The lumberjack comparison was increasingly apt. As was the alpha part.
“What?” he asked gruffly, going to her cupboard and helping himself to a glass of water.
Claire realized her gaze had been lingering a little too long. She blamed it on the champagne and looked back down at her paint swatches, pretending indifference. “Nothing.”
He finished his water in three gulps, then set the glass down on the counter next to the stack of mail on her counter. Unabashed, he used a single finger to move the top item of mail aside, then another.
“You had a birthday.”
“Obviously.”
He leaned back against the counter and studied her. “How old are you?”
“No wonder you don’t have a girlfriend,” she mused without looking up.
His eyebrows lifted. “Who says I don’t?”
“Um, everything about you?” If he wasn’t going to be polite, why should she bother?
“It’s not like I asked your weight,” he said, clearly trying to provoke her.
“You know,” she said, still not glancing up, “for a man who seems determined to give off unsociable, taciturn vibes, you sure are chatty.”
“Just trying to figure you out, since we’re stuck with each other for the foreseeable future.”
Good luck with that. I haven’t even figured myself out.
Claire shifted in her chair to face him. “Don’t worry, I have good news. I’ve already got a read on you. Let me guess. You have no sisters, your mother subscribed to the boys-will-be-boys model, and you have no serious relationship to show for it?”
“Right, wrong, wrong,” he replied without hesitation.
He turned and unzipped the small cooler he’d brought with him, giving Claire’s brain a chance to catch up as he pulled a sandwich out of a Ziploc and took a bite.
“No sisters, awesome mom, and . . . serious girlfriend?” She amended her guess, wondering if Naomi had been wrong about his commitment-phobe status.
“No sisters, no mom, and one fiancée.”
Claire blinked rapidly. Naomi had gotten it really wrong.
“When’s the wedding?” she asked.
“What?” He balled up the Ziploc and shoved it back into the cooler as he polished off the last bite. “Oh. No. Former fiancée.”
“Ah.”
He gave her a knowing look. “Go ahead. Say it.”
“Say what?”
He turned back toward her, crossing his arms. “That you’re not surprised.”
Claire frowned, not loving that he was more perceptive than he seemed.
“I’m sorry your relationship didn’t work out.” Her voice sounded stiff, even to her own ears.
“I’m not.”
“You’re not . . . sorry that your relationship ended?”
“Nope.” There was a curtness to his tone, and Claire found herself intrigued in spite of herself. However, she’d only known the guy a little over twenty-four hours. She couldn’t very well go prying into the most painful parts of his past.
Not that he was likely to tell her what she wanted to know. Despite his assertion that he wanted to “figure her out,” he seemed the type of man to use as few words as possible, and she doubted he’d waste them on her.
Still, she was curious enough that she made a mental note to ask Naomi later. If Oliver and Scott went way back, Naomi was likely to at least know something about the mysterious fiancée.
“What’re those?” Scott asked, nodding at her paint swatches, the topic of their personal lives apparently finished alongside his sandwich.
Claire gave him a sweet smile. “My color choices.”
He grunted. “You’re still on that banana cream pie thing?”
“It’s strawberry lemonade cupcake, and if anything, my vision’s becoming clearer.” For now.
“My vision’s becoming clearer, too.” He jerked his head to the right. “That needs to go.”
She glanced in the general direction, having no idea what he was talking about. “Are your other clients mind readers? Because I lack that skill.”
“The wall,” he snapped. “We need to tear it down.”
“Don’t we sort of need it?”
He walked toward it, knocked on the portion closest to the arched entryway to the kitchen. “Beam’s right here, and that’s the only load-bearing part. The rest is just a throwback to when galley kitchens were in style. We can turn the support beam into a pillar, open the whole thing up.”
“Can we paint the pillar hot pink? Ooh, we could add glitter!”
Scott’s incredulous look was far too delicious for Claire to tell him she was kidding. It was surprisingly fun to try and goad a reaction out of her stubbornly implacable contractor. Claire deliberately picked up the brightest, most awful bubble gum shade of pink she could find among her swatches.
