She started to say something—and then everything happened at once. With an ear-splitting noise, the tin panel above her pulled partly free, revealing a wooden beam seething with termites.
Dozens of them fell into her hair.
She screamed and dropped her hammer, then lost her balance. Clawing at the air as she fell backward, she braced herself to hit the hard wooden floor. She wondered in the split second she was airborne how many bones she would break.
But she didn’t hit the floor. Instead, she fell into a strong pair of arms as perfectly and neatly as if she’d fallen into a hammock.
How had he gotten there so quickly? It took her a few moments to realize she was okay; she wasn’t going to die after all. “What are you doing here?” she asked inanely.
“Is that any way to greet a man who just saved your life?”
“Put me down, please.” She still had a head full of termites. She had to get them off her.
“You could have broken your neck. Why didn’t you ask someone to help you with this?”
“Oh, you mean a big, strong man—because I couldn’t possibly wield a couple of tools?”
“Well, obviously you…”
“I’m perfectly capable! Or I was, until an entire nest of termites flew into my hair.”
“Termites?”
“There are a couple on your arm now.”
He quickly put her down and brushed at his arm, while she shook the rest of the insects out of her hair. Ugh. Her skin was still crawling from the sight of those awful bugs.
“Got any Raid?” Tony asked.
“It’s going to take more than bug spray, I’m afraid.” She mentally added a termite inspection, fumigation and possibly expensive repairs to her working list of things to take care of. For now, though…where had she seen bug spray? The storeroom? She walked back to look.
Tony was right at her heels. “You’re taking down the ceiling?”
“I’d planned to auction off the ceiling, along with all this other stuff. But I didn’t know there was nothing but bare rafters behind the tin. I guess I’ll have to leave it. Ah, here it is. For crawling and flying insects. I think termites are both.”
Tony took the can from her. “I’ll take care of this.” He climbed up the ladder and sent a toxic fog into the space above the ceiling panels. “You know, the tin ceiling is part of the ambience,” he argued as dead bugs fell to the floor. “Anyway, this is a historical landmark. You can’t go tearing it up.”
Julie stood well away from the bug shower. “I checked with the landmark commission. So long as I don’t make material changes to the exterior, I’m okay. And a tin ceiling isn’t exactly the ambience I’m looking for.”
Painted tin ceilings were funky and kind of charming, but Julie was going for classy all the way. She’d wanted to do textured plaster.
She mentally adjusted her picture of Belinda’s to reflect a tin ceiling—painted a pale yellow so as not to call attention to itself. It would be okay.
Then she realized something was on her foot—something alive. Immediately thinking termite, she started to kick until she realized it was a half-grown Dalmatian puppy gnawing on her shoelace.
“Excuse me,” she said, yanking her foot away, “have we met?”
Tony came down from the ladder. “This is Bluto. His mom is Daisy, the fire station mascot. I usually give him a walk on my days off.”
“They let you keep puppies at the fire station?”
“Only in a dog run in the back. And only temporarily. The pups had to go. Bluto is the last one.”
“So you brought him here?”
“I saw the lights on and thought I’d stop in and see how it’s going.” He looked around. “You still have a lot of work to do, I see.”
“Rub it in, why don’t you?” Her attention was torn between gorgeous Tony and his cute puppy, which wagged its tail so hard its entire body wiggled.
She couldn’t help it. She bent down to pet the pup, and it jumped all over, licking her face in a frenzy of love. Her parents hadn’t allowed any pets, seeing them simply as more mouths to feed. And once she was on her own, she’d never considered getting a dog or cat.
“Hi, Bluto.” It was much easier to be warm and friendly to the puppy than to Tony. Safer, too. She wasn’t normally unfriendly, but she knew she had to be on her guard with Tony for two reasons: he wanted something from her she couldn’t give, and she wanted something from him she didn’t dare ask for. If he had any idea how attracted she was to him, he could use it against her.
“So you live around here?” she asked.
“Just down Willomet. Less than a block.”
They were neighbors.
A noise above her yanked her attention away from the pup. She looked up just in time to see the ceiling panel she’d been working on detach itself completely and head straight for her.
Tony grabbed Julie and the dog and yanked them both out of the way. The heavy piece of tin, with its knife-sharp edges, crashed to the floor right where she’d been standing, leaving a gouge in the wooden planking.
Now she reacted. She’d almost died—twice in two minutes. Her knees went wobbly, and if Tony hadn’t put his arms around her, she’d have sunk to the floor.
“That’s twice I’ve saved your life,” he said, his voice husky.
For an insane moment, Julie thought he might kiss her. She’d fantasized about it often enough over the past couple of days. But then the moment passed, sanity reasserted itself and Tony released her, leaving her tingling.
Could a brush with death cause these peculiar feelings? She sure hoped she had an excuse for wanting to lose herself in a man’s touch when she was supposed to be concentrating on her tearoom.
With no small effort, Tony pulled himself out of the sensual fog that Julie had put him in. He’d felt so drawn to her, as if he wanted to kiss her. Thankfully he’d realized how inappropriate that would be and had let the woman go, taking a step back to put her out of temptation’s reach. This seduction had to be executed with care.
Ethan had said to make friends with Julie, get to know her. That wasn’t Tony’s normal approach. He usually liked to sweep a woman off her feet, flirt mercilessly, prove to her how strongly he was attracted to her. He’d always figured the friendship could come later, when the sexual pull wasn’t so overwhelming that it occupied all of his brain cells.
But so far that friendship part had eluded him. Yeah, he was friends with Priscilla and Ethan’s wife, Kat—and Natalie, the mother of his little girl. As far as his love life went, though, something always went wrong before he could become friends with a lover.
So maybe he would try being friends first. There was more than one way to seduce a woman, and he wouldn’t quit until he’d tried them all.
“Th-thank you,” Julie said, recovering some of the color in her face. “I do appreciate the life-saving maneuvers.”
“That’s what firefighters are for.” She looked amazing, standing there with her heaving breasts and her rosy cheeks, her golden hair mussed from shaking. She was trying to pretend that being so close to him hadn’t had much effect, but Tony knew better.
Then she pulled herself together, all business again. “As you pointed out, I have a ton of work to do. So if you’ll excuse me…”
“That’s why I’m here. I thought I could help.”
She