by Laura Drewry
“Who was that?” she laughed.
“Friends of Mom’s. It’s their house we’re building.”
“Wow—that must be interesting. Do they always dress the same?”
“Yeah.” Nick blew out a loud breath and wheeled the truck toward home. “Keep an eye out, they’ve been known to follow me home.”
Jayne’s laughter filled the cab of the truck, and even though he’d been serious, the sound warmed him, made him laugh, too. Back at the house, he opened the front door and waved her in ahead of him. Duke waddled up to Jayne, wagged his tail like a fool while she rubbed his ears, then shuffled back to his pillow, completely dismissive of Nick.
“So I was thinkin’.” He threw his keys in the bowl on the front hall table and kicked his sneakers into the closet. “We should do this more often.”
“Right,” she snorted. “I bet Lisa would love that.”
“She’d come, too. And we’d set you up with someone.”
“How about Mr. October from the firefighter’s calendar?”
“Married.”
“Damn it.” Again she tapped her chin, pretending to think. “Then how about no?”
“Why not?” He followed her into the kitchen and straddled one of the stools. “I know a lot of good guys who’d be happy to—”
“No!”
“I’d be careful who I picked.”
She filled a couple glasses with water and handed him one. “No.”
“Is that the only word you know?”
“No.”
He chuckled and took a slow drink. “It’d do you good. Broaden your horizons, maybe expand your vocabulary.”
“Very funny.” She set her glass on the counter and faced him, arms crossed over her chest.
“You’re the one insisting we need to show people we’re not together,” he went on, the idea gaining steam in his head. “And what better way than for people to see us together but not together. It’s a win-win.”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head and moved around the island, trying to distance herself from him, but he was beside her in a heartbeat, his arm slung around her shoulders, leading her into the living room.
“Chicken?” he asked, grinning down at her.
“Yes.”
They flopped down on the couch, both turning the idea over. It would be perfect; he knew lots of good guys he could set her up with, and at the same time it would earn him points with Lisa, with whom he’d hardly spent any time with since the Stomp. Hell, he’d hardly had time to kiss her hello or goodbye since Jayne got to town, never mind anything else.
“What’s the worst that can happen?” he asked, hoping she didn’t hear the uncertainty in his voice.
She groaned softly. “Nick—”
“Nope, forget it. We’re doing this. I’ll make reservations at The Grill for Saturday night.”
Nick turned on SportsCenter as his own words settled like a lump in his stomach. He was going to set Jayne up on a date. Jayne. His Jayne.
He hadn’t lied; he did know a lot of good guys. But which one would be good enough for her? It’d have to be a stand-up guy who’d treat her right without being all slobbery and overly affectionate. Someone with a good job so in case things turned serious, he could look after her. Someone who’d let her be strong, but who’d let her pull the girl card whenever she wanted to.
Someone who’d hug her even when she made it seem like she didn’t want him to.
Long after he went to bed, Nick ran through everyone he knew in construction, friends of Ben and Katie’s, guys they all knew from high school, and then any other single guy he could come up with. He mentally crossed off anyone who was too old, too young, too loud, too quiet, too busy, not busy enough, anyone who struck Nick as a slob, and anyone who’d never owned a dog.
Every man should have a dog.
The list gradually shrunk until he was left with three choices:
Brett Hale was all cop. He did things by the book, he’d been single for about a year, and he carried a 9mm, a baton, pepper spray, and a Taser, so there was no question he could take care of her. He didn’t own a dog, but given his schedule, Nick couldn’t hold that against him.
Davis Brenner wrenched for one of the logging companies in town and sometimes bartended down at Chalker’s on the weekends. He owned a huge Great Dane that he took to work with him every day, but the dog was crazy and Brenner didn’t do much to rein him in.
Martin Kendall, Nick’s accountant. Good guy, good job, lived alone, and Nick had seen him take out giant wolf spiders with nothing but one of his fancy leather loafers. He had two pets that technically were recognized breeds in the American Kennel Club, but they looked more like fluffy rodents.
