by Jeannie Watt
Well…she knew what it didn’t look like—it didn’t look like falling in love, despite what Danny said. In a perfect world she and Danny would work harmoniously side by side for the remainder of the project and part friends when she flew off to Seattle.
Was that possible?
She had no idea, but she intended to remain firm—rigid, if she wanted to get technical about it—on one aspect of the situation. They were not going to grow close in any way but in a friendship way. They could tease and argue and spar and kiss; they could maintain their newfound status quo, but that was it. She knew how far she could go, and Danny would have to accept her limits.
“Hey.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice, the knife gouging the mud.
“Problem?” he asked in a low voice as she swung around with an accusatory look. He didn’t seem to notice the gouge.
“Standing in front of me.”
He gave a takes-one-to-know-one snort as he moved into the room. “I got a text from Sandra. We need to meet briefly. I told her to come here.”
“That’s fine.”
“Just checking.” One corner of his mouth lifted, the crooked smile warming her while simultaneously dulling her sense of self-protection.
Was the slow burn of attraction better than the freight train of annoyance she was used to when dealing with her former neighbor? The burn was better in many regards, but the freight train was safer.
You have this, she told herself.
Her troublesome inner voice cleared its throat. You’re worried that you don’t.
No. She wasn’t.
“Anything else?” she asked Danny.
“Nope,” he said easily, and for once he didn’t seem to be keyed into her thoughts.
Probably best for both.
He cast a glance around the room. “Making good progress. I think we will be done by deadline.”
“We will,” she agreed.
“Want to do something to celebrate?”
A frisson of alarm went through her. Why? After all, she had this. “Let’s wait and see how this goes.”
“This” meaning more than just the job.
“You got it, boss.” He gave her a wry salute and disappeared down the hall. That was when Felicity realized she was holding her breath.
She let it out in a low, slow flow.
Seven days. You can do this without messing anything up.
You’ve got this.
Chapter Nine
“Sorry to abandon you guys tomorrow,” Tess said as she and Stevie headed for the door. “That day job, you know.”
“We’re in good shape,” Felicity said, straightening her bandanna. “Dad will be pleased when he stops by in the morning.”
“I’ll be able to start texturing upstairs tomorrow while Felix finishes down here, thanks to you guys,” Danny said.
If he was aware that he’d used the nickname in an almost affectionate way, he gave no sign, but Felicity sensed that her sisters had noticed. She took care not to look at them. What she and Danny did, or did not do, was not their business. When had she ever poked her nose into their affairs?
Two weeks ago.
Fine. But someone had needed to talk sense into Stevie. The situation with Danny was different, and her talk with Stevie had resulted in a happy ending for her middle sis, so yay for poking her nose in.
After Tess and Stevie headed out the door, she turned to Danny, who surprised her by saying, “I’m going to finish up the last office on this side of the hall. That way you have a fighting chance to get the taping done before I need to start texturing down here.”
“You can take off, you know. We’re on schedule.” And he had his own deadline with his warehouse.
Danny gave her his patented crooked smile. “Maybe finishing on time will help erase your V-Day PTSD.” His voice was low, almost intimate. Or maybe that was just the way he sounded to her now.
“Maybe,” she agreed with a tight smile. She was not going to encourage him by protesting that he was wrong; that it was going to take more than a successful Valentine’s Day deadline to get over the vicious sting of the consequences brought on by breaking her own rules.
“Perhaps I can help.” He took her by the shoulders and pulled her closer, letting his hands slide down to her upper arms as she clenched her fingers into light fists to keep from touching him. And oh how she wanted to touch him. But they were on the worksite.
“Do not break the rules,” she said, her gaze locking with his. He smiled in a way that warmed her to her toes and made her seriously consider breaking rules herself.
“Wouldn’t dream of it. But I would like to replace your bad Valentine’s memories, whatever those might be, with good ones.” bandanna She shook her head and pressed her lips together as a swell of emotion filled her, threatening to burst out if she didn’t get it under control pronto.
“What?” he asked gently.
It was the gentleness that made her take a step back. He didn’t object, instead letting his hands fall loosely back to his sides. She was the one who had to fight to keep from walking into his embrace and resting her head against his chest, which would be too much of a show of vulnerability. She needed to keep things where they were. Friends might comfort one another, but her gut was screaming at her not to give in if she wanted to keep things as they were. Light and easygoing. Easy to walk away from with no bad feelings.
But instead of drawing into herself, which really wasn’t her thing, she gave him an honest look. “Can we leave things as they are?” Her voice was husky, and might have held an uncharacteristic pleading note, but she didn’t care.
“Some things.”
She let out a soft sigh. “Stubborn.”
“Said the pot to the kettle.” He gave his knuckles a lazy crack.
She frowned at him. “That’s not the right…never mind.” The atmosphere was shifting back to one in which she could breathe again. “Don’t you have an office to finish?”
His mouth tipped into the crooked smile, and she very much wanted to tell him to stop looking so…Danny-like. The smile was familiar. It had incited her to near violence more than once, but now it had a different effect. One she needed to learn to deal with.
