Sophie held the landscaping blueprint in her hand, feeling stupid walking around Bing while he did all the work. “Can I get you another drink?”
He heaved a Japanese maple into place, the root ball so large he could barely get his arms around it. “I’m good.”
All those flexing muscles distracted her a little. He wore a faded blue police academy T-shirt with jeans and work boots. The weather wasn’t warm enough to make a man truly sweat, but he did work up enough sheen on his skin to mold the soft material of the shirt to his torso and wide shoulders.
She found him very distracting. As in, she was surprised women weren’t lining up on the sidewalk to watch him work.
She wasn’t used to being around men who did physical labor. Who knew it could be this sexy? She’d always been a city girl. When she’d lived with Jeremy, they had a sixth-floor condo in Philly, near the hospital in case she had an emergency. They didn’t have as much as a flower box on their balcony.
There was something insanely attractive about Bing as he worked, the display of raw strength, the bunching and flexing of muscles. The way he moved, and sometimes grunted, touched some deep, primal part of her. The cavewoman part of her DNA responded to him in a way she couldn’t remember responding to a man before.
She took a step back when she wanted to take a step forward. “When should I come over to take a look at your place? First I have to measure everything. Then I can put the parameters into the landscaping software, play around with it, and print out some possibilities.”
The tree was in the hole. He scattered some fertilizer around the roots, then dumped in a bucket of water.
“Next day I have off is Saturday,” he told her as he picked up the shovel to fill up the gaps and finish planting the tree. “Does that work for you?”
She nodded. “The best part of being self-employed is that I can set my own schedule.” She could always add some extra work hours in the evenings instead of watching TV with Peaches.
He moved on to put in some giant ornamental grasses she’d ordered because she’d read that birds liked to nest in them and they ate the seeds in the winter. He’d already dragged all the plants and trees to where they would be planted, so she could make sure what had worked on paper would work in real life too. All he needed to do was move a clump of grass back a foot, then start digging.
When he lifted to step on the shovel, the jeans tightened on his butt. She felt bad about leering, she really did. But she had a hard time looking away.
“Budget?” she asked, to distract herself.
He glanced at her. “I don’t know. What do you think?”
It felt nice to have her opinion asked. “No sense putting a lot of money into it if you’re selling the place. Just enough to make everything look fresh and taken care of. Reseed the trouble spots in the lawn, edge the flower beds, take out everything that’s dead or unhealthy.”
She thought for a minute. “Maybe put some flowering bushes by the front door to draw the attention there. Azaleas would be good. They’re flowering right now, and they’re pretty.”
His masculine lips tugged into a smile that made her heart thump. “You’re good at this.”
She swallowed. The man shouldn’t be smiling and flexing muscles at the same time. It was too much for someone like her, whose only experience with men was, well…Jeremy.
He worked through the morning, while she tried to process the fact that she was seriously attracted to him. The idea made her feel wary.
He was too much of a type A, take-charge kind of guy. She was still trying to figure out who she was, what she wanted to do with her new lease on life. Her little cottage, her little garden, her home. Her choices.
Yet feeling attraction toward a man was a good sign. It was so blessedly normal when her past had been anything but. So she didn’t resist too hard the impulse to watch him.
He worked like he meant it. Since he’d started first thing in the morning, he was done by eleven. He cleaned up in the sink in her laundry room, then went out back to play some more with Peaches. He’d tossed the ball for the dog every time he’d gone to the shed for tools, too. He seemed to genuinely like Peaches, which made her like him.
“I got okayed for a pet.” She shared the good news. “In case nobody comes for Peaches.”
He watched her for a long moment. “So everything’s okay? Healthwise.”
“The labs couldn’t be better.”
“I’m glad.” He gave her a true smile before turning back to the dog. “You think you’ll ever want him inside?”
“I would. We have a kind of understanding. I think we’re growing on each other.” She hesitated.
“But?”
