Take a Chance on Me(104)

Winning the election.

It was the only dream she’d ever had, and she couldn’t let it die along with everything else.





Cecilia had been banging on the front door of her brother’s farmhouse for five minutes and still no one answered. She glanced around the front yard filled with the same large oaks and weeping willows, but where her grandma had had shrubs, her future sister-in-law had lush hydrangea bushes in vibrant pinks, lavenders, and greens.

It was like stepping into an alternate universe where time had stopped, but reality had been altered just enough to make the familiar, foreign.

The breeze blew, sending the old porch swing swaying, and a burst of nostalgia filled her chest. How many summer nights had she sat there as a little girl, smelling of Off and the river, curled next to her grandma’s side reading James and the Giant Peach?

She could still see her grandma sitting there in her housedress, looking like she was part of the earth. A tightness welled in her chest at the memory.

Would her grandma have even liked the woman she’d become?

She huffed out an exasperated sigh. Where was all this emotion coming from? She needed to shake it off and get it together. She turned away from the past and rang the bell, then rapped hard against the panes of glass.

Met with nothing but silence, she twisted the handle and found it unlocked. Since they expected her, she took a cautious step inside. Her heels clicked against the original hardwood floors, which gleamed with a richness that spoke of the care someone had put into restoring the wood.

“Hello?” she called out, peering around the empty foyer. The walls were different. The rose-patterned paper had been replaced with a soft, dark gray paint she’d never have picked because of the dark wood moldings, but it looked exactly right.

She called out again, “Hello?”

A distant, unrecognizable male voice yelled back, “In the kitchen.”

Why on earth hadn’t he answered the door? She tossed her bag on the bench and walked down the narrow hallway leading to the swinging kitchen door that had been in this house since its creation.

The kitchen told another story, thrusting her out of the past and into the future. It gleamed with newness. With gorgeous, industrial stainless steel appliances, distressed white cabinets, and polished granite countertops in various shades of cream, gold, and brown.

Under the extra-deep double sink, a man sprawled across the floor, his head under the cabinet. “Can you hand me that wrench?”

That voice. It never failed to send an irritating trail of tingles racing down her spine. She ground her back teeth until her temples gave a sharp stab of protest. Of course, Shane Donovan had to be the first person she ran into.

He bent one knee, pulling the worn fabric of his jeans across powerful thighs. Her throat went dry as her pulse sped.

Why him? Out of every man she’d ever encountered—and in her line of work, she encountered plenty—why did it have to be him? For heaven’s sake, he belonged to the wrong political party. She shuddered.

It was all so . . . embarrassing.

But her body didn’t care, hadn’t cared since the first time she’d met him at Mitch and Maddie’s engagement party. The second her palm had slid into his, a disconcerting jolt of electricity had traveled through her fingertips and up her arm. She’d had to force herself not to jerk away and keep her face impassive.

It was a good thing he didn’t like her. It was the one thing working in her favor. If she stuck to her current strategy of nurturing his disdain, he’d stay away, and her exposure would be minimal.

She walked over to the box of tools and stood over him.

Half hidden under the sink, Shane fiddled with her brother’s plumbing. Annoyed at his pure perfection, she wrinkled her nose.

At six-four, his frame stretched beautifully across the hardwood. His hips were lean. His stomach flat. Shoulders ridiculously broad. Most of the times she’d seen him, he’d been dressed in a suit, but today he wore a pair of beat-up construction boots, faded jeans, and a thin white T-shirt. It was a crime against nature that a man who spent most of his time in boardrooms had muscles like his.

She’d analyzed her attraction, and for the life of her, she couldn’t come up with a logical explanation. Sure, he was good looking, but so what? Good-looking men weren’t impossible to find. He was nothing like the men she dated. She preferred, well, men like her. Men who were more interested in politics and strategy then carnal pleasures. She enjoyed a relationship in which sex was secondary to their intellectual connection. Not that she had a problem with sex—she didn’t. Her past encounters had all been pleasant and civilized.

But nothing about Shane Donovan was civilized. And somehow she doubted sex with him was pleasant.

She shouldn’t be attracted to him. Period. End of story. Only her libido didn’t agree.

A loud clang sounded under the cabinet, followed by a grunted curse. He stretched out his hand. “The wrench.”

Without a word she reached down, grabbed the tool, and plopped it in his palm with far more force than necessary.

“Easy there, honey.” The warm tone of his voice was clearly not meant for her.

Who was honey? A moment of panic washed over her. Oh, no. Was she going to be tortured by watching him with another woman?

The thought bothered her so much, she blurted, “I’m not your honey.”