Perfectly Saucy

Not for the first time since he’d moved back to Palo Verde, did he doubt his sanity. He’d moved home to prove to this town that he’d changed. That he wasn’t the wild, reckless kid he’d been back in high school. He was now a successful businessman and upstanding member of the community. A damn paragon of responsibility.

All of which would have been a hell of a lot easier to prove if someone would actually hire him. He needed this job.

Despite that, he hated that his first job would be from her.

In the past decade he’d imagined seeing her again more often than he cared to admit. He’d pictured them meeting as equals, he casually mentioning the jobs he’d worked on in L.A. and the Bay Area, her suitably impressed by his success. Never once had he pictured standing on her doorstep, praying she’d hire him and thus resuscitate his dwindling bank balance.

As he rang the doorbell he caught a flash of movement through the leaded glass of her front door. His stomach turned over in anticipation.

Through the window, he saw her walk toward the door and swing it open. Her eyes flicked up the length of his body then came to rest on his face. Her smile faltered and he watched her struggle to keep it in place.

She looked nervous, but even nervous, she still took his breath away. She wore a simple black dress, with her hair pulled back. A pearl hung from a silver chain around her neck. Her strained expression undermined the elegance of her appearance. Maybe she was dressed for a funeral. Either way, he saw a flicker of anxiety in her eyes. As if he was the cause of her heightened emotions.

“Alex.” She murmured his name, almost caressing it with her mouth.

The sound of his name on her lips sent a wholly inappropriate shiver of pure lust through his gut.

Then she cleared her throat, swung the door open wide enough to let him in and held out her hand for his. “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

“No problem.” Her hand felt small and warm, her handshake surprisingly firm. He pulled his hand from hers then held out the portfolio describing his experience and listing his references.

Jessica blinked in surprise at the folder, then finally took it. She barely glanced at it before laying it on the marble-topped table beside the door. Her gaze traveled down his length to settle somewhere near his feet.

“You wanted me to look at your kitchen,” he reminded her. He’d come straight from work. His shoes, his clothes—hell, everything about him—carried the dust of a hundred construction sites. He worked for a living—hard, manual labor. That never bothered him…until this instant, standing on Jessica’s doorstep.

“Oh, yes.” She blushed, stepping aside so he could enter. “It’s this way.”

She gestured for him to follow her, then turned and walked through the wide doorway to the living room. Her hips swayed gently as she moved. The movement dragged his gaze down the long length of her legs to her bare feet. Her little black dress did nothing for him…but, man, oh man, the sight of her bare feet twisted him into a few knots.

Her feet were narrow and delicate, but not tiny. The feet of a tall woman, with long, graceful toes and high arches. Pale…and perfect. Perfectly manicured. Perfectly buffed. The pampered feet of a rich woman.

He glanced down at his own dirt-crusted work boots.

She swiveled back toward him, one foot planted firmly on the ground, the other leg bent slightly at the knee, exposing the arch of her foot and accentuating the curve of her calf.

Between them stretched a good ten feet of pristine cream carpet. Carpet he would track dirt all over the second he crossed her threshold.

“It’s through here.” She pointed through the living room toward the west end of her house.

“Right.” He wiped his feet on her doormat, but it didn’t do much good. Giving up, he stepped through her doorway, excruciatingly aware of the dried mud that flaked off his boots onto her floor. Yep, some things never changed.

He’d aged ten years since he’d last seen Jessica Sumners. He’d traveled halfway across the country and back. He’d opened and run his own business. Built houses for people who could buy and sell the Sumners. But the second he’d stepped foot back in this town, he’d felt like a dirty mojadito. Completely unworthy to even stand on her doorstep, let alone do or say any of the things he yearned to.

Jessica Sumners was the closest thing their little California town had to royalty. She came from a world of wealth and privilege, he, from one of dirt and sweat.

Not that Jess had ever treated him like a wetback. No, she’d treated him with the same cool but equable friendliness she’d treated everyone at their high school.

Except for a few short weeks in his senior year when their relationship had evolved into something more. Something he still couldn’t define or explain. Something that still sometimes kept him up at night.

But based on her cool reception, he wasn’t even sure she remembered those weeks. Either way, he’d be damned if he tracked dirt across the floor of the one person in this town who’d never treated him like filth. He reached down and tugged loose his laces, then toed off his boots. Grime ringed his white socks where his boots met his ankles, but there was nothing he could do about that.

He followed her into the kitchen, trying not to notice the seductive rhythm of her hips as she moved. Her long legs accentuated the length of her stride. No pretension or seduction there. Which made the pull even stronger.

“Well, this is it.” She gestured broadly to the kitchen like a game-show hostess revealing the prize behind door number two.

Taking in the room, he frowned. White-painted cabinets, white appliances and dark green laminate counter-tops in a simple galley-style kitchen. Dated, but functional.

Scratching his chin, he asked, “What exactly were you looking to have done?”

She crept closer. Standing almost shoulder-to-shoulder, she studied the kitchen, head tilted slightly toward him. “I don’t know.” She shifted, her bare shoulder brushing his sleeve as she faced him. “I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”

“On the phone you said you wanted to meet as soon as possible. You implied it was an emergency.”

Her gaze shifted nervously away from his. She appraised the kitchen, her forehead furrowing in a frown, before saying, “Haven’t you ever made a decision and wanted to act on it as soon as possible? Just wanted to get it over with?”

Those words, coming from any other rich white woman, would have irritated him. But somehow, coming from her, they didn’t sound selfish or childish, but…frustrated. And very human.

They hinted at the girl he’d known all those years ago. Was the sensitive and kind girl still buried inside this gorgeous creature? The way his hope leaped at the idea made him chuckle.

Dang, but he was susceptible to her.

Her gaze snapped back to his. “You think that’s funny?”

“No, I just…” His hasty reassurance caught in his throat. Her eyes—startlingly blue at this close range—were wide and vulnerable. “It was just unexpected.”

She frowned. “In what way?”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Back in school you were always the perfect rich girl. The perfect student. I guess I never pictured you as the impatient type.”

A hint of a smile tugged at her lips. “I’m surprised you bothered to picture me at all.”

Oh, man, she had no idea. If she knew how many times and how many ways he’d pictured her back then, she wouldn’t want him putting his hands anywhere near her kitchen. He could guaran-damn-tee it.

Keeping his mouth firmly shut on the subject, he said, “I’ll tell you what—” He pulled his tape measure off his belt and his notepad out his back pocket. “I’ll take some measurements, make some notes. We’ll see what we can come up with.”

Just holding the tape measure made him feel more at ease. Jessica may have money, but he had skills. He’d come a long way from the boy he’d been back in high school.

Moving from one end of the kitchen to the next, he measured the length and width, noting the depth and locations of each of the cabinets. He put his pad down on the countertop and began making a quick sketch of the kitchen as it was. She stood beside him, closer than was necessary, throwing off his concentration. And damn, she smelled so good he could barely think.

He shifted away from her, propping his hip against the countertop. “Are you willing to give up storage space? Maybe a wall?”

“What do you think?”

What did he think? He thought she was standing awfully close for someone who just wanted her kitchen remodeled.

Think about the money, he ordered himself. If she wanted to drop forty or fifty grand on a whim, he’d be happy to help her do it.

Think about that. Not about how she smells—fresh and clean, yet spicy. Like Ivory soap mixed with something decadent.