Too Hot to Handle

“Yes. It’s my job.” Her chin rose a little, as if daring him to dispute it. She wasn’t smiling now. Strangely her mouth looked wider in repose. More full and mysterious.

Shane rocked back on his heels, put his hands in his pockets, taking a little time to look over the ragged buildings around him. “When are you planning on opening this place, Merry?”

“Next year,” she answered, her chin edging higher.

Next year. Shane couldn’t let that happen. He had to stop this. “All right, then,” he offered with a smile. “I’ll do what I can.”

All her false bravado disappeared and she was hopping up and down like a kid again. “You will? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Shane!” She threw herself at his chest, and Shane automatically put his arms around her. He also automatically registered how nice and feminine she smelled, a stark change from the men he’d worked with on his two weeks of ranch work. Then he very carefully set her back.

“I’m going to take a look at that spare wood. Do you want to walk over with me?”

“No! The spider anthill, remember?”

“Right.” God, she was a piece of work. But she had information he needed, so Shane touched his hat brim and nodded. “I’ll deal with the spiders on my own. And then I’ll take a look at your saloon.”

“Thank you!” she squealed, and he tried not to feel guilty as he walked away. Merry had stepped into something that she couldn’t understand, and that wasn’t Shane’s fault. He set his jaw and walked on.

CHAPTER THREE

“WHERE WERE you last night?”

Merry sat up from a dead sleep, throwing her arms out to defend against the snarling monster crouched above her. The monster jumped back, quick as a hellbeast, its flame-tipped mane framing a…pale and pretty face?

“Oh! Grace. You scared me.” Merry flopped back down onto the mattress, wincing when a spring poked her back. “What are you growling about?”

“Where were you last night? I called eight times! I tried to make Cole get up and drive me home.”

“Yeah? What did he say?”

“He…distracted me.”

Merry snorted and pulled the covers over her head, but Grace yanked them back.

“Merry! What did you do? Did you sleep with Shane? I mean…it’s okay. You can tell me. I won’t be mad.”

The not-quite-suppressed violence beneath Grace’s words sounded like static in her voice. Merry grinned at her. “You promise you won’t be mad?”

“Yes,” she said past clenched teeth and a painfully pleasant smile.

“Oh, my God.” Merry laughed. “You’re the worst liar ever. No, I did not use my super-sexy wiles to lure Shane onto my fold-out sofa bed for a night of uncomfortable passion.”

“I wasn’t worried about you doing the luring!”

“Okay. No, Shane did not butter me up with Star Wars trivia and then ‘accidentally’ fall on me with his penis out.”

“Merry, be serious! Where were you?”

Finally accepting that she wasn’t going to get any more sleep, Merry crawled out of bed and headed to the kitchen to start coffee. “I went out to Providence. My phone must have been searching for a signal for an hour or two and it ran out of power. Sometimes I get four bars out there, and sometimes I get zero. I’m not sure how that works. Is it the wind? The clouds? What—”

“Okay, what about later?”

“Grace, what is your deal? First of all, why do you hate Shane so much? Second…I haven’t had sex in two years. Two years. If I miraculously talked a man into wanting to have sex, wouldn’t you be thrilled for me? I have needs, you know.”

Actually she didn’t. Not anymore. Those needs had finally dried up and died six months ago, at the exact moment that her cheap, knock-off vibrator had buzzed into a slow death. She’d replaced it with an even cheaper knock-off model but hadn’t even bought batteries for that one. She’d just put it away, still in its tacky packaging, and never thought about it again.

Grace seemed to have deflated to her normal petite size. She always seemed four inches taller when she was pissed, but apparently she’d gotten past it, because she sighed and opened a cupboard door to take out coffee mugs. “Why haven’t you been having sex?”

“You know why.”

“I don’t want to hear it, Merry. You’ve got an amazing body, you’re funny as hell and you’re cute.”

“I’m not like you, Grace.”

“What? Slutty?”

“You know that’s not what I mean! I just…I don’t know what to do with men. I get nervous. I make too many jokes. I act like a kid sister instead of their fantasy sex machine.”

“Come on, Merry. Men don’t want a fantasy. They want something real.”

