What a Woman Page 10

  He held open the back door. “Closet cleaning is part of your service?”

  “Not usually, no. But I was looking for a light bulb and found that moths had gotten to these, so I figured I’d throw them out. One less thing your grandmother has to do.”

  Mac swept past him, far enough below his chin that he could see the top of her head. He knew she was small; he’d never realized just how much smaller than him she actually was because when he was around Mac, things always seemed amplified.

  She stumbled on the last step as some of the sheets got stuck on the door handle and she fell back against him, her head thonking his chest right above his heart.

  Case in point.

  He wrapped his arms around her. “You okay?” Her skin was silky. He hadn’t thought it would be. Someone who worked with cleaning products and ladders, battling spider webs and dust bunnies . . . He hadn’t expected her skin to feel as smooth and silky as if she spent hours at a spa.

  “I’m . . .” She glanced up at him and cleared her throat. “I’m good. Thanks.”

  She got her feet under her and stood, her shoulders no longer brushing his abs, and Jared surprised himself by admitting he wanted her back in his arms—which rattled him enough that he almost let go of the door.

  Mac in his arms? What was he thinking? This was Mac. Mac. Liam’s little sister. Terror of the tree fort. Date-destroyer extraordinaire. Tornado Manley.

  Maybe if he kept repeating it enough, it’d stick.

  She rounded the corner of the house, brushing her hands, her ponytail bouncing saucily behind her. It fit her personality. He couldn’t imagine Mac without a ponytail—well, he hadn’t been able to before yesterday when she’d let it down.

  What a shock that’d been. Her hair was just one more gorgeous surprise, a black curtain that shimmered against her pale skin, much longer than he would’ve thought, since he’d only ever seen it tied back.

  It’d been all he could do not to imagine it falling across his chest. Of having to sweep it off her face to pull her down for a kiss. Of flipping her over and seeing it fanned out on the pillow beneath her . . .

  Okay, so maybe he had imagined it. He was human, after all. But seriously, those thoughts had to go. This was Mac. His friend’s sister. The girl he’d wanted nothing to do with for years.

  Except . . . now he was finding himself thinking about the woman and the things he could do with her.

  He was going stir crazy. That was it. He’d been cooped up too damn long in the hospital, then the rehab place, and now he was stuck at his grandmother’s with only a woman he didn’t want to like and kittens he didn’t know what to do with to keep him company.

  “So how’d your therapy go?”

  She even smelled good. Not sweaty and dusty or like furniture polish, but fresh and clean, with a tiny hint of flowers or something—

  God, now he sounded like some bad infomercial.

  “It was therapy. It’s not supposed to be good. It hurt and I’m frustrated, and that’s Dave’s lot in life: to deal with frustrated, angry people who want nothing to do with him.”

  “Wow. To hear him talk, I thought he was your friend, but after that . . .”

  Jared raked a hand through his hair and stuck the crutches under his arm that’d fallen behind him against the door when he’d caught her. “He is. It’s just that his profession isn’t one people generally find enjoyable.”

  “Well he seems nice.”

  Oh really? “He is.” Jared sucked on the inside of his cheek, waiting for the questions to start: Was he single? Did he have a girlfriend? What’s his number?

  “Do you mind if I eat lunch in here?”

  “Huh?”

  “Lunch? You know, the midday meal? Since it rained last night, the porch furniture is a little wet. I’d rather sit in the kitchen if you don’t mind.”

  It took him a few seconds to process that she wasn’t asking about Dave. “Uh, yeah, sure. That’s fine. I’ll join you.”

  It took him a lot longer than a few seconds to admit why he’d volunteered to do that.

  Damn it. He didn’t want to find Mac attractive. He didn’t want to notice these small things about her, like how she smelled or how she fit in his arms or what she looked like across from him.

  Or over him.

  Or under him.

  This lunch was probably not a good idea.

  Chapter Eleven

  LUNCH was a very bad idea.

