The Christmas Tree Page 10

  He followed her step for step.

  Gritting her teeth, she poked through a tray of ornaments.

  “Haven’t you had enough of ornaments?” he asked from over her right shoulder, his chest pressing against her back as he peered down to look at the offerings.

  She bit back a snarky reply. It wasn’t his fault that she found it unsettling when he acted affably. She was being silly. “I’ll never get tired of Christmas.” Moving to the next booth, she picked up a bag of potpourri, inhaled the sharp scents of cinnamon, apple, and vanilla.

  Colt bent his head, took a sniff. “That’s pretty good.”

  “Yes, I think I’ll get it.” She pulled out her wallet. “I’ll put it in one of my grandmother’s candy dishes.”

  “I know it smells tasty, but you do know you’re not supposed to eat the stuff, right?”

  She took her purchase, rolled her eyes. “Cute. I was about to ask you to join me in one of those pumpkin bars over there, but now I think you can get your own.”

  Colt looked over at the next booth, eyed the cake squares with a hand over his stomach. “Well, that’s just mean, tempting a man like that. Luckily, I got my allowance today so I can buy my own.” He stepped up to the booth and raised two fingers.

  Sadie shook her head. He could be quite charming when he wanted to be. “You don’t have to buy me one.”

  “Who said I was?” Colt paid the woman behind the booth and took the two bars. “These are both for me. I’m hungry.” Taking a bite, he closed his eyes, gave the good-food moan.

  With his eyes closed, she took the natural advantage. She bent her head to the uneaten pumpkin bar in his other hand and took an awkward bite, her nose pressing into his wrist, her teeth scraping into the napkin the bar rested upon. His eyes popped open.

  “You’re right,” she said around the bite. “So good.”

  “I was going to share.” He pushed the sweet at her. “Here, take your ill-gotten gains. That was just gross, you know that, right?”

  Sadie just smiled, munching away. Victory never tasted so sweet as pumpkin and nutmeg.

  The pad of his thumb brushed her lower lip. She froze, stared into his eyes. At his touch, a tingling sensation started under her scalp, crawled down her neck. It was almost unpleasant in its intensity. He didn’t seem to notice her reaction, remaining focused on her mouth. “You have cake smeared under your lip. I think I got most of it.” Lifting his thumb, he pressed it into his mouth, sucked off the pumpkin.

  Sweet Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. She tugged at the collar of her shirt, stopping just short of fanning her flushed face. She had to serve four more days of community service with this man. She couldn’t start imagining all the ways she wanted him to use that mouth, all the places she could smear the cake to be cleaned by his tongue.

  She wrinkled her nose. Well, that fantasy just got a little gross. She had never been one of those people to combine food with sex, and a sticky pumpkin bar seemed like a poor choice to start with. She took another bite of her dessert. It was nice to know she could turn herself off with her own disgusting mind, however. She needed to keep a clear head while she was in Pineville, and Colt wasn’t helping her out at all in that regard, looking all sexy in his snug jeans and buying her pastries.

  Nope, next time she had inappropriate thoughts about her lumberjack, she’d just have to picture herself coated in something gooey and unpleasant. Problem solved.

  “Hey guys! Having a good time?” Allison strode up to them in jeans painted over her lush curves, a fringe suede jacket, and cowboy boots. “Have you seen the alpaca? Isn’t he just the cutest thing ever?”

  “We saw him.” Colt nodded to someone over Sadie’s head. “If you ladies will excuse me, I see one of my friends. See you later.”

  With a quick smile, he was gone, taking her fantasy of how that night might end with him. And good riddance. She should restrict her daydreams to men she didn’t have to work with all day.

  She listened to Allison chatter on, her mind only partly focused on the conversation. Even though she told herself not to look for him, she tracked everywhere Colt went in the crowd, saw when he laughed with his friends, watched when he picked up a child so she could pet the donkey’s nose.

  Her attention finally snapped back to her friend when Allison mentioned getting a pet. “No, you cannot get an alpaca. What on earth would you do with it?”