Merry frowned but tried to hide it by turning back to the coffeepot, which was trickling out that last little bit of caffeine. That was easy for Grace to say. Grace, in all her reality, was a fantasy. She was edgy and strong and striking. She intimidated men in a way that turned them on.

Merry, on the other hand, was a friend. A perpetual friend. The girl who always had a good joke and a smile.

She didn’t know how to be sexy. And it didn’t seem to be something she could learn, damn it.

“Whatever,” she finally said. “It doesn’t matter. My point is you don’t have to worry about Shane. Shit, I wish you did.”

“Okay, I’ll drop it. I’m sorry, I just… You came here because of me. I feel like I need to watch out for you.”

“Bullshit, Grace. You always say the same thing.”

Grace shrugged and pushed the mugs forward for coffee. “None of those guys have been good enough for you. You know that’s true.”

“Good Lord, I’m not the Virgin Mary. If he’s got a job and a penis, he’s already halfway up my scale. And I don’t really care about the job.”

Grace choked on laughter. “Shut up. That’s not true. It’d better not be true or you’re grounded, young lady.”

Merry just shook her head. “You’re the one who let me move into a place called the Stud Farm.”

Grace rolled her eyes, but Merry laughed as hard as she ever did at the joke.

The apartment building was really the two-story house of the old Studd farmstead, converted into four identical apartments, two on the ground floor, and two upstairs. She didn’t know if it had an official name, but everyone called it the Stud Farm after Aunt Rayleen’s tendency to fill it with single young men. Young compared to her, anyway.

When Grace had blown into town last year, even Rayleen hadn’t had the heart to send her away. She’d let Grace stay for a few weeks, and even though the old battleax tried to hide it, Merry could tell the woman loved her niece. She’d let Grace keep the apartment, and she’d let Merry move in, too, but the Stud Farm name would probably never go away.

Merry elbowed Grace. “Go take a shower while I fold up the bed. You’re probably filthy from last night. Which really pisses me off. I’m leaving in an hour, whether you’re ready or not.”

* * *

SHANE WALKED DOWN the hard-packed dirt road that ran through the center of Providence. Merry was sitting on the porch of one of the few buildings that still looked relatively safe. The porch beams weren’t canting off toward the east. The stairs were still intact. He hoped she’d chosen well. He’d hate for her to fall through the floorboards into the spider nests that undoubtedly filled the space beneath. He’d better check out that porch just to be sure.

She didn’t seem to have noticed him yet, so Shane took the chance to study her while she was so untypically still. Her dark hair looked black but he knew it was lighter than that. A deep brown like stained walnut. He’d never really had a preference in women’s looks, as far as blond versus brunette, but he couldn’t help noticing how striking she looked sitting there. Her tan skin looked pale in contrast to the curve of hair that fell over her cheek as she read, and her wide mouth was rosy-pink and tipped up in a small smile even in solitude. Merry was the perfect name for this strange girl.

At least she was smart enough to stay out of the sun. Even with her coloring, at this altitude she’d burn like hell, and her shoulders were totally exposed in the pink tank top she was wearing. So Merry was smart enough to stay out of the sun, but not smart enough to pay any attention to her surroundings. She had earbuds in her ears. Like every city person he’d ever met, she put more value on her electronics than the beauty that surrounded her.

He glanced toward the looming peaks of the Tetons, then back to Merry, her head bent over some sort of device. She couldn’t hear the crunch of his boots against the patches of gravel and dried grass, but he could hear the tinny echo of the music that leaked from her ears.

Shane sighed as he drew within five feet of the porch. She didn’t react. He stopped two feet from her and cleared his throat.

When she didn’t notice, he coughed.

Still nothing. Was she this vulnerable every day? Did she think there weren’t creeps and rapists in Wyoming? Hell, in addition to the residents, some of whom were pretty damn rough and mysterious, the place was crawling with strangers from all over the world.

Irritated by his own concern, Shane stepped forward and knocked on the porch rail. “Hello?”

Merry finally glanced up, and her whole body jerked in shock. “Ah!” she screeched, an iPad flying from her hands as if it were a bird startled into flight.

Her wide eyes left him to watch the thing tumble through the air and right over the railing. “Ah!” she screamed again.

She surged to her feet to stare in dismay at the cloud of dust rising up around her iPad. “Oh, my God! Oh, no!”

