Burn in Hail(8)

Baylor's lips twitched. "I thought you could use some eye candy while you fixed this place up."

He didn't tell me how he knew whose house it was, but it was Baylor. He  had his ways, and I never questioned him because he wouldn't tell me  anyway.

I flipped him off, and started to turn around to head inside, when the front door of the house I'd been studying opened.

Then she was there, in a pair of sweatpants, an old t-shirt that looked  to be from high school with her ‘Pirate Volleyball' on it, and tube  socks that were slouched down around her ankles.

It was the least sexy thing any woman could wear, but on her? She totally fucking rocked it.

"Goddamn," I muttered.

Baylor started to laugh, and I tossed him a glare. "Fuck you."

"You've always had the hots for her, TC."

I rolled my eyes at Baylor's old nickname for me.

I didn't know why, but during school, everyone always called me by my  full name-Tate Casey. They never, ever shortened it, or only used Tate.  Everyone but Baylor, that was. He shortened it to TC, and I'd let him.

Now, I wasn't sure why I allowed him to do half the things he did.

But whatever.

I walked through the house with an experienced eye, calculating what I  would need to do to make this place livable for the time being.

The summer of my junior year, and the entire year of my senior, I'd  worked for a construction business fixing up houses almost exactly like  this one. In that year and a half, I'd learned a lot, and had continued  to do it on my own when I was on leave from the military.

Then, when I'd gotten out of the Marines, and started working with  Travis at Hail Auto Recovery, I'd done it on my days off. At first, it'd  started out as a hobby, but then had turned into a side business as I  started flipping houses on my own.

So no, this wouldn't be my first rodeo.

But it would be my toughest.

"This is going to be a disaster," I said. "But the inside structure is  solid," I pointed to the studs I'd exposed when I'd ripped a piece of  paneling off. "The support structure is good, too. The only thing I'm  worried about at this point is the roof, but I can have that knocked out  by Wednesday next week if I can get a dumpster out here by Monday."

"I'm sure you can make it happen, buddy," Baylor agreed from the other room. "Do you want me to get rid of this?"

I looked at him.

In his hands was a snake, about four feet in length. It was harmless, a  rat snake, but where a rat snake was, usually indicated there were rats.

"Fuck," I grumbled. "Yeah, go ahead and throw him outside. We'll see if we can plug whatever hole he came through."

Baylor started to laugh.

I sighed and growled under my breath.

"I'm going to have to pull the RV over here and live out of it. There's no way in hell this is livable until then."

"Has running water, at least."

I looked at where Baylor turned the water on, and winced.

"Doesn't have any plumbing, though." I pointed out when water started to leak out of the drain pipe underneath the sink.

"Oops," Baylor burst out a laugh.

I ignored the water and continued the inspection.

Then I drafted Baylor's help in getting the RV out to the house and set up.

Lucky for me, Baylor was a licensed electrician in his spare time,  because by the end of the night, I had power to the RV, as well as a few  plugs in the house we were able to wire in about four hours' time.

And not once did I think about my new neighbor.

Also, I was a liar.





Chapter 8


That face you make when you go back and read the texts you sent in a fit of anger.

-Text from Hennessy to Krisney

Hennessy

I laid in my bed, looking at the ceiling, for well over an hour before I'd finally had enough.

This shit had to stop.

Tomorrow was a Friday, sure, but I still had to be up at the crack of  dawn. A patient could only see me on Friday mornings before work, which  meant I had to get up at six, to get to the office at seven, to see him  by seven fifteen.

Getting up early was not conducive with getting no sleep.

Which was why, as I threw the covers off of me, and stood up, I decided  that this loud music couldn't go on. Not to mention the occasional whine  of a saw, or the tap-tap of a hammer.

I couldn't do it anymore.

I was on the block with one other house, and that house had been rocking  since the new occupants had moved into it three days ago.

At first, I understood the noise. The house itself needed a lot of freakin' work.

