I knocked again.
No answer.
Now worry started nagging at me. Was she as unpredictable as the rest of her family had been?
“Mads?” I called and pounded on the door. “Madison!”
“Holy shit, Teller.” Her voice came through the metal door. A bolt flipped on the other side. Her normally braided hair was pulled back in a low ponytail. She was smoothing strands back and blinking at me. “You’re going to wake the neighborhood.”
“It’s four.”
She rubbed her eyes. “I thought you said after work.”
I studied her. She wore cloth shorts, and goddamn. She had long, tanned legs that looked even better bare than when they were in jeans. Her T-shirt was baggy, pooling around hips that would be perfect to hold on to while driving in?—
Lust punched low and hard, but I shook it off. It had just been a while for me. That was all. “Did you just wake up?”
She wrinkled her nose and looked away. “No.”
“Do you sleep here?”
“No.” She crossed her arms, and fuuuck. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Her nipples poked at the fabric, begging to be caressed—by my fingers or tongue.
I lifted my gaze to the sky before I could sport a public erection. “It’s fine if you do. I’m sure it’s better than the drive to your family ranch.”
She didn’t respond. I dropped my attention to her. Her brow was creased and she was shifting from foot to foot.
“Don’t you live there?” I asked.
“It’s none of your business.” She straightened to her full height, and goddamn, I liked it. I liked not having to crank my chin down when I talked to her. I didn’t feel like I could break her.
“Mads, it seems a lot of your business is overlapping with mine.”
Her jaw remained set.
“Gonna tell me what you paid for me to do?”
“Yeah.” She spun around and strode down the hall, her flip-flops slapping against the floor.
I stepped in and let the door shut behind me while admiring the long-legged sight in front of me.
“You can leave the office alone,” she said as she went and I followed. “The bathrooms need work, but I want the main area repaired before I budget for the bathrooms.”
She pivoted again and I had to stop before I stepped on her feet. I nearly swallowed my tongue. Her toes were painted the daintiest shade of pink. Tough-as-steel Madison Townsend had pink toenails. I’d noticed how beautiful she was—who wouldn’t? But this little tidbit wiggled through my blood, heating as it went.
“That will be your job,” she said, ripping my attention off how much I wanted to see what other surprises she had. More things that weren’t my business. “To oversee the bathroom repairs. Unless you’re a plumber in addition to a rancher and a distiller.”
“Master distiller, and I can do rudimentary plumbing, but anything major in this old building should have an expert or be looked at by one first. Who do you want to use?”
“You choose. No one will screw you over.” She turned again and continued to the pool table area. “Consider yourself a contractor and a project manager.” She propped her hands on her hips. “Make this look like a bar again.”
I studied the space. No more splintered wood shards littered the floor. The cords hanging from the high ceilings had no light fixtures at the end, but she’d cleaned all the glass debris too. The mirror behind the bar was gone. The cabinets and busted shelving needed to be removed. So did the bar and countertop.
It was a lot of work, but she’d done the brunt of it. Cleaning up destruction was never fun. “I know it’s none of my business, but what made Scooter trash his own place?”
She sighed and I expected anotherit’s not your business. “I don’t know. I’m just glad he wasn’t drinking.”
“Why’d you clean all this? You had to know fifty grand made my labor guaranteed.”
