrong. It wasn’t like Sarah didn’t blame her mother, too. Practically being an only child had tied Sarah to her mother in a kind of guilt bond that had lasted for years. Out here in California, she’d been free from that guilt, even if she still didn’t quite belong.

      Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

      She’d had a goal when she’d come out to Fortune that went beyond hammering out estate problems with her brother. Sarah Mcallister was going to stop being a prickly porcupine. The change hadn’t been easy so far. One big mistake—okay, several big mistakes in her teenage years—didn’t mean that she had to be a nun for the rest of her life. She was going to awaken her inner goddess because life was short, dammit, and she was going to get some.

      Yeah, right.

      Her doorbell rang. Probably Emily again, who dropped by once a week, with or without Stone. She had to give it to her sister-in-law to be. Emily kept trying her best to make Sarah feel welcome. She’d reached out and made friends, which Sarah appreciated. It wasn’t like Stone had thrown out the welcome mat when she’d arrived in town.

      But when Sarah opened her front door, it wasn’t Emily behind it. Matt stood there in all his male glory. The midday June sunshine pooled through the doorway all around his big body, practically illuminating him. It was as if God was showing off, saying Behold some of my best work. You are welcome.

      He grinned and whipped off his aviator glasses. “Hey.”

      Sarah’s knees took the hit first. Then her mind followed. Blank. Why, oh why, did she lose several IQ points around the man?

      “Are you going to let me in?”

      “Oh.” Good idea. She should let him in. Why not? How much harm could that do? She moved aside.

      He was dressed casually today, in dark jeans and a Giants T-shirt. Mr. Cool.

      “How’s it going?”

      “Great! I just put in some of the flooring in the hallway. There’s a little section I might have to redo.”

      He raised a brow. “You’re doing this all yourself?”

      “Sure. I can’t lie, it’s a little challenging, but I figured I’d work with what I have.” She followed him into the kitchen, where his gaze studied the cabinets. The doors were all missing. She cleared her throat. “I hope he ordered those. Maybe I’ll get a call from the home improvement store that they’ve come in.”

      “Yeah. Maybe,” he said without an ounce of confidence in his voice. His hand smoothed over the granite countertops. “These came out well.”

      “Yeah. Well. Stone’s handiwork.”

      “I remember.”

      Right. Matt had dropped by a lot during the week Stone had been helping her work on the house.

      She blew out a breath, and her overgrown bangs flipped out of her eyes. “Matt, what are you doing here?”

      “Came to check things out.”

      “I thought I told you to forget about this.”

      His dark gaze did a slow slide down the length of her body, and back up to meet her eyes. “And I told you I wouldn’t.”

      “Listen, I’m not being stubborn here.”

      He snorted. “No, of course not.”

      “The fact of the matter is I would let you finish the job if I had a prayer of compensating you for your work. Properly.” In other words, not in long deep kisses and showers in the new bathroom stall she still didn’t have, but in actual money.

      “I get that.”

      “I’m not sure you do.”

      Ignoring СКАЧАТЬ