The right love can build you up…

After a run of lousy luck, Phylicia Phillips is finally close to reclaiming her cherished girlhood home in Louisiana. But before she can buy it back, Jamal Johnson beats her to the punch. The renowned architect plans to completely renovate the old place—and he wants Phylicia to help him! She doesn’t trust Jamal, but she’s helpless to fight the passion building between them.

Hiring the home restoration specialist to help convert the stately Victorian into a B&B was a stroke of genius. Until Jamal finds out the house was in Phylicia’s family for generations. Blindsided by his desire for this alluring beauty, Jamal vows to transform their working relationship into an intimate one. But will threatening troubles from the past keep them from building a blueprint for love?

“Why do you always call me Phylicia?”

The edge of his mouth quirked in a smile. “Because it’s your name.”

“Everyone else calls me Phil.”

“That’s a man’s name. And despite that blowtorch you were wielding a few minutes ago, there’s no denying that you are all woman, Phylicia.”

As he dipped his head toward her, a tiny voice told Phil to move out of his reach. But a much louder voice told her to stay right where she was. It had been way too long since she’d been kissed, and after the day she’d had, Phil couldn’t think of a single thing she needed more.

The moment Jamal’s soft lips touched hers her heart melted. He was gentle in his coaxing, but insistent, his lips enticing her to join in. He cupped the back of her head and slanted his to the side to get a better angle.

Phil heard a moan, but couldn’t tell which one of them had made the sound. Without fully recognizing what she was doing, she linked her hands behind Jamal’s neck and cradled the back of his head. She parted her lips and slid her tongue inside his mouth, losing herself in the kiss.

FARRAH ROCHON

had dreams as a teenager of becoming a fashion designer, until she discovered she would be expected to wear something other than jeans to work every day. Thankfully, the coffee shop where she writes does not have a dress code.

When Farrah is not penning stories, the avid sports fan feeds her addiction to football by attending New Orleans Saints games.

Always and Forever

Farrah Rochon

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Dear Reader,

Have you ever run across one of those home makeover shows, and eight hours later discovered that you’ve spent an entire Saturday watching a marathon of episodes? I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve done so once or twice. Okay, maybe more than once or twice.

There’s just something about those shows that draws me in. Perhaps it’s the idea of watching something that was once old and decrepit being transformed into something new and beautiful before my very eyes. I’m not sure what it is, but based on the popularity of these shows, I’m not the only one who loves them.

The blossoming love story between Phylicia Phillips and Jamal Johnson in Always and Forever parallels the transformation that takes place on my favorite home makeover shows. As the couple works to restore an old home, they go through many trials and triumphs, but in the end, find a love that is built to last.

I hope you enjoy their journey, and if you haven’t done so, please pick up the first book featuring the small town of Gauthier, Louisiana, A Forever Kind of Love. And look for the final book in the trilogy coming soon from Harlequin Kimani Romance.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the Bayou Dreams series. Email me at farrah@farrahrochon.com, or contact me via Facebook and Twitter.

With love and gratitude,

Farrah Rochon

Many thanks to my critique group member and dear friend Shauna Roberts. Your knowledge of historic properties saved me from many hours of tedious research.

And to Phyllis Bourne.

Thanks for the encouraging daily text messages and endless supply of coffee. I owe you!

For Jasmine Gabrielle Stewart, my favorite Disney cast member. I’m so proud of you.

Be strong and courageous…

for the Lord your God is with you.

— Deuteronomy31:6

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Chapter 1

The soulful strains of Irvin Mayfield’s “7th Ward Blues” streaming from the iPod speakers were drowned out by the buzz saw as Jamal Johnson split a panel of Sheetrock lengthwise down the middle. He stacked the two pieces together and propped them against his truck’s lowered tailgate, then placed another board on the saw table and repeated the process.

Jamal snatched the rag from his back pocket and mopped sweat from his brow. He’d lived in the small town of Gauthier, Louisiana, for over a year now, and he still wasn’t used to this oppressive heat. Arizona saw its share of triple-digit highs, but the added humidity made the air here thick enough to choke on.

He hauled the drywall up the back porch steps of the 1870s Victorian he’d purchased a few months earlier, careful not to drag it. He gingerly navigated through the narrow hallway and, when he reached the dining room, fitted the board against the exposed wall stud and positioned a nail. He slid the hammer from the holder on his tool belt, but it slipped from his fingers, crashing to the floor and tearing through the protective plastic sheeting.

“Dammit,” Jamal bit out when he noticed the chip left in the hardwood flooring underneath. He tried to balance the drywall with one hand while stooping for the hammer, but his hand slipped and the Sheetrock fell forward. He hopped out of the way just before it could crash on top of him.

Jamal’s head slumped in frustrated defeat as a puff of powdery dust floated up from where the drywall lay in a crumbly mess at his feet.

“Damn.” He kneaded the bridge of his nose, praying the headache that had instantly sprouted behind his eyes would subside. But Jamal knew his troubles were far more complicated than the throbbing in his skull.

He was in over his head. Way over his head.

“Jamal?” called a voice from just beyond the doorway.

“Oh, great,” Jamal muttered as his best friend’s wife, Mya Dubois-Anderson, crossed the threshold. He forced a smile, hoping the strain of this latest debacle didn’t show on his face.

“How’s it...” Mya stopped short, eyeing the crumbled drywall. “Going?”

“It’s going great,” Jamal lied. “I was just about to get another piece of drywall. This one had a crack in it.”

“Just one crack?” she asked, a skeptical brow arching in inquiry.

Jamal disregarded the mess on the floor with a nonchalant wave and motioned for Mya to follow him outside. He dusted off the porch step and aided her as she took a seat, taking care not to bump her very pregnant belly.

“So, how are things going with preparations for Christmas in Gauthier?” Jamal asked.

“It is going to be amazing,” Mya said with the enthusiasm of a child who’d just won a shopping spree at a toy store. “That article in Essence magazine about the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail was the best publicity we could have ever asked for. The New City of Gauthier website is averaging five hundred hits a day. When do you think you’ll have the website for Belle Maison up and running?”

The website? He was more concerned with making sure the house would be up and running.

“The website should be done any day now,” Jamal assured her, making a mental note to check with his web designer. “Although, not having a website hasn’t stopped anyone from finding us. Belle Maison is already booked solid for the entire monthlong celebration.”

Mya visibly relaxed. “That is awesome news, Jamal. This bed-and-breakfast is vital to the civic association’s long-term strategy for revitalizing the town.” She winked at him. “Gauthier is lucky to have a world-class architect as a resident.”

“World-class, huh? I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I do.” She gave his forearm a gentle squeeze. “Seriously, Jamal. I cannot thank you enough. The one thing Gauthier is missing is lodging for visitors. Once this B&B opens, I just know the town is going to see a spike in tourists.

“I don’t want to keep you away from work any longer,” she said, rising from the porch step. “Now, you’re sure Belle Maison will be ready by the start of the Christmas in Gauthier celebration, right?”

Jamal held his hand over his heart. “You have my word.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Mya said, her smile bright and airy.

Jamal walked her to her car and waited until she’d backed out of the driveway before heading back to the disaster that awaited him in the dining room.

As he eyed the crumbled mess, Jamal grudgingly acknowledged that this stately home had gotten the better of him. His forte was designing homes; he wasn’t used to the hammer-and-nails side of things. During the course of the past year, he’d definitely gained new respect for the laborers who’d worked for his family’s company back in Arizona.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to linger over this rebuild as he’d done with the house on Pecan Drive that he’d bought when he moved to Gauthier last year. If the slew of reservations wasn’t enough to light a fire under his ass, the hope and excitement he’d just witnessed in Mya’s eyes certainly was.

