Calamity Jena (Invertary 4)

“I’m going to teach dancing,” she announced.

Matt looked up from where he was stripping the paper from the wall beside the door. Jena had given up on telling him not to take over her renovation. Instead, she started viewing him as cheap labour. He’d even brought tools from home to help with the job. Including a steamer thingy that she wished she’d had when she’d stripped the living room walls. She’d gotten the paper off by soaking it with a sponge full of warm, soapy water. By the time she’d finished, the room looked like a big bubble bath. But it smelled great. She’d used a juniper bubble bath mixture in the water.

“Did you hear me, Matt? I’m going to run dance classes.” She bounced on the spot.

“Great?” He seemed confused.

“It just came to me,” Jena told him. “It’s the perfect way to make money fast. It can be a cash business. I won’t need to worry about tax and stuff.” She beamed at him.

Matt muttered something under his breath. Was he counting to ten? That made no sense at all.

“Jena, are you telling me—a cop—that you’re planning to rip off the government by avoiding tax?”

“No, silly, I’m telling you I’m going to run casual classes.” She bit her lip. “If I get all the junk out of the garage I can hold them there. The floor is concrete and the ceiling doesn’t leak.”

He blinked a couple of times. “You want to run classes here?”

“No, Matt, in the garage.” Was he being deliberately thick? “Can you help me clear it out? I could use some muscle.”

“You can’t hold classes in the garage. Or anywhere near this house. It’s a health and safety hazard. You need a permit to do something like that. You’ll never get one.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. She was so getting him a T-shirt emblazoned with the word “Killjoy”—in pink. “Who hands out these permits?”

“The council.” He folded his arms over his grey muscle shirt, making her momentarily lose her place in the conversation. “Over here that’s Caroline McInnes. She’s a stickler for rules. There’s no way she’ll let you run a class. Not unless the garage is in pristine condition before you apply for a permit.”

Jena’s shoulders slumped, then jerked straight back up to their happy position as soon as another idea hit her brain. “You don’t need a permit if you’re just having some friends over for an evening of dancing, do you? And if they decided to give me gifts, of, say, money, what could I do to stop them? Refusing to accept would be rude.” She beamed at him.

Matt let out a heavy sigh as he rubbed a hand over his face. “Jena, you’re telling me you plan to run illegal classes in a derelict building and take money you have no intention of paying tax on. Seriously, princess, is it that hard to remember I’m a cop?”

She threw up her hands in frustration. “So I can’t even talk to you now?”

“Sure, you can talk to me. Just not about any illegal plans you might have.”

Damn, that ruled out quite a chunk of what she had in her head. She put a hand on his arm. “Why don’t you pretend that you didn’t hear anything?” She batted her lashes at him. “I’ll give you free dancing lessons to turn a blind eye.” She smiled hopefully.

Matt’s loud groan wasn’t encouraging. “That’s bribing an officer. Stop now. Don’t say another word. We’ll pretend this conversation never happened.”

“Exactly.” Jena winked at him as she grinned. “This never happened. You know nothing.” She gave him a quick hug, shivering at the feeling of his firm body under her hands. “Thanks, Matt.”

Matt found his arms wrapping around her without his brain telling them to. There was something about crazy Jena Morgan that was irresistible. Man, but she smelled good. Flowery. Spicy. He wasn’t sure how it was possible to smell both. Or how the smell managed to make him feel hungry and horny at the same time. A thought he quickly tried to tamp down.

The doorbell rang. He frowned in the direction of the front door, hoping that whoever was there would leave. Then he remembered Dougal was sending food to save Matt from trying to cook in Jena’s derelict kitchen. Not that his reprieve would last for long. There was still breakfast to make in the morning. He eyed the cooker. He really hoped the damn thing didn’t blow up on him.

Jena stepped away from him, which felt strangely wrong. “I’ll start clearing out the garage. You never know when all that space might come in ha

ndy.” She winked at him again.

Matt fought the urge to roll his eyes. Subtle was not a word he’d use with Jena. And after this conversation, neither were the words “law-abiding citizen”.

“Uh-uh, princess.” He reached around her waist and pulled her to him. “No wandering off until we talk this through properly. There will be no illegal classes.”

“I thought we had an understanding,” she wailed.

“I know you did.”

She wriggled to get out of his hold and he tightened it. The doorbell rang again. There was no way he was letting Jena out of his sight until he’d knocked her latest plan on the head. Who knew what she’d get up to if he left her unsupervised?

He shifted Jena around so she was balanced under one arm, dangling against his hip. Holding her like a rugby ball, he headed to the front door.