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“You have paint in your hair,” he said, pulling forward a strand that was white from root to tip.
Right.
“I’m renovating,” she muttered, moving quickly to her new butcher’s sink to madly wash out the paint. And to silently yell at herself to get a grip!
Nate had agreed to move into a holding pattern. The fact that he was here with the dossier proved it. He was trying to uphold his end of the deal. Perhaps even going the extra mile to “repay” her in other ways, as he’d out-and-out told her he’d wanted to do.
Glancing up from beneath her wet hair, she saw him taking in the gorgeous new wooden cabinets she’d installed herself, the deep turquoise walls and tiny red tiles, and the old vinyl floor she’d yet to replace, before his bluer than blue eyes landed on her. And her now dripping hair. She tucked it behind her ear.
“New?” he asked.
“As of about three days ago.”
“And I can smell paint.”
“That was this morning.”
“You’ve had a house full of contractors?” he asked, both eyebrows lifting towards his hairline.
“I did most of it myself.”
“By yourself?” he asked.
“Mostly. I haven’t tackled the electrics, so don’t panic. You’re safe.”
His mouth kicked at one corner. Safe? As if he’d felt unsafe before? Afraid she might jump him at any instant? Maybe he was right to worry. He nearly filled her small kitchen, and catching his scent with every breath was making her head spin.
She gripped the sink and leaned back. “It came to a bit of a standstill after my ex took off with all my stuff, so I’ve gone a bit crazy this week because it’s the first chance I’ve had to do so in so long.”
“I thought you said it was just your TV?” he said, his eyes pinning her to the spot.
“And my surround sound.”
“And...?”
She twisted her mouth, wondering if she oughtn’t just blow him off, change the subject, flash her boobs, anything not to have to talk about that. But he was looking at her in that way he did—interested and protective. As if should Stu be in the room he’d no longer be attached to his man parts. And then there was the fact of the dossier, sitting on her small red Formica kitchen table.
She checked the coffee grounds, then rested her hands on the settings. And in a rush of breath, she admitted, “And my computers, my books, CDs, DVDs, coffee maker, toaster, every piece of furniture. He wiped out my bank balance and took all my shoes. My neighbour saw him back up the truck, and thought we were moving. He left Ernest, a couple of tins of the only brand of dog food that he doesn’t like, a phone bill in my name that would cripple a small country and backed the truck into my car before disappearing into the sunset.”
She turned on the coffee machine so it filled the air with the noise of coffee beans crushing and the delirious scent of the same. When the coffees were made she turned back to find Nate had shoved a hip against the kitchen bench. His thumbs went into the waistband of his jeans, so his hands framed the contents therein.
He said, “Hence the debt?”
“Hence the debt.”
Nate looked around again, seeming to see her place with a fresh eye. “Have you tracked him down?”
“Stu? Good God, no.” The note he’d left had been more than she could take. “I’m fine now. I have a job that’s getting more and more successful, I have a roof over my head, I have a cute sugar daddy—what more do I need?”
Nate’s eyes were slanted to her, a frown above his nose—until her meaning dawned and the frown turned into a smile. And then a deep laugh filled her small kitchen, before bouncing around inside the cavity of her chest awhile.
Needing something to do with her hands other than place them on the big man in her kitchen, she shoved a double espresso at him, grabbed her own coffee and the dossier and ducked past him back into the large main room, which was now blistering with heat from the fire. At least she assumed it was the fire. But there was no way she was about to dim it—that would be as good as saying Is it hot in here or is it just me?
“The place was barely inhabitable when I bought it,” she said, giving him the grand tour. “Decades-old wallpaper dangling off the walls. Holes in the ceiling. A bathroom floor near rotted through. The ultimate fixer-upper.”
“And you are a sucker for a new project?” he said, pulling from nowhere a comment she’d made in passing weeks back.
Once again Saskia had to remind herself—just because he looked a little ruffled, and rumpled, and faded, and warm, and cuddly, and was saying nice things about her home, it didn’t mean he was any closer to wanting what she wanted from life than he was a few days ago.
