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She flicked a curl out of her eye and beamed a smile up at him. “I’ll go have a look.”
“Please. Be my guest.”
A beat passed before she turned, as if expecting more from him. When he didn’t deliver, she whistled at the dogs, bringing the trio of them to their feet. “Come on, boys. Come on.” She coaxed them down the hallway with vigorous scratches behind their ears.
Without realizing right away what he was doing, Julian followed them.
Everything about her movements drew the eye. They were harried and controlled all at once. She was a walking whirlwind, knocking into her dogs, apologizing to them, and turning in circles, searching for the handle of this faucet. In and out of rooms she went, muttering to herself, surrounded by her pack of animals.
He couldn’t look away.
Before Julian knew it, he’d followed Hallie into the laundry room, finding her on hands and knees, trying to wrench a circular piece of metal to the left, her dogs barking as though delivering encouragement or possibly instructions.
Had this house really been dead silent five minutes ago?
“I’ve almost got it, boys, hold on.” She groaned, strained, her hips tilting up, and the blood in his head rushed south so quickly, he nearly saw double.
One of the dogs turned and barked at him.
As if to say, Why are you just standing there, asshole? Help her.
His only excuse was being thoroughly distracted by the lightning jolt of energy she’d delivered to his space in a matter of moments. And yes, also by her attractiveness—an odd cross between radiant pinup girl and unkempt earth mother—and being distracted by her appearance wasn’t appropriate at all. “Please get off the floor,” Julian said briskly, unfastening the buttons on the wrists of his dress shirt and rolling up the sleeves. “I’ll turn it on.”
When she scooted back and stood, her hair was even more disarrayed than before and she had to tug down her ridden-up jean shorts. “Thanks,” she breathed.
Was she staring at his forearms?
“Of course,” he said slowly, taking her spot on the floor.
In the reflection of the handle, he could have sworn she was smiling at his bent-over form, specifically his ass, but the image was probably just inverted.
Unless it wasn’t?
Shaking his head over the whole odd situation, Julian gripped the handle and wrenched it left, turning until it stopped. “Done. Do you want to check it out?”
“I am,” she said throatily. “Oh, the hose? I—I’m sure the water is on now. Thank you.”
Julian came to his feet just in time to watch Hallie tornado her way out of the house, her canine admirers following her with utter devotion in their eyes, their nails clicking over his hardwood floor until they disappeared outside. Silence descended hard.
Thank God.
Still, he followed Hallie.
No idea why. His work was waiting.
Maybe because he felt this oddly unsettled feeling, like he’d failed a test.
Or perhaps because he’d never answered her question.
Is it true? That you won’t let yourself have a drink at the end of the day unless you write for the full thirty minutes?
If this young woman was blunt enough to ask a stranger about his habits, there was a good chance she would have several uncomfortable follow-ups, which he didn’t have the time or inclination to answer. Yet he continued to the porch, anyway, watching as she lowered the gate on her white pickup truck and started to unload pallets of red flowers. The tiny woman who barely reached his chin staggered under the weight of the first load of flowers, and Julian lurched forward without thinking, the dogs yipping at his approach. “I’ll carry the flowers. Just tell me where you want them.”
“I’m not sure yet! Just set them down on the lawn. Where that line of shrubs begins.”
Lifting a pallet of flowers, Julian frowned. “You’re not sure where they’re going?”
Hallie smiled over her shoulder. “Not yet.”
“When will you decide where they should go?”
The gardener dropped to her knees, leaned forward, and smoothed her hands over the turned brown soil. “The flowers more or less decide for themselves. I’ll move them around in their individual containers until they look just right.”
Julian didn’t exactly love the sound of that. He stopped a few feet away, trying and failing not to notice the strands of frayed, white denim lying on the backs of her thighs. “They will be an equal distance apart, I assume.”
“Maybe on accident?”
That did it. His mother was definitely punishing him. She’d sent him this curvaceous gardener to throw off his concentration and flaunt his need for organization. Detailed plans. A schedule. Relative sanity.
She laughed at his expression, stood, and chewed her lip a moment. Brushed her hands down the worn-in lap of her shorts. Was she blushing now? Back in the house, he could have sworn she was cataloguing his physique. Now, however, she ducked past him, almost as if too shy to look him in the eye. The mini blond hurricane returned to the truck for a canvas bag full of tools, then picked her way back across the yard in his direction. “So,” she started on her way past him. “You took a break from teaching to write a book. That’s so exciting. What made you decide to do that?”
