Designed for Love (Texas Nights) (7 page)

She just nodded and let him help her inside.

He jackknifed himself inside the tiny car, forcing his knees to kiss his chin. Even with the seat shoved back, he felt like an elephant shoehorned inside a doll car.

Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up outside St. Martha’s emergency bay. Before he could even kill the car, Ashton flung herself out and sprinted for the hospital. He strode through the automatic doors in time to hear her ask, “Can anyone tell me about Bill Cravens? I need to see him. Make sure he’s okay.”

“Ma’am.” A nurse waved her toward the waiting room seats. “If you’re not related then we can’t—”

“You don’t understand, I think I killed him.”

The nurse’s eyes rounded, and she grabbed for her phone. “Is that a confession?”

God, Ashton needed to learn to think before she spoke. Before she did anything. Mac strode forward and said, “No, she meant she was with the guy when he collapsed. That’s all.”

“I’m obligated to call the sheriff’s office.”

Mac glanced back out the glass doors, caught sight of the paramedics unloading the ambulance—slowly. With a completely covered gurney.

He grabbed Ashton by the elbow before she could dart past the nurse toward the exam rooms, turned her into his chest so she didn’t have to see what he was seeing. “Ashton—” her name was scratchy coming from his throat, “—I don’t think you’ll be seeing Mr. Cravens again.”

* * *

“Bill Cravens is dead? Dead-as-a-doornail dead?” In the library of her Fort Worth home, Gigi sat back in a hair-on-hide-covered chair two times too big for her. Correction—too big for her body. Just right for her personality.

Although Ashton had dreaded this conversation every second of the three-hour drive from Shelbyville, she knew this was news she should deliver in person. “One minute, we were discussing the project,” she said. “The next minute, he was on the ground.” The memory of his transformation from a blustery, florid man to a pale, lifeless body snaked through her, leaving her shaky. “The staff at St. Martha’s said it was an aneurysm. Apparently, he was gone by the time he fell.”

“But you and a friend followed him to the hospital?”

Mac had definitely acted like one in all that craziness. Driving to St. Martha’s. Quietly informing her Mr. Cravens was gone. Wrapping an arm around her shoulders to keep her from crashing to the ground herself. With all the trouble she’d caused him, he could’ve easily walked away. But he hadn’t. And something told her Mac wasn’t the kind of man to just walk away when things got tough.

Still, Gigi’s words stung, and Ashton wandered to the window to look out at the trees with their newly green leaves. “Did you expect me to send him off in the ambulance and go back to business as usual?”

“Don’t give me that wounded look, young lady. You can reserve that for your mother because I don’t have the time or patience for it. I’m just trying to get the story straight.”

“The service is tomorrow in Austin, and I already sent a small—” very small, “—contribution to the Cerebral Aneurysm Association.”

“I’m sure that will comfort the family.”

Doubtful the man’s family would feel comforted by anything at this point. “So the first project deadline will have to be extended slightly so—”

“No, ma’am.”

Ashton whirled around from the window to gape at her grandmother. “I no longer have a general contractor.”

“Not my problem.”

“For God’s sake, Gigi. A man just died.” Probably keeled over because she’d pushed him about her project ideas.

“And his family has my every sympathy. But you will not use the fact that God decided this was Bill Cravens’s time to take the ultimate nap as an excuse not to move forward with the project.”

“If you’ll just give me a few weeks—”

“You have until Friday to find yourself a new contractor.”

The breath in Ashton’s body froze. Went as solid as an iceberg. “I don’t know any other contractors. It’ll take some time to network, travel around the state, possibly even outside Texas, to find candidates. Then, I’ll need to interview...”

Gigi glanced at her platinum-and-diamond watch, then tapped the arm of her chair. “Guess you’d better hop to it then.”

The iceberg imploded, sending shards into Ashton’s midsection. “
This
Friday?”

Gigi’s smile was just as sharp as her eyes, and a damn sight more self-congratulatory. “Not a single day later.”