  Mac hadn’t expected him to ask to join her—she’d only asked so he’d know she’d be there so he could avoid her. She hadn’t seen the joining-her thing coming at all.

  And that made her nervous.

  Jared was up to something. He’d played all sorts of tricks on her as a kid and, since he played a game for a living, she wasn’t expecting him to have moved much beyond that, especially given his obvious disdain for her.

  Then why’d he kiss you?

  Probably an experiment. Or to teach her a lesson. A bet he’d lost.

  Yeah, that was probably it. He’d probably bet someone that he’d kiss her someday and now he could collect. She hoped it wasn’t one of her brothers. But then, those guys liked to bet on everything. They were pros. One of the reasons she’d had to have a plan before she’d taken them all on.

  Not that she could see them betting on Jared kissing her. After all, they were her brothers before they were Jared’s friends. Still . . . Bryan might think it was worth a shot. He liked to live life on the edge—and if she ever found out he had bet Jared, she’d toss him off it. Betting Jared would kiss her . . . Nice brother.

  It’d been a nice kiss.

  She refrained from touching her lips. She wasn’t going to let Jared know she was even thinking about it. Mr. Big Celebrity Sports Star had enough women hanging on his every word; she wasn’t going to be one of a crowd.

  She opened the brown bag she’d brought her food in. It was the lunch she’d wanted back when she’d been in school: a sandwich, some chips, a soda, and a couple of her favorite store-bought cookies for dessert, things Gran hadn’t been able to afford, opting instead to use the school’s special fund so they could have a hot cooked meal every day, along with a baggie of homemade cookies that had embarrassed Mac to no end.

  She’d never realized that Gran’s homemade cookies had been worth ten times what the store-bought mass-produced brands were, seeing only the poverty in homemade things, not the love.

  Now she knew better, which was why, once a month, she helped out with the community center’s Kareers for Kids event by teaching kids how to bake. Her chocolate chip cookie classes were always well attended.

  “So how long do you think you’re going to be here?” Jared asked, pulling a giant container of some powdery thing off the top of the fridge and mixing a couple of scoops into a bottle of water. He shook it up, then gunned the contents before pulling a plate of chicken, a tomato, and an avocado from the fridge.

  No PB&J for Jared. His parents were loaded, so the few times she’d been at his house—which were very few—there’d been a full spread. The Nolans lived in a large house that backed up to the same field her development did, but that was the only common ground—literally or figuratively—they’d shared. Their situations in life could not have been more different.

  It’d worried Gran that her brothers, who’d always hung with Jared, would be discontent with their life, but it’d only made them more determined to be able to provide for their families when they eventually had them. And to provide for Gran. Mac had a feeling that Bryan was paying more than his share for the large apartment Gran had moved into at the assisted living facility, but hey, Bry’s star was rising. He could afford it and who was she to tell him he couldn’t give back to the grandmother who’d done so much for all of them? Sort of the reason she’d incorporated Gran’s matchmaking into the maid gig. She couldn’t e
xactly tell the woman no when it was for a good cause.

  “I’ll be here until I finish.” She munched on her sandwich. Roast beef and Swiss, with mayo and lettuce on a pita. Her favorite. “Since I’m not charging Mildred, I didn’t work up an estimate. I pretty much hit the ground running on this one, so whenever I finish, I finish. There’s a lot to do.”

  “What about your other clients? Aren’t you putting someone out by giving your time to my grandmother?” He ran the knife around the circumference of the avocado, twisted the halves to separate them, then stuck the knife into the pit to remove it.

  She wouldn’t have thought he’d know how to open an avocado without mangling it. Actually, she wouldn’t have thought he’d know how to open an avocado, period. The Nolans had had chefs and housekeepers and a grounds crew. Jared had led a charmed life. “I’m working my regulars in and I have a few people working for me at the moment to cover the slack.”

  “Your brothers.”

