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‘Why not with me? Is there something wrong with me?’ She looked offended, and that had not been his intention. So what else was new? ‘Am I so unattractive all of a sudden?’
‘You know damn well you’re not,’ he said, not sure if she was fishing for a compliment, or simply trying to piss him off. Either way it was working. ‘But that’s the whole problem, I’m here for a month, six weeks tops, and I don’t need the complication.’
‘It doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s just a biological urge.’
She sounded like she meant it. Maybe she did, or thought she did. But she was kidding herself, and he wasn’t that easily fooled.
Ruby Graham was a romantic. But unlike his mom, she was also the real deal.
The sort of woman who probably teared up watching cheesy movies, but who wouldn’t cry when her heart was breaking. The sort of woman who believed in fighting for hopeless causes, and would happily risk arrest to make a dead guy’s dying wish come true.
‘Whatever,’ he said. ‘I’m not indulging my biological urges with you. You’re too nice.’
‘I’m too …’ Her face screwed up in horror. Okay, he’d upset her now, as well as offending her, but what choice did he have? ‘I’m not nice,’ she sounded appalled. ‘I’m a badass, you said so yourself.’
‘I wasn’t thinking straight when I said that.’ Hell, he hadn’t been thinking at all. But he was thinking fine now – give or take the odd rush of blood from his brain – and if he couldn’t let her down easy, he would just have to let her down hard. ‘Don’t push me, Ruby, or we’ll have to call this whole arrangement off. And I don’t want to do that. Do you?’
Her face fell and he saw the moment the fight went out of her. ‘No, I don’t.’
He hooked his thumbs into the front pockets of his jeans, hunched his shoulders, feeling vaguely guilty for putting the defeated look into her eyes. Which was dumb. He’d given it to her straight. He didn’t hook up with women who were likely to misconstrue sex for something else. Especially if he was in danger of misconstruing it for something else, too … He already liked Ruby, too much. She made him laugh, she seemed genuine, boning her would create problems he did not need.
‘You want me to write you that list now?’ he asked.
‘Just tell me,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a very good memory.’
He reeled off the list of things he needed to jerry-rig her boiler, all business again. Unfortunately, he didn’t feel all business, as she headed off to purchase the stuff he needed, and he headed down to the theatre’s basement to get his tools.
But he’d get there, eventually, he reassured himself – especially if he didn’t make the mistake of offering to rinse her hair again any time soon.
Chapter 9
‘Luke the Builder’s buns are a work of art are they not?’ Jacie whispered theatrically as she gazed past the bar at the back of the auditorium to where Luke was busy up a ladder finishing off the repair work on the auditorium’s cornice. ‘Everything they say about men in tool belts is true,’ Jacie purred, as she helped Ruby polish the bar for the start of the LGBTQIA+ weekender in four hours.
‘Stop objectifying his arse, Jace, it’s so uncool,’ Ruby hissed, trying and failing not to glance in Luke’s direction herself.
Her scalp bristled from the memory of his fingers circling her skin that morning as he reached forward to mould the last of the filler into the cracks on the cornice.
The man was fitness personified. Seriously, it wasn’t fair. Then again, she deserved every ounce of sexual frustration she was suffering from. Maybe if she hadn’t molested him this morning after he did her a favour – two favours if you counted his miraculous ability to get her boiler working again – her hormones wouldn’t have been in a hot mess ever since.
‘Stop being such a killjoy,’ Jacie hissed back. ‘He can’t hear us, and anyway, you’ve been objectifying those buns of steel, too. I’ve seen you.’
Ruby swallowed down her retort and sprayed some more polish. Jacie wasn’t wrong, and arguing about it with her would just make her think about Luke’s buns more and she’d been thinking – and watching – them enough already.
‘Hey Ruby,’ Gerry appeared from the lobby area, juggling the large mailing box which contained the Brokeback Mountain print and the handset from the phone in the ticket office. ‘I’m just gonna take this up to Errol, you wanna check it with us?’
‘Sure,’ Ruby murmured, although she wasn’t sure watching Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar get hot and bothered in a pup tent was really going to help with her hormonal problem. ‘Why have you brought the phone in?’
‘Oh, yeah, I forgot.’ Gerry placed the parcel full of film reels on the bar. ‘There’s a lady on the phone asking for the manager of The Royale.’ He placed his hand on the mouthpiece. ‘I didn’t catch her name but she sounded important.’
‘Thanks, Gerry.’ Ruby took the phone while stifling a sigh.
Important-sounding ladies on the phone could mean one of two things, neither of them good: the bank was calling to harass her about their debit bank balance, again, or one of her suppliers wasn’t prepared to wait any longer to get their invoice paid.
‘Hello, this is Ruby Graham, I’m the manager of The Royale,’ she said into the receiver.
‘Ruby, hello, it’s so wonderful to finally speak to you at last.’ The crisp British accent echoed down the phone line. ‘I’ve been meaning to call you for days.’
‘Hi, that’s … thanks,’ Ruby said feeling overwhelmed while also completely nonplussed. ‘It’s wonderful to speak to you, too …’ I think.
