His By Design (9 page)

“No.” She gripped the edges of the desk for support, then winced as pain shot through her thumb. “I assume you’ve been to the gallery?”

His eyes narrowed at her rejection. “I have. I met a rather surly young man who claimed you never mentioned any partner. Why haven’t you told him? Are you hoping he’ll see you as the poor damsel-in-distress and give you a discount on his services?”

Barker’s jibe hit a bit too close to home. She pressed her lips together and shot him a hard look, concentrating on keeping her knees locked so they wouldn’t shake.

“Mr. Petrosky came highly recommended and has done excellent work so far. Our relationship is strictly business.”
Well, not strictly.
“As is the one you and I share. We are not partners, Fredrick, nor will we ever be partners. You are an investor whose venture capital I will repay by next September. I believe that’s all the business we have to discuss.” She angled her chin up, her gaze icy.

“You keep believing that, Zoe, darling. The victory will be that much sweeter when you bring me the painting and start working for me again.” He sauntered toward the door. With one hand on the knob, he looked back over his shoulder. “I’ll be dropping by from time to time. Keeping an eye on my investment.”

She heard him whistling as he went down the walk. It sent shivers up her spine. She’d never give up her mother’s painting. Never. And working as his employee again? That was only in his dreams. The very thought repelled her. She’d been confident she could repay him before his deadline. She hoped she hadn’t been mistaken. The unwritten part of her indebtedness? The bat wings in her stomach grew icicles and she almost doubled over from the pain.

Chapter 9

Three A.M.

Jeff had sanded the drywall and was now laying the tile that went from the kitchen into the studio area. He’d been up since midnight and figured if worrying was going to keep him from sleeping, he might as well accomplish something. He’d left a note for his father and rode his bike to the gallery. By the time his dad and Zoe arrived in the morning he’d be finished with this and working on the laminate flooring in her bedroom.

He knew Zoe would not like his decision. She’d argue. Maybe threaten to fire him. But if he couldn’t trust her to follow his safety regs he couldn’t take the chance she might get injured again. All of yesterday’s anger had trickled away and he was left with its cause—fear. Fear that another person he cared for was hurt because of him.

She’d had the damn gloves on when he’d left the room. He was sure of it. Which meant that as soon as he was out of sight, she’d taken them off.

He wanted to shake some sense into her. Or kiss her senseless. Yesterday shaking was at the top of the list. In the middle of the night, kissing seemed a much better option.

He worked until dawn grayed the horizon, then took a break and downed the can of energy drink he’d brought along. He would have kitchen cabinets, appliances and bathroom fixtures delivered today. If he kept working these kinds of hours he’d have no problem finishing Zoe’s apartment in the next two days.

Once she moved in he wouldn’t be able to work at night. He’d make too much noise. To say nothing about the distraction of knowing she’d be in bed one floor away. He doubted he could handle that much temptation. Of course he might not have to worry about any of that if she fired him.

He couldn’t let that happen.

When Zoe arrived at eight o’clock he’d almost finished the bedroom floor. In a room without nooks or odd angles, the snap-lock laminate went down fast. His radial arm saw was making quick work of the odd-sized pieces around the edges. When he turned around to get the next plank to cut, Zoe stood in the doorway.

“Good morning, Jeff.”

He nodded. “Morning. How’s the thumb?”

She held up the neatly bandaged digit. “Fine. I see you got a lot done since I left yesterday. What did you do, work all night?”

“No.” He shrugged. “Half the night. Couldn’t sleep so I figured I might as well make myself useful.” He went back to measuring the plank and marked it for the cut.

“Jeff, I want to apologize.”

His hands stilled on the wood. Not the opening salvo he’d expected. He glanced over his shoulder. “Me, too.”

She looked surprised at that statement, but stepped into the room and clasped her hands in front of her. “What happened yesterday was completely my fault. You’ve been after me every day about safety and I ignored your warnings. You were right. I was careless, and stubborn, and . . . and I deserved the consequences.” She shuffled her feet like a schoolgirl in the principal’s office.

“Wow. Bet that was hard to get out.”

She huffed out a breath. “You’ve no idea.”

“I accept your apology.” He went over to her and put both hands on her shoulders. “Now it’s my turn. I didn’t mean to yell at you. Or argue with you. It’s just that when I saw you hurt, I kind of lost it.” He put a finger under her chin and t
ilted her head up. “I don’t want anything bad happening to you, Zoe. I couldn’t handle it.”

“If I promise to follow all of your safety precautions will you let me work with you again?” She dropped her gaze to the floor. “I really like working with you, Jeff. I would never fire you, but I want to keep helping out as much as I can here.”

Relief washed through him. He still had his job. Jen still had her chance. He smiled and tilted her chin back up.

