King Stud

by Liv Rancourt

  Throughout the tour, Ryan followed behind, his arms crossed and his mouth shut except for a couple times when her uncle’s questions got more technical than Danielle could answer. Twice their eyes met, held, Ryan’s expression a perfect balance of desire and restraint. She couldn’t imagine what her face gave away.

  When they returned to the living room, Uncle Jonathan offered Ryan his hand.

  “This is a great house, and I’m real happy to have the chance to work on it,” Ryan said. They shook, two men taking each other’s measure through a clasp of hands.

  “I’m just glad to see Danielle has someone helping her who cares about the place as much as she does.” Uncle Jonathan looked Ryan right in the eye as he spoke. “You’re not the kind of mealy-mouthed shyster she usually goes for. I like that.”

  “Uncle Jonathan.” Danielle’s cheeks blazed and she waved her hands, batting away his implication. “He’s working here. We’re not dating.”

  “Oh, right.” Uncle Jonathan winked broadly, including both of them in the joke. “Well in case you ever change your mind, I approve.”

  Danielle dove behind her SoCal Barbie persona and opened the door, her real self swallowing a huge gulp of embarrassment. “Thanks for coming by. I’m glad you like the progress we’re making.”

  “Oh, wait, I almost forgot the reason I came over in the first place.” Jonathan shifted his shoulders to settle the overcoat in place. “Your mother called. She didn’t realize you were in Seattle.”

  Oh shit. “I was going to surprise her.”

  “Oh, she was surprised all right.” Her uncle paused in the doorway, his affable expression shading into something more critical. “Remember, kiddo, Patricia was pretty annoyed Mother left you the house,” he said, tapping the air in her general direction. “Avoiding her is a ticket to hostility.”

  But talking to her made hostility inevitable. Danielle funneled her anxiety into laughter and patted her uncle’s shoulder. “Well for sure I don’t want her any more irate than necessary.”

  “Call her.” He brushed a kiss on Danielle’s forehead and, after one more sharp look, headed out.

  Closing the door on her uncle, Danielle turned to find Ryan standing much closer than he had been before.

  “Dude.” She put a hand on his chest, shifting him back a couple inches. Not because she wanted to, but because the cherries tattooed behind his ear said she had to, and she’d promised herself she’d do the right thing. Even if it sucked. “Let me help you bring those boards in.”

  “Right.” He flipped the ice pack from one hand to the other. “Why’d your grandmother leave you the house?”

  “Because I’m cute.” She scraped back a stray hank of hair, her smile as blank as she could make it. Danielle suspected her grandmother had left her the house because it had always been her safe place, but Ryan didn’t need a rehash of her poor-little-rich-girl saga.

  His eyes still held a question, but after a moment he nodded and stepped farther back. “Let’s get those boards.”

  “Cool.”

  They carried in the two-by-sixes, silence buffering their actions. Over the weekend, Ryan had widened the doorways on either end of the dining room, though the rough edges needed to be enclosed in trim. Once they carried in all the supplies, Ryan stroked the molding she’d sanded. “Nice work with these.” A half grin showed off his dimples. “This place is going to be sweet when we get it done.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.” She went over to the kitchen sink, looking out over the old wooden porch to the Sound. A single light moved across the blackness. “Was it hard to open up the doorways?”

  “Just had to work around the king studs.”

  I bet I could work around your king stud just fine. “The what?” Danielle broke out a super-plastic smile, hoping Ryan couldn’t guess what was on her mind.

  “The extra support beams framing the doors and windows.” He glanced at her, doing a quick double-take. “What?”

  She dredged up willpower from some deep internal source, in need of every shred to keep pretending he was just a remodeling buddy. “Nothing.”

  “The homeowner’s always right.” He chuckled and headed back into the living room. “If you’re happy with my work, next summer you can hire me to rebuild that nasty old porch out back.”

  Danielle’s feet stuck as she got a sudden visual of Ryan, shirtless and sweaty, working in her backyard under the sun. By the time she could move again, he had his jacket on and was headed for the front door.

