What a Bachelor Needs (Bachelor Auction Book 4)(20)

So.

Lights.

Mardie’s indignance huffed out of her reluctantly.

Porch.

She made her way to the front door and opened it and damned if a light didn’t come on automatically and light up her porch area as well. She saw a new deck plank here and there, a new railing for the steps, but otherwise it looked much the same as always…except sturdier. She looked harder. New bolts and braces for the posts. And concrete, or so he said, although it wasn’t visible from where she was standing.

What on earth was she going to get him to do around the house tomorrow? New kitchen? Because she had a feeling if she asked for one, she’d get it.

She shut her front door and opened the door to the front room next and the scent of paint hit her. No fortress around the fireplace.

Yet.

Mardie shut the door behind her and headed for the bathroom, a dimly lit mausoleum with water pressure so slight that she could barely wash her hair beneath the spray, but wash it she did, to get the waft of liquor gone.

Jett hadn’t noted when he’d be here in the morning, maybe it depended on the ever-worsening weather.

Maybe she’d make pancakes and put a casserole in the slow cooker. Fill the house with the scent of something tasty, something for him to eat during the day. Would that be considered a regular thing to do for a handyman?

She doubted it.

Maybe she’d make the casserole for herself, and then if a teasing, dark-eyed man full of strengths and strange truths wanted something to eat, he could have at it.

That could hardly be called catering to the man or wooing him with the promise of happy domesticity.

Could it?

*

He was beautiful under any circumstances, but when Jett walked through her back door the next morning wearing battered jeans and a deep red shirt, with the color all but leached from his skin in the face of the cloudy, menacing day and the half-assed light coming in through the kitchen window, he looked more like a poster child for beauty than a hardworking, high-performance adult.

“Pancakes!” he said, and brought out the dimples, and Claire smiled back from her highchair and offered him some of hers.

“Kiss!”

“No, honey. That’s Jett.” Probably best not to encourage either of them. “No kissing for anyone at this time of the morning.”

“Since when were mornings not made for kissing?” he asked.

“Since you and your dimples turned up in them. We have pancakes. Be content. There’s a plate for you if you want some.”

“You made me pancakes?” He glanced at the stack on the plate, affording her the perfect opportunity to admire the cut of his eyelashes.

“Did no one ever feed you as a child?”

“Yes, but eating more than your designated share was an act of war. Four older brothers, remember?”

“Do you have a special diet when you’re in training?”

“I do. And it doesn’t include pancakes.”

“Are you in training now?”

“Nope.” He smiled angelically.

“I wasn’t sure if you were going to turn up this morning. The radio announcer said that some of the roads hadn’t been cleared yet. Not that I actually know where you live.”

“The family ranch tucks up against the Crazy Mountain range, about an hour outside of Marietta.”

“You drive an hour to get here each day?”

“I’ve driven further for less.”

“How do you even get out of your ranch when it snows like this? Ella can’t.”

“She can if she wants to snowmobile to the highway, and there’s a pickup in a barn there, and then she has to bribe the snowplow driver to clear the entry to the barn on their way past. Works a treat.”

Mardie had been born and bred in Marietta. It wasn’t a thriving metropolis by any means, but Marietta sure as eggs didn’t involve that kind of remote existence. “More pancakes for you.”

“Now I feel pampered.” He sat next to the high chair and accepted Claire’s mushy offering and stuck it in his mouth and won her little girl’s heart and a string of mum-mum-mums for his trouble. “Did you see the porch?”

“I did,” she said as she set a plate full of pancakes in front of him. “It looks good. I’ve no idea what you had to do to fix it, but thank you. There’s new wood.”

“Offcuts.”

“New bolts.”

“Found ’em lying around.”

“A new railing for the stairs.”

“I have a receipt for that.”

She pushed the receipt for the outside lights and the pile of money atop it across the counter towards him. “Thanks for those as well. I appreciate it.”

He looked at the money, scooped it up and pocketed it and she thought the better of him for it.

“Butter and syrup?” She didn’t run to bacon but she could offer other fixings.

“Yes, ma’am. Good breakfast.”

“Breakfast is our thing. I usually add banana to Claire’s. You want some of that too?”

“No.”

“Too much like baby food?”

“Too much like banana. I’m going to burn through that list of yours today. Tap washers, door handles, a new front door lock. Making doors close properly. And I want to clean the chimney in that front room and set a fire in there to help the floor dry. You good with that?”