King's Million-Dollar Secret

But it couldn’t hurt to look, could it?

“So if you weren’t doing construction, what were you doing instead?”

He glanced at her, long enough for her to see a mental shutter slam down across his eyes. Then he shifted his gaze away and ran one hand across the skeleton of a cabinet. “Different things. Still, good to get back and work with my hands again.” Then he winked. “Even if it is for the Kings.”

He’d shut her out deliberately. Closing the door on talking about his past. He was watching her as if he expected her to dig a little deeper. But how could she? She had already told him that she felt curiosity was overrated. And if she asked about his past, didn’t that give him the right to ask about hers? Katie didn’t exactly want to chat about how she’d been wined, dined and then unceremoniously dumped by Cordell King either, did she?

Still, she couldn’t help being curious about Rafe Cole and just what he might be hiding.

“So,” he said after a long moment of silence stretched out between them. “Guess I’d better get going and let you get busy baking cookies.”

“Right.” She started forward at the same time he did and they bumped into each other.

Instantly, heat blossomed between them. Their bodies close together, there was one incredible, sizzling moment in which neither of them spoke because they simply didn’t have to.

Something was there. Heat. Passion.

Katie looked up into Rafe’s eyes and knew he was feeling exactly what she was. And judging by his expression, he wasn’t much happier about it.

She hadn’t been looking for a romantic connection, but it seemed that she had stumbled on one anyway.

He lifted one hand to touch her face and stopped himself just short of his fingertips tracing along her jaw. Smiling softly, he said, “This could get … interesting.”

Understatement of the century.

Two

“Meeting’s over,” Lucas King muttered. “Why are we still here?”

“Because I’ve got a question for you,” Rafe answered and looked up at his brothers. Well, two of them, anyway. Sean and Lucas, his partners in King Construction. Just looking at the three of them together, anyone would know they were brothers. They all had the King coloring, black hair and blue eyes. Yet their features were different enough to point to the fact that they each had different mothers.

But the man who had been their father had linked them not just by blood, but by fostering that brotherly connection in their childhoods. All of Ben King’s sons had spent time together every summer, and the differences among them melted away in the shared knowledge that their father hadn’t bothered to marry any of their mothers.

Lucas, the oldest of the three of them, was checking his watch and firing another impatient look at Rafe. Sean, typically, was so busy studying the screen of his cell phone while he tapped out messages to God knew who, he hadn’t noticed that Lucas had spoken.

The brothers held weekly meetings to discuss business, to catch up with whatever was going on in the family and simply to keep up with each other’s lives. Those meetings shifted among each of their houses. Tonight, they were gathered at Lucas’s oceanfront home in Long Beach.

It was huge, old and filled with what Lucas liked to call character. Of course, everyone else called it outdated and inconvenient. Rafe preferred his own place, a penthouse suite in a hotel in Huntington Beach. Sleek, modern and efficient, it had none of the quirks that Lucas seemed so fond of in his own house. And he appreciated having room service at his beck and call as well as maid service every day. As for Sean, he was living in a remodeled water tower in Sunset Beach that had an elevator at beach level just to get you to the front door.

They had wildly different tastes, yet each of them had opted for a home with a view of the sea.

For a moment, Rafe stared out at the ribbons of color on the sunset-stained ocean and took a deep breath of the cold, clear air. There were a few hardy surfers astride their boards, looking for one last wave before calling it a day, and a couple was walking a tiny dog along Pacific Coast Highway.

“What do we know about Katie Charles?” he asked, taking a swig from his beer.

“Katie who?” Sean asked.

“Charles,” Lucas said, irritation for their younger brother coloring his tone. “Don’t you listen?”

“To who?” Sean kept his gaze fixed on his cell phone. The man was forever emailing and texting clients and women. It was nearly impossible to get Sean to pay attention to anything that didn’t pop up on an LED screen.

“Me,” Rafe told him, reaching out to snatch the phone away.

“Hey!” Sean leaned out and reclaimed his phone. “I’m setting up a meeting for later.”

“How about instead you pay attention to this one?” Rafe countered.

“Fine. I’m listening. Give me my phone.”

