HowMuchYouWantToBet (4 page)

“Thirty-six acres is a lot for one man. Do you want the works—pool, Jacuzzi, mirror on the master bedroom ceiling?”

He chuckled as he cut into his chicken. “Only if you’re willing….”

“Don’t finish that statement. I might as well lay down the ground rules before I get started on this project. I’m a professional.” She thought of her earlier display and corrected herself. “Ninety-eight percent of the time, I’m a professional. By chance you won a date with me—don’t let that color the situation.”

Neil paused. “And this business dinner doesn’t change anything, either,” she added as an afterthought, ignoring the lit candles, her lack of underwear, and the way he licked stray crumbs from the corner of his mouth. “I like being single and plan to stay that way for a while. I’d rather not be included in your plans for seduction or keeping up your reputation.”

His fork stopped midway to his mouth and he frowned. “What?” Neil questioned, trying to read his face.

“How’d you know where I lived?”

“I asked Linny where you were.”

“You got here pretty fast. This house is at least an hour away from town.”

Not meeting his gaze, she cut into her chicken and stuffed her mouth. After Linny’s announcement she had asked, through clenched teeth, where she could find Gib, and then, like an omen, the sky had opened up and begun to pour out rain. The speed limit may have been sixty mph, but on an open road eighty hadn’t seemed too fast, even in the downpour.

“This is good. Who’d you get to deliver way out here?”

“I didn’t. Cooked it myself.” He smiled at her over his plate.

The spit in her mouth dried. Consequences of looking directly at him. She reached for her glass of wine as he continued talking. “When I was sixteen, I decided I wanted to be a chef. Sherri, our cook, took me under her wing.” His expression turned wistful. “I stayed with that for a year and a half. One of my longest career stints.” He shrugged. “My plans are in the office. They are very detailed, but I’m open to suggestions. You’re the professional here.”

“So now you’re playing at being an architect, like you said?” She set her wine back on the glass table.

“You were listening. I’m surprised. Yeah, you can say I’ve been playing at being an architect for a while. What did your father die of?”

The question caught her off guard. “He was in a car accident. It wasn’t his fault. The other driver had too much to drink. Of course
he
walked away with just a few scratches.” She didn’t succeed in keeping the bitterness from her voice.

“Is that why you moved from L.A.?”

“How’d you know I used to live in L.A.?”

“Linny thinks a lot of you. He sold me on letting you do my house because he liked the work you did there.”

She never went into detail about working at Hutchinson, hated for anyone to know. The Internet could connect the dots too easily nowadays. “It’s getting late. Why don’t you show me the plans.”

He wiped his mouth, then motioned for her to follow him. They passed the bathroom again, taking a right this time. This house didn’t look plush or opulent. She hadn’t imagined him in a house with homey touches of wood, seascapes, and all this brown.

She said, “Who furnished the house…”

Gib turned into the office and she no longer cared. The whole wall was covered with detailed blueprint designs of a three-story home. The first four drawings were of the house itself, the floor plans, and lateral views.

The others, eight in all, were of each room and the landscape. They weren’t sloppy, stick-figure-type sketches, but to scale. She could have taken them down from the wall and started construction that night.

“You drew all of this?” The amazement was plain in her voice.

One of his shoulders lifted in nonchalance. “What do you think? Is it doable? I did some research, looking for what I wanted in my house, and couldn’t decide on one thing, so it’s kind of a mixture of eras and styles.” He shrugged again.

Neil moved closer to see the small writing on the drawings of the rooms. He’d written down the type of wood he wanted on the floor in the living room, and for the guest house he wanted to use Austin stone for the outer casing of the building.

She stood back, feeling some of her earlier anger at him being replaced with respect, mixed with confusion. A man could, but wouldn’t usually, go through all this for revenge. She glanced at Gib, who looked uncomfortable about the silence and expectant for her answer. She turned back to his plans.

“Congratulations, you can quit your day job as a reporter. Did you go to architectural school?”

“Some, but I had to take over my father’s business for a few years when he got sick. Never went back to it.”