“I do,” he said, allowing her to step further into her comfort zone. “I should be done in half an hour.”
“I’ll be done by then, too.”
“Great. I’ll walk you to your car.”
Felicity gave a half-laugh. “It’s a date.” The kind she could deal with.
*
“Are you headed off to work in your warehouse?” Felicity asked after she locked the oak door and they started down the steps to their cars.
“I am. Sandra has another potential tenant that wants a walkthrough. I’m torn about letting them see the place in the current state, but waiting a month and a half until that industrial cleaning crew arrives is making me itchy.”
“You want to nail things down now?”
“I’ve never done this before. I don’t want to screw up. We really want to lease to Fork Horn. It’ll be a nice draw for the other small units that I hope to lease.”
“Fork Horn? The brewery?”
He gave her a quick look. “I need to keep that on the down low, too.”
“Not a problem.”
They continued down the steps in silence, then when they reached the bottom, he looked back at the school and said, “Seven more days.”
“The deadline bears down on us as deadlines tend to do.”
“Seven more days before you leave.”
“That, too.”
“Seven days to keep from falling for me,” he said. He didn’t sound like he was joking.
Felicity shoved her hands into her pockets and turned to face him. She was about to clue him into reality when the sound of tires skidding caught her attention, and she looked past Danny in time to see a low-slung car smoosh into the bank of snow created by the city plows over the course of the winter.
“Ouch,” Danny said as he took her hand, helping her keep her balance as they half-jogged, half-skidded their way down the street to the car. The door opened as they approached, and a man wearing an expensive topcoat and shiny leather shoes got out. His shoe bottoms slid on the ice and he grabbed hold of the door.
“Are you okay?” Felicity asked.
The guy looked up and then in a moment of mutual recognition, Felicity and Danny said, “Cade,” at the same time that he said, “Dan! Feliss!”
Cade Kincaid, her former study buddy beamed at her.
“You’ve been in SoCal too long,” Danny said, nodding at Cade Kincaid’s less than sensible shoes.
Cade gave him an easy grin. “I agree. I’ve forgotten how to dress and to drive.”
“Are you home now?” Felicity asked, recalling that his father the councilman had mentioned something along those lines when he’d stopped by to torment her about the approaching deadline last week.
“I am. Things are growing here in Holly and the surrounding areas, and I decided that maybe I should take advantage and come home.”
“That’s what I did,” Danny said.
Cade shot a look between them. “Are you two—”
“No,” Felicity said at the same time that Danny said, “Yes.”
“Working together,” Danny added with a quick look at Felicity.
“I was going to ask if you were dating,” Cade clarified.
“Not dating,” Felicity said.
“Because if you were, wow. That would be something, after all the stuff you guys pulled on one another.”
“Yeah. That would be a stretch,” Danny said in an uncharacteristically cool tone.
“I’m surprised you can work together,” Cade continued, not getting the hint.
“Well, we are grown-ups now,” Felicity said. “Do you want some help pushing your car out?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
“You remember how to do this, right?” Danny asked.
“I haven’t been gone that long.”
“Your shoes tell a different story.”
“Ha, ha.” Cade climbed in behind the wheel, while Felicity and Danny took position on either side of the car.
“And keep it in reverse if possible.”
Cade eased down on the gas pedal and the wheels spun briefly before gaining purchase with Felicity and Danny’s help.
Cade rolled the window down. “Thanks. Maybe I can buy you a drink some time.”
“Maybe,” Felicity said. “But not until after the fourteenth. We have a deadline.”
“Valentine’s, huh? I ought to be able to remember that.” He lifted his hand. “Thanks again, you guys. See you around.”
“I have never been able to decide if I like him or hate him,” Danny said as Cade’s car slid around the corner of the street leading to Main. Thankfully, he did not hit another snowbank.
“He’s okay,” Felicity said. “Just insecure.” Danny shot her a look and she explained, “We had study hall together in high school. He got me through AP biology, and I got him through calculus.”
“Ah.” Neither of them moved and it occurred to Felicity that they were not on the worksite and kissing was no longer against the rules.
“You better get to your warehouse,” she said.
“Right.” This time they did not hold hands for balance as they headed back to their cars, instead walking slowly side by side, picking their path along the icy street to their cars. They parted ways at their rear bumpers, with an issue still nagging at Felicity. The one she’d been about to address before Cade had slid into the picture.
“Danny?” She met his eyes over the top of her car. “I’m not leaving Seattle.”
His gray gaze never wavered. “I’m not asking you to.”
A rush of relief broke over her as she pulled open her car door. “Good answer, Danny. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow, Felix.”
*
It was midafternoon on Monday when Felicity’s dad finally arrived for a tour of the site with Bud Pratt, who’d managed to get enough time away from his short-handed hardware store to accompany his old friend.
Felicity tried to stop long enough to tour him through, but he’d told her that he didn’t need a tour guide. Actually, she was glad, because although things were moving smoothly, she wanted to take advantage of every second, just in case some unseen disaster loomed in the future.