Rafe tossed it over, then turned his gaze to Lucas. “So?” Rafe asked. “You know anything about Katie Charles?”

“Name sounds familiar. Who is she?”

“Customer,” Rafe said, picking up his beer and leaning back in the Adirondack chair. “We’re redoing her kitchen.”

“Good for us.” Sean looked at him. “So what’s bugging you about her?”

Good question. Rafe shouldn’t have cared what Katie Charles thought of the King family. What did it really matter in the grand scheme of things? Still, ever since leaving Katie’s house earlier, he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. And it wasn’t just the flash of heat he felt when he was around her that was bugging her. She was pretty, smart, and successful, and she hated the Kings. What was up with that?

“Katie Charles,” Lucas was muttering to himself. “Katie Charles. Kitchen. Cookies.” He grinned and said, “That’s it. Katie’s Kookies. She’s building a real name for herself. She’s sort of a cottage industry at the moment, but people are talking about her.”

“What people?” Rafe asked, frowning. “I’ve never heard of her before.”

Sean snorted. “Why would you? You’re practically a hermit. To hear about anything you’d have to actually talk to someone. You know, someone who isn’t us.”

“I’m not a hermit.”

“God knows I hate to admit Sean’s right. About anything. But he’s got a point,” Lucas said, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “You keep yourself shut up in that penthouse of yours most of the time. Hell, I’m willing to bet the only people you’ve actually talked to since last week’s meeting are the room service operator and the crew you worked with today.”

Rafe scowled at Lucas, but only because he didn’t have an argument for the truth. He didn’t have time to date every model in the known universe like Sean. And he had no interest in the corporate world of movers and shakers like Lucas. What the hell else was he supposed to do with his time?

“Oh, yeah,” Sean said with a grin. “I forgot about that bet you made. How’s it going, being back on a job site?”

“Not bad,” Rafe admitted. Actually, he’d enjoyed himself more than he had expected. Being on a site with hardworking guys who didn’t know he was their boss had been … fun. And there was the added plus of being around a woman who made his body tight and his brain fuzz out. Until, of course, Katie had confessed that she hated the King family.

“So,” Sean asked, “if you had such a good time, why do you look like you want to bite through a box of nails?”

“You do look more annoyed than usual,” Lucas said with a shrug. “What’s up? And what’s it got to do with Katie Charles?”

“Neither of you knows her?”

Sean and Lucas looked at each other and shrugged. “Nope.”

“Somebody does.”

“Somebody knows everybody,” Lucas pointed out.

“Yeah, but the somebody who knows Katie is a King.”

Sean snorted. “Doesn’t narrow the field down by much.”

“True.” Hell, there were so many King cousins in California, they could probably start their own county.

“What’s the deal?” Lucas picked up his beer, leaned back in his chair and waited. “Why’s she bothering you?”

“Because,” Rafe told him, standing up to walk to the balcony railing, “she hates the Kings.”

“Hates us?” Sean laughed. “Impossible. Women love King men.”

“That’s completely true,” Lucas said with a self-satisfied smile.

“Usually, maybe,” Rafe said, his gaze sweeping across the froth of waves on the darkening ocean. Although his ex-wife would probably argue that point. “But this woman doesn’t. Hell she barely could say the word King without shuddering.”

“So why’d she hire us if she hates us so much?”

He turned to look at Sean. “Our company’s reputation, she says. But she’s not happy about it.”

“And you think somebody in the family turned her against all Kings?” Lucas asked.

“What else could it be?” Rafe looked at him and shrugged.

“The real question here is,” Sean said quietly, “why do you care?”

“That is a good question.” Lucas looked at Rafe and waited.

Too good, Rafe thought. Hell, he didn’t know why he cared, either. God knew, he didn’t want to. He’d been down this road before and he’d already learned that not only didn’t he know how to love, but according to his ex-wife, he was actually incapable of it.

So why bother with romancing a woman when you knew going in it was doomed to fail? No, he kept his relationships easy. Uncomplicated. A few hours of recreational sex and no strings attached.

Better for everyone when the rules were clear.

Yet, there was Katie.

She stirred him up in a way he’d never known before, though damned if he’d admit that to anyone else. Hard enough to get himself to acknowledge it.

