Catching Hell: A Hot Contemporary Romance (19 page)
Read Catching Hell: A Hot Contemporary Romance Online
Authors: Mindy Klasky
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Fiction, #Sports, #spicy romance, #sports romance, #hot romance, #baseball, #sexy romance, #Contemporary Romance
But three pairs of eyes were on her. She could ignore Anna and Zach. But not Tyler. He might be the one person who could help her achieve her dreams. She took a deep breath and forced herself to look directly at him as she explained.
“About a year ago, my Aunt Minerva passed away,” she said. “Aunt Minnie was…a strong-willed woman, bless her heart.” She paused, to see if Tyler understood that Minnie had been an unrepentant pain in the ass.
He nodded, his lips twitching. And suddenly she wanted to keep on talking, to ramble on forever, if that’s what it took to make him smile again.
“Long story short, Minnie wanted her fortune to help veterans and their families. She left me her house and her bank account, but only for one year. After that, her executor will decide if I’ve used her legacy sufficiently. If I haven’t, I’ll have to move out of the house, and any remaining funds are forfeit to a rescue program for cockatiels.”
“Cockatiels.” He stretched the word with a soft drawl she hadn’t noticed in the flurry of their introduction. “Doesn’t sound like she was serious.”
“She was
deadly
serious,” Emily assured him. “She owned one of those birds, loved it more than her human family. The damn thing terrorized me every time she let it out of the cage.”
“So, she was trying to motivate you.” There was that hint of a smile again, causing something to spiral loose deep inside her.
“And it worked,” she said, reminding herself to focus. Anna might have dragged her here against her will, but she’d be a fool to let this opportunity go by. The sexy, wayward baseball player in front of her just might be the key to meeting Minnie’s impossible demands. “I’ve spent the past year trying to figure out what to do with the money. I meet with Ethan Samson, Minnie’s executor, once a month, every month. First, I was going to open a day care center, but Mr. Samson ultimately decided there were plenty of options for child care on and near the base. Then, I was going to open a library, but Mr. Samson shot down that idea, saying Wake County’s public libraries are more than sufficient for our veterans’ needs. For three months, I was going to build a health care clinic, but there’s the VA hospital right here in town.”
Emily let some of her frustration wash into her words. She’d worked hard on each proposal, done her research about the community, about its needs. Mr. Samson was a fussy old man with as much imagination as a stick.
“Sounds like you’re running out of time,” Tyler said.
“I am. And I’d almost be willing to give up, to walk away from the whole damn thing, except I finally hit on an idea that works. Mr. Samson signed off on it last month.” She took a deep breath, still not used to sharing her concept with strangers. “I’m converting the building into Minerva House. It’ll be a clearinghouse for veterans’ spouses, a one-stop center to get the support they need. We’ll have a resource room with computers and a separate classroom space, for group training sessions. We’ll have a lending library for all sorts of specialized books—everything from cost-efficient household management to non-traditional education to mental health care. We’ll have quiet rooms, where people can meet with others in similar situations, a safe space to talk about the challenges everyone is facing. And we’ll have a room for kids, with educational toys and projects, all sorts of things to keep kids interested while their parents take advantage of everything else we offer.”
“So, basically, you’re taking all the individual things this Samson guy wouldn’t accept and combining them into one. You’re doing a day care center and a library and a health care clinic.”
He was laughing at her. Her cheeks heated and she glanced at Anna and Zach, but she kept her voice even as she said, “If the shoe fits… I’m trained as a social worker. I know how to work systems, how to get people the individual care they need. Minerva House will give me a base of operations, a jumping-off point for everyone.”
“Sounds like you have your work cut out for you.”
“I do. I have seven weeks left before Aunt Minnie’s deadline.”
“Seven weeks before everything goes to the birds.”
Yeah. He was
definitely
laughing at her. But she forced herself to shrug like she didn’t really care. “Because Mr. Samson dragged his feet for so long, I can’t get a reliable contractor to take on the job in the time that’s left.”
“And how am I supposed to help?”
“I have a handyman who can do most of the work. But he needs another pair of hands for a lot of it. The house is a gorgeous old colonial, but Aunt Minnie didn’t put much into it for…decades.”
