He was looking for a Marly, really. David Preston, the builder for whom he subcontracted trim carpentry, was married to the woman of Will’s dreams, the perfect mother and wife who had created a refuge where David could retreat at the end of a long day.

Too bad she was taken, he thought, smiling. Marly swore she was going to find the right woman for him, and he’d gladly accepted her help. Will believed in his heart the woman of his dreams was out there somewhere.

He simply had to be patient.

And he was nothing if not a patient man.

CHAPTER TWO

JORDAN ARRIVED AT THE Preston home on Thanksgiving Day with wine and chocolates in hand. She left the cooking to Marly. “So where’s the paragon?”

“Out there,” responded the Preston’s eldest daughter, Christy. She pointed Jordan to a window in the kitchen overlooking the front porch.

So this was Will Masterson, huh? However much Jordan disliked Marly organizing her love life, she had to admit that the man had a beautiful baritone voice.

He wasn’t half-bad-looking, either, at least from his strong profile. Though seated, he was clearly an imposing man, built like a lumberjack. Jordan leaned against the sill and watched his big hands finger the guitar strings with surprising agility. Notes of astonishing richness and depth emerged from the guitar, intertwining with his voice and that of the second Preston daughter Sarah’s in a melody so haunting that all activity around the house had stopped.

Jordan listened, instantly caught up in the spell, and was astounded to feel her eyes fill. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d cried, but not to respond to the pain and longing in this music would require a heart made of stone.

He looked up suddenly and caught her gaze.

She quickly looked away.

When the last notes died off, there was a long hush of respect for something extraordinary. Then from all quarters burst enthusiastic applause.

Will nodded and smiled, then his gaze returned the window.

Jordan retreated from view.

Just then, Sam skidded out on the porch. “Wow! Can you teach me to do that? Only not something so girly?”

Everyone broke up with laughter, including Will.

“Like this, you mean?” Will launched into a rousing tune filled with war and bloodshed and enough battles to thrill a little boy’s urge for mayhem and set everyone’s toes tapping.

Jordan smiled as she turned to help Marly.

“I told you he was amazing,” her friend said. “He’s restoring an old house, he builds furniture like an artisan, gardens, cooks—”

“Then you take him. So not my type.”

“Maybe your type needs changing.”

“How about we talk about Girls’ Night instead?” Jordan retorted. “So what was up with you?”

Marly’s mouth went tight. “Nothing. Would you get me some ice from the utility porch?”

Jordan’s eyes widened at her friend’s icy tone. Suddenly she wished she hadn’t come. She always counted on Marly’s warm nature and usually felt right at home with her family, but today…everything felt wrong. And having the big Irishman lurking… Holidays gave her the willies at the best of times. This wasn’t one of them.

As she yanked on the stubborn latch of the ice chest, Jordan broke a nail down to the quick. She swore darkly and sucked on her finger.

“Is that any way for a lady to talk?”

Jordan whirled around, face-to-handsome-face with the last man on earth she wanted to be near. “I’m no lady. Anyway, you shouldn’t sneak up on people.”

“I had no mind to scare you. Would you be needing some help?”

“I’m doing fine, thank you.” She dropped her injured finger to her side.

“So I see. Let me take a look at that.” He stepped forward, extending his hand. “I’m Will Masterson.”

She stuck her own hand behind her back. “I know who you are. Marly’s playing matchmaker again, you do realize.”

“Me? With you?” His eyes rounded.

“You don’t have to sound so insulted. You’re not my type, either, just so you know.”

“Certain of that already?”

“You’re not?”

“You’re one to make snap judgments, are you?”

She shrugged. “Saves time.”

He flashed a bright smile. “And clearly you’d like me to go away. Are you always so prickly or is it Marly’s intentions that have put the burr up your lovely behind?”

“It’s my behind, and I’ll thank you not to be watching it.”