“Yeah, it is a good question,” Rafe muttered. “Too bad I don’t have an answer.”

Katie was getting used to the noise, the dust, the confusion and the presence of strangers in her house. One week and she could barely remember what quiet was like. Or privacy. Or being able to move around her kitchen to the sounds of late-night radio.

Now, her kitchen was an empty shell of a room. She glanced out one of the wide windows into the backyard and sighed. There was a small trailer parked on her grass, its doors wide open, revealing tools and equipment enough to build four kitchens.

Pickup trucks belonging to Steve, Arturo and Rafe were also parked on her lawn and the piles of her discarded kitchen were getting bigger. Broken linoleum, old pipes, her sink—a beautiful, cast iron relic—lay tilted atop one of the mountains of trash and just for a second, Katie felt a twinge of panic.

This had all seemed like such a good idea at the time. Now though, she had to wonder if she’d been crazy. What if the new kitchen wasn’t as good as the old? What if her new stove didn’t cook as reliably? Where would she ever find another sink so wide and deep? What if her business went belly up and she’d spent her savings on a kitchen she wouldn’t be able to afford?

“Oh, God …”

“Too late for panic now,” a deep voice assured her from the doorway.

She turned around to look at Rafe and caught the knowing gleam in his eyes. She forced a smile. “Not full-blown panic yet. Just a little … okay,” she admitted finally, “panic.”

He laughed and she had a moment to think how devastating he really was before the smile on his face faded. He walked into the room and looked out at the view she’d been staring at. “It looks bad now, but it’s going to be great when it’s finished.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“Yeah, it is. This isn’t my first rodeo, you know. I’ve done a lot of remodels and the owners always have that wild-eyed look you have right now.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “But they’re always happy when it’s over.”

“Because it’s over or because they love what you did to their houses?”

“A little of both, maybe,” he acknowledged. “Just wanted to let you know we found a leak in a hot-water pipe.”

“A leak?” Katie instantly had mental images of a rising flood beneath the house.

“Relax,” he said. “It’s just an old, slow leak. The joint on the pipes is bad. We’re going to replace it, we just need to show it to you first and get you to sign off on the work, since it’s extra to the contract.”

She blew out a relieved breath. “Right. Okay then. Lead the way.”

Katie followed Rafe out of the patio, across the yard and through the back door to the kitchen. She couldn’t even reach her favorite room in the old house by walking down the hallway. It was crowded with her refrigerator, tables holding all of her pantry items and towers of pots and pans.

The sun was blazing down out of a clear blue sky and she was grateful for California weather. If she’d had to do this remodeling job in a place renowned for rain, it would have been far worse.

Rafe held the door open for her and she walked inside to a room she barely recognized. The old subfloor was black and littered with dust. The skeletons of the cabinets stood out like picked over bones on the walls. The pipes looked forlorn somehow, as if they were embarrassed to be seen.

Steve, the plumber, was crawling up out of a hole in the floor. Katie just managed to hide a shudder. You couldn’t pay her enough to crawl under the house where spiders and God knew what other kind of bug lived. When he was clear, Steve turned to flash her a smile. “If you come over here, I can show you the leak.”

“Great. Leaks.” She picked her way across the floor, stepping over scattered tools and bits of old wood. She stopped alongside the long, narrow opening in the floor and squatted beside Steve. He held a flashlight pointed beneath the floorboards and said, “There it is. Probably been dripping like that for years. Hasn’t done any damage, so that’s good. But we should put in a new copper joint.”

Katie nodded solemnly as if she understood exactly what he was talking about. But the truth was, she didn’t see a leak. All she noticed was a damp spot on the earth beneath the floor that probably shouldn’t be there. If she actually admitted she couldn’t see the leak, they might insist she go down there to see it up close and personal. So Steve’s word would be good enough for her. “Okay then. Do what you have to.”

“Excellent.” Steve turned and said, “Hey, Rafe, why don’t you show her the new sink you brought in this morning.”

“My new sink’s here? Already?” Now this she was interested in. As far as pipes went, all she cared about was that they carried water whichever way they were designed to carry it without leaks, thanks very much. She didn’t need to understand how they did it. Hard to get thrilled over copper piping.