  Allison pursed her lips. “What do you do with any pet? Take him for walks, teach him to fetch, I don’t know.”

  “Ignoring the fact that you live in a house, not a farm, you work eighteen hours a day. The poor animal would tear up your place while you’re gone.”

  “Maybe.” Allison sucked on her bottom lip. “I think there’s a tax credit if you buy one, though. I’ll talk to my accountant.”

  Sadie shook her head. Her gaze wandered back to the petting zoo, but Colt was gone. She scanned the area but didn’t see him.

  That was fine. She didn’t need to watch him all night. He probably had a date, and good for him.

  Yes, if he was on a date, she would be happy for Colt. Happy if he was happy. She could ignore the tightness around her heart.

  It was probably just heartburn anyway.

  Chapter Eight

  The pounding at her front door dragged Sadie from a warm cocoon of sleep. She groaned and dragged a pillow over her face. Nope. Could still hear it.

  Stumbling out of bed, she slipped into her grandmother’s old terry cloth robe, the fabric worn to a soft nub. “I’m coming,” she hollered down the stairs. If it was a Jehovah’s Witness at the door, the poor soul was not going to get a Christian welcome.

  She flung the front door open, the belligerent greeting sticking in her throat. Colt stood on her porch, a yellow pad of paper in one hand and a white bag from a local bakery in the other. A pencil poked out from behind one ear.

  “Good morning.” He stepped past her and headed for the kitchen.

  She shut the door. “Would you like to come in?” The sarcasm followed Colt down the hall.

  He popped his head out from the kitchen and gave her a lazy grin. “Thanks. Come on in and grab some breakfast.” As he looked her up and down, his smile deepened. “I assume you haven’t already eaten.”

  “No, I haven’t eaten yet.” She stomped into the kitchen, the effect greatly lessened by her bare feet. Colt dug through her cupboards for two plates. “It’s Sunday. A day of rest. Like most people, I was sleeping.” She checked the cheap plastic clock hanging on the wall. “It’s not even eight o’clock yet.”

  Colt reached into the large bag and pulled out a paper cup. “Here. You’ll feel better after your coffee. And most people are at church.” He reached into the bag again and dug out a cruller. He took a large bite. “At least in this town,” he mumbled around the pastry.

  She took a long sip from the cup and immediately felt the caffeinated goodness perk her up. She sat at the kitchen table. “How did you know what coffee I like?”

  “I asked the barista. She said you’ve ordered a caramel latte every morning you’ve been in town.” Colt pulled out his own paper cup. “Not that I would consider that coffee.” He took a sip, then held the cup up to her. “For future reference, French roast, black, one sugar. That’s coffee.”

  “Huh.” She dug through the bag he placed in front of her and took out a bear claw. “Why aren’t you in church?”

  Colt lowered his cup.

  “You know, since you said most people in this town go.” Sadie waited, chewing on her pastry.

  “God and I have a few issues to work out before I go back to church,” he finally said.

  “What about for Christmas? Do you and your dad go to a service then?”

  “Dad does. I don’t.” Colt sat down in the chair across from her and stretched out his legs.

  “Yeah, I haven’t been since the year after my mom died. We were the type that would only go to church on Christmas and Easter. But going to those services alone is depressing. T
oo many happy families.” She lowered her eyes from Colt’s look of sympathy. “I do miss the Christmas carols, though.”

  “Well, if you’re still around Christmas Eve, I’m sure my dad would love the company.”

  “I’m leaving after the tree lighting. I don’t know when I’ll sell this house, but I guess I’ll have to come back to sign papers then.” She rubbed absently at a spot on the Formica table.

  “Ann Arbor is only a couple of hours away,” Colt said. “Close enough for visits.” He stared at her intently, the gold flecks in his eyes glinting in the morning light.

  Sadie didn’t know how to respond. Besides Allison, who would she visit? Him and Connie? The thought made the food in her stomach turn to lead.

  He saved her from the effort of an answer. “Besides, I wanted to talk to you about your house. It’s why I came over this morning.”

  “Oh?”