She held it up in the general direction he’d indicated, squinting as though she were pretending to imagine the pink as a pillar.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered. “Do not be surprised if that paint swatch goes missing. For good.”
She smiled and, having had her fun, set the ugly paint color back on the table and got down to business. “Okay, lay it on me. How bad does the upstairs look?”
“Depends,” he said with a shrug. “You’ve got some options based on what you’re looking for. The two guest rooms are small and share a wall. It’d be easy to tear it down, make a bigger space. But most people would probably opt to leave it as is. Two small rooms, and the bigger master.”
“Really?” She was surprised. She’d been toying with the idea of making it one big room herself. The two guest rooms as they were now were barely large enough to fit a double bed and a dresser.
Scott was looking at her ceiling, distracted by—and apparently displeased with—the overhead lighting. “Yeah,” he finally replied, looking back at her. “This part of town especially, people like to keep their extra bedrooms open. You know. Nursery. Kids’ rooms.”
“Oh jeez,” she said, sitting back. “Not you and my mother.”
He stared at her. “Did you just compare me to your mother?”
“Why is it,” she continued, “that every woman of childbearing age is expected to be beholden to her uterus?”
“Whoa. Hey.” He held up his hands, looking slightly panicked. “I have absolutely zero interest in your uterus.”
“Me neither,” Claire said firmly. “And I’ve got no use for a nursery.”
He shifted, looking a little uncomfortable. “You don’t have to decide right now. I can start with other stuff, figure out what to do with the guest rooms later.”
“I don’t care what order you do things in, but I’m not going to change my mind about wanting a nursery.”
He looked at her for a while. “What if husband number two has a different opinion? Once I’m done with this project, I’m not going to come build a baby room for you when you get married again.”
“Gosh, you mean you and I will have to part ways at the end of this? Devastating. And there’s not going to be a husband number two. I’m not getting married again.”
“Fine by me. But women opt to have kids without husbands all the time.”
She made an exasperated sound. “What is it with you and my reproductive system?”
He winced. “Right. Sorry.”
Claire nodded, relieved to drop the subject, even though she should be used to it. Up until a couple of years ago, Claire had automatically tensed when she’d said that she didn’t want to have children, and braced for the usual responses.
Oh, but you’d make such a great mom!
You’ll change your mind.
It’s different when they’re your own.
You may think that now when you’re young and healthy, but who’s going to take care of you when you’re old?
For a long time, she’d told herself those people were well-meaning, but in recent years she found the assumptions downright insulting. She wasn’t a clue
less kid who didn’t know her own mind; she was an adult woman who’d always known that kids weren’t part of the picture.
“Do you want kids?” she asked, half curious, half wanting to steer the conversation away from her ovaries.
“Nope. I’m good with Bob.”
“Bob?”
“My dog.”
“Oh right. Where is he? I thought you were going to bring him with you.”
“Already had the pet sitter booked for today. Bob’ll tag along tomorrow, if that’s still cool.”
“Sure, of course.”
To be honest, Claire wasn’t entirely sure how cool it was. She’d never had a dog. Her dad had been allergic, or so he’d claimed when Claire had gone through the typical I want a puppy for Christmas phase between the ages of six and eight. After high school, she’d moved straight from her parents’ house to college, from college to living with Brayden, and her husband had most assuredly not been a dog person.
“What kind of dog?” she asked.
Scott shrugged. “A mix. Lab mostly, the vet thinks maybe some beagle in there. Funny looking dog, but loyal as they come.”
It was a telling statement, and there was something extra in his tone when he said the word loyal that Claire recognized on a gut level. Claire would have bet a million dollars in that instant that she knew exactly what had gone down with that former fiancée of his. Cheating.
When their gazes caught, almost on accident, Claire was even more sure. She may have only met the guy yesterday, and she definitely didn’t like him. But in that single moment, she knew him as well as she knew anyone, and she knew exactly what he’d meant.
