“What is that?”
She picked up a high-powered drill. “It means that I can multitask.”
“ He must still have a hangover because he didn’t crow when I peeked under the towel this morning. I will let him out of his jail cell this evening. He is eating and drinking water, so I think he will live,” Knox answered.
“Then I will use the earplugs tonight.”
Knox followed behind her with the heavy bolts needed to hold the plates down so that the walls could be firmly attached to them. Lottie’s father had been right that framing out a house was a lot like building a family. Love made the foundation firm. Sill plates were like the commitment that everything was attached to. When the house was in the dry, it became a private place of safety and peace.
Did that mean he was in love with Lottie? He liked her enough that it could possibly grow into love, just like the walls he was working on right then. She could become his soulmate, but he was in no hurry to rush the idea.
* * *
Lottie took Knox by the hand, led him to her bedroom, and closed the sliding door. “If you are right about all the hours we’ve spent together, we are long past due for a night together—even if we are dog tired.”
“Yes,” Knox whispered softly in her ear.
Desire swept through her body like a Texas wildfire when he gently pushed back her blond hair with his fingertips. She’d had an attraction to men before, but nothing like this. She wanted things to go slowly, to enjoy every single minute of this first experience with him, and at the same time, she desperately needed to feel his whole body next to hers. She slipped his shirt over his head, and he did the same with hers.
His lips found hers as their bodies pressed together. Heat had flowed between them before, but when her bare skintouched his, there was no comparison to the former chemistry. Even her toes tingled when he slipped his tongue into her mouth.
He unfastened her bra with one hand and caressed her back. She was already panting when he slipped the straps down from her shoulders, and sheer passion like she had never felt before engulfed her whole body.
Just as he started easing her sweatpants down, all hell broke loose. Sirens blasted and startled her so badly that she had redone her bra and pulled on her shirt before she even realized what she was doing.
“Trespassers,” he gasped about the same time that lights lit up the area.
“Damn it!” Lottie swore and headed toward the door, tripped over Prissy, who was making a mad dash to hide under the bed, and started to fall. Knox caught her before she hit the floor, and they both fell backward back onto the bed.
“If a bunch of”—she panted—“drunk teenagers…” She sat up and tried to stand but got tangled up on Knox’s shirt she had tossed on the floor and fell back onto the bed again.
He caught her a second time and held her tightly. “I have to go to my trailer to turn off the alarm, but I’ll check everything out and come right back.”
“I’ll go with you,” she said. “But this is not our night, is it?”
He picked up his shirt from the floor and jerked it down over his head. “Probably not, but it’s also not our only night.”
“If we have vandals, you better hold the gun tonight andlet me do the video business,” she grumbled as she followed him.
“And if it’s one of our own?” he asked as he jogged toward his trailer.
“Then God help them,” Lottie answered.
She followed him all the way to his trailer, but waited outside, keeping her eyes peeled for intruders. Cheeto had been released from the cat carrier as soon as he appeared to have recovered from his hangover, and he sat on the top of Knox’s truck, his little head thrown back and looking like he was squawking, but Lottie couldn’t hear it over the shrill noise of the siren.
“It’s okay, boy,” she assured him. “When I find who did this, they are going to be in big trouble.”
The ringing in her ears slowly eased when the noise died down and the lights went off. Cheeto gave the all-clear warning and then hopped down to the bed of the truck. Bally ran out the open front door, and Lottie scooped the kitten up in her arms.
“We’ve both had a very bad night, haven’t we, little girl?” she crooned. “But it’s over now, and someone is going to pay if one of our own caused all this.”
Bally buried her nose in the crook of Lottie’s arm and purred.
“Is this an omen that things are moving too fast?” she whispered.
“What the hell was that?” Thomas yelled from down the row of trailers.
Soon all the guys were standing around her and Knox in a huddle.