Ever
, she thought.
Emily had been living in the house for a year, and she was used to its eccentricities. So what if it took the water fifteen minutes to heat up for a shower? What if a strong north wind sliced through the gaps between the windows and their sills, forcing her to sleep beneath a pile of blankets in the king-size bed on the second floor?
She continued. “There’s a lot of straightforward physical stuff that needs to be done—upgrading the electricity, reworking the plumbing. The floors need refinishing, and the house has to be painted top to bottom.”
“And you think I’m the man for the job.”
She thought he was the man for
some
job. She bit her tongue to keep from making that utterly inappropriate suggestion. Instead, she nodded toward Anna and Zach, who had observed their entire exchange with palpable amusement. “
They
think you’re the man for the job. If things were left to me, I’d hire a second handyman.”
Anna waved off her skepticism. “Tyler owes the court one hundred hours. He has three months to complete his service, but there’s no penalty if he wraps things up early.”
* * *
That was Tyler’s cue to say how hard he was willing to work. But instead he found himself saying, “Sorry. Sounds like you need someone else to do the job.” He saw Ms. Benson frown, and Ormond looked pissed, but they’d have to get over it.
Sure, Tyler could do the handyman crap. He’d learned all that and more, working with his daddy. One advantage of having a hard-ass father who made him do his chores before he could get out of the house for practice, day in, day out, the entire time he was growing up.
But what would happen after the painting was done? If he still owed time, she’d ask for help setting up the computers. Putting books on shelves. Doing a hundred things he couldn’t do.
Shit. If he was going to fuck up, he might as well do it right now, instead of letting six weeks go by. Instead of letting Emily Holt get to the very edge of her deadline, then telling her she was screwed.
Because suddenly, inexplicably, he really didn’t want to disappoint Emily Holt.
Not when she was standing there, looking like he’d just taken away her favorite stuffed animal. Not when her eyes were welling up with sudden tears, when she was staring straight ahead with an obvious determination not to blink. Not when her lower lip was trembling.
And that was a damn sexy lower lip. He could picture himself reaching out to touch it with his forefinger. Her mouth would be warm,
hot
, like her palm had been when they’d shaken hands.
Community service was supposed to be a punishment. He knew that. It would force him to take time away from the ballpark, from the team, from settling into his new life in Raleigh.
But community service didn’t seem nearly as bad, if Emily Holt was his jailer.
There. She was pulling herself together. She barely took a heartbeat to press her manicured nails right beneath her eyes, obviously forbidding herself to cry. She licked her lips—
damn!
—and she raised her chin with a look of defiance that was only underscored by the shake of her blond curls.
“Mr. Brock, I understand if you’re not interested in helping out with Minerva House. It really wasn’t fair for Anna and Zach to put you on the spot this way.”
There was fire beneath her words. Pride. She was blushing again, and the color looked good on her cheeks.
Shit. He’d just have to make sure the hundred hours ended before the physical work was done. Shoving down his own nerves, the flash of cold fire that ate away at his gut when he thought about all those computers, all those books, he said, “Shoot. I’ve got to do something to satisfy the court. We can make this work. Just don’t call me ‘Mr. Brock.’ I’m Tyler.”
Her sudden smile caught him by surprise. She wasn’t just some random woman who could sign his papers and get him out of jail, free. She was
beautiful
. Beautiful enough that his jeans suddenly felt too tight. Eager to disguise his cock’s version of being a reliable worker, he stepped forward and offered up a handshake. “I’m game, if you are.”
* * *
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Mindy Klasky learned to read when her parents shoved a book in her hands and told her she could travel anywhere in the world through stories. She never forgot that advice.
Mindy’s travels took her through multiple careers – from litigator to librarian to full-time writer. Mindy’s travels have also taken her through various literary genres for readers of all ages – from traditional fantasy to paranormal chick-lit to category romance, from middle-grade to young adult to adult.
In her spare time, Mindy knits, quilts, and tries to tame her endless to-be-read shelf. Her husband and cats do their best to fill the left-over minutes.
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