One thing was for sure, James no longer looked so smug. It was hard to pull off a good I-am-smarter-and-more-capable-than-you-because-I-am-older-and-carry-around-an-extra-appendage-in-my-pants look when there was a hole where your mouth and nose had been.
Her hands sweating in her work gloves, she adjusted her grip and swung again, this time taking out his beady eyes. Twenty minutes later, her arms ached, her back and shoulders were tight with pain and a layer of dust covered her safety goggles. But she kept right on swinging, matching her movements to Three Dog Night’s “Shambala” blaring through the speakers of her iPod.
By the end of the song, her hands were cramping, her breathing was ragged inside her respirator mask and only small pieces of lath remained of the parlor’s northern wall.
Best of all, she no longer had the urge to drive over to her brother’s work site and slash his tires for messing up her schedule and being a condescending jerk.
When you had a hammer, who needed therapy?
Stretching onto her toes, Maddie tore out a loose piece of lath then froze, the back of her neck prickling with the sensation of being watched.
Before she could turn, the prickle turned into an out-and-out warning. One telling her the person behind her was dangerous and she needed to march herself right out the front door. To put as much distance between them as possible. Worse, it told her exactly who stood there.
When it came to Neil Pettit, she’d always had a very good sense of when he was around. Like there was some sort of homing device imbedded inside of her. There he is! The man of your adolescent dreams!
It was annoying as hell.
And after all these years, still as powerful as it’d been when she’d been young and stupid with love for him.
Keeping her back to him, she set the hammer down before crossing to the iPod to shut it off. Only because she was in no hurry to give him any of her time, her attention. Not because she was afraid to face him. Certainly not because she thought, even for a partial second, that seeing him and looking into his eyes would cause her the slightest twinge of pain.
She’d gotten over Neil a long time ago.
Maddie blew out a heavy breath, the sound loud and Darth Vader-ish to her ears. She’d pray her instincts were way off base, but while she didn’t mind asking God for the occasional favor, she knew better than to count on something as nebulous as prayers or wishes or positive thinking.
No, the only thing she could count on was what she saw with her own eyes. What she could control herself.
She tossed her goggles onto the mantel of the marble fireplace and pulled down the respirator mask so that it hung around her neck then turned. And had to lock her knees so she wouldn’t whirl right back around again.
Damn it, why did she always have to be right?
Neil leaned against the doorjamb, his broad shoulders filling the space, his ankles crossed as he lazily, deliberately, slid his gaze from the top of her head to the toes of her work boots.
She fidgeted, realized what she was doing and stiffened her spine. So what if his toned athlete’s body, sharply planed face and blue eyes caused hormones she’d begun to fear were dead to spring miraculously to life with a rousing cheer?
Seeing as how she hadn’t physically responded to a real live man in ages, he definitely deserved a good rah-rah. Maybe even a backflip or two. But she’d eat rusty nails for breakfast before she gave him the satisfaction of knowing he still affected her.
God, there should be some sort of law, a sacred decree that when a woman saw her ex, she looked completely hot. Sexy, don’t-you-wish-you-hadn’t-tossed-me-aside hot.
Not sweaty, I’ve-spent-the-afternoon-whaling-away-at-walls-and-am-a-total-mess hot.
And it didn’t matter that she’d seen Neil plenty of times since their breakup. Or that he was a lying bastard who couldn’t be trusted to give an honest report of the weather outside.
He should regret, at least a little bit, walking away from her. He should suffer and want to turn back time so he could undo his mistake. He should want her.
If only so Maddie could laugh in his face.
“Hey, babe,” he said. “Looking good.”
His voice was deep. Husky. Inviting. His greeting the same as it’d been in high school when he’d wait for her at her locker after school. He’d watch her approach, his intense gaze following her every