“First I’d have to give him a bath. I haven’t quite worked up the nerve for that. And I’d have to take him to the vet for a full checkup to make sure he’s completely healthy. Just the two of us in the car, together.” She rubbed a fist against her chest. “I haven’t worked the nerve up for that yet either. But I will. I just need a little more time.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know how stupid it makes me feel. Everyone loves dogs. I feel like a total chicken for being scared of them. But I don’t seem to be able to help it.”
“Give yourself a break. You were five years old, attacked by an animal bigger than you that probably weighed two or three times as much as you did. How do you think the average tough guy would feel if a moose attacked him?”
She hadn’t thought about it like that.
“I grew up on a farm,” he said. “A bull plowed me over when I was a teenager, just trampled me into the ground. I never forgot it. I don’t like being around bulls. I wouldn’t go into an enclosure with one without my service weapon. I most certainly would not take one home and let him into my house because it was a stray. So really, you’re showing an amazing amount of intestinal fortitude here.”
He gave her a smile that made her catch her breath. “Let me put it this way, if you were giving a full-grown bull a bath, I wouldn’t volunteer. But Peaches I can handle.”
“Okay.” Because, realistically, it could take weeks before she got brave enough to do it on her own. “If you’re sure you wouldn’t mind.”
“Do you have dog shampoo?”
She nodded. “It’s important to think positive and act like you could actually do the things you want to accomplish. I bought some the other day.”
He stared at her. “You’re impressive, you know that?”
She didn’t know how to respond. Jeremy used to call her his broken angel. She liked impressive much better. “I have a small guest bathroom,” she said to distract herself from her growing attraction to Bing.
“Let’s go with the hose in the back and keep dirt out of the house as much as possible.”
“Won’t he catch a cold?”
“Not on a day like this.”
Her anxiety level kicked up a few notches as they walked to the back. What if Peaches didn’t like baths? What if he attacked? She tried to calm her nerves while she went inside for the shampoo, towels, and a handful of treats, but her knees were still weak as she stepped onto the deck, her arms full.
She must have carried the tension on her face, because as Bing took the bottle from her, he said, “You don’t have to be here.”
“I want to be.” She was only holding the towels. She should be able to handle that, for heaven’s sake.
Peaches was wagging his tail. Bing got him to sit, then turned on the hose and just let some water run. The dog didn’t seem bothered by it. He kept his eye on the bag of treats.
“Oh, what a good dog. Look at that.” Bing gave him a bacon biscuit, then slowly moved the water over Peaches, starting with the back end.
When the dog stayed still, he got another treat.
“You’re a handsome fella, aren’t you?” His soothing voice and in-control body language worked on the dog and on her too.
Jeremy had to control everything because he couldn’t deal with life any other way. She was beginning to suspect that need came from insecurities. Bing, on the other hand, was simply in control because he knew what he was doing and projected utter self-confidence that let others relax around him. She decided she liked that.
He wet the dog down, then got going with the shampoo, handing out plenty of treats, then rinsed.
She was ready with a towel, but she wasn’t quick enough. Peaches shook himself the next second, covering both of them with a wet spray.
She squeaked. Bing gave a belly laugh, his face completely relaxed and happy. And she felt a tug, different from the tug of attraction she’d felt out in the front yard while he’d been working.
This was a new sort of longing, for something she’d never had before. Nothing fancy, just a normal family morning of giving the dog a bath and laughing together, the kind of relationship it implied.
With Bing.
She looked away. Don’t be stupid.
He toweled the dog dry, praising him for good behavior, then turned back to look at her. “A shame he didn’t have a chip.”
She winced. “He might.”
“You didn’t have him checked?” Then he shook his head. “Sorry. Never mind. You aren’t comfortable with him in your car yet.”
“I’m going to do it.”
“I know. I’m not calling you chicken. You’re one of the bravest people I know.”
And, of course, her heart just melted.