  She wasn’t surprised he knew; while her brothers probably weren’t announcing the news, the grandmothers did live at the same place. “Yes.”

  He set the plate on the table. “I heard you conned them into doing it.”

  That did not come from the grandmothers. “Conned? I did not con them. I beat them at poker. Won it fair and square.” She crossed her fingers as she scratched a non-existent itch on the back of her head.

  He pulled out his chair and leaned his crutches against the wall. “Really. You beat three guys who’ve been playing poker almost as long as I’ve known them on your first outing just when you needed them to work for you?”

  Her sandwich stopped halfway to her mouth. “I don’t like what you’re insinuating, Jared.”

  He sat down. “And I don’t like my friends being taken advantage of. Not even by their sister.”

  Mac dropped her sandwich. She hadn’t taken advantage of her brothers. She’d just done what she’d needed to do to win and if counting cards was a sin, it would’ve been carved in stone with the others. It wasn’t even illegal in most casinos, so he couldn’t get on her about that, either. “I did not take advantage of them. My brothers could’ve folded and not taken the bet. No one was forcing them to ante up.”

  Jared slid an avocado slice into his mouth and took his sweet time chewing. “Is that right?”

  Her brothers played together all the time. They knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Knew their bluffs and poker faces. She’d come in blind; she’d had to even the odds, but it wasn’t as if she’d had a few cards up her sleeve that she’d slipped into the game. Sure, she’d counted, but counting was mostly for blackjack, not poker. Still, she’d been able to apply the theory to poker, but if the cards hadn’t been dealt right, knowing where the flushes and straights were wouldn’t have helped her if she hadn’t had a hand to beat them. There’d been no guarantees going in and it was only because things had fallen where she’d needed them to that it’d worked. Otherwise, she’d be cleaning their places and Bryan’s Maserati wouldn’t be sitting in her driveway.

  So, yeah, she’d stacked the odds in her favor, but that was because they’d been stacked against her to begin with. And it wasn’t as if she was hurting anyone. The guys did some work, helped out people who needed it, and she got publicity. It was a win/win for everyone and if it happened because she’d worked a little harder to make sure things could go her way, well, hey . . . Gran had endorsed the plan. Actually, it’d been Gran’s plan. Well, the idea for it.

  But no one needed to know that. Least of all Jared.

  She rolled the napkin around the rest of her sandwich, her appetite gone. “I should get back to work. The quicker I finish, the sooner I’ll be out of your hair.”

  She walked past him—and was just as surprised as he was if that look on his face was anything to go by—when he stopped her with a hand to her arm.

  Her bare arm. With his bare hand.

  The guy ought to wear his baseball glove while she was here because heat shot up her arm so fast she almost jumped out of her skin.

  This was way beyond an adolescent crush. She might have had a thing for him back then, but this . . . This was pure feminine reaction and it annoyed her no end.

  “What?” She might have snapped that out a little sharper than she intended.

  Jared dropped her arm like a hot poker. “I . . . Wait.”

  He raked that hand through his hair and exhaled. “Can you please sit down? I’m sorry I was such a shit. I shouldn’t be taking my frustrations out on you.”

  Depended on why he was frustrated . . .

  Mac sat.

  And waited. Jared wasn’t saying anything.

  “I have things to do, Jared. And don’t you have kittens to take care of?”

  “The kittens are fine. Sleeping like babies.” He exhaled and the words seemed to force their way past his lips. “Could you . . . you know, hang out and eat with me? I’m sorry I was nasty. I feel nasty these days. Not that that’s an excuse, but it’s not you I’m mad at.”

  “You know a lot of other people who conned their brothers in a poker game, ’cause that sounded pretty personal to me?”

  He winced. “Like I said, Mac, I shouldn’t take my frustrations out on you. Can we just pretend I never said that? I’m so damn tired of eating alone. In the hospital, they drop off your food, then leave. In rehab, they only wanted to make sure I knew how to use a fork and not to poke myself in the eye with it. Then I was on my own for meals. It got—gets—kinda lonely.”

