Page 9 of Dangerous Lover
Just that brief exposure had Caroline shivering. It took her several tries to open her purse, but she made it and dropped a set of car keys in his palm. Then blinked at her obedience. “Why?—”
“You’ll freeze to death out there. What make is your car and where did you park it? I’ll bring it around and park rightout front so you don’t have to walk around in this weather.”
Caroline looked confused. “A green Fiat. It’s parked just around the corner to the right. But listen, you’re not dressed for the?—”
She was talking to thin air.
Chapter Two
Iam either very lucky or very crazy,Caroline thought, shivering in her coat. Just thirty seconds exposed to the swirling freezing hell out there and it felt as if she’d spent the winter camping in the Antarctic. She was chilled to her bones.
Lucky or crazy? Which was it?
Lucky was a strong contender because she needed the $1,500 desperately and it had fallen into her lap from the sky on a day when she could never have hoped to find a new boarder. Paying off Toby’s medical bills had required taking out a huge loan against Greenbriar and the money from her boarders was essential. She couldn’t possibly make the mid-January payment without the $1500 in rent.
She’d been heartsick four days ago when old Mr. and Mrs. Kipping had come down to breakfast to announce thatwe’re so sorry honey, but we’re moving out. They were supposed to stay until May, until renovation work on their home wascompleted. But Mr. Kipping had lost several chapters of his biography of Alexander Hamilton to a short circuit somewhere in the house and, the crowning blow, Mrs. Kipping had contracted bronchitis because of the frequent break-downs of the boiler.
There was no money at all to pay an electrician to test the wiring to find the source of the short circuit and Caroline could probably fly to the moon more easily than she could afford a new boiler.
She’d still be paying off debts when she was eighty. If she lived that long. So far, her family’s batting average in terms of long life expectancy wasn’t too encouraging.
Mrs. Kipping had been in tears at the thought of leaving and it had taken all of Caroline’s self-control not to break into tears herself. The Kippings were a lovely couple and had been with her for almost a year. They’d been delightful company and had provided enormous comfort to her during Toby’s last days. Caroline didn’t know how she could have faced coming home to an empty house from the hospital. And after Toby’s funeral… she shivered.
In the beginning, the Kippings often remarked that they could never remodel their home into anything as beautiful as Greenbriar. That was before the lost files, the constant cold showers and waking up to ice in the bathroom sink. Caroline knew that Mr. and Mrs Kipping were very fond of her and loved her cooking and that it was only Mrs. Kipping’s bout of bronchitis that forced their decision. Anna Kipping was fragile and Marcus, her husband, was afraid of losing her.
Still, he’d had tears in his eyes at leaving, too.
Finding a new boarder on Christmas Eve in this terrible weather was like a wonderful miracle.
Not to mention the biggie—not being alone on Christmas day. The day she’d lost her parents to a hideous car accident. The day Toby was so injured he never walked again. It had taken him six pain-filled years to die.
So that was the lucky theory.
Then, of course, there was the crazy theory, which was probably the correct one. Shewasprobably crazy to accept a man who looked as dangerous as Jack Prescott into her home and, as if that wasn’t enough, handing him the keys to her car half an hour after meeting him.
Marcus and Anna Kipping had been the safest people on the face of earth—two darlings in their late sixties whose worst vices were Double Chocolate Fudge ice cream and an unholy passion for Gilbert & Sullivan. Marcus could recite the lyrics toH.M.S. Pinaforeat the drop of a hat.
Jack Prescott, on the other hand, looked anything but safe. She’d felt her heart speed up as they talked, ridiculous as that sounded. And oddly enough, she hadn’t really been able to pinpoint its cause. Yes, he looked almost scary, but that wasn’t the whole story. Caroline survived her tough life by not lying to herself, ever. Even when it would be nice to spin pretty stories about things, she prided herself on looking atthe unvarnished truth.
He was rough-looking, tall with the kind of muscles you can’t buy in a gym and an air of rocklike toughness.
He was also attractive as hell, which was something she’d never encountered in her boarders. Frightening, but sexy. So there might be a third theory to add to the lucky or crazy explanations—sudden hormonal overload.
Not that he’d done anything to make her uncomfortable, other than being so frighteningly large and…and dangerous-looking.
The exact opposite of Marcus Kipping, with his predilection for cardigans encasing sloped shoulders and thin arms. Jack Prescott’s massive musculature was visible through a shirt and a jacket.
If she had the sense God gave a duck, she should have said no to him. No to him as a boarder and certainly no to handing over the car keys to a perfect stranger. Who knew who he was? Maybe he was a serial killer or … or a war veteran suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and who would one day soon crack and climb a tower and start sniping at passers-by. Maybe one day they’d find her lifeless body in a pool of blood or he’d make off with what very little family silver remained.
No one took in a boarder without references. Mr. and Mrs. Kipping had been recommended by the head of her bank and had known her parents.
Who knew Jack Prescott?
But his deep voice had been so calm, that big body so still. And the look of grief that had crossed his face when he spokeof his father’s death… that had been real, and deep. Caroline recognized true grief—she was the world’s greatest expert.
He looked scruffy and tired, as if he’d been traveling for a long time. His jacket was way too light for the freezing temperature outside and his clothes were rumpled, as if he’d slept in them. His boots were old and worn. Somewhere deep inside her, in the place where Caroline never lied to herself, she recognized that those old boots had been the last straw.
They were the boots of a man down on his luck.