“You can’t do this on your own.” Jamal sighed.

He needed help. Pronto.

Jamal rubbed a distracted hand along the back of his neck, trying to ease the tension quickly building there. He knew whom he had to call, but God, he didn’t want to call her. Phylicia Phillips was the last person he wanted to bring in on this project. She was bossy and opinionated.

And she was so damn fine Jamal had counted at least four times that he’d nearly been caught staring at her ass when they had both stood as attendants two months ago at Corey and Mya’s wedding.

He didn’t know what had come over him, but after too many torturous hours of stealing glances at the way the satin bridesmaid gown had curved over her backside, his hand had taken on a mind of its own. He’d felt himself losing control, his palm inching forward to grab her behind. If the photographer hadn’t called the wedding party for more pictures at the precise moment that his hand had nearly made contact, Jamal figured he’d still be sporting a black eye, courtesy of Phylicia’s right hook.

If he closed his eyes, Jamal could recall every detail as she’d walked up the aisle of the church—from her hair, entwined with peach and white flowers, to the tips of her toes, peeking from underneath the gown’s satiny hem. He’d been caught off guard, seeing her in a dress. Her usual attire was jeans and a T-shirt, often littered with wood shavings and other remnants from whatever project she was working on.

Phylicia Phillips was one of the most sought-after restoration specialists in this entire region. Earlier this year, he’d hired her to restore the banister in his house on Pecan Drive, and he still marveled at the job she’d done. She was the go-to woman when it came to finding old things and making them new, which was why he needed her for this job.

Jamal tipped his head back and expelled a strained sigh.

This would be so much easier if the woman didn’t confuse the hell out of him!

He’d felt a spark from the first moment he met her, but she had never given him even an inkling that she felt the same way. Jamal thought everything had changed the night of Corey and Mya’s wedding. After the reception, Phylicia had suggested they go out for coffee. They had gone to a 24/7 doughnut shop in neighboring Maplesville and spent hours talking about every topic under the sun.

Then nothing. Absolutely nothing.

When he’d called Phylicia the next day, she’d acted as if he were a stranger—one she didn’t want to be bothered with. He would never understand women. And now he had to work with the most complicated one he’d ever met.

Could he survive working so closely with her?

“You don’t have a choice,” Jamal reminded himself. Even though he was updating the house with cutting-edge green technology, the 1870s Victorian had valuable woodwork that needed to be preserved. There was only one person who would give the amount of care and detail this project demanded.

Jamal dusted bits of drywall from his clothes as he headed for the black Ford F-150 he’d bought when he’d first moved to Gauthier—yet another stark change from his old life back in Phoenix. He’d driven a Lexus since he was a teenager. Every member of his family would probably fall away in a dead faint at the sight of him behind the wheel of a pickup truck.

Jamal popped open the glove compartment and retrieved his wallet. The card for Phillips’ Home Restoration was tucked behind his license. He punched the number into his cell; after a few rings the call went to voice mail. He hesitated a moment before speaking.

“Hi, Phylicia, this is Jamal Johnson.” You know, the guy you talked to until the sun came up a couple of months ago, and then totally ignored? “I’ve got my hands full with this house I’m renovating and could really use your services. Give me a call as soon as possible. Thanks.”

Okay, so that hadn’t been so hard. Now, all he had to do was survive being around her without succumbing to a death brought on by mind-altering lust.

“Piece of cake,” Jamal snorted.

* * *

Hunched over a scarred buffet table she’d found at an estate sale a few weeks ago, Phylicia Phillips glided the orbital sander over the wood with painstaking gentleness. She had learned from experience that sacrificing attention to detail in order to save time usually resulted in a piece of unusable material. Phil wasn’t sure what she would uncover once she sanded through the layers of paint coating the buffet, but she wasn’t willing to compromise the wood in order to find out.

The trill of an old-style rotary telephone wafted from the chest pocket of her denim overalls. Phil set down the sander and pulled out her cell phone. She pushed the plastic face shield up and stared at the unfamiliar number, suppressing the tremors of unease that climbed up her neck whenever she didn’t recognize an area code. She’d made an art form out of dodging the bank’s phone calls, having memorized their numbers. She figured it was only a matter of time before they sent her name to a collection agency.

Phil waited for voice mail to pick up the call, then sucked in a fortifying breath and dialed into the messaging system. She braced herself for a terse tirade from a collection agency representative, but was startled at the sound of Jamal Johnson’s warm, unmistakable voice.

Phil listened to his short message then replayed it, wondering whether there was some twisted mythological fate having a good laugh over this. The only thing that could possibly be worse than a call from a collection agency demanding she catch up on her construction loan payments was a call from Jamal Johnson asking her to help him annihilate her great-great-grandfather’s house. The house that had been her family’s pride and joy...until it had fallen into her hands.

A familiar, sickening knot formed in her stomach. If she’d had any idea she would be in danger of losing the Victorian, Phil would never have used it as collateral to fund what had turned out to be the worst business venture ever.

It had been a foolproof plan. Purchase rundown houses for dirt cheap, then flip them for a killer profit. Simple. If only she’d had a crystal ball handy that could have clued her in on the implosion of the housing market.

Phil slumped onto the work stool and cradled her head in her hands.

How had she allowed her life to get to this point?

Oh, wait. Yeah, a man. It was always about a damn man, wasn’t it?

Like a fool, she’d let her ex-boyfriend sweet-talk her into partnering with him in the house-flipping venture. Except she had been the one who’d taken all the financial risks.

“I hate you, Kevin Winters. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.”

He’d been a pillar of strength when she’d received that first threatening letter from the bank, promising her they would get through the crisis together. That same night, he’d skipped town, taking half of her DVD collection with him. When he’d called from Fresno a week later, Phil had told him she would call the cops and have him arrested for theft if he ever contacted her again. She still wasn’t sure if she’d meant it, and hoped to God that man didn’t test her by stepping foot back in Gauthier.

She still couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. It was amazing what a normally intelligent woman could be conned into doing for good sex.

Phil massaged her temples. She’d had this argument with herself way too many times over the past year. She wasn’t up for it today.

She also wasn’t up to working with Jamal Johnson. Ever.

She acknowledged that her aversion to him was wholly unwarranted, and probably a bit irrational, but that didn’t change the circumstances. A burst of angry resentment flared up just at the thought of Jamal and his noble contribution to Gauthier’s budding tourism industry.

Whatever.

All he’d done was crush her dream of making up for her stupid mistakes. She had been less than five thousand dollars away from securing enough money for the down payment to buy back her family’s home when Jamal had decided he wanted to buy it, with some crazy idea of turning it into a bed-and-breakfast.

A bed-and-breakfast, for God’s sake!

The thought of countless strangers sleeping in the room her parents once shared made Phil sick to her stomach. For more than a century that house had belonged to the Dufresne family. Her great-great-grandfather had built it with his own two hands. And because of her, a bunch of strange people who probably didn’t even care about the home’s rich history would now occupy it.

She was not going to help them get there. Jamal would just have to find someone else to work with him.

Recalling the changes he’d made to that gorgeous Georgian he’d bought on Pecan Drive, Phil cringed to think of the Victorian’s wonderful interior falling prey to his so-called innovative ideas. That man shouldn’t be allowed within a ten-mile radius of a historic structure.

She exhaled a weary, bone-deep sigh, giving herself a few more seconds to wallow in the mess she’d made of this entire situation. Not for the first time, Phil was actually grateful that her mother’s dementia-laden brain would prevent her from ever knowing that Phil had lost their family’s home.

