by Natalie Ann
A light pink tinted her cheeks, until finally she dipped her head down. “I’ll let you get to work then. I was stretching my legs and getting some air.”
He watched her grab a thick fleece from a hook by the door and pull it over her head, then grab mittens and slip them on, and finally wrap a scarf around her neck.
“It’s only October; what are you going to do when winter gets here?”
She narrowed her eyes, almost confused, then sighed as her blush intensified. “I’m not used to the cold.”
“If you think this is cold, you’re in for a surprise come February.” His eyes traveled down and noticed the tight leggings she was wearing with the big baggy sweatshirt that was now covered by her jacket. Surprisingly, she had flip-flops on her feet. “You might not be so cold if you had shoes on.”
“I don’t like wearing socks.”
“Where did you live before?”
“Florida. We barely saw fifty there, and if we did, it didn’t last. I’m not quite equipped for this weather. I probably need to get some boots or something.”
“And socks,” he added, winking at her.
Her ears actually turned red before she nodded and made a rush for the front door.
He shook his head, smiling as he walked down the hallway, then heard the guys talking. “So what do we have, Steve?”
“Hey, Drew. Let me get Jordyn quick.”
“No need. I ran into her in the hall. She was going out for a walk. Just show me around.”
“What did you think of her?” Steve asked quietly.
Drew wasn’t sure what to think. Jordyn seemed pretty average to him. Average height, a little on the skinny side; of course he was only guessing by how skinny her legs looked. The sweatshirt she had on hung way past her hips, and the fleece she pulled on wasn’t much better. Her hair was in a ponytail and she didn’t look to have much makeup on. Her brown eyes dominated her face, and stood out more than anything.
Shy, that was easy to see. And man could she blush fast. He didn’t know anyone who got that embarrassed over a simple conversation. Though she did say she didn’t have much of a filter.
“She seemed nice enough. I didn’t expect her to be home.”
“She works from home, but she stays out of our way.”
“Damn, it’s hot in here,” Drew said, taking off his flannel shirt and tossing it over the counter.
The men all laughed at him and that was when he noticed they were all wearing T-shirts and sweating more than they should be. Steve jumped in and said, “She has the heat up pretty high.”
Drew walked over to the thermostat on the wall outside of the kitchen and saw it was set at seventy-five. “What the hell? Who sets their heat that high in October? Or even in the middle of the winter for that matter.” Then he remembered that she said she was from Florida. She was going to have a rude awakening when she got her first heating bill.
Flirting
Jordyn walked around the block once, then decided to do it a second time. She wasn’t lying when she said she needed some air and to stretch her legs. Now she also needed to compose herself before she went back and talked to the electrician.
No…Drew, she told herself. His name was Drew, and he was cute, very cute. His jaw was strong and his cheekbones sharp, yet his face looked relaxed.
And if she wasn’t mistaken, he was flirting with her.
That was a new experience for her. She’d never really been flirted with before so she wasn’t positive if he was.
It had all the signs of it, though. He smiled at her, he held her hand longer than was necessary, and he laughed at her.
Oh, who was she kidding? He was being polite. He wasn’t flirting, even if those were the signs of things she’d read on the internet one day after researching how to do it with someone she liked in college.
She wasn’t the type men like him flirted with. Big, masculine, strong men.
No, she was the shy girl more comfortable behind her computer than she was talking to men, let alone flirting with one. Heck, she was burning up from embarrassment over a silly conversation regarding the weather and socks. What guy found that interesting?
She couldn’t help but notice him though. He was a little over six foot and big. Muscular was probably a better word. Dressed in nicely fitted jeans—she knew because she’d turned and watched him walk down the hallway before she shut her front door. He had on a loose flannel shirt, unbuttoned, with a plain blue T-shirt underneath. She bet he had all sorts of muscles under that T-shirt, too.
She had to stop imagining those things. Her imagination always got the best of her. Then again, it was all she really had growing up. But boy, wouldn’t she like to know what was really under his shirt.
Wow, where did that thought come from?
She took her mittens off and put her hands on her face, hoping to cool off before she got back to the house.
Why couldn’t she take things at face value? Why did she have to let her mind picture more and go that extra mile like it always did?
Well, it was fun for starters. Considering she didn’t get out much, her detailed thoughts and fantasies were what got her through.
All in all, her imagination had never failed her before, so she wasn’t going to let it now. It was a new life with new experiences, and she was going to try to live it to her fullest. She had nothing to lose at this point.
How she wished her mom were here right now to talk to, but she wasn’t, and neither was anyone else. So, Jordyn was going to do what she’d been doing for months now: make a decision and go with it. If she wasn’t ready to go with it, she’d research everything she could until she was ready.
She wasn’t here to flirt or find a man, no matter how much she always wanted to be that person. “But wouldn’t it be fun?” the devil on her shoulder asked. Then the angel reminded her she was here for a reason.
