But when Robin realized he meant to help dislodge her, she panicked, and was suddenly twisting like a dervish, try-
ing to free herself before he could touch her.
“Careful, Peanut! You're scarring the brick! Just calm down and let me…” He leaned over her, clucked his tongue. “Oh man, how did you manage to do that?”
Humiliated. That was the only word she could think of, and Robin squirmed again, wild to get off the ladder, but Jake put a steady hand to her hip to lean around her. Robin instantly froze, sucked in her breath, and held it—his touch was molten, like the moment between the realization one has touched fire and is about to feel the burn—only this was a burn she wanted to feel. Unnerved by his touch, by the nearness of his body, she hung paralyzed, felt his hand at the base of her spine and on her hip, felt his fingers pull up and dislodge the spandex fabric of her shorts, kneading her flesh, then felt herself freed.
Jake stepped back.
Robin slid off the ladder—unthinkingly, her hand went to the spot he had touched her, her fingers feeling for the scar he had surely left behind.
Jake's gaze followed her hand, then flicked back to her eyes, seeping right into her and filling her to the rim before he suddenly turned away. He picked up a paint scraper and attacked the wall, muttering that he should get to work.
Like an imbecile, Robin stood there unable to move for a moment until she said hoarsely, “T hank s,” and walked blindly through the dining room, groping her way to her bedroom through a fog of confusion that was as dense as it was unfamiliar.
In the privacy of her bath, she wondered what in the hell had come over her. He was a man, just like dozens of men she knew. Why should his touch galvanize her so thoroughly? Whatever the reason, it was such unfamiliar ground that it made her feel a little shaky inside.
Robin finished her bath, dressed quickly, and stood looking at herself in the full-length mirror, thoroughly disgusted by what she was seeing. She had chosen a brand new pair of chocolate-brown Prada slacks and a creme-colored Christian Dior silk blouse. Okay, really, she had enough trouble as it was without getting all dressed up to do her renovator,
which was exactly where this was headed. What about the consequences? She would have to work in the same space with him for several months. What would she do then? Barricade herself in her bedroom? Had she not experienced the pain of working alongside someone she had slept with as recently as, oh say, last night? Stupid, stupid, stupid…
With a snort of self-loathing, Robin slipped on a pair of Ralph Lauren sandals, but stopped mid-task when she heard the unmistakable sound of a woman's laughter. She froze, tried to pin the sound down, until it hit her—that was Lucy Ramirez's laugh.
And the thought of Lucy with Jake sent Robin lunging for the bedroom door and struggling with the porcelain handle, t hank s to the sweet-scented Chanel lotion she had put on her hands.
Still laughing, and leaning against the same ladder Robin had hung herself on, Lucy looked up at Robin in surprise as she came spilling out of her room and exclaimed, “It's about time!”
“And a cheerful good morning to you, too, Lucy.” Robin marched down the hall, sailing past Lucy and Jake into the dining room. “What's going on?”
“Jake and I were just telling a few tales while I waited for you to get out of the shower,” Lucy said, sliding off the barstool. “Man, you take long showers. Like really long!”
Perhaps Lucy could talk the weather service into tracking it on Doppler radar if she was so concerned. Robin glared at her assistant; as usual, Lucy was completely oblivious and frowning at Robin's pants. “Are those new pants?” she demanded.
“No.”
“I haven't seen them before.”
“You haven't seen all my clothes, Lucy.”
“That's because I can't keep up.”
“Could we just please get to work?” Robin asked through
clenched teeth, and t hank you, Lucy, because now Jake was looking at her new pants.
“Sure,” Lucy responded cheerfully, as if suddenly remembering why she was there. “Your dad called. He said I was to bring you the names of these people to call. Then Evan said you needed to see the accounts for Peerless Packing and Wirt Supplies and Packing. Don't ask me what is up with that, but t hank God this is all on the computer, because I'm telling you, there is nothing left of that office except ashes. Remember all those files on your desk? Gone! And then Darren called and asked if you were free for dinner—”
“Oh, hey, hey!” Robin interrupted, laughing nervously as she stole a look at Jake's back while shaking her head furiously at Lucy.
Lucy cocked her head to one side. “What? Why are you shaking your head like that?”