She swiped at an errant tear and lowered the safety shield back over her face. The more work she got done, the sooner she could get the monkeys off her back. Though now that there was no chance of buying back the Victorian, the motivation to work wasn’t as strong.

Phil spent the next hour removing the caked-on paint inch by inch. The rich, caramel-colored oak she unearthed was absolutely breathtaking. Who in their right mind had thought to mask such handsome wood?

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Phil’s head popped up. She shut off the sander and pushed the face shield up again as she walked to the side door of her detached garage, which she’d converted into a workshop when she’d bought this house five years ago.

As she swung the door open, a balled fist came barreling forward, straight for her head. It stopped just in time.

“Oh, sorry. Hi.” Jamal Johnson stood before her in a pair of khaki deck shorts and a light gray T-shirt. A swath of sweat made a V from his neck to his navel, and dark rings circled under the arms. Apparently, he’d been hard at work...ruining her house.

And looking good while doing it. The bastard.

“I hope it’s okay that I dropped by,” he started. “I was on my way to the hardware store and decided to drive over. Can I come in?” he asked, then moved past her and into the workshop before she could react.

“So, this is the mastermind’s laboratory, huh?” he asked, his gaze roaming the shelves she’d custom-built for the countless bottles of varnishes, paint thinners and other materials she used daily. Jamal turned to her. “I left a message on your voice mail. I wasn’t sure if you got it.”

“I did,” she answered stiffly.

His brow peaked. “So, will you be able to help? I really need it. I’m renovating that abandoned Victorian over on Loring Avenue.”

It was not abandoned! Phil wanted to yell. Even though no one had lived there since she’d had to put her mother in a special care facility three years ago, Phil had still occasionally checked on the old house. She had not abandoned it.

“I realized today that I’m in way over my head,” Jamal was saying. “This job is a bit different from the work I did on my house. I gutted most of that one, but I’m trying to preserve the Victorian’s woodwork.”

His words nearly caused her to slump against the door in relief. Phil had pretty much convinced herself that the next time she drove by the house she’d find rows of solar panels lined up like garden vegetables on the side lawn.

“I apologize for not returning your call,” she said. “But I’ve been busy today. That’s also why I won’t be able to help you. I’ve got several restoration projects lined up,” she lied. She had only one small project, to restore a wooden 1931 Crosley antique radio. She had bids on several larger projects at some of the plantation homes in the River Parishes, but not one was guaranteed.

“Tell me you’re kidding me,” Jamal said with a frustrated groan.

Seeing the anguish on his face, Phil could almost feel sorry for him. As far as she knew, Jamal had no idea that it was her house that he had bought right from under her. But that didn’t matter to the irrational part of her brain that thought of him as the enemy.

“I’m sorry,” she said again. “But I can’t help you.”

Still standing next to the door, Phil opened it wider, a clear invitation for him to leave.

He brought a hand up and rubbed the back of his neck. The movement caused his damp T-shirt to stretch across his chest, and Phil found herself in desperate need of ice-cold water.

“Do you at least have a timetable of when you’ll be available?” he asked.

“Probably not until the spring,” she returned, swatting away the guilt that accompanied the lie. She knew Jamal was on a strict timetable. According to Mya, the bed-and-breakfast was already booked for the entire Christmas in Gauthier celebration, which meant he had three months to finish the house.

“That won’t work,” he said, his mouth tilting in a frown. “Damn, I guess I’m on my own.”

“Guess so,” Phil said with false sympathy. She ran another fleeting glance down his body and was once again struck dumb by the picture he created. For a man who had supposedly spent most of his days behind a desk before coming to Gauthier, he had the well-honed body of an athlete. He walked toward her on long, sinewy legs, and the sweat-drenched shirt that clung to his chest and back outlined their chiseled perfection.

Phil had firsthand knowledge of what was hidden underneath the cotton. She recalled how the solid muscles had felt as she’d held on to him during several dances they’d shared at Mya and Corey’s wedding reception.

She shook her head, clearing away the untoward thoughts that had no business taking up residence in her head. Hadn’t she learned from last year’s debacle what a fine-ass man with a pretty smile and nice muscles could lead to? A trip to the poorhouse.

“Good luck on the restoration,” Phil said. “It is a restoration that you’re performing, right?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said.”

“No, you said you were renovating the house, not restoring it.”

“Same thing.” He shrugged.

“It absolutely is not,” Phil stressed. “One means that you’re trying to bring it to its former glory; the other often means that you’re tearing up the insides and overhauling it with a bunch of modern crap that doesn’t belong in there. I just want to know which one you’re doing, a restoration or renovation?”

And wasn’t she just the epitome of smooth and detached? It wouldn’t take much for him to figure out that when it came to the Victorian, she wasn’t just an interested bystander.

His curious stare indicated he was halfway to figuring out the puzzle already.

“For the most part it’s a restoration,” he said.

“Good.” She nodded.

“I do plan to make the house eco-friendly, but I need to get the basics done first.”

A splotch of red flashed across Phil’s visual field. She should have known this was coming. From the moment she’d walked into the Georgian he’d renovated and saw all of those beautiful cypress floorboards tossed into a pile like so much rubbish, Phil had known this man would wreck any piece of property he got his hands on.

“I need to get back to work,” she said through barely clenched teeth.

“So do I. Sorry you can’t help. I could really use your expertise.”

Phil couldn’t form the words to respond. She knew if she opened her mouth she would regret it. Instead, she nodded and closed the door behind him. Moments later, she heard an ignition turn over and his truck drive away. On shaky legs she walked back to the buffet she’d been restoring. She placed the safety shield back over her eyes and picked up the sander. She didn’t even try to wipe away the tears that trailed down her cheeks.

Chapter 2

Jamal tossed a pack of screw anchors into his shopping basket and headed for the lighting aisle. He’d accidentally cracked the bulb in his hanging work lamp, which had forced him to stop working once the sun went down. He couldn’t afford to work only during daylight hours anymore, not if Belle Maison was going to open as scheduled.

Maybe he could run a special promotion: get half off your stay if you’re willing to pick up a hammer.

“Get a grip,” Jamal said under his breath.

He had contractors lined up to do most of the big-ticket items—to paint the exterior and strip and refinish the home’s original hardwood flooring. What he needed was someone with expertise in restoring some of the home’s unique elements that he wanted to preserve.

Jamal was having a hard time deciding whether he was upset or relieved that Phylicia was too busy to help. He could use her skill with a detailing chisel, but he sure as hell had not been looking forward to the cold showers that were undoubtedly in his future if he had to spend any significant time working alongside her.

It didn’t matter now, did it?

Corey had warned him that Phylicia’s skills were a hot commodity. He should have known her calendar was booked months in advance.

Jamal grabbed a replacement halogen lamp and frowned at the rows of pear-shaped incandescent bulbs stacked on the shelves. He shook his head. Were people really still using those things?

He made his way to the hardware store’s single checkout counter, where a group of older men were loitering. After several trips here, Jamal had discovered that the three men who lingered around the counter were not customers but retirees who spent much of their day shooting the breeze with Nathan Robottom.

“Hey, it’s the architect,” Nathan greeted.

“Hello, Mr. Robottom. Gentlemen.” Jamal nodded to the group as he placed his items on the counter.

“How’s the work coming on the new hotel?” Nathan asked.

“Not a hotel, just a bed-and-breakfast,” Jamal corrected him. “And it’s coming along just fine.”

“You think it’ll be done in time for the Christmas in Gauthier celebration?” a man Jamal knew only as Froggy asked in a gravelly, toadlike voice. Hence the nickname, Jamal assumed. “My granddaughter lives up in Michigan. Said she saw an advertisement for Gauthier’s Christmas celebration on the internet all the way up there.”

