A few minutes of hugs for her and dirty looks for Ford, and her brothers were gone, leaving her alone in the kitchen with Ford while a small army of cops clomped up the stairs to the attic to do all of that crime scene stuff that turned her stomach whenever she accidentally stopped on one of the true-crime shows on TV. Needing something to keep her hands busy, she turned on the burner under the kettle and grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and set them down on the counter. Just because she was about to kick Ford out of her house didn’t mean she was going to be rude.
“You are not staying here.” There. Firm and assertive, but not rude because she said it while handing him a tea caddy with seventeen varieties of green tea. As her mom always said, the little things mattered.
He picked out an orange jasmine without even looking at the labels and handed it to her. “If I don’t, then you can’t, either. Your entire house is a crime scene.”
Everything stopped for a second. None of that sentence sounded right. She wasn’t the kind of person who had threats leveled against her. Well, unless she counted the bridezillas on the warpath, but even that was usually fixed with chocolate or champagne.
“What are you talking about? You said it’s probably natural causes,” she said.
Ford held her gaze. “We won’t know that until the ME’s report, so this is going to be treated as a homicide until we know different.”
“Bullshit.” The kettle’s ear-splitting whistle sounded at that moment as if the universe was putting an exclamation on her statement.
“Look, we have to treat the threat with a higher level of concern than we would if it had been called in about a normal citizen.”
She dropped the tea bags into each mug and poured the steaming water over the top. “You mean one without ties to organized crime.”
“Exactly.” As if he owned the place, Ford reached over and set the timer on the oven display for three minutes, the exact amount of steeping time recommended on the back of the tea packets.
He had just told her that her house was a crime scene and because her brothers were idiots involved with the mob the cops were taking it seriously, and yet he still thought it was important to steep his tea properly? What the hell? It was just one more thing to annoy the shit out of her about this entire situation. Why was it that the men in her life felt the need to run roughshod over her?
“So, I’ll just be staying on your couch for a few days until the medical examiner confirms her initial theory that your grandfather died of natural causes after slipping between the walls, and we can make sure that no threats are made against you.”
“Are you deranged?” She yanked the tea bag out of his mug even though there was a full minute and a half left on the timer and tossed it into the trash. “You think I’m just going to agree to that because we told my brothers that you were my boyfriend—as if anyone would believe that. What, do you think people believe this is some lame romantic comedy where the hot guy falls for the ugly chick? Newsflash, I don’t wear glasses, so there’s no taking them off and then suddenly I’m a total babe and believably your girlfriend.”
The words came out in a rush, and by the time she was done her breath was coming out fast and hard. Her cheeks hurt from the heat of embarrassment. God. She thought she’d gotten past all this hurt from being the ugliest girl in the class, but one wedding night prank had raked it all up to the surface, and all of a sudden she was sixteen again and hearing the giggling whispers of Butterface as she walked down the hall.
Clenching her jaw tight so her chin couldn’t tremble, she focused all of her attention on her own mug. She put way more effort into carefully removing her tea bag and putting it into the trash than she had with Ford’s, all so she could have a few precious seconds to take a breath and pull herself back from the edge. Once she could trust her voice, she turned back to the man who kept bearing witness to her most humiliating moments this decade.
Keeping her gaze on his chin with its dimple in the middle, because looking him in the eyes was so not going to happen right now, she said, “This isn’t just my house. It’s my place of business.”
“We can arrange it so that only the attic is off-limits,” he said, his thumb tapping against the mug’s handle.
Her confidence coming back with each inhale, she raised her chin and her gaze. “If someone did kill my grandfather, then they’re long gone.”
His thumb sped up its rat-a-tat-tat beat. “Are you so sure of that?”
“I could just tell my brothers that I need them to help out.” Ugh. Saying it out loud sounded like a worse idea than just thinking it in her head. Still, it was better than the alternative. Ford? In her house? Nopity nope nope. “They’ll stay here.”
“Is that what you want?” Ford raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his tea. “The chance of your brothers going off half-cocked when the mail carrier rings the doorbell to drop off a package? And anyway, the only choice you have is me staying here or you at a hotel.”
The tea burned her tongue, but she didn’t care. She needed something in her mouth to stop herself from screaming NO! Because he wasn’t wrong. Rocco and Paul were beyond annoying in their attitude toward keeping her safe. They’d been like that since the first time some jerk on the block had started making fun of her. They were good brothers. They were also total idiots who would punch first and think later, which was very not good if the person who ended up with a broken nose—or, she had to face it, worse—wasn’t someone threatening her.
She put the cup down and looked around her kitchen, taking stock of the boxes of tiles, the PVC pipe and paint brushes—really anywhere but at the man in her kitchen who discombobulated her thinking.
Her brothers were the last ones she needed at her house. And while Tess was supportive in her own super-quiet way and Lucy as enthusiastic as she was impulsive, on the off chance her grandfather hadn’t just slipped into the space between the walls on his own, she didn’t want to put either of her friends in danger by having them stay here.
Finally, her gaze landed on Ford. More specifically, she zeroed in on his hands as they practically dwarfed his tea mug. They were strong hands. Capable hands. The kind that had felt so good on her skin as he—
Girl! You’re in danger!
Gina stopped that line of thought before it could go any further. “Are you any good with your hands?”
Ford set down the mug on her counter and smiled. “I’d like to think so.”
She couldn’t swallow the tea in her mouth as she stared at him and the cocky upward curl of his lips. It just sat there like hot judgment on her tongue while her body forgot how to do basic tasks.
Oh, she remembered how good he was with his hands. She’d only been remembering in vivid detail what he’d done in the hotel room every night in her own lumpy bed. Where was the hole in the floor, because she really wanted to slide down into it. No, really. There was a hole in the floor of her kitchen. Owning a Victorian in need of so many repairs really did have its privileges. Too bad she’d moved the kitchen table over it so no one would accidentally fall.
Nice move being all safety first, Regina.
At the realization that once again the embarrassing truth of the matter was written in red all over her face and that there was no escaping it, her body suddenly remembered how to move. She swallowed the tea, set down the mug on the counter, and gave Ford what she prayed was a snotty glare.
“I think this whole thing is crap, but if you’re going to stay, you’re going to have to help with renovations.”
There. That should send him running.
It should have. But he didn’t disappear.
“I worked my way through college on a construction crew.” He picked up his mug and took a drink, never looking away from her. “Home renovation is in my wheelhouse.”
Of course it was.
…
It was hours later, after the crime scene techs had left, leaving a trail of black fingerprint dust behind them and a big X of police tape across the door leading to the attic stairs, before Ford got a chance to call his captain.