“But if we have the power, wouldn’t we be the ones who won?” Addison questioned.
No one had time to answer. Hammer in hand, Kenneth wandered into the living room. “Why is Jake yelling?” he asked, shoving a handful of catalogs under Tessa’s nose. “And which do you like better for the floors? Carpeting or tile?”
Closing her eyes, Tessa pressed her fingers to her temple. Good goddess almighty. Her quiet life had certainly been turned upside down since Kenneth arrived and Jake returned, going from peaceful to unbelievably surreal in the blink of an eye. Suddenly she had a thousand things to take care of, most of which she didn’t care about. Paint colors, carpet textures, tile designs. It was all a little overwhelming. Sure, the house had been a little run-down, maybe even a little shabby, but it had been hers. A nice quiet sanctuary far away from the troubles of the outside world.
A sanctuary falling down around your head
. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she’d needed someone to give her a shove. She couldn’t keep hiding out.
Tessa let her hands drop. “I think I’d prefer tile,” she said, making the effort to add a smile to her answer. She really didn’t care what he put on the floor. Redoing the house was all Kenneth’s idea, something he’d made his own personal project.
It didn’t take a lot of figuring to guess Kenneth Randall was a take-charge kind of man. He liked to be in control, make the decisions, and call the shots. Being married to a rich, willful woman with a career of her own must have felt like castration to him. Mechanics just couldn’t compare to neurosurgeons.
It also didn’t take much brainpower to figure out he was a man who needed to be needed. He clearly liked home and hearth, futzing with repairs and clucking over the little woman.
He was almost too damn good for his own good. He put a hundred and ten percent into whatever he did. She, on the other hand, was pretty laid-back. She definitely preferred crystals to ceramic tile.
“Good. I agree.” Kenneth paused, redirecting his thoughts. Nothing got past him. Not a single thing. “But you didn’t answer my question. What’s Jake bitching about?”
Addison pointed to the broken window. “Tessa accidentally sent a crystal through the glass and almost blew Jake’s hand off.”
Kenneth’s brow furrowed. “I thought you were aiming for his head.”
Tessa smacked his leg with the catalogs. “Funny. Ha-ha. I wasn’t aiming for anything, actually.”
He walked over and examined the broken window. “Looks like you blew right through it. Guess this means I’ll need to order a replacement.”
“Any chance we can get shatterproof?” As long as they were redecorating, might as well upgrade.
Kenneth thought a moment. “I’ll check.” He ambled off, heading back to work.
The girls watched him go.
Gwen shook her head. “Unbelievable.” She laid a hand on her sister’s arm. “Don’t treat him bad, okay? If you’re just going to use him, cut him loose.”
Bristling, Tessa pulled her arm away. Getting drunk and jabbering like a baboon on crack was one thing. Saying hurtful things quite another. “Why would I hurt him?”
Gwen looked at her through soft green eyes. Her momentary jealously had bled out, replaced with sincere concern. “You’re arrogant, Tess. We all are when it comes to humans. Even though we don’t like to admit it, we do treat them like lesser beings.”
Tessa’s mouth quirked down. She had to admit there were lots of times when people—humans—just annoyed her. After they’d answered her beck and call she wanted them gone. Period.
The realization made her feel a little sick. “I won’t do that to Kenneth.” She raked her fingers through her long hair. A moment ago she’d been near freezing. Now she was burning up, beads of perspiration dotting her forehead.
She really didn’t want to talk about how she would or wouldn’t treat Kenneth. It was none of her sister’s business anyway. Gwen wasn’t the woman in Kenneth’s bed.
But she’d like to be.
Gwen studied her through an all-too-perceptive gaze. “Just make sure the
darkness
doesn’t get the best of you.”
Despite the fact she was burning up, Tessa shivered. Things were getting too complicated, too fast.
Kenneth frowned at the line of rot running along the base of the wall he’d just knocked down. He’d hoped the damage hadn’t seeped down into the floors of the house, but one look revealed the worst.
He cursed under his breath. Damn. Looked like it was going to take a lot more work than he’d initially estimated.
