Sweet but Sexy Boxed Set (36 page)

Chapter Six

Oh, how she wanted to. Sharon closed her eyes, refusing to give in to temptation. She couldn’t be beholden to him, or any man. She couldn’t allow him to have that, or anything, to hold over her head. She would never again depend on a man to complete her. And she couldn’t, and absolutely wouldn’t, be in anyone’s debt.

“
I can’t take your money.” She held out her hand, hoping he’d shake it. “But I appreciate you coming by. Believe me, I won’t hold it against you for leaving.”

Jake stared at her hand, his brows drawn together. He slowly took it into his own, but it wasn
’t the one he would have used for a handshake. He was actually
holding
her hand.

“
Work for me then. I need a new receptionist. Grandpa’s old one needs to retire. She won’t wear her dentures and today was crazy. She’d prepared the exam room, stirrups and all, for me to give an old man a pap examination. Then the twenty-year-old woman who came in for diet pills had prostate exam written on her chart, and finally, she wrote up a prescription for me to sign giving an infant Rogaine.

“
Do me a big favor and show up in my office in the morning. She said she couldn’t retire until she knew I’d be well taken care of. In exchange I’ll pay you a small amount and put some aside to pay off hiring someone else to come in here and clean this place out. I swear I’d be in your debt.”

Sharon wanted to kiss him. Not with passion, but with gratitude. Any other option he could have come up with would have forced her to remain here to clean even though she was literally sickened by the mess her mother was making of her life and had made of her house. But his offer was perfect. She could work for him just long enough to pay off the debt of getting her mother
’s house cleaned, do everything in her power to get Candy to clean up her act, and in the meantime maybe even make enough to carry her through until she could leave. Once all her objectives were accomplished, she could sell the cabin, move on with a clear conscience and enough money, if she was extra frugal, to get her and Kyle started somewhere else.

True, there was the possibility of being recognized, but she hadn
’t really been personally known to all that many people outside of her age group growing up, and it was quite likely all Old Doc’s patients, now Young Doc’s patients, would be too old to remember her anyway, if they ever knew she existed to start with. She smiled up at him, “I accept.”

Relief relaxed his face and stance.
“Good. Can we please get the hell out of here?”

Sharon nodded and couldn
’t head for the front door fast enough. “Nothing would make me happier.”

It was embarrassing to pass the filth on the front porch, but she was washing her hands of her mother
’s folly. At least for today. She turned back to the adorable doctor who followed her out of the house like the hounds of hell were on his heels, too. He stopped beside her at the door of her Jeep. “I can’t thank you enough. I’ll be at the office first thing in the morning.”

Jake held up his hand.
“Look, I know you aren’t attracted to me, and that may be for the best since we’ll be working together, but have dinner with me. I have to eat. You have to eat. Nothing more, I promise.”

Sharon suppressed a laugh, amused the man could believe any woman wouldn
’t be attracted to his dark hair, deep blue eyes, cleft chin, and delightfully kind nature. Of course in the interest of self-preservation, she’d never let him know that he was too cute for words. She took a long breath. After dining with a sullen teen in her room the last couple of nights while awaiting permission to start cleaning her mother’s house, she was more than ready for a change of pace. Not that the room wasn’t first rate, it was, but she was tired of Kyle demanding she find his father and she sure didn’t want to dine at her mother’s house.

“
I have to go back to the lodge and get cleaned up and have something sent up for my son, then I’d love a change of pace. No lodge food, though. It’s great, but I’d like to get away from there for a couple of hours.” She looked down at the nastiness that now covered her clothing, disgusted to find a large brown spot of questionable origins. “I think I’ll just trash this outfit. It isn’t worth going to a Laundromat for the few clothes I need to wash, and I’m not about to put these in with the rest of my laundry.”

Jake looked her over, his mouth twisted in distaste.
“Can’t say I blame you. But you’re welcome to use my washer and dryer if you want. Gramps had new units put in before giving me the house.” He grinned. “Being the only child of an only child has several perks.”

Sharon couldn
’t imagine living a life where things were just handed to you. Her mother had never given her anything without a stipulation. Even if she’d wanted something as small as a snack after school, she’d had to mop the kitchen floor, or clean the bathroom, or wash their car—when her mother hadn’t left it with one of the many title loan places that were even now a blot on the Tennessee landscape. Since Legend hadn’t had one, Candy had dealt with loan sharks from Pigeon Forge to Knoxville and had almost lost her car twice because the money she’d expected to make in those weeks hadn’t been forthcoming. That started happening more and more often as Candy’s age and lifestyle started to show on her. And it explained why her mother now drove a car that was indistinguishable as far as make and model, not to mention age. The only thing Sharon could surmise was she’d traded sexual favors to a guy who owned a junk yard, and the man had welded together something that ran while it smoked from the tailpipe like a fire-breathing dragon.

School supplies like paper, pencils, or spiral notebooks were considered luxuries and upped the level of cleaning to windows, or shampooing the carpet with the rented unit from the Piggly Wiggly, or scrubbing the kitchen and bathroom floors on her hands and knees. If she dared to ask for anything as grand as a new outfit, Sharon would have had to clean the entire house, pull all the weeds from a yard that was predominantly weeds, and usually the reward was withheld because she hadn
’t done the assigned job good enough. Of course they’d both known she had, but to argue would result in a beating that would leave stripes on her butt and legs for weeks.