Dogs were loyal in a way that people weren’t.
Chapter Five
FRIDAY, AUGUST 9
Be cool, okay?” Scott said to his dog as he stepped onto Claire’s porch and pushed open the front door.
It was a pointless request. Scott’s dog was as extroverted as Scott was introverted. The second the door opened, Bob shot forward, sensing a new friend to be won over. Shaking his head in resignation, Scott followed the mutt inside, hoping Claire was true to her word and that she was cool with dogs.
A second later, he got a verbal cue on just how cool she was.
At Claire’s startled shriek, Scott stepped into the small sitting room off the foyer, watching as Claire frantically tried to keep an upholstered yellow chair between herself and Bob. She gave him a panicked look. “What is that, a dinosaur?”
“Yes, Claire, it’s a dinosaur,” Scott said, grabbing Bob’s collar just as the dog lunged at the frightened woman. He knew the pup just wanted to say hi. Claire apparently did not.
“Bob. Sit.”
The dog did so reluctantly, and Scott rubbed Bob’s head as he gave Claire an exasperated look. “I thought you said you were cool with dogs.”
She continued to study the dog with apprehension. “I wasn’t expecting him to be so huge.”
Bob actually was huge in a disproportionate, clumsy kind of way. The long skinny legs didn’t quite look like they should support the enormous barrel-shaped body, and the slightly too small head did make Bob look a bit like, well . . . maybe she wasn’t that far off on the dinosaur thing.
“Her,” Scott corrected. “Bob’s a girl.”
“You named a girl dog Bob?”
Scott hadn’t named the dog at all. The people at the shelter had said that was her name, bestowed by the former asshole owner who’d given her up and apparently hadn’t bothered to check the sex. But he had better things to do with his time than correct a snobby Manhattan widow’s misassumptions.
“If you were scared of big dogs, you should have told me. I’d have left her at home.”
“No, she’s fine. We’ll be fine.” She gave Bob a pointed look. “Won’t we?”
Bob wagged her tail happily, having the good sense to look charming. Or at least, Bob’s version of charming.
Scott frowned, noticing the chair she was still hiding behind was in the center of the room, not next to the window beside its ugly twin. “Rearranging?”
“What? Oh.” She pointed at the painting on the wall. “You said you were starting on this room today. I was going to take that down so it wouldn’t be in the way.”
“Where’s your stepladder?”
“A stepladder! Why didn’t I think of that?” she said in a singsong, pretending to twirl her hair.
“Sarcasm noted. You don’t have a stepladder.”
“I do not.”
“What did your husband use to do things around the house?”
She snorted. “You obviously never met Brayden. Or anyone who lives on this street.”
Scott gave a disdainful grunt. He knew work came in all kinds. Some wore suits and used their brains; others wore a tool belt and used their hands. But he had a hell of a time respecting a man who, he was betting, didn’t know a Phillips from a flathead.
He was also having a hard time reconciling the idea of Claire with someone so . . . useless. Much less someone who had screwed around on her. From what he’d seen of her over the past few days, she was efficient, self-reliant, and had minimal BS tolerance. He’d offered to help her open a pickle jar she was wrestling with and gotten a near snarl in response.
Then again, Scott supposed he wasn’t one to judge based on the choice of one’s romantic partner. A much younger, dumber version of himself had invested his emotions in a woman who hadn’t deserved them. Since then, he’d learned that life was simpler if you didn’t get attached to any thing, any place, and certainly not any person. He made an exception for Bob.
Scott frowned. He hadn’t thought about Meredith in months. Maybe years. She’d popped into his mind twice in the last week, first when he told Claire he’d been engaged and again at the thought of Claire’s husband. Irritated with himself and, irrationally, with Claire, he jerked his chin toward the painting on the wall. “I’ve got a couple of guys coming over later to move everything. They can take care of the art.”