Hands on his hips, he cast a look around the room. The workmen he’d hired had called it quits for the day, promising to be back first thing tomorrow morning. He’d definitely have to adjust his original plans and re-figure his budget to cover the extra costs of replacing the floors.
Kenneth shook his head.
It needs to be done.
No getting around it. He’d just have to roll up his sleeves and plunge right in. The old house was in terrible shape. Battered by wind and water for generations uncounted, it had suffered badly through the years.
Regular maintenance might have helped allay a lot of the damage, but it was work a single woman on her own definitely couldn’t manage. The sort of repairs the house needed definitely called for a man’s hand. Several men and several pairs of hands, in fact. After a few days of working on his own, he’d quickly figured out the job was too much to tackle alone.
Some might think renovating the house was his way of repaying Tessa. In a way, that was true. She’d given him back his life. But being alive didn’t necessarily mean the will to live. He’d had to rediscover that for himself. It felt good to have a purpose, goals to pursue.
Of course, he’d consulted Tessa before plunging in. There was no way he’d enter into a major renovation without her say-so. While it was true they shared a bed, his place in her life was still tenuous. They were still learning their way around each other’s moods, the slow dance that came with getting to know a person and their preferences. He’d already learned the hard way that Tessa was moody. She was a woman who sought independence, but had no way to maintain it.
Since she couldn’t very well refuse, she’d agreed to let him handle—and pay for—repairs on the house. He’d asked for control and she’d granted it.
He did so with an eye toward the future. He wanted to make things work between himself and Tessa.
Simply put, he wanted a future. With her.
But Tessa wasn’t the kind of woman to go along for the ride just to see the scenery. She wanted a destination in mind before running off. In that respect she was careful, wary, almost afraid of being tied to a man a second time.
She needed her space.
Kenneth knelt, digging at the moldy rotting wood with the tips of his fingers. He was willing to give Tessa what she needed. Putting a solid roof over her head would go a long way toward soothing her insecurities. He had the means and he had the money, so why not? Whether he’d be living there in the future or not didn’t matter. He had other plans simmering on the back burner. If the time came to move on, he’d be ready to pack his bags and hit the road.
A commotion behind him alerted him to the presence of another person.
Jake Massey stumbled in, picking his way through the wreckage. He clutched his ever- important BlackBerry in his hand. It was a wonder the handheld didn’t blow up. The poor little machine was in constant use.
“Geez, Louise,” Jake said, eyeing the damage. “It looks like the
Titanic
sank here.”
Kenneth rose to his feet. “It gets worse. Looks like part of the floor is going to have to come up, too.”
Jake shook his head. “I’d been waiting for word that this house blew into the sea, never to be seen again.”
Kenneth tapped a foot. “Foundation’s solid enough, but the storms have taken their toll.”
“You going to fix it?”
He nodded. “Every last bit. By the time I get finished, there won’t be a single problem with the house.”
Jake leveled a cool gaze his way. “Awfully nice of you to do for a woman you just met.”
Kenneth narrowed his eyes. “Just like it’s terribly nice of me to fund an expedition back to the Mediterranean for some two-bit archaeologist I just met.”
Jake’s face turned two shades redder. “Touché.”
Kenneth tossed his hammer aside and rubbed his hands down the front of his pants. “So what’s the latest?” Like Jake, he had to admit he’d gotten caught up in the mystique of the Mer. The idea of recovering a lost civilization excited him beyond words.
Jake lifted a hand, ticking off key points. “The company’s debts have been cleared and the liens have been withdrawn, so we’ve got the boat and equipment in place. The captain’s calling the crew back in now.”
“How long will that take?”
Jake shrugged. “Oh, at least a month, I’m sure. But the time lag is okay. We’ve got to get an attorney into court as soon as possible to stake our claim.”
Kenneth’s brows rose. “We do?”
Jake nodded. “We’ve got to ask the courts to determine a salvage award and establish legal guarantees on any artifacts recovered, ensuring that they remain intact as a collection. Some pieces recovered earlier have already attracted private buyers. Because Ishaldi’s ruins lay in international waters, Recoveries, Inc., needs to gain exclusive rights to salvage the artifacts.”