“Sorry. I tried to let you know I was here.”

The cord of her earbuds dangled impotently against the railing. “What?” she breathed.

“I didn’t mean to startle you. I thought I’d come out this morning and get a head start on—”

She leaped into motion so quickly that he bit back his words in shock as she took the three porch steps in one quick leap and swooped up the dropped iPad.

“Sorry,” she breathed. “It’s the only thing keeping me sane out here.” When she cradled it like an injured baby, Shane doubted her claim of sanity. “I think it’s okay,” she breathed as she swiped one finger over the screen. “I think it’s okay.”

“Great,” he said dryly.

“Yes, it is great, isn’t it?” She finally looked directly at him and a wide smile spread over her face. “Hey, Shane! I didn’t expect to see you here this early!”

“So I gathered.”

She hugged her iPad tighter, and Shane tried not to notice the way her breasts pressed up, revealing a beautiful amount of cleavage above the thin cotton of her tank. He tried not to notice, but he failed miserably. He was a man, and there were breasts right there. Her skin wasn’t quite so tan where the shirt dipped down. It was pale and soft and gently rising, like—

“You’re all cowboyed up again,” she said.

He frowned a little at the delight in her voice. Did she think this was Disneyland, where people played dress-up and tried on a drawl?

“The hat,” she clarified.

“The hat is for shade. I’m not a cowboy.”

“Yeah, yeah,” she said, waving a hand as her earbud cord bounced.

“What are we going to do today?”

“What are we going to do? This is so exciting!”

Oh, God. Fine. Shane took a deep breath and tried to let his grumpiness go as he followed Merry toward the saloon. He couldn’t put a finger on when it had sunk so deeply into his flesh. He used to be able to let a bad mood go. He used to be able to forget his family and the years of betrayals and stress. He could work to forget. Or hang out with friends. And if that didn’t work, there were always women. But the past year had made forgetting damned difficult.

“You should get some spurs!” she said, walking backward now. “A little jingling would really liven this place up.”

He opened his mouth to respond, then realized he had no idea what to say to that. “Right,” he finally said in defeat before closing his mouth again.

She nodded solemnly. “Yeah.”

Shane suddenly had to consider that Providence might be a ghost town in an old episode of the Twilight Zone. It had to be. There was no other explanation for this odd woman plunked down in the middle of the dustiest part of Jackson Hole. There was no way to explain why she’d stumbled into his problems this way.

“I brought the estimates,” he said, then jumped forward to grab Merry as she tripped over her own feet and almost went down on her ass. “Hey. You okay?”

“Sure!” Her laugh tripped over itself like a broken toy.

Shane frowned, sensing there was something more there, but if her reaction was simple embarrassment at her clumsiness, he didn’t want to press further. When the warmth of her waist soaked into his fingers, Shane realized he was still holding her and stood back with an awkward pat of her ribs. “So…”

He slipped the envelope from his back pocket and handed it over. “There’s the estimate. Why don’t you take a look at that while I sort through the spare wood, then we’ll make a plan.”

Even as he spoke, Merry tore open the envelope and unfolded the papers. True fear twisted her brow into lines of tension.

Why? It wasn’t her money. Hell, he’d expect that spending the money of a trust would be damn fun, especially when you were irritatingly excited about the project in the first place. “Not what you expected?” he asked. He was experienced, and not cheap, but he didn’t think his hourly wage was exorbitant.

“Oh,” she breathed, her eyes darting over the page before she flipped to the next. “No, of course not. It’s…just…”

He kept his mouth shut, waiting for a clue as to what was going on. As he expected, Merry couldn’t bear the silence, and she jumped to fill it.

“It’s just… We’d better start with the first one. Just the porch. Then hopefully…”

Shane cocked his head.

“The thing is, can I pay you half now and half next month? I’m sorry. I don’t know how you normally do it, but I’m having a little trouble getting funds, uh, released.”

Whoa. Very interesting. So interesting that Shane finally found the strength to shove down his grumpiness and turn on the charm. This was exactly the kind of information he needed, and he needed it before Merry turned in an invoice. Shane would be fired quicker than he could say legal espionage.

So he smiled. And shifted a little closer. And turned on the Western charm that had worked before on cute tourist girls. “What’s wrong, darlin’?”

