The Trouble with Andrew Read online

  After a few years, though, he’d made back Mr. Hunnington’s money, and much more. He’d had a wild streak then, dating often—and with variety. Then time—and exhaustion—had toned him down. He’d settled into a relationship with a catalogue model named Amanda Trent, and he’d never quite figured out what went wrong, he only knew that it had gone wrong for him. He hadn’t had too much to say to her, and he found himself wanting to watch the football game rather than listen to her.

  He started going out of town. Often.

  Maybe that was why he’d been gone when his crew had been doing the roof on Katie’s house.

  Well, he couldn’t go back. He couldn’t undo it. He couldn’t give people back anything that they had lost.

  He could only promise to see to it that he would build better in the future.

  And find out what the hell was going on in his own office.

  “Keep me posted if you find out anything,” Drew told Giles.

  Giles nodded gravely. “When we can, I imagine that you want all these roofs completely redone.”

  “Exactly,” Drew said. “I’m taking a walk on over to the Hamptons to meet Ted. He’s moving back into his own place and needs a little help boarding up some broken windows. Call me if you need me. I’ll be heading back to my house after that—I’m going to drive Katie to the post office.”

  Alone, he determined. Not that he didn’t like Jordan. He did. He liked the boy very much. But he had to talk to Katie. He had to explain to her—late as it might be—that he wasn’t just a builder.

  He was her builder.

  He should have gotten out the words, plain and blunt, before. He could have answered her so easily, so many times.

  Katie, don’t thank me! I’m the reason you don’t have a home of your own, I’m the one responsible for your roof.

  But the words hadn’t come. Maybe he hadn’t been able to say them because he hadn’t been able to believe what had happened.

  He had to explain it all to her. Today.

  “Remember, let me know anything at all that you can find out,” he told Giles grimly.

  Giles nodded and gave him a wave as Drew left Katie’s house and headed across the street.

  He didn’t see Katie. He missed her because he slipped into the Hamptons’ house just as she was coming out of his.

  If he’d only thought to stop and talk to her then…

  But he couldn’t know what the day was destined to bring.

  Chapter 7

  Katie and Jordan looked up and down the street but didn’t see Drew.

  “Wonder where he got to?” Katie said to Jordan.

  “Don’t know,” Jordan said. “But look—the roofers are back at our house again.”

  “Let’s go say hi and find out what they’re up to,” Katie suggested.

  They walked across the jungle of plant life and debris that had once been the beautifully landscaped circle for the cul-de-sac and came to their house. Katie paused at the door. “Hello!” she called.

  Giles came into her living room. She realized she was listening for a squishing sound. Then she saw that all the carpeting had been pulled up. The floor was tile and didn’t look bad at all.

  “Hi, there,” Giles said. “Just taking a few structural notes. Need anything? Can I help you?”

  Katie smiled. “Not unless you’ve got a magic wand that can put everything back together,” she told him lightly.

  “Sorry, fresh out!” he told her.

  “Do you know where Drew is?” she asked him.

  “Across the street, at the Hampton house.”

  “Thanks,” she said.

  As she and Jordan crossed the road, she saw a sleek new Mazda pulling into her driveway. She hesitated, shading her eyes from the sun, watching as an older man, at least in his sixties and perhaps in his seventies, stepped from the car. He was spry and straight, whatever his age, and he stared at her house for a long moment. Then Giles came from the house, hailing the old man, and the old man called out to him in turn.

  Someone they worked with, Katie decided.

  “Who’s that?” Jordan asked.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “There are strangers all over our house!” Jordan commented.

  “Well, there are strangers all over what’s left of our house,” she agreed. “He must be with the roofers—Giles seems to know him.”

  Jordan shrugged and walked beside her. “We’re going to the Hamptons?” he said.

  She stopped. What was she doing? Following Drew all over the neighborhood?

