by Julia London
God, she really needed a hobby. Or a boyfriend. A boyfriend who had nothing to do with her house or her work, completely disengaged from her life, existing simply to adore her and buy her gifts. That way, she wouldn’t be sleeping with Evan or fantasizing about some hired Hammerman who was working on her house. There was only one small problem—she really had such putrid, rotten luck when it came to guys. And boyfriends bored her.
When she opened her front door, her gaze immediately swept the entry and dining room, but there was no sign of Evan.
“He went to the office,” Jake offered.
Robin colored slightly, came in and shut the door, and stood there with her back to it, feeling very uncertain. And fat. Oh, man, she felt fat in running shorts. She stole a glance down the hallway to her room, mentally calculating the distance—she could make a mad dash for it, but then, he’d see the jiggle in her butt.
Jake looked at her expectantly.
Robin chuckled, thought she sounded an awful lot like Olive Oyl. “Well. Well, well.”
“Pretty humid out, huh?” he asked, turning back to his work.
What did that mean? Did she . . . oh Lord, help her—smell? “It’s not too bad,” she lied and suddenly pushed away from the door. “I’ve run in much worse. Much worse.” What a ridiculous thing to say.
“Well, you must be a pro,” Jake said, looking pretty dubious. He paused, went down on his haunches next to a tool bag, and fished inside. Robin ended up at the dining table, acutely aware that she was, once again, trying very hard to look at Jake without actually looking at him. God. She went to the kitchen, scrounged up a bottle of water, then wandered back into the dining room. Her gaze fell on the box of doughnuts. The lid was up, the box was empty. Damn.
“So . . . what else do you do, Robin Lear?” Jake asked as she drank her water.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean besides run and steal doughnuts. You into sports?”
Ahhh . . . sports. So not her thing. “I tennis when I can.” Which meant never. “And golf—”
“Oh yeah? Where do you play?”
“River Oaks.”
“Oh.” He continued digging through his tool bag. “Never played there.”
Well, of course not—River Oaks Country Club was the most exclusive club in all of Houston and not just anyone could play there. Actually, very few people could play there. He certainly could not play there. “Uh . . . what about you? Any sport?”
“Baseball.”
“Oh, me, too!” Robin quickly responded, pleased to have found something in common. She walked into the foyer, her shorts forgotten. “I love the Astros—”
“No kidding?” he asked, obviously surprised. “I try to get to all their home games.”
“Really? I wish I could get to more of them, but I travel so much. I go every chance I get when I am in Houston. We have a box.”
“Lucky you,” he said, sounding truly envious. “Who do you like?”
“Moz,” Robin said, propping herself precariously on one rung of a ladder he had brought into the foyer.
“I should have known. All the ladies like Moz, huh?”
“He happens to be the best pitcher they have!”
“He’s too old and he’s overpaid, and that’s about the best you can say about him.”
“Ha! Shows what you know—he’s as good as any of those skinny little twenty-year-olds they have on the mound,” Robin said indignantly on Moz’s behalf.
Jake snorted. “Please. He’s a washed-up has-been and he’s ruining the salary caps.”
“Oh, so now I get it. You’re one of those guys who doesn’t like anyone to make more than he does, right?”
“Excuse me? Moz makes more than Midas, and he can’t even pitch his way out of a paper bag. You must be one of those who thinks money is an entitlement instead of, heaven forbid, earning your keep.”
That struck a raw nerve in Robin and she instantly retorted, “I do so earn my keep!”
Jake laughed. “Okay. But we were talking about Grandpa Moses, not you.”
Oh. Right. Robin’s face colored. Feeling terribly self-conscious, she jumped down off her perch on the ladder. Only she didn’t go very far—her running shorts caught on a screw or something behind her.
Jake laughed, which only made her face flame. “What is that?” she exclaimed, suddenly twisting and turning to dislodge herself, rattling the ladder in the process.
“Hey, what are you doing? You’re scarring the brick!” he warned her.
