Katherine Garbera - The Bachelor Next Door

“Cass, I asked Andy to join me at a Magic game tomorrow night, and I’d like for you to come with us. What do you say?”

Her gingery eyes widened with speculation, and he saw the refusal written there before she opened her mouth. “Thank you for asking, but Andy and I wouldn’t be able to find tickets to the game. I hear they’re sold out.”

Tricky lady. She always had an excuse handy, but this time he was prepared. “I have season tickets.”

She glanced at her son, and Rafe could see her weighing the consequences of declining. She sighed, and it was not a welcoming sound. “Well, then I guess we’d be happy to go with you.”

Cass spent the morning pretending not to notice Rafe. Andy had talked about the impending basketball game all the way to school. She had the feeling that this was going to win her son a lot of points with his friends. Not many second-graders were invited to go to see the Orlando Magic play.

Cass sighed. By nature she was calm and unflappable, but Rafe Santini had a way of making her forget to be calm and unflappable. He’d put several wood cutouts across the front of his lawn of a woman bent at the waist with her frilly drawers showing. In front of his porch he’d placed large, plastic flowers in florescent blue, orange and green. He had the most hideous looking yard on the street.

The complete craziness of the yard was at odds with the man who patiently taught her son to play catch and the finer points of basketball. This was the man who wanted to needle her because she made him remove his basketball hoop.

Rafe’s multidimensional personality kept her on her toes. The sexy man made her nervous and achy in places that she hadn’t thought of in a long time—secure emotional places that she’d forgotten. He made her feel vulnerable, and that wasn’t necessarily bad because Rafe also made her laugh again.

She liked his sense of humor, which was almost always present. She liked the deep well of patience he showed with Andy. And most of all she liked the way he dug in and finished a job no matter how dirty or tedious. She just plain liked him and that was dangerous.

He worked on his house in denim cutoffs that should have been illegal. The faded material clung to his legs, revealing every muscular inch. His backside had originally drawn her attention, and she stared at him now as he hefted a box of shingles onto his shoulder.

He sang a lively country tune about trashy women and bopped along to the music. He had his own style, she thought with a grin. If one could call it style. She giggled out loud, picturing Rafe in one of the trendy men’s magazines.

As usual he wore no shirt, though she tried not to notice. Why couldn’t he have a paunch around the middle? Or a soft belly and flabby legs? Was that too much to ask?

She watched his muscles ripple with each movement of the hammer. Cass stared at his back until she realized what she was doing. Get a grip, girl, she admonished herself.

Rafe waved at her, and Cass knew she’d been caught staring up at him. She raised her hand in acknowledgment, and he just grinned in a way that made her want to run in the house and hide.

Cass forced her attention back to the Victorian Renaissance chair she was reupholstering for Mrs. Parsons. Rafe’s decadent image haunted her. She hated to think she was turning into a slavering sex fiend, but the man refused to stay out of her mind and his naked chest wasn’t helping.

The hammering stopped, and Cass scowled as she glanced up again. Rafe worked on a two-man job by himself. He rolled out the tar paper and hammered in the tacks before starting the process all over. At the rate he labored, the small section he was reroofing might not be finished until tonight.

Cass finished adding the trim to the chair, then stood and brushed the fabric threads off her khaki shorts. Her mother had raised her to be neighborly, and that meant offering help. She crossed the quiet street and shielded her eyes against the sun.

“Hello, Santini.” She wanted to put distance between them, and using his last name helped her to think of him as a buddy.

Rafe finished securing the section he was working on before glancing down at her. “Morning, Gambrel.”

That he didn’t mention her earlier gawking earned him points for tact, which she honestly admitted she’d thought he lacked.

She wished she’d changed into jeans before coming over. For some reason Rafe seemed to be glaring at her legs. Cass was generally happy about the way she looked, but now she thought about the extra five pounds she hadn’t lost since Christmas last year. “Do you need some help?”

“No,” he said, and rolled out another section of tar paper. “I roof in my sleep.”

Feeling put in her place, she wanted to escape. Her conscience demanded she make one more offer of help. “Wouldn’t two hands make the job go faster?”

“Yeah, I guess it would.” He sat back on his heels. “You’re not feeling guilty, are you?”

The twinkle in his eye warned her he was up to no good. But like an unsuspecting mackerel being lured to a fisherman’s hook, she swallowed the bait. “Guilty about what?”

“Sitting under the shade of the porch while I labored out in the hot sun.”

“Santini, don’t you know better than to give the help a hard time?” she asked before walking back toward her house.

“I guess not, Gambrel.”

She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. “Should I stay?”

“Yes, ma’am, please.”

The polite tone to his words made her think he might be teasing again. She took a step toward the ladder intending to climb up to the roof. “Hang loose, Gambrel. I’ll be right down.”

In a matter of minutes Rafe was at her side. “You’ll need a tool belt and a hammer.”