Chapter Six

A laid-back night at Dirty Harry’s was the perfect opportunity for Ashton to sweet-talk Mac into helping her with the Lily Lake project, so the next evening she was sitting at a rickety wooden table on the deck, the safest location at the hole-in-the-wall bar. In the chair next to her, Roxanne Eberly sat crosswise across Jamie Wright’s lap. After all the trouble and heartache she’d caused Roxanne not long ago, it still surprised Ashton that they were friends. That Roxanne would be willing to call Mac for her and lure him out for a beer under false pretenses.

If the situation had been reversed, Ashton wasn’t so sure she could be as forgiving. After all, she’d almost run Roxanne’s lingerie business into the ground by filing a half-assed lawsuit against her. And for what? A bet. To win a two-week trip to a Sedona spa courtesy of her brother and to make herself feel like a success.

She’d since learned that taking away what someone else had never made you feel better about yourself. In fact, it was a surefire way to make you feel shame so deep you still had a hard time looking in the mirror, possibly for years to come.

Her attempt to take away Roxanne’s business dream had ultimately led Ashton to move to Shelbyville, open Designs to Die For, and give up her trust fund. None of that was working out particularly well right now, but she had plans to change that. Tonight.

“Roxanne—” she interrupted their low-toned conversation, “—in case I forget to say it, thank you.”

With her short coppery hair, Roxanne resembled a naughty fairy. “For?”

“I could make a list, but most recently, thanks for inviting Mac out tonight.” Currently, he was the most important man in Ashton’s world.

I
will not panic.
Two days is plenty of time to hire a general contractor.

Hysterical laughter echoed inside her head, but she calmed herself with the sketchy plan she’d formed. She’d checked out Michael E. McLaughlin. As Gigi had hinted at, he wasn’t just some carpenter scrounging around for renovation work. At one time, he’d been the mastermind behind two high-dollar residential and mixed-use developments in Dallas.

Her sources also told her he’d left the city under less-than-stellar circumstances. That meant he needed money. Redemption. And possibly revenge.

“You are sure he’s coming, right?”

“For the fortieth time, yes.” Roxanne propped her booted feet on the table. No doubt she wasn’t worried about falling because Jamie was right there to steady her.

And though Ashton might want Mac to do the same, she had to put aside her attraction to him because now she needed him in a completely different way. Which meant she needed to slam a lid on her Paul Bunyan fantasies.

“What’s got you all hot to see Mac?”

“That’s between Mac and me.”

“Is that why you put on the dog tonight?”

“This—” Ashton glanced down at her designer jeans, angora sweater and custom-made turquoise cowboy boots, “—isn’t the dog. It’s simply good grooming.”

“I’d kill to afford to groom like that.”

Hinges screeched, interrupting the sniping she and Roxanne always engaged in, even though they were friends now. Clyde, Dirty Harry’s owner, elbowed his way out the screen door onto the deck and grumbled, “That damned Shirlene. Supposed to be working the floor tonight, but says she’s too busy in the kitchen.”

Oh, no. That wasn’t good news. And even worse news was Clyde wasn’t using a serving tray to deliver beers this evening. He stopped at one table and plopped down the two he was carrying in his hands. Another couple was lucky enough to be served the two stuck in his armpits.

The two in the back pockets of his overalls, he thunked in front of Roxanne and Jamie. And...where were the other two?

Please
,
God
,
let them be stashed in Clyde’s front pockets.

He bent close to Ashton and it became clear those beers were not, in fact, tucked safely in his pockets. Instead, one was shoved into the area where his overalls snapped closed, held steady between the denim and Clyde’s beer gut.

Clyde slipped the second to last bottle from his overalls and plunked it onto the table. “Damned things never stay where I put ’em.” Then he rooted around on his other side, fishing inside the denim, his hand dipping below his waist and down into his crotch.

Ashton closed her eyes. That was her beer. No question about it. Because if she wanted something from Mac, she could not leave him to drink the crotch beer.

Roxanne piped up. “What’s Shirlene cooking tonight?”

“Says it’s some French shi...stuff.”

“Oh, like
coq au vin?
” Ashton tried to distract herself from the crotch beer with the question.

“All I know’s she’s done used up all my two-buck-a-bottle wine and that mess of frog legs I had put up in the freezer.”

