“Well, then,” she said without a trace of southern accent. “Morgan, are you hurt?”

“A little banged up, but nothing to fret over,” Morgan answered, shifting a little on my shoulder. She weighed next to nothing. “So, that’s Finley, and Jackson here is my next-door neighbor. How’s that for luck?”

“Jax,” I offered.

Fin waved, and Morgan’s friend returned the gesture before looking back at me.

“Well, Jax, how awkward—I mean awesome—to meet you. I’m Sam, and that’s my sister-in-law, Mia. And the girl you have perched on your shoulder is one of my best friends, so what can I do to help?”

“Nice to meet you, too,” I told the ladies. “Giving Morgan a hand up would be great. The rest of the stairs look sound, but the landing’s unstable. If you could go up the back steps and come down these to that last stair before the landing, that would be awesome. See if you can get your hands under her arms to help guide her onto the stairs as I lift her. Don’t let her put weight on the landing, if you can help it.”

“Done. Mia!” she called to the other girl, and they were gone in a blur.

“You doing okay up there, Morgan?” I asked. What kind of perfume was she wearing? Sure as hell smelled divine. Vanilla and strawberries?

“I should be asking you that, seeing as I’m currently sitting on you.”

I almost laughed. “Don’t you worry about me. I’m doing just fine.” I sent a wink in Finley’s direction, who giggled behind her hand.

“You’re not going to be too tired to lift me out?” Morgan asked, worry saturating her voice and increasing the number of syllables in that last word. Holy shit, the woman could read the phone book with that accent, and I’d be hooked.

“Trust me, I could hold you all day. I’m not going to let you fall.”

I felt a gentle give in her posture. Good, she’d relaxed a little.

“So, you bought the house, huh?” I asked, trying to fill the silence until the girls could get around to Morgan.

“Yeah. Maybe I should have looked at it first.” Her voice dropped, nearly unintelligible with the wood muffling the sound between us.

“You didn’t look at it first?” Seriously?

“I saw pictures!” she shot back. “And the inspection report, and Google Maps. I just didn’t visit it…until today.”

Holy shit. She’d walked in blind? The house itself was structurally sound, but damn, did it need some upkeep. It hadn’t been touched since the Hatchers bought it back in the seventies.

“And is it what you were expecting?”

She tensed.

“Morgan?”

“It’s not that I didn’t want something to fix. I did. I do. I want to look at something and say, ‘I did that.’” Her sigh was loud enough for me to feel it in my chest. “There just happens to be a lot more fixing to do than I initially thought.”

“Is your husband handy?” I’d learned that it was always safer to assume a woman was in a relationship than go with the opposite. Plus, with her soft, bare skin under my fingers, it would be handy to know if I was about to get punched in the face by an overprotective partner.