Some ex-beauty queen. “I’ll…be back in a minute,” she said, amazed he hadn’t run from her screaming in horror.

“Take your time.” Clearly distracted, he pulled out the plans she’d sent him when he’d made his bid. “This is far worse than I remembered.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your town house.” He lifted his clipboard, which had a sticker on it that said, Life Sucks, Wear a Hard Hat, and started making notes. “It’s horrible.”

Feeling defensive, she halted. “Nothing a little fixing up won’t cure.”

“Oh, I know. Beneath your tacky paint job and ridiculous wall placement, this place has huge potential. Don’t worry, I’ll see to it.”

“It’s not my tacky paint job,” she said, wanting to be clear on that, and also feeling a little…jealous at his confidence in his abilities.

“Uh-huh,” he said, not looking up from where he was scribbling furiously on his clipboard.

“And those walls? I had nothing to do with them.”

“Yep.”

She was standing there, practically buck naked, trying to convince the man that she hadn’t decorated the place this way, and he didn’t care.

She had to laugh at herself. “At least you’re honest,” she said to his back.

He didn’t appear to hear her, or if he did, didn’t feel the need to respond. Hunkering down, he spread the plans on the floor, oblivious to the way his shirt stretched over all his interesting muscles and how his tool belt tugged at his jeans, exposing a good inch of sleek, taut, tanned skin across his lower back.

Contractors were supposed to have beer bellies and too much butt crack showing.

Tanner had neither.

And what was he doing as she ogled him? He appeared to have forgotten all about her.

Wasn’t that just the crowning glory on her ego.

Sighing, Cami continued out of the room, thinking maybe it wasn’t so bad being single, really. She didn’t have to worry about bed head. Or clean clothes. She didn’t have to worry about her extra ten pounds. Much.

Besides, if she ever got herself a man-and if her mother had anything to do with it, she would-then she wanted a really great one, who could both laugh and think, maybe even at the same time.

Ha! There wasn’t any such man.

But if there were, and she did, it wouldn’t be Mr. Not-Even-Notice-Her, no matter how sexy she’d just realized a tool belt could be.

2

CAMI REALLY NEEDED pain relief, coffee and a shower, and not necessarily in that order. Then, and only then, could she perk up and be truly ecstatic about her future.

But she didn’t have time. She actually had a man waiting for her, not an everyday occurrence. Granted, he was her contractor, but he was waiting for her.

In her bedroom, she managed to pull on a blouse and socks. Then the phone rang. She continued searching for her pants, which had been on the floor the last time she’d checked, mostly because she never had an available hanger. What was that about, anyway? It ranked right up there as one of life’s little mysteries, next to why her keys were never where she’d last put them.

“Mew.”

“I know,” Cami said, on her hands and knees now, peering beneath her bed. “You want food. Go tell your new lover boy.”

Annabel shot her a snooty look as the phone continued to ring.

“Where’s my Advil? Hello?” she said into the receiver, just as she found her pants, but naturally they had a stain on them. “Oh, damn.”

“Young lady, what kind of language is that?”

Perfect. Her mother was half Italian and half Irish. They didn’t come any more bossy, stubborn or domineering than Sara Lynn Anderson, who alternated between attempting to run Cami’s life and praying for her daughter’s soul to keep it safe from the devil.

“Sorry, Mom. I didn’t know it was you.” Because if she had, she wouldn’t have picked it up.

“Never mind, darling. Look, I wanted to talk to you.”

Never mind? Cami had used a swear word and her mother had said never mind? All Cami’s problems vanished as she sank to the bed and clutched the phone.

Someone had to be sick.

Dying.

Or already dead. “What’s the matter?” she demanded, just as bossy, stubborn and domineering as her mother. “Tell me. I can take it.”

“Nothing.”

“Mom!”

“I just have a little favor, that’s all. Can’t a mother call her own daughter for one little favor?”

Cami was so relieved she let her guard down. A bad mistake with her mother. “Well, of course you can.”

“I need you to go out with-”

“Oh, no, you don’t.” It didn’t take a rocket scientist to know where this was going. “Not another blind date.”

Her mother had started this when Cami and her sister turned twenty-one and she hadn’t wavered in her single, solitary mission to marry her daughters off in order to get grandchildren.

“It’s just one little date, Cami. One little favor. Just one little short night out of your life.”

“Too many littles.”

Maybe deep, deep down Cami had the same happily-ever-after dream for herself that her mother did, but she wasn’t going to admit it to the woman who had given her more blind dates from hell than any dating service ever could. Plus, truth told, Cami was terrified of finding Mr. Right. She didn’t believe in Mr. Right. “No.”

“Just because you think you’ve got it all together now that you’ve received your design degree doesn’t mean your future is set.”

“My future is fine.”

“Really? Is your laundry done?”

Cami glanced guiltily at the pile of dirty clothes in the corner behind the door. “What does that have to do with anything!”

“So it’s not.”

“No to the date. Double no. Triple no.”

“Oh, sure.” Her mother’s voice softened as she switched tactics, became vulnerable. Sad. “Turn me down in my time of need. I understand. I only spent twenty-four long, sweaty, torturous hours in labor with you and Dimi, and-”

“And we nearly killed you,” Cami said in tune with her mother, who was really getting into the story now, and had even mustered tears in her voice. “I know, Mom,” she said, rubbing her forehead and the ache that settled there every time she spoke with her mother. “I remember.” How could she forget when her mother pulled this story out at every turn?