Roxanne covered her laughter with a cough, and Ashton glanced over in time to see Jamie wipe beer from under his nose.

“Y’all want me to put you in an order?”

“An order of what?” Of course, Mac chose that moment to stroll up to the table.

“Shirlene’s special.”

“Why not?” Mac said. “An order for the table. Know what? Make that two orders.”

“Sure thing.” Clyde headed back inside the bar.

Mac settled his big body into the chair next to Ashton with much more agility than a man his size should display. He’d recently taken a shower. He smelled of plain soap, and his hair was still damp. As always, he wore a plaid shirt, but it clung in all the right places—across his chest, around his biceps—and was tucked into starched jeans. The plain brown cowboy boots suited him. How a man could look so sexy in lumberjack clothes was a mystery. “So what did I just order?”

“Frog legs,” she told him.

“Fried?”

“Sautéed in cheap wine, apparently.”

“My favorite.” His grin struck her mid-chest. So hard she almost curled into herself from the power of it.

This could not be personal. Allowing her attraction to him to show could ruin any chance at her attracting him to the project.

Amid the chatter around the deck, Ashton felt Mac’s gaze on her like a warm, familiar weight. He leaned close. “How’re you doing? You know, after that guy... Who was he anyway?”

Of course he’d be curious. “Bill Cravens was...someone my grandmother knew. She and I attended the service.”

“I’m sure his family appreciated that.”

Not exactly. Bill Cravens’s family had shot glares her way for the entire hour. She understood they needed a focus for their pain and anger, and she had a long list of sins, but killing that man wasn’t one of them.

“I never thanked you for helping that day.” She placed a hand on Mac’s forearm, and the heat from his skin blazed up her arm and settled in her chest. “I was lucky you were close by.” A thought struck her. “Why
were
you near the lake that day?”

Mac concentrated just a little too intensely on the beer before him, picking at the corner of the label. He started to lift it to his lips, and she snatched it away to rub the opening with her sweater.

“What the hell? That beer was sealed.”

“You...um...can’t ever be too careful.” She passed it back to him.

Mac took a long swallow. When he lowered it again, Ashton was still focused on his throat, the way it moved—strong and sexy—when he drank. “I live out there.”

What?
Gigi owned all that land. “You live at Lily Lake?”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“But...but...that’s private property.”

“I’m renting a small spot from the owner. A lady named Chappell.”

Hmm...that meant he had no idea she was Adelaide Chappell’s granddaughter. Why hadn’t Gigi mentioned Mac was living out there the day she and Ashton had lunch? “Getting a good deal on that?”

“Be hard to live cheaper, and it’s peaceful out there.”

Perfect, he was already attached to the lake. It was time to reel him in on her plan. Someone opened the back door into the bar, and the notes from a slow country song drifted out. “Mac, would you like to dance?”

His green eyes widened, then narrowed. “Why?”

“Because that’s what people do at a bar?”

“We’ve got frog legs coming.”

Ashton didn’t even try to hold in her laugh. “Know what, I bet those frog legs will still be sitting here on the table when we get back.”

Mac looked around the table as if grasping for a way to save himself, but Roxanne and Jamie were so intent on each other that neither glanced his way. “Fine.”

Damn, she was starting to hate that word. Men thought
fine
would pacify a woman. Not Ashton, because
fine
was simply grudging acceptance. She needed better than that from Mac.

Ashton pushed her chair back and stood while Mac gulped down the rest of his beer.

“Need liquid courage to dance with little old me?”

* * *

Jesus, if she only knew. Her response to Bill Cravens’s collapse and subsequent death had cracked open Mac’s chest in a way it had no business being cracked open. Especially for a woman like Ashton. Sure, she’d apparently given up living as a trust-fund baby, but for how long? She was a woman who’d been handed everything in life up until now. That kind of upbringing maxed out a woman’s expectations. Expectations a guy like him couldn’t meet.

Not only was Mac broke now, but he wouldn’t have the kind of cash to make a woman like her happy again for a long, long time. If ever.

Screw that.
He would get back on top. Would get back to Dallas and show Pierce Brothers Construction who they’d messed with when they wormed their way into Mac’s deal on that development after his dad died. After Mac went a little off the deep end.

