Summer at Seaside Cove (7 page)

“Most of the smaller homes on the island are this same shotgun style. There aren't many of them left—people have bought them just for the land, then torn them down and put up bigger, newer places to take advantage of the summer rental market here. Have a seat,” he said, nodding toward one of the two wooden bar stools that stood where the snack bar used to be. “I'll be right back.”

He entered his bedroom and, after closing the door behind him, rolled his shoulders and rubbed the back of his neck. Pesky woman. He should have slammed the door in her face. Told her to take a hike. But that printout she'd shown him and her insistence about there being no mention of Paradise Lost's “as is” condition on the rental site had a bad feeling tugging in his gut. He hadn't checked the site after sending Jack Crawford the info and photos. Actually, he'd only agreed to rent the place at Jack's insistence. He liked the Realtor—he reminded Nick of one of his favorite college professors, and he'd figured what the hell? The rental money would come in handy as there were so many repairs he needed to make to both houses. Nick hadn't believed anyone would want to rent Paradise Lost as it was, but Jack had assured him, “If you put it on the website, they will come.”

Now where the hell was his phone? During his search he located his laptop. How had it ended up under a pile of laundry? Damned if he knew. It took him another few minutes to hunt up his phone, which he found under another pile of laundry.

Guess it was time to do some laundry.

With the phone gripped in his hand, he opened the bedroom door and stepped into the living area. And halted at the sight of Jamie Newman sitting on the plywood that was currently his kitchen floor, rubbing Godiva's belly. Godiva's hind legs twitched in delight and she was making her “Oh, please God,
never
stop doing that” noises while covering Jamie's elbow in adoring kisses.

“You are just the sweetest thing, aren't you?” Jamie crooned, sending Godiva into a state of complete canine euphoria by scratching behind her ears with one hand while still rubbing her belly with the other.

Nick found himself all but hypnotized by the sight of that rubbing hand . . . stroking, over and over. An image of that small, soft-looking hand stroking
his
belly suddenly popped into his mind and he realized with a slap of annoyance that he'd settled his palm against his own abdomen.

He jerked his hand away as if he'd burned himself. Damn annoying woman. An opinion that was magnified tenfold when she said to Godiva, “How did a sweet baby like you end up with such an annoying, irresponsible doofus?”

“Good news is, Godiva doesn't think I'm an annoying, irresponsible doofus,” Nick said, walking into the gutted kitchen. “She doesn't judge people—something you might want to think about. And just FYI—it's not polite to denigrate a man to his own dog.”

She gave Godiva a final pat and then stood. “Since you're so big on manners, it's not polite to greet guests with your pants unbuttoned.”

“You're not a guest and I didn't invite you, so you're just going to have to deal with what you get when you drag a man out of bed at the crack of dawn.”

Chalking up a mental point for himself, he opened the browser on his phone and pulled up the Seaside Cove Rentals website.

“Look under the New Rentals tab,” she instructed, leaning in to peer at the screen.

Her bare shoulder brushed his bare arm and a bolt of heat that was surely annoyance shot through him. The faint scent of something delicious wafted up his nose and he found himself turning his head toward her and taking a few discreet sniffs.

Cookies. She smelled like
cookies
. Sweet, delicious, freshfrom-the-oven cookies. His stomach immediately rumbled and he pressed his lips together. Damn it, he
loved
cookies. And double damn it, he was hungry. And suddenly craving cookies. And there wasn't a damn cookie in sight. Except her. Jamie Pain-in-the-Ass Newman.

Who, he realized, had stepped away from him and was regarding him through narrowed eyes. “Did you just smell my hair?”

“Certainly not.” He'd smelled . . . the area
around
her hair. Definitely not the same thing. He'd actually wanted to smell her neck, but based on the “eat shit and die” expression shooting from her eyes, that wouldn't have gone over well. But really, if she didn't want guys smelling her, she damn well shouldn't make herself smell like cookies!