Neil’s gaze went back to the sketches. Her palms were damp and she attributed the affliction to the masterpiece in front of her. If she could do it, she could secure her position as worksite manager. Linny hadn’t said it, but Neil knew if she messed this up, or couldn’t do it, she’d be back to being a lowly construction worker. Then she could finally stop wishing for what could never be.

“This,” she indicated the wall of drawings, “Is definitely doable.”

CHAPTER 4

She should have brought a pair of earplugs from work, Neil thought, as she pressed the pillow over her head, half hoping to drown out the noise.

Ding.

Dong.

Nope, she still heard the doorbell perfectly, clear through the cotton-polyester blend. A shame, because she’d paid a lot for that hunk of comfort.

She lifted the pillow from her head and squinted at the clock on the nightstand. The time blaring in red lights on the old-style radio told her what she had already guessed. It was her morning wake-up call. A wake-up call she had not signed up for. A wake-up call that was going to get its instigator a nice pair of cement shoes if he continued to lean on her doorbell at this ungodly hour.

She rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling. Life had been reduced to annoyances she’d rather live without. One of them stood at her door. He probably didn’t even know she considered him an annoyance. He probably didn’t care. She would bet Gib thought that seeing his mug first thing in the morning would make any woman’s day. The man literally thought he was God’s gift to women. Even Neil, not overtly religious, knew an insult to the Man Upstairs when she met it. The past five days had been the longest of her life.

Ding.

Dong.

Every. Single. Day. He was at her house every morning with some thinly-veiled plan on what to do next on his house. The man had tenacity, arrogance, and a good-sized portion of self-esteem.

One wondered how his head could fit into a normal-sized room. Worse, much worse, nothing she did deterred him from being here in the morning. Gib was in her dreams at night, and then she had to wake up to him in the flesh. A slow death wasn’t good enough for him, especially if he thought he was going to wake her up for the whole year it would take to build his house. Every. Morning. Could she take 360 more days of…

Ding

Dong.

She reached for the phone and dialed Linny’s number. It took about sixty rings, but he finally answered with a grunt. “Oh, were you sleeping? Because so was I, until this.” She held up her phone.

Ding.

Dong.

She placed the phone back to her ear. “I was having this incredible dream. I won ten minutes in Home Depot. I could grab anything and everything and own it if I made it back to the front of the store in ten minutes. Come on, that’s as close to a wet dream as I will ever have. Get this, though—I was already at five minutes on the clock. My hands were on the twelve-shelf toolbox.”

“The one with the stainless steel cover and wheels?”

“Yeah, but for some reason the time buzzer went off. Guess what it was, Linny.”

Ding

Dong.

Neil closed her eyes. Linny coughed, and she was sure he was trying to hide a laugh. This wasn’t a laughing matter. Gib was going to drive her insane before the last nail was put in his home. At this rate, it was going to be put in his head. “Is he hitting on you?” Linny asked.

Neil considered how to answer the question. He hadn’t touched her. He hadn’t tried to kiss her. He hadn’t even propositioned her, not since the date. He just hadn’t given her any breathing room.

He filled the air with his expensive cologne and shampoo. He filled her personal space with his broad shoulders, his large, elegant,
manicured
hands, and his thick forearms. And with the images constantly filling her head, the ones of him kissing, touching, tasting her, all those things his eyes promised silently, promises yet to be fulfilled, he might as well have done them. “Not blatantly.”

“I don’t hear the doorbell anymore,” Linny muttered.

Neil sucked her teeth. This was the first time in five days he’d given up so soon. Usually he stayed there for twenty minutes, until she opened the door dressed and ready for work. So far he had greeted her with truffles, donuts, éclairs, pop tarts and brownies. Because she ate them in less than three bites and thanked him, did that rule out stalking? Probably, and if Gib wanted her not to know who was at the door, he’d stop parking his Caddy in the driveway.

“I can’t work under these conditions. You have to do something.” She hated to even ask. Neil should have been able to deal with Gib on any level, but this close contact was killing her, and the sleep deprivation had won out over pride, which was saying something.

“Is he changing his mind on what he wants done every two seconds?”

