Forever Summer - Melody Grace Page 0,10

asked, looking smug.

“Well, no …” Evie felt like hurling herself to the ground in humiliation. “I knocked the ladder,” she admitted. “So if you could just set it up again, you can be on your way. Really, you don’t have to stay,” she said, as Noah lifted the ladder into place—and began climbing up to meet her. “I’m sure you guys have far more important things to do.”

“Believe me, we don’t.” Noah reached the top of the ladder, drawing level with her. “What are you even doing up here?” he asked, his eyes creasing with amusement.

“I came to check the roof.” She gestured vaguely. “I have contractors coming, and I wanted to see it for myself.”

“So how does it look?”

“I don’t know.” Evie tried not to laugh. Why was it that every time this guy came around, she was practically hysterical about something? “Like a roof?”

Noah smirked. “I see the renovation is off to a great start.”

“Oh, bite me,” Evie said, before she could stop herself.

Noah snorted with laugher. “If you want, I can just leave you up here …,” he said, making to climb back down.

“No!” Evie yelped, grabbing at his arm. “I would … appreciate the help,” she managed.

His grin widened. “Well, since you asked so nicely …”

Noah carefully helped her to the edge of the roof, and then started down the ladder in front of her. Evie blanched.

“I’m not going after you,” she protested. She was wearing a pair of old cut-off jeans that had seen better days. On solid ground, they were perfectly respectable, but from this angle … There was no way she was going to climb down with Noah’s eyes inches from her ass. “Let me go first.”

“Nope,” he explained. “If you take a tumble on the way down, someone needs to break your fall. It’s protocol.”

“Oh.” Evie paused, but there was no way around it. “Well—just keep your eyes to yourself,” she ordered.

“Now you’re giving me ideas.”

Evie scrambled down so fast, she nearly got splinters. Noah helped her down the last few rungs, a steady hand on her back. She flushed. His palm was warm through the thin cotton of her T-shirt, and she could feel the heat radiating outwards, snaking along her ribcage and down her spine in a delicious shiver of awareness.

“Thanks!” she snatched away the moment her feet hit solid earth again. What was she doing, drooling over him again—when he was just trying to do his job?

“Any time.” Noah leaned back against the porch with that infuriating smile on his face.

“Nice shorts,” he added. “You’re a Snoopy fan, huh?”

Evie’s cheeks flushed hotter. He’d been staring at her underwear! “You promised not to look,” she exclaimed, wishing she’d picked something different today. Would some silk or satin have killed her?

Not that she wanted Noah looking at her lingerie.

“No,” Noah corrected, “you ordered me not to Which, if you knew me at all, you’d know was just an invitation for trouble.”

Evie scowled. “What happened to ‘protect and serve’?”.

“Oh, I’m happy to serve,” Noah drawled. She blushed harder, until someone cleared their throat.

“Everything OK then?” the other firefighter asked, looking back and forth between them with an amused expression on his face.

Evie exhaled. “Yes. Fine. And that looks like my contractor now,” she said, spotting a van heading in their direction. “So you can go.”

“You called Louie?” Noah asked, as the van rattled to a stop and an older guy in paint-splattered coveralls emerged.

“Yes.” Evie ignored the dubious note in his voice. “Thanks again. Have a great day!”

Noah gave a “suit yourself” shrug and sauntered back towards the fire truck as Louie arrived, brandishing a clipboard.

Evie tried to pull herself together. Never mind roof escapades and unexpected encounters, she needed to focus on the inn, and what it was going to take to restore it to its former glory.

No matter how good his body looked in that uniform.

“As you can see, it’s quite a project,” she told Louie after the introductions were out of the way. “What do you think?

He looked around, assessing. “What do you want first, the good news or the bad news?”

“Good news,” Evie said immediately. She’d had enough of the bad to last her a lifetime. It was the reason she’d decided to leave her past behind and embark on this new adventure.

The only question was, just how much was this adventure going to cost her?

Louie scratched the back of his neck. “Well … the weather forecast’s supposed to be clear for the next couple of weeks.”

She blinked.