“It’s the same internet wherever you are,” Nathan said with an eye roll. “Why do you think they call it the World Wide Web?”

“Well, hell, I don’t fool with that internet,” Froggy blustered.

Jamal suppressed the urge to laugh. “Mya Dubois-Anderson is in charge of publicizing it, so I have no doubt word of Christmas in Gauthier will reach far and wide.”

“Gauthier owes you a lot for opening this hotel,” Nathan said. “It’s nice to have tourists passing through, but it will be even better when they can stay for a couple of days and spend some money.”

Jamal nodded. He knew just how much having Belle Maison up and running would mean for Gauthier’s local economy.

“I was hoping you gentlemen could suggest someone who could help me with the renovations. I’ve got a few guys coming out to do the heavy lifting, but I need someone who can handle the delicate woodworking without damaging it.”

“Did you try Phi—” Froggy started.

“I just came from Phylicia Phillips’s place,” Jamal said, cutting him off. “She’s booked up.”

“Yeah, Phil gets a lot of work. Did you see the job she did on the Rosedale Plantation?” Nathan whistled. “That girl is better with a wood chisel than her daddy was.”

“Do you know of anyone else?” Jamal asked. He didn’t particularly want to hear about how good Phylicia would have been. Dammit, he knew how good she would have been. Maybe if he offered her twice whatever the job she was currently working on paid? Would she consider giving it up and coming to work for him?

Jamal winced at the selfish thought. He didn’t know much about Phylicia, but she didn’t seem like someone who would risk damaging her reputation for a few extra bucks. If anyone could respect the notion of integrity and a strong work ethic over money, it was him. He could be making an impressive salary as an architect with his family’s construction business, instead of reallocating money from his savings in order to open a bed-and-breakfast. But he was a helluva lot happier, and no amount of money was worth giving that up.

“If you think of someone else who may be able to help, give me a call,” Jamal told Nathan as he pocketed his change and headed out of the hardware store.

He waved at a couple of folks as he drove down Gauthier’s Main Street. For a city kid, he’d allowed this small town to thoroughly charm him. It looked like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, with its brightly colored storefronts sporting striped awnings and hand-painted We’re Open signs hanging in the windows. Jamal hadn’t known towns like this still existed, especially with predominately black populations.

Moving to Gauthier had been, without a doubt, one of the best decisions he’d made in his thirty-three years. He had been slowly dying back in Phoenix, but this small town had given him a new start. Having the freedom to live life on his terms instead of being bound by the confines of the Johnson Construction legacy had changed everything. He was finally free to pursue his dreams of opening his own architectural firm, without having to face his father’s derision.

So why was his firm still just an idea on paper?

A jolt of anxiety ricocheted against the walls of Jamal’s chest. The sensation had become commonplace, rearing its head whenever his mind so much as tiptoed in the vicinity of his underdeveloped career plans.

He quieted the unease by picturing the Victorian and what it would mean to Gauthier. The men back at the hardware store had reiterated how appreciative the town was that he was renovating Belle Maison. It would be selfish to think about his architectural firm when so many would benefit from the B&B.

“Yeah, you’re all about the noble self-sacrifice,” Jamal muttered.

Renovating the Victorian was a stalling tactic, and he damn well knew it. Just like the renovations of the Georgian he’d purchased when he moved to Gauthier a year ago.

He didn’t have the time or energy for a mental debate over why he continued to avoid moving forward on his architectural firm. There was too much work to be done, regardless of the true reason he was doing it.

Despite his exhaustion, Jamal drove straight past his house, forfeiting the hot shower and food his body craved in exchange for getting in a few more hours of work on Belle Maison. Now that he had the replacement bulb for his work light, there was no reason for him to call it quits for the day.

* * *

Sitting at the bar in her kitchen after a fitful night of very little sleep, Phil sipped a cup of piping-hot coffee and thumbed through the latest issue of Antique Abodes. There was a feature on a Greek Revival in Natchez, Mississippi, that a young couple had spent the past five years restoring. She wondered if she could swing a trip up to Natchez. It was worth the three-hour drive to see the house firsthand.

If she was lucky, she wouldn’t have the time to drive into Mississippi to look at someone else’s restoration project; she would be too busy with her own. The caretaker at Evergreen Plantation had emailed yesterday afternoon, informing Phil that a decision would be made soon on the restoration job she’d bid on. It wasn’t a huge project—a bit of work on some of the plantation’s antique furniture—but it would be welcomed income. She was barely keeping her head above water, and the waterline was gradually creeping further up her neck.

Phil spotted the mail carrier in front of her next-door neighbor’s house. She set her coffee cup down and was waiting outside when Paul Ricard pulled up to her mailbox.

“How you doing, Phil?” he greeted.

“Doing okay,” she answered. “How’s Liza? Baby Number Five make an appearance yet?”

“Any day now,” Paul said, handing her a stack of envelopes and catalogs. “Liza’s at that stage when she’s not talking to me. That usually means we’re close to a delivery.”

“Well, if she still hasn’t figured out what to call the new baby, I think Phylicia is a beautiful name.”

“That it is.” Paul laughed. “See you later, Phil.”

She waved as she turned and headed back toward the house, thumbing through the mail. There were two credit card offers—her current financial state must not have reached those companies yet—the bill for her auto insurance and an advertisement for the grand opening of a dry cleaners in Maplesville.

The fifth envelope caused her heart to sputter and her breathing to escalate. Phil stared at the return address, dread suffusing her bones. A weight settled in her stomach as she reentered the house and went into the kitchen. Stalling, she tossed the mail on the bar and refilled her coffee cup.

Leaning a hip against the counter, Phil eyed the envelope from Mossy Oaks Care Facility. She already knew what it contained. She’d received an envelope just like it about a month ago, with a letter stating that the rising cost of health care was forcing the facility to increase its rates across the board. Even with the money from her dad’s life insurance policy, Phil was still paying nearly a thousand dollars out of her own pocket every month for her mother’s care. She couldn’t afford several hundred more.

But she couldn’t afford not to pay it, either.

It was nothing short of a miracle that one of the South’s most renowned care facilities for dementia patients was located just twenty miles southeast, in Slidell. It was ludicrous to even consider moving her mom from Mossy Oaks.

Phil swallowed the lump of worry that lodged in her throat as she set the cup on the counter and reached for the envelope. She opened it, finding exactly what she knew would be there. The increase had been approved by the facility’s board of directors and would take effect next month.

Where was she going to find this money?

Her cell phone trilled. Phil picked it up and recognized the number from Evergreen Plantation’s caretaker. She glanced up at the ceiling and whispered, “Thank you, Lord,” as she answered it.

But instead of answered prayers, Phil had her heart broken into bite-size chunks. The caretaker’s apologetic tone was nearly as hard to stomach as the words she spoke.

“I’m sorry, Miss Phillips, but Marshall Restoration’s bid was significantly less than yours, even with the cost of shipping the furniture to their California warehouse.”

“But aren’t you afraid the furniture will get damaged in transit?” Phil asked.

“The furniture is insured,” was the woman’s response.

As if that mattered!

It wasn’t about the money, Phil wanted to shout. It was about potentially endangering irreplaceable, centuries-old furniture. There shouldn’t be a price tag on that. But apparently there was, and it was lower than the eight thousand dollars Phil had bid on the work.

Before ending the call she asked that she be kept in mind for other work the plantation might need in the future. Phil slouched over the bar, her head landing with a thump on her forearm. The disappointment was almost too much to bear.

As much as she loved her work, Phil wished she could count on a steady paycheck. When she did get paid it was usually enough to live on for several months, depending on the size of the job. But her last big project had been back in the spring, and repairing an old radio or the occasional antique headboard was not going to cut it. She needed a long-term project, something that would provide enough income to last her until one of the other bids hopefully came through.