“I was at one of our suppliers and saw a sink I thought you’d like, so I picked it up. We’ll just store it in the trailer until it’s time to install.” Rafe led her out of the kitchen, down the back steps and across the lawn.

Arturo had the cabinet doors spread across makeshift sawhorse work tables and was busily scraping off the old finish before sanding them. Everything was happening. Only a week and already she was seeing progress. Maybe they’d get it all done in two weeks, Katie thought, then smiled wryly to herself. And maybe she’d sprout wings and fly.

“Here it is.” Rafe stopped at the trailer, reached in and drew out a huge sink, one side much deeper and bigger than the other.

“Isn’t that heavy?” she asked, remembering the loud clunk her old cast-iron sink had made when tossed to the top of the junk pile.

“Nope. It’s acrylic.” He held it in one hand to prove his point. “Tougher and won’t chip or rust.”

She smoothed her fingers over the edge and sighed a little. It was perfect. Looking up at him, she said, “Thank you. It’s great.”

“Glad you like it.” He tucked it back into the trailer and draped a protective work blanket over it.

“I thought the contractor was supposed to pick up the supplies for the job,” she said.

He turned back to look at her and shoved both hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Joe asked me to pick up a few things at the home store. I saw the sink and …”

“How’d you know I’d like it?”

“Took a shot,” he admitted.

“It was a good one.”

His blue eyes were shining and a cool wind tossed his black hair across his forehead. He was tall, broad-shouldered and looked great in those faded jeans, she thought, not for the first time. In fact, she had dreamed about him the night before. In her dream they were back in her kitchen, alone, as they had been yesterday. But in her fantasy, Rafe had kissed her until her toes curled and she had awakened so taut with desire and tension she hadn’t been able to go back to sleep.

Even her unconscious mind was working against her.

“So, Rafe Cole,” she asked, “how long have you been in construction?”

She thought his features tightened briefly, but the expression was gone so quickly, she couldn’t be sure. Now why would that simple question get such a reaction?

“My dad started me out in the business when I was a kid,” he said, staring off at the house, keeping his gaze deliberately away from hers. “I liked it and just sort of stuck with it.”

“I get that,” she said, trying to put him at ease again, to regain the easiness they’d shared only a moment ago. “My grandmother started me out baking when I was a little girl, and, well, here I am.”

He nodded and glanced at her. “How long have you lived here?”

“I grew up here,” she said. “My dad died before I was born, and my mom and I moved in here with Nana.” Her gaze tracked across the familiar lines of the old bungalow. The windows were wide, the roof was shake and the paint was peeling in spots. But the house was home. It meant security. Comfort. “I moved out for college, then mom died and a year ago, I inherited the house from Nana.”

“Oh,” he said softly. “I’m sorry.”

It took her a second; then Katie laughed and told him, “No, she didn’t die. She just moved. Nana and her sister Grace decided to share an apartment at the Senior Living Center. They figure there are lots of lonely men over there looking for love!”

He laughed at that and once again, Katie felt a rush of something hot and delicious spread through her. The man should smile more often, she thought and wondered why he didn’t. The other guys working here were forever laughing and joking around. But not Rafe.

He was more quiet. More mysterious.

Just … more.

Rafe sat opposite his brother Sean at a local diner and waited for his burger. As for Sean, he was typing out a message or thirty on his cell phone. Okay, as far as Rafe was concerned. Gave him more time to think about Katie Charles.

The woman was haunting him.

He couldn’t remember being so fixated on a single woman—not even Leslie, before he married her, had so completely captivated him. While that should have worried him, instead he was intrigued. What was it about Katie that was getting to him?

She was beautiful, sure. But lots of women were. He wanted her, but he had wanted lots of women. There was something else about her that was reaching out to him on so many different levels, he couldn’t even name them all.

“Hey,” Sean said with a laugh. “Where’d you go?”

“What?” Rafe swiveled on the bench seat and looked at his younger brother.

“I’ve been talking to you for five minutes and you haven’t heard a word. So I was wondering just what exactly had you thinking so hard.”

