Sex for Beginners Box Set: Watch and Learn\In a Bind\No Peeking... Read online

  The dark-haired handyman was nowhere to be seen, but his presence was evident. The For Sale sign was gone and two ladders leaned against the front of the house. A pressure washer and other equipment sat near the front door. She smiled, relieved that the house would finally receive the attention it deserved.

  Her mailbox, labeled “Jason and Gemma White, 131 Petal Lagoon”—another artifact of the marriage to correct—was stuffed full of high-tech catalogues and news magazines that Jason liked to read. It was taking a while for his forwarding address to trickle down. She loaded her arm with the mail and flipped through it idly as she made her way back to the porch steps. Her hand stopped on a large brown envelope with the county’s return address. Walking inside, she closed the door behind her and dropped the rest of the mail on the kitchen table. With a sense of foreboding, she slid nervous fingers under the flap and pulled out a sheath of papers.

  Final Judgment and Decree. Gemma swallowed hard and scanned the four short paragraphs that officially terminated her marriage.

  “…it is decreed by the Court that the marriage contract heretofore entered into between the parties to this case, from and after this date, be and is set aside and dissolved as fully and effectually as if no such contract had ever been made or entered into…”

  As if the marriage had never existed.

  Her eyes watered, blurring the words. This was it then. Proof that the last ten years of her life hadn’t mattered. She’d assumed that she and Jason were years away from the menace of a midlife crisis, yet in less time than it had taken to plan her wedding, her marriage had disintegrated.

  What now? she wondered, leaning into the granite counter, uncaring that the hard edge bit into her pelvic bone. TV therapists and girlfriend shows referred to breakups as a clean slate, a new chapter, a chance for a woman to find her authentic self.

  But what if her authentic self was being Jason White’s wife?

  It was a notion that she didn’t dare say aloud for fear that Oprah herself would appear on her doorstep. She knew that being absorbed into a man’s life was considered passé, but she couldn’t remember the person she’d been before Jason. She didn’t have a point of reference, a place of origin. She recalled only a vague sense of floating aimlessly before she’d moored herself to him.

  He had been her first and only lover. He was all that she knew.

  The sound of the doorbell pealed through the air, jangling her nerves. She frowned, wondering who could be visiting. Then, remembering what Sue had said about having company, her pulse picked up at the thought that it could be Jason. Had Sue been trying to forewarn her? Perhaps he’d received his copy of the final papers, too, and he’d reconsidered…

  Gemma wiped at the wetness on her cheeks as she hurried through the foyer and was smiling when she opened the door.

  But at the sight of the man standing on the threshold, her smile faltered.

  2

  THE SHOULDERS OF THE dark-haired handyman spanned the doorway. His hawkish features and long, work-muscled arms were coated with a layer of gray dust. A tiny gold loop hugged his earlobe, and a black tattoo extended below his right T-shirt sleeve. She put him in his late thirties, and was both taller and bulkier than he’d appeared from a distance. Chiding herself for not checking the peephole before opening the door, Gemma took a half step back. The man’s appearance made her suddenly realize how vulnerable she was here alone.

  She had to start thinking like a single woman again.

  “May I help you?” she asked, trying to sound firm.

  “Sorry for the intrusion, Ms. Jacobs,” he said, his voice low and as smooth as her worn wood floors. Still, her throat contracted in alarm.

  “How do you know my name?” Her maiden name…her old name…her new name as mandated by a formal order in the divorce papers.

  “It’s on your mail,” he said, extending a white envelope. “I found this blowing around in my yard.”

  She took the long envelope, feeling contrite. “Oh…I must have dropped it. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He nodded curtly and made a movement to go, but after her abrupt greeting, she felt compelled to reach out to him. “Did you say your yard?”

  “I’ll be living in the house for about a month, until it’s ready for resale.”

  So he was planning to turn a quick profit, then be on his way. “It’s a beautiful place,” she offered.