But Robin was too mortified to care about brick. “I’m stuck!”
“Serves you right, Hotpants,” Jake said. “Moz!” He put down his brush and stepped forward.
But when Robin realized he meant to help dislodge her, she panicked, and was suddenly twisting like a dervish, trying to free herself before he could touch her.
“Careful, Peanut, you’re going to scar that great brick. Just calm down and let me . . .” He leaned over her, clucked his tongue. “How did you manage to do that?”
Humiliated. That was the only word she could think of, and Robin squirmed again, wild to get off the ladder, but Jake put a steady hand to her hip to lean around her. Robin instantly froze, sucked in her breath, and held it—his touch was like the moment between the realization one has touched fire and is about to feel the burn—only this was a burn she wanted to feel. Unnerved by it, by the nearness of his body, she hung paralyzed, felt his hand at the base of her spine and on her hip, felt his fingers pull up and dislodge the fabric of her shorts, his knuckles kneading her flesh. And then she was free.
Jake stepped back.
Robin slid off the ladder—unthinkingly, her hand went to the spot he had touched her, her fingers feeling for the scar he had surely left behind.
Jake’s gaze followed her hand, then flicked back to her eyes, seeping right into her and filling her to the rim before he turned back to his work. He picked up a paint scraper and attacked the wall, muttering that he should get to work.
Robin stood there a moment, unable to move. “Thanks,” and walked blindly through the dining room, groping her way to her bedroom through a fog as dense as it was unfamiliar.
In the privacy of her bath, she wondered what in the hell had come over her. He was a man, just like dozens of men she knew. Why should his touch galvanize her so thoroughly? Whatever the reason, it made her feel a little shaky inside.
Robin finished her bath, dressed quickly, and stood looking at herself in the full-length mirror, thoroughly disgusted by what she was seeing. She had chosen a brand new pair of chocolate-brown Prada slacks and a crème-colored Christian Dior silk blouse. Okay, really, she had enough trouble without getting all dressed up to do her renovator, which was exactly where this was headed. What about the consequences? She would have to work in the same space with him for several months. What would she do then? Barricade herself in her bedroom? Had she not experienced the pain of working alongside someone she had slept with as recently as, oh say, last night? Stupid, stupid, stupid . . .
Still, Robin slipped on a pair of Ralph Lauren sandals, but paused when she heard the unmistakable sound of a woman’s laughter. She froze, tried to pin the sound down, until it hit her—that was Lucy Ramirez’s laugh.
And the thought of Lucy with Jake sent Robin lunging for the bedroom door and struggling with the porcelain handle, thanks to the sweet-scented Chanel lotion she had put on her hands.
Chapter Nine
Still laughing, and leaning against the same ladder Robin had hung herself on, Lucy looked surprised when Robin came spilling out of her room and down the hall. “Hey, it’s about time,” Lucy said.
“And a cheerful good morning to you, too, Lucy. What’s going on?”
“Jake and I were just telling a few tales while I waited for you to get out of the shower,” Lucy said, sliding off the barstool. “You take a really long shower. Really long. You could probably track it on Doppler radar.”
Robin glared at her assistant, bu
t as usual, Lucy was oblivious. She was studying Robin’s pants. “Are those new?”
“No.”
“I haven’t seen them before.”
“You haven’t seen all my clothes, Lucy.”
“That’s because I can’t keep up.”
“Could we just please get to work?” Robin asked through clenched teeth, and thank you, Lucy, because now Jake was looking at her pants.
“Sure,” Lucy responded cheerfully, as if suddenly remembering why she was there. “Your dad called. He said I was to bring you the names of these people to call. Then Evan said you needed to see the accounts for Peerless Packing and Wirt Supplies and Packing. Don’t ask me what is up with that, but thank God this is all in the computer, because I’m telling you, there is nothing left of that office except ashes. Remember all those files on your desk? Gone! And then Darren called and asked if you were free for dinner—”
“Oh, hey, hey!” Robin interrupted, laughing nervously as she stole a look at Jake’s back while shaking her head furiously at Lucy.