A lovely low rumble shook him. “Now, I’m thinking any man with eyes could not possibly accommodate that demand, begging your pardon. It’s a very fine derriere, and I suspect you know that.”

His blue eyes twinkled with amusement that only irritated her more. “Well then, why don’t you open this big ole ice chest for li’l ole me?” She batted her lashes. “Marly needs more ice inside.”

The corners of his eyes crinkled with his rumbling laughter, his cheeks denting with dimples. He leaned past her and picked up the chest as though it weighed nothing. “Why, of course, darlin’,” he answered in falsetto. “Just tell this poor dumb mick where you’d be wanting it.” The gleam in his eyes said he knew her game but he was too good-natured to mind.

Jordan narrowed her gaze, then stuck her nose in the air and sauntered inside. She’d make it through the meal, then she was history.

Marly, what the devil were you thinking?

WILL SURVEYED the group numbering nearly thirty scattered around the huge dining table and assorted card tables strung into one long banquet. He rose from his seat, wineglass in hand. “To Marly, who brings new meaning to the words domestic goddess.”

“Hear, hear,” replied David. “Best of all, my domestic goddess.” He bent to his wife and gave her a lingering kiss. Marly blushed and looked away.

“Get a room, you two. There are innocent children present,” Jordan teased from her place beside Will.

The eldest Preston boy, fifteen-year-old Davy, stared at Jordan adoringly. He and twelve-year-old Joseph seemed to think the lady lawyer was hot. Will couldn’t disagree—if, that is, one had a self-destructive bent. She was a skinny, bad-tempered siren, and if for a moment as she’d watched him sing, he’d thought he’d seen something in her…

He had more regard for himself, that fine derriere notwithstanding.

“They do that stuff all the time, Jordan—you know that,” Sam piped up. “We just ignore them.”

The assembled group rang with laughter.

“Do you have Thanksgiving in Ireland, Will?” asked Sarah.

“No, darlin’, we lack the essential ingredients—Pilgrims and the native tribes. A pity, I’m thinking. I have to admit that my first experience with Thanksgiving was a revelation, though never have I had these foods prepared more deliciously than today.”

Jordan stirred. “I agree, but I have no idea why you put yourself through this, Marly. You cook for three days, and in forty-five minutes, it’s demolished. What’s the point?”

Marly shrugged. “A woman’s lot in life.”

“Not this woman,” Jordan muttered.

Will glanced to see if Marly had heard. “Must you?” he asked Jordan, keeping his voice low.

“What?”

“Your cynicism is misplaced here.”

She arched one eyebrow. “Marly’s used to it.”

“You do her no service.”

“Where do you get off, telling me what I can and can’t say to my friend?” she whispered furiously.

“Some friend you are, but we’ll discuss this later.” They were beginning to draw attention.

“We won’t speak at all, if I have any say.” Jordan turned to the middle Preston son, Joseph, on her other side. The boy was clearly smitten with her.

She said not another word to Will as the meal wound down. He was inclined to be grateful. Her short spiky black hair was as sharp as her attitude, and she was rude to boot.

She was surely wrong about Marly’s intentions. Marly wouldn’t do such a thing to him. Jordan couldn’t be further from the woman of his dreams.

A FEW HOURS LATER, however, the woman was still on Will’s mind as he returned home after a long day. He had worked at the jobsite before going to the Preston home because there was trim to run, and he’d wanted the space and quiet to do it properly. There was a peace to be found in measuring and cutting, fitting pieces together in a joint so smooth and sweet that no one would be able to spot it easily.

He should be tired and ready for bed, but he wasn’t. His thoughts kept returning to the prickly lady lawyer, who hadn’t hung around long after the meal. He didn’t know why he should be sparing her one second’s consideration.

Except that he couldn’t seem to stop remembering his first sight of her as she watched him sing.

She’d had her heart in her eyes, he’d have sworn it. No matter what a harridan she’d been afterward—aggravating, supercilious, insulting. In those first brief seconds, he’d thought he’d spotted something quite different.