  Good thing she was sitting down. Jared Nolan admit to a weakness? She’d never thought she’d see the day.

  “Well I’m sure you must have had visitors.” Of the female persuasion most assuredly. Nothing lured women in like a man in need. A good-looking, rich, professional athlete sort of need.

  She’d thought about visiting, but why? He wouldn’t have been happy to see her, so there’d been no reason to put herself through it. She’d sent cookies with Liam—which made her look like the rest of the women who’d brought him food. Ugh. So much for not being one of the pack.

  “You get visitors the first week or two, when you’re too groggy to know who’s there. When you only really want to be alone and sleep. It’s once the healing process begins, when you’re on the mend, that people think you’re okay and they go on with their lives. That’s when the loneliness sets in. I would have been bored stiff if it weren’t for your brothers. I can always count on them.”

  She knew the feeling. “Yeah, but weren’t you sitting right there when the doorbell rang this morning? You can’t tell me that that hasn’t happened before.”

  Jared sighed. “That’s not what I mean.” He kneaded the back of his neck. “Friends. Family. That’s what I’m talking about. I’m not into meeting new people now, especially women with only one thing on their mind.”

  “Wow. I can’t believe you just said that. I think they take your man card for turning down guaranteed sex.”

  Jared shrugged. “It’s not new. Groupies. Women who want to say they’ve made it with a pro athlete. Not my scene.”

  “Could have fooled me. I’ve seen your photo plastered all over the tabloids with one actress or another hanging off your arm.”

  The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Spying on me?”

  Great. Just what she didn’t want him thinking. “My brothers comment on it. Especially Liam and Sean. They want to know if you’re outdoing Bryan in the Babe Department.”

  “The Babe Department? Your brothers need a hobby if they’re watching my supposed love life play out across the media. The truth is, I saw those women for what they were. What they wanted. Just like I see the Juliettes and Maeves of the neighborhood. When you’re in the position I’m in, it’s nice to have someone around who knows you. People I can let my guard down and be myself with. That doesn’t happen with brownie deliveries.”

&nbs
p; She was almost sorry for him because he was right. When you were at your lowest, you wanted people around who cared about you. “Well, there’s always your parents.”

  His mouth twisted sideways and he glanced away. “You’d think that, wouldn’t you? But they’re on vacation.”

  He’d been in the hospital for months. “That’s an awfully long vacation.”

  “Yup.”

  One word, so much not said, but oh what it conveyed.

  She’d always thought his mom was a bit of a cold fish, but to not visit her child in the hospital after he’d been in an accident? Mac didn’t get it. Gran would’ve pitched a tent in a hospital room before she’d leave any of her grandchildren alone for longer than an hour.

  “But what about Mildred? Surely she visited you.”

  “She did. And it’s always nice to see her, but you know what grandmothers are like. Always fussing. Adjusting the pillows, putting too many blankets on . . . I love my grandmother and she means well, but no one wants to feel like more of an invalid than they already are.”

  “And I’m sure gin rummy got old after a while.”

  Jared laughed, and oh what it did to his face.

  Not that his face needed any help, gorgeous as it was, but the light came back into his eyes. That certain . . . glow, for lack of a better word. There’d always been this glow about Jared. A light. Like the sun, warming everyone, pulling them into his orbit. Charisma. She knew what it was called now that she was an adult, but back then, it’d seemed to her as if the sun had actually risen and set on him.

  And if Mac thought she’d been in trouble before, she was way beyond trouble and head-on into disaster now because a surly Jared was easy enough to keep her distance from, but this . . . This contrite, apologetic, smiling-at-her-joke Jared . . . She didn’t have much defense against this Jared.

  “Yes, Grandma did want to play gin rummy. Reminded me of that summer when we had the tournament. You remember?”

  As if she could forget. She’d actually made it through the ranks and had had a match against him.