Lucy cocked her head to one side. “What? Why are you shaking your head like that?”
“I’m not shaking my head—”
“Yes you are. If you don’t want to go, I’ll call him, but I thought you liked this guy.”
Robin cringed. “Why don’t we go to lunch and go over this stuff?”
Lucy looked at her watch. “It’s ten o’clock.”
“I meant coffee.”
“Okay, but I think Evan’s coming back—”
“He can get his own coffee!”
“Okay, all right!” Lucy said, eyeballing her suspiciously. “We’ll get coffee!” With another hard look at Robin, she swung around, snatched up her giant designer knockoff shoulder bag and marched toward the kitchen. Robin was right behind her, picking up her new little kate spade purse in her near sprint to get out of the house, following Lucy out the back without so much as a ta-ta to Jake.
Ahead of her, Lucy abruptly stopped and turned, almost colliding with Robin. “Am I insane, or am I seeing things right?”
Oh shit. Shit shit shit, it was obvious. Robin’s heart started beating like a drum; she looked everywhere but at Lucy.
“I mean, have you ever seen anyone so cuuuuute?” Lucy squealed and grabbed Robin’s wrist in her excitement.
“Huh?”
“The worker guy, Jake! He’s gorgeous!”
“Really?” Robin asked and self-consciously tried to tame a curl at her temple. “I didn’t notice.”
“Oh, come on!” Lucy demanded, incredulous. “Why didn’t you tell me you had a man like that tucked away in your house? I would love to work at home if I had a guy like that stuck inside. I’d set it up like Hotel California. Once he came in, he would never come out—”
“Come on, Lucy, he’s just a contractor,” Robin reminded her as they headed for the car.
“Just a contractor—what does that mean? Well, whatever, he’s gorgeous. And he’s so nice. And funny. Girl, he is funny.”
Okay, Robin thought, he might be nice, but he wasn’t particularly funny. And he was stingy with doughnuts. “I haven’t really talked to him.”
“Yeah, well, with a guy like that, you really don’t need to talk,” Lucy said with a not-so-subtle elbow in Robin’s ribs.
“Can we just talk about the files you brought?” Robin insisted, trying hard to change the subject.
But Lucy continued to wax dreamily about Jake at the coffee shop, even through the ordering of two skinny double mocha cafe au lait with nutmeg. Robin was finally able to shut her up by blurting out the news of her demotion.
At first, Lucy was stunned. She gaped at Robin. “Are you kidding?” When Robin shook her head no, she contorted into a howl of laughter. Looking around at everyone looking at Lucy, Robin didn’t exactly appreciate her reaction and said so.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy said, wiping the tears of laughter from beneath her eyes. “But the thought of you and Eldagirt Wirt is too much!”
“Who is that?”
“Eldagirt owns Wirt Supplies and Packing—she’s one of the people your dad wants you to call. I’ll just say this—she eats concrete-and-barbed-wire pie for breakfast and asks for seconds.” Lucy giggled, reached for one of the two thick files she was carrying, leafing through them until she found one paper in particular, which she shoved across the small table to Robin. “Here’s her number. If I were you, I’d wait ‘til after lunch to get in touch. Definitely not a morning person.”
Robin scoffed at that, proclaimed she wasn’t afraid of Eldagirt, and turned her attention to the file’s contents while Lucy very helpfully put forth her theories about why the office had burned. Which boiled down to her pinning it on nonexistent transients.
When Lucy finally headed back to the freight yard, where she’d set up a temporary office, Robin stayed on at the coffee shop a while longer, reviewing the fascinating and titillating account files. The way she saw things, she had two choices. Either she could mope about her rotten stupid luck, or she could prove her father and Evan wrong. How hard could it be? She could learn everything there was to know, just plunge right in and show them that she had what it took. Starting with an understanding of exactly how Styrofoam peanuts were made. She was so excited by the prospect, it was all she could do to keep from skipping back to her house.