She was here to find something out about her father. At least find a clue, something, anything.
Of course at some point she was going to have to look into things more. So far, she’d been too busy getting situated in her house and working. She’d have to find time to explore the area and she’d have to start researching the picture she found.
She was busy with the house; that was what she kept telling herself. She wasn’t being a coward or afraid of what she might find.
She wasn’t a social media girl, so it wasn’t as if she could put the picture up and see if anyone knew who the two men were.
Even if she did have social media accounts, she didn’t have a lot of friends to begin with, and certainly no one up in this area.
It was hard to ask people for help when you had no one to ask. So she’d do things the old fashioned way when she had time. Besides, her mother had drilled into her head to do things for herself and never rely on others or even ask for help.
She could hire a private investigator. Maybe it would come to that, but right now this gave her a purpose, a goal, something to look forward to. She needed to do this on her own, just to prove that she could.
Opening her front door after her second lap, she stopped inside her foyer. She unwound her scarf, hung it up, followed by her jacket, and then she tucked her mittens in the pockets. She started to slide her flip-flops off and stopped herself. She needed to keep them on if she was going to walk to the back of the house.
By now, she hoped they’d had enough time to look around and let her know what needed to be done.
“Hi,” she said to no one in particular, and prayed she could focus enough to make intelligent comments.
Everyone stopped and looked at her, then smiled. Drew walked forward, a grin on his face.
Yeah, he was still cute, really cute, and she needed to block those thoughts from her mind or who knew what would tumble out of her lips. “So what’s the damage?”
“I’m pretty positive it’s running through the whole house but won’t know for sure until I go through some other rooms. I was waiting for you to return. If you�
��ve got some time, can we look around?”
“Ah sure. What do you need to do in each room?” she asked over her shoulder as he followed her down the hallway.
She wasn’t running away from all those men looking at her, not really.
“Brynn told me the men are redoing your bathrooms next, so I thought I would cut through the wall now if you don’t mind. That should tell me what I need to know. Two bathrooms, right?”
“Three actually. There’s a half bath downstairs and then two full baths upstairs.”
“Really?” he said. “Most old homes like this don’t have two full baths.”
“I think at one time they turned part of the upstairs into a studio apartment and then converted it back to a one family. In doing so they left a nice big master bath up there, but it’s pretty outdated.”
She stopped in front of the half bath and opened the door for him. It was actually easier to talk to him when she wasn’t looking right at his handsome face.
The house had a pretty easy layout downstairs. One long hallway with a big living room on one side and her office on the other in the front of the house. Further down the hall was a half bath and formal dining room, and at the back of the house was the kitchen. She liked how everything was sectioned off by walls. She wasn’t a big fan of the whole open-concept living. Call her old-fashioned, but the older style of homes appealed to her.
He brushed against her when he slid into the half bath and she fought the urge to gasp. It was only an innocent touch, an accident. He didn’t do it on purpose, she was positive.
She watched as he cut a hole into her wall around a socket and then pulled away some more sheetrock. “Sorry about the hole in the wall, but the guys told me this room is next. They were doing one room at a time per your instructions, correct?”
“Yes. I like things organized. I can live in the construction, but not if it’s more than one room. I know that means that it might take the guys longer, but when I talked to Brynn she assured me it wasn’t a problem.”
It had been a toss-up, live in the mess and get it done faster, or have the guys around longer and be a babbling fool in front of them. Since she’d been a babbling fool most of her life, she figured a few more weeks wouldn’t matter.
He snickered, like he had some secret. “She’d know. She is one of the most OCD people I know.”
Jordyn didn’t know what to say to that. It seemed kind of harsh to be saying something that critical about his boss. At least she was positive Brynn was an owner, since her last name was Harper.
“How do you think she’d feel if she knew you said that about her? Is it wise to be critical of your boss?” Jordyn asked before she could stop herself.
When he laughed even harder, she wished she’d bitten her tongue.
Lack of social encounters always had her slipping and saying what was on her mind rather than keeping quiet. At least she was blaming the lack of social graces on this comment.
But her mother never complained, even told her to just be herself. She had a voice and she should use it.
Still, she should research techniques on how to better carry on a conversation. Another time though, she mentally scolded herself, and tried to focus on Drew.
“She’d punch me in the arm and then I’d remind her she’d been like that her whole life.”
Frowning, Jordyn asked, “How do you know she’s always been that way?”
“Because every time I didn’t put something away in the right spot, her eyes would start to twitch and she’d pick it up and put it where she wanted it. And she isn’t my boss, at least not at Harper’s. Though I can tell you she’s been bossing me around since the day I was born.”
“Ah, so she’s your sister?” Okay, so maybe it wasn’t such a harsh thing to say then.
“Yeah. She married Alec Harper last year. He and his brother Phil own Harper’s. Brynn is just his wife.”