“I’m going to die soon, you know.”

“Oh, no, you’re not,” Cami said with a laugh. “You’re going to outlive us all.”

“You never know.”

“Mom.”

“You’d really send me off to heaven, where you know I’m going to run into Aunt Bev and Cici, both of whom had daughters who gave them five grandchildren? Each?”

“Mom-”

“All I’m asking for is one little bundle of love to treasure in my final days, one grandchild. But apparently even that’s too much.”

Cami’s headache increased in pressure so that she could see herself keeling over in nothing but her shirt, socks and panties, with Mr. Sexy Tool Belt the only one around to resuscitate her. “Look, Mom, you know I love you, but-”

“He’s very handsome, too. I promise.”

“Who?”

“Your date! Keep up, Cami. He’s Great-Aunt Lulu’s cousin’s brother-in-law, and she swears by him, which is good enough for me. I hear he makes a wonderful living doing those fancy dub-dub-dub thingies…what are they called again?”

“Web sites.” Cami let out a soundless sigh, tipped her head back and stared at the ceiling. As if divine intervention could help when it came to her mother! No one could help, not even God, not when Sara Lynn Anderson had made up her mind.

“You sound busy.” Her mother sniffed in that way all mothers have that insures guilt to the tenth degree. “Too busy for me, probably.”

It was pure bad fortune that Cami happened to have the gene inside her that made it impossible to enjoy herself in life unless everyone around her was happy. Yes, that left her wearing the proverbial doormat on her head that said Take Advantage of Me Because I Can’t Say No, but it happened to look good on her, if she did say so herself. “I’m not too busy for you, Mom, but-”

“Good, because he’s the catch of the year, and-”

Cami tuned her out, her attention drawn by a noise coming from the living room. Her master carpenter. Her gorgeous master carpenter.

The man who hadn’t given her a second look.

Was she, at twenty-six, losing all appeal? So maybe she carried a few extra pounds, but she hadn’t had time for exercise since…since, well, she hated exercise.

But even if she had the time, which she didn’t, and even if she worked out seven days a week, which she didn’t, she’d still have too many darn curves.

So really, all she had going for her was her hair and her own teeth. That had to count for something.

“Lulu says he loves the Tahoe region and he’s thinking of relocating here permanently, seeing that his stock portfolio is worth more than her retirement fund.”

Cami hadn’t had a date in…well, forever. Sad state of affairs, really.

Even sadder was the fact she was sitting here, without pants, actually considering it.

It was just one night. With a computer geek, which meant he had to be at least semiintelligent. “Mom-”

“And I bet he has all his hair.”

“Mom-”

“Because he’s blond. It’s really hard to pull off a blond toupee.”

“Mom, stop. I’ll do it.”

“And he has all his- What? You will? You really will?”

“Yes, but this is the last time. The real last time. Got that?”

“Absolutely. Probably.”

Cami could only sigh. And hope he indeed had all his hair.


TANNER WAS STILL leaning over the set of plans when his new boss came racing through the back door. Strange, since he would have sworn she was still in the town house, but even stranger, her cat took one look at her and hissed.

She was already dressed, in a pale green business number that showed a set of legs well worth a double take. There was makeup on her face, and her hair had been taken care of, piled on her head in some artful manner.

Pretty quick for a female, especially one who looked as she did, all blond and buxomy and naturally tousled.

That kind of natural look took women forever in the bathroom to achieve. Tanner knew this because, one, his mother had been both blond and beautiful, and in his memory of her, she’d never taken less than a lifetime to get ready to go anywhere, and two, in his wayward youth, he’d worked his way through plenty of blondes of his own.

At thirty-two years old, he had higher standards now.

Usually.

Skidding to a halt between the kitchen and the living room, she stared at him, clearly shocked to find him still there. “Oh,” she said, blinking huge chocolate eyes that suddenly seemed…different.

“Yep. Still here.” He wondered what she’d done, exactly, because though a sexpot was a sexpot, it was almost as if she was a completely different person.

“Oh,” she said again, ignoring her cat, who walked away from her, tail switching back and forth in annoyance.

Very strange.

“Did you forget I was here?” he asked, her reaction reinforcing his earlier thought-he was working for a woman missing a few marbles.

“I…yes. Yes, I guess I did forget.” She bit her full lower lip and looked at him, as if she’d never seen him before.

She was sleepy-eyed and pouty-lipped and could have just bounced out of bed, if not for the fancy clothes. He had a feeling she always looked that way, that she knew how to get exactly what she wanted by showing off her tall, lush body to her advantage.

In his dubious maturity, the one that came with preferring steady income over a hot babe to look at, he took a big mental step backward.

First of all, he was finally at work doing a job he loved after a year from hell fraught with family tragedy. He needed the work.

Not to mention, Cami Anderson was living in a great fixer-upper that he badly wanted to get his hands on. In fact, he was practically salivating at the opportunity. This particular town house complex was over a century old, and though it had been sorely mistreated by age and neglect and the severe weather of the Sierras, it had the potential to be brought to its former glory.

With his help.

Running a hand over the scarred, original wood flooring, he smiled. Yeah, definitely, beneath the abused material was a foundation based on character and strength. Personality.

And he couldn’t wait to dig in-with or without the nutty lady.

“Um…” She continued to gnaw on her lower lip. “Why are you here again exactly?”

Tanner laughed, but when she didn’t so much as smile, his humor faded.