LITMIR.BIZ

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for a job. On those occasions when she landed a remodeling assignment that required more than just one person, she hired him on to help and, for the most part, things worked out. But the rest of the time, he seemed content to be “looking for himself” and doing absolutely nothing. Well, it couldn’t continue.

      Getting up, she crossed to him and lowered her face so that it was level to his. “You like to eat, don’t you? Have a roof over your head? Shower daily? News flash, big brother. The best things in life aren’t free.”

      He ignored the fact that she was now in his face. “When did you get so mercenary?”

      “When you abdicated the position of adult and became my other child,” she retorted. If anything, she thought of him as being younger than Kelli.

      “Ouch.” Gordon cringed dramatically, as if ducking a blow. “Just because you’re not working, don’t take it out on me.”

      “I’m not taking it out on you,” she countered, her patience dangerously low. “I just want you to pull your load. I just—” Exasperated, she waved her hand at him. “Oh, never mind.”

      “Okay then—” he settled back against the pillow, stretching his legs out before him “—maybe if I try hard, I can get back to the dream you so rudely terminated for me.”

      The temptation to smother him with his pillow was tremendous. She struggled to calm herself down. Janice knew her brother didn’t mean anything by this and he really was having a rough time of it. Gordon seemed to fail at everything he tried, but she was bound and determined to keep him from sliding into some sort of black hole and dwelling there for the remainder of his life. He needed to stand up on his own two feet—the very minute he took them out of a certain part of his posterior.

      And she supposed he was right in his own strange way. She was taking out her frustration over her forced inactivity on him. She had a perfectly good job lined up with some very nice additions, but she was stuck in first gear until Zabelle called her.

      Or she found out what the holdup was.

      The best way to do that was to beard the lion in his den. And she knew where the lion lived.

      Janice abruptly made her way over to her daughter. “Sweetie,” she called out. After taking another stroke the little girl stopped and glanced up at her. “I’ve got to go out for a while. Keep an eye on your Uncle Gordon for me, okay?”

      Her request was met with a sunny smile. “You can count on me, Mama.”

      “I know.” She kissed the top of Kelli’s head. “More than on him,” Janice added under her breath as she left the room.

      She briefly thought about changing, but then decided that there was no point. This was the way she looked when she was working and, besides, she wasn’t trying to impress Zabelle with her looks, just with her talent and her ability to get the job done in record time. Which she couldn’t do if she didn’t get started, she thought angrily.

      This was why contractors took on more than one job at a time, she decided, getting behind the wheel of her 4x4. So that they wouldn’t have to waste precious days with any downtime, some contractors would sign on for two, three jobs concurrently. But that had never been the way she operated. She believed in giving each job her complete, undivided attention from start to finish, finishing it and then moving on, not playing musical houses and going from one job to another as if they were all part of some kind of life-size round-robin.

      She’d developed all the skills needed for this kind of work—all except for the tough hide. Ignoring the needs and requirements of others to satisfy her own just wasn’t her style.

      Janice knew, for instance, that she should be harder on Gordon, that maybe what he needed was a swift kick in the seat to get him moving and to make him repentant for losing the company, but she couldn’t get herself to do it. Besides, she didn’t see how making him feel guilty about losing the company would help since it would all be after the fact and it wouldn’t accomplish anything. It certainly wouldn’t get the company back.

      It had taken her a while to come to grips with the loss. But, as always, she’d rallied and told herself that the company was not something that the bank held a deed to, the company was her—and Gordon when she could light a fire under him and get him to help.

      At the time of her father’s death, the company had included eight other men, men who had since gone on to work for other contractors, or left the area or even the business. But they were just the craftsmen. She was the heart of it, she was the blood that pumped through its veins.

      And she wasn’t going anywhere.

      “You’re not kidding,” she murmured to herself as the irony of the phrase hit her. She turned her truck down Zabelle’s street. She’d never get anywhere if jobs kept drying up on her.

      Well, she wasn’t about to let this one dry up, at least not without knowing the reason why. He owed her that much.

      The house where Philippe Zabelle resided was located on a through street. It was part of a community of townhomes made to resemble well-spaced single dwellings that had lawns like lush green carpets. Bedford was considered to be one of the more upscale cities within Southern California. None of the neighborhoods were allowed to run down. Everything looked new or at least lovingly cared for. There was an abundance of pride within the city that kept its homes neat and looking their best.

      Parking her car by the curb, Janice marched up the dozen or so white cement stairs that led up to the front door and knocked. First once, then twice and then a third time.

      Nothing.

      Maybe she should have called first, she thought. But if she had called and Zabelle had told her not to come, she would have lost the advantage of talking to him face to face. She always did better in person than over the phone.

      Janice raised her hand to knock one more time.

      “Looking for Philippe?”

      Startled, her hand still raised, she swung around and found a tall, good-looking, dark-haired man with an easy smile and kind eyes standing to her left. She hadn’t even heard him approach. Belatedly, she dropped her hand, realizing that, had he been standing any closer to her, she would have wound up punching him.

      “Yes,” she said when she regained possession of her voice. “I guess he’s not home.”

      “Oh, he’s in there,” the man assured her. “He just tends to slip into another world when he’s working. Doesn’t see or hear anything else but what’s on the screen in front of him.”

      “Dedicated,” she commented.

      The man smiled, amused. “One way of looking at it.” Taking out a key, he unlocked the front door, pushed it open, then stood back. “Go ahead,” he urged, gesturing toward the inside of the house.

      She hung back. “I don’t know if I should just walk in.”

      “I do it all the time.” A grin flashed as he pocketed the key and he extended his hand to her. “Hi, I’m Georges. Philippe’s brother,” he added.

      “Oh.” Realizing that she was standing there like a bump on a log, Janice slipped her hand into his and shook it.

      Georges’s dark blue eyes were bright with curiosity as they swept over her. There was something unobtrusive about the way he did it. She took no offense. “And you are?”

      “J. D. Wyatt,” she told him, then added, “I’m supposed to do some work on your brother’s house.”

      Recognition entered his eyes. “Oh, right, you’re the one Vincent mentioned.” And then, as his own words registered, he seemed to do a mental double take. “You’re J.D.?”

      She smiled, removing her hand from his. This was the reaction she was accustomed to. “Not exactly what you expected, right?”

      Rather than look embarrassed, he grinned. The man was charming,

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