  He nodded. “I’ve had my eye on her for a while, but it took some time to close the deal.”

  Speaking of eyes, he had nice ones. The color of raw umber thinned with the tiniest amount of golden linseed oil. She hadn’t thought of her paints in years. “I’ve always admired the bones of the house. I’m glad someone thinks it’s worth renovating.”

  “Chev Martinez.” This time he extended his bronzed hand.

  After a few seconds’ hesitation, she put her hand in his. “Gemma Jacobs.” Her old name—her new name—rolled off her tongue with astonishing ease. Conversely, the physical contact set off distress signals in her brain. His hand was large and callused, but his grip was gentle…the hand of a man who was accustomed to coaxing a response from whatever he touched. Awareness shot up her arm, and she realized with a jolt that he was looking at her with blatant male interest. She withdrew her hand, suddenly conscious of her appearance, sans makeup and wedding ring. She wasn’t sure which made her feel more naked.

  “Do you live here alone?”

  She knew what he was asking—if she was single…available. According to the papers she’d just received, she was indeed single, but was she available?

  The sounds of summer imploded on them. The buzz of the honeybees drawing on the neglected ginger plants, the caw of birds perched in the fan palm trees overhead. “Yes, I live here alone,” she said finally.

  Another nod. “If the construction noise disturbs you, let me know.”

  “I will.”

  “Guess I’d better get back to work.” He half turned and descended her porch steps.

  “So…you’re in real estate?”

  His smile was unexpected, white teeth against brown skin. “No. I’m a carpenter, but I sometimes flip houses. How about you?”

  An expert wife. “Unemployed art historian, which is why I fell in love with your house.”

  “Maybe you’d like a tour sometime.” He was backing away, but still looking at her—all of her.

  “Maybe,” she said, hedging. Now that he was out of arm’s reach, she was regaining her composure. There was something dangerously magnetic about the man. In a matter of minutes, he’d demonstrated an uncanny knack for extracting the truth from her.

  He lifted his hand in a wave and walked away, his long legs eating up the ground. From the safety of her shade-darkened porch, Gemma watched him cross her yard to his, drawn to the way he moved with athletic purpose. His broad back fell away to lean hips encased in dusty jeans with a missing back pocket. He stopped next to a silver pickup truck parked in the broken-tile driveway and from the bed lifted a table saw, stirring the muscles beneath his sweat-stained T-shirt. He carried the unwieldy tool to the front door of his house and disappeared inside.

  Gemma wet her lips, conscious of a foreign stir in her midsection—arousal?

  Then she scoffed. That was impossible.

  Stepping back inside, she closed the door and turned the dead bolt lock for good measure. Her reaction was mere curiosity…and pleasure that the house next door seemed to have acquired a good caretaker for the time being.

  She liked the way he’d referred to the house in the feminine sense, as if he were restoring honor to a once-grand lady. The affection in his voice for something that he’d been willing to wait for left Gemma warm and wondering. Between his benevolence and his…bigness, the man was an intriguing addition to the local scenery.

  Not that she knew many of her neighbors. Even though she and Jason had lived in the neighborhood for two years, their social circle had remained with Jason’s law cronies
and state government associates. Gemma had made a few acquaintances while working in her flower beds, but nothing past small talk and vague promises to get together sometime for a cookout. She’d known that if Jason won his bid for attorney general, they would be relocating anyway.

  Now it looked as if she’d be living alone at 131 Petal Lagoon for the foreseeable future.

  She sighed and glanced at the envelope her neighbor had handed her. Her maiden name and the street address were typed neatly in the dark font of a laser printer. The return address was a post office box in Jacksonville—no doubt a mailing from Covington Women’s College.

  Gemma gave a wry smile and tossed the envelope onto the table with the rest of the mail. She’d have to defer her annual donation to her alma mater until after she found a job and paid down her bills. With that goal in mind, she retrieved the bundled newspapers. While the logistics of finding a job seemed overwhelming at the moment, the idea of having her own career sent a flutter of nervous anticipation through her chest. How long had it been since she’d given her own ambitions more than a passing thought?