  But as she paused, Sophie Hampton opened her front door and called out cheerfully, “Katie! Come in. Of course, it’s awfully hot inside, but it’s awfully hot outside, too. Len made it up to the grocery store in South Gables this afternoon so guess what—we’ve got real live ice tea! Come have some.”

  “Ice!” Jordan said appreciatively.

  Katie grinned and started up the walk. “Thanks, Sophie. Ice tea sounds fabulous.”

  Sophie smiled and led them inside. She had a nice, comfortable home with handmade afghans over her sofas and embroidered cushions set invitingly about. Katie and Jordan followed her through the living room to the kitchen, which looked over what was left of the patio.

  “Have a seat, please.”

  “Thanks, Sophie.”

  Sophie was busy digging into the ice chest in front of her refrigerator. “I hear you’ve been getting some fabulous photos,” Sophie told her.

  “Sad photos,” she told Sophie.

  “Yes, but then, that’s part of life, Katie, you know that.”

  Katie nodded, accepting a miraculously cold and frosty glass from Sophie. She sipped the tea. Delicious. She set the glass against her face.

  “Wow! You can wear it and drink it!” Jordan said, doing the same.

  Sophie laughed, putting her own glass against her forehead. “You’re right. Two luxuries in one!”

  “I need a photo of this,” Katie murmured.

  Sophie grinned, then grew serious. “Drew says your photos are excellent. You’re sending them out, right?”

  Katie nodded. “I’m going to go mail some soon. In fact, I was wondering if Drew was still around. If he’s busy, I’m going to take a drive out myself.”

  “He’s over at Ted’s now. They’re just patching up the last of the broken windows. They’ve swept out all the glass, Drew and that nice young man, Giles.”

  Katie nodded, keeping a straight face. Only a lady Sophie’s age could possibly refer to Giles as a nice young man.

  “Giles and that cute little thing—that assistant of his, I think his name is Sean—have done a good job patching up the roof for the time being. Ted is missing a few carpets and windows, but otherwise his place is starting to look good again.”

  “That’s wonderful,” Katie said.

  “Yours was the worst, I understand,” Sophie said, shaking her head.

  “But we’re all right. And that’s what matters. I’ve realized that more and more in the past few days,” Katie told her. “I’m not in the streets or trying to live in a tent or anything.” She felt a flush coming to her cheeks, and she swallowed her tea in a rush. No, she wasn’t living on the streets, or in a tent. She was…

  Sleeping with Andrew Cunningham. She had to stop thinking about it, she told herself, feeling like an idiot. Sophie couldn’t possibly look at her and know such a thing!

  She stood up. “I’m going to drive up to the South Miami post office. If you see Drew, will you tell him where I’ve gone?”

  “Of course, dear. Oh, and Len and I have a case of lobster tails that we’ve got to barbecue tonight. We’re trying to have the entire neighborhood over. It will be much better if we all eat the lobster—it will be deadly in the trash!”

  Katie smiled. Sophie had told her once about Len’s lobster tails. He cracked them open and cooked them with a pat of butter on each over charcoals.

  It was probably a meal just deadly with cholesterol, but it s
ounded absolutely wonderful.

  “We’ll be back,” Katie promised.

  Jordan asked if he could stay behind, and Sophie said she’d be delighted to watch him. Katie thanked her and left him, then headed to Andrew Cunningham’s house for her mail. She worried a bit about not being able to lock the door every time she came and went, but he was in the neighborhood and didn’t think anything could happen.

  The twenty-minute ride up the highway stretched into an hour and a half. The traffic was terrible, bumper to bumper. Every light on the highway remained out. Each time a traffic volunteer raised a hand for her mass of cars to stop, she glanced at the gas tank, which was running low. She saw a gas station that was open—with a mile-long line of cars waiting. It didn’t matter. She had to get gas.

  The line was awful. Cars were stuck trying to come and go around the tanks. People were jumping out of their cars, swearing at each other.

