“You need a new filter.” And a new casing and a new feed-water drum.

“Tell me about it.”

“You’re spending more in fixing it than a new one would cost. And you’re just guzzling up electricity.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And you’d save even more money if you bought—”

“A condensing boiler,” she finished for him. “I know. Believe me I know. I’ve been told all of this, repeatedly. What can I say? I don’t have the money for a new filter and—trust me on this one—I certainly don’t have the money for a new boiler. Maybe someday. But definitely not now.”

Jack gritted his teeth. He was going to buy a brand-new filter Monday and fit it while she was out. Mack the Jerk was never going to touch her boiler again, so she’d never know. He’d give his eyeteeth to be able to buy a new boiler for her, but it would be hard to install on his own, and she’d notice.

Fuck! He hated this! He hated to see her pale with the cold, shaking and frightened that she’d be without heat. It was insane that Caroline had to spend even one more second without money when he had so much. What the hell did he have money for if he couldn’t make her life easier?

But how to get the money to her? A sudden dump of a million dollars in her bank account two days after he showed up would raise too many red flags, though he was tempted to do just that. Fuck it. Just transfer a million, maybe two, so her money problems would be over permanently. God knows he’d have plenty left.

It was such a tempting thought that Jack gritted his teeth against it as he took apart the filter from hell, cleaned it, and reassembled it.

Caroline wasn’t meant for this life. She wasn’t meant to live in a shell of a home, however beautiful that shell was, without rugs and paintings, whose walls needed painting, with an unreliable heating system in the dead of winter. She wasn’t meant to pinch pennies, have a continuous frown of worry between her brows, a slightly sad cast to her face.

Jack wanted to drown her in comfort. He wanted to buy her things—useful things and foolish things. Pretty baubles that would bring a smile to her face. Clothes, jewelry. Rugs, artwork for the house. He wanted her to be able to bring Greenbriars back to what it had once been.

It was going to be hard getting her to accept the money, but he’d manage. He was going to be in her life from now on. They were already having sex. He was going to keep her in bed as much as he could this weekend. There was nothing that forged a bond like sex, at least for a woman like Caroline.

She hadn’t had many lovers and it had been six years since the last one. She’d been as tight as a virgin, and it had nearly blown his head off. She wasn’t an easy woman. Her body had told him she was picky. And by God, she’d picked him.

Jack knew why she’d picked him. Because he’d been there, at a low moment in her life. The taxi driver had said that her parents had died on Christmas Day. Her brother had just died. It was her first Christmas completely alone, and she’d been sad and upset.

It didn’t bother him that he’d caught her not because of his charm—he didn’t have any charm that he knew of—but because he’d been in the right place at the right time. As a soldier, Jack had ruthlessly used any advantage he could get, even if it was only a slight elevation above an enemy soldier, the wind blowing in the right direction, or the cover of night.

He was going to press his advantage just as ruthlessly this weekend, too, bedding her until, by Monday, she’d be his.

She already was his, only she didn’t know it yet. And he’d take good care of her. All his life he’d only wanted two things—to do right by his dad. And Caroline.

She was surreptitiously hopping up and down, trying to keep warm, her breath a little cloud around her face. Damn! Taking care of her did not entail her freezing that pretty tail off.

“Caroline,” he began, putting down the wrench.

“Don’t,” she said, teeth chattering. “I’m staying here and keeping you company until you get that blasted thing going—and if you do, I’ll personally nominate you for the Nobel—or you give up. Whichever comes first.”

“Listen, it’s fu—freaking freezing.”

“Yes.”

“You’ll catch your death of cold.”

“Yes.”

“So go up.”

“No.” That pretty, pointed chin went up in the air a notch.

It was a real surprise enamel wasn’t shooting out his ass, he was grinding his teeth so hard. Jack bent back to the boiler, trying to work double-quick, before he ended up with a gorgeous corpse.

Fifteen minutes later, he tightened the last screw and flipped a switch. A red light came on, and a second later, with a great shudder like an ocean liner taking off for a trip across the Atlantic, the boiler creaked into life.

Caroline had had her arms wrapped around herself for warmth, but her arms suddenly dropped. “Oh my God,” she whispered, eyes huge in her pale face. “You did it. You fixed it.”

“Yeah.” Jack put the tools away neatly, eyeing the boiler with loathing. He’d fixed it with the equivalent of chewing gum and duct tape, but it goddamned well better hold until Monday when he could get a new filter in, or he’d rip the fucking thing out of the wall with his own hands. “Whoa.”

Caroline had walked straight into his arms, laying her head on his chest, her arms hugging him tightly. “Thanks,” she whispered. She looked up at him, tears on her eyelashes. “Oh my gosh. Thanks so much. I can’t tell you how I was dreading being without heat all weekend.”

His hands came up, one around her head, one around her waist, holding her tightly, looking for words, though none came.

Brand-new emotions, ones he didn’t have names for, coursed through him, fierce and raw, emotions he didn’t know how to handle.

No one had ever looked at him like that, certainly no woman. Women looked at him with lust, greed or indifference, never with the warmth and admiration he could clearly see on Caroline’s beautiful face.

“It was nothing,” he said gruffly. And it wasn’t. Jesus, he wanted to shower her with pearls and diamonds. Coddle her and spoil her, take care of her problems for her. Fixing her boiler didn’t even register on the scale.

In answer, she turned her head and kissed his chest. He didn’t feel it through his sweatshirt, but the gesture stunned him. It was an unmistakable gesture of…of affection.

He’d lusted after this woman for most of his life, it seemed. The sex they’d had yesterday hadn’t even begun to get her out of his head. He was okay with sex. It was what he knew, so he could deal with lust, and the thought of fucking her as long as he was physically able.

What he saw on her face nearly unmanned him. He wanted to put it back on a sexual footing, right now, so he wouldn’t have to deal with all those…things roiling around in his chest like huge hot boulders. He was bending to kiss her when she shivered.

“Out,” he said harshly. If he could have reached his own butt, he’d have kicked it. Jesus, keeping her in the cold damp basement was not a good idea. What was he thinking of? He’d actually flashed on pushing down her pants and taking her, right there, on the freezing concrete floor.

What was the matter with him? He wouldn’t even treat a casual sex partner like that—and this was Caroline.

With a hand on her back, he ushered her up into the kitchen. This wasn’t any good. In the half hour it had taken him to fix the boiler, the house had cooled down noticeably. He was okay with it, but Caroline would find it uncomfortably cold. Only one place to go—to bed.

Oh yeah. Get her between the sheets, start fucking. Get rid of that…that prickly feeling in his chest.

Jack kept his hand on the small of her back. “Keep on going up.” Caroline looked up at him, startled. She blushed when she saw the heat in his eyes and smiled faintly.