While Robin was trying to mine her way through the information about the two packing materials company, Jake was learning it would be the following week before Zaney would be back to work. At least that’s what Jake thought he said—the music was blaring so loudly in the background, he could hardly hear him.
He was still brooding about that and how he was possibly going to stay on schedule when Robin came sailing through the door, tossing keys, purse, and files onto the already overloaded dining table. If she saw him, she certainly didn’t acknowledge it. She thrust one leg to the side, cocked her hip and flipped through the mail she held in one hand, then carelessly tossed the envelopes onto the pile on the table. Only then did she turn, hands on hips, and face him. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
She shifted her gaze to the window frame. “What are you doing?”
“Stripping the old paint on this casing.”
Robin wrinkled her nose. “Shouldn’t you do the walls first?”
“The casing needs to be stripped before I put the chemical peel on the wall,” he said patiently, as if she required any explanation at all, even if she was so goddam gorgeous.
She moved forward to stand beside him. “It just seems like the windows would be last.”
In spite of the distraction of the faint scent of lilac, Jake couldn’t let it go. “That may be the most uninformed thing you have said yet.”
“Yet?” she protested. “That would imply I have said other misinformed things, which I have not, Handy Andy. I haven’t found the stained glass I want yet.”
“Handy Andy, huh?” All right, lilac scent aside, he was going to have to establish some ground rules if he was ever going to complete this job. “Okay. How about we have a deal since we’ll obviously be working so close, Miss Burned-Down-My-Office. I won’t tell you how to buy a packing materials company, and you don’t tell me how to renovate this house. Deal?”
She laughed. A dark curl wrapped itself around her eye. “If that isn’t so typically male, I don’t know what is— ‘don’t tell me how to do my job,’ blah blah blah—”
“Well, that’s a pretty typical female response if you ask me, the old I-know-how-to-do-everything-better-than-you attitude. I bet you’re used to having everyone at your beck and call.”
“And just what is that supposed to mean?” she asked, squaring off.
The woman did not lack for confidence, which, in spite of her being a little off her rocker, he found appealing. “Well, in a word, you’re bossy.”
She gasped. “Bossy!”
“Bossy.”
“So a woman offers you some sound advice and you see it as bossy? Doesn’
t that seem kind of sexist?”
“No. A woman butts into a project when she doesn’t have a clue what she is talking about and starts offering free advice. I see that as bossy.”
“You are obviously confusing bossy with assertive. I just want the job done right, of course.”
“I can’t help but wonder why, if you know so much about renovation, that you hired out to begin with. Which reminds me—I’ve been meaning to ask you about that huge hole in the wall upstairs.”
That shut her up. Her brows burrowed into a frown. “Oh gosh, look at the time,” she said, looking at her watch. “I’ve got work to get to work.” She walked on, leaving the scent of lilac behind.
“Just as long as it’s your work and not mine,” he said, and with his back to her, smiled broadly when she muttered something about a goat.
For a while, she worked, occasionally mumbling under her breath. Then she got up, started walking around the table, lost in thought. And just when Jake thought she might actually walk through to the basement, she snatched up the phone and punched numbers. “Yes . . . Robin Lear calling for Eldagirt Wirt, please.”
Jake almost choked.
“Robin Lear,” she repeated. “Lear Transport Industries.”
That was followed by a wait of maybe five seconds before Robin began to tap her foot. Patience was definitely not her strong suit. Suddenly the foot tapping stopped. “Yes! What—excuse me? Robin Lear of Lear Transport Industries. I would like to speak with Eldagirt Wirt about an opportunity I think she will find very exciting—No, she didn’t win a cruise. Look, could you just ask Ms. Wirt to come to the phone?”
Whatever the other person said seemed to throw her for a loop. “Huh?” she asked, sounding terribly confused. “No, wait—Hello?”
Robin held the phone out from her head and looked at it. “What the hell?” she said, and put the phone down.