“I thought I’d just hand you things and hold them in place.” She really didn’t know that much about home repair.

“What things, Cass?” He poured roofing tacks into one of the pockets on the leather tool belt.

“Nails and stuff.” She fidgeted, shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

“You’re a real tools expert.” But there was no censure in his tone, only the teasing lilt she’d come to expect.

“You’re treading on thin ice, Santini,” she warned him, playing along with his game.

“I’m scared, Gambrel. Real scared.” He handed her a rubber-handled hammer. “Turn around.”

She did and was engulfed by Rafe. His body warmth and musky scent surrounded her as he wrapped the tool belt around her waist and fastened it. If she leaned back an inch she’d be pressed up against his chest. A shiver passed through her, and temptation warred with good sense as she thought of his naked chest.

“There you go,” he said. His voice sounded different. A deeper, huskier version of his usual tone that made her aware of the difference between them. He stepped away from her and put his hand on her shoulders, turning her to face him.

“Thanks,” she managed to squeeze out of her dry throat. The weight around her was unaccustomed and felt weird.

Cass settled the hammer into one of the loops. Rafe passed her a scraper and a few other tools she couldn’t identify. “Is that all?”

“Distribute the weight of the hammer and the mallet.”

She moved the tools around. Well, she felt downright handy now.

“Do those shoes have good soles?”

“Yes, I think so.”

He knelt down near her knees. “Let me take a look at the bottom of your shoes.”

His breath brushed across her thigh and the muscle quivered. He was so close. Cass’s fingers itched with the urge to bury themselves in his thick black hair.

Cass swayed and her leg scraped against his cheek. The stubbly texture of his skin felt good against the smoothness of her own. Thank heavens she’d shaved her legs yesterday. She leaned away from him in embarrassment. He probably thought she was a love-starved widow.

“Put your hand on my shoulder for balance.”

His words were harsh, almost guttural. Cass knew their brief encounter had affected Rafe as much as it had affected her. She hoped it had. Her heart was beating loud enough to be heard a mile a way.

Oh, damn. She didn’t want this headlong rush into desire. Not now when her life was finally starting to balance out. She was independent and in charge of her own life, but a part of her still longed for someone to hold in the middle of the night. Not just anyone, but a certain man who could fill the emptiness inside of her.

Her hand rested on the tightly corded muscles of his shoulder as he examined the bottom of her shoes. He straightened and gave her the once-over. “Okay, you’re ready to work.”

They labored on the roof for the next two hours. Cass found roofing a hard but interesting task. They’d almost completed the section by mid-afternon, and she was relieved to know that she’d helped Rafe.

The sun was hot and Cass felt her face begin to pinken. “I need a break.”

Rafe glanced over at her. “You sure do. Go sit over there in the shade.”

A large maple tree provided shade on the east side of the roof. Walk across the roof by herself? No way. “I’ll stay right here.”

“Scared, Gambrel?”

Cass wasn’t the type to take a dare. She freely admitted to her faults. And she wasn’t going to pretend to be someone she wasn’t. She doubted that this strong man ever did. “Yes, I am.”

He reached out and brushed a finger across her cheek. “There’s no need to be. I won’t let you fall.”

But she was afraid that he would. Not fall off the roof. Rafe was too good a crew boss to allow any of his workers to get physically injured. But with each minute she spent with this man a part of her trod deeper into dangerous territory. Emotional territory that could spell trouble for her. Territory she hadn’t explored since the early days of her marriage.

He offered her his hand and seated her in the shade before retrieving two cans of fruit punch from an ice chest. He walked with the surety of a cat... no a streetwise warrior. Someone who knew that he could take on any situation. Cass envied him his confidence.

She’d felt weak and shaky most of her life. First with the loss of her father when she was sixteen, then with the loss of Carl when she was twenty-six. Instinctively she was drawn to strong men, yet a part of her resented their strength.

He was watching her, and that made her nervous. She took a long sip of the punch. The sweet liquid left an aftertaste and she set the can aside. “I’d like to invite you to dinner before we leave for the game tonight.”

“It would be easier to grab something at the Orena.”

Cass digested that. “Were you able to purchase tickets for us?”

“I told you I have season tickets.” He stared at her for a full minute before continuing. “Why didn’t you want Andy to go alone with me?”

Cass hedged for a moment. Short of out and out lying, there was no way to avoid the truth. “I don’t like the enthusiasm you have for sports. Andy looks up to you. What you do, he wants to do, and he’s so small for his age, I’m afraid he’ll get hurt.”

“Watching a game?”

“You know that once he gets the bug for any game he’ll be hooked, and then I’ll seem like an ogre if I don’t let him participate.”

“Cass, I’m not trying to influence your son. I thought the game sounded like a good idea, but if you didn’t want him to go, you should have just said no.”

“I know, but Andy wants to get involved in some afterschool activities, and I wanted to ask for your help with something.”

He stared at the top of the aluminum can. “I have no experience with kids, Cass.”