Chapter Seven
Jack was not one to obsess. He reminded himself of that fact as he obsessed over Ellie’s car in the driveway for the entire weekend. Well, obsessed might be an overstatement. But he noticed it each and every time he passed the front window, each and every time he took the dogs for a walk.
It didn’t help that he’d made a point of spending most of the weekend at home to make sure Dot and Sophia were getting acclimated to their new home.
Which also meant minimal time puttering in the basement on one project or another.
Even curling up on the sofa with one of Kathleen’s romance novels failed to hold his attention.
Again and again, his thoughts drifted to Ellie.
Her cheerful smile, her way of teasing him about one thing or another.
And, if he was being honest, the look of irritation in her eyes when she saw Bea fawning all over him.
Which was the sort of thing that should have made him chuckle if not roll his eyes.
And yet.
He’d also had more than a passing thought about kissing her. Wondering if her mouth would yield under his, what she would taste like. Imagining what those quick and agile fingers would feel like playing across his skin.
It was all the more annoying since he had no intention or opportunity to act on it.
They worked together for Pete’s sake. Not that such a trivial detail had stopped either of his siblings from falling in love with a client.
But Ellie wasn’t even that. She was a colleague.
Sort of. Fellow contractor. He had a code.
A lot of good his code did him on Monday morning when Ellie’s SUV still sat behind Rhett’s. Taunting him. Making him wonder if Ellie and Rhett were the sort of best friends that came with benefits. Not that it was any of his goddamn business.
Gah.
And now he had to get dressed and go to work and bump into her.
On top of which, it was snowing, which would make his drive notably less relaxing.
And his dogs were giving him do-you-have-to eyes.
He ate his oatmeal grumbling, wondering if he should try to beat Ellie in leaving or wait her out.
He settled on the former, always preferring to be early than risk being late.
“I know. I wish I didn’t have to go either.
” Jack arranged the throw blankets on the couch so Dot and Sophia could each have their own, either to dig up as a bed or to burrow under like the filling of a doggie burrito.
“At least on days like this. Snowy winter days should be for good books and big snuggles.”
They snuffled their agreement, but didn’t waste time waiting on him to make themselves comfortable.
He tugged on his boots and coat and spared one final look out the front door.
Ellie’s car remained, covered with the same three inches of snow as his truck, but there was no sign of her.
Perfect. He grabbed his things and stepped onto the front porch the exact moment Ellie did. Because of course.
“Good morning,” Ellie said, in all her perky glory.
He tried to ignore the way her periwinkle puffer jacket made her eyes seem even bluer and gave what he hoped was a friendly nod. “Morning.”
“How are your girls settling in? Were they sad to see you leave?” That playful smile—that had visited more than one of his dreams—spread across Ellie’s lips.
Jack cleared his throat, annoyed that she asked such a perfect question and annoyed that he noticed the way her jeans hugged her thighs. “Logan is going to check on them around lunchtime.”
Her features softened, even though his answer had been both evasive and impersonal. “Maybe it’s harder for you to leave them than the other way around.”
He couldn’t help but laugh at that. Because for all his preference for solitude when it came to people, he was a total softie for animals, and Sophia and Dot had already taken prime real estate in his cold, curmudgeonly heart. “Something like that.”
“It’s always the way. I’ve been gone one night, and I fully expect Emily Dickinson to have me scrambling to make it up to her with nothing more than a tail flick and a look.”
Jack opened his mouth, then closed it, not sure context clues got him all the way to knowing what the hell she was talking about.
“Oh. My cat. Emily Dickinson is my cat.”
“Ah.” Why had he even doubted himself?
“Anyway.” She tipped her head toward the shared driveway. “We should probably get going.”
Seriously? She was telling him to stop chitchatting? “Do you, uh, need help brushing off your car?”
Ellie smirked. “I think I’m good, but thanks.”
She sashayed down the steps, and it hit him she probably took his offer as a come-on.
A clumsy one at that. He let out a low growl and strode to his truck.
After getting the defrost going, he made quick work of the windshield and windows.
Between his hurrying and Ellie’s surprising meticulousness, he finished before she’d made it halfway around her vehicle.
He had another pang of feeling like he should offer to help before kicking himself and going on his way.
He beat her to Hampstead House, obviously, and used the few minutes lead time to haul more coils of wire inside and down to the basement.
Other contractors had arrived and were already at work.
Pablo swept from room to room, making sure people who needed to consult with each other were introduced.
Jack made a point of connecting with the foreman of the main crew, since she’d be overseeing the rearranging of walls and other things that affected him.
All the while, he had to resist the urge to peek out the window for proof Ellie had arrived safely.
It became a moot point when he practically ran into her in the main hall where they’d first met. He’d come up to confirm the configuration of the appliances slated to go in the kitchen, and Ellie was heading to the study, all but swaddled in a drop cloth.
“Sorry,” she said around the tangled mass of canvas.
“Need a hand?”
“What makes you ask?” Ellie laughed, then gave the end dragging on the floor a kick. “I think I’ve got it.”
“Do you always turn down offers of help?” he asked, then immediately wished he hadn’t.
Her eyes narrowed for the briefest of moments, but that playful smile slid almost instantly into place. “Depends on who you ask.”
The coy answer irritated him, perhaps because he’d asked her. Literally. “I guess I’ll stop offering, then.”
“Oh, no. I didn’t mean it like that. I just…” Ellie adjusted the drop cloth in her arms, then attempted to blow a wisp of hair from in front of her eyes. “Bad habit. Thank you for offering.”
Was that a yes or a no? And perhaps more importantly, how did he keep getting into these pseudo-conversations with her? For someone who prided himself on keeping to himself, he wound up talking to Ellie at every turn. “How about I get the door?”
