Chapter 2
TWO
Jake circled the block for the third time before parking his car. The neighborhood was filled with people enjoying the day, many gardening or riding bikes on the warm summer afternoon. He glanced at the address contained within a text message, and a sigh escaped from his lips. He compared the address once again to the one on the mailbox, 642 Cobblestone Lane. He had the right address.
Once out of the car, he quickly scanned the area for any sign of the home’s owner. He ran a swift hand through his hair and walked toward a set of wooden porch stairs. He’d lost his mind. He must have, or why else would he be doing something so reckless when he was well aware of the complications that would result because of it? He took several more steps, ignored the inner battle going on inside of him, and rapidly approached the screened door.
He surveyed his surroundings with hooded eyes. Flowerpots filled with California poppies sat on the porch, while bougainvillea hung from the roof’s overhang. A pair of white wrought iron rocking chairs, adorned with brightly colored cushions, sat invitingly on the porch. The home was well taken care of by its owner. The two-story bungalow, with its peach and white stucco facade, promised peace and serenity. It was everything he was looking for and hadn’t been able to find over the past week.
It had been only a few hours, although he had continued to look at places for several days, when he had grown tired of visiting the ultra-modern apartments he had found in his search on Airbnb. Many of the apartments, though tastefully decorated, gave off a sterile vibe. He would never be comfortable enough to relax, as he hoped to do during his time off. Worrying over something that spilled on the marble floor was not his idea of relaxation.
Besides, he openly admitted to himself for the first time in years, he was lonely. He longed for companionship, someone to share an occasional meal with or to watch a late-night movie. A roommate, if even for only a few weeks, would be a welcome change in his otherwise solitary life. Standing at the screen door, he reminded himself that a roommate, particularly this roommate, was strictly limited to a friends’ only relationship. He needed no repeats of his life’s past failures.
His gaze traveled over the screen door, and he noticed several pink hearts painted around the door knob. The corners of his mouth curved into a grin. The realization that he might have actually found the ideal place to stay for the next several weeks gave him the push he needed to ring the doorbell. So much for those few redeeming qualities he claimed to possess, he thought, and pressed the button for the second time.
“Coming,” called the voice from inside the house, just as he had about decided that there wasn’t anyone home. He shifted uncomfortably as he waited, pushing the tip of his boot at a piece of chipped wood on the porch floor.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Kimberly.” Jake raised his sunglasses to the top of his head, taking with them the shoulder-length strands of hair framing his tanned face.
“Jake?” She stepped closer to the screen door. “My gosh, it is you. I’m sorry; I wasn’t expecting you. I thought you were the FedEx man. I’m sorry, with those aviator glasses on and your hair down, I, ah, ah?—"
“Please, don’t apologize,” he interrupted. “I’m here uninvited. As for my hair, I rarely wear it down and never on television. Far too radical for my producer to allow on his network. Did I interrupt you sunbathing or something?” Discreetly, or so he hoped, he admired her enticing figure, clad only in a bikini top and a pair of faded cut-off denim shorts. A very short pair, he couldn’t help but notice, though he didn’t want to. Kimberly Urbane, he reminded himself, was forbidden territory, and he needed to keep it that way for both of their sakes. Despite his own mental scolding, a bolt of desire seared through him, and he struggled to push the sensation aside.
“Oh, ah, no. I was out back, in the garden.” A scarlet flush swept over her cheeks. “I was pulling weeds.”
“Ah.” He nodded toward her face. “That would explain the streak of dirt on your cheek.”
“What?”
She rushed to rub her palm against her cheek, and he held up his hand to stop her. “I’m teasing Kimberly. No dirt. You’re fine.”
“Oh. Ah, okay. Please come in.” She opened the screen door and directed him with a flutter of her hand toward the inside of the house.
“Thanks.” Jake shut the door behind them, and he rubbed each of his palms, suddenly damp, against the soft denim of his jeans.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
Jake’s gaze darted up to meet hers and he realized that she had caught him checking her out. “Ah…thanks, that would be great.” Despite getting busted by her only moments earlier, he had to force himself to look away from her enticing backside and focus on the interior décor as he followed behind her. The living area was tastefully designed, with boldly colored accents against soft cream-colored furniture. The room vibe invited you in, and he found that he liked her style, a lot.
The clicking sound of his western-style boots against the ceramic tile echoed through the house as he followed her into the kitchen.
“Is lemonade okay?”
“Perfect.” His gaze wandered over the white countertops and cabinets, again accented with vibrant accessories smartly placed throughout the kitchen. “Nice place. Carly said you are remodeling it yourself, didn’t she?” He leaned his lower back against the side of the kitchen countertop and folded his arms across his chest. Unable to suppress his amusement, his grin widened as he watched her flutter around the kitchen, preparing their lemonade. He didn’t want to make her nervous, he really didn’t. Over time, once she had a chance to know him better, the more comfortable around him she would become and they could finally become friends. Hopefully, with any luck he could convince his libido to chill, and everything would be just fine between them.