His stomach rumbled again, and with a grunt of irritation, he turned his attention back to his phone. He tapped the New Rentals tab, and after some quick scrolling, saw the ad for Paradise Lost. A red banner proclaiming the property No Longer Available! bisected the ad, but it was still easy to see that the same photos Jamie had on her printout were featured on the web page. The bad feeling that had tugged his gut ballooned into a full-fledged
oh, shit
as he read the entire ad.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered. As she'd claimed, there wasn't one mention of “as is” or ongoing repairs. And the only photos were those showing Paradise Lost looking like . . . well, paradise.

Crap. It was way too early in the morning for this. And without a cup of coffee in sight. He dragged a weary hand through his hair and met her gaze. “It appears you're right.”

She raised her brows. “It
appears
I'm right?”

Great—he now knew what it felt like to have his blood pressure jump twenty points. “If you'd quit being sarcastic, you'd realize I'm attempting to apologize.” He had to clamp his lips shut for several seconds to keep himself from adding
you pesky smartass
to the end of his sentence. “I sent Jack recent photos—where he found those other ones, I have no idea. I can't explain why the wording in the ad didn't state the house's condition. It should have, and I can only say I'm sorry it didn't. Clearly there was a miscommunication somewhere along the way between me and Jack. I'll call him later this morning to find out what happened.”

He blew out a quick breath, then continued, “But at this point, I can't see that it really matters. Paradise Lost is the way it is. Given that it wasn't properly presented on the website, I can understand you being upset. If you want to leave, I'll fully refund your money.”

He watched the expressions flicker across her face—surprise and confusion (obviously she hadn't expected an apology. Ha! Take that Miss Door Pounder), annoyance (no big surprise there), and finally distress.

“I can't leave,” she said. “Where would I go?”

“Uh, back where you came from?” he said, unable to keep the note of hope out of his voice.

A look of pure horror came over her face and he suddenly wondered what had motivated her last-minute plan to spend the summer here.

“I can't. I sublet my apartment.”

“Maybe you could stay with family?”

He actually saw a shudder shake her. And oh, Christ, were those
tears
filling her eyes? No, please, God, not tears. Jesus, he couldn't possibly deal with girl tears before he'd had coffee.

She blinked several times and he damn near swayed with relief when no tears fell. “Ah, staying with family isn't an option.”

Hmmmm. Clearly a story there, but he sure as hell wouldn't be asking about it. Oh, no. He wasn't about to be sucked into her drama. He'd come to Seaside Cove to escape drama—not find it. “Friends? Hotel?”

“I can't impose on anyone for two months,” she said, “and I can't afford a hotel for that length of time.”

“Well, you could always suck it up, princess, and stay here.” The instant the words left his mouth, he wanted to smack himself upside his own head.
What the hell are you saying, dude?
his inner voice yelled.
Let her go! Who needs this prissy princess living next door? Not you. She'll make your life a living hell if she stays.

“In the cottage of horrors with the raindrops falling on me and the Stairs of Death? Not tempting.”

Good. But then his damn conscience kicked him in the ass and he heaved a sigh. Clearly it was the lack of food and caffeine that had him feeling sorry for her. If he didn't get a cup of coffee and some food in him soon, he was going to black out.

“Look,” he said, giving in to his sense of fair play, “the weather's supposed to be good for the next couple of days. I'll start work today on the stairs—shouldn't take me more than a few hours to make the repairs. Then I'll start on the roof.”

She chewed on her lower lip, drawing his attention to her mouth. Damn, that was one gorgeous mouth. Full, pink lips . . . he was definitely a lip man. He was just contemplating whether those lips would taste like cookies when she said, “Well?”

He forced his gaze up to hers and her expression made it clear he'd dropped the conversational ball. “Well what?”

“You'll have the roof done before it rains again?”

“I can't predict the weather—all I can say is that I'll try.”

“And the shower curtain?”

“I'll pick one up, along with the hanging things, when I hit Home Depot.”

“There's a Home Depot around here?”

