Wild in the Moment (9 page)

He'd told Daisy about some of that. But she hadn't really seen it until the car question came up. The car wasn't the issue. It was just a symbol. And, man, she just didn't know what he had to overcome to let her climb in the driver's seat of his most loyal lover, turn the key, make the engine vroom-vroom way, way, way differently than he did.

“Put your seat belt on, tiger,” she said gently.

He clipped his. She clipped hers. Then faster than lightning, she shifted into reverse and they rocketed backward out of the driveway.

Sweat broke out on his forehead.

She took the first curve on all four wheels, but it was close. Then, just past the next curve, he spotted a snowplow, doddering along around twenty miles an hour. Vermont drivers—it was an unspoken rule in the state—didn't bother using their rearview mirror because they were going to do what they wanted to anyway. Daisy passed the snowplow. On the curve. On the curve with the double-yellow line. Somewhere around fifty.

More jewels of sweat laced the back of his neck. There seemed to be a shortage of oxygen in the car. He couldn't talk. His right foot was mashed on the brake. Except that there wasn't a brake on his side of the car.

“My, she does like speed, doesn't she?”

He spotted a little blue Buick ahead, an older model, the driver in it short with fuzzy white hair, and ahead of her was a Honda Civic. Daisy passed both of them on the next straightaway. The speedometer hit eighty-seven. Not for long. Not even for minutes. But it definitely hit it.

On the next good curvy hill, she practiced downshifting.

Eventually—long enough that he'd gotten three ulcers—she pulled back in his driveway and gave the brake a good test. “Okay now, tiger,” she said cheerfully. “Let's see if we can peel your knuckles off the armrest.”

“I'm okay,” he said.

“I know you are.” She unclipped her seat belt and handed him the key. “Well?”

“Well what?” His lungs were so grateful to be safe that they wanted to do nothing but suck in oxygen.

“Well, did I pass? I know. You undoubtedly thought I'd drive like a prisoner on parole, but I figured I'd better be honest with you. If the car was a test, then it'd better be a true test. Only…”

“Only what?”

“Only what's the verdict? Did I destroy any attraction you ever felt for me? Did you decide there's no chance we'll ever sleep together again, much less that we have any prayer of lasting another day as friends?”

That woke him up. He looked at her. “If you were trying to scare me off wanting to sleep with you, babe, you failed big-time.”

“You're okay with my driving?” She lifted her brows.

He was okay with her driving. Just not in his car. Ever again. Yet he heard himself saying, “Sure.” As if he were cool. As if the favorite car of his life hadn't just suffered a nerve-shattering risk. As if he wasn't a Type A personality who had to control the important things around him full-time.

“Onto the Shillings',” he said, not wanting to talk anymore. There just seemed no point. Temporarily he
was incapable of communicating anything that made sense. His head, and heart, needed time to calm down and cool down. Some good, solid work always did that.

Or it usually did.

They both drove in his truck to the Shillings', because there was no point in using two vehicles to go such a short distance. The plan was for Daisy to pick up the car after seeing the Shillings job. The couple lived on the outskirts of White Hills, in a charming two-story brick house that dated back a good hundred years. Mrs. Shilling, Susan, loved history and tradition, and had loved every minute of fixing the place, until she'd been in a car accident. She'd lost part of one leg. Insurance had enabled them to install an elevator chair so she could get up to the second floor, and for the most part she was functioning, doing the things she loved to do before.

But her kitchen just wasn't working. “The rehab people came over and gave me some suggestions. Also they have a model kitchen at the hospital for people like me, but…”

“But they were generic concepts. Not individual to you,” Teague guessed.

“You said it. I want to do the things I want to do in a kitchen. For one thing, it's easier for me to work a wheelchair in here than to hop around, so everything's too high. And their ideas were on relocating supplies, like cans—but I don't use that many cans. I like fresh food. And I like to bake, but I can't get any of my baking supplies from this chair. I can't…sift. Or knead. I can reach the bowls, but then I can't get them at an angle where I can actually work.”