  “Well, thanks for dropping stuff off,” she said.

  “Need more ice on my shoulder.” He paused with his hand on the doorframe, assessing her with that perfectly controlled heat, an expression way too grown up for only twenty-four. “I’ll swing by tomorrow and work on the trim.”

  Her fluttery response demonstrated all the maturity of a teenager.

  “Oh, and while I’m thinking about it, Mom said to make sure you know you’re welcome to join us for Thanksgiving dinner,” he said.

  Since she couldn’t hug Ryan, Danielle hugged herself. “Really? That’d be awesome.”

  “Maeve didn’t mention it, did she?”

  “No, but it’s not the night before.” She laughed, because Maeve had always sucked at planning things in advance. Her laugh made Ryan laugh, and then things were better.

  Almost.

  Chapter Five

  “Question … are they paying you for all the work you’re doing?” Maeve rocked back in her chair, eyes sleepy, last night’s mascara making a shadow under her lower lids.

  Danielle sat at the cute Ikea table in Maeve’s tiny dining room, actually a corner of her slightly-bigger living room. Maeve had talked her into doing the designated driver thing for what turned into a late night at the Pig, and Danielle felt stale; leftover instead of hung-over. To fight it, she’d made a wake-up run to Starbucks for breakfast treats, unaware they’d booby-trapped the scones with evil fruit. She picked currants out of hers, ignoring Maeve. Her only defensive hope lay in offense. “Are you taking today off?”

  “You didn’t answer my question.” Maeve scooped up the growing pile of currants from the woven placemat in front of Danielle.

  Damn. Maeve wasn’t going to give it up. “You didn’t answer mine.”

  “Yes I’m going to work, but most of my clients already took off for Thanksgiving.” Maeve’s smile morphed into something between cockiness and victory. “There’s no rush.” She mashed the currants into her scone. “Your turn.”

  Danielle broke off another bit of scone and examined it carefully for the little squishy mini-raisins she hated. The silence got long enough that she started to feel silly for dodging. “I’m salaried.”

  Maeve snorted through her bite of scone. “Is this a paid leave?”

  “The work needs to get done.” Danielle sipped some coffee, still looking for a way to get out of the conversation. “I can pay my half of the rent, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  That earned Danielle an indignant scowl. “Yeah, ya freeloader. That’s totally what I’m worried about.” Maeve picked up some crumbs from her woven placemat with long, taupe-painted fingernails. “If it’s an unpaid leave, where do they get off loading all this work on you?”

  Danielle scratched her hairline at the back of her neck. If she excused herself to take a shower, she could totally get out of this. “It’s not that much really.”

  “Bullshit.” Maeve tapped the table like an egg timer, turning up the tension. “You didn’t have to come up here. You could have hired someone to work on the house, which tells me you wanted to leave.” Maeve’s gaze nailed her good. “Which makes me wonder why you’re working for free.”

  Trust a true friend to ask the million-dollar question. Danielle fooled with her placemat’s fringy edges for another minute, while Maeve smiled and tapped and layered on the pressure. If Danielle was a true friend, she’d answer honestly, even if it meant picking at the dead spot where Braden had once been. �
��It’s a combination of professional responsibility, brownnosing, and…” Nut up, girl. You can do this. “I couldn’t stay one more night in the condo.”

  “Why?”

  “Braden’s such a dick.” Tears slipped through the words. The dead spot cracked, setting off a blast of sorrow and loss.

  “Ah…” Maeve steepled her long nails. “I wondered when we’d get around to the ‘B’ word.”

  Maeve’s restrained sympathy gave Danielle a buoy to hold onto, stabilizing her. She rubbed her knuckles along the corners of her eyes, wiping away the tears. “It’s not like I’m feeling sorry for myself or anything. I mean, women get dumped every day.”

  “Still sucks.” Maeve said.

  “It’s okay.” Danielle used the physical act of clearing her throat to drag the cover of the dead spot back into place. “He’s down there, I’m up here and I’ve got some time to figure out what it is I want to do.” Her words pinged against a layer of denial. “About the condo, I mean.”

