The woman had negotiated a job she’d didn’t even have. She’d give him one Saturday a month? He hooted and shook his head all the way back to the work area.

  He needed a hand.

  He didn’t want it to be Cassidy James’. But if she’d have been working today, he could have left and driven into the city to take and pick up Daisy Ray from her piano recital when Lori had called and sprung it on him.

  And more than anything, he wanted more time with his eight-year-old daughter.

  She was the sole reason he’d given up everything and moved here.

  And he didn’t regret it one iota.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “So you just told him when you were going to work and what day you planned to start?” Audrey shook her head and laughed. “And he was down with that? Like one hundred percent down?”

  Sierra toyed with her strawberry shortcake. “I, for one, am glad. The man needs some help.” She chuckled. “You should have seen him buzzing around the store like a lost bee.”

  “Bees get lost?” Cassie asked.

  Eden held her finger up and chewed an oversized bite of her brownie sundae. “Knox said he tried to get him to sign up for fall ball—get this—because he’s used to swinging wood around.”

  Cassie laughed. “He does mess with a lot of lumber. I guess in Knox’s eyes that means he can wield a bat. But he doesn’t even go to church that I know of.”

  “You don’t have to go to church to play on a league. Just pay your dues. It’s kind of an outreach thing. Maybe you can convince him.” Sierra finished off her last dollop of whipped cream. “Or we could get Audrey to cheer him onto the team.”

  Audrey tossed Sierra a flat look. “Hey, I have the best chants.”

  “Sure you do, Aud,” Eden said. “Keep telling yourself that.”

  “Hey, do any of you know anything about him dating Lori Anderson? He was on the phone earlier today with her. Or somebody named Lori. It was kind of heated. But then, when in a relationship with Jax, I could understand.” Cassie tinkered with the idea of licking the chocolate syrup from her empty cheesecake plate. She rarely came into The Dessert Shop, but when she did, she always ended up eating more than necessary. Her stomach would pay later.

  “I just saw Lori, and she never mentioned it. Must be someone else.” Audrey shrugged. “You could always ask Betsy Davis.”

  Eden snickered. “She’s been doing so much better about controlling her runaway mouth since we almost lost Pastor Gabe back at Easter time. I think that was a major wake-up call. Hey, did you lease that shop? The sign is missing.”

  Audrey grinned. “We did! Got the word early this morning. I was going to tell you but we got to talking about the lumber jack, so…”

  Cassie hugged Audrey. “Back in business! Good. I have to admit, I’m not nearly as big a fan of Jamie Carlson’s flowers as I am of yours. The doctor’s office will be so excited to have your fresh flowers back on the counters.”

  “We’re talking about opening up a landscaping business next spring. We’ll see how it all goes.” Audrey’s phone rang to the tune of “Centerfield” and she beamed. “Hey babe…I did tell them. Yeah. I’ll be home in twenty minutes… Call it in and I’ll grab it…love you.” She ended her call. “Tammy Reichert had her baby. I’m bringing pizzas.” She winked and laid some money on the table. “Won’t be long and I’ll be back to diaper wreaths.”

  Cassie toyed with her napkin. “Now that I’m replaying it, you think I was too…”

  “Obnoxious?” Eden offered.

  “Yeah.”

  “He didn’t say no.”

  “True.” Cassie pulled her money out and tossed it on the table. “I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow.” As she walked to her truck, her stomach knotted. Had she made a mistake? Could she handle dealing with him every day? Even half days? Yeah. She’d managed to work with surly Knox Everhart for three years, and he’d turned out to be a pretty fantastic guy.

  But Jax hadn’t agreed to hire her.

  She hadn’t even given him time.

  What if she showed up tomorrow and he flat out told her to leave? Rejected her? The cheesecake soured and pushed its way up to her throat. Better to clarify than get kicked out of his shop come morning. She pulled up in front of the store. Inside, it was dark. It was after seven.

  Door was locked.