“Perfect. Thank you.”
He swung the door wide and she swept past, trailing a corner of the drop cloth behind her. “Any time.”
She glanced at him over her shoulder, complete with a smirk and wink Logan would insist was flirtatious. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
* * *
The days marched on. Ellie tried to flirt with Jack.
Jack stubbornly resisted. It had become a game, almost, seeing how long she could hold him in conversation before he gruffly excused himself and disappeared into another part of the house.
She tried to tell herself it was all in good fun, but the truth of the matter was that she’d started to get on her own nerves.
Like this morning. Ellie had barely finished her coffee when the banging started.
She generally prided herself on being a morning person, but sleep had been elusive for going on a week now.
Not that she didn’t sleep at all. More that she woke at every unfamiliar sound, often from the sort of dream that didn’t count as a nightmare but left her mind spinning.
“Sexual frustration,” Rhett had said knowingly when they’d met for dinner the night before.
She’d rolled her eyes but couldn’t bring herself to argue.
Mostly because it was true, and she’d never been big on lying.
“I just can’t figure him out. He’s cranky one minute and disarmingly considerate the next.
Some days I feel like he’s avoiding me like the plague and others we’re practically tripping over each other at every turn. ”
“Sounds like he’s into you but doesn’t know what to do about it.”
She’d considered the possibility. “He’s not awkward, though, you know? It’s more like we’re talking and it’s nice and maybe even bordering on flirty, and then he suddenly catches himself and gets annoyed and sulks off to pout by himself for a few hours.”
Rhett had laughed at the assessment. “Oh, so he likes you but doesn’t want to.”
That was the bit that had stayed with her the last few days, had laced her own interactions with Jack and made them even more stilted.
She had half a mind to start avoiding him.
It wasn’t how she worked, though. Not with people in general and certainly not with someone she felt drawn to. Okay, fine. Attracted to.
Reading people—sussing out in an instant what would make them smile or simply feel more at ease—was her superpower. She wasn’t about to hang up her cape because Jack Barrow remained an enigma. Who pouted.
With the satisfaction of a woman who’d settled something hanging over her head, she finished getting ready for the day.
Since she planned to spend it starting the paint work in the study, she donned her favorite overalls and the Chuck Taylors that bore the drips and splats of dozens, if not hundreds, of projects.
She opened the door to the main house, debating whether to seek Jack out or simply make a point of running into him over the course of the day.
A notification ping on her phone stopped her in her tracks.
She looked at the screen and frowned. The moderate snowfall predicted yesterday had turned into a blizzard warning, with heavy accumulations starting midafternoon. Dammit.
Ellie took a deep breath and considered her options.
Work a half day and go hunker with Rhett?
Go forage for provisions now and be prepared to ride things out here?
Since she had a crap ton of work to do, and since she’d lived through more than one blizzard warning that fizzled into a few inches of snow, she settled on the latter.
Running into Jack would just have to wait.
At the store, she bought the basic snowstorm fare—coffee and creamer, a loaf of sandwich bread, peanut butter, some canned soup and crackers, and jarred pasta sauce.
Funny how similar that was to her standard grocery list right now given her limited kitchen facilities.
But since it was blizzard preparation, she rocked a little bit of the unsupervised child in a convenience store vibe, too.
Jalape?o popper flavored cheese puffs, peanut butter cups, and a giant bag of gummy bears.
If she might wind up stuck by herself for a couple of days, she wanted it to feel like a party, not a prison.
After loading up her groceries, she made a detour to the wine store.
She indulged in a mixed case of red, more because the ten percent discount equated to a free bottle than any intentions of drinking herself into a stupor.
Though she considered wine on par with chocolate in situations like this—always better to be prepared.
She stopped by the pet store to grab an extra bag of Emily Dickinson’s preferred food and headed home.
By the time she got back to the house, it was just after noon, and the snow had started to fall. She found Pablo in the kitchen, encouraging people to head home within the hour and hunker safely. He turned to her with a look of concern. “And you, my little chickadee. Will you be okay?”
“Well, I’ve got blankets, junk food, and twelve bottles of wine to keep me company.”
He laughed. “Forget going home to my husband. I’m staying here with you.”
Ellie grinned. There were certainly worse people to be stuck with. “You’re welcome, though it would require sharing a bed with a girl.”
“And that’s my cue to go,” he said.
“I thought so. Drive safe and I’ll see you in a couple of days if we get hit as hard as they’re saying.”
Pablo’s expression turned serious. “I’m prepared to call a snow day. If that happens, don’t feel like you have to be the only one working.”
She appreciated that he’d extend the pass to her, even though she and most of the crew were paid by the project and not the hour. “I’ll play it by ear. Depends on how well the heat holds.”
Pablo rolled his eyes. “If the new furnace fails its first blizzard, just shoot me.”
She wasn’t really worried about that and doubted he was, either. Still, she knocked on a piece of door trim. No point jinxing things when she’d be the only one here to deal with it.
The house emptied quickly. She’d spent enough nights and weekends alone not to find the quiet eerie. If anything, the way the snow muffled sounds from the outside lent a peaceful quality. Like a greeting card, or a snow globe.
Too bad the chimney work hadn’t been completed yet.
It was easy to imagine building a big fire and curling up in the study with a good book and a glass of cabernet, pretending she was the eccentric recluse, tucked away in her manor house.
She’d have to settle for a cozy chair in the corner of her little room.
But since the good book and glass of wine came with that scenario as well, she wasn’t about to complain.
The only question that remained was whether to put in a reasonable workday first or get right to it.