Did looks matter to Jayne? Nick didn’t think so, but he couldn’t rule it out. Problem was, he had no idea if these guys were considered good looking. Brett wore a uniform, and chicks liked that, right? Brenner was sort of scruffy, and Martin was blond-haired and blue-eyed. Abby had once compared him to a Greek god.
So there were his choices. A guy with a dangerous job, a guy who couldn’t control his dog, and a guy with a good job who looked like he threw lightning bolts and commanded the planets to align.
Martin Kendall it was.
Monday morning, sitting in his truck at the job site, Nick was on the phone.
“Hey, Martin,” Nick said. “Question for you.”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“I need a date for a friend. Interested? It’ll be a double with Lisa and me.”
There was a slight hesitation. “I don’t know, Nick. A blind date?”
“I’m buying.”
“Well, all right then,” Martin laughed. “When?”
“Saturday at The Grill. Six o’clock?”
“Sounds good,” Martin said. “And since you’re buying, we’ll talk a little business so you can write it off.”
After giving him the details, Nick hung up and immediately fired off a quick text to Jayne.
Got you a date.
Seconds later, her reply came back. Already?! Who?
He started to type Martin’s name, then deleted it. Instead, he sent back one word.
Surprise.
They still had most of the week before Saturday came and he didn’t want her digging around and listening to anyone else’s opinion of Martin before she met him.
He waited a minute, but when she didn’t reply he helped Duke out of the truck and got down to work. For some reason, he found it hard to concentrate. Delmar had to repeat things twice to get his attention, and by the time lunch rolled around, he’d tripped over the framework three times. Wouldn’t have been so bad, except the last time he tried to right himself he only managed to bash the side of his head into the stud.
“Jeez, Boss,” Delmar said over a whistle. “Maybe you should take the day off before you kill yourself.”
When Nick went to argue, Delmar just shut him down. “There ain’t nothin’ here today that we can’t handle. Go. If we need you, we’ll call.”
Nick cussed himself sideways as he climbed back into his truck. What the hell was wrong with him, anyway? At home, he wandered from the kitchen to the living room, to his office and back four times before he gave up and got back in his truck. One quick stop at T-Squared’s, then it was over to the store.
Jayne was in full swing with Mellencamp when he arrived. “Hurt so good …”
Dressed in her ball cap, past-faded cutoffs, and an Oscar the Grouch T-shirt, Jayne’s head bopped and her hips shimmied along as she wrapped her gloved hands around a jagged piece of drywall and tugged.
“Come on baby, make it hurt so good—” How could something so cute sound that bad?
“Uh, Jayne?”
She let out a sharp squeal just as the gypsum gave loose, sending her staggering backward.
“Jeez!” She swiped her arm across her twitchy grin as color spread over her cheeks.
“Stop doing that!”
“Sorry,” he lied a
s he moved to turn the music down. “I thought we agreed to start this tonight.”
“We didn’t agree to anything,” she said, gracing him with one of her very best eye rolls. “You were ignoring what I was trying to tell you, which is that despite what you think, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to rip down drywall.”
Nick couldn’t help but grin at her. Lisa never rolled her eyes at him or talked to him like he was a complete moron. She always made him feel like he was some kind of Einstein.
“What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you were working on the house today.”
“Delmar gave me the afternoon off.” When Jayne quirked a brow at him, he dismissed it with a shrug and held out the bag to her. “Got you something.”
“Nick …”
“Relax,” he grinned. “It’s a tax write-off and it looks like you could use it.”
When she made no move to take the bag, he set it on the floor and pulled out the tool belt himself. By the time he stood back up, she wasn’t even trying to hide her smile.
“Get outta here—my very own tool belt?”
Her laughter settled over him, warming him from the inside out as one by one she pulled everything out: hammer, wrenches, purple-handled screwdrivers, level, and measuring tape.
