by Lee Kilraine
Thinking of sex sort of relaxed my guard, and my eyes drifted back to Tessa. Not that I was thinking about sex with Tessa. Nope. That hadn’t crossed my mind. Not until right now, now that the thought was sitting there—all shiny and attention-grabbing—all teed up, if you will.
My mind went back to Halloween night, when I’d let my temper get the best of me, and I’d gone over to impart some good sense into a woman crazy enough to pull that trick with a stranger. I remembered getting the softest scent of freshness, when I whispered in her ear. Like when a soft breeze carries the faintest touch of gardenias in a garden through the air.
What was I doing? Shut this down. I’d never fucking slept with a client. And I never would. That was a hard and fast rule. Helped keep the crazy out of my work life. I liked a non-crazy work life.
I jerked my gaze to Tessa, checking to see what was taking so long. It was a van for Christ’s sake, not a whole house plan. There was only so much to look at. Maybe she hated it and was too polite or shy to tell me.
“What do you think, Tessa?”
“No….no problems that I can see.” She glanced over at me, but her eyes only made it to my chin.
Was she avoiding looking at me? Maybe I made her uncomfortable. Or maybe she was still a bit snooty because I got a little pissed when she bailed on our last appointment.
“That’s great. Then next we need to talk materials and color scheme.”
“No.” Tessa frowned and stood abruptly, walking to the kitchen window and back. She had a hitch to her walk, like when you get a Charlie horse in your calf. “No. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go ahead and take you through the rooms for renovation, and then we can go back to the van.”
“Sure. That works,” I agreed, trying to cooperate, accommodate, and be as low anxiety inducing as I could. I grabbed my small camera and notepad and followed Tessa through the first floor. She’d said her grandmother used to live here, and everywhere I looked were signs of her. The hallway from the kitchen back to the three bedrooms had hand rails attached on both sides. Those same safety rails were also installed in the only full bath on the first floor, both in the shower and next to the commode.
The biggest bedroom contained a hospital bed. The kind that let you raise both the head and foot section separately, plus an overhead pulley to help a person maneuver in and out of bed. All the other furniture in the room, dressers, night table, rocking chair, had been pushed to along the walls to allow enough space for the bed. It was all falling into place. What Tessa was dealing with. Tessa’s unpredictable behavior was beginning to make more sense.
“All I know is I want this room changed top to bottom. Starting with the ceiling. That far corner by the front window has a web of cracks in the plaster. If you stand near the bed, the crack looks like an evil grin. It’s creepy and disturbing.” Tessa’s shoulders gave a slight shudder, and Sully hustled over from where he’d been sniffing around, placing a gentle paw against her leg as if he sensed her mood and knew to comfort her.
Huh. I walked over for a closer look, pulling a miniature flashlight from my pocket, and shining it into the corner. “Looks like water damage. Could be a leak in the roof. We can get someone up there to see if it needs replacing or just a patch.”
Next we moved on to the smallest bedroom which looked like it was being used for both storage and exercise. There was a mat on the floor and a few lightweight dumbbells. Really lightweight. Talking two, five, and ten pounds. Nothing bigger. I pictured her grandmother sitting in a chair lifting the two pounders to keep the osteoporosis at bay.
A wheelchair, walker, and a pair of beat up looking crutches were shoved in the far corner. Well, hell. It suddenly made sense. Tessa’s grandmother, the one she’d lived with and spoken of with deep affection, had passed away. It explained everything.
Tessa’s reluctance to move forward with the renovation. The fact that she set up the meetings, but then cut them short. Her need for a companion animal while she dealt with the grief. People handled grief in different ways, sometimes there was no rhyme or reason to how it hit a person. It could turn a person crazy.
I didn’t say anything. She hadn’t mentioned it, so I figured it was too painful. It had to be hard to live amongst the remnants of her grandmother’s final days. The reminders of the end. The hospital bed, the rails, the wheelchair. Yeah, I’d want to yank all that shit out and only remember the good stuff.
Dammit. The longer we stood in the room, the deeper Tessa’s frown got. Not good. I took my measurements quickly and moved on to the last bedroom which held a queen bed, freshly made, and the soft scent of gardenias. So, Tessa’s bedroom. I took these measurements just as quickly and was writing down the last numbers when a voice called from the foyer.
“Hellooo, Tessa!”
“Drat.” I watched Tessa’s eyes go big. Then she frowned, shook her head, and shoved me into the bedroom closet, following behind me and closing us both inside the cramped space.
All of us crammed into a space not much bigger than a chimney. By “all of us” I meant me, Tessa, Tessa’s addicting light floral perfume, and her tight little body plastered up against mine. Yep. Just like it always did, things had just gone sideways with Tessa.
Chapter 8
Tessa
“Have you ever done something without thinking it through?” I whispered up to Gray.
“Not really.”
“Lucky you.” Because in my haste to avoid having Gigi and Laura give Gray the third degree, I failed to think through the ramifications of being pressed up against him in a closet barely big enough for my vacuum.