Rafe scowled a little, irritated to have been caught daydreaming. Jeez. Thoughts of Katie were taking up way too much of his time. “Not surprising I was thinking of something else, since you were so busy texting.”

“Nice try,” Sean said, still grinning. “Distract me with insults so I won’t ask if you’re still thinking about the cookie woman.”

Rafe shot him a glare. “Her name’s Katie.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Anyone ever tell you how irritating you are?”

“Besides you, you mean?” Sean asked, giving their waitress a bright smile as she delivered their dinners. “You bet. All the time.”

Rafe had to smile. Sean was absolutely the most laid-back King ever born. Most of them were type A’s, ruthlessly pushing through life, demanding and getting their own way. Not Sean. He had a way of slipping up on whatever he wanted until it just naturally fell into his hands.

He was damn hard to annoy and almost never lost his temper. In the world of the King family, he was an original.

Once the waitress was gone, the brothers dove into their meals. This hamburger joint on Ocean Avenue had been a popular spot since the forties. Rafe and Sean were on the outside patio, where they could watch traffic and pedestrians in a never-ending stream of motion. Kids, dogs, parents with digital cameras poking out of their pockets fought for space on the crowded sidewalk. Summer in a beach town brought out the tourists.

“So,” Sean said, reaching for his beer, “let’s hear it.”

“Hear what?”

“About the cookie lady,” Sean countered, both of his eyebrows wiggling.

Rafe sighed. Should have expected that his brother would be curious. After all, Rafe hadn’t talked about a woman since Leslie walked out. He remembered his ex-wife looking at him sadly and telling him that she felt “sorry” for him because he had no idea how to love someone. That he never should have married her and sentenced her to a cold, empty life.

Then he thought about Katie and it was like a cool, soft breeze wafted through his mind. “She’s … different.”

“This gets better and better.” Sean leaned back in his booth and waited.

Frowning, Rafe took a sip of his beer. When he spoke, it was a warning not only to his brother, but to himself. “Don’t make more of this than there is. I just find her interesting.”

“Interesting.” Sean nodded. “Right. Like a bug collection?”

“What?”

Laughing, his brother said, “Come off it, Rafe. There’s something there and you’re looking. And about time too, I want to say. Leslie was a long time ago, man.”

“Not that long,” Rafe countered. Although, as he thought about it, he realized that he and Leslie had been divorced for more than five years. His ex-wife was now remarried to Rafe’s former best friend, with a set of toddler twins and a newborn, last he heard.

“Long enough for her to move on. Why haven’t you?”

Rafe shot Sean a glare that should have fried his ass on the spot. Typically enough though, Sean wasn’t bothered. “Who says I haven’t?”

“Me. Lucas. Tanner. Mac. Grady …” Sean stopped, paused and asked, “Do I have to name all of our brothers or do you get the point?”

“I get it, but you’re wrong.” Rafe took a bite of his truly excellent burger and after chewing, added, “I’m not carrying a torch for Leslie. It’s over. Done. She’s a mother, for God’s sake.” And if he was to be honest, he hadn’t really missed her when she left. So what did that say about him?

“Yet, you’re still living in a hotel suite making do with the occasional date with a beautiful airhead.”

“I like living in a hotel and they’re not all airheads.”

“Good argument.”

“Look,” Rafe said, reaching for his beer. “Katie’s a nice woman, but she’s off limits.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because she’s got white picket fence written all over her,” Rafe explained. “She’s the settle-down-and-get-married type and I’ve already proven I’m not.”

Sean shook his head and sighed. “For a smart guy, you’re not real bright, are you?”

“Thanks for the support.”

“You want support?” Sean asked, digging into his burger. “Then stop being an idiot.”

“Shut up. I tried the happily-ever-after thing and it blew up in my face. Not going to do it again.”

“Did you ever consider that maybe the reason it didn’t work was because you married the wrong woman?”

Rafe didn’t even bother answering that jibe. What would have been the point?

Monday morning, the guys were still fighting with the pipes and Katie was ready for a week in Tahiti. She’d hardly slept all weekend. Though the peace and quiet were great, she’d been so busy filling cookie orders she hadn’t had time to appreciate it.