Sweet Home Colorado (The O'Malley Men) (2 page)

Chapter One

Jack eased his old truck against the curb behind a
bright red BMW Z4 parked outside Missy Saunders’s and wished he had the time to
work on the house. He hated to see the magnificent old buildings of the former
gold-mining town lying unloved and unkept. This home was a particularly fine
specimen, built by a miner who’d struck it rich with a huge nugget back in the
1870s. It had passed down through the miner’s family, eventually going to Missy
Saunders. Missy was an only child and had never married. Jack guessed it had
been sold long ago to pay Missy’s nursing-home fees. The sweet old lady had
spent a while at the Twilight Years before passing on. Jack regretted he hadn’t
been living in Spruce Lake so he could’ve attended her funeral—especially since
his mom had reported that Gracie had made a brief appearance to pay her respects
to her great-aunt. He wished he’d seen her then. It might have helped him make
up his mind about a few things, maybe get her out of his system once and for
all.

He shook his head to clear it. No point in reminiscing about
what might have been. He and Gracie were history. She was never coming back to
town; she’d told him as much. He really needed to get over her and move on with
his life. His realization that he was still in love with her had helped him
decide that he’d never make a priest and he’d left the seminary in L.A. before
being ordained. Although there’d been other reasons for leaving, Gracie had been
the main one. But she was a married woman and therefore off-limits, so instead
he’d channeled his energies into a carpentry apprenticeship, then worked with
underprivileged kids helping them learn a trade and life skills. It was
rewarding work, but a lonely life nevertheless.

Since returning to Spruce Lake a couple of years ago, Jack had
restored many of the town’s Victorian-era buildings—but none of them had the
size and grandeur of Missy Saunders’s place. Still, there were other contractors
in the county, whom Mike had probably been sweet-talking all week. Funny that no
one else had taken on the project.

Parked in front of the sports car was his new truck, emblazoned
with
Jack O’Malley Constructions
on the doors. Jack
had taken delivery of the Dodge Ram only last week. And he hated it. It was just
too new and shiny for him. He preferred his old Ford F150.

Jack had had Betsy since high school and, before that, she’d
been used to run around the family ranch, Two Elk. She had over a million miles
on the clock and wasn’t missing a beat. Her seats were worn and comfortable and
fitted Jack’s butt like a glove.

He’d felt like a traitor when he’d taken Betsy down to trade
her in on the Dodge. They’d offered peanuts for her, so he’d kept Betsy
and
bought the Dodge.

Two days later he gave the Dodge to his foreman, Al Hernandez,
to drive. Al was only too happy to use the boss’s truck, with its smell of new
leather and its too shiny paintwork. Al had three young boys, and the twin cab
arrangement suited his family perfectly.

Jack had arranged to meet Al at the house, figuring the two of
them would get through the assessment twice as fast. He’d blow this doctor off
with a ridiculously high estimate and then he’d be able to start on Adam’s place
with a clear conscience—and the knowledge that another contractor in town would
get the job. Not that any other contractor would be as good as Jack and his
team, but what did this doctor think? That he could snap his fingers and have
someone start immediately?

The door of the sports car opened and a woman stepped out. Her
dark hair fell across her face, hiding her features, but Jack didn’t miss the
oh-so-long legs and trim figure as she stalked around the front of her sports
car and onto the sidewalk.

She walked with confidence, like a woman used to getting her
own way. She, and the car, looked totally out of place in Spruce Lake. Jack’s
hometown was more battered SUVs, jeans and cowboy boots—not flashy sports cars,
designer dresses and six-inch heels.

One of those heels wedged itself in a crack in the
sidewalk.

Jack watched as she bent to pull it out, revealing a lot more
leg...and the bright red undersides of her shoes.

He enjoyed the show, wondering who this fish out of water could
be visiting in Spruce Lake, because for sure she wasn’t local. Jack would’ve
noticed her way before this if she was.

He could hear her cursing through the open window of his truck.
Time to rescue the damsel in distress,
he
decided as he climbed out and sauntered over to the woman. “Need any help?” he
asked.

She stopped cussing and pulling at her leg long enough to stand
up to her full height and look him in the eye.

Jack felt the sucker punch right to his gut. He’d know those
bewitching light brown eyes, that pert nose, those soft full lips, anywhere.

Gracie.

She’d lost a good fifteen pounds, had her hair cut and styled
and was wearing way too much makeup, but it was her, all right.

He swallowed and said, “Hi, Gracie.”

She frowned and said, “Do I know you?”