She knew of one job that would fit the bill, but Lord knew she did not want to take it.

“No, no, no,” she whispered, her whine muffled by her arm.

There had to be another option.

Phil glanced toward the hallway, thinking of the Hepplewhite furniture in her guest bedroom. The set had been passed down in her family for generations. Phil knew if she had it appraised by one of the antique dealers in New Orleans it would fetch a hefty sum, but after losing Belle Maison she couldn’t stomach parting with the few pieces of furniture she’d managed to retain. With her mother’s mind slowly slipping away, they were the only ties she had left to her past.

“Oh, God,” Phil moaned. She would have to accept Jamal’s job offer. She was in no position to turn down work.

She pushed herself up and drained the rest of the coffee from her mug. If it were not still midmorning she would have been tempted to refill the mug with whiskey. But alcohol wouldn’t solve anything. She’d allowed herself to fall into this hole. She would have to be the one to claw herself out.

Phil quickly changed into a pair of jeans. In her never-ending quest to hold fast to her femininity, she donned a pair of tiny butterfly-shaped earrings before scooping her hair into a ponytail. Filling her dad’s old thermos with the remaining coffee, she grabbed her keys and headed out the door.

Fingers of dread crept further up her spine with every mile her tires ate up on the road. By the time she arrived at the stately yellow-and-white Victorian where she grew up, Phil was on the verge of losing her breakfast.

This was going to be torture. Plain and simple.

No, not simple. There was nothing simple about this. It was tragic, an ironic twist of fate that would torment her for years to come. It was bad enough that it was due to her mistakes that the home no longer belonged to her family. The fact that she would now play a part in its ruination sickened her to no end.

“Nothing you can do about it now,” she muttered.

She pulled in behind a jet-black double-cab Ford F-150. Phil couldn’t help but admire the truck’s chrome package; the tire rims and front grille gleamed. That had probably set him back a few thousand dollars, she thought with a disgusted snort.

She knew architects did pretty well, but Phil also knew that Jamal’s seemingly endless flow of cash did not come solely from his profession. According to Mya, Jamal had a trust fund the size of the Louisiana Superdome, and his family owned one of the largest construction firms in Arizona.

The fact that he was a millionaire without a financial care in the world made this even worse. She’d been struggling just to raise the capital for the down payment on this house. He’d probably bought the Victorian outright with cash from his rainy day fund.

Phil stifled her irritation as she walked along the brick-laid walkway that led to the huge wraparound porch. Her heart broke a bit more with every step she took. She trudged up the porch steps, fingering the balustrade. It needed sanding and a new coat of paint. She should have taken care of this months ago, even if the house had belonged to the bank at the time.

“Phylicia?”

Phil turned with a start. Jamal approached her, wiping his hands on a tattered rag. He was dressed in shorts and another of those sweat-stained T-shirts that clung to his washboard abs.

Oh, yeah. This would be torture.

Phil pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly, willing her eyes to concentrate on his face and not his six-pack.

Of course, his face could get her in just as much trouble as the rest of his body. His skin was smooth and light brown, his eyes a darker brown, but with flecks of gold. Phil remembered being stunned when she’d noticed the sparkling flecks as they danced at Corey and Mya’s wedding reception. Those eyes were framed by thick, beautiful lashes that any woman would envy, yet they didn’t detract from his masculinity one bit. They made his eyes richer, more seductive.

An embarrassingly swift shudder of need shot through her.

Not this guy, she told her hyperaware libido. There were other eligible men in Gauthier. She would not allow herself to lust after the one who’d bought her family’s home out from under her.

Well, she wouldn’t lust after him more than she did already.

“Can I help you with something?” Jamal asked.

“Actually, I’m here to help you,” Phil answered, pushing thoughts of his eyes, abs and everything else out of her mind. “One of the projects I thought I would be working on fell through. It freed up space on my calendar.”

His relieved grin transformed his face into a thing of even greater beauty, if that were possible.

“You have no idea how happy I am to hear that.” Jamal stuffed the rag into his back pocket. “Well, I guess a tour is in order. Let me show you around the property.”

“Oh, you don’t have—” Phil started to tell him she probably knew this house better than he did, but she stopped herself. What if his Realtor had shared that the home he’d purchased had been repossessed by the bank because the previous owner had defaulted on the loan? Did she really want Jamal knowing that much about her personal business? No, thank you.

“Sure,” Phil said with false brightness. “I can’t wait to see it.”

Chapter 3

As they entered the vestibule, Phil tried to hold back the wistful smiles that threatened as dozens of bittersweet memories sprouted to mind. When she was younger, she’d had an army of imaginary friends whom she would play hide-and-seek with throughout the massive house. She even let them win sometimes.

When she got older, she and Mya would have slumber parties. Using a special scale they had devised, they would rate the boys at school. Corey Anderson, who eventually became Mya’s boyfriend, and finally, after fifteen years apart, her husband, always scored the top rating.

Phil glanced over at Jamal. He would have given Corey a run for his money back in the day.

“This is what sold me on the house,” Jamal said, running his palm along the ornately carved banister that traveled up the staircase. “Look at this detailing. The Realtor said it was all done by hand.”

“It’s beautiful,” Phil remarked. When she was eight years old, she had broken her arm sliding down that very same banister after seeing it done in a movie. As much of a tomboy as she’d been back then, it was a wonder she’d made it through the rest of her childhood without any more broken bones.

“Why don’t we start upstairs?” Jamal said. “There’s less work needed up there. We can take a quick look around before discussing the really intense stuff.”

She followed him up the stairs, gawking unabashedly at the way the shorts fit over his butt. It was too damn firm. He was too damn fine.

Lethal. That’s the rating Jamal would have received on the scale she’d developed with Mya all those years ago. His smile, his naturally wavy hair, those sinewy muscles, his scent—clean, yet spicy. Everything about him was lethal, especially to a woman who had gone over a year without a man in her bed. Her battery-operated toys were fine for providing temporary relief, but she couldn’t snuggle up to a vibrator. She missed snuggling. She missed men.

But she sure as hell didn’t miss the heartache they caused.

That’s what she would remember when she caught a glimpse of Jamal’s gold-speckled eyes and charming smile. Kevin had nice eyes and a sexy smile, too.

“There are three bedrooms and another small room in the rear that the Realtor said was used as a sitting room, but I’m going to turn it into an additional bedroom. The biggest problem is there’s only one bathroom up here, which means if the B&B is at full capacity, I’ll have eight adults sharing one bathroom.”

“That can pose a problem,” Phil said. “I can only imagine what it would be like if you have a bunch of women staying here for a girls’ weekend.”

“World War Three.” Jamal chuckled.

Dammit, even his laugh was sexy. Accepting this job was such a bad idea.

“After growing up in a house with my mother and younger sister, I know what it’s like to fight over the bathroom,” he continued.

Phil twisted around to look at him. “You had to fight for bathroom time in the house you grew up in? I thought your family owned half of Phoenix?”

“My family doesn’t own half of Phoenix,” he said, then his smile took on a chastised quality. “Okay, so the fights for the bathroom happened at the beach house in Malibu.”

Malibu? Is he for real?

Phil managed to resist a well-deserved eye roll, but she couldn’t tamp down the bitter resentment that climbed up her throat. Jamal Johnson would never know how it felt to sweat over making next month’s mortgage payment.

He gestured with his head for her to follow him. “C’mon. We’ll discuss some of the ideas I have in mind for the house.”

As they made their way back down the stairs, Phil ran her fingers along the silk wall coverings.