He’d almost have said the woman was lonely.

At the time, however, he hadn’t been aware of how out of character such vulnerability would be, how difficult she actually was.

But then there was her behavior with the Preston children. Around them, everything about her softened. Her claws retracted and she could be almost…sweet.

The contrasts made him want to dig deeper.

And here he’d said he had no self-destructive instincts. He shook his head as he unlocked his workshop. A warm, furry shape appeared beside him, the scarred head bumping the side of his knee.

“Good evening, my friend,” Will greeted Finn, the half-blind border collie he’d found on another jobsite a few months back. He dug his fingers into the now-silky hair that had once been matted and full of burrs, his fingers kneading the old dog’s neck and shoulders.

Finn groaned and leaned into him.

Will sank to his haunches and sent the dog into ecstasy, his tail thumping eagerly on the wood floor. At the commotion, another figure appeared in the doorway, Moira, the mama cat who’d once owned this space until he and she had made their peace with one another. She twined her way past Finn and rubbed against his leg. “How are you, darlin’?”

He gave both animals a good stroking—and then he laughed. My Will, the savior of strays, his mum called him. He had a radar for a lost cause, a sad case, she claimed. Perhaps so, but if he had one grain of sense in his thick skull, he’d ignore any such notions about Jordan Parrish.

Will rose and walked to his workbench, studying the jewelry box that was his current project, wondering exactly who he was making it for. He didn’t always know until he was finished, but the making of something new was a challenge, a puzzle to be solved.

He would spend an hour or so at the end of this long day focusing only on these pieces of wood that would become something beautiful, and he would cease to care if the lady lawyer was lonely.

He didn’t need the headache.

You’re not my type, she’d said. Nor was she remotely his own.

Resolutely Will put his hands to work, and after a bit, his mind followed, leaving all thoughts of sad-eyed women behind.

JORDAN HAD HIT A COUPLE of clubs that were open even on Thanksgiving night, had danced until her restless feet hurt. She’d flirted, been propositioned, had considered and dropped several candidates, but in the end, she’d returned to her Sixth Street loft alone.

Now she sat on her second-floor windowsill, one leg propped up, the other dangling over empty air. Looking down, she watched the entertainment district stragglers, wondering if any felt her watching their little dramas unfold. Across the street, a decrepit Ford van crawled away, carrying the house band to a wee-hours breakfast where they’d laugh and talk and divide the night’s take among them.

Someone whistled back behind her, a tune so achy and sad she wanted to beg him to stop.

“Hey, gorgeous,” a graveled voice called right below her.

Jordan looked down.

Guitar strapped across his back, he was young…too young, but wise in the ways of the street, she could see that. Hard times rode the planes of his face, nestled in the long hair drifting over his shoulders. “Whatcha doin’ up there, pretty lady?”

Jordan smiled. “Not much. You?”

He shrugged. “Just gettin’ by.” He pantomimed strumming his guitar. “Playin’ some tunes…takin’ it as it comes.” He smiled, slow and sweet. “Layin’ down tracks for tomorrow.”

Jordan leaned her cheek against her knee. “That ole tomorrow. She’s not so easy to get to sometimes.”

He chuckled. “You are so right, sweet one.” He pulled his guitar around the front. “Maybe I can help you along.”

Jordan nodded, feeling a pinch in her heart at the kindness of a stranger.

He began strumming, then blended his smooth voice with words she couldn’t make out.

It didn’t matter. The melody spoke for itself. He played about love and longing…about pain and parting and nights when you don’t think you’ll make it until tomorrow.

Then, just when she was about to leap inside and slam the window, he switched to a melody so light, so hopeful that Jordan’s heart lifted, just a little.

Not much. But sometimes, even a little was enough.

She leaned her head back against the frame and closed her eyes, drifting inside the cradle his music had made for her. For moments that felt safely endless, she let him wrap a soft, cozy cocoon of music around her, and her heart rested.