He couldn't recall ever hearing a woman sound so hopeful about a Home Depot. “Yeah. It's about ten miles down Route 4. Next to the Piggly Wiggly.”

Interest flared in her eyes. He wasn't sure if it was directed at him or Home Depot or the Piggly Wiggly, but either way, heat zoomed through him. “You have a car?” she asked.

“A pickup. Why?”

“Looks like we're going to be neighbors.”

J
amie climbed into the passenger seat of Nick Trent's pickup truck—a vehicle she never would have believed was his given its spotless, shiny black exterior and equally pristine interior. She would've bet a month's rent his vehicle would have been in the same deplorable condition as Paradise Lost. Good thing she didn't like to gamble.

As he buckled his seat belt in preparation of heading to the shopping mecca that contained Home Depot—aka the store that would save Paradise Lost—and Piggly Wiggly—aka the supermarket that would save her and Cupcake from starvation and her pet from the roasting pan litter box—she found herself unable to stop taking surreptitious peeks at Nick from the corner of her eye. And she couldn't figure out
why
.

Men who looked like the morning after a rough night had never appealed to her before. She'd always been attracted to neat, orderly, clean-cut men. But for reasons she couldn't understand, Nick Trent had grabbed her attention the instant he'd opened his door, with his bare chiseled chest and rockhard abs, and those darn unbuttoned jeans. Who answered the door like that? He'd looked like his bender had ended with a hedonistic orgy. For all she knew, there'd been some tramp sleeping off a hangover in his bed. All reasons for her to be completely turned off and to utterly ignore him.

Instead, even her righteous anger hadn't been able to keep her thoughts completely on the matter at hand, and throughout their conversation, part of her brain had uncharacteristically and really annoyingly kept wandering off track, distracting her with whispers of
Whoa, he is steaming hot!
and
Hmmmm . . . could his hair feel as thick and soft as it looks?
and
Wow—what a gorgeous mouth. Wonder if he knows how to use it for anything besides sucking down alcohol?
Her fingers had practically itched with the urge to reach out and pull his fascinatingly half-mast fly the rest of the way down, er,
up
. She meant up. Absolutely up.

The fact that he'd distracted her for even a nanosecond had royally irked her. He was Pain in the Ass Number One and she had every right to be pissed off at him and his unethical renting practices. Still, after his initial crankiness, he
had
apologized and offered her a refund, and if he was telling the truth, the miscommunication and misleading photos on the website were Jack Crawford's doing. Not that it did her any good. She sure as hell wasn't about to go back to New York, and even if she did, with her apartment sublet, she had nowhere to stay.

Thus she found herself in Nick's pickup, although if she hadn't been desperate for supplies and without a car, she definitely wouldn't be here. Nope. She absolutely didn't want to spend one more minute in his testosterone-laden company than was absolutely necessary.

After clicking the metal buckle into place, she stole another quick peek at him. She'd spent the fifteen minutes since she'd left his house washing her face, brushing her teeth, taming her electrocuted-looking hair into some semblance of order, and changing into a fresh tank top and shorts. As far as she could tell, the only freshening up he'd done during that time was to throw on a T-shirt. She assumed he'd fastened his jeans, but since he hadn't bothered to tuck in the T-shirt, she couldn't tell.

“They're buttoned,” he said, sliding the key into the ignition.

She turned her head and found him staring at her with an expression that looked half amused and half . . . heated? Yes, that was definitely heat simmering in his eyes . . . his intense green eyes that were framed by thick dark lashes every woman on the planet would kill for. They very nicely matched his slash of dark brows and his thick, wavy, sun-streaked brown hair that was several inches too long and looked as if he'd combed it with his fingers . . . those long, tanned, stronglooking fingers that were loosely curled over the steering wheel . . .

Jamie cleared her throat and hoisted one brow, favoring him with the withering look she reserved for unreliable restaurant vendors who didn't deliver their products to Newman's on time. “I beg your pardon?”