  Cassie rounded to the back of the brick building and climbed the wrought iron stairs that led to the double apartments. Which one was his? She’d only been in Audrey’s. She’d try that one.

  She knocked.

  Nothing.

  She tried a little louder. If Cassie had his number, she could call. No such luck. All the way home she imagined him locking her out or simply not being there. The whole store cleaned out. Not even a splinter of wood left.

  Exactly how her father had left their ratty apartment when he’d bailed on her. Rejected her. Abandoned her. Cassie had been nine. He and Mom had knock-down-drag-outs, especially when they’d been using or drinking. He’d smack Mom around and she’d cry.

  He’d never hit Cassie. Never given her much thought at all.

  Lord, do You think he ever even thinks about me? Should it matter? Should I still care?

  She clambered out of her truck, climbed her concrete steps, ignoring the chipped, white paint on her house, tiptoed across her porch and unlocked the front door.

  Home sweet home. Quiet. Peace. That much she had. And she was honestly grateful.

  A clinking sound came from the kitchen and her heart leapt into her throat. The sound of running water. Oh no. Had her pipes burst? She hurried through the living room into the kitchen and yelped.

  “What are you doing in my house? How—how did you get in here?”

  Jax turned off the water. Face as calm as a sea after a raging storm. “Back door was unlocked.”

  Cassie glanced at her door. “No, it wasn’t.” What was he doing in her house…tool box by the open cabinet doors?

  “Okay, it wasn’t,” he mumbled. “The window was… I owe you a new screen.” He shrugged and scratched the back of his neck.

  Cassie glanced at the sink. The dripping was gone. “You broke into my house—”

  “I did not break into your house.”

  “You broke into my house.” She pinned him with a look. He stayed silent. “To fix my sink? How do you even know where I live?” She couldn’t wrap her brain around it. “I’m at a loss for words here.”

  “Then is there anything else that needs done?” A smirk played around his lips.

  She opened her mouth, grasping for understanding. “I’m confused.” This man fixed her sink. Why would he do that? It warmed her until her insides melted like the hot fudge on Eden’s brownie earlier. Her cheeks heated and she made eye contact with him and swallowed, suddenly aware that a man, a very provocative man, stood only a foot away. In her kitchen. With a wrench in his work-weathered hands.

  “Look, you said the leaking was keeping you up all night, and I figure if you’re gonna work for me, I need you nice and awake, not hopped up on energy drinks. Energy drinks will only make you yappier.”

  She blinked, registering his answer to fixing the leaky faucet. “You broke into my house to fix my sink to keep me from conversation?” But he did say she was coming to work for him. He hadn’t rejected her. He had rejected her gift of gab. Lord knows she had it.

  “In a nutshell.”

  “You’re the only person who can do something so nice and turn it into an insult in two seconds flat.”

  He grabbed his tool box. “See ya tomorrow, Cassidy.”

  He was just going to leave? “Wait! Let me…let me at least cook you dinner. I’m a decent cook.”

  “Mmmhmmm.”

  “I am. I mean I’m not Sierra Bradley, but dang.” She opened her fridge. A golden throw-back to the seventies. Did she even have anything to cook? Did he expect southern cooking? She was no Paula Deen. Pork chops. Fresh broccoli. “You like pork? You’re from the south. Of course you do. You eat pork other ways than rinds, right? You know once I visited Georgia with my grandma to see her sister, Aunt Verna, and she made fried pickles. Of course, at first I thought who fries pickles? I mean, seriously? Right? But then…” She trailed off as he stared at her like a deer in headlights. “I’m yapping, aren’t I?”

  “Yep.”

  “I haven’t even had a single energy drink.”

  “Then you’re fired.”

  She snickered and took the pork chops out, then straightened. “Are you kidding? You’re kidding, right?”

  “Maybe. I haven’t decided.”

  She laid the chops on the counter and washed her hands. Jax’s arm brushed her shoulder and her abdomen squeezed. Turning the water off, she stared at the faucet. Not one single drip. She looked up and he was watching her—no…studying her. Throat dry, she cleared it. “Thank you. For…breaking into my house and fixing this.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, rasp in his tone. Quiet. Too appealing. This was bad. Yet good.