He watched her bend down to pick up a large spoon she had dropped, and he ended up wiping a bead of sweat from his forehead. She had to be aware of the provocative picture she made; how could she not? And, with her looks and body, how could she possibly be nervous around him? She probably had men lined up at her door most days. Her black, curly hair lay in a long braid against her bare, slender back. The bikini top she wore, although conservative for California’s standards, accentuated her full, rounded breasts, causing him to move his eyes to the kitchen window more than once.
“Thank you,” he mumbled when Kimberly handed him a tall, chilled glass, the cold liquid a welcome reprieve from the heated sensations moving through his body. His emotions were running so unexpectedly hot that when Kimberly finally responded, it took him a few moments to understand that she had begun to answer his earlier question.
“Sort of, I guess. Much of the woodwork was already here; I just refinished it. George helped me put in a few closets upstairs, and I have to admit that I have applied more coats of stain than I ever dreamed I would in a lifetime.”
“Impressive. You did a nice job.”
She smiled at him, her full and generous lips tinted a soft pink, and he took another long, slow drink of lemonade.
“Thanks. I’ve lived here for almost six years, and I still find myself shocked by the work that needs to be done.”
His gaze traveled to various sections of the kitchen and then returned to settle on her face. Her skin was smooth, with the briefest of freckles smattered across her nose, and he was tempted to reach out and run the pad of his thumb over them. He cleared his throat and dropped his hands to his sides before tucking each of them into a back pocket of his jeans. “You’ve done a good job. You must have moved in not long after graduating?”
“Yeah.” She clasped her hands in front of her and then quickly released them to drop them at her sides. “I lived with my parents for a few years after college and then decided it was time to prove that I wasn’t the shy, passive little thing everyone believed me to be.”
Her eyebrow went up in a challenge for him to deny it, and he couldn’t, because she was right; it was her friends’ collective opinion of her. She was the observer rather than the center of attention. He sensed a silent strength within her that he found attractive, and it forced him to try even harder to maintain a distance between them. He could never take advantage of her feelings for him, and that’s what he would be doing if they became involved, because it could never work out between them. Never. “Looks like you’ve done a pretty good job proving your point.” He gestured with his hand to the cabinetry behind her.
“Thank you,” she responded with a bright smile. “Just because I prefer to be behind a camera rather than in front of it, doesn’t mean I was invisible like everyone seemed to treat me growing up.”
He laughed. “I seem to recall you making yourself invisible several times when?—"
“Yeah, well,” she hastily interrupted. She placed a hand on each of her hips and tilted her head slightly to the side. “I’ve changed. I’ll never have George’s easy way with people or Carly’s ability to command the attention of everyone in the room, but I’ve learned to hold my own. Which has me wondering, Jake.” She paused and took a deep breath. “I’m not intentionally trying to sound rude or anything, but why are you here? And how did you get my address? Carly, I bet,” she mumbled the answer to her own question loud enough for him to hear.
“Before you go blaming Carly, let me assure you, I reached out to her for it and not the other way around.”
“Why?”
“Kim,” he responded, realizing that he preferred the sound of her name in its shorter form as it rolled off his tongue. “Kim” sounded much more personal, he decided as an afterthought.
“I’ve visited over a dozen apartments in the last week. Each one I left more disappointed in than the one before it. I don’t want to feel as if I’m living at a boutique hotel. I want to feel like I’m coming home at night. I want to be able to relax in the evenings.” He paused, his brow furrowed in a frown.
“And?” she asked cautiously.
“And, I want to rent a room in your house.” He exhaled a deep breath that was louder than he intended. He held up a hand when he thought she was about to protest. “Wait. Before you refuse, let me explain that I won’t be around much during the day. I plan on visiting my grandfather every day, at least for a few hours, and there are a lot of friends I would like to see while I am back in town. Los Altos Hills is only ten minutes from here, so that makes your place convenient to Gramps’ rehab center.” He paused to watch the multitude of expressions cross her face, unable to gauge her reaction.
“I wouldn’t expect you to cook, in fact, I’m rather a good cook myself, or at least I used to be, and I would be willing to make dinner every night,” he told her. “I’m relatively neat. You wouldn’t have to clean-up after me, and I’ll do my fair share of chores. Please, Kimberly, I’m desperate. I know you weren’t exactly thrilled when Carly originally suggested that I rent a room from you. I even teased you about it, but if you think about it, it really isn’t that bad of an idea. For one, you wouldn’t be taking in a stranger and two, the situation will only be temporary. I—" He stopped and set his drink down. “Kim, are you all right?”
She stopped choking long enough to reply, “Okay.”
