Loving Jilly Read online

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  The Wild Rose Press

  www.thewildrosepress.com

  Copyright ©2009 by Sylvie Kaye

  First published in 2010

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  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.

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  CONTENTS

  Praise for LOVING JILLY

  Loving Jilly

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  A word about the author...

  Thank you for purchasing

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  This close up, he smelled tantalizing, like soap and spicy cologne and new cut wood.

  The softest, grayest eyes stared at her, not in the least bit stormy or steely as she would've expected in such a muscular, authoritative man. His eyes were as luminous and distracting as a Cajun moon. Despite her ticking wristwatch, her tummy took time out to pay tribute with a dip, alerting every fiber of her being to his male sensuality.

  "The name's Bigatowsky. Zachary.” His voice was low, deep, and vibrated through her chest with a delightful thrum.

  Her interest piqued, along with her nipples, which strained against the confines of her bra and blouse.

  "What can I do for you, lady?” His tone sounded rough like sandpaper.

  Flashes of heat shot through her body. “I might be interested in hiring you.” She licked her suddenly dry lips.

  And doing him, if her body had its way.

  "Uh-huh,” he grunted, removing his hardhat and ruffling his fingers through his damp, sandy-brown hair, where an eye-catching touch of silver-gray touched the temples.

  Nice, real nice. She sucked in her breath. She'd never gone for the gruff type. Who'd have thought they had so much sex appeal?

  Her gaze strayed to his left hand. No glint of a ring. Ann, Jilly's co-worker and self-appointed Dear Abby, advised, “Always check a man's ring finger and never believe he's single unless you see a sworn statement or hear testimony from his priest and confessor."

  "Are you available?” She'd been much too long without a man. It came out sounding like a proposition. She hurried to add, “To hire."

  Praise for LOVING JILLY

  "I really think this book teaches everyone that there is someone out there that can take a cynical heart and turn it into one that truly believes. I loved this book for what each character brought into Jilly's life to make her whole."

  ~Fran Lewis, reviewer & children's books author

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Loving Jilly

  by

  Sylvie Kaye

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Loving Jilly

  COPYRIGHT (C) 2009 by Sylvie Kaye

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Rae Monet

  The Wild Rose Press

  PO Box 706

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0706

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Champagne Rose Edition, 2010

  Print ISBN 1-60154-773-0

  Published in the United States of America

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Chapter One

  Jilly Gordon was on the errand from hell.

  To make matters worse, at seven a.m. the temperature hit eighty on Bourbon Street. The humidity gloved her body like a longed-for lover's touch, the kind that shallowed a woman's breathing and seared her flesh. The kind she hadn't experienced in so long every cell in her body screamed for the sensation.

  Hot as it was, things didn't really heat up in the French Quarter until evening. By nightfall, alcohol-laced party revelers with go-cups of fruity Hurricane drinks shifted their sweaty hormones into overdrive.

  But not Jilly. She had other responsibilities. Ones that didn't involve sins of the flesh.

  A wolf whistle pierced through the bang, bang of pounding hammers from the Old Royale Hotel. A man in a yellow hardhat shouted down from the scaffolding in a Cajun accent, “Laissez les bon temps rouler, blondie."

  If her good times were going to roll, they'd have nothing to do with what the Cajun had in mind and everything to do with changing jobs so she could afford a companion for her elderly aunts. And, with time on her hands, find one for herself. A male to indulge all the pent up sexual frustrations her current circumstance kept her from indulging.

  "Wanna get married and make a hundred babies?” another worker yelled out.

  "A dozen's my limit.” Normally, she didn't trade barbs with men on construction sites, but this morning she had business with one of them.

  As she hastened toward a group of workmen on a lower level, her wraparound skirt fluttered open on an unexpected, but hot, breeze gusting from the nearby Mississippi River. The heated air tickled at her thighs like the lover's caress she entertained in the dark, in her bed, in her dreams.

  Amongst a renewed volley of hoots, she tamped at the hem of her skirt and kept moving. When she reached a low-level, sashless window, a saw-dusted pair of work boots shifted near her shoulder.

  She halted in her cork-soled sandals. “Can you help me?” she asked, hoping to get this chore finished before the day became any hotter or later.

  A thin, wiry man in need of a shave leaned against the window frame. He propped the heel of one foot on top of the toe of his other work boot, as if to show off the length of his foot to brag about his size.

  She stopped short of rolling her eyes, not wanting to insult him in case he was the carpenter she'd been tracking down.

  "Name's Bob. If you need something, I'm your man.” He hitched his leather tool belt and his hammer dangled.

  Desirous as she was for male companionship, this walking advertisement for machismo wasn't it.

  "Are you the carpenter who does jobs on the side?"

  He raised his brow and flashed a lascivious grin.