  “If you sell to Carelli, or anyone, now, you’ll get a low price. But if you fix it up, you can make a lot more. Don’t let David flip your house and get the profit. Do it yourself.”

  She examined Colt and pulled her robe closer around her. “Why would you care? Are you that intent on hurting David’s business?”

  “It’s not about David.” He frowned at her arched eyebrow. “It’s not. Any loss to his business would purely be a side benefit. This is about helping you. You’re in a tight spot financially. Even if you weren’t, wouldn’t it be smart to maximize your gain?”

  “Yes,” Sadie said slowly. Her fingers tapped a staccato rhythm on her cup. “But that’s an investment that will take time and money. Unless I take out another mortgage on my condo, I don’t have the capital to renovate this house.”

  “It’s a good thing you know a contractor.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on the table. “I have a lot of extra material after I complete jobs, which we can use, and anything you need to buy you can get at cost with my contractor’s discount. I’ll supply the labor. Costs will be minimal.” His green eyes swept the kitchen. “After we fix this house up and you stage it, I think it will look like a showpiece.” Colt winked at her and said jokingly, “Who knows, maybe we’ll do such a great job we’ll get into the house-flipping business together.”

  “Are you serious about this?” Her mind whirled with possibilities. They did seem like an ideal pair to flip a house, career-wise, anyhow. Personality-wise was another question. But she could probably increase her profit by thirty or forty thousand dollars. She tapped the ball of her foot against the cold wood floor.

  “About your house, yes.” He dug in the bag for another pastry. “And after you sell your business, you’ll have lots of time to help with the remodel.”

  She got up and pulled a notepad and pen from a drawer before sitting back down. She started listing everything that would need to get done to remodel the house and estimated the costs. She reread the little she could guestimate, clicking the top of her pen. “We’ll have to write up a contract. Would you want a percentage of the profits when we sell the place or a salary?”

  Colt’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not looking to make money off you. My company’s labor is a gift.”

  “A gift?” Her stomach grew all fluttery, but she forced herself to keep on her businesswoman’s cap. “That’s a big gift.”

  “Consider it an advance on all the future apologies I’m going to have to make to you. We both know what a jerk I can be.” He leaned back in his chair and propped an ankle on his knee. “Besides, it won’t be as much as you think. My men usually have some downtime between jobs and I have to pay them regardless.”

  She pushed her cup around in circles on the table. Did she want to spend more time working with Colt? She was becoming used to his gruffness. Even his scruffy face was appealing to her more and more. But Connie had more than likely rubbed her hand across that jaw, felt the soft pelt Sadie’s fingers itched to touch. She didn’t want to spend months watching the two of them together.

  Not that she had a problem with Colt being in a relationship. He could see whomever he wanted. Sadie wrapped the end of her robe’s belt around a finger, her stomach as twisted as the strip of terry cloth. She just didn’t like watching other people’s PDAs. “That’s a really nice offer. Let me think about it, okay?”

  He gazed at her steadily, nodded. His large frame threatened the existence of the small chair beneath him, but he sat as though he didn’t have a care in the world. The corners of his mouth lay flat, not drawn down in their normal scowl. He looked relaxed, adorable, in a Paul Bunyan sort of way, and completely comfortable in her space. This was a different man from the one she had met the night of the accident.

  “Of course.” He pulled the pencil out from behind his ear and picked up his notepad. “Do you mind if I walk around and make notes? If you decide to go forward with this, I want to be able to jump right in.”

  She rose when he did. “Sure. I’m going to go change; then I’ll find you.” She hesitated in the doorway. “Thanks for breakfast.” Taking the stairs two at a time, she raced to her bedroom. She tugged on a pair of jeans and pulled a bulky sweatshirt from the drawer. Not the most flattering of tops, but did it matter? Colt hadn’t denied yesterday that he and Connie were an item.

  But he hadn’t confirmed it, either. Shoving the sweatshirt away, Sadie pulled out a long-sleeve tee with a pretty scoop neck and dropped it over her head. She rushed into the bathroom, shrieked at her reflection. She put a hand to her hair and closed her eyes. Colt had seen this rat’s nest.