“Okay?” He pushed his lower back away from the counter and straightened. “Do you mean okay, as you’re okay and can breathe? Or okay, as in I can move in, okay?”
“Okay, as in you can move in okay,” she responded between coughs. “As for breathing, I’m not sure about that yet. Lemonade went down the wrong way.”
“Are you serious?”
She looked straight at him, and her dark eyes were glistening with merriment. “Not about the breathing. But, yes, you can move in.” The corner of her lips twisted upward and, in a voice still rough from the bout of coughing, she replied, “you had me at willing to make dinner every night.”
If he hadn’t lectured himself throughout the day about keeping their relationship platonic, Jake would have reached out and kissed her. He had been prepared to provide her with an ample amount of begging, perhaps even throw in the offer of grocery shopping, which was something he definitely didn’t enjoy but was prepared to do, if it sealed the deal with her. The corners of Jake’s mouth tilted upward. “I did? You mean I could have skipped the part about chores?”
“Nice try. I plan to hold you to the cooking and the chores. You can count on it.”
He chuckled and assumed she would live up to her word. “Kim, I can’t thank you enough. I don’t have much stuff, a couple suitcases full of clothes and… is that a dog barking?”
Kimberly whipped around to look out of the large kitchen window at the back of the room. “Whoops! I left Daisy in the backyard. She probably heard us talking and thinks she’s missing out on something. I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder as she rushed out the back door of the kitchen.
He became conscious of his gaze eagerly following her departure out of the back door and reminded himself of the do not trespass sign he planned to visualize each time he was tempted to look at her. He swallowed hard and instead tried to visualize her dog. “Daisy?” He repeated and chuckled. The image of a Shiatsu with red painted nails and a bow on top of its head formed in his mind, despite the deep barking sounds coming from the backyard.
Kimberly returned to the kitchen with her dog, and he unconsciously took a step backward. “That’s Daisy?” He tried to keep his mouth from gaping open and failed. He watched the large St. Bernard bask in its beautiful owner’s attention and realized he shouldn’t have been surprised by her choice of canines. Besides her initial nervousness this afternoon, everything he had witnessed so far today, including her choice in pets, proved Kimberly Urbane was not as timid or reserved as most people believed.
“Isn’t she adorable?” Kimberly laughed happily as the dog planted several sloppy kisses on her face. “I found her roaming the streets two years ago. Her fur was matted, and she appeared not to have eaten in a while. After numerous calls to the police department failed to turn up anything, I posted lost and found posters throughout the neighborhood. The vet checked for a chip, and she didn’t have one. I also posted to several lost dogs’ sites. When I didn’t receive feedback from anyone, I declared Daisy officially mine. The vet thinks she’s about three years old. I assumed that whoever owned her probably couldn’t keep her anymore because of her size.”
She tilted her head to look up at him. “You’re not allergic to dogs, are you?” she asked, and Jake wondered if she secretly hoped he was, so she could escape from what she would eventually realize was a very hasty decision on her part.
“Allergic? No. I just wasn’t expecting a St. Bernard, I guess.” Kim appeared so carefree and happy, even with the dog slopping all over her, that it nearly took his breath away. He silently cursed. He needed to put a halt to any wayward thoughts about her, or staying at her place would be out of the question. She might provide him with killer smiles, and wear shorts that left him in a near pant, but she did not give off vibes that implied a willingness to flutter in and out of a sexual relationship. Although she might be independent and much stronger than people believed, she still had a vulnerable innocence about her that flashed large red lights before his eyes. Nope, she would never accept a casual affair with him, and a casual affair was all he was willing to offer her, to offer any woman, ever. Kimberly Urbane was not for him, and he was going to make sure it stayed that way while living in her house. He might need to remind himself of it daily, he conceded, if his sweaty palms meant anything besides a reaction to the warm summer day.
“I’d like to move in this weekend, if that’s okay?” Jake asked and deliberately pushed his wandering thoughts aside.
“Sure,” she responded hesitantly.
Jake was not reassured by the tone of her voice nor the way she clung to Daisy as if her life depended on it. “Are you sure?”
“No, it’s fine.”
“You’re sure?”
She nodded. “I am,” she answered and smiled at him.
“All right then, I’ll need a key.”
“No problem. I have a spare, but I’ll have another one made at the hardware store this week.”
“Will it be all right for me to park in the driveway?”
She stared back at him, her eyes sparkling in the brightly lit kitchen. “You can park in the garage, if you’d like? I only have the one car, so there’s always an extra space. It’s probably safer, anyway. I’d hate for some thieves to think the house’s contents are as nice as the Ferrari sitting in the driveway,” she added with a hint of laughter in her voice.
A smirk creased the corner of his mouth. “California is one of those places where you can rent about anything you want on a whim, if you have the money.” He surprised himself with his inexplicable need to explain that the two-hundred and fifty-thousand-dollar car parked in front of her house was a frivolous impulse while he was in California and not an example of his current values.
