From the Moment We Met (8 page)

He flashed a single, devastating dimple her way. “Sexy is sexy, darling. You could be in cleats, a jersey, and full football pads and you’d turn heads. In fact, that sounds like one of my fantasies.” He winked. “You got a jersey? If not, I have one I can lend you. It even has authentic Super Bowl dirt on it.”

“How do I know it’s Super Bowl dirt?”

“Matches the ring.” He held up his hand and flashed the giant nugget of athletic domination her way.

She shrugged. “I already have a jersey.”

“Really?”

“Yup.” Abby hid a smile when his eyes went all hot. “It’s navy and bright green and has a cute little Seahawk on it. Right here,” she lied, tracing a circle over her chest.

“You wouldn’t.” A cute crinkle creased his brow. “Anything but a Seahawk.”

“A Seahawk,” Abby confirmed with a nod.

“Yeah, well, bet it doesn’t have authentic Super Bowl dirt on it.” When she neither confirmed nor denied it, just held his gaze, his cute crease turned to a full-on frown.

She smiled. Then the pipe started groaning like Old Faithful ready to blow.

Tanner looked up at the labyrinth of exposed pipes and let out a long breath. “Look, best guess is the pipes can’t handle the water pressure from the new washing machine and they need to be replaced. If you want, I can patch the leak and give you the number of a guy on my crew. He’s reliable, smart, married, great with plumbing issues, and won’t rip you off.”

“Married? Is that a requirement for a plumber these days?”

“For me it is. He’ll give you a fair price, but it will still cost you a few grand.”

“A few grand?” Did her heart just stop?

“Or you let me stay and we fix it tonight, problem solved. I have enough spare pipes, valves, fittings, whatever you need left over from the last project I did.”

For the first time in a long time, “we” didn’t sound so terrifying. The idea of having someone to help out, someone who would treat her like an equal, was refreshing.

Abby looked at her flooded garage and back to the big ox, wanting to be sure they were on the same page. “I’m not looking for some superhero to come in and save the day.”

“I’ve always considered myself the handy but handsome sidekick.” He shrugged. “You can wear the cape, that’s cool with me.”

She laughed. “Fine. But I want to repay you. This isn’t a favor.” He waggled a brow and she jabbed a finger in the middle of his chest. Not that he even felt it. The big, handy, handsome, badass sidekick. “I meant piano lessons or something.”

“Already used that trade. I want something else.”

“I’m not sleeping with you,” she clarified sharply, although the thought of his big hands on her body made her girly parts sing.

“I’m the sidekick, which makes you my boss, and I’m not that kind of guy.” There went both dimples. “I was thinking a night with you that ends in a kiss.”

“That’s it?”

“Nope.” And here it came, she thought sadly. The moment when he’d turn into every guy she’d ever met because he had the upper hand. “Also a slice of that wine cake you used to bake. The one with the powdered sugar sprinkled over the top.”

“We hang out, I feed you a slice of cake, and we’re square?”

“Don’t forget the kiss. Oh, and make it a whole cake so I can take some home to my dad.”

“You live with your dad?”

“Yup.” Tanner sighed, and she knew that sigh well. Had sighed it herself a few times.

She’d lived with her Nonna ChiChi for the past few years, and even though they were close, and she loved her nonna, it was challenging, to say the least. Tanner and his dad, well, they gave the hard-love thing a whole new spin.

“A few months ago my dad had a minor stroke, then hurt his leg. I didn’t want to put him in assisted living while he was recovering, so I moved him into my place. Getting him to do anything, let alone come to the table and eat with me, has been a constant battle. Probably because most of what I attempt to make isn’t edible. Or maybe because he is as stubborn as I am. Either way, I need to get him up and moving, doctor’s orders.”

Abby placed a hand on his chest. “I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, well, we’re still figuring things out, but I think a nice home-baked cake could give him incentive enough to get up off his ass and turn off the television.”

“Wine cake it is.” She looked at her hand, which was now covered by his bigger one, and she could feel his pulse vibrate through her.

“And Abby.” Tanner smiled and patted her hand in a way that sent warm currents fluttering. “Your designs are inspired.”

It took everything she had not to cry a little, because after today she needed that. “Inspired enough to stand up against big firms with big portfolios and big names?” She could hear the hope in her voice. “Because I guess Babs has a few outside firms submitting. Schmitt and Warner is even sending someone out from New York.”