“Nothing! I can pay you! It’s not that. It’s just…” The envelope slipped from her fingers, and Shane knelt to pick it up.

When he rose, he let his eyes drag over her body. There was nothing wrong with her body, after all. She wasn’t stick-thin like the rich women who rolled through town with skis and fur boots. She was strong and tall and curvy. As his gaze dragged over the curve of her hip, he was struck with the sudden thought of what she might look like naked, and got lost in that for a moment before he remembered his charm and turned his smile up.

“It’s just what?” he pressed.

Merry was watching him with slightly parted lips, as if she’d sensed his thoughts. “It’s just… The board members are…”

He tipped his head a little closer, holding her gaze as he slid the envelope back into her grasp. His fingers brushed over hers. He let them rest there, just beneath the angle of her knuckles.

And then there was her mouth. Those slightly parted lips. A little too wide for beauty, maybe, but suddenly so soft. And inviting. And…

Merry edged back, her eyes narrowing. “It’s nothing,” she said firmly, the words wedging distance between them.

Shane found himself standing there alone, blinking in surprise. “Huh?”

“It’s nothing. If you’re okay with half now and half later, you’ve got a deal.”

“Okay,” he said. “Sure.”

Merry smiled. “Perfect. Then get to work. What are you waiting for?”

Shane, charming smile still in place, found himself treated to the sight of Merry’s ass as she walked away from him. Her hips swung. Her ass tipped side to side. He watched. By the time she disappeared around the corner of the little house she’d claimed, Shane found himself shaking his head and wondering what had just happened.

CHAPTER FOUR

“MS. KADE, THIS is Levi Cannon. We have a bit of a situation.”

Merry stood so quickly that her hair blew back. Phone clenched in a suddenly sweaty fist, she looked toward the makeshift parking area of Providence, then toward the saloon. How could they have found out so quickly? Maybe she could—

“Ms. Kade?”

“Yes. Hi, Mr. Cannon. What seems to be the problem?” The distant sound of boards being dropped filled up Merry’s ears. She ducked inside the little house she used as a base, so panicked she didn’t even look for spiderwebs first. One of them clung to her arm. She shook it like mad, swallowing her panicked cries.

“Mrs. Bishop—Kristen Bishop—came outside this morning to find that her mailbox had been destroyed.”

Merry sucked in air so quickly that she choked on it and started coughing. The mailbox must’ve tipped over in last night’s wind.

“Oh, don’t worry. Destroyed was her word. A little further investigation revealed that it had only been pulled from the ground and left in the dirt. Not exactly mayhem.”

“Right. I… That is…Mr. Cannon, I—”

“Kristen thinks it’s an act of retaliation.”

Merry snapped her mouth shut. Retaliation? She hadn’t been that mad. And she’d tried not to convey any anger at all to the arguing seniors.

“Personally I think a drunk cowboy ran into it, but the Bishop house is damned isolated, so she might have a point. She thinks it’s a warning.”

Merry’s throat finally unlocked. They didn’t know it was her.

She drew in a deep breath. “I can’t imagine that,” she managed to say. “Maybe it was bored teenagers. Mailboxes. Baseball bats. It happens.”

“It’s a ways out of town for joyriding. And nothing like this ever happened before we hired you. I can’t discount her suspicions.”

Right. Nothing like that had happened before they hired Merry. That was for damn sure. She cringed and chewed her thumbnail. “But why retaliation? I’m sure it’s nothing. I started two weeks ago, so the timing—”

“Oh, we just filed a new motion with the judge, letting her know that Providence is now actively being managed as a historic site. That was about a week ago, but it’s possible the other side just found out about it. You can’t think of anything else, can you? Maybe your work put you on their radar.”

Merry cleared her throat and darted a look at Shane’s truck. Had he told someone he was working for her? Just how pissed would the board be if she admitted that—? Wait a minute. She was buying into the conspiracy theory about mailbox destruction she’d committed.

“I can’t think of anything. But listen, Mr. Cannon, if hiring me improves the visuals of this case, wouldn’t moving forward with some of the renovations be even better?”

“Well… Yes, in theory. But we really hadn’t planned for you to…um.” His words, which had started out awkward and hesitant, died into pregnant silence. Her skin crawled with humiliation, but she forced herself to ignore that.

