A Crazy Kind of Love (3 page)

“Like the habit of taking jobs offered to us?”

“We don’t have to take
every
job.”

“This is a good-paying contract and the Marconis are not going to turn it down just because you’re scared of Cash.”

“Scared?”
Jo snorted. “The day I’m scared of a guy
is the day you can pile the dirt on top of me, because I’ll be dead.”

“Fine. Then there’s no problem.”

“I don’t like it,” Jo muttered.

“You don’t have to like it,” Sam said, willing to give a little on this. “But you
do
have to suck it up and do the job.”

Afternoon sunlight washed through the shining glass windowpanes and lay across Jo in a golden broadsword. Her eyes narrowed, jaw tight, she snapped, “What do Mike and Papa have to say about this?”

Finished with the baseboard, Sam picked up the small white bucket of paint and stood up. Stretching the kinks out of her back and legs, she shook her head. “Papa likes having jobs lined up. As for Mike . . .” She started across the room, knowing Jo would follow. “Haven’t seen her to tell her. She left early again today.”

“Did she go back over to the Gallagher place?”

“Think so.”

“It’s a wonder that poor guy hasn’t shot her yet.”

“Yeah, well, little miracles.” Sam stopped at the doorway, turned around to look back at the now completed room. The new floor glistened under multiple layers of wax, new brass sconces adorned the freshly painted walls, and the pale green marble surrounding the fireplace was gorgeous. She smiled and sighed in satisfaction. “Damn. We do good work, don’t we?”

Jo nodded and shoved both hands into her pockets. Now that the Van Horn job was nearly wrapped up, she was ready for a new challenge. She just didn’t like the idea of having to work so closely with a man she didn’t
trust. A man who thought so much of himself that he walked into a room just
waiting
for women to fall at his feet. A man who was too gorgeous for his own good.

A man who made Jo way more nervous than she’d ever admit . . . even under threat of torture.

“Yes, we do
great
work,” she finally muttered. “Too damn good for Cash Hunter.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re like a broken record?”

“Broken CD,” Jo corrected as they headed out into the yard. “And yes.”

“You’ve got mail.”

Lucas scowled at his computer. “Do they have to make that voice so damn cheerful?”

He yanked his desk chair back, sat down then scooted it forward again, the hard rubber wheels of the chair squeaking against the bare wood floors. Clicking the mouse button, he opened his e-mail account, still unfathomably annoyed.

It had been three days since Mike Marconi last “dropped by” and he felt like a man who knew there was a sniper out there somewhere, drawing a bead on him. He couldn’t relax even when she was gone, because he never knew when the damn woman was going to pop up again.

But even worse than the sense of expectant dread was the knowledge that a part of him was actually looking forward to seeing her again. And how that had happened, Lucas had no idea.

For two months, Mike Marconi had been the bane of his existence. Ever since the afternoon he’d stumbled across her as she was talking to herself. If he’d known ahead of time that buying this land and building
a house here would gain him an intrusive, opinionated, maddening,
gorgeous
female plumber . . . hell. He’d have done it anyway.

Afternoon sunlight streamed in through the brand-new windows in his second-story office. Outside that window lay the lake, with stands of trees thick enough to convince a man he was all alone on the planet. Unless of course, Lucas thought grimly, that man was listening to the staccato beat of hammers and the incessant whine of saws.

But to give the construction crews their due, they’d done amazing work in a short amount of time. Just two months ago, he’d had empty acreage, a set of blueprints, and enough money to pay for extra workmen so they could finish the job quickly. Now, he was only a few doors, a balcony, a bathtub, and some finishing touches away from having a completed house.

“If Mike Marconi stays the hell away.” As soon as the words were muttered, though, he shook his head and pushed all thoughts of the irritating female out of his mind. Damn it, even when she
wasn’t
there, she
was
.

Memories of her face, her voice, her eyes, danced through his brain with appalling regularity. Didn’t seem to matter how many times he told himself he wasn’t interested—she hovered at the edges of his mind. Just enough to irritate him.