Anger shook Sharon as each memory resurfaced, but she made herself take slow breaths to work through it. It was no wonder her mother
’s house had gone completely to pot. She hadn’t been there as slave labor. And damned if she was going to allow Candy to pull her back into that degrading place again.

“
No, but thanks. These go straight to the trash as soon as I get back to my room.”

Jake nodded and headed to his car.
“I’ll pick you up in about an hour, if that works for you.”

She almost told him she
’d meet him, just so it wouldn’t seem like a date, but she didn’t want to seem petty considering he was handing her the biggest gift anyone had ever given her…after Ms. Addie, of course. A job, a break from the mess her mother had made of her life, and her dignity. “Make it an hour and a half. I will need to scrub for a long time to get this ick off me!”

Chapter Seven

Jake spent the next hour back at his house cleaning himself up. He’d barely touched anything in Candy Crane’s house, but just being in there had made him feel creepy, so he understood Sharon’s need to scrub off all the filth she’d acquired before his arrival at that house.
Still
, he was determined not to think about her standing in a shower, naked, running her hands all over herself while rivers of water streamed down her body.

No!
He absolutely would not think about
that
.

He washed quickly, ignoring that certain parts of his anatomy had already reacted to that thing he wasn
’t going to think about, enjoying the strategically placed showerheads spraying water down from the shower’s ceiling and from two levels on each of the three tiled walls. The large modern facility with its frosted glass door was just one of the many upgrades his grandfather had installed before handing the lake house over to him, and he felt like a total brat. But who was he to complain over being so loved?

He never took the blessings in his life for granted. And he knew he had many. To be raised by adoring parents who
’d been strict, but fair. To have always had a very nice roof over his head and nutritious food available to eat were not things everyone had. The education he’d gotten had taken hard work and dedication on his part, but the reputations and connections of both his parents and grandparents had allowed him to pick and choose what it was he wanted to do with his life, and they’d supported him and helped him in attaining those goals.

There would never be any excuses available for him to claim, so failure was not an option. It wasn
’t even a consideration. His thoughts turned back to Sharon. He
had
failed with her. At least so far. True, he was taking her to dinner, but only because he’d convinced her he wasn’t interested in anything other than food. And she’d seemed to warm up to him a little. That was good. One small step in the right direction.

Apparently his offer of a better job than her current one of taking care of that filthy woman was a good move. The problem was he didn
’t know what his next one should be. Or even if there should be a next one.

He liked her. Or maybe it was lust pure and simple since she was an
extremely
fine-looking woman. Downright beautiful in fact, with her rich cinnamon-blond streaked hair framing smooth creamy skin. And her eyes…so wide and blue and earnest… arrested him every time she looked his way. And her figure!
Holy smoke!
When had women gone back to having a figure? The plastic world of unnaturally large globelike breasts on boyishly slim, no-hipped bodies was what he’d gotten used to, but Sharon was a natural beauty with actual meat on her bones. Her breasts were large, yes, but if they were surgically enhanced, he wanted to take out stock in that physician’s business. She was proportionately exquisite with her small waist and the flare of hips that gave her the old-fashioned figure like the woman painted on the side of the B-17 bomber his great-grandfather flew back in 1942 during World War II.

Jake had always loved the faded black and white picture of the man he
’d never met, standing at the nose of that fighter airplane. It sat on his mother’s grand piano right next to a current picture of him. He took after his great-grandfather in looks, build, and if the sassy grin on Garret Parker Sr.’s face at the time the photo had been taken was any indication, they shared a sense of humor, too.

Maybe that was what really captured him. He
’d met a woman with such earnest eyes combined with a killer body, who reminded him of one of his favorite things. But it was more than her resemblance to the “pin-up gal” on his great-grandfather’s warplane. Her seriousness, her need to do the right thing in spite of the icky situation in which she’d found herself once she realized what taking care of that woman involved, her complete disregard for the attributes which, put bluntly, made her a babe, made him want to poke at her a little. Maybe a lot if she ever gave him half a chance.

He was considered fun by his friends, and he wanted to make her one of them if she wasn
’t interested in a more personal relationship, though it was certainly going to be hard to think of her as just a friend. He wanted to make her smile. Maybe get her to lighten up enough to realize the weight of the world wasn’t hers to bear. And if he was luckier than seemed to be the current case, perhaps convince her he was not a bad catch.

The fact that Sharon hadn
’t already decided that for herself was a new and confusing experience, which meant he got to pursue rather than being pursued. That in itself had him hopped-up and ready to roll up his sleeves.

He couldn
’t very well hire her then sexually harass her. Unless he hired her and acted like he wasn’t interested. Give her time to see what a great guy he was. Jake shook his head. What was he doing? If she wasn’t interested, then she just wasn’t interested. There was nothing that said she
had
to be attracted to him. Although he’d never experienced rejection before that didn’t mean he couldn’t handle it like a man now.

Sure, he was new in town, but he didn
’t have to attach himself to the first woman he met after relocating to Legend. Come to think of it, maybe that was just the ticket. Maybe he could date other women, check out the pond and see just how many fish were worth reeling in. Maybe even ask Sharon’s advice about this one or that one.

He grinned, liking the idea more and more. There was the very real possibility he
’d find an equally beautiful woman who wasn’t so much work. And if not, it would at least keep Sharon’s mind on the fact that he was with other women.

Jake frowned. The plan had flaws, sure. In order for it to bother her at all, she had to care. Well, he
’d just have to make her care. And he was going to start right after he took care of his still rock hard, hard-on. There was no way he’d entertain an evening out with her without getting that little problem out of the way.