  Since before Jason…since college.

  Squinting, she tried to remember her goals before she had allowed herself to be absorbed into Jason’s life plans. They must have been flimsy, she acknowledged ruefully, if she had been so willing to cast them aside. There had been many trips to art museums, she recalled, to make notes on traveling exhibits that she might never get to see again. Where were her journals? And she’d volunteered her services to catalog tedious bits of obscure collections that might or might not prove valuable someday, such as hand-drawn elevator door designs from the late 1800s and the tools used by mason workers to cobble the streets of Saint Augustine. Being around old things comforted her—the permanence, or at least the history, of objects made her feel as if everything in the world had some significance, herself included.

  But the last time she’d been to an art museum had been for a political fund-raiser, where bleached smiles and glad-handing had overridden the more meaningful backdrop.

  She opened a week-old newspaper and, after glancing over the headlines that she’d missed, turned to the Help Wanted ads.

  “Art, art, art,” she murmured, skimming the columns with her finger, thinking that a curatorial position would be nice, or something in art preservation. Or maybe teaching. Her finger stopped on an ad for an executive assistant for the director of a local museum. She smiled—maybe this wouldn’t be so hard after all. The job description sounded interesting and challenging. Then she skimmed the requirements and pushed her tongue into her cheek. A master’s degree, two to four years experience, and proficiency in computer programs she’d never heard of.

  Still, it was worth a phone call. She dialed the number listed and after a series of automated selections was finally connected to a live person in human resources who informed Gemma that the job had been filled through an employment agency the same day it had been listed.

  After browsing the ads of other, less appealing jobs available in the “arts” field and realizing that she was woefully underqualified for all of them, Gemma pushed to her feet. Crossing the kitchen, she fought a panicky feeling that was becoming all too familiar lately—the feeling that the exit she’d chosen in life had no reentry back onto the freeway.

  In a word, she felt…stupid. And angry with herself. Thirty-two years old and she was suddenly ill equipped to live her own life.

  Hoping that a pot of java would improve her outlook, she filled the coffeemaker and listened to it gurgle as she stared out the window at the house next door. With its shutters, doors and windows thrown open, the house looked vulnerable. Indeed, it seemed to be sagging in self-consciousness, as if the old girl were resigned to the idea that before she could be restored, she first had to be stripped of her pride.

  And from the dust clouds buffeting out of the second-story windows, Chev Martinez appeared to be the man for the job. She craned for a glimpse of him, but the rude beep of the coffeemaker interrupted her idle musings.

  Which was just as well.

  * * *

  CHEV MARTINEZ PAUSED and leaned on a push broom to allow the dust in the room—and in his head—to settle. He’d been anticipating this day for months, since he’d first spotted the Spanish-style house sitting abandoned, a fading exotic bloom in an otherwise bland but upscale neighborhood. Since that time, he’d driven by countless times, just to reassure himself that the place was still standing, still waiting for him.

  And he’d become accustomed to seeing the fresh-faced blonde next door tending to her flower beds. He’d seen the husband’s name on the mailbox, knew the man’s title and position, and had tried to put her out of his mind. But there was something about the woman that spoke to him—the grace of her lithe body, the big hats and colorful gloves she wore gardening, the fact that she always looked as if she were humming.

  She was…happy. Chev had envied the man who came home to her sunny smile every day, had imagined that she possessed a wicked sense of humor and was a great lover. The kind of woman who presented a proper appearance for the political scene and her suburban neighbors, but came undone in the privacy of her own bedroom.

  When he’d pulled up today, he’d known something had changed. Her yard was untended and newspapers were piled on the porch. Her house was dark and quiet. His first thought was that she and her husband had taken an extended vacation, but then he’d seen a light go on in an upstairs room, had seen her solitary figure moving around. Knowing she was there had left him feeling antsy all morning. Finding the stray letter in his yard had given him a legitimate reason to knock on her door, but he’d paced around like a kid before working up his nerve.

