The Biggest Risk (The Whisper Lake Series Book 3) Read online

  Hanna wasn't too proud to do hard work—real work that made her sweat and ache at the end of the day. She loved the feeling of accomplishment that kind of effort brought, and the satisfaction of knowing she'd done a good job.

  "Absolutely," she said. "The sun is shining, a breeze is blowing, birds are singing. Looks like a beautiful office to me."

  He blinked once, hesitating before he spoke. "Okay, then. Let me grab some sunscreen for you and some trash bags out of the truck."

  "Can I go inside?" she asked. "Just to look at her? I promise not to touch anything, unless there's trash in there, too."

  His hesitation this time was longer. "You really are interested, aren't you?"

  "She's beautiful. So much history. How could you not want to admire that?"

  "You may change your mind about that once you see what was done to this place." He started toward the wide front steps. "I'll go first. The floor is iffy in a couple of places."

  He led the way, pointing out a rotted spot on the stairs and another on the porch. "There's some water damage just inside the door, but I think it's mostly cosmetic."

  As soon as he let her inside, she felt sick. There should have been a parlor here, but instead, there was a wall covered in peeling 1970s metallic wallpaper. What should have been gleaming wood floors was horrible shag carpet, and the stench of mold, vomit, stale beer and animal filth was so strong, she nearly gagged.

  "What have they done to her?" she asked, more to herself than him.

  "It was a boarding house for a while, then it was remodeled to serve as four different apartment units. Two downstairs, one on the second floor, and another on the third. Each one has a small kitchen and bathroom. Now the only traffic this place sees is teenagers looking to party."

  Hanna scrunched up her nose. "Someone let their cats use her as a litter box."

  He nodded. "There were some dogs, too. And if I'm not mistaken, more than one raccoon has made a home here. We've got some traps set up on the third floor, but I'm not yet sure where they're coming in."

  Hanna drifted through the lower level, taking in one horror after the next. "The things people do to each other are almost as horrible as what was done here."

  "Can she be saved?" he asked, though from his tone, she guessed he already knew the answer.

  She nodded. "Of course. With enough time, love and money, every house can be saved."

  "An optimist."

  "Yes, but I'm also not afraid of a little hard work—or a lot—which this definitely would be." The job of scraping paint off of beautifully carved staircase alone could keep her busy for weeks.

  Her fingers itched to clean away the filthy paint and reveal the beauty of the natural wood beneath.

  Nate's voice filtered in through the driving need to get her hands on this place and breathe life back into it.

  It's not your job anymore, she reminded herself. You tried that path and failed, remember?

  Nate kept talking. "There's a detached garage outside that was converted to a studio apartment about thirty years ago. It's dated, but in good repair. It needs a bit of cleaning, but at least there are no racoons. The landlord lived there, I think, and kept it a little nicer than the place where his tenants lived."

  She waved a hand. "That isn't original. It doesn't interest me."

  "It should since that's where you're going to be staying. It's too far to the motel for you to stay there and work here without a vehicle. Plus, I'm booked solid at the motel through the weekend. It will take you at least a couple of days to pick up all the trash, and you can't sleep in your truck again."

  Hanna stopped in the middle of a kitchen that was more horror show than homey. "What?"

  Nate stood in a beam of sunlight, his broad shoulders square and resolute. "Do you want the job? It's not much, but—"

  Her new job would be in a windowless cubicle. She was going to enjoy every second of this freedom while she could. The truth was, she'd battle the racoons living here barehanded if it meant she got to be near such a thing of beauty for a while.

  "It's perfect." Hanna thrust out her hand to shake.

  His fingers closed around hers, so warm and strong she felt his touch shimmer all the way up her arm. Suddenly, everything around her fell away. The house, the job, her future. None of it mattered in this moment—nothing except the man standing in front of her and the way he looked at her like she was a tasty treat he planned on devouring.

