“Well?” he asked again, lowering the wood and the toolbox to the unfinished concrete floor. “Is she okay? Because I saw her on my drive home last night having a nice late night walk with your sister.”
Jamie swallowed and blinked. She tightened her hold on the bottle of wine, then finally met his gaze. But said nothing.
“You didn’t have to walk Henrietta,” he said, staring hard at her. Waiting for a reply. He held his hands out wide.
“I know,” she said, looking at her feet.
“So you lied. What was that about? You just took off.”
“Yeah. What of it?” she said with a steely-eyed coolness.
Whoa. This wasn’t the Jamie he knew. Something was wrong. Something was off. Jamie was feisty, Jamie was sassy, but Jamie was never blasé. Jamie always cared. About everything from her job to her family to beating his ass in bowling when she could.
Then it hit him. She regretted it. Whether because their night had tarnished their friendship, or because he’d come on too strong with his rough ways and his dirty mouth, when he should have started more slowly with her, taken his time. He had to rein in his annoyance over last night and over work and smooth things out with her. Say he was sorry for taking her against the wall, instead of taking her out to a candlelight dinner and wooing her properly.
He walked over to her, letting go of the anger over her lying about the dog. He needed to reassure her. They stood inches away in the middle of the room. It was late afternoon, but the lights hadn’t been installed in this section of the bar yet, so there were shadows across the two of them. “I thought we were having a good time. Hell, I know I was, and you sure seemed to be too. So will you need to take off again if I ask you out on a date?”
Her mouth dropped open. She stared at him as if he were speaking Swahili.
“A date,” he continued. “That thing where two people who like each other spend more time together. You’ve heard of it?”
“What kind of a date?”
“Something you’d like. I can take you out to dinner. We can go to a bookstore and browse if you want,” he said, trying hard to latch onto something that would win her over. Her lips quirked up as he asked her, but then she quickly reined it in and fixed her mouth in a straight, impassive line.
“I don’t know if we should date, per se,” she said, then let her voice trail off, and there was something almost suggestive in her tone. As if she were inviting him in for more. But he didn’t want to read her the wrong way. So rather than assume, he decided to be direct.
He reached out and brushed a strand of blond hair away from her neck, trying for softness. He’d scanned through a few romance novels on his smartphone last night; the heroes were always brushing hair off a woman’s face, neck, or shoulder. Maybe emulating those sensitive dudes would help him. “I’m sorry. Was I too rough?”
She tilted her head and shot him a questioning look. “Too rough?”
“I should have been gentler, right?” He was damn near ready to kick himself for letting his dirty thoughts get the better of him last night. He wished he could rewind the last twenty-four hours and try again with her. Court her properly, like a gentleman. He’d never been good with sweet words—love and romance. He certainly hadn’t seen that from his parents—more like vitriol when they’d split, though he’d tried hard to keep them together.
Nor did sweetness fit his life these days. Fighting fires, tending to drunk driving accidents, as well as his regular construction job—well, they weren’t conducive to bringing out the poet in him. Teasing, joking—those were easier ways to deal. When it came to women, he was much better off when he didn’t try to be the sweet, sensitive guy.
But he was going to have to work harder for her. “You don’t want to try again? Give us another chance? Because I thought we were pretty good together last night when we were making love,” he said, hoping using sweeter words might work on her.
A smile danced across her lips again. “We were,” she said.
Okay, so they were getting somewhere. “I’m so glad you agree,” he said running his hand down her bare arm, and enjoying the way she shivered in response. “Do you want to try again?”
“It’s just I thought we could try something else,” she said, and she seemed to be taking her time, trying to figure out exactly what to say.
He was dying to know what she wanted to try, so he jumped at the invitation. “Try what?”
She was about to answer when Becker walked in. “Jamie, your sister’s here. And she seems kind of upset.”
The look in her eyes changed in a nanosecond to one of deep concern. He swore he could hear her heart beat fast, and the worry pound through her veins as she swiveled around, looking for her sister. He understood needing to talk to someone when times were tough; he hadn’t had that luxury when he was younger and watched his parents’ marriage sever. He had to give her some space.
Jamie turned to him and started to explain. “My sister. Her divorce has been hard on her.”
“Yeah, I know. That sucks,” he said, and smiled sympathetically. Whatever she wanted to try needed to be tabled. He knew her sister had to come first. “Go talk to her. She needs you.”
Chapter Five
Asking Smith to have a no-strings-attached affair was like trying to speak underwater. She couldn’t get the words out clear. She’d barely been able to manage the word try. But she shoved all thoughts of him aside for the time being.