  With good reason.

  Seeing her up close had sent his vital signs galloping. Her red-rimmed eyes and damp cheeks had confirmed his suspicion that something was wrong, and the tan line on her ring finger had given him a clue as to what. Her response that she lived alone cinched his suspicion that the woman’s happiness had been brought to a halt by a sudden end to her marriage.

  The knowledge both saddened and unnerved him. He’d met plenty of women for whom he’d felt a physical attraction, but there was something so…appealing about this woman that it disarmed him. He could see in her eyes how broken, how vulnerable she was, and while his first instinct was to get close to her, he didn’t want to get involved with a woman who lived only a few steps away from his work site…and who was still holding a torch for her ex. Besides, he was only responding to the wild fantasies he’d spun about the woman. She was probably nothing like he’d imagined.

  Gemma.

  Of course her name would be unique, special. Of course she would recognize the neglected charm of this house. Of course her legs would be long and her breasts full. Of course she would have a brown beauty mark next to her shapely mouth that completely stole his concentration.

  He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at the sweaty grit on his neck. He had to get his libido under control and his mind back on the job. It wasn’t as if Gemma Jacobs was looking to start up something with him. Her husband’s policies hadn’t been particularly friendly to Americans of Puerto Rican descent—for all he knew, she might share her ex’s views. It was, he acknowledged, a flimsy attempt to distance himself from the woman in his mind, but he had a full plate at the moment and he couldn’t afford the distraction.

  This would be the third house he’d flipped in the past year. For someone who didn’t own a house of his own—and didn’t plan to ever settle down—he seemed to have a knack for knowing what home buyers looked for. He had one month to finish this renovation before he had to be in Miami for a lucrative commercial job. His goal was to put the For Sale sign back in the yard within that time frame and have a fat check in his hand before he left town. The auction was already scheduled. If he missed the deadline, he was screwed. Which meant there was no time to waste on a flirtation, no matter how tempting.

  No. Matter. How. Tempting.
br />   Forcing aside the thought of his neighbor’s lush body, Chev walked to the window and ran a hand over the carved woodwork of the frame, some of it flaking paint, some of it rotted. This one repair alone would take hours, but in the end, it would be worth the hard work. People buying in this neighborhood would expect attention to detail. The place reminded him of pictures of his grandparents’ colorful home in Puerto Rico. He took in the wide plank floors of the large room, the cracked plaster walls and ceiling, the tall rounded door openings, all of the finishes compromised from neglect and exposure to extreme temperatures. But the house would be grand once she was restored to her former self.

  He stared across at the picture window where he’d seen his new neighbor this morning. Considering she’d been scantily clad and her hair tousled, it seemed likely that it was her bedroom window. A filmy white curtain moved with a light breeze, as if in confirmation.

  Her window was larger and slightly lower than the one where he stood. At the thought of having a clear view of her bedroom, his sex hardened and pushed against his fly. Did she have flowery sheets? Did she like to sleep late? Did she ever sleep in the nude?

  Chev turned away and shook his head to dislodge the image from his mind. He went back to sweeping, putting more muscle in it than necessary. He was losing his mind, playing with fire by indulging these dangerous fantasies. He made his living on the road, moving wherever the best jobs took him, satisfying his sexual urges with the occasional pretty barfly or waitress, partners who were as transient as he was. Not suburban divorcées who tended flower beds.

  Besides, if Gemma Jacobs knew what he was thinking, she’d probably have him arrested.

  3

  AFTER POURING HERSELF a tall mug of coffee and adding milk, Gemma returned to the Help Wanted ads armed with a red pen. Several frustrating phone calls later, she had learned two things: jobs in the immediate Tampa area generally didn’t remain open for more than forty-eight hours, and the majority of positions were filled through employment agencies. So when she spotted an ad for one such agency, she made another phone call.