“You’ll follow my orders?” Zoe nodded. “You’ll wear gloves and safety glasses?” She nodded again. “You’ll let me kiss you whenever I want?”

Her eyes flew wide. She pressed her lips together but the corners of her mouth twitched up. She nodded again.

He leaned down and captured her mouth in a brief but thorough kiss. “Good. Cause that would have been a deal-breaker, Ms. Silvercreek.”

She slid her arms around his neck and looked up from under long, thick lashes. “I trust you’ll be willing to ignore sexual harassment from your boss?”

“Sexual harassment will not be ignored,” he replied sternly. “It will be evaluated, and graded.”

He kissed her again. He couldn’t seem to get enough of those soft, full lips. Her mouth opened under his assault and he took advantage of her invitation to plunder its sweetness. She tasted of coffee with a hint of peppermint. He cupped her face with both hands and ran his thumb over one perfect cheek. “You are so beautiful, Zoe. I—”

The jingle of the doorbell interrupted his train of thought.

Frank called up from below. “Hey, are you up there, Jeff?”

Zoe whispered, “Your dad’s timing is impeccable.”

“Tell me,” he whispered back. “Yeah, Dad, I’m here. So is Zoe. We were just finalizing the ground rules for our continued working arrangements. We’ll be right down.” He dropped one last kiss on her lips. “Let’s go, boss. We’re burning daylight.”

Downstairs over coffee, Jeff explained the change in plans.

“You and dad go pick up your cabinets. I’m going to keep working here. Besides”—he held off her protest with a hand—“someone has to be here when all the cabinetry and fixtures arrive.”

“They’re coming today?” Her shoulders slumped. “Oh. I guess that is a better plan, then.” Zoe brightened. “Frank, looks like it’s just you and I, then.”

“I think I got the better end of this deal.” He chuckled. “Don’t work too hard, now, son.”

Jeff pinned him with a look. “And you keep the stories to a minimum, Dad. Don’t bore Zoe to death on the trip.”

“Oh, I won’t be bored,” she assured him with a grin. She slipped her arm through Frank’s and stage-whispered, “Now about Jeff’s childhood . . .”

Jeff rolled his eyes, then gave his dad a warning look over Zoe’s head. His father nodded.

Jeff swallowed. That didn’t appease the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m glad to see you two worked things out this mornin
g.” Frank settled Zoe in the van and went around to the driver’s side.

“He was really mad, wasn’t he?” She snapped her seat belt on.

“Jeff doesn’t like it when anyone gets hurt.” He pulled out into the light early morning traffic on Main Street. “He’s been that way since . . . well, as far back as I can remember.”

“I must admit I thought he was a real smartas— aleck,” she corrected herself, “when we first met. You know, big ego, all muscles and good looks with nothing inside to balance out all that hubris. But now that I’ve gotten to know him, I’ve changed my opinion.” She put her hand on Frank’s arm. “You’ve raised a fine son, Frank.”

He chuckled. “I can’t take much credit for it. His mom had much more influence on him than I did. As a matter of fact we had a pretty rocky relationship until that episode with Rusty when he was a freshman in high school.”

“Oh?”
Episode? Tell me more.

“My wife, Catherine, she was the artist in the family. She did illustrations for children’s books.”

Zoe nodded, not wanting to interrupt his story with even a comment.

“Yeah, well, Jeff stuck to her like glue growing up. I couldn’t even get him to throw a baseball or a football around in the backyard. All he wanted to do was draw or use that Play-Doh Catherine bought him to make flowers and birds and sh—uh, uh, stuff.” He shot Zoe a sideways glance, but she just smiled, so he continued.

“Anyways, I got pretty disgusted with him. He was a skinny kid, all elbows and kneecaps. And . . . well . . . pretty. There was no other word for it. Until he was about seven, strangers thought he was a girl. I tried to get Catherine to cut his hair short but she loved those damn curls.” He shook his head.

Zoe understood Jeff’s mom’s desire to keep his hair longer. It was still one of his most attractive assets.

“I added two and two and came up with . . . five.” He shook his head again. “I was a real idiot. Thought he was, you know, gay. By the time Jeff was in his teens I was annoyed that he was too chicken-shit to come out and admit it.” He heaved a sigh. “Parents aren’t always the smart ones, Zoe, and I, well, I was barking up the wrong tree. In the whole wrong forest, actually. Right up until the ‘Rusty incident.’”

Zoe could hear the quotes. “What happened?”

“Jeff was downtown buying some supplies he needed for art class. Rusty was in the store too, but they didn’t really know each other then. Anyway, Rusty left first and when Jeff went outside, Rusty was getting harassed by a bunch of jocks from the football team. They’d dumped the kid’s paints and inks on the sidewalk and were giving him a hard time, so Jeff went over and told them to get lost. Then he tried to help Rusty salvage what they could of the ruined paints and stuff.”