“Except apartments,” she responded coyly, her full, generous lips twitching in amusement. Her dark eyes continued to sparkle as she looked up at him, and once again, he noticed that she really had grown up into a remarkably attractive woman, inside and out.
“Except apartments,” he returned, joining in on her amusement with a deep chuckle of his own. God, she was beautiful when she laughed. Hell, when wasn’t she beautiful? His eyes roamed, for the last time he promised himself, over her long legs and slightly rounded hips snugly covered in a pair of shorts that should be sold with a label that read ‘illegal if worn in public.’
He coughed and shook away a piece of hair that fell into his face. The breeze that recently ruffled the kitchen curtains must have suddenly stopped, because his internal body temperature skyrocketed, and his skin was sticky. He took a large gulp of air and admitted to himself that the temperature of the kitchen had nothing to do with the reason his jeans suddenly fit tighter, particularly in one noticeable area. “I better get going. I want to see my grandfather this afternoon.” He shifted back and forth by pressing his heels into the floor. He was eager to put some space between Kimberly’s scantily clad body, and his overly aroused one, in order to hide his reaction to her.
“Ah, okay.”
He didn’t miss the curiosity peppering her simple reply, but there was no way he planned to explain his sudden need to leave, not a chance. Discreetly as possible under the circumstances, he pulled at his jeans to loosen the fabric.
They walked together to the front of the house, and Jake opened the front door.
“I’ll see you Saturday.” He stepped out into the bright sunlight and placed his sunglasses over his eyes. He flashed her a smile and then proceeded down the stairs and toward his car.
“See you Saturday,” Kimberly murmured as she watched Jake make his way to the flashy red sports car. As soon as she was positive that he had driven away and didn’t appear to be coming back, she decided that she didn’t have the luxury to dwell on his hasty departure. With a grimace on her lips, she raced up the stairs to the second floor, Daisy following close on her heels.
“Two days! How will I ever get this room ready in two days?” She moved a large cardboard box filled with pictures from the seat of a folding chair and slumped down in defeat. Her guestroom was a disaster, having been used as her junk room until now. Never needing it for anything other than storage, she had left it last on her list to remodel, never having found the time to do it.
“Why I ever thought I would have room in a three-bedroom house is beyond me.” Kimberly occupied one bedroom herself and had turned another into a home office. She had allowed the third bedroom to morph into a convenient storage room, and now she regretted it.
She moaned out loud, her eyes roaming over the dozens of photographs she had taken over the last few years, proudly framed, but never hung. Her eyes wavered briefly on the many cardboard boxes scattered all over the room, containing everything from high school yearbooks to childhood dolls. She refused to dwell on the many pieces of fitness equipment set up in the room, purchased as various New Year’s resolutions yet never used.
Somewhere under all the clutter was a double bed that would need to have the linen changed and the quilt aired out. Forcing herself to look at the room’s brightly papered walls almost caused her to cry. Large yellow daffodils stared back at her distressed expression. She cringed as she realized that the wallpaper must have been put up in the seventies, definitely one of the country’s gaudier eras.
“Well, Daisy,” she directed at the large, panting dog at her feet, “so much for our walk in the park this afternoon. It looks as if I’m off to the hardware store for some supplies.” The shaggy dog merely gave her a blank stare before returning to rest her head on her huge, outstretched paws. She gave out a low growl and closed her eyes.
“Sure, take a nap, why don’t you? Meanwhile, I have to empty out this room, tear off all the wallpaper, and then paint it when I’m done.” She let out a long sigh and then allowed a grin to spread slowly across her lips. “But you know what, Daisy? It’s going to be worth it.” She glanced at the St. Bernard, now snoring loudly, and shook her head. She had spent nearly twenty years in love with Jake Taylor without ever doing anything about it, and the last week feeling sorry for herself because he knew of her feelings but never returned them. What made matters worse, he had always been nice to her. If he had been a jerk, she might have given up on him long ago. She leaned back in the chair and stared up at the ceiling. Maybe Carly was right. Maybe the timing had never been right for the two of them and now was her chance?
Jake would be living under her roof, possibly for several weeks, and she could finally go after her dreams. Her decision to rent a room to him might have been a split second one, but it was a good one. She had caught him checking her out more than once today, and he had been interested, if only in her body, and for now that was better than nothing. This was the chance for him to see her as something other than George Urbane’s little sister, and she was going to make sure he did. Jake Taylor was going to realize that he loved her as much as she loved him. She didn’t have the details worked out yet, but she would. This was her chance with him, and she planned to take full advantage of it.
She stood up and then retreated to her bedroom to change into clothing suitable for the hardware store. “Carly,” she giggled to herself, “this idea of yours better work. Not that I will give you credit, little sister, if it does.”