Kenneth digested that chunk of information. He’d had no idea one needed a team of lawyers to defend a claim on something lying untouched at the bottom of the sea for more than a thousand years. “No wonder you’ve been burning up the dollars.”
Jake shrugged. “Tell me about it. But we’ve got to protect our claim, this one more than others. We’re not just pulling up relics from a shipwreck. We’re delving into a lost civilization, something that exists only in legends.”
“Kind of like the Loch Ness monster?”
Jake laughed. “Well, I don’t know if our fair Mer would want to be compared to it, but I wouldn’t mind being in on that discovery, either.”
“So how do we get the courts to see things our way?”
“In seeking a salvage award, Recoveries, Inc., has to document the labor devoted to previous expeditions, and the risks incurred bringing up artifacts from a depth stretching almost three miles under the sea. The archaeological value of the ruins and its artifacts speaks for itself. The rediscovery will literally knock the archaeological world on its ass.”
Kenneth rubbed his jaw. “Not to mention everybody else.”
Jake grinned. “Exactly.”
“Well, it sounds like you’ve got everything on track.”
Jake consulted his BlackBerry. “There is one other thing I need to talk to you about.”
Kenneth shrugged. Most likely Jake was about to ask him to write another check. “How much?”
Jake flagged a hand. “I’ll probably need more money later. But that’s not what’s on my mind right now.”
“Okay. Spit it out.”
“My partner in Recoveries, Inc., is getting out. Part of the money I’ve spent has gone toward buying his half of the business. It’s now mine. Every bit.”
That put a sour taste in Kenneth’s mouth. Jake was subtly amassing full control. “Congratulations on your acquisition.”
“Not so much,” Jake countered. “While it’s true the company is now running debt-free, it won’t stay that way long unless we have an influx of ready cash.”
Kenneth raised an inquiring brow. “And?”
Jake sighed and rolled his eyes. “I’m offering you half of the business. We’d be partners, fifty- fifty. There’s a lot of wreckage in those oceans and I intend to find as much of it as I can before I die.”
Though his face was schooled to hold an impassive expression, inside Kenneth was bursting to come right out and accept. He definitely had to admit the treasure hunting bug had bitten him. Hard. This was the most exciting adventure he’d ever set out on in his life. He liked the idea of rediscovering the lost, bringing it up from the water to share again with the world.
But fools rushed in where angels feared to tread.
He also had a few considerations. And a few reservations. The first and foremost was did he like Jake Massey enough to want to go into business with him?
Although he hadn’t wanted to admit it when he’d met the man, he could honestly check the box yes now. Sure, Jake was clearly a predator, and out for himself. But he was also an intelligent man who knew what he needed to get where he wanted to go. His biggest stumbling block was that people didn’t like Jake. Most everyone saw through his razor-sharp ambition—and didn’t like the idea he might just stab them in the back to get what he wanted.
The second biggest consideration was how would Tessa feel about her current boyfriend (could he even call himself that?) and her ex- fiancé going into business together? So far she’d treated Jake coolly but civilly, making a wide berth around him.
The third consideration was what did he, Kenneth, want to do? Since selling his own business, he’d put himself on an aimless path. He had no goals, no responsibilities. He also had nothing holding him back from doing what he wanted to do, when he wanted to do it. For the first time in his life he was footloose and fancy free.
If he and Tessa stayed together, great. If not, he’d have something to fall back on.
Either way it seemed workable.
It didn’t take long to make a decision.
He held out his hand. “I’ll buy in.”
Jake returned the shake. “Terrific. Welcome aboard, partner. I’ll get the attorneys to put the legalities in place. Pull out your pen and get ready to sign.”
Kenneth let his hand drop. “Haven’t I been doing that already?”
“True. And you’re going to be doing more of it soon, sure enough.” Lifting his BlackBerry, Jake gave it a good shake. “Damn, I’ve lost the signal again. I’ll have to go outside to make the call.”
“Call away.”