Jack felt the sucker punch again as she reminded him how
insignificant a part of her life he’d been, in spite of their dating for nearly
two years in high school.

He pulled off his sunglasses and held out his hand. “Jack
O’Malley. We dated for a while. Remember?”

Jack had fallen hard for Gracie the day she’d entered his
classroom in their junior year. She’d graduated with an A-plus average, while
Jack—thanks to his dyslexia—had barely scraped through. She’d won a scholarship
to college, then medical school. Jack hadn’t fared quite so well—at least, not
scholastically. He’d joined the peace corps right out of high school and worked
on projects around the world for two years. He’d come home, drifted through
college. Then, believing it was the best way to answer his calling to help
others, he entered the seminary.

She stared at Jack, glanced at Betsy and then at his shiny new
truck with
Jack O’Malley Constructions
on the door,
and finally back at him. “Jack?
You’re
my
contractor?”

“You inherited the house from your Aunt Missy?”

She shrugged. “Sort of. It’s a long story.”

One Jack was curious about since if anyone should have
inherited, he’d expected it to be Gracie’s bum of a father. So Mike was well
aware of who the owner was and Jack’s connection to her.

Meddling Mike wasn’t above a bit of matchmaking. Well, he’d
lose any bets on this one.

Mike probably figured Jack wouldn’t be able to say no to his
high school sweetheart. Mike was wrong.

“I’m not your contractor,” he said, almost
wishing—perversely—that he was. He had something to prove to Gracie Saunders. “I
agreed to do an estimate, for comparison’s sake. That’s all.”

“He told me...” She suddenly seemed to remember that her shoe
was still stuck in the sidewalk and bent again to try pulling it out. Since the
heels were so high and her dress so short and tight-fitting, it wasn’t an easy
task.

“Allow me,” Jack said, and knelt at her feet. He grimaced at
the metaphor. He’d virtually worshipped the ground Gracie walked on in high
school. She’d been his first girlfriend. His first lover. And then she’d walked
all over his heart.

He gently grasped her ankle in one hand and her shoe in the
other.

* * *

G
RACE
FELT
A
SHOT
of heat race up her leg at
Jack’s touch. She watched as those big, capable hands eased her foot from her
Christian Louboutin pump and placed it on the sidewalk while he worked on
getting her shoe out of the crack. Jack had sure grown up. No wonder she hadn’t
recognized him. He was so much taller, so much broader. Jack was no longer a
high school boy; he was a man, and that resonated deep inside her.

But Jack was the one person whose path she hadn’t wanted to
cross in Spruce Lake. If they spent any time together, she was afraid he’d
discover her secret, which had the potential to destroy them both.

“Careful!” she warned as he pulled her shoe from the walk.

Jack stood to his full height, towering over her by at least
eight inches now that she was balancing on her foot without the benefit of
six-inch heels.

He examined the shoe, then handed it to her, saying, “Why
anyone would want to wear something as impractical as this is beyond my
comprehension.”

Grace had worn those shoes to impress. Impress anyone from her
past she might happen to run into in Spruce Lake. She wanted to show them that
Grace Saunders—in spite of her crappy home life, her loser parents, her
hand-me-down clothes—had made good. In fact, she’d made better than good. She
was a successful Boston pediatrician with a long list of patients.

Her shoulders sagged. A list of patients she’d handed over in
her haste to leave town. She might be financially secure and successful. But she
was also completely burned out.

She took the shoe from Jack and examined the heel. It was
shattered. She cursed.

“
Thank you
is the usual form of
appreciation in this town,” he said.

She glanced up at him and said, “So, I heard you’d become a
priest or something?”

* * *

H
E
NODDED
. “O
R
SOMETHING
. I’m now a contractor.” No point in telling her the whole
story. She wouldn’t be in town long enough for it to matter.

“
My
contractor.”

He shook his head. “I’ve already told Mike I couldn’t do this
job.”

“Even if I paid you double?”

Now he stuck both hands in the back pockets of his jeans. She
had him there. Money always talked and he had plenty of community projects he
could direct some extra funds to, but Adam and Carly were family. He owed
them.

“Not even then.”

“I don’t remember you being such a hard case in high school,
Jack,” she said, practically batting her eyelashes at him.

“High school was a long time ago, Gracie,” he said, since she
seemed to be avoiding the fact that they’d dated for two years.

When Gracie had put her name forward as a peer tutor, Jack,
struggling because of dyslexia, had signed up. They’d spent a lot of time
together after school hours and eventually he’d built up the courage to ask her
out. She’d said, “What took you so long? Where did you have in mind?”