  She should have been afraid, or at least a little anxious. She always picked bad men—a trait she'd inherited from her mother. But instead of fear, all she felt toward Nate was a swirling heat of awareness consuming her from the inside out.

  His finger swept over the delicate skin of her wrist, where her pulse beat at a furious pace. The air seemed to thin, and she struggled to pull in more of it.

  His pale green eyes crinkled at the corners as his mouth lifted in satisfaction.

  She finally saw him as a man, not a threat. And from his slow smile, he liked it.

  "That's good," he whispered, obviously pleased with her new awareness. "Now we're getting somewhere."

  "Getting somewhere?" she asked, breathless and vibrating with a kind of excitement she hadn't felt in a long, long time.

  Maybe never.

  He nodded. "I can't have you worried about me doing bad things to you when we're going to be working together, now can I?"

  She didn't know what to say to that. Now that she was pretty sure he wasn't a bad guy, she felt silly for having been afraid of him.

  Then again, she hadn't been nearly afraid enough of her ex, and look how that had turned out.

  Catastrophic wasn't nearly a strong enough word for the shit-storm Jack had created.

  Then the meaning of Nate's words fully sank in. "Working together?"

  He nodded. "These kinds of projects can turn into money pits. I bought this place for a song, and I intend to flip it for a profit. That's not going to happen if I don't get to work. Sweat equity, as they say." He cocked his head to one side, showing off the strong cords in his neck. "You won't mind having me around, will you?"

  He still hadn't let go of her hand, and she didn't have it in her to pull away. She liked his touch too much to deprive herself if she didn't have to.

  Before her hormones outweighed her better judgement, she stepped back and pulled her hand from his grip.

  "Not at all," she said, her tone all business and no pleasure. "I'll be too busy picking up trash to even know you're here."

  His grin was so charming she had to clench her thighs together to keep her panties in place. She just bet that smile had earned him more one-night stands than was healthy for a man.

  Hanna would not be one more. She was finished with men—at least until she'd cleaned up after what the last one had done to her.

  Nate pulled a roll of trash bags, a bottle of sunscreen, a pair of leather gloves and a six-pack of bottled water from the bed of his truck and set them in the shade of a soaring maple tree. "I have some business in town to do, but I'll be back as soon as I can to check on you."

  "Don't worry," she said. "I've got everything I need."

  Hanna turned her back and got to work—both on the trash and on convincing herself she wasn't even going to notice he was gone.

  ***

  Nate loved Hanna's confidence. That kind of thing was far sexier on a woman than any piece of lingerie ever stitched.

  As he went about his morning routine—checking with his employees and taking care of the business side of running a motel—he couldn't quit thinking about her. As he stopped to grab them some sandwiches at Dockside, thought turned to worry.

  What was he thinking leaving her out there all alone? If she'd ventured back into the house—which he knew she would—she could have fallen through the floor, tripped on debris and bashed in her head on a rock, or been crushed under a fallen beam. He'd been so blown away by her eagerness and confidence, he hadn't stopped to consider that he never should have left one smal
l woman alone in a dangerous place like that.

  By the time he made it out to the job site, he was sweating and cussing himself for not having even given her his phone number to call him if she got in trouble.

  His truck crunched over what had once been a concrete driveway, but was now more cracks than cement. She was nowhere in sight.

  His heart was beating so hard, it hadn't registered on him until he was halfway across the lawn that the piles of trash in the front yard were gone. No more red plastic cups, no more billowing grocery bags snagged on weeds, no more beer cans. Only neat rows of black bags lined up along the driveway.

  The woman had done two days of work in just a few hours. He was so stunned by her progress that his worry slipped away for a second.

  If this was the way she worked, then he was more than lucky to have found her.

  But where the hell was she?

  He rushed up the rotting steps and into the house.

  "Hanna!" he called.

  Her voice came from the room at the top of the stairs, too close for him to have needed to shout so loud. "Right here."

