Author: Kristan Higgins

“Nooo!” Parker shrieked, jumping up and down. The lumpy tickle zipped around to the back of her leg, then across her ass and around to the other side, and with that, Parker ripped open her pants and there it was, a mouse in her pants. Its eyes were huge and terrified and Parker heard a scream rip through the air—her scream—and the tiny rodent—rodent!—leaped, practically flying through the air, and landed in the pile in the tub.

Parker ripped off the jeans, dimly hearing herself shrieking, and ran out of the house, through the grass and right up onto the hood of her car. “Bugger! Bugger! Jeesh!” she yelped. Her jeans were clutched in her hand. What if there were more in there? What if a whole family of rodents was in her jeans right now? Once there was a family of mice who loved to snuggle up against the warm flesh of an unwitting human. She whipped the pants against the car, cracking them against the hood again and again and again, shrieking at the remembered feeling of tiny claws. On her leg. Her skin. On her ass!

“Hey, Parker” came a voice. She kept cracking. “Parker?”

She looked up, her breath stuttering in and out of her chest.

Thing One. Thing One was here.

“Hi,” he said, as if she wasn’t murdering her jeans against the hood. “How’s it going?”

“There was a mouse in my pants.”

He raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Lucky mouse.”

Her breath caught. Wrong thing to say. Wrong. “It’s pretty traumatic to have a rodent in your pants, Thing One,” she snapped. “Unless you like that sort of thing.”

“Oh, hey, sorry, princess,” he said, approaching her car. “Didn’t mean to make light of your tragedy.”

“There was a mouse in my pants,” she blurted. “It’s bad enough, okay? I mean, do you see that house? That’s mine! I own it! And I was doing fine, I wasn’t panicking or anything, even when that fricking bird flew into my hair last night but a mouse— I…I can’t have Nicky here! That place is infested!”

“Okay, okay,” he said. “Settle down. You are aware that you’re not wearing pants, right?” Another quirked eyebrow. “Not that I’m complaining.”

She looked down at him, her throat working. She could murder him and throw his body in the water. Or she could put on her pants. She took a shaky breath. “I’m not…eager to put them back on. In case the mouse had cousins.”

“Well, here. Let me check.” Thing One took the jeans from her and turned them inside out, then shook them vigorously. Checked the pockets, too. “Nothing.”

“I saw it. It was there. It ran all the way up this leg, then across my butt, then God knows where it was headed.” His mouth twitched. Did he think this was funny? This was not funny! “It’s not funny, Thing One.”

“Well. It’s gone now.” He looked down. She suspected he was smiling. Idiot.

“It’s in the tub,” she said, giving the jeans a last shake before pulling them on. “You can go find it. Maybe it’ll crawl up your pants and we can compare notes.”

“How was your trip up?” he asked, and really, what kind of a question was that when they were sitting in front of a hovel?

“It was lovely, Thing One. This house, however, is a sty.”

He looked at the house for a long moment, then back at her. “Well. Good thing I’m here, then.”

Right. It suddenly dawned on her that he was here. A familiar face, at least. Something moved in Parker’s chest. She looked away, but no, there was the mouse-infested house. The harbor. Better. Nice view.

“All right. Let’s see what we’re up against.”

Thing One went into the house, and Parker heard a few clunks and thunks. She sat on the hood of the Volvo, her panic fading gradually into the occasional shudder. A rodent running up her leg…there was a sensation a person wouldn’t forget, right up there with an episiotomy.

Her father’s attorney emerged a minute later. Now that she wasn’t screaming, she noticed he looked…different. It took a minute to figure out why.

He wasn’t wearing a suit. First time ever she’d seen him out of— Well, this was the first time ever she’d seen him in jeans and a T-shirt, that was for sure.

Parker looked away and cleared her throat. “So what are you doing here, Thing One?”

He sat on the hood next to her. “Since I’m devoting the next few weeks to overhauling this dump, Parker, you think you could call me by my real name?”

“I seem to have forgotten it.” There. She was getting her old vibe back. Good.

He smiled slowly, his dark eyes crinkling. Dangerous, those eyes. “Again?”

“Is it John? Jason?”

“It’s James. James Francis Xavier Cahill.”

Goose bumps broke out along her arms. It was chilly. Or something. “So what are you doing here, James?”

“Your father asked me to come up.”

Right. James was an obedient pet; she’d give him that. She didn’t say anything for a minute, just pulled her knees to her chin and wrapped her arms around her legs. “How’s he doing?”

“He’s okay.”

She’d bet her left arm James got more than three minutes on the phone with her father. She sighed. “So. This place. Did you know how bad it was?”

He shook his head. “I called my uncle this morning to ask about a security code, and he told me it was kind of a dump. I didn’t think it’d be this bad, but I can help you out.”

She really needed the Army Corps of Engineers, from the look of it. “So law school trained you to overhaul a house, Thing One? I know you’re good at emptying trust funds, but carpentry?” There. Hopefully that would erase the edge he’d gained from having seen her hysterical and in her panties.