The way he said “just his wife” with a huge grin led Jordyn to believe that really wasn’t the case and that Brynn had more say than Drew was letting on, but she didn’t push it.
“So what’s the damage in here?” she asked instead when he was finished pulling away all the sheetrock, trying to stay centered on her house.
Boy, Drew liked to talk about different things and she knew from experience that was when she stumbled, when she didn’t keep it to business.
“Knob and tube. I’ll have one of the guys come in here and put this back up and slap some mud on it so you don’t have to stare at the hole.”
“No need. They’ll be ripping the walls down in a few weeks anyway, right?”
“Yeah. If you’re okay with it, then we can leave it. It’s your choice,” he offered.
“I’m good with it. Let me show you the bathrooms upstairs then.”
After he removed a small part of her wall in each bathroom, he said, “Sorry, it looks like the whole house is knob and tube.”
“So now what? Do you have to remove all the walls in my house?” she asked, horrified at the possibility. Talk about a huge mess.
“No. But we will have to cut into all the walls and run the new wire. We’ll patch it back up for you nice and tight.” He paused for a minute and asked, “Have you done anything since you moved in here? If you painted any rooms and still have the paint, the guys will repaint and fix it; you won’t even know it was done.”
“No, I haven’t done anything else. I was going to wait until the kitchen and baths were done, then I figured I’d tackle the rest of the rooms.”
She didn’t mind the colors in the house right now. She could live with them, but she wasn’t sure she could live with all the construction and no electricity. When that thought crossed her mind, she asked, “How long will I be without power?”
“Not long, we work fast. We’ll run all the new wires through the house first, then shut the power off while we change it over. Maybe one full day with no power. You can take the time to go shopping for winter clothes,” he suggested, his eyes laughing at her.
She chose to ignore that comment, to stay focused on the work on hand, or at least anything other than the soft look that popped in his eyes when he made the comment.
Besides, there was a lot she could do with a day away from work, like research more on the items in that box.
“How much is this going to cost me?”
“I’m going to send all the information to Brynn now. She’ll go meet with our CFO, Sean, and they’ll work up a quote and contract for you. Brynn said she’ll call you later, if that works?”
“Sure. That’s fine. Thanks for coming over so fast.”
“Just so you know, we can’t continue with the kitchen or baths until the electrical is done. So that has to come first.”
Darn, she didn’t realize that. Okay, she could handle it. She’d have to try to get as much work completed today as she could. She’d find a hot spot for internet and work from her laptop if need be for a few days. She could make it work; she was resourceful.
“While I’ve got you here and since you’re redoing all the electrical, is it possible to give me more?”
“More what?” he asked, confused.
“More power, I guess. I work from home. I’ve got a lot of computers running and a server on top of it. I really can’t run the risk of blowing fuses. As it is, I don’t have everything installed yet. Only three computers and my small server, but I need to get a bigger one soon.”
Jordyn walked back to her office with him following. She opened one of the glass doors and heard him say, “Shit. I can’t believe you haven’t had problems already.”
“I did. I mean, I was. I’m only running a small server hooked up to two computers, rather than the four I have. Right now I only have three of them running at different times, but I need a fifth computer right after I hook up the fourth one.” She waved her hand, positive she was boring him with the way his eyes seemed to have glossed over. “Since you’re here and doing all the work, maybe you can take this into consider
ation?”
She watched as he looked around the room for a minute. “What do you do in here?”
“I’m a programmer. And I’m trying my hand with web design. For fun,” she added, smiling. She always got giddy when she thought of all the things she could do on a computer.
“That’s what you do for fun?” Was that laughter in his voice? Was he insulting her? She didn’t think so; he was grinning again.
“I don’t get out much, and I’m new to the area,” she said lamely.
She had to remind herself that not everyone thought what she did for a living was exciting. Most people used their computers for basic entertainment, if that. They didn’t understand the possibilities of what lay inside. Computers were her friends. Okay, that was a pretty pathetic thought.
“How long does your backup last?” he asked, eying her unit on the floor.
“An hour. I really need to get a generator, but I haven’t even begun to look into them.”
“We can install one with the electrical we’re doing. Hook it up to turn on automatically whenever your power goes out. You won’t have any lapse of power that way.”
“That would be great. Can you work up a quote for that too?”
“Sure, we can do that.”
“Thanks.” She pulled her business card off her desk and handed it to him. “My cell number is there.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“I look forward to it.” He smiled at her again when she said it. That light, carefree charming smile he’d had when he held her hand too long during their handshake.
Hmm, flirting wasn’t that hard, she decided, if he even took that statement as such. More likely he was just being friendly.
Alone
Drew picked up the business card he’d just tossed on the counter and looked at it again. Montgomery Designs.
There was something about Jordyn that brought out his protective nature. He wasn’t sure if it was her saying she had no social life and was new to the area, making him believe she knew no one, or that she had started a business for fun.