“Oh. Well, you didn’t mention that,” she said primly, starting to drag the chair back across the room. The chair was ugly, but it was substantial, and he stepped forward to help. His hand brushed over hers as he reached out to take over the task. He was annoyed he noticed the contact. Even more annoyed that she didn’t.
Instead, her attention returned to the dog. More curious than trepidatious now. “I really didn’t expect her to be so big.”
“I told you yesterday she was a Lab.”
“I haven’t spent much time with dogs. I didn’t realize Labs were the size of camels.”
She reached out a hand toward the dog, then stopped a full foot from the dog’s face, palm up, the way one might offer a horse a carrot.
Bob gave Scott a puzzled look. What the hell do I do with this?
When Claire’s hand dropped back to her side without making contact, Scott sighed and stepped forward.
“Here,” he said crouching beside the dog to hold Bob in place. “Give me your hand.”
“No, thanks. I’m good.”
Ignoring this, Scott reached out, snagged her smaller hand in his. Again registering the contact, again hating that he did so. The last thing he needed was to be physically aware of a widow for God’s sake. Not to mention, she was a friend of Oliver’s. Scott never apologized for his one-night-stand lifestyle, but he also made it a point to treat the people closest to him—and the people closest to them—as off-limits.
He held her hand still just long enough for Bob to sniff it and give her fingers a friendly lick. When that didn’t freak her out, Scott released her hand, smiling a little as she gave Bob’s head a pat, the way a little kid might with a tentative tap, tap, tap.
“Good dinosaur,” she said, growing more confident in her pats.
Bob, bless her, seemed to sense the woman’s wariness and kept her butt planted on the ground, tongue to herself, despite her barely contained enthusiasm at finally getting some love from Claire.
Scott watched the wo
man carefully, relieved to note that she looked more wary than scared. “You always been scared of dogs?”
“I didn’t realize I was,” she admitted. “I’ve never had one and haven’t spent much time around them. Especially not big ones like Bob.”
“It’s the big guys who are the most gentle,” he said, patting Bob’s back.
“Big girls,” Claire corrected. “You said she’s a lady. Named Bob. I think she needs a pink bow. So people know.”
“Nope,” Scott said, standing. “We’re not doing that.”
“I didn’t say we were. I said I was.”
Recognizing a pointless argument when he saw one, he changed the subject. “When the guys come over later, you want us to put the ugly painting with the rest of the furniture in the spare bedroom? Or hang it somewhere else? Say, the trash can?”
“The painting’s not ugly.”
He looked at the painting of an extremely mediocre, drab landscape of the countryside with copious shades of brown, then looked back at her.
“Okay, it’s a little ugly,” she admitted.
“So why do you have it?”
She opened her mouth, then shut it, frowning as she gave the painting an assessing look. “I don’t know. It was here when Brayden and I moved in. He inherited the place from his grandmother. I guess it never really occurred to me that I don’t have to keep it.”
Bob wiggled up to Scott’s side and nudged his hand for a pet. Scott obliged the dog while studying the woman. He couldn’t quite figure her out. She gave off stubborn I don’t care what anyone thinks vibes one minute, and people-pleasing rule follower ones the next. She’d told him to bring his dog over, yet she was apparently terrified of dogs. Her makeup was muted, her clothes unimaginative neutrals, and yet she wanted a pink house. She wouldn’t let him help open a damn pickle jar, but he was welcome to drag a chair across the room.
“I guess, for now, put it with the rest of his stuff,” Claire said distractedly, still staring at the painting.
His stuff. The husband’s.
Scott had combed over every inch of the house during his assessment, and though Claire was fairly neat and minimal, one of the upstairs bedrooms was a noticeable exception. It looked like a hoarder’s haven, filled nearly floor to ceiling with haphazardly packed moving boxes, stacks of books, skis, luggage. Even if he hadn’t noted that the assortment of stuff was distinctly masculine, the fact that the door was kept closed—always—told him exactly whose stuff it was.
Love on Lexington Avenue Page 5