Jack had been so flabbergasted, never believing she’d say yes,
that he didn’t have anywhere in mind. Except to go parking at Inspiration Point,
the local necking spot. Not that he’d ever necked with a girl. And he didn’t get
to do it that night, either. But later...

“What do you mean, ‘Not even then’?” she demanded, bringing him
back to the present.

Jack crossed his arms and widened his stance. “I’m due to start
work on my brother’s house outside town tomorrow. I don’t break my
promises.”

* * *

G
RACE
ADMIRED
HIS
candor. Then a need to prick the
confidence he was projecting made her say, “Didn’t you break your promise to the
church by leaving the priesthood?” Aunt Missy had written her about it.

His eyes narrowed. “My relationship with the church, and why I
left, is none of your business.”

Dammit! She was intrigued and couldn’t let it go. “Did you fall
in love with one of your parishioners?”

“And you just stepped way over the mark.” He gave her a tiny
salute, saying, “Goodbye, Gracie,” turned on his heel and headed to his truck.
“I’d say it’s been a pleasure. But it hasn’t.”

“It’s Grace!” she shouted to his back. “Not
Gracie.
” How dare he just walk away like that!

He shrugged and pulled open the door of his truck. “Whatever,”
he said, and climbed in.

“Wait!” she cried, and hobbled toward his truck, one shoe on
and one off.

She went to rest her arms on the passenger’s side window frame,
then noticed it was dusty. She touched the frame with her fingertips and leaned
in. “I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean to pry.”

“Yes, you did.” He started the truck.

“You can’t leave me here like this! You promised to give me an
estimate.”

“I promised Mike I’d give him an estimate. That was before I
knew who his doctor client was. Goodbye, Grace.”

Chapter Two

Jack hated being played for a sucker. Mike knew exactly
who he was dealing with, that was why he’d avoided using the doctor’s name. And
Mike knew that Jack wouldn’t want to have anything to do with Grace. She’d left
town, and him, without a backward glance after winning a full scholarship to a
college in Boston faster than a snowflake melted in July. For too many years
he’d tried to forget her. Now here she was, back in Spruce Lake and acting as if
there’d been nothing between them.

And why shouldn’t she? She’d moved on, married, probably had
kids. It cut deep that she hadn’t recognized him right away. He’d obviously
spent too much time loving someone who didn’t feel the same way about him.

It hadn’t helped that during his time in the peace corps he’d
been posted to remote places, often without internet access. They’d exchanged
letters for a while, but Grace was always slow to respond, and when she did, it
was all about college, the people she was hanging out with, how much she loved
life in Boston.

Jack eventually realized she was letting him down as nicely as
she could. He later heard she’d graduated from college early and gone to medical
school. Then she’d married. Lost, Jack had entered the seminary, believing he
could help others. He’d wasted too many years dreaming of Grace. Now that she
was here in the flesh, he had no intention of letting her under his skin
again.

He put Betsy in gear, ready to get out of there—make a symbolic
break with Grace. He glanced at her manicured fingertips still resting on
Betsy’s window frame, hoping she’d take the hint and move.

“Mike didn’t tell you it was me who wanted the estimate?” she
said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Her frown and confused tone had him cursing under his breath.
He turned off the ignition and scratched the inside of his elbow.

“I wonder why not,” she said, a little too loudly now that
Betsy’s engine was no longer thumping away.

Jack wasn’t going to tell her why not. Mike knew that if Jack
had any idea who the client was, he’d have refused outright. He wanted to hit
himself upside the head for not making the connection. Mike sure had suckered
him. He’d suckered Grace, too. He scratched the back of his neck.

Suddenly Grace was climbing into the passenger seat. An erotic
fantasy—involving him and Grace in Betsy’s cab—filled Jack’s mind as she ran her
hand down the inside of his elbow. Then she leaned in close to look at the back
of his neck before he could react and tell her to get the hell out of his
truck.

“Whoa! What are you doing?” he demanded, pulling away from her,
worried his fantasy might come true. Half-worried it might not.

“Taking a look at your arm. And your neck.”

Jack edged farther away from her, embarrassed about the
rashes.

“What if we make a deal?” she said.

“About?”

“If I cure you of these rashes, will you do the renovation for
me?”

Much as Jack wanted to be done with the rashes and all the
scratching, he had a prior obligation to his brother. “Nope,” he said, and
resisted the urge to scratch the back of his knee. He felt as if he was carrying
a contagious disease and wondered why Grace was even sitting in the truck with
him. Apparently she wasn’t afraid of catching it.