Zoe nodded. “Sounds like Jeff. Did he run them off?”

“Oh no. There were five of them. They beat the crap out of Rusty and Jeff. He came home with a shiner and some nasty bruises on his ribs from getting kicked around.”

“Oh no. Those bullies should have been taught a lesson.” Zoe scowled, indignant for the incident that occurred over fifteen years ago.

Frank sighed. “Yeah, that’s what his mother thought too. I tried to tell her to leave it alone, but she wouldn’t. She took Jeff up to school and met with the principal.”

“And did he do something to those boys?”

“Oh yeah. He brought them in, gave them a lecture and told them if he heard of any more episodes like that, he’d have them suspended.”

Zoe nodded emphatically. “Good. Although I would have wanted to get in a few licks myself. But at least that kept other kids from getting harassed.”

Frank made a face. “Not exactly how it worked out.”

“Why? What did they do?”

“In less than twenty-four hours, every kid in the school thought Rusty and Jeff were a ‘couple’. They were either shunned or ridiculed for the rest of the school year.”

“Oh no. Those poor boys.”

“Yeah. But the good thing about it? Jeff and I had a turning point in our relationship. He and Rusty became good friends. The kid was gay as a maypole and told me on more than one occasion how sad he was that Jeff was straight. I felt like an ass for thinking he was gay all those years. It’s no wonder our relationship is still kind of shaky. Anyway, that summer I got Jeff a job on one of my construction sites. Let me tell you, nothing puts on muscle like hauling around cinder blocks and shingles for three months. In the evenings he took a martial arts class.” Frank chuckled. “I thought he was going to eat us out of house and home. I wish I could have been inside the school the first day of his sophomore year. He’d shot up three inches and put on almost thirty pounds. I betcha there were some slack-jawed kids in those hallways.”

Zoe grinned right along with him. “I bet there were. You and Catherine can be proud of him, Frank. He’s a hard worker and I can tell he has a lot of talent from the drawings he did when he designed the gallery and my apartment.”

“I’m sure Catherine keeps an eye on him from up there.” Frank pointed heavenward. “She passed away the summer he graduated from high school.”

“Oh, Frank, I’m so sorry. You both must miss her terribly.”

“Yeah, we all do. She was one of a kind.”

“All?”

“Yeah, uh, me, Jeff, and, uh, all her friends. She was very active in our community.” He shifted in his seat. They had arrived in the outskirts of Cambridge. “So, where is this antiques store?”

“Two blocks up and make a right at the light. It’s on the left hand side of the street about halfway up the next block.”

As he made the turn, Frank looked over at her. “Um, listen, Jeff will be mad if he finds out I told you that story . . .”

“No problem. I won’t say a word.” She squeezed his arm. “It can be our little secret.”

“Jeff, we’re back,” Zoe called up the stairs.

“Hang on, I’ll be right down.”

She set the
bucket of chicken they had picked up for lunch on the desk and stashed her purse in the drawer. “As soon as we eat, I’m going over to change into work clothes and come back.”

She turned to watch him come down the stairs, admiring the broad shoulders that stretched his T-shirt taut and outlined his pecs and flat belly. Tousled hair, full lips, and those sky-blue eyes . . . It wasn’t the smell of fried chicken making her mouth water. She tried to picture him as a teenager, gangly and awkward, without the muscles and maturity that made his face so arresting. It was hard to imagine the feminine traits that had caused Frank so much worry. From her point of view he was all delicious male.

“Hello, sweet cheeks.” He gave her a quick kiss while Frank’s back was turned. “Any trouble picking up your cabinets?”

“Nope. It was a tight squeeze but we managed to get both pieces in the van. Come look and tell me what you think.”

Out at the curb, Jeff ran his hand over the carved oak that held the glass sides in place. “Nice. These are works of art in their own right. They’re going to add a lot of class to your gallery, Zoe.”

Zoe grinned with pleasure. “I thought you’d like them. They are old, but they’re well-preserved. Be careful unloading them. We’ll keep them back in the office until the gallery is finished. I’ll get our lunch unpacked while you two bring these inside.”

After lunch, Frank packed up his gear and got ready to leave for Baltimore. Zoe walked him out and gave him a kiss on the cheek before he climbed inside. “It was wonderful to meet you, Frank. Thank you so much for all the work you did with Jeff. Please come back and see us again when the gallery opens.”

“I’ll do that, Zoe. You take care of yourself. I don’t want to hear about any more accidents.”

“I’ll be good. I promised Jeff to obey all safety regulations from now on. Drive safe.”