He took Ashton’s hand, so small and soft in his, and led her into the bar, through the crowd milling around gouged cocktail tables, and onto the body-packed dance floor. Ironic that Granger Smith sang about money not mattering as Mac swung Ashton into his arms. Her nicely curvy body plastered against his, and he forced himself to keep his grip light on her waist. So damn much for keeping his distance.

“This is nice, don’t you think?” she asked.

About like getting two inches too close to a campfire. The heat felt good until it began melting the skin off your bones. Rather than answer, he just gave a low grunt. She could take that however she wanted.

Way
,
way outta your league
,
McLaughlin.
And a fancy distraction you can’t afford.
Not with his money, his time, or his heart.

Her fingers flirted with the hair at his nape, and a tremor rumbled through Mac’s body, making every inch of his skin aware of the woman in his arms. What the hell were they doing? Ashton wanted something from him because this was the way a woman like her maneuvered men. He doubted her flirty behavior was spurred by the same spine-gripping lust he was feeling. “You want something, so you might as well spit it out.”

“How did you know?”

“Call it intuition.”

“You’re right. I want to talk with you about a project I’m working on.”

His skin tightened in anticipation. “This have something to do with that clipboard you were carrying when Cravens kicked it?”

Her chin came up so her blue gaze met his. “Actually, yes. I was...interviewing...Cravens for the position of general contractor.”

“What do you need with a GC?”

She drew in a breath, which pressed her breasts against him. Mac inched away when what he wanted to do was move even closer.
Concentrate
,
idiot.
Whatever this is about
,
it’s not Ashton getting naked with you.

“I’m developing the land around Lily Lake. First, an outdoor event space. Later, home sites, an indoor community gathering space, and other amenities.”

“You’re a decorator, not a developer. Besides, Mrs. Chappell owns all that property...”

This time Ashton’s smile was all I-know-something-you-don’t. “Adelaide Chappell is my grandmother.”

Oh, shit. What had he stepped in the middle of?

“And she somehow decided you should be in charge of a multimillion-dollar development?” She’d seemed sane enough when he’d rented the place from her, but apparently the old lady was crazier than a belfry full of bats.

“Gigi has more confidence in me than anyone else in my family. She wants me to make Lily Lake into something we can both be proud of.”

“And with Cravens dead, you no longer have a GC.” Yeah, this conversation was making a little more sense now.

“Look, Mac, I’ve done some asking around about you and—”

His feet stopped, simply stuck to the dance floor. “Why the
hell
would you do something like that?” To think he’d hoped the stink of scandal wouldn’t follow him here. That had been jackass stupid.

“Because I want to hire you to run the project with me.”

“No.” Absolutely, unequivocally, no fucking way in hell. He couldn’t afford any more clusterfucks in his professional life. And only someone stupid or desperate—or both—would get in on a project with someone as inexperienced as Ashton.

“But you haven’t even heard me out.”

“I don’t need to.” People were beginning to stare because he and Ashton were standing in the middle of circling dancers. “Be realistic. A woman like you doesn’t need to take on a project like this.”

“A woman like me.” Ashton’s voice went low, and if he wasn’t mistaken, was edged with a little danger. And that sent a shot of adrenaline through Mac’s system.
Uh-uh.
Mac McLaughlin didn’t do dangerous, risky, or just plain stupid anymore. And that was exactly what this was. “Tell me, how would you describe a woman like me?”

“Privileged. Maybe a little naive.”

“Really?”

He grabbed her wrist and tried to lead her off the dance floor, but she didn’t budge. “Hey, I just mean that having the kind of cash your family does can insulate you from—”

“Real life?”

He shrugged. “Maybe. Look, this kind of project, the sheer scope of a private lake development, is huge. It could take years to see it all the way through.”

“And you’re saying I’m incapable of committing to something that takes more than fifteen minutes?” Her tone was sweeter than his mom’s iced tea, but her smile held saccharine’s bitter edge. “That someone like me—” her volume went up, competing with the music, “—couldn’t possibly—” another decibel uptick, “—be more than a—” yeah, she was in crystal-shattering range now, “—blonde bobblehead.”