“Why the hell don’t I date?”
“You’re like the town bicycle. You give rides. You don’t date.”
“Uh!” Jordan squeaks, insulted. “Are you hearing this?” She seems incensed, but then, just as quickly as she got riled, she waves him off and her smile returns, feathers no longer ruffled. I can’t decide if their mean banter is all teasing or if they have a love/hate relationship. “So, your landlord had some things ordered. Wanted us to bring them over when they arrived.”
“Landlord?” I ask in confusion. “I thought Jason was the landlord.”
“Nah, he’s just a lackey.”
“I’m a property manager, not a lackey,” Jason replies sharply. Then he turns to me. “The owner was going to replace a few things before you moved in, but there was no time. Better late than never, though, right?”
I nod, a little uncomfortable with my space being so abruptly and unexpectedly invaded. “What kinds of things are we talking about?”
“New microwave,” he says, indicating the heavier box he was carrying, “new blinds for the kitchen and a new coffee maker.”
I perk up at the mention of the coffee maker. “That’s nice. I’ve been boiling water every morning.”
“Well, not anymore,” Jason says with a smile.
Jordan gets up and wanders to the kitchen, stopping to stare out the window as I so often do. I wonder if she sees the sandcastle guy. Then I wonder if she knows him.
“Damn,” she says on a sigh. “It’s a shame to cover that view with new blinds,” she says. That’s how I know she sees him. There’s nothing spectacular about the view except him. She turns her big smile back toward me. “Unless that’s why he sent the new blinds.”
“Why who sent the new blinds?”
“The owner,” she answers emphatically. “Cole Danzer. He must’ve noticed they were missing.”
I join her in the kitchen, glancing out to where the gorgeous handyman is measuring a piece of wood.
“How would he know?”
“Well, I guess Cole’s not blind and can see from a hundred feet away,” she declares with a laugh, tipping her head toward the window.
“Wait, so he is the owner?” I ask, admiring the way the muscles in his shoulders shift as he works.
“Yep. Cole Danzer.” There’s a dreamy sigh in her voice that matches her expression.
“Crazy Cole is what we call him,” Jason says as he reaches between us to lay the blinds across the sink.
Jordan gasps. “We?”
“Yes we,” Jason confirms with a frown. “You’re the one who started it.”
“No, I call him Crazy Hot Cole. But you’ve never called him crazy at all.”
“That’s because I work for him.”
“So what, you don’t work for him today?” To this, Jason says nothing, but I can see his nostrils flare. “Ohhh, or is it because you like our lovely little miss Eden? And you don’t want her getting any ideas about the beautiful hunk o’ man across the street?”
“Jordan, just shut up. You don’t even make any sense,” her brother replies petulantly.
When Jason bends slightly to apply himself to removing the blinds from their box, Jordan points down at him and mouths behind his back “He likes you!”
“Jordan, go open the store. Come back for me in an hour,” Jason snaps.
“Fine,” she huffs. “Walk me out, Edie.”
Edie? That’s a new one, I think.
Jordan reaches for my arm and loops hers through it, practically dragging me to the front door. She pulls me out onto the small wraparound porch, but doesn’t stop there. When she keeps walking, I start to resist.
“This is far enough, Jordan. I’m a mess!”
I think about my straight black hair in a ponytail, my oval face and hazel-gray eyes devoid of makeup, my coffee-stained T-shirt and pink shorts that say “Juicy” on the butt. I feel my face heat with embarrassment.
She stops and stares at me. “You’re gorgeous. Now come with me.”
Before I can argue, she tugs me into the yard. Automatically, my eyes find their way to Cole the instant he comes into view. He’s still in the yard, but now he’s moving his ladder.
“Hi, Cole,” Jordan bellows, causing my stomach to drop to my bare toes. The grass is covered in a chilly, early fall dew that coats my feet. I catch my breath when Cole glances up at us, his brow drawing immediately into a frown. He doesn’t respond. He just holds perfectly still, his long fingers curled around the ladder, forearms straining and biceps bulging. “Have you met Eden yet?”
As Jordan drags me across the pseudo-cul-de-sac, I can feel his eyes on me, the startling blue penetrating all the way through my clothes to my skin underneath. Goosebumps break out on my legs and arms and, to my utter humiliation, my nipples pucker. The heat of his gaze and the cool of the morning is too stark a contrast for my body not to notice.
When we stop within a foot of him, I see his hooded eyes rake me from head to toe. My nipples strain against my T-shirt, catching his attention on the way back up. I cross my arms over my chest, praying for this moment to just be over.
He’s silent for a long time. Long enough to be rude, but I don’t get the impression that he is. I get the impression that he’s just thinking. His frown deepens and for a second it appears he’s going to just turn away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he props the ladder against one shoulder and sticks out his hand.
“Cole Danzer.”
His voice. God! It makes me want to groan. It’s like a silk sheet draped over jagged gravel. It belongs in a bedroom. A dark, warm bedroom. Where pleasure and pain peacefully coexist, heightening the senses and curling the toes. It would be sexy in any circumstance, even if he were reading the encyclopedia aloud or explaining an insurance plan.
Reluctantly, I straighten my right arm and slip my hand into his. His palm is calloused, his fingers rough, just like I knew they would be. From the moment I saw them expertly crafting a sandcastle almost two weeks ago, I suspected they’d feel this way. They rasp against my sensitive skin, setting the walls of my stomach into a flurry of rippling activity.
“Eden Taylor,” I reply.
Despite his cool exterior and his less-than-friendly expression, his touch is warm and somehow reassuring, like he could fix or heal or bring back to life whatever he set these hands to.
Which is ridiculous and the first indication that I’m probably losing my mind.
I’m not this girl. I’m not the kind of woman who melts over a man. Any man. But this one does something to me. I get the feeling that, if the circumstances were right, I’d melt for him. Or with him.
He nods once and quickly releases me. I wonder if he felt something, too.
“Jordan,” he says abruptly, nodding once before adjusting his grip on the ladder and resuming his work as if we weren’t standing in the yard.