“This is so cool—thank you!”
For a second, he thought she might hug him, but then she seemed to rethink the whole thing, and set to strapping it around her waist.
“I’m like a girl Mike Holmes.”
“Nah—Mike Holmes’s got nothing on you.” He strapped on his own belt and turned to face her, her blue eyes shining back at him. “Come on, let’s put those new tools to work.”
* * *
Jayne pulled her car out ahead of him and headed for home with a final wave out the window. He’d meet her there in a while, but first he needed to stop at the job site to see how the rest of the day went after he left.
There weren’t many guys he’d count on like he did Delmar. He ran a site the same way Nick did with the exception that Delmar didn’t think it was necessary to bring coffee and doughnuts for break time. As hard as the guys worked for him, Nick figured it was worth the effort.
He walked through the house, running his hands along the rough sills and around the studs. When he’d looked over everything inside, he went outside and examined the siding. It was coming along pretty well, just slower because they were letting Kyle take on more of the actual work. Kid had to learn sometime, and now was as good a time as any.
Half an hour later, he’d given the shop vac a good run around inside and rolled it into the back of what would be the kitchen, out of the way. He couldn’t stand a messy work site, and even though he used the best sub-trade guys in town, they always left crap lying around.
A final check, then he headed home. The front porch light was on when he pulled in beside Jayne’s car. Only back ten days and already Nick couldn’t image her not being there. With the store almost cleaned out, it was only a matter of time before she moved into the apartment, and then he’d be alone in his house again.
Not that Duke wasn’t good company, but sometimes a guy needed more than kibble breath at the table with him.
The house was dark except for the light from the TV flickering in the living room. Duke gave a halfhearted whine but didn’t come running like he normally did. Where was he? And where was Jayne?
Nick stepped through the foyer and there was Duke, up on the couch with his chin resting on the armrest. Exactly where he knew he wasn’t allowed to be. But right beside the old dog’s head was Jayne’s. Wrapped in her purple robe, her arm was draped over Duke, and her slow steady breath whispered against his whiskers, making them twitch slightly.
“Good boy.” Nick squatted beside the couch and scratched him behind the ears.
Jayne’s hair, still damp from her shower, fell across her cheek and over her eyes. He reached out to tuck it back, then stopped. The couch probably wasn’t the best place for her to sleep, but he wasn’t about to wake her up; instead, he inhaled slowly, smiling as the scent of her shampoo lingered.
“Strawberries,” he sighed. “Nice.”
Duke didn’t even move when Nick pulled an extra blanket out of the linen closet and gently laid it over Jayne, and Nick couldn’t blame him. He picked up the remote and slowly lowered the volume until it was almost muted. What the hell was she watching? Some teenage skinhead in a sleeveless leather jacket trying his best to intimidate a preppy-looking kid.
Nick moved quietly to his room, then stood in the middle of the floor and stared at his bed for a full minute. Oh, screw it. He dropped his clothes in the hamper, grabbed his blue quilt, and slipped back into the living room where he kicked back in the recliner and stared at Jayne until he’d re-memorized every inch of her face.
He didn’t even try to stop the chuckle that worked its way out. For as often as she smirked at him, Jayne deserved every single one of those creases around her eyes. Lisa would never let her creases show like that, and she sure as hell would never let him see her without her hair styled or without makeup on.
There was no denying Lisa always looked great. She was like one of those houses the hospital lotteries were always giving away, made up so perfectly you couldn’t help but want it. Jayne on the other hand … well, Jayne wasn’t anything like a shiny new house.
She was home.
Chapter Eight
That’s why they call them crushes. If they were easy, they’d call them something else.
Jim Baker, Sixteen Candles
Jayne woke first. Duke had moved to the floor and now looked up at her with his saggy, soulful eyes. A thick blanket covered her and the TV was still on—some infomercial for skin cream—but there was no sound, which meant Nick must be home.
