Final Score

“Are you available?” she asked Adam sweetly.

Even though she’d said the words sarcastically, she knew he’d have helped her if he could. Adam was renovating his own house, the old cottage that he and Serena planned to live in when they got married in a few weeks.

“You know I would if I had the time,” he said. Then she watched as he paused in the act of raising his water glass to his mouth. He put the glass back down and said, “But I think I know somebody who might be available.”

She knew Adam was a perfectionist. He wouldn’t recommend anyone who didn’t meet his own rigorous standards, so a feeling of hope began to bloom. “Are you serious? Who?”

Serena turned to Adam. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I usually am.”

Cassie had found that this happened a lot with Serena and Adam. They had the whole married-speak thing going and they weren’t even married yet. She waited, knowing they’d fill her in when they’d finished telepathically communing with each other.

Sure enough, Serena sat for a moment and then nodded. “I agree. It’s a very good idea. Solves both their problems.”

Adam turned back to Cassie. “I happen to know a very handy guy who suddenly has a couple of months of free time and really, really needs a project. Let me tell you about my good friend Dylan Cross.”

She listened as Adam described his firefighter friend Dylan, who’d apparently dragged the operator of an illegal grow op from a burning house, almost getting himself killed in the process, and then was put on suspension for ignoring his captain’s orders. She could see how it might be aggravating to have a heroic deed like that go unappreciated. She could also see that he might be a problem.

“This Dylan Cross is in trouble because he ignored his boss’s orders.” She looked from Adam to Serena. “How do I know he won’t ignore my orders when he’s working on my house?”

“It’s simple,” Adam said, leaning forward and lowering his voice. “We need Dylan at the upcoming championship hockey game for Badges on Ice. If he loses his job, we lose a valuable right wing. So if you have any problem with Dylan, even the tiniest hint of trouble, you will call me, and I and our teammate Max will be all over him.” She’d met Max Varo a couple of times and the billionaire entrepreneur always intimidated her a little.

Cassie leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “So basically what you’re saying is you want me to babysit a guy who has problems with impulse control?”

“He’s a good guy, honestly. Dylan, Max and me, we go way back. Our moms were all friends and we played together as little kids, went through school, joined all the same teams. I know Dylan Cross through and through. Yes, he’s a little rash, but if I was in any kind of trouble I’d want him to have my back.”

She knew Adam wouldn’t use words like that lightly. An outstanding police officer himself, Adam mostly associated with law-and-order types. People of integrity. If he vouched for this Dylan Cross, then she was willing to take a chance.

Besides, she did really, really need a handyman.

But she wasn’t going to be a pushover, either. She gave Adam the steely-eyed gaze that she used if a school kid wasn’t behaving during a visit to the aquarium. “I’ll make a deal with you. I will babysit your boy. But you are personally in charge of making sure he does an excellent job, and that he sticks to a tight budget.”

Adam grinned at her. “You two are going to get on like a house on fire. So to speak.”

She smacked his hand. “Is there anything else I need to know?”

It was Serena who spoke. “One thing that might be good to know.” She sent Cassie a woman-to-woman look. “He’s Mr. June. In the charity firefighter calendar.” She waved a hand in front of her face as though she were perspiring. “You have to check him out.”

2

SATURDAY MORNINGS USED to be Cassie’s favorite time of the entire week. Ahh, those lazy Saturday mornings when she could take a cup of tea back to bed with her, download something new on her e-reader or pick an old favorite from her crowded bookshelves. Then she’d settle back against the pillows and read. She’d get up when she felt like it and then worry about organizing her day.

Those Saturday mornings were over.

Now when she opened her eyes on the first weekend in her new home, she didn’t see the familiar walls of her rental-apartment bedroom, with her art hanging and bookcases begging to be raided. Instead she saw ugly pink walls and packing boxes that she wouldn’t unpack until the room was painted. Her head vibrated with the mental to-do list that seemed longer than her future. And a lot more frightening.