Not that Abby blamed the woman. After scaring off all of the local talent, her only hope to get a crew back to work quickly was to attach a big name to the project. A name Abby didn’t have.

“How do I even compete with Schmitt and Warner? They designed half of Manhattan.”

“Don’t compete,” he said as if it were that simple. “The other designers will give Babs their flashy title along with their flashy ideas.”

“Babs likes flash,” she murmured.

“But she
loves
this town. She loves the history, the tradition, the story hiding behind every crack. Babs wants a connection to something real, something with depth that inspires conversation, which is why she chose a hundred-year-old headache instead of a storefront in that new strip mall in Napa.” He took in her shoddy foundation, the busted pipes, and smiled. “You said it earlier, sometimes new is just new. Flash fades and Babs knows that, she just needs to be reminded that real is better. Real lasts.”

Then his smile faded, and so did hers, because she was aware of just how close they stood, and how badly she wanted him to lean down and—

Kiss me.

Tanner’s eyes seemed to be saying yes, so she rose up, just slightly, but enough to change the game. The tips of her nipples brushed against his wet chest, and Abby knew she was going to do the most spectacularly stupidest thing possible. They’d been here before, and she’d promised herself she’d never go there again.

Yet here she was.

“You sure?” he whispered, lifting his hand from hers only to slide it through her hair and gently cup her face.

No. She wasn’t sure of anything except that if she said as much, he would back off. Immediately. Which was what she should do.

Instead, she slid her palms slowly down his wet chest, tracing each and every ridge of his stomach, loving how the muscles flexed under her touch, until finally resting one hand on the top of his tool belt, the other wrapped around to his lower back to pull him against her.

He tilted his head down, way down, so that their noses were brushing, their breaths mingling, and damn if a needy little moan didn’t slip out.

Always the gentleman, he gave her one last chance to take the sane route, to change her mind, only there was nothing sane about the way her body was buzzing or the way her mind had stopped working the second his shirt went translucent.

She closed the last inch and, look at that, Tanner was making some noises of his own, so raw it made her body heat up to inferno.

“I do owe you a kiss,” she whispered. “As payment. And a deal is a deal.”

His mouth was suddenly on hers, hot and sure and so damn confident she felt her toes curl up right in her rubber galoshes.

“Holy Christ,” he whispered and hauled her up against him, deepening the connection.

Abby had to agree, kissing Jack Tanner was like a religious experience. One taste was all it took and Abby was reborn. Somehow transported back to that first night, when Tanner had kissed her in the darkened cab of his old, beat-up Chevy, when he’d made her forget that her world was falling apart, made her feel as though she could put it back together.

That with him she would be okay.

And right now she felt okay. More than okay. She felt amazing and alive and like she wasn’t a thirty-year-old widow who hadn’t had sex in the better part of a decade. And then she felt his hand slip down her back to cup her butt, and suddenly she was sitting on top of the dryer, Tanner between her legs, her fingers under his shirt, and it got her thinking—if this was his idea of spending time together, she was on board. For as long as that ship would sail.

Warning bells buzzed loudly. Too bad her brain was so busy having a meltdown from all of the nerve endings firing at once to listen. What started out as settling a debt turned into a heated frenzy that officially blew her mind.

Tanner had been good back in college, but he was even better now—which should have scared her, but somehow only managed to make her hotter. Then he slanted his mouth over hers, taking it to that next level in a way that only Tanner could do, kissing her harder, again and then again, his hands running up her thighs to cup her ass, his body pressing against hers in all the right places, caging her between that amazing chest and the back of the dryer—and the warning bells got louder. More persistent.

Buzz buzz buzz.

Tanner abruptly pulled back and swore. The sudden emptiness in her chest told her that it wasn’t just physically. He was going to stop, be the gentleman, and give her time to process, and she didn’t want him to. She wasn’t open to the complete Jack Tanner experience, but she was hoping for another few moments to really get reacquainted with his body. And that mouth.

Abby struggled to take in a breath and, as though he’d heard the same warning bells as she had, explained, “It’s just the dryer.”

Tanner was doing some struggling of his own, and way too much thinking. He ran a thumb over her lips, and even that sent a zing south of the equator. Then, with one last look at her very wet, very see-through shirt, he turned and disappeared out the side door.

Abby leaned back against the dryer and closed her eyes. What was she doing?

Nothing good, that’s what.