He straightened and stepped back when Peaches shook himself again to get rid of the last of the water. “How about I call Mango’s vet and see if he could squeeze your dog in? Otherwise, as a new patient, you might have to wait a while for an appointment. And I can drive him in. He’ll be fine in the back of the pickup. The vet’s not that far from here.”
Since he was here on personal business, he’d brought his own car, not the cruiser. The black pickup, parked by the curb, had a cap on it. Seemed safe enough, but….
The yard work was part of their barter. The dog bath was a gesture between friends. The vet might be too much, she decided. He’d be doing something she should be taking care of herself.
Independence was the goal, becoming a competent, self-assured woman who could handle anything. New heart. New house. New life.
Her new life. Where she did the things that needed to be done.
“I’ll take care of the vet,” she told him. “But thanks for offering.”
He watched her for a long second, then nodded, respecting her wishes.
But when they were sitting at the patio table and having a cold drink a few minutes later, watching Peaches race in the wind, he turned to her and asked, “Who was he and what did he do to make you so wary of men who want to help?”
She stiffened in her seat. “I’m not helpless.”
“Nobody said you were. We all need help with some things. You’ll be helping me next week with my landscaping. The sister of one of my officers is helping me sell the house. My neighbor helps me with feeding the cat if I have to work late. And I help back when I can. That’s the way life works.”
It sounded so easy and uncomplicated when he said it. “Maybe that’s easier to see for people who don’t have independence issues.”
“You’re independent. You live in your own house and you support yourself.”
“And I’m thirty. For most of my life I was like a child, needing people to take care of me. I feel like I’m just now becoming an adult. The whole arrested-development thing. I’m just now figuring out who I am and what I want from life.”
“Some people still don’t have it figured out who they are and what they want from life when they’re twice your age.”
“But I want to,” she said stubbornly. “I want to do all the things I missed. I want to start really living.”
He leaned back in his chair, the sunshine playing on his dark hair. “Then you will. I don’t think anyone who knows you can doubt that you’ll be exactly what you want to be.”
A sour burst of laughter escaped her. “My ex warned me that I’d be taking my life into my own hands if I left him. My mother wants me to move home so she can take care of me. Well, actually, she thinks it’s a sin against God that I’m alive, but that’s another long, uncomfortable story.”
“Your father?”
She hadn’t meant to share so much with him. But he was easy to talk to. She found herself answering the question instead of deflecting it. “Died of liver cancer from drinking. Dad couldn’t take the stress and the fact that every penny he made had to go towards my medical bills. I was born with a weak heart.” It was a miracle her heart had lasted as long as it had. “My illness claimed all of my mother’s attention from day one. There was none left for my father.” So he’d found companionship in a bottle.
His fingers tightened around the glass he was holding. “A man should stand up to his responsibilities.”
A man like Bing, she thought, would. She couldn’t imagine him in a situation where he wouldn’t step up to the plate.
She watched the dog rolling in the grass for a while before she looked at him. “I get the give-and-take thing. But for most of my life, I was doing all the taking and none of the giving. I want to change that.”
“You were sick. I think you can give yourself a break over the past.”
“I was too weak to do most anything. I was homeschooled, then went to college online, and then started my web-design business from bed.”
He shook his head as a sexy grin tugged at his lips. “I wouldn’t call you a loafer, exactly. You’ve done amazingly well with the cards you’ve been handed.” He paused and watched her. “So what happened with the ex-fiancé?”
That still hurt. She didn’t want to go into it, especially not with Bing. “He took care of me.” She had to give credit where credit was due.
“And?”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “We did well while I was sick. He kept my care in hand. He kept up with my doctors. Kept the meds straight. I was taking loads of pills at the beginning. He handled the bills and our finances. He handled the apartment. He was great.”
“But?”
“After the surgery, I got stronger.”
“You wanted a more equal partnership, and he didn’t want things to change,” he guessed.
She pressed her lips together. It didn’t seem right to complain about the man who’d been there for her for so long. All she said was, “I just thought at one point, this can’t be a healthy relationship.”