  Quickly running a brush through her hair, she gathered it into a low ponytail. Casual but cute. A couple swipes of mascara and a bit of lip gloss and Sadie was ready to face him again. She thought about his proposal and grinned at her reflection. Maybe this forced vacation would turn out better than she’d imagined. A new business opportunity with a hot guy, one who might just have a center of kindness under his candy coating of jerkiness. Several more weeks of watching him up on a ladder . . . Her skin grew tight just thinking about it. If they did work together to flip her house, they would be spending a lot of time in each other’s company. A month-long fling with the sexy teddy bear could be just what she needed.

  She found him in the downstairs guest bedroom. He was poking his pencil into the wooden frame around the window.

  “There might be some rot. I don’t think it’s termites, but we’ll have to get an inspector out here.” He scribbled some notes. “If you decide to do this, of course.”

  They walked through the house, Colt jotting down ideas and pointing out problem areas. She listed everything he said in her notebook. They ended up on the back porch. Rosebushes, desperately needing pruning, bordered the deck, and the bones of an abandoned garden lay off to one side. Her grandmother had enjoyed gardening until arthritis had made the hobby too painful. An overgrown lawn stretched into a grove of fruit trees still dripping with the morning dew. Memories of time spent with her grandmother, the two of them climbing together in those trees brought a burn of tears to her eyes. Her nana had been such a sweet woman. And impressively spry, too, pretending to be a monkey, well into her fifties.

  Sadie had known something was wrong between her parents that summer. She was old enough to recognize the tension but too young to understand divorce. She hadn’t wanted to be sent away from her home, knowing something terrible was going to happen while she was gone, but her grandmother had given her a summer of good memories.

  “These porch stairs need to be replaced. You shouldn’t use them until they are. Sadie?” He touched her arm.

  Colt’s hand on her snapped Sadie back into the present. “Huh? Oh, yeah, new stairs.”

  “What are you looking at?”

  “Just my past.” She curved her lips. “I used to play in those apple trees.” She pointed at the orchard. “I had a lot of fun running around here. There’s even a creek at the edge of the property. I made paper boats and watched them sail away.”

  “How much land did your grandmother own?” Colt asked. />
  “The lot sits on roughly two acres. My grandmother didn’t do much to maintain it, but there are still fruit trees that produce. And it’s awfully pretty to look at.”

  “It’s a great place for kids.” He leaned against the porch railing and crossed his arms. “I bet once we fix the house up, a family would love to live here.”

  She felt an ache in her chest. “Yeah, a family with kids would be great. For this house,” she quickly added. She turned to the back door. “Shall we go in?”

  “Yep. I’m done. Do you have any hiking boots here?” Colt followed her into the house.

  “No. Why?” She looked up at him, tilting her head to one side.

  “To hike in, obviously.” He studied her feet. “Those sneakers will have to do.”

  “Colt, what are you talking about?” She spoke slowly, as if English were his second language.

  “You. Me. Hiking on some of those trails Janice told you about yesterday.” He raised his eyebrows. “Come on. Get a move on. The day’s a-wasting.”

  She fought to keep from smiling. “Asking me would be nice.”

  “And we both know I’m not nice, so let’s not waste time on that.” He turned toward the kitchen. “Go get a coat or something and I’ll look for snacks.”

  He disappeared into her kitchen, his head skimming just below the top of the doorway. Warmth coiled through her belly. The man seemed fairly untrainable when it came to the conventions of polite society. That only made his actions all the more sincere.

  She headed up the stairs to retrieve her sweatshirt and some gloves. She had never been the type of woman to fight for a man’s attention. And she never wanted to be someone who broke up another couple. Her mother had been too hurt by her father’s infidelity for Sadie to ever be the other woman. But until she learned otherwise, she was going to assume Colt was fair game.

  A spark of excitement raced down her spine at the thought of allowing a little romance into her life. She had been concentrating on her business and ignoring her personal needs for far too long. She didn’t even know if she remembered how to play the game.