Not just home, though; he was twisted like a pretzel in the recliner.
“Look at him,” Jayne whispered to Duke. “He’s going to be sorry he did that.”
She slipped out from under her blanket and tiptoed to the kitchen. Maybe coffee would help him untwist when he woke up.
She filled the pot and set it to brew while she went through to her bathroom to wash up and brush her teeth. No point in showering until she got home from the store because she’d just have to shower all over again. She dressed quickly then let Duke out into the backyard for a minute. Still Nick slept.
When the coffee was ready, she filled the biggest mug she could find and carried it out to the living room where she waved it slowly back and forth in front of his face. His nose twitched once, then again, before his brow raised. It took another couple seconds before his eyes managed to open. Very slowly, he came awake, his hair a complete mess, his cheeks covered in stubble and a lazy smile stretching across his face.
It wasn’t right for someone to look that good first thing in the morning. In fact, it was just plain wrong. She moved back a bit to give him room to straighten out, but his hand shot out to grab her wrist.
“Don’t tease me.” Grinning, he let go of her wrist and reached for the mug, but Jayne held on to it until he’d collapsed out of his long stretch. His blanket fell to his waist, leaving him bare-chested and revealing the waistband of his boxers. He didn’t seem bothered by it, but she suddenly didn’t know where to look, so she pushed the mug toward him then went back to the kitchen to get her own cup.
“Want some scrambled eggs?”
Nick padded toward the kitchen, his blanket draped in front of him. “You don’t have to make me breakfast every morning, you know.”
She fixed her gaze fixed on the fridge door, the carton of eggs, the bowl—anywhere except on his half-naked body standing so close to her. After a few seconds, she blinked up at him, forcing her eyes to look only at his face, not at his bare chest, not at his broad shoulders or the muscles in his arms, and certainly not … stop it!
Smile. No, smirk. Better.
“So that’s a no?”
“Let’s not get crazy,” he chuckled. “If you’re making some
, I won’t let them go to waste, but don’t make them just for me.”
He turned and headed to his room, leaving Jayne staring after him and the back end of his Darth Vader boxers. Damn—it was almost enough to make her like Star Wars. She’d seen him bare-chested lots of times when they were in high school, but they weren’t kids anymore, and best friends or not, she was still a woman. And, God help her, he was all man.
When she finally managed to blink, she gave her head a hard shake and sighed. All these years she’d managed to keep herself in check around Nick, to accept she’d never be anything more than his buddy, and she wasn’t about to jeopardize their friendship now by chasing those Vader boxers down the hall.
He had Lisa, and maybe this date on Saturday would turn out to be just what Jayne needed. Maybe this guy would be enough. Maybe. Stranger things had happened, right?
“Smells good.” Wearing nothing but a pair of faded Levi’s and a smile, Nick wandered back into the kitchen, refilled his mug, and caught the toast as it popped up.
Jayne handed him a plate, quirked her brow, and forced a smirk. “Ever heard of the ‘no shirt, no shoes’ rule?”
“My house, my rules.” He grinned over a mouthful of eggs. “Except when Mom’s here.”
* * *
Jayne had only an hour before Nick said he’d be back, so she had to hurry. Shopping had never been her idea of fun, especially when it came to clothes shopping, so she held out little hope that the next fifty-five minutes would be successful, but with her credit card in hand, she headed straight to Pandora’s.
Summer all but exploded in the front window, with every color of sweet pea complementing the pastel-colored dresses and shoes. The dresses were cute, but she’d never been a fan of her upper arms, so sleeveless was definitely out. She walked through the open door and was met by a woman with a warm smile, carrying an armload of shoe boxes toward the front of the store. Her dark blond hair was pulled back in a simple ponytail and she was dressed in capri jeans and a short khaki blouse that buttoned up the front.
Elvis sang softly from the speakers in the ceiling and the racks were set out in an inviting, easy-to-maneuver-through way.