Jamal glanced over his shoulder. “Beautiful, isn’t it? Everything in this house is great. I’m lucky it was still on the market.”

“Yeah,” Phil said, hoping the emotion that instantly filled her throat didn’t come through her voice. “I’m surprised Belle Maison stayed on the market for as long as it did.” And heartbroken that it hadn’t remained there just a little while longer.

“The house was in pretty good shape. I have a work crew coming in to give it a new paint job, both inside and out, and to take care of a couple of other details, but they can’t start for another four weeks. In the meantime, I’ve been working on a few things that needed to be addressed right away, like the cracks in the dining room wall.”

“The walls were cracked in the dining room?” Phil asked, unable to conceal the astonishment in her voice. When had that happened? She’d checked on this house at least once a month.

But then Phil remembered that her last few check-ins had consisted of a quick drive-by and cursory look from her truck’s driver’s side window. Too much work to do, and all that. The excuses had flowed like a waterfall, sounding good enough to her ears.

But as she took in the musty smell from the house being closed up for so long and noticed the dust that had accumulated on the walls and baseboards, the picture became clearer. And the shame it caused nearly suffocated her.

From the moment she’d moved her mom into Mossy Oaks, Phil had started to neglect this house, seeing it more as a burden than a part of her history. It took losing it to appreciate what she’d had.

Phil followed Jamal into the formal dining room. And stopped cold.

“Drywall?” she said. “You’re putting up drywall?”

“Only one section of the wall was cracked, but I figured I’d just redo the entire room.”

“With drywall?”

He measured her with a curious stare. “What do you have against drywall?”

“You mean besides the fact that it has no business in an 1870s Victorian? It also greatly reduces the resale value of the house.”

He waved off her concern. “I’m not concerned about resale value right now.”

This is no longer my house, she reminded herself. Jamal owned it; he could do whatever he wanted with it. Even if it meant putting up freaking drywall.

“Just...show me the rest,” she said.

“Here’s one of the things I’m putting into your capable hands,” he said, pointing to the pocket doors that recessed into the walls between the dining room and kitchen. “They’re pretty banged up, but if at all possible, I want to keep them.”

“Of course you want to keep them. They add too much character to this house to think of getting rid of them.”

Phil glided her hand along the smooth mud where the panels of Sheetrock met. She could not believe the man was replacing the classic plaster walls with drywall, but at least he’d done a good job.

“You did this work by yourself?” she asked.

Jamal nodded. “Have I impressed the guru?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Why not? Everyone else does.”

“First, I’m not a guru,” Phil sad. “My dad deserved that title, not me. And secondly, I work mostly in wood and wrought iron, so I’m not the one to properly judge drywall installation.”

“That’s too bad,” he said. “I was hoping you’d be impressed.”

Phil looked over at him and was caught off guard by the sexy smile pulling at the edge of his lips. She knew flirting when she saw it, and she was definitely seeing it in action right now.

That would not be good. She could not handle a sweaty, sexy, flirting Jamal Johnson.

“So, besides the doors, what else is there?” she asked.

“I’ve got my blueprints out here,” he said, motioning for her to follow him outside.

Phil stopped short. “If you’re not doing a renovation, why did you draw up blueprints for a house that’s already built?”

He shrugged. “You work in wood and wrought iron, I work in blueprints. It just makes it easier to have a map of the house so I can pinpoint each thing that needs to be addressed.”

She accepted his explanation with the same amount of guarded skepticism in which she took everything else he told her. Outside, the blueprints were spread out on the top of a folding table, held at each corner with pieces of leftover wood. She stood next to Jamal as he pointed out various jobs that needed to be done throughout the house. She tried to ignore the combination of sweat, sawdust and man that flooded her senses. Ignoring a ten-piece brass band blowing in her ear would have been easier.

“My biggest headache right now is fixtures,” Jamal was saying. “I’d love to get something comparable to what’s in the downstairs bathroom and kitchen, but I can’t find anything even close.”

Phil ordered herself to focus on the job at hand, and not on his scent. Or the muscles rippling underneath his T-shirt. Or the way she’d clung to them when they’d danced months ago.

“You won’t find them in hardware stores,” Phil said. “Your best bet will be companies that specialize in reclaimed fixtures. They salvage pieces and sell them to people restoring older properties. I’ve got several contacts I can check for you.”

When he didn’t comment for several moments, Phil glanced over at him. That smile was back, the one that made her heart beat just a bit quicker.

“I knew I’d come to the right person,” he said. “Together we’re going to take Belle Maison in a completely new direction.”

Yeah, that’s what she was afraid of.

* * *

As Phylicia leaned over the table, studying the blueprints, Jamal studied her. He couldn’t get over just how much of a contradiction she was. She worked in a decidedly male-dominated field, yet those high cheekbones, amazingly deep brown eyes and lush, full lips could easily grace the cover of a fashion magazine.

She was tall and slim, but years of manual labor had added definition to her arms and shoulders. Jamal remembered how they had looked in the sleeveless bridesmaid gown she’d worn at the wedding.

Why had someone so sexy, so feminine, decided to work with hammers and sanders? Probably because she was damn good at it. He’d noticed several pieces of furniture in various stages of restoration when he’d visited her workshop yesterday. She seemed to spend most of her time laboring over stuff most people would write off as useless. But in her hands, what was once decrepit gained new life.

She tilted her head to the side and her ponytail draped along her neck. Jamal had the strongest urge to run his fingers through it, lift it off her neck and taste the skin underneath. It would probably get him slapped.

Yet, if he’d done the same thing the night of the wedding, Jamal was certain his kiss would not only have been welcome, but reciprocated. He didn’t understand what had gone wrong. Unless...

“Are you seeing someone?”

Phylicia’s head popped up, her stunned eyes widening. “Excuse me?”

Okay, so maybe he could have been a tad more subtle. But he didn’t do subtle all that well, and he wasn’t in the mood for playing games.

“Are you in a relationship?” he asked. “Is that why you avoided my calls after Corey and Mya’s wedding?”

“No, I don’t have a boyfriend. But—”

“Good,” he said.

“No, not good,” she returned. “It’s none of your business.”

Jamal crossed his arms over his chest and challenged her with a direct stare.

“Don’t do this, Phylicia. Don’t pretend you didn’t feel that spark between us at Mya and Corey’s wedding. We were together the entire night.”

“I was the maid of honor and you were the best man,” she said. “Of course we spent a lot of time in each other’s company at the reception. But we were not together together.”

“What about after the reception? The sun was coming up by the time I brought you home. We talked for hours that night, Phylicia, yet when I called you the next day, it was as if you didn’t know who I was.”

“Jamal, please.” She put her hands up. “I’m not looking to get involved with anyone, even on a casual basis. If you want me to work with you on the restoration, know that it is the only thing I’m willing to undertake. I don’t mix business with my personal life. Now, what exactly are you looking for from me?”

He cocked his head to the side. “Let me get this straight. Are you saying that if I choose to see you on a personal level, you wouldn’t help me with the house?”

“Actually, you don’t have a choice. The two of us getting involved is not an option.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because I said so. Now, are we going to go over these plans, or am I getting in my truck and going home?” The sharp edge to her voice brooked no further argument.

Jamal glanced at the pile of construction debris just over her shoulder, trying like hell to rein in the frustration that threatened to topple him. He was itching to make her admit that what he’d felt that night had not been one-sided. Pulling her close and kissing the hell out of her would accomplish that.

It would also guarantee that she would leave the property and likely never come back. And that was not an option.

“Blueprints,” Jamal bit out.

Phylicia bobbed a curt nod and leaned over the blueprints. Jamal studied her with a mixture of frustration and disappointment—heavy on the disappointment. Catching a whiff of the soft, flowery scent that drifted from her hair only made things worse.