  A huge, fat man and a tiny woman got into a shouting match. Katie bit her lip, watching them. Then she remembered she had her camera. She stepped from her car and started taking pictures.

  For a moment, she thought the fat man and the tiny woman were going to come over and deck her.

  But then they both started laughing and apologized to each other, and suddenly they were telling each other how they had survived the storm.

  Finally, Katie got to the pumps. She filled her tank and paid.

  An hour after she had pulled off the highway, she was back on it. Tense, tired, hot and sticky, she was in the bumper-to-bumper traffic. And twenty minutes after that, she reached the post office.

  There was another hour-long line.

  Generators kept fans going, but the heat was unbearable. Finally, though, her photos were mailed. She was in her car, blasting the air-conditioning into her face. But after a moment, she turned it off.

  She didn’t think she could stand another hour-long wait at a gas station with some people being marvelously patient while others cursed and shouted.

  Even if she did get great pictures.

  By the time she made it to the cul-de-sac and Drew’s house, she was ready to tear out her hair. She walked in and called, “Hello?” No one answered, and she hurried up the stairs, bursting into the guest room and falling flat on the bed.

  She felt horrible. She was sticky from the heat. She rose mechanically and went into the bathroom.

  She started the spray in the shower stall, then stripped and stepped in. She sat down, letting the water fall over her face and hair and body. The traffic had left her close to tears. No matter how hard she tried to tell herself she had been lucky, the misery of getting a few miles down a ravaged highway suddenly seemed like too much. Her nerves were stripped and raw.

  “Katie!”

  She heard her name called. She couldn’t quite manage to move.

  Even when she heard herself being called more urgently, she couldn’t get up the energy to stand or even cry out.

  “Katie!”

  She jumped then—her name had been roared. The bathroom door burst open, then the shower door was pulled open.

  “Katie, what in God’s name is the matter with you? Why didn’t you answer me?” Drew demanded angrily.

  “Why didn’t you knock?” she demanded furiously in return. She could shout or cry, it was one or the other. “It may be your house but you have no damned right—”

  “You scared the hell out of me! I saw you come in and you wouldn’t answer!”

  “I don’t have to answer if I’m in the shower!”

  “You have to answer because the door was unlocked and because there’s more problems with looters now than ever after the storm.”

  “But your house isn’t ripped up—”

  “Is a thief going to care?”

  “I’m fine!” she raged to him. “Since I don’t have a key, I’ve been leaving the door open—”

  “But you’re inside the house now!”

  “How am I to know for sure that you’ve left with a key?” she demanded, her voice rising with every word.

  “If you had just answered me,” he roared.

  Something inside her snapped. Her fingers had been curling into the washcloth that lay at her side, and she suddenly lifted it and flung it at him.

  It was hardly a deadly missile. But it was sodden and cold, and it hit him right in the face.

  For all his wonderful features, the man did have a hell of a temper. As the cloth landed on his head, soaking his face and hair, causing water to drip over his shoulders and chest, she found the energy to leap up at last, backing against the shower wall, waiting for another explosion.

  But none came. He pulled the cloth from his face, stared at it, stared at her. Then he said lightly. “Hmm, that felt good.” Then before Katie knew it, he was stripping off his wet shirt, slipping from his shoes, unzipping his jeans and joining her.

  He stood under the stream of water and gazed at her. There wasn’t an inch of distance between their wet bodies. Her eyes were wide on his; she stood still in absolute astonishment.

  “Bad day, huh?” he asked.

  “Horrible!” she whispered. Then she burst into tears.

  It was absurd. She hadn’t cried when her house had been coming down on top of her, and she hadn’t cried when she had thought the banyan tree and the storm were going to unite to kill her. She hadn’t cried when she had seen the damage to her home or when she had tried to tell herself just how very lucky she had been.

  And now, ridiculously, she was in tears. She was worn out. The traffic had done what the storm hadn’t.