  He went up and found her loading broken chunks of cracked plaster and lath into a rusted metal trash can she'd found on site. Particles of the crumbling material billowed up from the can, leaving floating motes of dust clouding the room.

  As soon as he saw she was safe, a sense of deep relief lightened the weight on his chest. He pulled in a slow breath, nearly gagging on the demo dust.

  "You really should be wearing a mask for that," he told her. His tone was sharper than it should have been, thanks to his recent bout of worry.

  She looked over her shoulder at him, showing off a face covered in bits of ceiling. "I finished outside, so I thought I'd get to work in here. You're going to need a construction trash bin."

  "It's on the way. Ready for a break? I brought lunch."

  "That was nice of you. Thanks."

  He went down the stairs, expecting her to be on his heels. Instead, she backed down the stairs, pulling the loaded trash can down each stair as she went. Every step thrust her ass out just a little, putting it on lovely display. He wanted to cup those cheeks in his hands so badly he had to make an effort to stand right where he was. If he moved so much as an inch—even to help her—he was going to use the excuse of helping her as a way to get his hands on her. Wherever he could.

  And once he got his hands around that trim waist, it wasn't a long trip to glide down to her bottom and lift her up so he could feel her breasts press into his chest.

  Once again, he went right back to the fantasy land his mind had played in last night—the one that had kept him awake, hard and aching for more hours than he cared to admit.

  There were a dozen women in town who were interested in him. It was just his luck that the one woman he actually wanted was just passing through.

  She reached the first floor and glanced his way.

  "Are you okay?" she asked. She reached up and pressed her hand against his forehead. "You look flushed. Is the heat getting to you?"

  The feel of her fingers on his skin, touching him of her own free will, was enough to make his cock begin to swell. If he didn't do something to distract himself soon, he was going to be charged with sexually harassing his employee on her first day on the job.

  Very bad form.

  "I'm probably just hungry," he lied.

  She let her hand fall.

  He took her by the arm to guide her outside. "Come with me. You've more than earned a break."

  Once he got her out into the sunlight, he saw what a mess she really was. There was dust and cobwebs in her hair. She had a few small, dirty scrapes on her elbows as if she'd crawled on them. Her clothes were a total wreck, and likely beyond what any washing could repair. And her face was plastered with grime, which stuck in the sweat her hard work had produced.

  He pulled a folded handkerchief out of his jeans pocket and wet it with some bottled water. Once it was good and soaked, he handed it to her. "Here, you need this."

  She laughed as she wiped away some of the grime. "That bad, huh?"

  "You don't seem upset."

  "Does a surgeon get upset when he gets blood on his hands? I see this as the same kind of thing. Hazzard of the job."

  He studied Hanna a little more closely than he had before, noticing the length of her black lashes and the way her top lip bowed. Grains of plaster littered her hair, and once again he wondered just how long it would be if it was loose and flowing around her slender shoulders.

  "Do you mind if I use your phone to call the mechanic?" she asked.

  "Is yours dead? I have a charger in my truck."

  "I don't have a phone. I cut out all unnecessary expenses." Her cheeks darkened with another orgasm-pink flush, and his cock pulsed hard against his fly.

  He took his cell out of his pocket and handed it to her. "Take mine. Call Declan—he's in my contacts—then keep the phone until I'm back. I still have one more job to do before I can turn my attention to this place."

  "I can't take your phone," she protested.

  "I don't want you out here alone and unable to reach help if there's an emergency. What if you get hurt or something."

  "I've been fine without a phone for weeks. It's no big deal. People lived for centuries without cell phones."

  He ignored her argument. "Call Flora if you need anything. She'll be able to reach me."

  Hanna still didn't take the phone.

  "Hanna," he said, his tone heavy with warning. "This isn't up for debate. Consider it a requirement of the job. I can't leave unless I know you can call for help."

  Her fingers were still shaking when she picked it up. "Aren't you afraid I'll go through your personal information?"