She jumped as Al stuck his head through the passenger window.
Al had the stocky build of his Mexican father and the height of his English-born
mother. But Jack doubted it was Al’s physique that had Grace scooting across the
seat. It was more likely the snake tattoo that ran from Al’s right wrist up his
arm, disappeared into the sleeve of his T-shirt and emerged to coil around his
throat. Several times. Grace couldn’t take her eyes off it.

“Hey, boss,” he said to Jack, and nodded to Grace.

Jack’s cell rang. He retrieved it from his pocket and saw that
the call was from Adam. If it had been from Mike, he would’ve ignored it.

“Hey, Adam. What can I do for you?”

“You know how you’re supposed to start work on our house?”

“Ye-es,” Jack said slowly, suspicion creeping up his spine.

“Well, I’m wondering if you have anything else you could do
instead. Carly wants to stay closer to the hospital until after the baby
arrives. She has short labors and she’s worried the extra distance from the new
house will mean the difference between giving birth in the hospital and giving
birth in the car. To tell you the truth, I’d prefer the first option.”

This had Mike’s meddling written all over it. “I thought you
were spilling out of the house on Washington?”

“We are. But that bothers me a lot less than not making it to
the hospital in time.”

“So you want me to delay starting your renovation?”

“If you could.”

The tentacles of suspicion crept further up Jack’s spine. “Has
Mike called you today?”

“Mike who?”

Jack’s lips thinned. So now it was a conspiracy involving Mike
and
Adam to throw him and Grace together for the
summer. He glanced at Grace. She looked completely innocent.

“I’ll get back to you,” he said, and shut off his phone.

“Grace, this is my foreman, Al Hernandez.”

She offered her hand and Al shook it vigorously.

“I’ve been waiting for you at the back of the house, boss,” Al
said. “Yet I find you here, making time with the prettiest
señorita
this side of the Front Range.”

Jack climbed out of the truck while Al stood back and opened
the door for Grace. She slipped past him with a whispered “Thank you” and
hobbled to her vehicle. Jack enjoyed the view as she bent to remove her other
shoe, opened the trunk and fished around inside it. She straightened, dropped a
pair of fancy flip-flops on the ground and stepped into them.

“That’s better,” she said, coming over to them. “I’m Grace
Saunders, by the way.” She flashed Al a smile and Jack could see his burly
foreman melting under her charms.

Jack cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t you be getting home to
Maria
and the children?
” For some stupid reason he
needed to let Grace know that Al was spoken for, even though he was the one
who’d prevented Al from getting home by asking to meet him here.

“Just as soon as we’ve done this estimate, boss.”

The three of them headed toward the house, going in through the
squeaky front gate and up the weed-covered path. Al continued to the back of the
house, saying, “I’ll finish measuring up the outside. Do you have a key?”

“Nope.” Jack reached inside the smashed pane of one of the
front windows, releasing the catch. He pulled up the window and hoisted himself
inside. Before he could open the front door, Grace followed him in, climbing
over the sill.

* * *

M
EMORIES
FLOODED
G
RACE
—
memories she wasn’t prepared for. She
staggered and Jack caught her arm.

“I
was
going to open the door for
you,” he said.

Grace wasn’t going to correct his misunderstanding that
climbing through the window had caused her to lose her balance.

“You’re whiter than a ghost,” he said. “Would you like to sit
down?” Without waiting for an answer, he led her to the stairs.

She sank gratefully onto the first step and forced herself to
smile up at him. “I’m just tired. My body’s two hours ahead of my brain and the
altitude is bothering me.”

“Is there anyone I can call for you? Your husband?”

Grace shook her head. “My...
ex-
husband is back in Boston.”

“You’re divorced?”

“I certainly hope so. Otherwise, Edward could end up in a lot
of trouble with the law. He’s planning on getting married again come September.
To his first ex-wife.”

Jack’s grin lit up his face. He’d always had a great smile.

“I heard your half of the conversation with your brother. Since
he doesn’t need you, what do I have to do to sweet-talk you into restoring this
place for me?”

What was she saying? Only a moment ago she was dreading
spending any time with Jack for fear he’d discover her secret and now she was
practically begging him to take the job!

Jack scratched the inside of his elbow again.

“That offer of a cure is still open, if it’ll clinch the
deal.”

Jack’s eyes narrowed. “What are you really doing here,
Gracie?”

“Grace,”
she corrected. “I want
this house restored.”

“And then what?”

“And then what, what?”

“Stop talking in riddles. Are you going to stay—or are you
heading back to Boston?”

“You mean now?”

