the sun would set before she made it to Sugar Falls. She’d purposely timed her move-in day to be more of a move-in evening. That way she wouldn’t have to see Kane Chatterson and risk him asking her in person if she’d gotten a cookbook like she’d promised her Aunt Freckles.
By the time she pulled onto Pinecone Court thirty minutes later, her stomach was empty, yet she was eager to see what progress had been made on her house. When she saw the Ford Bronco parked along her curb, now sporting a dull gray paint color instead of its usual rust spots, she wanted to throw her gearshift straight into Reverse.
Instead she took a deep breath and ordered her tummy to quit thrashing around. She would really need to become accustomed to seeing Kane sporadically. After all, she’d hired the guy to remodel her house. She couldn’t very well let her abdominal muscles get all tight and contracted anytime she saw his ugly old car.
She wasn’t some lovesick nineteen-year-old anymore, thinking an affair with her college professor was the real deal. In fact, technically speaking, she was Kane’s boss. She was a Navy officer, trained to issue orders. And she was an accomplished surgeon, known for her steady hand and her even steadier nerves. If she could command an operating room full of experienced hospital staff, Julia could certainly handle one small-town contractor who barely said more than a few words to her—even if his eyes drank her in as though they knew every inch of her body intimately.
She parked in the narrow driveway, then grabbed her leather satchel and one of the boxes out of the backseat and made her way up to the front porch and inside. She heard music coming from upstairs and smelled something garlicky drifting out of the kitchen area. She set the box down in the front parlor and climbed the newly finished stairway, uncertain if she should be walking on the freshly stained steps. But then she realized they must be dry, since someone was upstairs and had to have walked on them already.
She followed the sound of Duke Ellington—her classical cello instructor would’ve frowned at her recognizing the piece—toward her bedroom and stepped into the well-lit area, relieved that the antique chandelier had been installed already. When she got to the bathroom door, she froze. Kane Chatterson, wearing faded jeans and nothing but paint splatters on his torso, was standing behind her claw-foot tub, one well-defined muscular arm poised with a paintbrush above the top sill of the window frame.
With an effort, she ignored the weakness in her legs and drew in one ragged breath after another.
Each stroke of his hand matched the swaying tempo of the music coming from the cordless speaker propped up on the bathroom vanity. The muscles of his back moved in an orchestrated rhythm with the jazzy strains of a piano. The darkness outside made his reflection in the window almost mirror-like, and she saw the deep-set focus in his eyes, his concentrated brow and the hard lines of his set jaw. She could also see that he was completely transfixed in his own little world and had no idea she was there.
The professional in her wanted to cough or turn down the jazz music or do something to draw his attention to the fact that he wasn’t alone. Unfortunately, her body wasn’t behaving so professionally. Desire curled around her, squeezing so tightly it threatened to cut off the oxygen supply to her brain. Thank God the man was focused too intensely to witness her intrusion on his workspace because Julia didn’t think she could’ve taken a step.
She had no idea how long she stood there, just as absorbed in his movements as he apparently was in his painting. A softer, slower saxophone-based song switched on the moment his eyes met hers, and Julia wasn’t sure if the dizziness in her head was from the paint fumes or from the way he looked at her.
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