But at least Adam’s friend Dylan was coming by today to take a look at the place and give her an estimate on what he could do for her and how much it would cost.

She really hoped that Adam was right and his buddy, the temporarily unemployed firefighter, would be both competent and reasonably priced.

And how did she feel about a man who was suspended from his regular job because he’d ignored his boss’s orders? She wondered as she brewed tea and made toast, trying to ignore the harvest-gold appliances and chipped mint-green countertops as she did so. What if he ignored her instructions?

Adam maintained that Dylan had put saving a life ahead of bureaucracy, but still, you had to wonder.

While she ate breakfast, she scanned this week’s flyers from local hardware stores and big-box DIY places and wondered, not for the first time, if she’d made a terrible mistake. When she’d found out her grandmother had left her a little money, her parents had both encouraged her to buy her own place. “You know renting is throwing money down the drain,” her mom had insisted.

“We’ve always made money on our houses,” her father, the accountant, had added.

But her father was handy. And lived far away in California. The two of them had bonded not over carpentry but over scuba diving, a passion that had led to her current career.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want a house. She did, of course, and she believed her parents and her financial advisor and the real-estate agent when they’d said that it was a good long-term investment. She imagined what her three-bedroom home could look like and knew it could be warm and beautiful. Even the neglected garden could shine with some love and attention.

If she knew the first thing about gardening.

When the doorbell rang later that day, she was almost ready to shove the For Sale sign back in front of the house.

She opened the door.

And the best-looking man she’d ever seen—who wasn’t staring back at her from a movie screen, TV set or a billboard—stood there. “Hi, I’m Dylan,” he said, all sexy and hot with his tousled hair that looked as though he’d only just gotten out of bed after leaving a woman or two very happy. His eyes were the kind of blue that reminded her of the seas she loved to dive in. His teeth were white and even and he was tall. His clothes might be scruffy but nothing could downplay the exquisite tone of his body.

She actually had to blink and give her overloaded senses a moment. When she opened her eyes he was still there and still as spectacular. Of course, she should have realized that he wasn’t your run-of-the-mill kind of man when Serena had mentioned he was Mr. June and fanned her face. Serena was engaged to Adam Shawnigan, who wasn’t exactly dogmeat to look at. If she was getting gooey over another guy’s appearance—well, he’d look like this man.

“Cassie,” she managed when she could form a word. “Come on in.” Then she saw the toolbox. “Oh, you brought tools.” She’d imagined this would be a preliminary session where he’d look around the house then go home and prepare a budget and maybe give her a supply list.

He shrugged. “Adam said you want to get started right away and personally, I hate wasting time.”

She had her first inkling that they were going to get on just fine.

“Unless you take one look at this place and run screaming out again.” She sighed. “There’s a lot of work here.”

Dylan stepped in around her and began to touch and poke at and inspect things. She’d planned to give him a tour and point out the areas she most wanted tackled, but he seemed to have his own agenda. Fascinated, she followed him. He didn’t take notes, merely nodded and muttered as he pulled on the banister (which was solid, that got a nod), opened a kitchen cabinet (headshake and muttering), then glanced around. “You’ll want a separate electric panel up here in the kitchen. For that you’ll need a licensed electrician. I can recommend one.”

“Thanks.”

“He can also change that fluorescent lighting to something from this century.”

Without missing a thing he was zeroing in on her list of absolute must-haves.

He dropped to his knees and pulled at a corner of the kitchen flooring. That got a groan.

But when they got to the living room and he pulled up a corner of the awful shag rug, he not only nodded, he traced the inlaid wood pattern with a finger. “You can’t buy this kind of workmanship anymore.”

Upstairs, he bounced on the floor, then walked into the bathroom and said, “Wow.” He continued through each of the three bedrooms, then took her all the way down to the basement and walked around. When they got back up to the main level he stood once more in the living room and turned slowly around.

“You know,” Dylan said, “this place has great potential.”

“Oh, how I am beginning to hate that word.”