LITMIR.BIZ

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enough to pay off a bet. Then he’d be gone.

      “Okay,” Joe was saying, “you guys move Katie’s stove where she wants it, then Rafe can get her set up while the demolition’s going on.”

      Nothing Rafe would like better than to set her up—for some one-on-one time. Instead though, he followed Steve and Arturo around to the back of the house.

      The noise was incredible.

      After an hour, Katie’s head was pounding in time with the sledge hammers being swung in her grandmother’s kitchen.

      It was weird, having strangers in the house. Even weirder paying them to destroy the kitchen she’d pretty much grown up in. But it would all be worth it, she knew. She just hoped she could live through the construction.

      Not to mention crabby carpenters.

      Desperate to get a little distance between herself and the constant battering of noise, she walked to the enclosed patio. Snugged between the garage and the house, the room was long and narrow. There were a few chairs, a picnic table that Katie had already covered with a vinyl tablecloth and stacks of cookie sheets waiting to be filled. Her mixing bowls were on a nearby counter and her temporary pantry was a card table. This was going to be a challenge for sure. But there was the added plus of having a gorgeous man stretched out behind the stove grumbling under his breath.

      “How’s it going?” she asked.

      The man jerked up, slammed his head into the corner of the stove and muttered an oath that Katie was glad she hadn’t been able to hear. Flashing her a dark look out of beautiful blue eyes, he said, “It’s going as well as hooking up an ancient stove to a gas pipe can go.”

      “It’s old, but it’s reliable,” Katie told him. “Of course, I’ve got a new one on order.”

      “Can’t say as I blame you,” Rafe answered, dipping back behind the stove again. “This thing’s gotta be thirty years old.”

      “At least,” she said, dropping into a nearby chair. “My grandmother bought it new before I was born and I’m twenty-seven.”

      He glanced up at her and shook his head.

      Her breath caught in her chest. Really, he was not what she had expected. Someone as gorgeous as he was should have been on the cover of GQ, not working a construction site. But he seemed to know what he was doing and she had to admit that just looking at him gave her the kind of rush she hadn’t felt in way too long.

      And that kind of thinking was just dangerous, so she steered the conversation to something light.

      “Just because something’s old doesn’t mean it’s useless.” She grinned. “That stove might be temperamental, but I know all of its tricks. It cooks a little hot, but I’ve learned to work around it.”

      “And yet,” he pointed out with a half smile, “you’ve got a new stove coming.”

      She shrugged and her smile faded a little into something that felt like regret. “New kitchen, new stove. But I think I’ll miss this one’s occasional hiccups. Makes baking more interesting.”

      “Right.” He looked as if he didn’t believe her and couldn’t have cared less. “You’re really going to be cooking out here?”

      The sounds of cheerful demolition rang out around them and Katie heard the two guys in the kitchen laughing about something. She wondered for a second or two what could possibly be funny about tearing out a fifty-year-old kitchen, then told herself it was probably better if she didn’t know.

      Instead, she glanced around at the patio/makeshift kitchen setup. Windows ringed the room, terra-cotta-colored tiles made up the floor and there was a small wetbar area in the corner that Katie would be using as a cleanup area. She sighed a little, already missing the farmhouse-style kitchen that was, at the moment, being taken down to its skeleton.

      But when it was finished, she’d have the kitchen of her dreams. She smiled to herself, enjoying the mental images.

      “Something funny?”

      “What?” She looked at the man still sprawled on the tile floor. “No. Just thinking about how the kitchen will be when you guys are done.”

      “Not worried about the mess and the work?”

      “Nope,” she said and pushed out of the chair. She walked toward him, leaned on the stove top and looked over the back at him. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not looking forward to it and the thought of baking out here is a little high on the ye gods scale. Still, the mess can’t be avoided,” she said. “As for the work that will be done, I did my research. Checked into all the different construction companies and got three estimates.”

      “So, why’d you choose King Construction?” he asked, dragging what looked like a silver snake from the back of the stove to a pipe jutting out from the garage wall.

      “It wasn’t easy,” she murmured, remembering things she would just as soon put behind her permanently.

      “Why’s that?” He sounded almost offended. “King Construction has a great reputation.”

      Katie smiled and said, “It’s nice that you’re so protective of the company you work for.”

      “Yeah, well. The Kings have been good to me.” He scowled a bit and refocused on the task at hand. “So if you don’t like King Construction, what’re we doing here?”

      Sighing a little, Katie told herself she really had to be more discreet. She hadn’t meant to say anything at all about the King family. After all, Rafe and the other guys worked for them. But now that she had, she wasn’t going to try to lie or squirm her way out of it, either. “I’m sure the construction company is excellent. All of the referrals I checked out were more than pleased with the work done.”

      “But …?” He patted the wall, stood up and looked at her, waiting for her to finish.

      Katie straightened up as he did and noticed that though she was five foot nine, he had at least four inches on her. He also had the palest blue eyes she had ever seen, fringed by thick eyelashes that most women would kill for. His black eyebrows looked as though they were always drawn into a frown. His mouth was full and tempting and his jaws were covered with just the slightest hint of black stubble. His shoulders were broad, his waist narrow and those jeans of his really did look amazingly good on him. A fresh tingle of interest swept through her almost before she realized it.

      It was nice to feel something for an ordinary, everyday, hard-working guy. She’d had enough of rich men with more money than sense or manners.

      He was still waiting, so she gave him a bright smile and said, “Let’s just say it’s a personal matter between me and one member of the King family.”

      If anything, the perpetual scowl on his face deepened. “What do you mean?”

      “It’s not important.” She shook her head and laughed. “Honestly, I’m sorry I said anything. I only meant that it was hard for me to hire King Construction, knowing what I do about the King family men.”

      “Really.” He folded his arms over his chest and asked, “What exactly do you think you know about the Kings?”

      His gaze was narrowed and fixed on her. She felt the power of that glare right down to her bones and even Katie was surprised at the tingle of something tempting washing through her. Suddenly nervous, she glanced over the back of the stove to look at the pipes as if she knew what she was seeing. Still, it gave her a second to gather her thoughts. When she felt steady again, she said, “You mean beside the fact that they’re too rich and too snobby?”

       “Snobby?”

      “Yes.” Katie huffed out a breath and said, “Look I know you work for them and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. I only know that I never want anything to do with any of them again.”

      “Sounds

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