Christmas in Lucky Harbor Read online

  They walked the rest of the property and outlined all the obvious problems. There were many. After discussing them in detail over the next half hour, they were back in the center of the yard, next to the fallen tree.

  “So,” he said. “Your sisters want out.”

  “Yesterday,” she agreed.

  “I think your mom hoped you three would stick around and take care of this place the way she always intended to. You know how she was.”

  “Actually, I don’t,” she said. “I didn’t know her very well. I was raised by my father in Los Angeles. She sent postcards from wherever the Grateful Dead were playing, and we had the occasional whirlwind visit. But she never mentioned this place, not once.” She realized how detached that sounded and just how much she’d revealed about their lack of a relationship, and it both embarrassed and saddened her. Having bared herself enough for one day, she turned away.

  “Some kids might resent their parent in this situation,” he said quietly.

  “There’s some of that.”

  She felt a big, warm hand settle at her back, and he led her to his Jeep. The huge brown dog in the passenger seat sat up and gave a single, joyous woof!

  Jax opened the door and the Lab mix leapt out, all long, gawky limbs and happy tongue. Two huge front paws hit Maddie in the chest, making her stagger back.

  Jax’s hands settled on her arms from behind, steadying her. Leaning over her shoulder, he gave the dog a friendly push. “Down, you big lug. You okay?” He turned Maddie around to face him, eyeing the two dusty paw prints on her chest.

  She backed away and brushed herself off before he got any notions about helping. “She’s very pretty.”

  “Pretty something, anyway.” He sent the dog a look of affection. “I just haven’t decided on what. Izzy, sit,” he directed, and the dog promptly sat on his foot, looking up at him in clear hero worship.

  Maddie bent for a stick and threw it. Izzy craned her neck, took in the stick’s flight through the air, and yawned.

  “She’s not much for chasing sticks,” Jax said dryly. “She’ll chase her tail, though, all day long. She’s a rescue. She didn’t get the Labrador handbook.”

  Izzy nudged her head to Jax’s thigh, and Jax crouched to give her a hug and a full-body rub, and Maddie felt a moment of jealousy as Izzy slid bonelessly to the ground in clear ecstasy, groaning loudly.

  “She likes that,” Maddie managed.

  “I have a way with my hands.”

  She bit her lower lip to keep the words “show me” inside.

  He laughed again, soft and sexy, as he straightened and apparently read her mind. “We don’t have chemistry, remember?”

  She closed her eyes. “Okay, here’s the thing. We have some chemistry,” she allowed.

  “Some? Or supernova?”

  “Supernova. But,” she said to his knowing grin. Good Lord, he needed to stop doing that. “I really did give up men.”

  “Forever?”

  “My gut says yes, but that might be PMS talking. Let’s just say I’m giving up men for a very long time.”

  “You going to try out women?”

  He was teasing her. She pushed him back a step, knowing damn well he only went because it suited him. No one pushed him around unless he wanted to go—something she wished she could say about herself. “I’m trying to say I’m not cut out for this, for the casual-sex thing.”

  “But you’ve given up men,” he pointed out, still teasing her. “Sounds like there’s going to be no sex, period.”

  “None.”

  He merely arched a brow. “Aren’t you going to miss it?”

  “No.”

  “Not at all?”

  “Not even a little.”

  He shot her a look of blatant disbelief. “How is that even possible, not missing sex? That’s like saying you wouldn’t miss having a cold beer on a hot summer night or the sound of the ocean pounding the surf while you run, or… air in your lungs.”

  She had to laugh at his adamancy. “Maybe sex isn’t all that important to me.”

  “Then you’ve been doing it wrong.”

  His voice dripped with innuendo, and her body tightened involuntarily while the meaning behind his words thrummed through her veins. It was a foregone conclusion that the man knew how to use his muscular body and talented hands to make a living. She figured it wasn’t a stretch to imagine he could also use those things to make a woman very happy.

  “Still with me?” he murmured.

  A warm flush spread through her body, and she lost her ability to speak.

  His mouth was serious, but his eyes were laughing. With a quick playful tug on a lock of her wild hair, he walked off, heading toward the inn in that long-limbed, confident stride of his.

  She stared after him, a little flummoxed by the funny something still happening very low in her belly, something she was pretty sure meant her body was not on board with the giving-up-men thing.

  Not even close.

  Chapter 9

  “If you’re going through hell…

  keep moving.”

  PHOEBE TRAEGER

  By the time Maddie gathered her wits enough to follow Jax to the inn, he’d opened the front door. “Did your mom have a set of blueprints for this place?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It looks like she kept all paperwork in the office in the marina. We could check there.”

  “You’ll need it for the escrow contract, because anyone who buys this place is going to need to make sure the entire property passes inspection and is up to code. It’s probably got more violations than you can count, and that’ll all have to be dealt with at the building department. But I think Phoebe dated Ed for a while, and he works there. He’ll help you through it.”

  She paused, a little dizzy at his knowledge and the educated, professional way he spoke. Her first impression of him had been Hot Biker. Her second impression had been Hot Biker Who Could Kiss.

  Now she was seeing yet another side. She asked the question she’d been dying to ask. “You liked her. My mom.”

  “Yes. You resemble her, you know.” He took his time letting his gaze run over her, leaving her breathless. “It’s in the eyes,” he said. “She could see right through a person, right to their soul, and know.”

  “Know what?”

  “What they were made of.”

  She’d had a knot in her chest since Phoebe’s death, a thick ball of grief and regret, and it tightened now. “I don’t have that ability. I’m actually a terrible judge of character.”

  He didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Your mom was fun and a little flighty, but she had substance where it counted. She had heart.”

  “Yeah, well, the flightiness was self-induced.”

  A little smile crossed his face. “No doubt.”

  Given the fondness in his tone, she figured he’d known Phoebe well. Certainly better than she had, and the ball tightened a little more. “So what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “I know next to nothing about you. Tell me something.”

  He shrugged. “Not much to tell. I was born and raised here. My mom died of a stroke a few years back. No siblings.”

  “Except for Ford and Sawyer,” she said.

  “Except for them.”

  “What about your dad?”

  “He’s in Seattle.”

  There was something there, something in his voice that had her taking a closer look at him, but his face was calm. “You’ve always been a carpenter?” she asked.

  “No. I went away to college, then stayed away for several years after that. I’ve been back five years now. Boring story.”

  She doubted that, but he took himself and his clipboard inside the inn, and she and Izzy followed. The dog sniffed at every corner as Jax and Maddie went through room by room. He showed her what could be done to update and modernize, sometimes stopping to sketch things out for her as he talked, his love of a challenge shining through.

&nbs