I nodded my acceptance of this.
“I’ll let Max know he’s gotta deal with these returns,” he stated and jerked his head to the stack of rejections.
“That’d be great,” I replied.
He said nothing to that. He simply grunted, “Furnace.”
Apparently, it was time for him to get to his next order of business.
“Right, yeah. Furnace. Good,” I mumbled. “Nights are getting a bit chilly.”
As mentioned, this was the truth. I was glad Dana’s interior designer had sent a down comforter with all the bedclothes I’d chosen. It kept me cozy. But I was still thinking about hitting the local mall Lauren had told me about to get an electric blanket. It had to drop twenty, thirty degrees at night and I was feeling that.
Deke again had no comment, just moved my way.
“Do you want me to make a pot of coffee for you?” I indicated the mini-fridge I was standing in front of, on top of which was a small, four-cup Mr. Coffee. “I also have bottled water in the fridge,” I went on to share. “Yogurt, fruit, not much else. You’re welcome to any of it.”
“Need caffeine, take a break, go into town, get it from Shambles,” he muttered as he moved by me, through the door and into the house.
He didn’t hold the door for me and so it closed behind him.
I stood where I was, looking at the closed door, wondering if perhaps it had been a good thing he’d stood me up seven years ago.
He wasn’t full of conversation. He was brusque when he actually did say something. And he was kind of rude.
However, he was still the man who’d rocked me, closed off in a way I wanted to put in the effort to open him, and I liked the way he moved. His hair was a lot longer so now he didn’t wear it in a ponytail but an unkempt man-bun at the back of his head. And his cheeks and jaw weren’t covered in stubble but a full beard.
It didn’t matter, none of it did.
I was a job to him, nothing else, he’d made that clear.
Whatever drew him to me seven years ago was long gone.
I had a feeling I knew what it was, no longer mini-skirted and nursing a drink at a biker bar.
He was of his people. I was not his people. Then, he didn’t know that. Now, it was clear he did.
So be it.
It wasn’t like I hadn’t been around hot guys I was attracted to who were either taken or weren’t taken with me.
I’d been wrong. He wasn’t the only man who mattered in my personal universe.
He was just Deke, the guy who was now going to make progress on my house so when the team could come and finish the job, they had less to finish.
That was it.
I walked to the door, opened it and moved through, these being my thoughts.
These and the fact I was doing my best to tamp down the feeling that, ridiculously and way-too-keenly to be comprehensible or even logical, those thoughts hurt.
* * * * *
Deke
Deke Hightower sat in the low, folding deck chair in the grass, his long legs stretched out, his hand wrapped around a bottle of beer, his eyes on the glassy surface of the small lake in front of him that looked now like a mirror but would soon color with oranges and yellows. Then pinks and purples. Then blues.
Until there was dark cut only by shards of silver.
And he sat there thinking that he had no idea how any woman who had a body like the woman who called herself Jus would wear bulky overalls, the only thing making them worthwhile being that tight tank and the glimpse of skin you could see inside at the hip, which also included a glimpse of her panties.
Right, so there was that, the glimpse of skin. Smooth. Tan. Nice.
“Fuck,” he muttered to the lake, lifting his beer and taking a sip.
Then again, down all hippie and messy and parts braided, or up in a jumble with bits of it hanging, the woman had a serious shit ton of hair and hair like that meant she could wear anything and a man’s thoughts still would be consumed with what he could do with that hair.
Deke took another sip, not letting those thoughts consume him, and repeated, “Fuck,” as he lowered his beer.
He had to work on her house. He just had to hope she had a lot more ridiculous clothes to put on that would put him off while he was doing it.
Didn’t matter. The bitch was loaded. Her bullshit beat-up truck that was sitting outside her fucked-up house—a truck she bought because it was cool and she thought it augmented her style, not because she couldn’t afford anything else—couldn’t hide the fact that she was rolling in it.
Her crazy-ass clothes didn’t hide it either.
He knew what a house like that cost, especially on the land it was on, even if it wasn’t finished.
He also saw the plans and knew how much more she was pouring in it.
After getting her furnace sorted and taking a look at the deck, deciding how to tackle it the next day, he’d left and she hadn’t given him a key or told him she’d be out to work the next day so they’d have to figure out how he could gain access to her place in the morning.
She’d just said, “See you tomorrow, Deke.”
He’d watched her say that as she was closing the door on him to close herself in the fucked-up house she’d bought, and not for the first time he’d been unable to shake the feeling he’d looked into those big brown eyes before.
That didn’t matter either.
Out of his league. Even if he wanted to go there (and being essentially his boss, he wasn’t going to go there, he’d learned that lesson all too well), he wouldn’t go there.