“I'm not shaking my head—”
“Yes you are. If you don't want to go, I'll call him, but I thought you liked this guy.”
Robin cringed. “Look, let's go to lunch and go over this stuff.”
Lucy looked at her watch. “It's ten o'clock .”
“I meant coffee.”
“Okay, but I think Evan's coming back—”
“He can get his own coffee!”
“Okay, all right!” Lucy said, eyeballing her suspiciously. “We'll get coffee!” With another hard look at Robin, she swung around, snatched up her giant designer knockoff shoulder bag and marched toward the kitchen. Robin was right behind her, picking up her new little kate spade purse in her near sprint to get out of the house, following Lucy out the back without so much as a ta-ta to Jake.
Ahead of her, Lucy abruptly stopped and turned, almost colliding with Robin. “Am I insane, or am I seeing things right?”
Oh shit. Shit shit shit, it was obvious. Robin's heart started beating like a drum; she looked everywhere but at
Lucy, wondering how in the hell she was going to explain her way out of this.
“I mean, have you ever seen anyone so cuuuuute?” Lucy squealed and grabbed Robin's wrist in her excitement.
“Huh?”
“The worker guy, Jake! God, did you not see him? He's gorgeous!”
“Really?” Robin asked and self-consciously tried to tame a curl at her temple. “I didn't notice.”
“Oh, come on, didn't you?” Lucy demanded, incredulous.
Robin shrugged, very noncommittal.
“Why didn't you tell me you had a man like that tucked away in your house? I would love to work at home if I had a guy like that stuck inside. I'd set it up like Hotel California. Once he came in, he would never come out—”
“Come on, Lucy, he's just a contractor,” Robin reminded her as they headed for the car.
“Just a contractor? What does that mean? Well, whatever, he's gorgeous. And he's so nice! Did you notice how nice? And girl, he's funny!”
Well. He might be nice, but not particularly funny. And way too opinionated about some things, like baseball. And stingy with doughnuts! “I haven't really talked to him.”
“Yeah, well, with a guy like that, you really don't need to talk,” Lucy said with a not-so-subtle elbow in Robin's ribs.
“Can we just talk about the files you brought?” Robin insisted, trying hard to change the subject.
But Lucy continued to wax dreamily about Jake when they met up at the coffee shop, even through the ordering of two double mocha cafe au lait skinnies with nutmeg. Robin was finally able to shut her up by blurting out the news of her demotion.
At first, Lucy was stunned. She gaped at Robin, asked, “Are you kidding?” and when Robin shook her head no, she contorted into a howl of laughter. Looking around at everyone looking at Lucy, Robin didn't exactly appreciate her reaction and said so.
“I'm sorry,” Lucy said, wiping the tears of laughter from beneath her eyes. “But the thought of you and Eldagirt Wirt is too much!”
“Eldagirt Wirt? Who's that?”
“Eldagirt owns Wirt Supplies and Packing—she's one of the people your dad wants you to call. I'll just say this— she eats concrete-and-barbed-wire pie for breakfast and asks for seconds.” Lucy giggled, reached for one of the two thick files she was carrying, leafing through them until she found one paper in particular, which she shoved across the small table to Robin. “Here's her number. If I were you, I'd wait 'til after lunch to get in touch. Definitely not a morning person.”
Robin scoffed at that, proclaimed she wasn't afraid of Eldagirt, and turned her attention to the file's contents while Lucy very helpfully put forth her theories about why the office had burned. Which boiled down to her pinning it on nonexistent transients.
When Lucy finally headed back to the freight yard, Robin stayed on at the coffee shop a while longer, reviewing the fascinating and titillating account files. The way she saw things, she had two choices. Either she could mope about her rotten stupid luck, or she could prove her father and Evan wrong. How hard could it be? She could learn everything there was to know, just plunge right in and show them she did have what it took. Starting with an understanding of exactly how Styrofoam peanuts were made. She was so excited by the prospect, it was all she could do to keep from skipping back to her house.
While Robin was trying to mine her way through the information about the two packing materials company, Jake was learning it would be the following week before Zaney would be back to work. At least that's what Jake thought he said—the music was blaring so loudly in the background, he could hardly hear him.