  “Katie, Katie!”

  She was suddenly in his arms. He was smoothing her wet hair, kissing her forehead, brushing her lips. “It’s all right.”

  “It’s not all right, I shouldn’t be doing this!” she choked out between sobs.

  “Everyone is doing it, why not you?” he asked. “And it’s all right, it’s all right. It’s really going to be all right.”

  She found herself in his arms as he lifted her up. He slammed the faucet to turn off the water and carried her out of the shower.

  “We’re soaking your house,” she told him.

  He shrugged.

  “Drew, I’m all wet.”

  “I’ll dry you.”

  But he carried her straight to the bed, lying down with her. He stayed at her side, stroking her hair, whispering that it was going to be all right. She believed him. She started to apologize.

  “I don’t know what—what got into me. I don’t act like that. I—”

  “Katie, my secretary, Jeannie, is the most capable human being I’ve ever met. Some little thing upset her the other day, and she was in torrents. People here have been through a trauma. There will be many crying jags before it’s all over. We’re human.”

  She smiled suddenly. “And have you burst into tears?”

  “Well, not yet. Not over this, but…”

  “Men don’t cry.”

  “They sure do. I shed buckets when my dad died.”

  She turned to look at him more closely. She was suddenly very afraid. She was falling in love with him.

  “Feel better?” he asked her softly.

  “Ah … yes.”

  “I can make you feel even better,” he promised. His voice was low and husky. Sensual, insinuative. And still…

  She was amazed at what it seemed to do to her. Fire leaped into her. Longing swept her every limb.

  Perhaps it wasn’t amazing. They were both naked on a bed, slick, clean, wet…

  “No,” she told him. “I’m going to make you feel better,” she promised softly.

  He started to speak, but she rose to her knees, pushing him back when he started to rise on his elbows. She brought her lips to his, kissing him softly. He tried to capture her nape, hold her to the kiss, but she moved too swiftly. She dusted her fingers over his chest, following her touch with the brush of her lips and tongue. Now she moved slowly, very slowly, sensually stroking his body with hers as she
moved against him. She felt the sweet fire fill her with a greater force as his flesh seemed to burn beneath her, as his muscles constricted and rippled at her slightest caress. Her hands stroked over his hips, closed over his sex. A low groan escaped him, and she buried her face against the flat plane of his belly. A shudder gripped him and she found herself encased in his arms again, lifted high, brought atop him. He slowly brought her down, meeting her eyes with golden fire in his as her body sank to be impaled by his. Tiny convulsions gripped her as he seemed to fill her. She cried out, leaning against him, her neck gripped and his lips passionately locked with hers as his hips began to rock, as his hands slid over her buttocks, molding them together.

  Moments later, she felt the earth shake, the sky explode, then she felt his arms tenderly around her as she seemed to float to some place on earth. Her eyes were closed, and she felt completely sated, almost like a very well fed cat. The tensions had eased from her; the breeze coming in felt gentle and caressing. She realized she was exhausted.

  “I guess we should get up,” she murmured, easing against him. “Sophie is planning her party. Jordan—”

  “Jordan is helping Len crack the tails—I was just over there. He isn’t coming back to the house for awhile,” Drew assured her.

  Jordan was fine. No one was waiting for her. She relaxed completely.

  Drew was still for a few minutes. He was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, his head on the pillow.

  “Katie, I need to talk to you about the storm,” he began.

  She groaned. “No.”

  “Katie—”

  “Please,” she whispered. “Not now, please, just let me forget it for a few minutes.”

  He was silent. She curled closer to him. She didn’t want to think about the rest of the world. Not for awhile. This was too wonderful—making love with someone she was wildly attracted to, someone she cared about…

  Someone she was falling in love with.

  She didn’t want to think about the danger of it. Not now. She wanted to lie in comfort beside him, feeling cared for, feeling cherished. Very relaxed, sweetly sleepy.