Chapter 4

Rayne picked the room in the far right hand corner. She took the one as far away as she could away from Matt at night.

She hated to do that, because she should be close to him to watch over him, but he threw her off her game, and she would hate to find herself wandering in his room at night by what she hoped would be by mistake.

She felt if he had asked for sex today when she first met him that she would have gladly gotten off her horse, pulled down her pants, and asked what his favorite position was, and then she would have cheerfully given it up to him.

That thought made her shiver for some reason.

All she knew was that she had to get back on a professional vein with this man, and soon. He was getting past all of her defenses. Quickly.

After she was finished unpacking, she wandered back out of the house. It was a good sized eight bedroom house. All the bedrooms were upstairs over a good sized kitchen, living room, a few game rooms, hallway, and pantry. What a guest house!

All of the bedrooms had indoor plumbing. A toilet, sink, and an indoor shower. Most of the showers she used were always outside.

But having these inside was something she had heard about in her travels, but she had never known anyone with them. Only the rich could afford it. Matt's client must be paying very well for this to just be a guest house with all of these niceties.

Before she approached where Matt was, she first walked around the perimeter. She got a feel for what was where and what was going on. Thankfully the tree line was far enough away that she would be able to see danger coming long before it got to where they were.

Then she wandered back over to Matt.

Matt was still digging. Every once in awhile he would take out a post hole digger, take a sample, then move a few feet and start all over again.

"Can I help you with this?" asked Rayne. She was bored and decided to give him a hand.

"I don't know. If I do, I'm not sure I can pay you for the manual labor and to be my bodyguard out here. Then there is the local labor guild, they will want their cut. Then there is of course the laws about double billing," smiled Matt.

"Just give me a shovel funny guy," said Rayne smiling as she looked around for one.

"Ok, but if anyone ask, you are just helping me with the mother of all personal gardens," said Matt, again with his wide smile.

As they worked Rayne tried to find out more about Matt and his project.

She found out that later in the month the general laborers would show up and start to dig the basement. Then the rough materials would show up. Then they would really start breaking ground and that is when she would be needed the most to watch around the building site.

But before Rayne knew it, she found herself telling Matt about her family and who she was.

Matt seemed impressed by her family, but when he talked about it, he didn't make it sound like the hero worship or awe she usually heard. It was like two people casually talking about her family and the weather.

She didn't realize it at the time but it felt nice and comfortable to her.

As the day progressed Matt called it an day and said it was time for dinner. He told her that both of them should wash up and have dinner. He should have it prepared by the time she got back.

As Rayne was getting ready to clean up in her room, she took off her vest and her chain mail shirt. She then took off the padded shirt and freed her ample breasts from her bra. She was happy to get out of the confines it had on her.

She went into the bathroom and was surprised by the shower in it. Because on further investigation she saw it had two knobs inside. One said hot and one said cold.

She had never known anything but cold for a shower, and those showers were always outside, and hot or warm was for if it was inside in a bath.

After experimenting, where she almost scalded her hands a few times, she got a nice hot shower going, and stood under the warm jets.

Before she realized it, she had been in the shower long enough to make her hands look like prunes.

She got out and dried off and changed into a spare pair of her leather pants and a light sleeveless top. She then headed down for dinner.

"Hey, you're still alive? That's good to know and I can now cancel the search party. They were finding it hard to pick up your trail anyway. You know, you are pretty good at what you do. Silly buggers were trying to over charge me anyway," said Matt shaking his head slowly with a lopsided smile on his face.

Rayne, smiled in spite of herself.

"How does he keep doing that? All I can do is grin stupidly while I'm around him," she thought.

"Come have a seat. It's not the best but, but it's better than starving," said Matt.

Rayne took a seat opposite of Matt.

"Sorry, I sort of lost track of time. That indoor shower is incredible, do all the homes you design come with them?" asked Rayne.

"Depends on the client, if they request it, I try to setup it up cleverly enough that it doesn't take up much of the floor plan. Just recently I started adding hot water to my designs. And don't worry about being late, it is not like I had somewhere to be," said Matt smiling.

"How about your house growing up, what did you have? What was the layout?" asked Matt showing a professional curiosity.

Rayne once again found herself talking about her family life as Matt and she shared a meal. Matt was a good listener and rarely interrupted her. They talked about the guild, her ranking, what the guild ranks meant, and her abilities and responsibilities as First Blade.

