Sound of the Tide by Emily Bold Read Free Book Online Page B

seemed perfect as he offered a confident smile.
    “Um, I’m here because . . . ”
    Feeling awkward, I ran my hand over my belly and turned away because I didn’t want his devilishly handsome looks to distract me any longer. Did he realize he was flustering me, making me lose my cool? I tried to put on a stern voice to cover my confusion, in case he had noticed it. “Good, you’re finally here!” I motioned toward the furnace room. “I’ve been wondering what the holdup was, Mr.  . . . ”
    I looked at him again, but he wasn’t wearing a uniform or a name tag.
    “Ewan. Ewan Palmer.” He gave me a nod but remained standing in the doorway, surely because I’d been ogling him!
    “Very well, Mr. Palmer. Please, come on in, because I’m not letting you leave until you’ve taken care of business.”
    “I beg your pardon? I don’t understand.”
    I put my hands on my hips and put on the sternest nurse face I could muster. Using the same tone of voice I frequently used to put patients in their place, I said to Mr. Handsome, “Mr. Palmer—”
    “Ewan—please, call me Ewan,” he interrupted and reached out his hand.
    I shook it until he looked satisfied.
    “Well, Mr., uh, Ewan, I realize you’re not going to be able to fix the furnace right away. But you need to take a good look at it before you leave and then get right back here. No taking several days to show up again. It’s way too cold for that!”
    Now he seemed completely out of his depth. Maybe he wasn’t used to a woman telling him what’s what. Another stern look, and I held the door to the furnace room open for him.
    “The furnace?”
    He looked at me with large, bright-blue eyes.
    I had to swallow hard. Yes. My boyfriend had just died and my grief was killing me, and I was also very visibly pregnant with my boyfriend’s child. But I was utterly powerless against those eyes. It had nothing to do with affection or love. It was a purely chemical reaction on the part of my brain, nothing more.
    “This way, please!”
    He followed my instructions hesitantly, but not without shooting me a funny look. Maybe he was afraid that my water would break if I got even more worked up.
    “I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Ewan offered, but I knew full well what he was getting at. Sure, Marcus had agreed that the contractor would take a quick look at the problem, but hell—it was way too cold for me to let him leave without sealing the leaky pipe. It couldn’t be that big a deal!
    “No, no. Please, spare me the explanation. I insist that you take care of it right this instant!”
    I pointed toward the furnace and awkwardly ducked under the old pipes.
    “You see? Right here—ouch!” Shit! I hit my head. “Please, why don’t you take a look for yourself?”
    I crawled out from under the mechanical monstrosity and motioned for the contractor to come and take my place.
    “You want me to crawl in ther e ?” he asked while I busied myself dusting off my skirt.
    “Of course! How else are you going to identify the problem?”
    This was getting annoying! This guy would probably bill me by the second. “Jeez, you could be done by now. So now, if you please . . . ”
    He shrugged his shoulders and bent down toward the pipes.
    “And what exactly am I looking at?” he asked, giving me a sassy smile.
    Dear Lord, that smile! Jenna would die if she saw this. Maybe I should stall him until she and Kevin return from the hardware store.
    I stepped closer and tried to point out the leak in all the confused mess. “There, don’t you see? Right there!”
    I bent over him, trying very hard not to touch his incredible butt right in front of me—or stare at it, for that matter.
    He took a step back and turned around.
    “Looks like there’s a leak,” he declared, matter-of-factly stating the obvious, and nonchalantly brushed his hair from his forehead, leaving a streak of dirt on his skin.
    “Are you fucking kidding me?”
    I was angry—and not