“Cleanup's a problem, too?” Daisy asked. Who was
wandering around the kitchen, frowning, analyzing, touching.

“Very much so. I can get to the trash. But I need a workspace where flour doesn't get all over counters and the floor where I have no way to clean it up myself.” Susan turned her soft eyes to Teague. “I don't know if there's anything you can do—”

“Oh, he can fix you up perfectly,” Daisy assured her.

Teague blinked.

That was the last chance he got a word in. The two women went into a frenzy of “all the things he could do.” Pull-out shelves. A pull-out pantry door. Moving the oven down a foot. Create a lower-level, long narrow workspace with rims so nothing could spill from the back and set it on wheels. In fact, Daisy wanted about everything set on wheels.

“Hold your horses, ladies,” he interrupted the first chance he could steal a word in. “Susan, we need to talk about what kind of budget you're willing to spend for these changes.”

“Oh, money's not a serious problem. I mean, I don't want fourteen-karat-gold faucets or anything ridiculous. But Donald's insisted I get anything I want. He knows how much I love to cook and bake.” She was already turning back to Daisy. “You think I could have an extra sink set on wheels?”

“Oh, sure, Teague could do that. No sweat at all.”

“Teague can't put a sink on wheels,” Teague mentioned. “To begin with, Teague isn't a plumber. Besides which, plumbing takes stationary pipes. You can't just move a sink around—”

They weren't listening to him. A half hour later, though, when they left the house, Susan was as excited as Daisy was. A light snow was drifting down, the
sticky kind, that kissed the cheeks and eyelashes and stayed.

“She needs different lighting, too, Teague. Ceiling lights are fine for general light, but—”

She climbed in the truck with him like a born country girl. As soon as she strapped in, he reached over and kissed her. The impulse came from nowhere, yet the result made his pulse teeter and skid. Apparently it ruffled hers, too, because it was the first time she quit talking in well over an hour.

The silence didn't last long, though. “What was that for?” she questioned.

“I don't know. I think it's because you were so gungho pushy. Got right in there and took charge. Trouble all the way. I've always liked those qualities in a woman.” But he never thought he'd be able to work with someone who was as bullheaded as he was. That he'd had fun over the past hour was still messing with his mind. He added quickly, “But we do need to have a little discussion about what a carpenter can and can't do. I've got a general contractor's license. But I really don't tend to touch plumbing or much electricity. The city and township both have codes.”

“Oh. Codes.” She said the word as if it were very interesting, she was listening, she cared, and then promptly moved on. “We could make her life totally better. And—if you need the help—I could do more than just the decorating and style side of things. I can hammer a nail straight. And stain. And varnish. And use a drill and saw…well, some saws. I can't use a band saw. But a jig saw or…”

She was still wired up when they reached his house. By then they'd worked up a potential work program—some projects he had to work solo, and his schedule
was always wildly different. But he knew he could give her an extra twenty hours a week, if she wanted it. She did. And that set her off on another spill of enthusiasm. In fact, she was still talking when she climbed out of his truck and aimed straight for his back door.

“Whoa,” he said. “I thought you had to close up the café? That we were just coming back here so you could collect my car?”

“That was the plan, I know. And I do have to make sure the café's closed up tight by seven. But there's plenty of time before that, and I have to use the bathroom, okay?”

“So you want to see the inside of the house.”

She grinned. “You got it.”

She shot in the back door and started snooping faster than a bat out of hell. He dropped his mail and keys on the counter, peeled off his jacket, started a kettle.

He suddenly badly wanted a cigarette, but since he'd quit smoking ten years ago, he couldn't do that. A shot of liquor had equal appeal, but no question about Daisy, she was a woman where he needed every wit he had around him.

The same woman who'd waxed poetic at the café about living on yachts and wintering in the Riviera was beside-herself excited at the idea of designing a kitchen for a wheelchair-bound stranger. The same woman who regularly wore cashmere shamelessly boasted about her skill with a jig saw. The same woman who could likely convince a priest she was a spoiled prima donna was up at five, baking for a second-class café in a town she professed to hate.