She pointed to the materials list. “Exactly what is strawboard, and why do you need so much of it?”

“It’s a building material made from compressed wheat and rice straw,” he answered. “I’m redoing the upstairs bedrooms with it.”

Her eyes rolled. “This is another of your environmentally friendly things, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it’s considered green technology,” Jamal replied with a defensive edge he’d tried, but failed, to keep from his tone. “Strawboard is as durable as plaster and drywall and more fire- and mold-resistant than either of the other materials. It also provides better sound insulation, so guests won’t be disturbed by what may be going on in the next room.”

“But what about the wainscoting in the bedrooms? It’s over a hundred years old,” Phylicia protested.

“I’m not getting rid of the wainscoting.”

“But you can damage it by removing it. And if you think bathroom fixtures are hard to find, just try century-old beadboard wainscoting.”

“That’s why you’re here,” he said. “To make sure none of this valuable original woodworking gets damaged.”

She brought both hands up and rubbed her temples. Jamal was pretty sure she wanted to strangle him.

“What’s this?” she asked, pointing at a spot he’d X-ed out on the blueprint.

“It’s an odd little room on the other side of the house. Looks as if it was added long after the original structure was built.”

“I know about the room,” she said. “What are you planning to do with it?”

“Get rid of it.”

Her brows spiked in shock. “Why?” she asked with enough distress to give him pause.

“Because it sticks out like a sore thumb,” Jamal answered cautiously. “I want the house to be as authentic as possible, and the room takes away from the original design.”

“Authentic!” she screeched. “You’re putting strawboard walls in a Queen Anne Victorian, yet you’re claiming you want authenticity?” Her expression darkened, those smoky brown eyes turning almost black. “Of all people, I cannot believe this house fell into your hands.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“You are going to destroy it!”

“The house was abandoned,” Jamal pointed out. “It was already on its way to being ruined.”

“It was not abandoned!” she shouted. “I’m sick and tired of everyone saying the house was frigging abandoned!” She slapped her hands on the table. “I can’t do this.”

The emotion he heard clogging her voice shot a lightning rod of alarm through him. “Phylicia, what’s going on here?” he asked.

“I’m sorry.” She pulled in a deep breath. “You’ll have to find someone else to help you.”

She glanced up at him for the briefest moment, but it was long enough for Jamal to notice the sheen in her eyes. He caught her by the elbow, but she jerked away from him and half walked, half ran to her truck.

“Phylicia!” Jamal called, but her truck was already backing out of the driveway. Jamal stood in complete shock, trying to figure out just what in the hell he’d done wrong this time.

Chapter 4

Phil pulled into her driveway and hopped out of her truck, making a beeline for her workshop. She needed a solid hour of mind-numbing work before she could even think about doing anything else. She wanted to hit something with her mallet. Hard. But she’d passed the pounding stage on all of the projects she currently had in the works.

The blowtorch would have to do.

Phil headed for the back of the shop. She lowered the safety shield over her face and ignited the blowtorch. Moments later, she was lost in the piece she had been working on for the past few months.

With painstaking precision she carved intricate loops and curlicues through the metal she’d found at a scrapyard, creating a lace effect. Immediately, the lace curtains that once hung in her mother’s painting room popped into her mind, and her hand slipped.

“Dammit,” Phil cursed. She released the trigger on the blowtorch and surveyed the damage her slip had caused to the metal. Nothing too noticeable, thank goodness.

“Phylicia?”

Phil nearly fell off the stool at the unexpected summons. She whipped around, the blowtorch still in her hand.

Jamal took two giant steps back, his hands raised in surrender. “Careful with that.”

Phil lifted the safety shield from her face but didn’t put down the blowtorch. “How did you get in here?”

“The door wasn’t locked.”

Of course it wasn’t. She lived in Gauthier. She never locked the door to her shop while she was working. She’d have to rethink that. This was the second time he had crept up on her.

“What do you want?” she asked.

“I want to know what happened back at the house,” he said. “Why did you run off?”

Phil’s entire being sagged in defeat. It was no use withholding the truth from him. He would eventually find out. With the way gossip traveled in this small town, she was surprised no one had revealed Belle Maison’s previous owner to him already.

“It’s my house,” Phil said. His confused expression would have been comical if there was anything even remotely funny about any of this. “The Victorian that you have all these fancy plans for? It’s my family’s home. It’s where I grew up.”

“But the bank said they owned—”

“Yes, the bank owned it,” she cut him off. “It’s a very long story that I’m not about to get into, especially with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? Especially with me? When did I become the bad guy, Phylicia?”

“When you bought my family’s home and decided to make it into a bed-and-breakfast.” Phil raised her palm, stanching his protest. “This isn’t your fault, and I know you don’t deserve any of the disgust I feel toward you.”

He flinched at her harsh word choice, and Phil felt even worse.

“I’m sorry. That was uncalled for,” she said. Phil shook her head. “I just can’t do this, Jamal. What you’re doing? Opening this B&B? It’s a great thing for Gauthier. It’s going to be a huge draw for tourists, and I know the businesses on Main Street are going to benefit from it. But that’s my house,” she said, pointing east toward Belle Maison. “It’s hard to see it being destroyed.”

“I’m not going to destroy the house. How many times do I have to say that?”

“When it comes to this sort of thing, it seems we have different definitions of what it means to destroy. And you are planning to destroy a part of the house.”

“Just that one room,” he said.

“It’s the most important room in the house!” Phil yelled.

She covered her face with her hands and pulled in a deep breath. As the tears collected in her throat, Phil mentally cursed each and every one of them. But it was too hard to maintain a stoic facade. She was never one for wearing her heart on her sleeve, but when it came to her mother, she couldn’t hold back.

Phil bit her lower lip to help curb the wavering. She wiped at the tears that traveled down her cheeks.

“Twenty years ago, my father built that room for my mother. It’s where she painted. She needed a place with plenty of natural sunlight, and there wasn’t a room on the east side of the house that was suitable. She would spend hours in that room. Her painting meant everything to her.”

Phil sucked in a deep breath. “I’ve lost so much of her already. Hearing that you planned to tear down her room... It was just too much.”

She couldn’t interpret the expression on Jamal’s face. He just stood there, staring at her, and her discomfort grew with every nanosecond that passed.

“I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I had no idea. About any of it. The bank never told me anything about the previous owner. Shit, Corey didn’t even say anything.”

“I was surprised neither Corey nor Mya told you it was my family home. But neither of them knows how Belle Maison ended up on the market. Mya believes I put it up for sale intentionally.” She looked up at him. “I never would have let the property go if I’d had a choice. I love that house. It’s been in my family for generations.”

His mouth dipped in a frown. “Phylicia, I’m really sorry that you had to sell your family’s home, but I’ve invested too much into this project not to see it through.”

“Oh, God, I’m not asking you not to go forth with the B&B. I’m a businesswoman, Jamal. I understand how these things work. You bought the house. It’s yours. I just can’t be a part of the restoration process. I thought I could, but to stand there and watch my mother’s room being torn to the ground?” Phil shook her head. “I just can’t do it.”

Several moments passed before Jamal asked in a gentle voice, “What if I don’t touch that room?”

Phil’s eyes shot to his. She didn’t want to believe the sincerity she saw there. “You would do that?”

He took a step toward her. “The room isn’t hurting anybody,” he said.

His deep brown eyes searched her face. When he reached toward her, Phil stiffened, but he only captured the safety shield and pulled it off her head.

“Besides,” he continued, “as you pointed out, I’m making a lot of other changes, so my authenticity argument doesn’t carry much weight. And the house holds sentimental value for you.”