“Tessa?” Gray said quietly. I felt the vibration of Gray’s voice against my ear as my head was practically plastered up against his chest. His deep voice slid over me from above, dark, warm, and smoky while I absorbed his subtle scent of Ivory soap with a hint of a fresh ocean breeze layered with a mouthwatering undertone of pineapple and warm male skin. It was like my senses were experiencing Gray in 3-D.
“Yes?” My attention was held prisoner by his firm well-developed muscles against my breasts. His thighs, hard like steel tree trunks, pressed up against mine.
“I think someone’s looking for you. Calling your name,” he said.
“I know.” His shirt was soft against my cheek. Softer than full cotton. More like a cotton-poly blend. So soft. “They’ll give up and go away soon.”
“They let themselves into your house. So, guessing you know them?” His arm wrapped around me protectively. “Or if not, why don’t I go check it out?”
“No need.” The soft shirt over his hard muscles was distracting me something fierce. “Is this shirt an eighty-twenty blend?”
“Uh… I have no idea. It’s a shirt.”
I ran my fingers over it to check. I mean, one of us should know, right?
“Are you sure you don’t want me to check it out? Not even to see who it is?”
“I know who it is. It’s Gigi and Laura.” I tilted my head back which put my nose near the V of his button-down shirt. More importantly, near the sliver of skin peeking out there. Whatever it was…soap, cologne, pure sex appeal…it needed to be bottled up and locked away in a vault along with all the other things too powerful to be in human hands. Nuclear arsenals. The gold in Fort Knox. The world’s emergency chocolate supply.
“You don’t like Gigi and Laura?”
“No, I like them. I love them actually.” I loved them down to their sneaky, underhanded hearts.
“But you don’t want to find out what they want?”
“I don’t need to find out what they want.” Gigi and Laura wanted to check out Gray Thorne. Give him the third degree, which was not part of the agreed to plan. There would be embarrassing questions. Lots of them. Embarrassing for Gray, but mostly for me. There would be a physical examination with their eyes that would make Gray feel like he’d been manhandled. Possibl
y worse, knowing Gigi. “No, I know exactly what they want.”
“So why are we hiding in a closet?” Gray asked.
“Hiding? Oh! You thought we were hiding? No. We’re not hiding in the closet. I’m…” Saving him from an interrogation that was guaranteed to feel more intrusive than a TSA body cavity search. He had no idea, but I was seriously doing both of us a favor by hiding in the closet. “… I’m showing you how small my closets are.”
He cleared his throat, and since my head was tucked under his chin, I heard it loud and clear. “This is a standard size closet for a house built in its era.”
“It is? It also seems very dark. Is that standard for an old house?” I lifted my hand, running it up Gray’s chest, to his neck, and up to find his face. There. There was that strong jawline. And his lips. His warm, firm, sexy lips. His warm, firm, sexy, frowning lips. Oops. “Sorry, just checking to see if I had your attention. I do think I should get better lighting in this closet, don’t you?”
I felt Gray’s shoulder muscles move under my hand and then heard a click and then the soft glow from the overhead bulb lit up Gray’s handsome face. The light was weak, but strong enough to see Gray’s blue eyes looking down into mine. See the sardonic curve of his eyebrow. And to see the distance between our lips was a mere few inches. I didn’t need the light to know there was no distance between our bodies.
No. I felt his heat and hard, muscular body tight against mine in the only space not taken up by my dresses hanging around us. The intense glow of his eyes told me I had his attention.
“So… I guess the lighting is fine. But a walk-in closet might be nice.” Or not. This was working fine for me. It didn’t come close to meeting my storage needs, but my cling-to-Gray’s-ripped-body-like-a-burr-on-a bear needs? Check.
Sully barked from the other side of the door, startling me, which only made me cling tighter to Gray.
“I think your dog is letting us know it’s safe now.” Gray’s lips twitched.
“Right.” Although Gigi and Laura could be devious. I opened the closet, exiting first to check. Sure enough the coast was clear. “So, that ends the tour of the house. Why don’t we go back to the kitchen to finish?”
I had to give Gray credit. He simply rolled with it. He sat back at the table and calmly opened his laptop as if I hadn’t just manhandled him into a closet. Technically, I guess I crazy-woman-handled him into the closet.
“So, other than a walk-in closet and fixing the crack in the master bedroom ceiling, what do you want?”
“What do I want?” I shrugged, my gaze still stuck on his. What did I want? You, Gray Thorne. You. Luckily I regained my sanity and recalled we were talking about design.
“Yes. What are your likes and dislikes when it comes to colors or furniture styles?”
“I’m not exactly sure.” I glanced into Gray’s eyes, sort of at a loss.
“You’re not exactly sure?” He tilted his head, looking like he was trying to solve a puzzle. I could see why he might be confused. I’d been calling SBC and set up the meetings, yet here I sat clueless about what I wanted. “As in, you have a style or color scheme in mind, but no specifics? Because that’s not a problem. That’s actually a great starting point.”
“No. I don’t have a style or color scheme.” I shook my head once. “I mean I think I know a few things I want, but I don’t know for sure if they’re attainable.”
“When it comes to design, anything is attainable if your budget is big enough. Sometimes it helps to come up with your ‘must haves’ list, and then build what you want around that.”
