you the room, then let you get about your business.”
“You’ll be here if I have questions?” he said. What he really wondered was if she’d be around while he did her bidding.
“Yes. I’ve got plenty to do.” She turned from the counter, but didn’t look at him. She tilted her pretty chin up and kept her voice icy. “There’s your equipment. Excuse me now. I want to get to work on the living room. So I’ll need water. I need it now.”
He raised an eyebrow at her tone. But she’d clamped her mouth into a grim line and was ignoring him. She grabbed a bucket and a stiff brush from under the sink. He cast an appreciative glance at her derriere, knowing she’d be offended if she saw him do it. That only sharpened his appreciation. Then he went out to turn on the water.
When he came back in carrying the tarps, he caught a glimpse of her in the living room. She sat with the kid before the TV, her arms around him, her cheek pressed to his. The boy was clearly close to tears. Her face was earnest and unhappy as she tried to comfort him.
“I know how hard Scotty laughed at the crocodile last time,” she said, rubbing his back. “I know you wish Scotty could be here. But he can’t, sweetie. He’s in California.”
The intensity of her concern caught and held Grady. She was no longer the aloof creature he’d first met. She radiated love and a kind of desperation to protect the child from whatever troubled him.
She held him tighter. “I know you’re lonesome. But you’ll make friends here. You’ll get to like it, you’ll see. No, sweetie, don’t put your thumb in your mouth.”
Then she saw Grady, and her face paled, her expression going defensively blank. She looked away, but hugged the child more warmly. “Let’s just sit here and watch the end together,” she murmured and kissed his forehead. “You and me, babe.”
The boy said nothing, but he didn’t look as sad as before. Grady went into the back bedroom, revising his opinion of Tara Hastings. Coolness and control were not her true nature.
No, she was fighting fears, not only hers, but those of her child. He sensed something had gone badly wrong in their lives, and she was bound and determined to put it right again—especially for the boy. More for the boy than for herself. He sensed a kind of gallantry in her.
She clearly loved the kid; he had seen that in that brief scene in the living room. And she would protect him with her life. She was scared of something, but she was resolute, and she had valor.
A complex set of emotions stirred deep inside Grady. He didn’t know what they were or what shape they were taking. He only knew they were foreign, and he had no name for them.
CHAPTER FOUR
TARA YEARNED TO GO BACKWARD in time and start the morning over. She wished she hadn’t acted so high-handed with Grady.
True, he was a flirt, but she’d dealt with flirts before. True, he was handsome and masculine as hell. But the world was full of handsome, sexy men, especially where she’d come from in California.
Why was this one different? He’d stricken her breathless, heated her blood and shaken her thoughts. Then, because her response shamed her, she’d taken it out on him.
She had forbidden herself to have sexual urges. Some of her reasons were complex, but one was simple. In California, Burleigh Hastings had had her watched. When he learned she was here, he’d do the same. She would walk the straight and narrow path.
Grady had the air of someone who’d departed from that path long ago. He probably had a series of flings that stretched from Texas to Tasmania.
But whatever his faults, he was a demon worker. From time to time, she stole glimpses of him as she passed Del’s room.
Like a magician, Grady had spirited Del’s furniture and toys into the spare bedroom. With uncanny speed, he’d unscrewed switch plates and hardware, detached the light fixture. He taped what needed to be taped, patched what needed to be patched and covered the floor with the tarps. He did it all without wasted motion.
Tara had made it clear she wanted him to stay out of her way, and he did, almost supernaturally well. At noon, when she fixed Del lunch, Grady went out on the makeshift back porch and ate out of a paper bag, alone.
When he came in, he asked her if he could give the cookie in his lunch to Del.
Del looked at Tara, then Grady, then the cookie. Tara doubted he would take it; strangers made him bashful. But the cookie was beautiful, large and chocolate, with darker chocolate frosting, and Grady offered it with such simple generosity, that Tara found herself urging, “Go ahead, sweetie,” and Del accepted.
He bit into it, and his eyes widened. “This is good,” he said. After he finished it, he slipped off to follow Grady. This amazed Tara. She moved softly to the bedroom door and peeked inside.
Del, chocolate crumbs on his chin, was looking up at Grady with scheming interest. “Can you bring me more cookies like that?”
Grady was starting to paint the last wall. “I can try. A lady gave it to me. I’ll ask her if she’s got more. I can’t promise, though.”
“What lady?” prodded Del.
“The lady who works at my father’s house.” Grady smoothly rolled on the sky-blue color. “Her name’s Millie.”
Del frowned and pondered this. “She works for your dad—like you work for my mom?”
“That’s right, champ.”
“Do you live with your dad?” Del asked.
Tara saw Grady’s brows knit, as if he was choosing his answer carefully. “No. I don’t live with him. I’m just visiting.”
“We don’t live with my dad,” Del volunteered. “He left us for another lady. She can’t make cookies, though—”
Good grief, Tara thought in humiliation, and sprang into the room to stop any further revelations. She seized her son’s sticky hand. “Del, don’t bother Mr. McKinney. Come with me.”
But Del was a child with great powers of concentration. He wasn’t about to have his line of thought derailed. “She can’t do much but lay by the swimming pool in her bik-bik-bik—”
“Bikini?” Grady supplied helpfully.
Tara wished to die, to shrivel up and blow away like the lowliest bug.
“That’s it.” Del sounded relieved. “In her biknini.”
Pretend he didn’t say that, any of it. Squeezing Del’s hand more firmly, she tried to draw him away. “Come and wash up. Then you and I and Lono’ll go for a walk.”
Del tried to tug away. “Me and Mr. McKinley are talking.”
Tara’s grip tightened. “Mr. McKinney and I. I said don’t bother him. He’s trying to work.”
“He’s no bother.” Grady seemed absorbed in his painting. He didn’t say anything else, for which Tara was grateful.
She