“I understand now that you may have hired me as more of a figurehead than a curator. I’m not saying I’m okay with that, and we’ll have to have a different conversation about it later, but I can do this, Mr. Cannon. I may have only been at my previous position for a year, but I was a workhorse, and my superior was…” As old as you. “She was easing into retirement, so I carried a lot of responsibility.” She took a breath.

“I’ve already sorted through the wood we have on hand here. I’m not going to go wild and head out to a lumber store for new pine and woodscrews. We’ll use the original wood, and I even found a bucket of handmade nails. They’re rusty, but I’ll be sure that Sh—um…any contractor is up-to-date with tetanus shots, and I’m sure they use gloves, anyway, right? And when we run out of those nails, I found a place online that forges them.”

When she finally stopped to catch her breath, Mr. Cannon sighed. “Merry, listen. I can tell how much you want to work, and I admire that, especially in someone your age, but we—”

“I just want a chance. Please. I need a chance. We could get this place up and running faster than you think. The house I use as a base of operations is totally safe. And the saloon only needs a little work. And the church! The church is beautiful. I’m brainstorming a brochure now and—”

“Work on the brochure,” he interrupted, latching onto that idea with a sigh of relief. “Work on that, and I’ll…I’ll talk to the others about freeing up a little money. A little.”

“Oh, my God. Thank you. Thank you!”

“I’m not promising anything! You just sit tight, okay?”

“Sure,” she said, her face flushing with guilt.

“And work on a brochure. Holding something like that in their hands could help the board loosen up the purse strings a little.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cannon. I’ll get right on it.”

Merry dragged her chair inside and sat at the beat-up old table Mr. Bishop must have moved in at some point. She’d found little clues like that all over the house, proof that Gideon Bishop had been using the house as an office, gathering up ideas for the ghost town. She’d only poked around gingerly before, too afraid of spiders to settle in, but the sunlight was too bright to do this kind of work outside, so Merry set her iPad on its stand, fired up her portable keyboard and got to work.

She worked so hard she nearly forgot entirely about Shane. She noticed when he stopped in that night to say he was leaving. And she vaguely noticed the next day when he came by around 5:00 p.m. to do a couple of hours of work. She even wandered out once or twice to be sure he was doing only the work they’d agreed on.

But she didn’t go out to watch him hammer, or to marvel at the wide stretch of cloth across his shoulders or the tight wonder of his jeans. She didn’t notice the way hair glinted on his strong forearms when he moved. She didn’t notice any of that until he stopped by on the second night and delivered a moment of grace that hit her like a wave of lust.

“Don’t worry about paying me for this now, all right? Catch me next month.”

“What?” she asked, visions of the brochure fading from her eyes like a clearing fog. She repeated, “What?” in a breathless voice.

“It’s okay. You seemed stressed out, and I don’t want my bill to add to your stress.”

“Oh, I can pay it. You don’t have to—”

“Really, Merry. It’s no problem.”

Well, that was embarrassing. Just the sound of his mouth forming her name gave her goose bumps. Or maybe it was the effect of looking up at him as he stood so close to her. Those shoulders loomed above her. Those forearms flexed as he slipped off his hat and ran a hand through his hair. And this late in the day, his jaw was rough with stubble again. As he moved, she could actually smell him. The laundry detergent on his clothes, and another more intriguing scent: his skin, hot from the sun, a touch of sweat.

Shane cocked his head in question, and she realized she’d been staring up at him as if he was a work of art she wanted to study.

“You’re really sweet, Shane.”

“Ah. Not so much.” His cheekbones flushed a little as his eyes shifted past her. “Is that for Providence?”

“Yes! But don’t look yet.” She covered the screen with her hand. “I’ll finish the layout tonight and then I’ll show you. Okay?”

He smiled. “Sure. Are you going to be here long? I hate to leave you out here alone this late.”

Merry looked out the window to see startlingly long shadows stretching across the sagebrush.

“I’d feel better if you let me walk you out.”

Now Merry was the one flushing. “Thank you, Shane. And thanks for coming out here at all. I know you already put in a full day. It means a lot that you’re doing this for me.”

He picked up the computer stuff as she turned it off. “It’s nothing. No need to thank me.”