Tender Absolution by Lisa Jackson

Author:Lisa Jackson [Jackson, Lisa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781488029981
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 1994-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

CARLIE COULDN’T BELIEVE her eyes. Ben? Ben was the contractor—the workman who was going to be walking in and out of the house, with his own set of keys, his own set of rules and his own damned swagger? She felt suddenly violated and insecure. The fact that he was in her apartment, her private sanctuary, made her blood boil. After the way he’d treated her, he was the last person she wanted prowling about her home. Let the windows rattle. Let the faucet drip. Let the damned roof leak, but for God’s sake, never let Ben Powell in here. “What’re you doing here?” she demanded as he placed a screwdriver to her window frame and played with the pulleys in the old casing.

“What does it look like?”

She ground her teeth in frustration. “I know about the work that has to be done, I just don’t understand why you had to do it!”

“I got the job.” He grimaced a little as the rope slid between his fingers and the window dropped suddenly. With a grunt, he shoved the old pane up again and tightened the screw.

“But you’re not living here, are you?” she asked, her world suddenly tilting as she remembered the empty studio apartment on the first floor that Mrs. Hunter had wanted to rent. Mrs. Hunter had mentioned that she might trade the rent for work around the house…. Oh, no! He couldn’t live here—no way, no how! This small set of rooms was her private place, her shelter! She wasn’t going to share it with the one man who had the ability to wound her.

“I’d be moving in tomorrow if your landlady had her way.” He shoved his screwdriver back into his tool belt and his eyes glinted a bit. “However, so far I’ve resisted.”

“She can be pretty persuasive.” Carlie tossed her purse on the couch.

“Can she?” he asked, one corner of his mouth lifting skeptically.

“Very.”

“I guess I’d better avoid her.”

“Like you do with all women,” she challenged, and his head jerked up, his smile fading quickly away.

“Only the ones that I think will be trouble.” He reached into his open toolbox, withdrew a plane and turned back to the sill, as if he planned to fix the damned window this very night.

“And that doesn’t take in the entire female population?” Carlie was spoiling for a fight and she couldn’t control her tongue. It had been a long week, worrying about her parents, thinking about Ben, wishing she could just start over.

“Not quite.” He glared pointedly at her and she blushed. He seemed so much more real today. The last time she’d seen him at Nadine’s wedding, he’d worn his military uniform and he’d seemed untouchable and remote. Distant. A soldier on a three-day pass. But today, dressed in faded jeans with worn knees and thin fabric over his buttocks, a tool belt and work shirt with the sleeves rolled over his forearms, he was decidedly more human and, therefore, more dangerous.

“You obviously don’t want me here,” he said as he shaved off some of the casing.

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