Longed

I longed to dart back inside for my camera, but I already looked like a loon. A robe-wearing loon with a camera would definitely not be better. The man stepped around the car, gazing up at the half-built house, and I chastised myself for staring. My fascination, beyond his movie-hunk looks, was that this man was clearly different from the other people I’d seen up here, but he still managed to fit in. Something I hadn’t mastered. “How much?” the man asked, speaking to Jack. “How much what?” I asked, my voice bordering on a high-pitched scream. What was going on here? Jack ignored me. “I guess given the state, and the fact that winter’s not far out, the better question is what’s it worth to you?” The man walked around the house, stepping into rooms, and testing structural beams with his hands and his body weight. While he wandered around inside my house, I stepped down the front step of the trailer and stomped through the dust in my pink slippers to where Jack stood with his arms crossed. “What is going on?” I hissed. Jack raised an eyebrow as he looked me, his eyes sliding down to my chest. “Is that the teddy from our wedding night?”

I glanced down, horrified to see a flash of leopard-print silk exposed in the deep V-neck of the robe. “No.” But of course it was. He was right. My humiliation was practically complete. “You can take the girl out of the city …” Jack grinned, shaking his head. I pulled the robe tighter. So what if I still wore my expensive lingerie to bed? I deserved nice things. Even if Jack had taken most of them from me. “What the hell are you doing?” “Selling the house for you.” “For me?” “Thought you’d appreciate the help.” “I don’t want your help, you cheating ***!” The man had stopped examining the house and was looking toward me now, a tilt to his head and a half-smile on those sculpted lips. I wished he’d take off those damned shades so I could see what he thought of this whole exchange, which he had surely overheard. I didn’t know why I cared. “This is my house, Jack. Maybe you forgot. Maybe you’re so overwhelmed by the details of managing your own house—the one that has actual walls and a roof and working plumbing and sits on a nice street in a real city—Maybe that’s all so overwhelming that you forgot this heap is mine.” Jack had the grace to drop my gaze for a split second. But then the smile appeared again. So freakin’ confident. “I didn’t think you really wanted it. Wouldn’t you rather have the cash?” I might, but definitely not with his help. “Isn’t that for me to decide?”

“You’ve been sitting on it for four months, love. It’s gonna rain and snow and blow up here before much longer. If someone’s gonna build some walls, they need to do it now. Not good for the frame to sit out exposed like this for so long.” “That’s not really your concern. And since when are you a construction expert?” Jack took my elbow in a conciliatory gesture, and I wrenched out of his grasp. “Don’t touch me!” He offered me his most condescending smile, the one reserved for willful children and, of course, for me. “This gentleman is serious. He called as soon as the ad went live. He’s got money. Wants to pay cash. I still care about you, Maddie, and I’m trying to help. ” I sniffed. His platitudes would do very little to ease my burning desire to see him foundering in a pit of venomous pythons or drowning in a giant vat of scalding pea soup. “I’ll tell you what would help me then. Talk to my lawyer next time she calls instead of dodging her! Give me what you owe me and then get out of my life, stay out of it, and get the hell off my property.” I raised my chin and pointed it toward the strapping stranger who’d gone back to testing the foundation. “Both of you! Get off my property! It is not for sale!” I leveled my gaze at Jack again. “And take down whatever listing you put up!”

I marched over and grasped the sides of the For Sale sign that Jack had planted and gave it a mighty tug. Naturally it wouldn’t budge, and both men were staring at me as I pulled on the thing, squatting down low in my robe and slippers so I could put some back into it. I tugged again, like a Sumo wrestler lifting an opponent (did they even do that?) but the thing was stuck. I let out an unintentional grunt with my third failed attempt and then winced in shame. The entire world was conspiring to ensure that I looked like a complete idiot whenever possible. I bent my knees once more and really put my body into it, pulling as hard as I could, but the sign was planted like a Sugar Pine, roots deep and wrapped around granite. “Let me give you a hand.” The voice that rolled over my shoulder was low and smooth. Not Jack. The stranger. Before I had time to respond, two strong hands reached around the sides of me, grasping the sign below my hands. He was standing directly behind me, practically hugging me. As if things weren’t awkward enough. And he was close enough that I could smell him—some distracting combination of the woods and baked goods seemed to waft off of him. “On three,” he said. “One, two …” We pulled together and the sign popped out of the ground. The sudden release sent me backwards, of course, right into the solid chest of this complete stranger who had just been sizing up the irritating relic of my former life. I practically bounced off him in an effort to get some space between us, and then pulled my robe back together, glancing up at him.

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