Hot-Wired / Coming on Strong: Hot-Wired

She bid the other guys goodbye and this time headed toward Beau’s truck. Funny, but she thought he’d hesitated for a second before walking around to his side, as if he was going to open her door for her and reconsidered at the last minute. She was finding herself more and more intrigued with exactly who and what Beau Stillwell was.

She climbed into the truck, settled against the tweed upholstered seat and buckled up. The floorboard was a utilitarian, uncarpeted vinyl. A worn aluminum clipboard sat in the center of the bench seat along with an orange measuring tape. While it was neat and clean, the truck obviously had both miles and years on it. “I’d have put you in a Corvette, Camaro or Mustang,” she said.

“Have you ever tried hauling two-by-fours in one of those?” He turned the key and started the truck.

“Guess that wouldn’t work out too well,” she said. “Why does your engine sound funny?”

He hung a left out of the parking lot onto the highway. “It’s a diesel.” He patted the dashboard, “She’s a workhorse.”

They rolled along and silence filled the space between them. She noted his hands on the steering wheel. He had broad, square hands with a smattering of dark hair on them. His nails were short and clean. They were the capable, masculine hands of a working man and they suited the hard-muscled rest of him that she’d seen. A warm flush spread through her. She could almost guarantee they’d be callused and rasp against a woman’s skin—more specifically, her skin.

Natalie was abruptly achingly aware that only about a foot separated them. How was it that he always seemed to invade her space when she was around him?

And what in the heck was wrong with her? She’d spent two weeks tracking him down to sit idly by and contemplate his hands? Not hardly.

She opened her day planner and flipped to her notes detailing the particulars of the Stillwell-Vickers wedding. “Caitlyn’s discussed with you what she wants done at Belle Terre?”

“As my granddaddy used to say, is the backside of a pig pork?” He slanted a sideways glance her direction. “If you know my baby sister at all, you’ll know she has no problem telling someone what she wants and when she wants it.” Evident affection underscored his wry exasperation.

Natalie chuckled. The few times Natalie had been around the pretty little blonde, when her sister, Shelby, had roomed with her at the Watkins College of Art and Design, Caitlyn had always been forthcoming and occasionally demanding. However, she didn’t strike Natalie as spoiled so much as indulged—a subtle, yet important difference. “Yeah. I guess that’s true.”

“Right. You’ve worked with her on the wedding.”

“And I met her a couple of times when she and Shelby were roomies. Have you ever met Shelby?” Her baby sister had mentioned Caitlyn’s older brother occasionally. She mostly just groused that he was more of a father than a brother and complained about him being overprotective.

“No. I’ve heard plenty about her from Caitlyn but I’ve never met her. I keep a busy schedule.” A flick of his blue eyes in her direction set her heart beating a little faster. “Is she as pretty as you are?”

All her breath lodged in her chest. He thought she was pretty? She’d always been the practical one, the smart one, the organized one, but out of a long-running list of foster sisters, she’d never been described as the pretty one. She curled her fingers into her palm.

And this wasn’t about her. He’d asked about Shelby, even if it had been in context with Natalie. Shelby and Beau Stillwell? Over her dead body. Beau Stillwell had heartbreaker written all over him. “She’s too young for you.”

“How old do you think I am?”

She’d guess early thirties. Chronologically he wasn’t so far out of bounds. Experiencewise, however…And it wasn’t simply because Natalie felt as if she’d been caught in a deep current of desire and was being swept along that every part of her rebelled at the thought of her foster sister dating him.

She was her parents’ only biological child, but she maintained the role of oldest child rather than only child because her parents had started fostering children when Natalie was five. Even as a child she’d been the one to try to bring some semblance of organization to their household. Her hippies-at-heart parents had never figured out that having structure was liberating rather than confining.

All her big sister instincts rose to the surface. She didn’t think Beau was actually interested in Shelby but just in case…“Too old for my little sister.”

He offered a challenging smile that sizzled through her nonetheless. “You don’t like me, do you, Natalie?”

No. Like wasn’t a word she associated with him. It was as if he bypassed every reasonable, rational, functional aspect of her and tapped into her elemental core. When she was around him, she felt everything with a new intensity. It was as if she were supercharged. She’d never been so aware of herself as a woman and him as a man. But did she like him? Did she particularly like feeling this way? No. But then again, it was a rhetorical question. “That’s really immaterial, isn’t it?”

“I don’t see it that way. We’re going to be working closely together on the remodel.”