Tanner was dangerous. A menace. A big, sexy hazard to her well-being. No matter how much she’d hoped that time would have done its job and diminished everything she’d felt for him, it hadn’t. And that kiss had just proved it.

The only way Abby was ever going to move forward with her life was to stop revisiting her past. And Tanner was a part of her past that she most definitely needed to steer clear of.

Which was going to be a little tricky since that one kiss had catapulted him into something much more recent. Something that felt a whole hell of a lot like her present.

CHAPTER 6

T
o-go bags in hand, Tanner walked up the front steps of his house, frowning when he saw Colin’s Mercedes parked out back. The game should have still been in full swing at the Spigot—just like Colin’s meeting with Ferris.

He opened the front door, and for the first time since acquiring roommates he didn’t seem to mind the piles of crap or muddy paw prints all over his handcrafted stone floor. He was too busy thinking about Abby in her thin, wet shirt, no bra, and itty-bitty shorts. The galoshes had been an adorable bonus, coming up well past her knees as though she were trudging through the swamplands.

And those lips, man, he’d renovate her entire dump of a house from top to bottom if it meant spending more time with her mouth fused to his.

Tanner shut the door behind him, and the sound of claws on the floor was the only warning before a warm body plowed into his legs.

Part wolfhound, part bigfoot, and a complete pain in Tanner’s ass, Wrecking Ball, his dad’s dumb-as-dirt mutt, was so excited Tanner was home that he wagged himself all over Tanner’s entryway, leaving a yellow happy trail three feet long.

“Outside,” Tanner scolded, pointing. When Wreck only panted joyfully, Tanner dropped a pile of paper towels over the puddle, which he left by the door for just such an occasion. “You do your business outside, got it?”

Wreck barked. Tanner cut him a hard glare, then, shucking his wet boots, made his way to the kitchen—the dog followed, his nails tapping the slate floor and his big, wiry tail wagging so hard he knocked over everything he passed. Including a wadded-up receipt that sat on the entry table, which he promptly ate.

Tanner dropped the Chinese food on the counter and poked his head into the family room to find Gus and Colin drinking beer and watching the game.

Gus was in his ratty old recliner, socked feet kicked up on the footrest and his silver hair sticking up in the back as though he’d slept right there all day and hadn’t budged. Which he probably hadn’t. Gus had arrived with a suitcase, his dog, a bad attitude, and that damn chair. The only thing that had budged since move-in day was the dog.

Colin, on the other hand, was sprawled out on the couch, his cold beer sweating on the leather armrest, his work boots scuffing up the coffee table. Wreck jumped up beside him, licked himself a few times, then curled up in Tanner’s spot, tongue hanging out.

“Dinner’s in the kitchen.” Tanner met his dad’s gaze. His wiry brows puckered, making it clear that he was in a mood. “So eat it in the kitchen and save some for me. I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Is that Chinese I smell?” Gus asked, not even pretending he was going to head into the kitchen. “I hate Chinese.”

“We had Chinese last week.”

“Hated it then too.”

Tanner looked at his dad and wondered why he was busting his balls this time. “You had three helpings. Asked me to order Mongolian beef.”

“Didn’t want to be rude, seeing as I’m a guest here,” his cranky voice snapped.

And here we go.
Tanner took a calming breath and waited to speak until his blood pressure wasn’t bordering on unnecessary roughness. “You’re not a guest, Dad. This is your home. I want you to feel comfortable here.”

“Good, cuz comfortable is me eating my dinner, right here from the comfort of my chair.” He waved a hand at Colin. “Now turn up the volume, I can’t hear the score over all the chatter.”

Tanner gave up. Living with his dad was like living with a two-year-old. Gus had spent most of his first thirty-five years alone, so when Tanner had come into the world, the man was already set in his ways. Ways that didn’t have much room for a wife or a son. So it wasn’t surprising that Tanner’s mom went out for a drive one day and never came back.

“Did you get extra noodles?” Colin asked. “You know how much I love noodles.”

“No. Don’t remember inviting you to dinner and don’t want to give you a reason to stay.”

“You can eat Jack’s,” Gus offered. “Serves him right for not taking me to the bar to watch the game.”

“You said you didn’t want to go.”

Gus shrugged, eyes fixed on the flat screen.

“Dad, next time if you want to go, just say yes when I ask you.”

“I wasn’t ready to go yet,” Gus said, a fluster of hands and huffs, gearing up to one of his tirades. “I was still watching my Jeopardy and you took off. That’s what’s wrong with your generation, you have no patience.”