“For me, not you.”

“It’s clear how much it would hurt if the room was destroyed. I don’t want to be the one who hurts you, Phylicia.” He reached forward and lifted her ponytail from where it draped along her neck. “I think someone did that already.”

She gazed at him, feeling as if she’d been drawn into a trance by his hushed voice. “Why do you always call me Phylicia?”

The edge of his mouth quirked in a smile. “Because it’s your name.”

“Everyone else calls me Phil.”

“That’s a man’s name. And despite that blowtorch you were wielding a few minutes ago, there’s no denying that you are all woman, Phylicia.”

As he dipped his head toward her, a tiny voice told Phil to move out of his reach. But a much louder voice told her to stay right where she was. It had been way too long since she’d been kissed, and after the day she’d had, Phil couldn’t think of a single thing she needed more.

The moment Jamal’s soft lips touched hers her heart melted. He was gentle in his coaxing, but insistent, his lips enticing her to join in. He cupped the back of her head and slanted his to the side to get a better angle.

Phil heard a moan but couldn’t tell which one of them had made the sound. Without fully recognizing what she was doing, she linked her hands behind Jamal’s neck and cradled the back of his head. She parted her lips and thrust her tongue inside his mouth, losing herself in the kiss.

An animalistic growl rose from his throat. Jamal held her in place as his tongue plunged into her mouth. He tasted like cinnamon, spicy and sweet, and as his tongue made itself at home in her mouth, Phil allowed herself to enjoy it. He knew just what to do, applying just the right amount of pressure before pulling slightly away, making her reach for him.

After she had enough fodder to fill her nightly fantasies for a while, Phil ended the kiss, leaving Jamal with a dazed expression, his eyes heavy with desire.

She took several steps back. “Did you offer to leave the room untouched just so you could get away with kissing me?” Phil asked, trying to add some levity to the sexually charged tension suffusing the room.

“No,” he said, a hint of humor tingeing his voice. “I promised not to touch the room because it’s the right thing to do, but I would have kissed you anyway,” he said. “I’ve been dying to kiss you since Mya and Corey’s wedding. And that was before I saw you holding a blowtorch. That just pushed me over the edge.”

Phil rolled her eyes. Despite the fireworks his kiss had set off within her, she needed to reiterate her previous assertion. “I meant what I said, Jamal. If we’re going to work together, you can’t do that again.”

“What? Kiss you?”

She nodded.

He blew out a ragged breath. “Are you really going to make me choose between kissing you and having you work on the house? That’s not fair.”

“Wait a minute. Didn’t we already have this conversation?” Phil asked. “There is no choice. The whole you-and-me thing isn’t going to happen.”

“Come on, Phylicia. You know we’d be good together.”

“I don’t know any such thing,” she returned.

A simple, sexy brow quirked. “Need me to show you again?”

Phil’s insides quaked with instant want. God, this man was dangerous to her undersexed body.

She picked up the blowtorch. “Stay back. I mean it.”

Jamal’s head pitched back with a crack of laughter. “You definitely have a dangerous side to you, Phylicia Phillips.” He leaned in close and whispered in her ear, “You should know that I like that in a woman.” He winked at her, then turned and headed for the door. “I’ll see you at Belle Maison tomorrow morning,” Jamal called over his shoulder.

She watched him walk out of her workshop, and a part of her wanted to follow him. How was she going to survive the next couple of months working alongside that man? Especially now that she knew how he tasted.

As she tapped the igniter on the burner head and connected the blue flame with the metal, Phil muttered, “Boy, you just love heaping trouble on your head, don’t you?”

Chapter 5

“Good morning.”

Jamal looked up from the board he was measuring. He couldn’t contain his smile as Phylicia walked toward him, carrying a thermos. He was constantly amazed at the way this woman could make faded jeans and a plain white T-shirt look sexy.

“Good morning,” he returned.

She took a healthy sip from her thermos before capping it and allowed her eyes to roam around the yard. Finally, she looked his way, giving him her full attention, and the current that zapped between them was enough to singe the hair on his skin.

Phylicia cleared her throat. “I thought about your plans on how to tackle the restoration,” she began. “I think you may be setting yourself up for more work if you go one room at a time. You should just tear down everything at once.”

Her all-business tone made it apparent that she had no plans to pick up where they’d left off after yesterday’s kiss.

Jamal folded his arms across his chest, one brow cocked. So that’s how it’s going to be?

Phylicia lifted her chin. Damn right.

His mind recoiled in protest, but Jamal knew it was for the best, especially with all the work that needed to be done and the limited time he had left before guests began arriving. But there were after-work hours. And the work crew he’d hired would soon add a lot more manpower to the project.

“Are you ready to get to it?” Phylicia asked, all business. “I could get started on removing the wainscoting today.”

“I thought you wanted me to leave the wainscoting untouched?” he asked.

“It’s your house, Jamal.” She scrunched up her nose. “You have no idea how hard it was for me to say that.”

“Phyl—” he started, but she put her hand up, halting him.

“It is your house. You agreed to leave my mom’s painting room intact, which I am unbelievably grateful for, but I don’t expect you to change all of your plans just to suit me. You hired me to help preserve elements of Belle Maison’s original structure; that’s what I’m here to do.”

“I also hired you for your input,” he said. “I’m open to suggestions. Doesn’t mean I’ll go along with all of them, but as highly recommended as you come, I’d be a fool not to listen to what you have to say.”

He tossed the measuring tape aside and moved toward her. “I want us to work together as a team.”

He reached for her, but she took several steps back. She held her hands up, her face resolute. “Look, Jamal, I already told you that if I’m going to work with you on this project, what happened yesterday afternoon cannot happen again. That kiss was...well, it was a mistake.”

“It wasn’t a mistake,” he disputed. “It was unbelievable.”

“Jamal—”

“Don’t shut me down without at least giving me a chance, Phylicia.”

“It’s not going to happen,” she reiterated. “I have too much going on in my life right now. And with you and this house and just... It’s not going to happen. Is that going to be a problem for you?”

He raised his palms up, giving her the universal hands-off gesture. What he really wanted to do was kiss the living daylights out of her again. Apparently, she’d quickly forgotten how explosive their kiss was yesterday. He, on the other hand, couldn’t get it out of his head.

“Good,” she said with a curt nod. “I’ll get to work on the parlor.”

Arms crossed over his chest, Jamal stepped to the side so she could move past him. As he watched her walk up the back steps and into the house, he couldn’t imagine how he would get through the next few months working alongside her.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to worry about running into Phylicia all that much. With him outside measuring the strawboard that would replace the walls in the bedrooms, and her working inside in the front parlor, he hardly saw her for most of the morning. At noon, Jamal tossed the carpenter’s pencil aside and entered the house through the door just off the kitchen.

He stopped at the arched entryway between the parlor and downstairs sitting room and watched as Phylicia carefully pried a section of aged wainscoting from the wall. She gingerly laid it next to an identical piece she’d placed on the floor, and turned to tackle the next section.

As she bent over, Jamal’s hands fisted at the way the faded denim cupped her ass like a well-worn baseball glove. It probably felt as soft and smooth, too. He reined in the urge to walk up to her and test it for himself.

Stop it, he ordered himself. Phylicia had made her feelings known; he had to respect them, no matter how much it killed him to do so.

He shoved away from the doorjamb. “Are you hungry?” he asked.

She jumped and turned.

“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to sneak up on you.”

“That’s okay,” she said. “Between the pounding and the music you’d have to wear a cowbell around your neck to announce your arrival.” She smiled, and that urge to kiss her roared back to life. “Did you need something?” she asked.

And isn’t that a loaded question?

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.