“My must haves? I’m not sure I know those either. I guess I’ve never spent time thinking about it. How long did it take you to figure it out?”
“What I wanted in my space? I studied design in college, so I had years to think about it. But I also had definite things from my childhood that I wanted to avoid. Some of my choices were formed by what I knew I didn’t want.”
“What I don’t want? Now that—I have a list for.” Oh, boy, did I. I may have no idea what I wanted in my house, but I knew what I didn’t want. What I wanted gone. “I don’t want the handicap rails in the house. I don’t want to see that creepy crack in the bedroom ceiling. And I don’t want to change a thing in this kitchen—except I have to. The one thing I do know is I need a double oven for baking my treats. And a bigger sink.”
“So what you’re saying is you want the guide rails removed, the crack in your ceiling fixed, and a double oven and large sink in your kitchen.” He sat back, his jaw resting on the palm of his hand, elbow on the table. “That’s it. That’s all you want.”
“That’s it. And…and the walk-in closet in my bedroom.” I tilted my chin up, and bit my lower lip. “But I’m going to want more. I’m just not sure exactly what it is. Plus there’s what I want and what I need. They aren’t always the same thing.”
“If we’re still talking about design, then I agree.” He smiled across at me and I melted a little. Mostly because I still had a vivid memory of pressing up against him in the closet. “But design has come a long way. It’s pretty rare these days that a person has to sacrifice one over the other. Part of my job is to help you identify both your needs and wants and translate that into a design that fits your lifestyle and—”
I sort of checked out of the conversation after my brain translated his design-speak into: It was his job to take care of my needs and wants. My imagination ran with that.
“Tessa?”
“What? Oh! Sorry, I missed what you just said.” Pay attention, Tessa. Focus on the plan. Do not make eye contact. Ignore him until you’ve piqued his interest. Be the woman who tells Gray Thorne no—a lot. “Can you repeat it?”
“I was simply saying that there’s a process to help you figure out what you want and need in design. I’m happy to bring some design books to get you started.”
“No. No. Better not. Nope.” I kept my gaze where my hands rested on the table, and far away from Gray’s. “Let’s lock in the van options and get that going. That way I can get a sense of how we work together and your attention to detail, so I can feel more comfortable about moving forward with the house renovation.”
“That works for me.” Gray retrieved some sample boards from his briefcase and spread them out on the table in front of me. “Here are the options I found for materials and color selection. I put together three color themes to look at, but of course, there are a myriad of options. One to match your sky blue van, one neutral palette that’s easy on the eyes, and one done in darks that might wear better with use.”
I studied them, my eyes moving between the three. To be honest, I liked them all. The man had a great eye for color.
“Do any of them speak to you?”
I ignored him, and it wasn’t even on purpose. Seeing the materials and colors, imagining them in my van after dreaming about getting to this exact spot for so long—I was feeling rather raw and emotional. I had to keep staring long enough until I could blink away the moisture from my eyes. Pull it together.
“What do you think?”
“No,” I said, tapping my finger nail on the first reject. “Not this one. I like the stainless steel for the counter along the customer window, but this one”—I tapped again on the third board—“this is the material I like for the sliding bins, stack of storage, and the spacer. The heavy-duty plastic should be easy to wipe down.”
“I agree. Very practical and forward thinking.”
“This fridge, this tub, oh, and I want a wide-striped yellow and white awning for over the customer window.” I felt a sudden confidence and sureness. I had a vivid picture in my head that had been guiding me since my first day of rehab. “I can email you the list of city ordinances for the health and safety codes.”
“I’ve already got them.” He sat back, raising an eyebrow in my direction. “For a woman who didn’t know wha
t she wanted ten minutes ago, that was impressive.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years thinking about this. Hours upon hours.” My jaw set and I sat up straight, my determination renewed seeing my vision within my grasp. “You might say, it’s the goal that has inspired me every day for the last three years. So, yes. I know what I want for the van.”
Gray pulled his gaze from my face, grabbed a pen from the pocket on his dress shirt, circled my choices, and held the pen out to me. “If you’ll initial by each selection and sign off on the estimate, then I’ll get everything ordered and we can get your van refitted.”
My eyes met his. I took one slow, steady breath before accepting the pen and signing. “How long can I expect on this?”
“My outfitter said less than a week.” He withdrew a business card from his briefcase and slid it across the table. “Here’s the address for the garage. You can drop the van off anytime in the next two days and—”
“Negative. No. I c-can’t do that. My schedule is too busy,” I said, shaking my head. I stood, grabbed a set of keys from the hook on the wall, and jiggled them in front of his face channeling Laura’s bitchy sister. “Here you go. I’ll see you in a week, and if everything looks good, we can move forward on the house from there.”
Chapter 9
Gray
The first thing I did when I got back to the SBC offices toward the end of the day was head straight for the batting cage out back. It took me thirty minutes, two bags of balls, and all my good cuss words until I felt my normal good mood return. So now I was leaning against the coffee counter in the conference room. Technically, it was really Wyatt’s office, but since it was the biggest, and we all gravitated in there anyway to bug Wyatt, we turned it into the conference room.