Something he would love to argue another time when he wasn’t wet and starving. Eight weeks into sharing space and Gus was still alive: proof that Tanner was the most patient man on the freaking planet.

“Don’t answer your phone neither,” Gus added, sounding a little winded. In fact, when Tanner looked closer, his dad seemed pale and clammy. And old. Really old. “Figures that the only time you don’t answer that ball and chain is when I’m calling.”

“You called?” Tanner checked his phone and sure enough, there were two missed calls from his dad.

“No matter,” he said in a tone that said it mattered—a whole hell of a lot. “Colin here entertained me. Let me join the party. Even bought me a draft while we watched the game with that Ferris fella.”

Tanner paced to the window, looked out, and—
ah, Jesus
—felt his entire chest drop. His dad’s three-hundred-year-old truck was gone, meaning Colin must have driven Gus back. “You aren’t cleared to drive.”

“According to that doctor, I’m not cleared to go to the john by myself neither, but I didn’t see you offering to hold my hand then.”

“Dad, you behind a wheel is not an option. Ever. Dr. Johnson said that—”

“Dr. Johnson’s got as much sense as a stump. I’ve had turds older than that boy.”

That boy was older than Tanner, and Ivy League certified.

“Funny, since the Department of Motor Vehicles agreed.” Tanner ran a hand down his face. “Maybe we should reconsider hiring someone part-time. I still have that list of nurses who—”

“No way,” Gus said shaking his head. “And don’t you even think about hiring one behind my back, I’ll chase her away before she even gets settled. Remember when Clive Evans threw out his hip last year? He hired himself a nurse, and all she did was rob him blind and give him a woody. Poor guy’s homeless now.”

“Clive’s wife took care of him. And Helen got the house when he admitted he was sleeping with that lady from their canasta club.”

He waved that bit of info off. “I don’t need some hot young thing throwing herself at me and trying to sleep with me for my money. Between you and Colin and me, we can handle this.”

It was Tanner’s money, and he didn’t want Colin hanging out here any more than he already was, especially when he finally had a chance with Abby.

“Well, your staying here alone obviously isn’t working out. Jesus, Dad, you could have hit someone.” And wasn’t that an awful image. “That’s it. I’m serious, no more driving.” Then he pictured his dad and his dog, hobbling their way down the highway. “And no more leaving the house unless someone is with you.”

And if there was one way to make sure Gus did something, it was to tell him the opposite. Which meant Tanner had just guaranteed that Gus would be zipping around town in his truck every time Tanner left the house, most likely doing drive-bys of Dr. Johnson’s office, flipping him off with his cane.

“Everything’s fine,” Colin said carefully. “No one was hurt. Gus and I tossed back a beer, caught up a little, and I drove him home so we could watch the game without all of the noise of the bar.”

Which meant Gus had been tired. And probably in pain. And Colin had to cut his meeting with Ferris short.

Shit.

“So why don’t you go put on clothes that aren’t soaking wet and I’ll get dinner?”

“Thanks,” Tanner mumbled, suddenly feeling exhausted. The high he’d been riding since kissing Abby was gone. Five minutes with his dad and—
poof
—the excited giddiness of knowing she wanted him was all replaced by an overwhelming heaviness that went bone deep. “I’ll be back down in a few. To eat my chow fun. In the kitchen. Which is where you will all be eating.”

Tanner headed toward his bedroom. Wreck hopped down and loped behind him, licking the floor as he went.

When he’d bought this house he may have indulged himself a bit. To say his hilltop estate was sprawling would be an understatement. His Tuscan villa was big and badass, and had plasma, Sub-Zero, and state-of-the-art bling up the wazoo. It was everything a broke kid living in wine country dreamed of owning when he made it big.

And Jack “Hard Hammer” Tanner had made it more than big. First in the NFL, then in construction. He had more money, more toys, and more respect than he knew what to do with. The only thing he didn’t have was the one person he’d worked so hard to impress.

Abby DeLuca.

And tonight while sitting in that lemon of a fixer-upper with her, he realized that no matter how big his house was, how many toys he filled it with, it still felt empty.

By the time he took a quick shower and threw on a pair of workout shorts and a tee and made his way to the kitchen, it was light on people and to-go boxes.

With a frown, he grabbed a beer from the fridge, took a long pull, and made his way to the family room, where an empty noodle box and Colin sat. Gus was gone.