Outside of breathing down her neck, Gib was making her job insanely easy. “No.”

“Is he holding up any part of the process to get permits?”

She’d gotten a call from the mayor, telling her to put in any request she needed and not to worry. Gib had broken out the pig lard and rubbed down a few people in the government, because none of the usual wheels of bureaucracy required to build a home had squeaked. She hated having to say it.

“No.” Her phone line beeped. “Hold on, Linny.” She clicked over. “Hello?”

“So you are done getting your beauty sleep?”

Neil fell back against the pillows. She should have known. “You’re annoying.”

“Really, stop with the compliments. You’re going to make me fall in love with you.”

“Doesn’t count if you are saying this while looking in the mirror at yourself.”

He made a sound of pain. “You wound me.”

She bite her lip to keep from smiling. “Only seriously in my dreams, and you’re holding up my phone line.”

“Answer your door.”

“No. I know how to get to work by myself. I’ve been doing it for years now, and nothing has happened to me yet. Amazing, but I’ve finally learned how to cross the street without holding anyone’s hand.”

Gib chuckled, and Neil had to keep herself from shivering at the sound of it. “How do you take your coffee?”

“Without you holding it.”

“So, a double-shot espresso without any whipped cream?”

“Espressos are for sissies. Hold on.” She clicked over. “Linny, it’s him. I don’t want to make a big deal out of this, but…” She was making a big deal out of it. Gib was harmless, if you liked slick, charming, annoying, handsome men dogging your every step. Neil sighed. “I’m sorry I called. It won’t happen again.”

“Are you sure?” Linny asked.

Absolutely not.
“Yes.”

“I’m going back to sleep.”

Neil sighed, then clicked back over. The dial tone greeted her. She didn’t bother to get dressed before heading downstairs.

In a complete James Dean fashion, Gib leaned against the porch post, holding a thermos and two mugs. “Don’t you look chipper.”

“Why do you feel the need to wake me up?”

“You’re a breath of fresh air, and I want to start my mornings with you frowning at me.” He lifted the thermos. “I brought gifts.”

“It better not be espresso.” She stepped back to let him in, but not before she realized she hadn’t combed her hair. Vanity aside, a bird’s nest was a bird’s nest, no matter what you called it.

He settled on the loveseat, looking comfortable and as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He looked right sitting there and, because he did, Neil said, “Why are you being the bane of my existence?”

“But I brought coffee.” Gib grinned at her before pouring her a cup.

She didn’t want to be at ease around him. Ease led to other things, and those things led to worse things, like companionship and someone to lean on. Neil stayed by the door.

Amusement filled his voice. “It’s not poison. Are you cold?”

“It could be Spanish fly. And no, I’m not cold.”

Gib sighed. “You know there’s this saying, if a woman protests too much…”

Neil narrowed her eyes. She could handle this situation two ways, and unfortunately neither option involved cement shoes. She accepted the lesser of the two evils and sat down on the couch across from him, accepting the cup he offered.

“What’s your angle, playboy?”

“Getting chummy with the worksite manager.”

She raised the cup to her lips, threw in a parting shot. “It has nothing to do with the fact that I’m a woman who doesn’t fall at your feet?”

She took a sip and missed his answer, because she was too busy melting into the couch. It was black and strong. The rich taste blossomed on her tongue and it took everything in her not to groan in pleasure. “Did you come straight from Columbia with this stuff?”

“I have it delivered and I grind it myself.” The grin was back, and Neil tried to ignore it. The coffee was bad enough. “I could have sworn we had this conversation before.”

“I believe wholeheartedly in beating the dead horse just so everyone has an understanding.” She took another sip. “Hush for a moment. You’re ruining the coffee.”

“If I’d known…”

She glared at him. He chuckled and leaned back in the chair. His hands ran down the side of the material until he placed them on the edge of the armrests. As she watched his hands, it felt like he was touching her, caressing her skin. She glanced down at the cup. It had to be Spanish fly in this stuff.

She cleared her throat. “I think we need terms.” Otherwise, he’d lace her coffee every morning until she gave.