  “So…pork chops?”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  “I’ll even fry them. It’ll make you feel like home.” She gave him her best grin.

  He scowled. Her grins had never backfired before.

  “I gotta go. Thought I’d be done before you got here. See ya tomorrow. Nine.” Without another word, he stalked through her living room and out the front door, pausing a moment on the porch, then he clambered down the steps and left her alone.

  Disappointment smothered the gratefulness she’d been feeling. And underneath, that hated word whispered to her heart: rejected.

  ***

  Jax glanced at the clock on the wall above his woodworking table. He’d been down here since five this morning. Why did he go over there and fix that friggin’ leaky faucet? Because it had nagged him since Cassidy had left the store. He hadn’t asked her why her landlord didn’t have someone out. Probably some dude who couldn’t care less. Did that mean that Jax cared?

  It’s a sin for the person who knows to do what is good and doesn't do it.

  Mom’s words came back into his soul. Couldn’t remember what book of the Bible it’d come from but it was there. James maybe? James. Cassidy James standing in her kitchen with this whole girlie-gushy expression. It’d knocked a dent in his chest, taking his breath with him. Nope. He didn’t need a woman getting soft over fixing a leaky sink. But it needed done. And he could do it. Too bad she’d shown up before he left.

  The woman was right about one thing. And it wasn’t that all southerners had a hankering for pork rinds. No, her place was a shanty. He slipped a small screw between his teeth and positioned the silver hinge on the back of the book cabinet door. He’d felt the give in the porch board. Probably had dry rot from a billion years of not being treated. It needled him. Somebody needed to fix it. Today, he’d find out who the landlord was and see it was taken care of.

  After securing the last hinge, he hung the two doors on the walnut stained book cabinet. He admired his work and then took a picture. His online gallery was coming along well and online orders were starting to pile in. He might have closed shop in Memphis, but he kept a good customer list. When he’d taken up woodworking with his granddad he never expected to fall in love with it.

  Something about the rough wood being molded and smoothed into something valuable and worthy. A sense of pride and accomplishment burst with each piece he finished. He loved the feel of timber in his hands, the smell of stain, the taste of a well-earned beer after a hard day’s work. Jax wasn’t eloquent like his brother, who taught at a Mississippi junior college and inherited most of the brains. And his sister practiced medicine in Memphis. She got the other half. Proud of them both, Jax made a note to call and check in on them.

  The day ahead would be long. He hurried upstairs and showered, made coffee, and perused the news online. At five till nine he made his way down to the shop. Cassidy stood at the door. No smile. Two coffees in her hands and a purse the size of the Atlantic hanging from her arm. He unlocked and opened it.

  “I got yours black. I figure you for a simple man.”

  Was that an insult? He took the coffee, glanced at her monstrous cup. Just what she needed: caffeine.

  “What do you need from me besides answering phones and taking orders?”

  He hadn’t thought much about it. He shrugged. “I guess whatever needs done.”

  “Can I get that in writing? I might forget so much information.” Sarcasm oozed from her lips.

  “If you really want it.” He headed toward the back. The woman made him nervous. He never got nervous. Even with Lori. They’d been hot and heavy in high school and married right after graduation. Jax had just turned nineteen and she was still eighteen. He’d been twenty-three when Daisy Ray was born.

  “Where do you keep the invoices and billing information?”

  “My office.”

  She stood in the doorway. Arms crossed, one foot tapping. Long brown boots rose to her denim-clad knees. A brown fitted-leather jacket matched.

  He cleared his throat. “What?”

  “Guess how I slept last night.”

  “Who is your landlord?”

  “Earlene Taylor. You probably don’t know her. She’s an eighty-five-year-old widow.”

  That explained why her house hadn’t been repaired. Wonder what the widow’s house looked like?

  “Now guess.”

  Jax didn’t play guessing games. He grabbed his hand sander and went to work on a dresser.