“He went to bed.” Colin handed Tanner a half-eaten box of Mongolian beef. “Seemed pretty tired, so I made up some lame excuse about how I had to talk to you in private about business and helped him to his bedroom.”

“Thanks,” Tanner said, looking at his friend, who was looking back and about as worried as Tanner was. “Just thinking of what could have gone wrong makes me sick.”

“Well, if it helps, I think he scared the shit out of himself driving to the bar. Must have been hard working the clutch and the brakes down the mountain and through town with one good leg.”

Tanner sat back and shoveled some food into his mouth. Good, but not noodles.

“I have no idea what to do. He refuses to do his physical therapy. He canceled his last two appointments without telling me. The other day I found him facedown on the bathroom floor.” That had been a wake-up call. “I guess he got tired and sat there so long that his legs buckled when he tried to stand. He said he’d only been there for a few minutes, but I’m guessing it was more like a few hours.”

“Jesus, I had no idea it was so bad.”

“Yeah. Pride or not, I’m going to have to get him a nurse. Or at least someone who will stay with him while I’m at work. I just don’t know who I can hire that he wouldn’t scare off.”

“Then don’t hire anyone, just bring him to work with you,” Colin said. “Put him in charge of something simple, something that doesn’t require power tools or his feet leaving the ground.”

“You don’t think that would be a problem?” Tanner asked, and it was like someone had just lifted the three-hundred-pound lineman he’d been carting around for eight weeks right off his chest. “You think I could get away with bringing Dad to the worksite?”

“To the DeLuca cave site, no. There is too much going on there, it would be a huge liability.” Colin at least had the decency to look apologetic. “But to the Pungent Barrel, you bet. It’s a remodel, so no demolition. Plus, it will be a smaller crew. Not to mention it would give Babs someone to dote on.”

Babs loved to dote. Another in a long list of reasons she had a hard time keeping crews around for long—she was more interested in feeding them lunch than making a concrete decision. Plus, Gus needed a little doting. Maybe being smothered by Betty Crocker would be just what the doctor ordered.

“This might work,” Tanner said.

“Yup, and with you there to watch out for him,” Colin added and took a chopstick full from Tanner’s box. “Everyone wins.”

“Oh, no.” No longer hungry, Tanner handed his food to Colin, who went to town. “Don’t do this to me.”

Because everyone involved would win except for him. And Abby. God, it would look like he’d been in on this from the beginning and had something to do with her not getting hired. Worse, it would look like he was one more overimportant male inserting himself into her life. And he wouldn’t blame her.

“Think about it,” Colin went on as though Tanner’s life wasn’t rapidly spiraling. “Babs is busy on her project, Ferris is happy, your dad is out of the house and in a safe environment feeling useful and alive, and we get to focus on blowing up the side of a mountain and building a state-of-the-art golf club.”

“You,” Tanner slid him a look. “
You
get to focus on blowing up the side of a mountain.
I
get to babysit the elderly while building a wine and cheese shop. Which, in case you forgot, I hate wine.” He left out the part that lactose tore him up, because that was just too pussy to admit.

“I’ll handle the preliminary inspections, getting bids for supplies, and the remaining permits, all the crap you hate anyway. So when the shop is done, you get to jump right into the good part. Blowing stuff up and driving bulldozers around.”

Tanner knew from experience that gutting a mountain to build a wine cave took a lot of preparation and a whole hell of a lot of skill. Between Gus, Colin’s house being unlivable, and the DeLuca project, Tanner already felt there were so many balls in the air that one more could send them all crashing down.

Now Colin was talking about him taking on two more projects. His head hurt just thinking about it. “How did it go with Ferris?”

Just like that, Colin’s face went hard. “Good at first. I explained you had an urgent family emergency, which worked until your dad showed up. I didn’t know you were walking out on the biggest meeting of this whole goddamned thing to get all hot and heavy with Abby.”

“How do you know I was with Abby?”

“How the fuck do you think I know? Nora Kincaid took a picture of you two all wet and looking mighty cozy on Abby’s porch and posted it on Facebook.”

That was not what he wanted to hear. He was finally making progress; he didn’t need Nosy Nora giving Abby one more reason to back off. She already had a boatload of reasons stored up. “She had some plumbing issues.”

“Yeah, well, tell that to Brandi, who showed up looking for you. Seems you had a date.”