And intrigue him, damn it.

His AOL account opened up and Lucas scrolled quickly down the list of letters in his in-box. Taking a sabbatical from the lab apparently didn’t mean keeping out of contact. He’d been officially, if temporarily, unemployed for nearly three months and every day he
had several letters stacked up demanding his attention. Today was no different. There were five letters marked “priority,” a reminder about a fund-raiser, and . . .

“Shit.”

Lucas leaned back in his desk chair and stared at the subject line of one particular letter.

DON
’
T DELETE THIS ONE

He had to get off AOL. Then the bastard wouldn’t know if Lucas was reading his damn e-mails or not. Since last month, there’d been at least one letter a week from his twin brother. Letters Lucas didn’t read. Letters he deleted without even thinking about it. There was nothing Justin could say that Lucas was interested in hearing.

God knew an apology would be too damn little and about four years too late. Besides, he didn’t want an apology anyway. Wouldn’t change anything. Wouldn’t take them all back in time to set things right. Wouldn’t mean anything but that Justin wanted forgiveness so he wouldn’t be miserable.

“Too bad,” Lucas muttered thickly. “I
like
your being miserable.” A quick whip crack of temper spiked through him, then drained away again almost instantly. He wouldn’t go back down that road. Not again. Justin wanted forgiveness? Then he should go see a priest. As for his e-mails . . . “Don’t delete? Why the hell not?”

Deliberately, he sat forward again, moved the cursor to the box alongside the letter he had no intention of reading and clicked the mouse button. Then he deleted it before he could talk himself out of it. Pushing back from the desk, he left the other letters unanswered and stalked out of the office, as if distancing himself not
only from the computer, but from the tenuous connection between him and his brother.

But it wasn’t that easy. Images of Justin crowded his mind, forcing him to remember that it hadn’t always been like this between them. Growing up, the two of them had been as close as anyone would expect a set of twins to be—despite their differences. Justin had always been the athletic one. The golden child whose room was stacked with trophies from Little League and Pop Warner football. Lucas’s room, on the other hand, was filled with chemistry sets and books. It hadn’t mattered then. They were still “the Gallagher twins”—the two of them against the world.

But all that ended a long time ago.

“What’s so damn important that now, all of a sudden, Justin’s trying to reach out and piss me off?”

Naturally, the only way he’d get that question answered was to read the damn e-mail—which he wasn’t about to do. Lucas scraped his hair back from his face and headed out into the hall. The dark red tiles felt cool beneath his bare feet as he stalked along the hall and down the flight of stairs.

In fact, the whole house felt cool, despite the September heat outside. And he probably owed Mike Marconi for that, too, he thought in disgust. She was the one who’d insisted he insulate the thick stucco walls with straw. She’d cited a dozen different sources on environmental house construction, but she’d captured him with her last argument. That the early Spanish settlers in California had built their adobe homes with a layer of straw between the walls—keeping their houses cool in summer and warm in winter.

He ran the flat of his hand over the lightly textured, cream-colored wall on his right. The woman was a pain in the ass, but she knew her stuff. As he hit the bottom of the stairs, he paused to stare at the completed great room in front of him.

Wide and open, the area fed into the dining room and the kitchen beyond. But here, the walls soared and rough-hewn oak beams, which Mike had insisted on “distressing” with a propane torch, crisscrossed the ceiling. The effect gave the house the feel of its having stood here for centuries.

“Something else she was right about.” Scowling, he wondered if the woman was
ever
wrong.

The window casements were arched and the glass panes leaded into diamond shapes that drew interesting patterns on the shining tile floor. A kiva-shaped fireplace stood in the corner, with built-in bookcases on either side.

Twin forest-green sofas sat facing each other in the middle of the room. Squatting between the sofas was the table Lucas had found in a furniture shop outside Chandler. A one-of-a-kind piece, it had been fashioned out of an old apothecary bench. Cut down and polished, it shone with a dark rich finish in the afternoon sunlight.

Heavy rugs dotted the cool tiles and tables and lamps were scattered throughout the room, giving the place warmth while still maintaining its open feel.

