“He misses you. Are you finished over at Johnson’s yet?”
“Yes. We’re over at the diner. We ended up calling for help and now we’re feeding them.”
Jack’s chuckle soothed the raw edges she hadn’t realized she had. Must be from lack of sleep. “Dan?”
“Yeah,” she said. “And he brought Charlie and Tommy with him.”
“A good crew and a good day’s work from the sounds of things.”
“It was, but I’m beat and in desperate need of a hot shower.”
“Oh.” His voice went quiet before he asked, “So can you still come over tonight?”
Her heart began to pound as the blood rushed through her veins. “Do you want company?”
“I want you, Cait,” he told her. “Come as you are, and I’ll scrub your back in the shower.”
Her salivary glands were working overtime at the thought. She swallowed and said, “I was just having a cup of coffee. I can’t leave the guys yet.”
“I can wait.” The depth of his voice did things to her insides that were probably illegal in most states.
“I could leave money with my dad—” she began.
“No,” he said. “Stay with the guys, have a bite to eat. Jamie and I will be here when you’re through.”
“See you in a bit,” she promised.
Chapter 10
Jack took Jamie outside, but neither one really wanted to be standing out in the middle of the downpour. “There’s times when it must suck to be a dog.”
The way Jamie looked over his shoulder at Jack as he did his doggy business had him turning his back so the puppy could have some privacy. “Finished?”
Jamie ran past him into the house and skidded to a stop at the barricade in the kitchen doorway. The length of plywood was as effective as a door and hard for the dog to sink his teeth into if the scratch marks on the side that faced the kitchen were any indication.
“You’re going to get dried off before I let you in the rest of the house, pal.”
The dog sat by the wood and waited, and Jack wondered what was going through his mind. Did dogs have similar thoughts to people? They both had a thing for Caitlin… “Define thing,” he said aloud.
The dog yipped and Jack laughed. “Yeah. That’s what I thought.”
After he’d dried off the dog and mopped up the mud on the floor, he moved the plywood and Jamie bounded into the living room and onto the sofa.
An hour later, Jack finally heard a knock and then the back door open.
“Anyone home?”
“It’s Cait,” he whispered to Jamie.
The dog may not have responded when Jack was telling him to sit and to stay, but he sure knew who Cait was. The dog knocked into Jack, pushing him onto the sofa as he raced into the kitchen with four-paw drive.
“Hey there, you little cutie,” he heard her say.
“Lucky little bastard,” Jack grumbled as he stood up, wishing he hadn’t had such a long day. His leg ached and he was tired. Walking into the kitchen, all thoughts of rest fled as his eyes beheld the sight of the beautiful, drenched woman laughing at the dog’s antics.
Jamie was trying to jump into her arms and she was trying to avoid letting him do so. She looked up and noticed Jack. “Hey, handsome.”
Her smile eased the tension that had been building when the rain started. He didn’t mind rain so much; it was the threat of a thunderstorm that had him on edge. The sound of thunder—not gonna go there…
“Hey, yourself.” Grabbing a dry towel off the pile of laundry he’d been folding on the kitchen table, he was about to toss it to her when he remembered she wasn’t one of the guys—that and the dog would probably try to tackle her for it.
“Thanks. It’s really coming down out there.”
“How’d it go over at Johnson’s?”
She smiled and said, “Framed, sheathed, and the roof on before the storm hit.”
Her gaze met his and something warm and welcoming moved through the depths of her green eyes as she stood just inside his back door, dripping onto the ancient linoleum he hadn’t had the time to replace.
His brain registered that he’d answered her, but his heart was still recovering from the blow he took when her gaze met his. Searching for something to say, when all he wanted to do was grab a hold of her and drink the rainwater off her skin, he finally managed, “Good.”
“Uh-huh,” she agreed. “Dad and I were worried that if the wind blew as hard as predicted, a tarp wouldn’t last long or protect the roof. We had to close it up.”
How could she still talk when his brain had short-circuited taking in the long length of her legs?