  “I know what I want to do.” Maeve wrinkled her nose, as if her memory of Braden smelled bad. “I want to cut off his balls for the trophy case.”

  Danielle had to laugh at that. “You and me both.”

  “So what did he do, exactly?”

  Danielle shrugged behind a shield of straight red hair. Maeve stood up, leaned over the table, and blew hard, clearing the way to Danielle’s eyes. “No hiding.”

  Danielle exhaled like her soul might escape and blinked away tears. “I tried to call him at work one day, and his assistant said he’d taken the day off, which was weird because he hadn’t mentioned it. About three minutes later, he called me to say he’d moved all his stuff out of the condo. We were done.”

  Maeve sat down hard. “Da-yum.”

  Danielle’s chuckle held six months’ worth of bitter confusion. “That’s what I said.”

  “Was there someone else?”

  “That’s the thing. I don’t know.” Danielle threaded both hands through her hair, massaging the back of her skull. “And it was months ago. I should be over him already, but it’s going to be a while before I believe any guy won’t just disappear off the face of the earth.” She shook her hair out, sending Braden back to the depths of her consciousness. “Anyway, Ryan says I should be able to move back into the house by around Christmas.” She straightened her shoulders, adjusted her sweater, and cleared her head.

  “Geez, if I’da known I was going to be stuck with you for a whole month…”

  Danielle blinked away the few remaining tears. Just saying Ryan’s name shouldn’t have sidetracked her – too far, anyway. “You know you love me. Besides, it gives you an automatic designated driver.”

  “Well there is that.” Maeve raked a hand through her hair, making the spikes stand out farther. “Last night was wild.” Her grin deepened as if she was flirting with the memory. “What did you think of that Christopher guy?”

  “He was nice.”

  “That’s it? Nice?” Maeve made a show of taking a deep breath and puffing out her cheeks as she exhaled. “You are hopeless.”

  Christopher, the guy in question, had gone to the Denzel Washington School of Incredibly Handsome Men. “Okay, he was nice nice.” Danielle put an extra spin on the first one, giving her friend a better idea of her thoughts on Christopher.

  “I’ve seen him at the Pig before. Did you give him your number?”

  “Yeah.” As pathetic as it sounded, she half hoped Christopher would distract her from both Braden and Ryan.

  “His friend Jason’s pretty cute, too. We can double date.” Maeve rested her forearms on the table. She was eager. Way too eager.

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks for the breakfast, sugar buns. I’m off to the shower.” She rose and patted Danielle’s head.

  “Do you think your mom needs any help with dinner? I could do a pie or something.”

  “Call her and ask.”

  While Maeve was in the shower, Danielle sat down and made a to-do list. She put down calling Maeve’s mother, Vickie. She put down a Home Depot stop and sanding trim. She did not put down reviving memories of L.A and Braden. And she definitely did not put down daydreaming about Ryan.

  Ryan hit his key fob twice, the sharp beep from the truck confirming he’d set the alarm. All the boxwood shrubs edging his parents’ front walkway looked like little green meatballs. Mom must have hired a landscape crew, which was awesome because it meant she wouldn’t be after him to do any pruning. He shook his head, half smiling as he took the cement steps to the front porch two at a time. She’d just come up with something else for him to do.

  The smell of roasting turkey leaked out from around the front door. Oh yeah. Mom made the best damned turkey. He knocked once, then turned his key in the lock to let himself in. A few angel statues dotted the living room, the scout team from the small army that would take over in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Classical piano music took the edge off the silence. “Mom?”

  “In here.” His mother’s voice came from the back of the house.

  Ryan shucked his jacket and headed for the kitchen, sticking his head in the family room on the way by. “Yo, Niall,” he said to his older brother, who was already planted on the overstuffed sofa watching football. “No angels in here yet.”

  “Soon though.” Niall got up, greeting Ryan with a half-hug, half handshake. “Be careful out there. She’s got a list for you.”