He gave her a look of his own. “Nothing I did was illegal, Parker. Your father had the right to do what he wanted with those trust funds, because you gave him that right. You signed papers letting him have full authority over every penny. And even if I’d wanted to say something—which I did—attorney-client privilege prevented me.”

“Wow. You’re a great guy. Maybe my dad will give you a sticker.”

He ignored that. “At any rate, my father was a builder. I worked on a construction crew summers when I was in college. Do you really want to kick me out because you don’t like me?”

She felt her jaw locking. She’d be an idiot to send him away.

He took her silence as protest. “Look. Aside from hauling all this crap to the dump, you’ll need to reshingle the entire exterior. The roof needs to be replaced, the gutter’s hanging off the front, the chimney is crumbling. I’m guessing there’s dry rot under the linoleum in the kitchen, the cupboards are pulling away from the walls, and the stairs down to the dock are a death trap. The back door frame is warped. You probably need some significant rewiring, not to mention a new paint job inside.” He paused. “I happen to find myself free this summer.”

“Where would you stay?” she asked.

“Here.”

“Here? Where here? In the Harbor Suite?”

“Actually, we can get a lot of this stuff cleared out pretty fast. I already have a Dumpster being delivered today.”

He did? “How’d you do that?” she asked.

“My uncle lined one up.”

This summer was supposed to be about doing things on her own, a fresh start. The plan had been to take sheets off aging but lovely furniture and paint the sunroom. The plan was to meet George Clooney before his boat went down in a hundred-foot wave, have a fling, then welcome Nicky for a few weeks of blueberry picking and sailing.

It was not to have her father’s minion living with her.

But she hadn’t realized what she was up against. “Well, you can’t stay here. What about your uncle’s place?”

“He lives in a one-bedroom apartment over the bar. I can get more work done if I’m here.”

She didn’t comment.

“Oh, come on, Parker,” he said, his voice low and scraping. “It’s not like we’re strangers.”

She felt the tips of her ears practically burst into flame. Took a calming breath. “Fine. Stay. Thank you. You can report to Harry and ease your conscience over helping my father rob my son. I can’t say no, because I’m desperate and broke. But I don’t like it.”

“Well, how’s this?” he said, his voice amiable. “We’ll acknowledge that if the situation were different, you’d kick me out. You’ll barely tolerate me, and only because your back is against the wall and you had a mouse in your pants. Deal?” He gave her a smug smile.

Parker unclenched her jaw and glanced at her watch as she got off the hood of the car. James followed suit. “I’m going to the hardware store.”

“You can have the bigger bedroom.”

“You’re too kind.”

“I get that a lot.” There was that smile again. Parker ignored it and started the engine. “You know where the hardware store is?” he asked.

“I’ll find it,” she ground out, throwing the car into Reverse.

Not going as planned. No, sir.

CHAPTER SEVEN

WELL, SHE WASN’T HAPPY. He hadn’t expected her to be. But man oh man alive, this place was a mess. Three hours in, and James had thrown away a good ton of crap. He paused outside to wipe the sweat from his forehead and breathe in some fresh air. The Dumpster had been delivered right after she’d left, thanks to Dewey, who knew everyone. James had put quite a dent in the piles of crap in the house, starting with the bigger bedroom. The princess had slept in her car last night, he guessed, based on the comforter in the front seat. Probably wouldn’t want to do it again.

A car pulled into the driveway, and a very luscious redheaded woman unfolded herself from the driver’s seat. “Jamie Cahill! How you’ve grown!”

Holy shit. “Chantal?” Couldn’t be anyone else.

“Your uncle told me you were back. Don’t you dare say you’ve forgotten me.”

“Are you kidding? I think of you every night.”

She laughed, and James smiled. Time hadn’t simply been kind to Chantal; it was in love with her. She’d been beautiful at age twenty-five; at fortyish, she was unbelievable. “It’s great to see you,” he said. “Please, God, you’re single.”

“Sorry, baby boy. I’m married—to a much younger man, I might add—and I’m a mommy, even. A little boy named Luke, six months old. I’m nursing.” She raised an eyebrow, inviting James to look. And what was a guy to do but obey? He dropped his eyes to Chantal’s generous endowments, showcased in a very tight and low-cut blouse.

“Lucky kid,” he murmured.

“I won’t bore you with pictures, but he’s the love of my life. Okay, just one, since you begged.” She held out her phone and showed James a shot of a drooling, fat-cheeked baby. “And here’s another one. Isn’t he beautiful? Looks like his daddy.”

“Cute,” James said. All babies tended to look the same to him, but then again, he didn’t spend a lot of time staring into cribs or strollers or whatever.

“Oh, you look good enough to eat!” Chantal exclaimed. “Give us a hug.” She wrapped him in a soft embrace. And hey, she patted his ass, too, making him laugh. Still had quite the effect, Chantal. “So,” she said, releasing him, “you called Harbor Realty, and guess what I do on the side? Real estate. It’s your lucky day.”

“In so many ways,” he murmured.

“Show me what you got. In the house, not in your pants,” she said. “Which isn’t to say I don’t remember you fondly.”