  “Fine. I’ll tell ya. Terrible. I slept terrible. You wanna know why? The house was too quiet. Minus the normal pops and cracks it typically makes. And I laid there and thought you have got to be stinking kidding me. I have whined and complained and beat the mess out of that sink—you may have seen the marks—and after all that, I need the drip.”

  He stopped sanding. “You want me to come make it leaky again?”

  “I almost do, but I bet my water bill is going to be cut in half. I think what it boils down to is I have insomnia. It’s gotta be.”

  “They make pills for that.”

  “I know they do. But that means I’d have to go to the doctor and all that jazz. I’m not down with that. You know? What about you?”

  He paused and wiped the sweat beading on his brow with his forearm. “What about me?”

  “How did you sleep?”

  Last night? Not so well. “Fine.” Why did this woman care how he slept?

  She seemed to take interest in what he was doing. “You need some help?” She sidled up next to him. Close enough to smell that sweet scent he couldn’t quite place. Not flowers. Not spice. But he liked it. “I can sand stuff. It’s just back and forth, right?”

  The phone rang.

  “Or I can get the phone,” she sing-songed and zipped down the hall to the counter.

  Half days. That’s it. Half. Days.

  A minute later she stood in the doorway. “Lori, not Anderson, is on the phone.”

  Anderson? Who was Lori Anderson? “What’s today?”

  “Tuesday.”

  He wasn’t supposed to see Daisy Ray until the weekend. He took the phone. Patience. Patience, Jax. If he wanted to keep seeing his little girl, he’d have to play nice with Lori. “Hey Lori.”

  “Who was that nasally sounding woman?”

  Something about the barb stung his patience-o-meter. Cassidy did have a bit of nasal in her voice, but it wasn’t annoying. “I’ve hired a…” he glanced at Cassidy, “…receptionist slash billing clerk.”

  Cassidy’s eyebrows rose as she mouthed “billing clerk” and gave him the thumbs-up and a wink.

  He kept the grin hidden.

  “Well, Saturday may be off the table.”

  His neck muscles coiled. “Why?” He kept his temper in check. He tried. Honestly. But she had all the power. Because his idiotic self had given it to her without a fight. He was at her whim.

  “Logan has a thing out of town, and he wanted us to go with him.”

  “Fine. What about Thursday? Dinner. Maybe a PG movie?”

  Cassidy quirked her eyebrows again.

  “I don’t know. It’s a school night, Jax. You do realize she’s eight. She needs her rest and you always give her too much candy.”

  “No candy then.” He inhaled quietly but deeply.

  “Maybe over fall break.” Her clipped tone was familiar. It meant end of discussion. She wasn’t changing her mind.

  “I moved here—”

  “No one told you to do that. In fact, I never liked the idea. So don’t you dare throw that in my face.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” his voice rose even though his brain said stay in control. “You tell that piece of—”

  She hung up.

  Jax growled and gripped the phone. She didn’t have to go away for the weekend with the new guy. She’d done it to get a rise out of Jax. To purposely keep him from Daisy Ray. Probably poisoned her against him.

  Cassidy sniffed. “If that was a customer, we’re really gonna have to work on your customer service skills. Just sayin’.”

  He shook his head and flew into the back room, Cassidy hot on his heels.

  “Who’s Lori?”

  “Not now, Cassidy.”

  “Then later.”

  “Not later.”

  “Well, if you’re going to yell and cuss every time she calls, I deserve to know who she is.”

  He frowned and grabbed the sander. “Why?”

  “Duh. Because I’m curious.”

  He almost laughed. The coiled neck muscles relaxed slightly. “She’s my ex-wife. She goes by the name Lori, but I prefer Harlot. Or…never mind.”

  Cassidy stared at him. Behind her eyes, all sorts of questions formed. But for once she simply puckered her bottom lip and gave him a single nod. “I’m gonna go clerk the bills.”

  When she left the room, he chuckled. Clerk the bills. She had a way with…everything.