Read Online Hands On by Christina Crooks - Free Book Online Page A

the wall.
    She was so involved with trying to remove it without scraping the wall, she didn’t hear Harry until he spoke directly behind her.
    “What do you think you’re doing?”
    Ginnie froze. “Um. Helping?”
    She felt his anger in the brusque, hard way he seized the picture from her. “Get down,” he said.
    She did, quaking a little inside. Why was he upset? “I’m sorry.” She hunched, backed away from him. “I didn’t mean anything.” Her brain and heart fell back into a familiar unpleasant routine.
    He took one look at her and immediately set the painting down. “Oh. Hey. It’s okay.” He showed the palms of his hands, as if to demonstrate he held no weapons.
    Ginnie smiled wryly. She made a conscious effort to square her shoulders. “Don’t mind me. Sometimes I get…nervous.”
    “You looked scared. Scared of me.” Harry half-smiled, as if the idea was ridiculous.
    Maybe it was ridiculous, but it was difficult to control her reflexes. She changed the subject. “I was only moving the picture. To see if it’d look better somewhere else.”
    “Why?”
    Something about the way his blue eyes held hers, so steady and calm, set her further at ease. “Your house is decorated beautifully. I’ve never seen such a lovely living room…except for this painting. I wanted to see how the room would look without it.”
    “So would I.” But Harry bent to retrieve the painting and re-hung it.
    She looked at him quizzically.
    “Oh, I know it’s cheap and ugly. That’s the point.” He smiled at her confused look, but the smile had some sadness in it. “You haven’t been down to the basement yet, have you? C’mon.” He steered her, and at the warm touch of his hand, her body wanted to arch into his—but he was steering her like a car.
    She dug in her heels. “Bossy, aren’t you.”
    He stopped, considering. “I am a boss.” He looked at her, not removing his hand. “But I don’t believe I’m bossy.”
    “I’m a boss too,” she said. “I have two employees at Helping Hands.” For the moment, anyway.
    She wasn’t sure what she was objecting to or why she felt the need to defend herself. Something in her rebelled at being controlled, as if to acquiesce would be giving away a critical part of her soul. “Sorry,” she repeated, wishing she could just be easygoing and unsuspicious and go with the flow.
    Of course, if she were like that, she’d still be with Rick.
    “I’d like a tour of your house now, Harry.” She placed her hand on his, sandwiching it between her palm and her arm. It felt nice. “To the basement,” she commanded.
    But Harry didn’t move right away. Instead, he tilted her head up to his, examined her face. “You know, you have serious control issues.”
    “Uh-huh.” She nodded agreement, which dislodged his hand.
    His sexy lips quirked into a small, ironic smile. “Well, you’re honest at least.”
    “Basement?”
    “Right.”
    He led the way down a stairway, then through another door, and the basement opened before her. Clean, finished and non-musty despite all the recent rain, the first and largest room seemed a natural extension of the house, and easily three times the size of hers. Or, what hers used to be. It even had its own separate entrance into the backyard.
    When he waited for her to proceed, she moved forward, past the workout equipment to the wooden workbenches. She thought she’d seen something familiar.
    “Little Jeffrey!” She rushed forward. Her beloved puppet sprawled, broken but recognizable, in the middle. Around him were the other marionettes she’d been able to grab yesterday. “How in the world…? I thought we left him behind. How did you find him?”
    “Same way you found this.” Harry held up the purse she’d left sitting on the end of the workbench. “I went back into a certain dangerously unstable house last night. There are more still down there that don’t appear to be buried too badly, but I figured you’d want that one