‘You’re not paying me,’ he answered calmly and stepped off the ladder.
‘Yes, I am.’ They hadn’t discussed it, but there was no way in hell she’d let him work for her for free. She wasn’t in the habit of indenturing slaves.
He kicked the ladder closed and laid it down on the ground, then stepped close to her, so close she could feel the heat radiating off his body. She didn’t back up, though, because she was Little Miss Risk Taker.
Ocean blue eyes bore into hers. ‘No,’ he said, the deep yet soft tone of his voice making her toes curl.
Held captive by his hypnotic stare, she breathed a sigh of relief when his gaze dropped, releasing her—except he let it travel over her face, her neck and lower, to her chest, which, to her mortification, heaved with every breath she took.
Finally, his eyes met hers once more, then he leaned closer still, making her breath hitch, and his mouth ended up somewhere near her ear.
‘You’re not,’ he finished, clearly enunciating the T, the crisp sound reverberating in her ear drum and freeing her from her trance.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem to have noticed that she was mere seconds away from collapsing because he’d turned and was currently loping around the corner.
Yep, they were definitely flirting. And if they weren’t, she pitied any woman hediddecide to flirt with. Now that he was out of sight, though, all her bravado was gone and she was terrified of facing him again. Gah, she didn’t know how to do this! She couldn’t. She was totally clueless and would only end up making a fool of herself.
Noah poked his head round the corner. ‘You coming or what?’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ she huffed. ‘Hold your horses!’
As she stomped after him, she resolved to discuss the non-negotiable issue of payment at a later stage, one that wasn’t fuelled with so much tension and … burning thirst.
When she joined him, though, she noticed a change in his demeanour. He stared up at the house, his brow furrowed and the tip of his tongue poking from the corner of his mouth. Beth looked in the same direction, trying to gauge what he was thinking, but there was nothing particularly interesting about what she saw—just a brick wall, some windows and a porch that led to the laundry. Before she could enquire if something was wrong, Noah spun around to face the empty field behind them. She stared at his profile, distracted by the strength of his jawline, then cleared her throat and attempted to remind him, and herself, why they were there.
‘Um—’ she lifted a finger and jabbed it towards the house, ‘—you know we’re here to discuss fixing this, right?’
He let out a long-suffering sigh. ‘Just turn around.’
When she took too long to act, he grabbed her shoulders and spun her.
‘What are we looking at?’ she asked. ‘You know, besides grass.’
He pointed into the distance. ‘See those trees?’
Assuming he meant the tree line at the bottom of the gently sloping field, she nodded. ‘Yeah, I see them.’
‘That’s the boundary of your property. And behind those trees—’ he rubbed his chin, making it clear he was simply thinking out loud, ‘—is the Blackwood River.’
He turned to face the house again and this time she followed, intrigued. Because, honestly, she was starting to feel like an observer, a fly on the wall in the studio of a master at work.
‘Talk me through the floor plan of this place,’ he said, crossing his arms and tucking his hands in his armpits.
After she’d described the internal layout, he glanced over his shoulder towards the tree line and the river beyond.
‘Hmm …’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! Will you just tell me what you’re thinking?’
When he grinned and gifted her a victorious wink, she realised she’d been duped. He’d been stringing her along on purpose, just to annoy her. Infuriating man!
‘Right,’ he said, suddenly all business. ‘Let’s go out on a limb and say there’s nothing wrong with the foundations and that it was water damage that caused the ceiling to collapse. If that’s what we’re working with, then the way I see it is you’ve got two options. With option one, the best case scenario is that we fix the leak, repair the ceiling and replace the insulation. Worst case, we’ll need to do all that, plus treat the timber for dry rot and replace a few of the joists and trusses if they’re too far gone.’
‘Okay.’ Beth nodded, certain she was following. ‘And option two?’
‘Option two is that you go for a light and airy feel.’
She waited for the rest, but he failed to deliver.