Felicity continued to sand the last offices while the noise of her dad’s crutches hitting the tarp-covered hardwood floors echoed through the building. He’d taken the super slow elevator to the second floor to give Danny advice on the operation of the texturing machine, then to the basement to see for himself the malfunctioning lock.
“That’s strange,” he said when he and Bud joined Felicity in the office she was taping. “It was stubborn, but it worked when I had to tinker with Bertha the last time.”
“Maybe some kind of grit,” Bud guessed.
“Whatever. The city guy will replace it this week. And he’s giving Bertha a tune-up tomorrow.”
“Great. We need heat flowing to dry the texture,” her dad said. He was leaning heavily on his crutches, and he seemed slightly winded after traveling the entire worksite on them. Not that he would ever confess to such weaknesses, but when Felicity glanced at Bud, he gave her an almost imperceptible nod.
“So, I’ll see you at home, Dad.”
“Right.” He seemed relieved at the suggestion. “I’m thinking that I might be able to help with the final trim next Sunday.”
“Guess we’ll see how you feel then,” Felicity said noncommittally. She couldn’t keep him away, but she wasn’t going to let him hurt himself either. Thankfully Stevie and Tess would be there to make sure all was well.
She’d just started to work again when the front door opened, and she poked her head out of the office to see a man carrying an economy-size toolbox.
“I’m Deke. Here to look at the furnace.”
“Great. We only had to reset it once this weekend, but we can’t risk it breaking down before the paint is dry.”
“Gotcha.” He touched a finger to his forehead, then headed for the basement steps. “You got a lot done in here,” he called. “Looks nice.”
“Thank you. Don’t forget to look at the lock.”
“Yeah. That’s not all that unusual, locking on one side. I think the euro cylinder is compromised.”
“Interesting. Just…be careful.”
“If you hear any shouting, come rescue me,” he said jovially, and Felicity smiled.
After he disappeared down the hall, she pushed her hair away from her forehead with the back of her hand, then headed into the office she was finishing. Over an hour later, when Deke knocked on the doorframe to get her attention, she was still feathering seams in the same office, although the end was in sight—only eight feet away.
“Hey,” he said, taking a couple of steps into the room. “I have to order a part, but I managed to work up a temporary fix that should,” he made a tentative face, “hold until Thursday. If it doesn’t, the reset button should work.”
“Should?”
“It’ll work.”
“And the lock?”
“I’ll be replacing that when I replace the part. So,” he gave a cheery wave, “I’ll see you Thursday. Until then, use the door prop.”
“Thank you. Will do.”
It wasn’t until the front door closed behind Deke that she realized that the spray gun wasn’t running.
“Everything okay up there?” she called to Danny.
“Just filling the hopper.”
“Ah. I’m at the point in the project where I expect disaster.”
A few seconds later she heard him crossing the floor. “Then it’s time for a short break.”
He came down the stairs, his white-coated pantlegs showing first, followed by a white-coated chest, and finally a clean face topped with white dusted hair.
“Yo
u were wearing a ventilator mask, right?” she said, her eyes going wide at the sight of him.
“Thus the clean face,” he said.
“You look like… I can’t think of anything pale enough.”
“Sea slug?”
“Are those white?”
“I don’t know.” He went to the overturned empty compound bucket he’d left his lunch and water bottle on and took a long drink. “I had a few mishaps adjusting the pressure.”
“It’s been a while since you’ve run the thing?” she guessed.
One corner of his mouth tipped up. “A long while, and it is not like riding a bike.”
“What is?” she asked, going to retrieve her coffee mug. She tried to ration caffeine through the day, and she was close to the end.
“When I finish spraying this last hopper, I need to go home and shower so that I can meet with Sandra.”
“She’ll probably appreciate you not flaking all over everything.”
He smiled a little. “What are you going to do?”
“Not get locked in with Bertha.” He lifted an eyebrow at the non-answer, and she said, “I’ll leave with you. Sandra will appreciate you not having to come to the rescue.”
“But I would, you know. Anytime. Anywhere.”
The words were lightly spoken, but the expression in his gray eyes was startlingly serious.
“We can’t be a thing, Danny.” The words hung between them.
He blinked in surprise. “I disagree,” he said as his expression edged toward amusement. Felicity’s cheeks warmed as she realized that she’d misread his statement. He hadn’t been making a declaration.
“You always were disagreeable,” she muttered, resisting the urge to put her hands on his chest and push him backward a step or two.
“And stubborn. You aren’t the only one with an iron will. I’ll rescue you if I want to.”
His gaze moved to her mouth, held for a moment, and she tipped up her chin. “No kissing on the jobsite.”
He lifted an eyebrow in a way that made her heart thump against her ribs. “Care to step outside?”
She couldn’t hold in the laugh, even as she pressed the back of her hand to her mouth to smother it. The thing was that it felt a little hysterical. She was losing it. Pressure from the job deadline. Pressure from working in proximity with a man she didn’t know what to do with.