“Yes. Now. And then when the place is restored, are you
flipping it, never to return to Spruce Lake?”

“My life is in Boston.” No way was she staying in this
backwater where everyone knew everyone else’s business and the sidewalks were a
death trap for expensive shoes. If Jack took the job, she wouldn’t have to hang
around Spruce Lake supervising. She could get out of there, away from Jack, away
from any fear that he’d discover her secret.

“Then I suggest you go back there. I’ll help you find another
contractor who won’t mind putting his heart and soul into restoring a place only
to have it sold off.”

“I’m not selling it, Jack. It has to stay in the family. That’s
a promise I made to Aunt Missy.”

Before he could respond, she said, “I’m going to travel around
Europe for the next couple of months.” She wondered where that had come from. In
truth, Grace hadn’t given much thought to anything the past couple of days, not
since little Cassie Greenfield died.

Her patient’s death—one of too many—had been the catalyst for
Grace’s decision to throw everything in, get away from Boston and dying children
and an ex-husband about to remarry and all the people who wanted to remind her
of that while trying to set her up with their cousin, or brother or—heaven
forbid—their uncle!

Just because Edward had been more than twice her age didn’t
mean she was looking for
another
older man. It
didn’t mean she was looking for another man, period! Edward had been a far from
satisfactory husband or lover. But she’d married him in her first year of med
school, when he was already a well-respected neurosurgeon. She’d craved the
respect and financial security marrying Edward would bring. She’d basked in his
compliments and ignored the thirty-year age gap—the age gap that meant he didn’t
want any more children. He had two daughters and a son by his previous wife.
They were all horrible to Grace—as was his ex-wife—whenever they happened to
cross paths at social functions.

When Cassie Greenfield, a little girl who’d fought so hard and
so bravely—like so many of her patients did against cancer—had died, something
had died inside Grace. Cassie was the same age her daughter, Amelia, would be
now. Her and Jack’s daughter.

The guilt she felt at having given up a healthy child, and the
cumulative effect of treating so many who weren’t healthy, had come to a head
that day.

Grace’s love of medicine and her belief in herself, that she
could cure all the hurt and pain in the world, were shattered. She’d needed to
get away, regroup, maybe think about another medical specialty. One that didn’t
involve dying children.

There was a good reason she’d chosen to specialize in
pediatrics—to atone for her sins. The guilt of giving her baby away bit deep.
But the real sin she’d committed twelve years earlier was in not telling Jack—of
not giving him a chance. That was the one she really needed to answer for. How
she could even start to do that, Grace had no idea.

Jack scratched his elbow again. She knew that what he was
suffering from was something she could easily cure. With no chance of Jack
dying.

“What do you want from me, Jack?” she asked.

His eyebrows rose speculatively.

“Apart from that.”

He held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Did I say
anything?”

She grinned.
That
would doubtless
be very nice. She wondered what it would be like to have a young, virile man
like Jack make love to her. Instead of a selfish older man like Edward who was
also a lousy lover.

Wondering what sort of lover Jack would be, now that he was a
man—not a fumbling teen—Grace felt her face heat.

“Are you okay?” Jack asked. “You look flushed.”

“I’m fine,” she said, working to recover her equilibrium. “But
can we negotiate? I’d very much like you to restore this house for me.”

“Then you’ll have to help with it,” he said, and glanced
pointedly at her manicured nails.

“You’ve got to be joking! You have a foreman, so I assume you
have a crew of workers. How would I be able to help?”

“You can sweep up, run down to the hardware store for supplies.
Make lunch for the gang. Paint walls. Stuff like that.”

“And my trip to Europe?”

“You and I both know you just made that up.”

Grace chewed her lip. Jack was pretty shrewd. “I’d
like
to go to Europe sometime.”

“Then you can. When we’ve finished this project.”

We.
The word scared her, especially
in relation to Jack. They’d dated for two years but had only made love once—the
night before Jack headed off for the peace corps and she left for college. Jack
had excited her far more that fateful night than Edward ever did the entire time
they were married.

And Jack had given her what Edward never could.

Why they’d waited so long to make love, she had no idea. But
six weeks later, feeling as if she had a bad case of the flu but suspecting
worse in spite of their use of birth control, Grace had purchased a pregnancy
test.

When it came back positive, Grace knew she had only two
options. Since the first went against her beliefs about preserving human life,
she started making inquiries about adoption. If she’d known Jack was in town,
Grace would never have come back to Spruce Lake. Her fear that he would discover
her secret was too great. She was sure her guilt was written all over her
face.