But that work didn't need to be going on at twelve o'clock at night.         

     



 

Reaching down onto the floor for my sweatpants, I pulled them on, then  walked in my slouchy socks that I'd stolen from Krisney, who'd stolen  them from Reed Hail when we were in high school, out the door of my  house.

I made it down the steps, and to the front walk, when I realized that I'd forgotten shoes.

But I didn't care.

I was too mad at this point to care if I had shoes or not.

I was a determined woman, and this shit was about. To go. Down.

The closer I got to the sound of the saws and the music, the more I realized that maybe I wasn't as brave as I thought.

What if this man was a killer? What if he was a woman hater … what if he …

"What are you doing here at twelve in the morning?"

I looked up to find the last man I ever thought I'd see steps away from  the stupid saw that was making so much noise in the middle of the night.

My neighborhood was very quiet at night … usually.

It was the road that led to downtown, and since downtown was closed  after about eight in the evening, most of the time I barely heard  anything.

There were two houses on the entire road, mine, and the one that the man was standing in the doorway of.

"I'm here," I said, licking my suddenly dry lips, "because I have to be  up at the butt crack of dawn, and you're over here making a lot of  noise … though I didn't know it was you who was making the noise."

Tate's lips twitched, and he held open the door.

"What's too loud, my music?"

I followed him when he disappeared inside, and stayed on his heels the  entire way, even though I wanted nothing more than to inspect every inch  of the home I found myself now standing in.

"Your music, and whatever saw thing you keep using that makes a loud  ‘zinging' noise each time you use it," I explained loudly so I could be  heard over the roar of the radio.

He was in the process of turning down the music, so the last two words of my sentence were very loud in the sudden silence.

He grinned and I blushed, immediately turning away so my eyes didn't take him in.

It was a useless endeavor, though.

Every single solid inch of the man was burned into my brain.

Tonight, he was wearing a pair of jeans, brown work boots, and that was it.

He was dripping sweat, and I wanted nothing more but to lick one of the droplets off with my mouth.

I refrained, however, but only just barely.

"Sorry," he said. "I didn't realize it was loud enough for you to hear it."

I immediately went into ‘it's okay' mode.

"It's okay," I lied, dancing from one foot to the other. "Well, see ya."

And that was how I started walking out the door, and ended up hitting my head on something I never saw coming.

Come to find out, it was a ladder.



"Hey, girl."

I blinked open an eye and stared up into a man's beautiful eyes, wondering if I'd died and gone to Heaven.

"I like your beard," I told him. "It's nice."

I brought my hand up to run over said beard, and liked how soft it was.  You wouldn't think it was soft, though. Not with the way the rest of him  was so hard, but it was.

"Thanks," he grinned. "How's your head feeling?"

I blinked, then thought about that question for a little bit.

"The top of it feels like I shaved it with a cheese grater," I told him.

"Why would you know what it feels like to be shaved with a cheese grater?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

The movement made his Adam's apple bob, and I wondered if it'd be weird to suck it.

Probably.

"Why are you looking at my neck like that?" he asked.

I blushed and returned my eyes to his. Which was the wrong move.

The man was laughing at me, and that made my back straighten as my cranky bitch came out to play.

I was not a nice person when I didn't get enough sleep. Never had been.

Even to Krisney.

She'd made the mistake of waking me from a nap one time, and one time  only, and we were lucky to still be friends seeing as I threw an entire  can of Dr. Pepper at her that I'd been drinking before I'd nodded off.  This had been during college where we'd shared a dorm room, and she'd  not come home for two days in fear that I'd retaliate in some way.

I'd, of course, felt freakin' horrible.

"Nothing," I lied. "And the cheese grater?" I winced. "When I was in  college, I was dancing drunk on a table with a chandelier made of metal  stuff. Part of it had holes in it that gave this decorative effect on  the floor beneath it. When I was dancing, I thought it'd be a wonderful  thing to start jumping … you can see where this is going."