Flirting With Disaster

“Here’s the way I see it,” he began. “Nothing’s stopping you from sitting in this cozy little beach house all the live-long day, if that’s what you want to do. I’m sure your art and antiques gallery can pretty much run itself, thanks to those competent employees you’ve hired. And if it doesn’t, so what? You’ve got a nice little trust fund from your daddy. You don’t need to do a thing.”

Maggie bristled. She’d never liked thinking of herself as a spoiled little rich girl who didn’t need to work for a living. She’d poured heart and soul into Images, a high-end shop that catered to Charleston’s wealthier citizens and the tourists who visited the city’s historic district. She’d never treated it like a hobby, and had taken pride in its success. She also felt a certain amount of perverse satisfaction just knowing that it drove her mother crazy to think of her daughter being in “trade,” as she put it. Juliette Forsythe should have lived in some earlier century.

As for her employees, Maggie didn’t know where Cord had gotten the idea they were competent. She’d be lucky if they didn’t run the place into bankruptcy. Although, until right this second with Cord taunting her, she hadn’t much cared.

But if Cord was aware of her growing indignation, he gave no indication. “Maggie’s a smart woman,” he continued mildly, aiming his words at Dinah and Warren and leaving Maggie to draw her own conclusions. “This has obviously been a trying time for her. I think we should let her decide for herself how she wants to spend her days. She can go back to work running her business, if that’s what matters to her. She can come on out and help us with our project and make a real difference in someone’s life. Or she can sit right here and feel sorry for herself. It’s her choice. I think once we clear out and give her some breathing room, she’ll make the right decision.”

Maggie saw the trap at once. If she did what she wanted to do and hung around here wallowing in self-pity and Häagen-Daz ice cream, they’d worry, but they’d let her do it and they wouldn’t think any the less of her, because they loved her. But in her heart, she’d see herself for the ridiculously self-indulgent idiot she was being.

She’d lost a man. So what? Warren wasn’t the first and undoubtedly he wouldn’t be the last, despite her current vow to avoid all males from here to eternity. Leave it to a man as sneaky and surprisingly insightful as Cordell to appeal to her floundering self-respect.

“Okay, okay, I get it. Tell me again about this stupid project,” she said grudgingly.

Cord, bless his devious little heart, bit back a grin. “We’re going to be building a house for someone who needs one. The church’s congregation got the idea, a benefactor donated the land, and the preacher asked me to put together a volunteer construction crew. We’ll be working mostly on weekends, since that’s when people are available. Dinah and her mama are in charge of raising money for whatever building supplies we can’t get donated.”

“What do you expect me to do?” Maggie asked suspiciously.

“What you’re told,” Dinah said with a glint of amusement in her eyes. “Same as me. It’ll be a refreshing change for us. At least that’s what Cord says. We’ll be hammering and painting right alongside everyone else.”

Maggie turned her gaze on Warren. “And you?” she asked.

“That’s up to you,” he replied. “I said I’d help, but I’ll stay away if you want me to, Maggie. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Maggie wasn’t sure Warren had any essential skills for building a house, so sending him away might not be much of a loss, but why bother? Maybe it was time to show all of Charleston that she was holding up just fine after her broken engagement. It was past time she held her head up high and behaved like the strong, independent woman she’d always considered herself to be.

“Do whatever you want to do,” she told Warren with as much indifference as she could muster.

“Then you’ll help?” Dinah asked.

“I’ll help,” Maggie agreed. “If I don’t, who knows what sort of place you’ll build? Everyone knows I’m the one with taste in this crowd.”

“We’re building a three-bedroom bungalow with the basic necessities for a single mom with three kids,” Cord warned. “Not a mansion. Let’s not lose sight of that.”

“You’re building a house,” Maggie retorted emphatically. “I’ll turn it into a home.”

But just as she uttered the words, Maggie spotted the satisfied glint in Dinah’s eyes and wondered if she wasn’t making the second mistake she’d made that day. The first had been opening the door to these three.

2

The blessed ceiling fan was making so much noise Josh couldn’t even hear himself think. Normally that would be downright terrific, but he was sitting on the edge of his motel-room bed, facing down his boss and his boss’s drop-dead-gorgeous wife, who was trying valiantly to pretend that this sleazy dump was a palace. They all knew better.

Josh raked a hand through his hair and tried not to stare at Dinah Davis’s elegant, long legs. Dinah Davis Beaufort, he reminded himself sternly. He had a hunch if his gaze lingered one second too long, Cord would punch him out and forget all about whatever scheme had brought the two of them over here at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning.

Which might not be a bad thing, Josh realized. He didn’t like that matching gleam in their eyes one damn bit.

“Why exactly are you here?” he asked, wishing like hell he hadn’t had that fourth beer the night before. It had knocked him out so he could sleep, but it was muddying his thought processes now and something told him he was going to need all his wits about him before this conversation was over.

“I need you to do me a favor,” Cord said.

“A huge favor,” Dinah amended.

Josh regarded both of them suspiciously. He turned his gaze on Dinah, since he had this gut-sick feeling she was the one who’d come up with this huge favor. Cord was a businesslike sort who laid things on the line, said what he needed and then left his crew to get the work done. Dinah was sneaky … or clever, depending on your point of view. Her mere presence here was enough to fill Josh with dread.