It wasn't until she was in bed later that night that she realized that she still barely knew anything about Matt. They only talked about her and her interest all day.

"How did he do that? He got me to only talk about myself and I know next to nothing about him," thought Rayne in wonder. "And why does it bother me so much that I know next to nothing about him?"

The next morning Rayne got up early and again walked the perimeter and then got ready to practice.

She noticed Matt off to the side of the building doing some weird stretches.

"Soooo, what are you doing? Trying for my job?" asked Rayne with a smile.

"Not hardly, you think I keep my girlish figure just by clean living?" asked Matt with a smile.

"Mmmmmm, that's not a bad figure you have there," thought Rayne slowly, then she suddenly blushed.

"What? Did you see some fat? Go ahead tell me, I can take it, I'm a big boy. I'm not as young as I used to be you know. My god, next it will be my hair though. Ok, let's get it over with and go get me fitted for a wheel chair, I guess it's time," said Matt shaking his head in mock sadness

Before Rayne could stop herself she giggled

"Oh my god, when she does that it is SO sexy," thought Matt to himself.

"My god, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to laugh at you," said Rayne suddenly looking stricken but Matt just continued to smile.

"Have you ever learned any unarmed combat before? You might find out you have a talent for it with your frame," said Rayne trying to change the subject.

"I don't know. It's not like I have a call for that type of skill. I mean I can count the number of times a steak at a fancy party has given me back talk on one hand. But you are right, the ability to put out the hurt might impress the ladies and I could be known as the steak wrangler. I mean that could be my new job, have steak will travel," said Matt as he looked out over the field smiling, while tracing one hand up in the air.

Then he turned back to Rayne and found her just staring at him.

"Sorry, bad joke. No I would like to learn, I just was never very adapt at it. I've always been more of the intellectual type," said Matt

"Rayne? Rayne? Are you there?" asked Matt suddenly looking into her face as she just stared back at him.

As Matt was joking, Rayne noticed how the light played in his eyes and on his face. She was staring before she knew it, and his calling out to her snapped her out of it.

"Yeah, oh, ok, right. Let's do some training then. I'll take you through the basics and let's see what you can do," said Rayne trying not to appear flustered.

For some reason she started to heavily sweat.

Matt was a slow learner and wasn't very good at unarmed combat. Not at all. He was all thumbs, and to be brutally honest, he was quite bad.

But Rayne didn't mind, because more often than not, she found herself behind him, pulling him close, to demonstrate how a move was supposed to work. She would find herself happy about those times, and it didn't bother her at all that he didn't always understand.

Matt was too busy trying not to embarrass himself to notice that, every time Rayne had to come close and show him something, she flushed as she pulled him closer to her.

They proceeded to get up and work out every morning. Rayne and he took turns cooking. He was a far better cook, even though her father taught all the kids at a young age. She was curious how he was able to be better than her at this? Weren't all professional and thinkers just overweight slobs?

She wondered often about that misconception.

And before Rayne realized it, it was the end of the month and they were finished with the core samples. Matt pronounced it sufficient and that it should match his plans nicely.

The whole time they were alone, Matt still managed to engage Rayne in conversations only about her before she realized it, and she still knew next to nothing about him. It was driving her "crazy" with curiosity wondering about him. But she wouldn't ask directly.

Normally she wouldn't care much about any man like this, as many chatted her up hoping to feign interest long enough to get into her pants.

But she never got the impression that Matt was pretending interest in her life. He always seemed to listen to every word with interest.

And for some reason it felt like she would go insane soon if she didn't find out every little thing about him as well. That desire made her eager to get up every morning to work out with him.

She had long since forgiven Anne-Marie for sending her there. Matter of fact she did it the first day she looked into Matt's eyes.

The last day of the first week, during the second month that the laborers showed up to start digging the foundation, was the day that changed everything for her.

About mid-morning as the laborers were working, and Matt, along with Rayne a few steps behind him, was walking around checking to make sure every thing was proceeding as planned and the laborers started off correctly, a lone carriage pulled up.

A very nicely dressed woman exited the carriage, after a footman got down and opened her door.

From a distance Rayne could see that she had shiny black hair that cascading down her back, layered, and it was styled in the latest fashion.

Rayne would have estimated her height at about 5'5" to 5' 7". Somewhere just below the 5'9" of her and her mother. She was wearing what could only have been a dress that was tailor made to hug and conform to her figure. And you would have had to be blind to miss what that dress did for that figure.