I wanted to rattle her.
“So.” Her chin came up, that particular Charlie reflex. “Are you ready to fulfill your side of the bet? Come to fix my bar like a good boy?”
I smiled. Slow and deliberate. I had never smiled at her before. “Areyouready to fulfill yours?”
She hesitated for just a moment. Just long enough for me to know I’d gotten to her. “Not yet.”
“Not yet,” I repeated, tucking a loose strand behind her ear and letting my fingers trail along her jaw. I needed to touch her.
She cleared her throat. “There’s a lot to do.”
I nodded. “I expected there would be.”
The taproom had been a Lone Mountain institution since before I could legally drink. Everyone knew Charlie’s uncle hadn’t left her an inheritance, more like an albatross around her neck. And women like Charlie Jones didn’t wait for someone else to manage their problems. They handled the damn things themselves.
Which could be an issue. Her accepting help from me. My overprotectiveness. Hell, the way I wanted to possess her. I leaned against the bar, adjusting the fit of my jeans.
“First there’s the leak,” she said.
She pointed at the water stain over the pool table area, and it was worse than I’d realized. Of course, I hadn’t been paying attention to it yesterday. All my attention had been on her ass as she’d leaned over the table. How I’d wanted to cover her with my body, audience be damned.
“It’s been getting worse,” she said. “I think there’s a pipe problem in the bathroom upstairs.”
“I’ll need to check the plumbing. Could be simple, could be more complicated.”
“How complicated?”
I looked at her. At the worry she was trying to keep out of her voice. “Hard to say until I get up there.”
She blew out a breath and leaned her elbows on the bar. I watched her shoulders straighten to carry the weight of the list she was about to recite. “The upstairs faucet drips constantly,the back door doesn’t lock properly, three ceiling fans don’t work, and I’m pretty sure there’s a family of mice in the storage room.” She paused. “The heat doesn’t work upstairs either, which is going to matter at some point. The jukebox eats quarters. And the lights flicker.”
Every instinct I had was urging me to fix it all. Call in my brothers and redo the whole damn place. But I couldn’t—she’d show me the door with a swift kick to my ass if I tried. That didn’t stop me from wanting to.
“So you think you’re up to it, McAllister?” An adorable pink blush spread across her cheeks when she realized what she had said.
“More than you know.” I let a slow grin spread across my face. “I have everything I need to get the job done.”
She rolled her eyes and headed for the stairs in back. “This way, hot-shot.”
Her apartment was small and warm and completely her.
Books everywhere — worn paperbacks on the kitchen counter, stacked along the windowsill, two on the bathroom floor. A blue quilt on the bed I caught a glimpse of through the open door.
I found the problem in the bathroom fast — a slow leak at the toilet hookup, trickling down inside the wall. Sneaky bastard. It was the kind of thing that got worse for months before it announced itself.
“Wrench,” I said, crouching beside the toilet.
She crouched beside me to get it from the toolbox, her hip brushing my shoulder, her voice right at my ear. “This one?”
“That’s the one.” My fingers grazed hers when I took it.
She didn’t move away. Stayed right there, watching over my shoulder while I worked. I didn’t crave the presence of anyone anymore, but with her it was different. She wasn’t chattering, wasn’t filling the silence to manage her nerves. Just— present. Paying attention. The kind of woman who watched how something got done so she could do it herself next time.
I was already planning to make sure she never had to.
“Where’d you learn to do this?” she asked. “I thought McAllisters were lumberjacks.”
“No, we’re jacks of all trades.”