  Jilly sighed and reworded her question. “I'm looking for the man who does cabinetry part-time.” She poked her hand into the pocket of her flowered skirt and whisked out the ad she'd torn from the TRADE YA. “It says to inquire for a Mr. Big—"

 
She shrugged. The ragged edge stopped there. She'd been in a hurry this morning, despite twenty-eight years of warnings from her aunts that rushing caused warts.

  With perspiration darkening in a narrow vee down the front of his blue T-shirt, the man hitched his worn leather tool belt again. “Big might be too much for you.” He winked.

  In addition to the tap, tap, tap of her sandaled foot, Jilly threw in her practiced, pre-school stare. The one she and Ann, the teacher, used on the naughtiest of tots at Tiny Tykes. Jilly worked at the daycare-learning center as an aide and was headed there after she hopefully hired a carpenter.

  Another man loomed in the window, a larger one who overshadowed the boisterous, smaller man. “Give the lady a break."

  Mr. Big?

  She blinked up at him, but shadows hid his face, playing up a somber mouth and hollows for eyes. A faceless figure with a tall, muscled body. Stretching up on her toes, she peeked closer. Make that Mr. Big-Dark-and-Handsome.

  And lethal. According to Aunt Gloria, who'd sent her on the errand and disapproved of any man except her long-deceased dear Papa. “The handsomer the deadlier,” she'd warned Jilly repeatedly over the years.

  Still the workman had a certain raw appeal. Like some fantasy image she'd conjured in the darkness of her bedroom when she was too tired to sleep and sought release from the tensions of her busy day. But the orgasms elicited by her own hand left her wanton and aching for a real, throbbing, flesh and blood male.

  "Good morning.” She smiled. Despite the rugged construction worker's appeal, a flick of her wrist to her watch told her she didn't have time to dawdle.

  Following her lead, he scowled. “We're on the clock, men.” He leaned out of the door-sized window and tapped at the face of his wristwatch, his Mickey Mouse wristwatch.

  She skimmed his handsome face and honed upper arms. Her gaze flickered over his sinewy forearms to his wrist and his odd choice in timepieces, which he certainly seemed big enough to defend.

  In no time, hammers pounded and a buzz saw screeched as it bit wood.

  "Are you Big-amosky from the ad?” To avoid further unwanted comments like the other man's she made up a last part to his name, slurring the letters, her voice drowning out in the whirr of the saw.

  The man hopped down onto the pavement and the sidewalk seemed to shake, or maybe it was her legs. The straps of her leather handbag and canvas tote slipped, and she tugged them back onto the dampening shoulder of her blouse.

  This close up, he smelled tantalizing, like soap and spicy cologne and new cut wood. The softest, grayest eyes stared at her, not in the least bit stormy or steely as she would've expected in such a muscular, authoritative man. His eyes were as luminous and distracting as a Cajun moon. Despite her ticking wristwatch, her tummy took time out to pay tribute with a dip, alerting every fiber of her being to his male sensuality.

  "The name's Bigatowsky. Zachary.” His voice was low, deep, and vibrated through her chest with a delightful thrum.

  Her interest piqued, along with her nipples, which strained against the confines of her bra and blouse.

  "What can I do for you, lady?” His tone sounded rough like sandpaper.

  Flashes of heat shot through her body. “I might be interested in hiring you.” She licked her suddenly dry lips.

  And doing him, if her body had its way.

  "Uh-huh,” he grunted, removing his hardhat and ruffling his fingers through his damp, sandy-brown hair, where an eye-catching touch of silver-gray touched the temples.

  Nice, real nice. She sucked in her breath. She'd never gone for the gruff type. Who'd have thought they had so much sex appeal?

  Her gaze strayed to his left hand. No glint of a ring. Ann, Jilly's co-worker and self-appointed Dear Abby, advised, “Always check a man's ring finger and never believe he's single unless you see a sworn statement or hear testimony from his priest and confessor."

  "Are you available?” She'd been much too long without a man. It came out sounding like a proposition. She hurried to add, “To hire."

  With a nod, he stared at her, his eyes intense and waiting.

  He was an ideal specimen for multitasking. Maybe she could hire him and hit on him. She batted her lashes at the hunk and smiled sweetly. “The ad stated you did cabinetry."

  His eyes glistened. “Cabinetry is my specialty, li'l lady."

  Li'l lady? He seemed to go for flapping lashes and little women. Not that Jilly was all that little, but next to him she dwarfed nicely.

  She flapped some more. “We have kitchen cabinets in need of refinishing and an heirloom piece to repair if your price is right. Can you handle that kind of work?"

  Jilly hoped so. She didn't want to piddle away any more time finding another man. Zachary had the hands, the looks, and the dreamy eyes for both her aunt's and her purposes.

  He also had a rugged jaw and straight teeth that gleamed when he smiled. She noticed how his eyes matched the tinges of premature gray in his thick brown hair. He looked thirty, thirty-five tops.