  "Not at all," he told her, staring right into her eyes so she'd know he wasn't lying. "I have nothing to hide. And if what you want to know is not in there, all you have to do is ask."

  Chapter Five

  Hanna's mind whirled as she worked. Nate left right after lunch, but she couldn't get him off her mind.

  A charmer, just like Jack.

  She did her best to focus on the job and not on how Nate's green eyes crinkled when he smiled at her or how generous he'd been to her—a total stranger.

  As the heat of the day grew, her body slowed, but she refused to stop.

  The inside of the Victorian was worse than the lawn, every room filled with vile proof of too many drunken teenage festivities. Vomit. Used condoms. Discarded panties.

  This poor house had seen far more debauchery than a lady her age should. But even though she was rundown and dirty, Nate hadn't abandoned her. That said something about his character that no words ever could.

  Something Hanna liked. Something she understood.

  Maybe he was not like the men she was used to. He had the charming sex god part down pat, but he wasn't nearly as secretive as her exes. He'd handed her his phone. Said he had nothing to hide.

  She was sure it was all part of his act. He probably had three phones—one for each of his girlfriends.

  Hanna would not fall for the lies again. Jack had taught her a lesson so hard she couldn't help but learn it well the first time, because learning it twice would kill her.

  He'd run her restoration business into the ground. He'd lied, stolen. She still wasn't sure just how deep the damage went, but she knew her credit score was destroyed. Her reputation in Cincinnati was shot. Even her self-confidence had taken a nearly-lethal hit.

  She honestly wasn't sure how she was going to get back to where she'd been pre-Jack, and it kept her awake more nights than not.

  And now here was Nate, all helpful and charming. A walking portrait of knightly chivalry helping a damsel in distress.

  She wasn't falling for it. Wouldn't. Couldn't. She had nothing left she could afford to lose.

  His phone sat like a hot coal in her pocket. All of his contacts. His texts. Email. It was all right there for her to read. The temptation was almost more than sh
e could stand.

  Against her better judgment, she wanted to know more about him. What he liked, what he hated. His religion and politics. Which side of the bed he liked to sleep on. Was he a morning person, or did he wake up like a grizzly with a toothache?

  The phone was in her hand again before she knew how it had gotten there. She even went so far as to turn on the screen. It displayed the last text he'd sent, which had gone to Flora.

  Will you fix me a couple of sandwiches to go? I don't want Hanna going hungry.

  Simple, but proof that he'd been thinking about her. Worried about her.

  He didn't even know her, and he'd already gone to great lengths to make sure she had a place to stay, food to eat, a job. Sure, maybe he just wanted to get in her pants, but men had wanted that from her before and they'd never gone to even half as much trouble as Nate had.

  She shoved the phone back in her pocket and let out a growl of frustration. This was all too much. Her life was a disaster, and she couldn't waste precious energy on questions she couldn't answer. The only thing that mattered now was getting back on her feet.

  So, rather than spending the afternoon counting all the ways in which she was totally off her rocker for being turned on by her new boss, she did what she did best: she worked. Hard, fast and without stopping.

  Except to look at Nate's phone. It rang every few minutes, and she checked the screen each time to see if it was Flora calling. She assumed that since Nate had told her to call Flora to reach him, that he would use his sister's phone to reach Hanna.

  But instead of Flora, the names that appeared on the screen were a string of other women, most of whom had left a message.

  Beth Fortier, Fern Simmons, Seraphina Moreau, Crystal Moonglow—as if that were even a real name. Definitely a stripper, that one. Also a string of first names only: Daisy, Gemma and finally, Mindi, the waitress from the Dockside Diner.

  Nate really got around with the women.

  Of all the calls he received today, only one of them was a man, and that was his father.

  None of her business. She didn't care if he dated the entire town. And yet somehow, the string of calls made her angrier each time the phone rang and another woman's name appeared.