Amazing how much work could get accomplished if you were willing to pay extra to keep the construction firms working around the clock. Not for the first time in his life, Lucas was grateful to his father. If not for him,
Lucas would have been forced to live on the salary he made as a research scientist—which would never have afforded him this home.

The Gallagher money had been made years ago. When his dad invented a simple little device that was used in heart operations around the world. The patent and ensuing royalties brought in more money than anyone could spend in three lifetimes.

Though God knows, Justin had tried.

Nope, he told himself. His brother would
not
ruin this moment for him. Pushing thoughts of the bastard aside, he determinedly relaxed and went back to enjoying his new house.

He already felt at home here. With the woods surrounding him, the lake behind him, and the ocean just a mile or so away, he had the best of all possible worlds. Isolation that he’d need to work on the book that was due to his publisher in less than six months—and a small town close by for when he needed to see people. Hear voices other than his own—or Mike Marconi’s.

And when the book was finished, and his year’s sabbatical over, he’d go back to the lab and continue the research that he hoped would one day change the world.

He grinned at the thought. “No ego problems here,” he murmured.

Still smiling, he opened the double front doors, stepped onto the wide front porch, and stopped dead. “How does she do it?” he wondered aloud. “How does she know to show up just when I’m relaxing my guard?”

But there she was.

Mike Marconi had parked her battered, dusty navy
blue truck at the end of the line of workmen’s vehicles clogging his driveway. But instead of coming up to the house, the woman was bent over his mailbox, peering inside as if looking for buried treasure.

Annoyance rattled through him and was quickly followed by a different emotion—one Lucas was in no hurry to explore. His gaze locked on her, he noticed how her thick blond braid swung down off her shoulders. He watched as she tucked a large brown paper bag beneath her arm, then reached in to pull out his mail before snapping the mailbox closed again. He shook his head as she started across the yard, thumbing through the letters and circulars as she walked.

For years, Lucas had lived a secluded life. So wrapped up in his research, his work, that he hadn’t had to worry about letting his emotions run amok. A couple of months with Mike Marconi was changing all that. All of a sudden, he was experiencing a
flood
of emotions. Everything from anger to a soul-stirring lust. And he wasn’t happy about it.

All around him, construction noise sounded. Men shouted to each other, hammers crashed, and beneath it all lay the steady, rhythmic hush of the ocean whispering from a distance. But all he could see, all he could focus on, was the woman who’d wormed her way into his world and now showed no signs of leaving.

One shoulder pressed to a porch post, he crossed his feet at the ankle, folded his arms over his chest and watched her. Hell. He couldn’t take his eyes
off
her.

Her worn, faded jeans clung to her legs and her red T-shirt with the peeling
MARCONI CONSTRUCTION
logo
looked as if it had been washed a thousand times. She wore heavy work boots and the dark red baseball cap she was never without. And yet somehow she managed to look more completely
female
than any woman he’d ever known.

Damn it.

“Anything interesting?” he called out when she was close enough.

She stopped, looked up at him and grinned. “Actually, yeah,” she said, picking out one long business-sized envelope and waving it over her head. “What’s ‘Pacific Scientific Laboratories’?”

Lucas pushed away from the porch, took the steps in a couple of long strides, then stalked across the grass to meet her. Snatching the mail from her, he said, “It’s where I work. Anything else?”

She shook her head and blew out a whistled breath. “A whole building full of science geeks? Sounds boring.”

“Completely. So why are you collecting my mail?” He looked through everything quickly, then stuffed the letters into his back jeans pocket. “The mailman doing something wrong, too? Or maybe you want to tear the mailbox down and rebuild it to your specifications?”

“Well, you’re not a happy camper today, are you?” She grinned and a flash of one dimple in her right cheek caught his attention. Her pale blue eyes danced with humor and he really wished he could stop noticing these things.

“I
was
,” he pointed out. “Until about ten seconds ago.”

“Gee,” Mike said, still smiling. “Just when I got here. What a coincidence.”