He was still brooding about that and how he was possibly going to stay on schedule when Robin came sailing through
the door, tossing keys, purse, and files onto the already overloaded dining table. If she saw him, she certainly didn't acknowledge it. She thrust one leg off to the side, cocked her hip and flipped through the mail she held in one hand, then carelessly tossed the envelopes onto the pile on the table. Only then did she turn, hands on hips, and face him. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
She shifted her gaze to the window frame. “What are you doing?”
“Stripping the old paint on this casing.”
Robin wrinkled her nose. “You should do the walls first.”
“The casing needs to be stripped before I put the chemical peel on the wall,” he said patiently, as if she required any explanation at all, even if she was so goddam gorgeous.
She marched forward to stand beside him. “Looks like you're making this a lot more difficult than it has to be. The windows could wait 'til last.”
In spite of the distraction of the faint scent of lilac, Jake couldn't let it go. 'That is about the most boneheaded, uninformed thing you have said yet."
“Yet?” she protested. “That would imply I have said other misinformed things, which I have not, Handy Andy. I'm just saying you should save the window for last, really, and get the walls and ceiling done. Besides, I haven't yet found the stained glass I want.”
“Handy Andy?” All right, lilac scent aside, he was going to have to establish some ground rules if he was ever going to complete this job. “Okay. How about we have a deal since we'll obviously be working so close, Miss Burned-Down-My-Office. I won't tell you how to buy a packing materials company, and you don't tell me how to renovate this house. Deal?”
Her mouth fell open. “If that isn't so typically male, I don't know what is—'don't tell me how to do my job,' blah blah blah—”
"Well, that's a pretty typical female response if you ask me, the old I-know-how-to-do-everything-better-than-you
attitude. You must be used to having everyone at your beck and call."
“And just what is that supposed to mean?” she demanded, squaring off.
“Well, in a word, you're bossy.”
“Bossy!”
“Bossy.”
“Augh!” she cried indignantly. “A woman offers you some sound advice and suddenly she is bossy?”
“No. A woman butts into a project when she doesn't have a clue what she is talking about and starts barking orders. That is bossy.”
“You lack some higher-level thinking skills, genius. You are obviously confusing bossy with assertive! I just want the job done right and fast!”
“So tell me something, Bossy. If you know so much about renovation, why did you hire out to begin with?”
“Oh please,” she scoffed, folding her arms across her stomach. 'This is hardly science! It's spackle and paint—"
“Which reminds me—I've been meaning to ask you about that huge hole in the wall upstairs. Did you think to try a little spackle?”
That shut her up. Her brows burrowed into a frown. “I don't have time for this,” she said, and marched away, leaving the scent of lilac behind. “I've got work to do!”
“Just as long as it's yours and not mine,” he said cheerfully, and with his back to her, smiled broadly when she muttered something about a goat.
For a while, she ignored him, mumbling under her breath. Then she got up, started walking around the table, lost in thought. And just when Jake thought she might actually walk through to the basement, she snatched up the phone and punched numbers. “Yes… Robin Lear calling for Eld-agirt Wirt, please.”
Jake almost choked.
“Robin Lear,” she repeated impatiently. “Lear Transport Industries.”
That was followed by a wait of maybe five seconds before Robin began to tap her foot. Patience was definitely not
her virtue. Suddenly the foot tapping stopped. “Yes! What— excuse me? Like I said, Robin Lear of Lear Transport Industries. I would like to speak with Eldagirt Wirt about an opportunity I think she will find very exciting—No, she didn't win a cruise! Look, could you just ask Ms. Wirt to come to the phone?”
Whatever the other person said seemed to throw her for a loop. “Huh?” she asked, sounding terribly confused. “No, wait—Hello?”
Robin held the phone out from her head and looked at it. “Oh my God,” she murmured, and slammed the phone down.
Jake kept his back turned, trying hard to pretend like he hadn't just heard every bit of that. After a moment, he heard the click of her heels into the kitchen, the sound of a variety of doors being opened, and then the click of heels back into the dining room.
“I'm ordering out, do you want anything?”
He assumed she was talking to him and glanced at his watch. Twelve-thirty—
“But strictly vegan. Do you like vegan?” He turned and looked at her; he must have looked confused, because she said, “You know, vegetables and plant. No dairy, no meat.”