  “Why doesn’t she ask you to do shit?” Ryan tried to sound mad, but he was mostly proud of the way his mother always came to him first. She’d hated all the little rooms on the main floor, and right after Ryan graduated from high school, she’d hired a contractor to turn three of them into one large room. Ryan talked his way into a job as a laborer, and ended up knowing what he wanted to do with his life. “By the way, nice buzz cut, dude,” Ryan said, rubbing his brother’s freshly shaved head.

  “Less for the bad guys to grab.”

  “Works for me.” Ryan reached around his brother and waved at his wife Rhonda. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

  She waved back, her smile as frosty as the silver bullet beer can she held in her perfectly manicured grip. In the five years since they’d been married, Ryan had tried like hell to warm up to his sister-in-law, without much success. He counted the smile as a win, and cuffed his brother’s shoulder. “You have to work tonight?”

  Niall still worked the night shift after over ten years on the police force. Ryan figured it was a survival strategy for being married to Rhonda.

  “Nope. Somehow I scored the weekend off.” Niall punched him back, his fist carrying a ‘don’t fuck with me’ message. Ryan was taller and broader than his brother, but Niall was older and meaner.

  You win. “I’m going to go find Mom,” Ryan said, bouncing on the balls of his feet, his stomach yapping as pumpkin spice drifted over the roast turkey smell. Good food, family, and hopefully some time with Dani were going to rock his Thanksgiving day.

  “One of the danglies has a burned out bulb,” his mother said from her position at the center island that divided the kitchen from the dining room. She gestured at the fist-sized gold and blue speckled glass pendant lights hanging over the sink. “The halogen bulbs are in the pantry closet.”

  Ryan crossed the room, wrapped an arm around his mother’s shoulders, and kissed the top of her head. “Happy Thanksgiving, Mom. Good to see you.” He got an elbow in the ribs when he reached over her, pinching a bit of the cheesy crust off the top of the potato casserole resting on the blue granite countertop in front of her. The shortest one in the family, Vickie barely reached his shoulder, but he had a healthy respect for her fire and energy.

  “The snacks are in the TV room. Go fix the bulb please.” She stretched some tin foil over the casserole and tugged open a drawer near his hip, pausing to reach up and give him a kiss on the way by.

  Ryan gave up on snitching food and did as she asked, rooting around in the pantry cupboard until he found a replacement. Th
e old bulb was stubborn about giving up, taking enough of his attention that he didn’t hear the front door open. He didn’t pay attention to the swell of voices and the shout of laughter. He barely noticed when Maeve came through the door.

  But when Dani followed her in, he damned near snapped the bulb off at the base.

  She carried a pie-sized plastic container, and her hair was tied back in a loose braid. Her forest green turtleneck clung to her form and made her skin glow. The bulb chose that moment to cooperate, giving him something to do so he didn’t try to wrap her up in a hug. His mother met her halfway across the room, her hands open to take the pie.

  “You remember Danielle, don’t you?” Maeve said to her mother on her way to the food.

  “Of course I do,” Vickie said, giving Dani a hug. “I’m happy you’re here.” Without turning around, she scolded her only daughter. “No scavenging, Maeve. Snacks are in the other room.”

  Maeve turned on her spike heels and braced her knuckles on the center island. “Yo, bro,” she said.

  “What’s up?” Ryan snapped the bulb into place and stuffed his hands in his pockets, still itching to unwind Dani’s braid. He could tell himself all day long that hooking up with Dani while Cherry could still mess with him wasn’t fair to her. But when she stood close enough for him to smell her faint vanilla floral perfume, to see her broad smile and the way her slim waist flared out into the perfect curve of her butt, all he could think about was what was underneath those classy trousers and how good her lips would taste.

  Shee-it.

  Danielle came over to the island, nearly close enough for Ryan to touch, and Maeve sauntered out into the dining room, the geometric pattern of her sweater working with the spikes in her hair to make her even more angular than normal. “I see our bitchier-in-law is honoring us with her presence.”