“You used to have a dog, didn't you?” Her face showed up in the kitchen doorway, disappeared again.

“Yes. Let's not go there.” He followed her. The
house—he'd liked it when he bought it. At the time he'd wanted solitude, a place in the country not too close to neighbors, where there was ample space for his dog to roam. At the time he'd accepted being too ornery to ever live with anyone else, so he had no one to please but himself.

The kitchen always seemed okay to him. He used the table for everything but eating—mail, projects, a place to store things he hadn't had time to put away, like Christmas presents from his mother. The sink and counter were both clean. The refrigerator held the important staples—juice, ice cream, ice cream bars, eggs, mustard. He'd sort of forgotten that the kitchen wallpaper was pea green and orange. He was going to replace the wallpaper right after he moved in, but it slipped his mind. Now, though, he could see it through Daisy's eyes.

Not good.

His living room said more for him. At least he thought it did. He searched Daisy's face as she wandered around. The fireplace had a barn-plank mantel, a deep serious hearth. A two-foot brass lion sat at the hearth. No furniture there, just giant pillows, because if you wanted a good fire going, it was because you needed to stretch out and let the fire work on your soul. One step up was the more regular part of the living room, with bookcases and a couch and a theater TV. He had a massive chair—one of those that looked like an upscale lounge chair but actually had a dozen controls.

Daisy took one look at that chair and lunged for it. She sank in, closed her eyes and let out a heartless erotic groan. What controls she didn't immediately find, he pressed for her. The chair was actually a rip-off. It
worked; it was just a lot of money for something that he forgot to use most of the time. But watching her bliss out made him think it was worth every dime.

That thought pestered his mind, unsettled him. He was coming to realize that he could look at her—her face, her hands, her knees, or any other part of her—and never seem to get bored. Just looking seemed like chocolate. No matter how good it was, you wanted more. Even if you'd just had a look. Even if you'd just had a taste.

“What's the woodwork in here?” she asked.

“Wild cherry.”

“It's gorgeous.”

“Yeah.” He loved good woods. She already knew that. She was also suddenly bounding out of the chair and streaking for the hall. “Hey,” he said.

“So your dog was black and white, right?”

“How'd you know that?”

“Fur in the carpet, on the chairs, on the couch.” She turned right, with him trailing her. She poked her head in the bathroom, switched on the light, took a look at the dark-green and white tiles and sink and the puddle of thick, beefy towels on the floor and moved on. “So,” Daisy said, “I figured she was spoiled rotten.”

“My dog?”

“She was allowed everywhere. Good spare bedroom,” she announced after she'd inspected it.

Hell, she was starting to make him so nervous that he started chattering like she did. He used the spare room for an office, but had a couch that made into a double bed for when his parents or younger sister came to visit. He'd built the screen to hide the desk and file cabinet and computer then, to make it more a decent
retreat for company. And that room had its own small bath. No towels on the floor. No toothpaste in the sink.

“Where's the wild cherry wood come from?”

“Georgia. Maybe you don't want to look down there.”

“Don't worry. I've seen unmade beds before.” She smiled before opening the door to his bedroom. He'd built the frame to put the king-size mattress on, because his back could get tricky, and he needed a hard mattress. The double-down comforter was the opposite, all soft and fluffy and embarrassingly sissy—but hell, Vermont winters were damned cold. Especially when a guy was sleeping alone.

Because he was suddenly nervous—hell, he was
never
nervous—he seemed to be bumbling on again. “Look, I know the dresser looks messy, but I swear, things climb up on that dresser in the middle of the night. I can't explain it. Like that hammer—I never put it there. And the fork. I don't eat in this room, so I have no clue how that fork showed up. And all those socks. I never left a sock lying there in my entire life—”

She chuckled. “I believe you. Completely,” she assured him.

“Good.”