  "I'd have to check out the repairs.” He cocked a brow.

  His cocky brow had sexy charm, too. Besides a flash hot enough to melt the second dial on her watch, heat zinged to the cottony crotch of her panties. Jilly ignored it as best she could, for now. He could zing her with his best shot any night after work, and after she ran her aunts’ errands, and during semester break from her accounting class, and...

  She shook her head. Such a small window of opportunity. But it was all she could afford in her present circumstance.

  She flittered her lashes faster and wished he'd hurry. She had to pick up floral commemorative stamps for Aunt Gloria and hoped to do it before Tiny Tykes opened for the day. Frankly, this lash flipping was wearing on her patience. How much convincing did the man take?

  Zachary shifted his weight. He wore his jeans slung low on his hips. Hips that seemed slim for a tall, broad-shouldered man. Her own hips beamed with hot approval.

  He frowned into her face. “I'll need an address or a phone number."

  She grinned. Wasn't he wonderful with his let's-not-waste-time attitude? He had so much time-efficient dating potential.

  She hefted her overstuffed handbag from the shoulder of her now wrinkled blouse and rummaged through its contents for her list of errands. The lavender-colored, lavender-scented paper her aunt had her buy in the Warehouse/Arts District wasn't hard to sniff out. After ripping a piece from the bottom of the note, she continued rifling in her bag for an ink pen.

  "Ahem."

  When she looked up, a stubby, yellow pencil peeked out of Zachary's hand.

  "Of course carpenters have pencils."

  When he shoved the lead under her nose, she grinned. With his straightforward, no-nonsense attitude, he was ever so desirable for her purposes. She batted her eyelashes boldly, then snatched the pencil from his hand.

  "Thank you.” She scribbled her phone number and address on the tattered piece of lavender paper. “Ring any time. One of my aunts will answer."

  "Uh-huh.” He wrinkled his nose before stuffing the scented scrap into his jeans pocket.

  "My three aunts and I live at that address.” Jilly figured it didn't hurt to prepare him beforehand. Meeting all the aunts at once could prove unnerving, even for a brawny construction worker. She flitted her lashes at Zachary for what she hoped was the last time today.

  But not for good.

  Zack wondered what the li'l lady's problem was. Her nervous blink was downright distracting. She had pretty blue eyes, what he caught of them when her lids stopped flickering.

  With a flip of one dainty finger, she pointed to her watch. “I don't want to be late for work.” Then she darted down the sidewalk.

  A few whistles from the men bid her goodbye, and she tossed them a backhanded wave.

  The pink flowers on her skirt shivered and her sandals flapped as her pace picked up. Her loose, blonde hair swayed from side to side. The woman seemed to be in one hustle. She hadn't even given him he
r name.

  A sudden whomp hit him in the gut. For a thin man, Bob packed a wallop. “Come on Zack, forget the skirt. Let's get this job done or you'll never get Big Al off your back."

  Big Al—as everyone dubbed Zack's father, except him and his brother, Stan, who both called him sir—was a jovial man. Jovial to everyone except his sons.

  Zack grabbed the hardhat out of Bob's hand before his cousin drove his point home any harder.

  "You'd think you were the owner's son and not an assistant foreman and ragtag relative."

  "Ragtag relative, eh?” Bob chuckled. “You'd trade places with me in a minute."

  "If I did, I'd be selling Chevy trucks in your dad's South Milwaukee dealership instead of out here sweating in the Louisiana sun.” A dribble of perspiration trickled down his back as if proof.

  "I'm not the collar and tie type.” Bob's Adam's apple bobbed before he clapped Zack on the back with the gusto of boyhood affection. “I hate to see you lose sight of your goal, boy."

  "Who you calling boy? Heck, we're the same age."

  "Just keeping you on your steel-tipped toes."

  "I don't need any boy reminders thanks to Big Al.” His father had regarded Zack as a boy for so long he'd almost stripped him of his manhood.

  "As long as the ladies don't complain, eh.” Bob winked.

  "Ladies aside, it's taken years of meditation to deal with all of Big Al's bull.” His father's iron grip was strangulating.

  "Whatever.” Bob scrunched up his face to show what he thought of meditation. They'd had this conversation before. Bob preferred tangibles. Things he could get his hands around, like women, and bottled beer, preferably mold style from a local brewery back home in Wisconsin.

  "Let's do it.” Zack plopped his hardhat on and climbed back into the building to the buzz of a circular saw. Damned if his father, Big Al, was the only Bigatowsky to run a job site and show a profit.

  The day got eaten up fast with the bustle of schedules and budgets and a hassle with a late lumber delivery. A quick roast beef po'boy, as they called a sandwich made from French bread in New Orleans, plus a thermos of rich, dark coffee fueled him. He intended to meet both the deadline and the dollar figure. Overtime wasn't in his vocabulary, not on this job.