“I am not going out with one of your friends,” Josh announced, since that was always what women seemed to want from him. They assumed that if he was single, he was lonely. He wasn’t, at least not in the way that made him accept blind dates intended to lead to something serious and permanent. In fact, he’d had enough experience with the female population to last him a lifetime. He was currently dedicating himself to a life of celibacy. Of course, he’d only been at it a week and it was already getting on his nerves, so the odds weren’t great he’d stick with it. Still, permanency was absolutely, positively out of the question, and that was the only thing any friend of Dinah’s was likely to be interested in.

“Of course not,” Dinah said sweetly. “I would never dream of imposing on you like that, Josh. I don’t know you well enough to presume to know your taste in women.”

Even though he’d only encountered Dinah a few times in his life, Josh knew for a fact she only laid on that thick, syrupy accent when she was lying through her teeth. Her mama was the same way. He’d run into Dorothy Davis a few times when he’d helped out with the renovations Beaufort Construction was doing at Covington Plantation, her pet historic preservation project. She’d always poured on enough syrup to send a man into a diabetic coma just before she moved in for the kill. Watching her work on Cord had given Josh all the lessons he needed to know to watch his backside around the Davis women.

“What, then?” he inquired cautiously.

“Actually it’s going to be a real challenge, something downright rewarding,” Cord said in what sounded like an overly optimistic bit of spin. “We’re going to be building a house for a particular family and I need you to oversee the project. I’ll keep you on the company payroll, but everyone else will be volunteer labor.”

“You don’t build houses,” Josh said, trying to get a grasp on what Cord was saying. “You do historic renovation. So do I.”

Cord’s lips twitched. “I’d say we both have enough skill to build a house from the ground up if we put our minds to it. Besides, this is a one-shot deal. I’m not asking you to take on an entire development in the suburbs.”

Josh still couldn’t hide his bemusement. “I don’t get it. Why me? For that matter, how did you get sucked into this?”

Cord cast a glance at his wife, which answered one question, then he leveled a look straight into Josh’s eyes. “I want you on this because the Atlanta renovations are finished and there’s nothing going on over there till we get that new deal finalized. The Covington renovations are almost done. I need to finish up out there if we’re going to keep my mother-in-law happy. She’s got some big gala scheduled in a month to show it off, and if every little detail isn’t just right, she’ll have my hide. You’ve got the time for this right now. I don’t.”

“I do historic renovations,” Josh reminded him again. “I don’t build cute little houses with amateurs.”

“You do if that’s what I need you to do,” Cord reminded him mildly, pulling rank.

“It’s a bad idea,” Josh argued. In fact, it was a lousy idea in ways too numerous to mention. He settled on one. “It’s a waste of my skills. I should be helping you out at Covington. Then you’ll be done that much sooner.”

“Hey, come on, pal,” Cord cajoled. “It’s a few months out of your life for a good cause. What’s the big deal?”

Josh shuddered. He knew more than most about good causes. For most of his life he’d been on the receiving end of other people’s charity. He hadn’t much liked it. It had reminded him that there was nothing normal about his family, that his dad had disappeared before Josh had needed his first diaper change and that his mom had tried to fill that void with one creep after another. They’d run from cheap motel to cheap motel in more cities than he could count, trying to get away from the worst of the creeps. It was the reason he picked rooms like this one. It reminded him of his so-called homes. That kind of history didn’t exactly qualify him to build anybody’s dream house.

“This is like one of those Habitat for Humanity things?” he asked.

“Exactly like that,” Cord said. “But this is just a one-shot deal being put together by a church in Charleston. One of the parishioners has had a run of real bad luck and the church wants to help her out. They’ve got the land. They’ve got people beating the bushes to get building materials donated. I’m putting together the construction crew and I want you in charge.”

“You say it’s for someone who’s had a run of bad luck. What kind of bad luck?” Josh inquired, despite his intention to nip this whole scheme in the bud.

“A woman with three kids,” Cord said. “Her husband was killed in a car accident and left them with nothing but a mountain of debt. They had to sell their house and move into a cramped apartment. They were about to be evicted from that till the church stepped in and took care of the rent, but they need a bigger place, a home that really belongs to them. Building this will give them a new start in life.” He gave Josh a pointed look. “I’m sure you can relate to that.”

Josh cursed the day he’d spilled his guts to Cord about his lousy childhood. He should have known it would come back to bite him in the butt.

Before Josh could stop her, Dinah whipped out a picture of a pretty, but exhausted-looking woman with three solemn-looking kids. Every one of them appeared beaten down. Unfortunately, just as Cord had guessed, Josh could relate to that. His mother, Nadine, had looked exactly like that way too often. He felt his heart twist. How the hell was he supposed to say no now that he’d looked into those sad, vulnerable eyes that reminded him of her? His mother always bounced back quickly, but something told him this family might not have her resiliency.

“I suppose they’re all going to be underfoot?” he asked, resigned. If there was one thing he was more skittish about than women, it was kids. He didn’t know what to make of them. He sometimes wondered if that was what had sent his father fleeing, the jittery sense that he was in way over his head when he found out Josh was on the way.

“That’s part of the deal,” Cord said. “They have to help, right down to the littlest one.”

“I’m not babysitting a bunch of kids,” Josh declared fiercely. “It’s way too dangerous for them to be anywhere near a construction site.”