Working closely with him on anything struck her as a lousy idea. He turned everything in her world topsy-turvy and Natalie didn’t like topsy-turvy. “Once we get the dates down, it really doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“That’s not the way Caitlyn sees it.” He looked altogether too smug. “She said that’s what she was paying you for.” His voice dropped and slid over her like the play of velvet against naked flesh. “She assured me you’d be at my beck and call.”

Her. Him.

Naked. Needy.

Wet. Hot.

Beck and call.

The very idea sent a shiver down her spine and a rush of slick heat between her thighs.

“Within reason,” she managed to say.

“Reason’s not part of the deal.”

WHAT THE HELL? He liked women. He liked spending time with women, but he never got caught up in them. But that’s exactly how he felt about Natalie Bridges. Caught up. Tangled. Intrigued.

Interested…aroused, even…was fine, but that wasn’t what all of this was about, he reminded himself. Caitlyn was going to make a big mistake and it was up to him to make sure she didn’t, by whatever means possible.

Beau rounded the last curve beneath the arch of overhanging oaks and Belle Terre spread before him. Son of a bitch. Cash Vickers would have to show up with a harem and light a crack pipe to get his baby sister to walk away from this.

Set on prime rolling Tennessee hills, even with its vague air of neglect reflected in sagging and missing shutters, Belle Terre was spectacular. The house itself boasted an imposing front of soaring columns and two stories of floor-to-ceiling windows with a second-story balcony overlooking the front door.

“That’s a helluva tax write-off, wouldn’t you say?” he said.

Natalie pushed her hair back over her shoulder. Thick and shiny, it was the kind of hair that left a man itching to run his fingers through it—or hungry to feel it teasing against his bare chest, his belly and finally his thighs as it followed the trail blazed by her lush mouth over his body. She quirked an eyebrow in inquiry. “You haven’t seen Belle Terre before? Not even the video?”

He pushed aside a ripple of guilt. Videographer was Caityln’s professional calling, but it wasn’t his deal. “Nope. I don’t spend a lot of time watching music videos.” Apparently the video—Caitlyn’s project and her intro to Cash Vickers—that went with his hit song “Homesick” had been shot at Belle Terre. According to Caitlyn, Vickers had bought the place because she’d fallen in love with it. “First I heard of it was when he gave her Belle Terre and a ring. I’ve been meaning to get out here but I’ve been busy.”

He glanced over at her. The dying sunlight slanting in through her window picked out red threads in her hair.

“You know, Caitlyn has her heart set on having the wedding here,” she said.

He had the oddest feeling that they could have been discussing their own child, years from now. It was the first time he’d ever felt someone really understood the level of responsibility he felt for Caitlyn. “I caught that.”

“Then it’s a good thing we’re sequencing out the remodel today. It’s a bit of a tight timeline.”

Yeah, if they were actually looking at an August wedding. And he caught on right away that she was taking him to task. He was quick that way.

He parked in the circular driveway that fronted the stately columned home. “My sister is obsessed with Gone with the Wind.” He didn’t need a psychology degree to figure out that she’d identified with Scarlett O’Hara losing everything. He’d figured her latching on to an iconoclastic heroine was better than developing a drug addiction or identifying with some goth singer who looked like the Grim Reaper and wore makeup. His sister, however, was amazingly well-adjusted considering her childhood. “It’s a wonder she hasn’t tried to change the name of the place to Tara.”

A spontaneous smile—as opposed to her usual I-have-to-be-nice-to-this-asshole smile—curved her lips and lit her eyes. “She did.” It left Beau with the oddest feeling that he and Natalie shared a bond. “Cash put his foot down on that. He said they had to respect the history of the place.”

He nodded. Much as he didn’t want to, he felt a measure of grudging respect for Vickers on that. Beau knew from experience that telling Caitlyn no wasn’t easy. He also gave Vickers points on standing behind Belle Terre’s history.

“Beautiful Land is certainly a fitting name.” The house sat on a knoll with gently rolling green hills beyond it. The Miscanauga Creek lay at the foot of the slope to the right rear of the house.

“It is, isn’t it?” She pressed the button to release her seat belt. “Shall we start with the outside since we seem to be losing daylight?”

“Sure, sugar pie.” That ought to grit her teeth and kill the camaraderie he felt squeezing in with the sexual tension that was thick enough to cut. Sexual tension he could deal with—revel in, in fact. Camaraderie was outside his realm of experience. “You’ve got something to take notes on?”