Hands On (8 page)

Something he said tickled her brain. “Gold-digger,” she mused aloud. “Sounds like she was doing pretty well already with those paintings. You must be seriously well-off for her to dig for gold.”

“I do okay.” His voice was cool again.

“So do I,” she countered. “It’s a nonprofit, but Helping Hands pays okay.”

That got his interest. “Excellent. And you’re investing wisely, I hope.”

She shrugged, frowning. Investing wasn’t high on her list of priorities at the moment.

But he persisted. “A diversified portfolio is important. And so is a qualified financial advisor. It’s never too early to save for retirement.”

“Let me guess. You’re a qualified financial advisor.” She teased him. “You trying to drum up business here?”

His mouth fell open. “Drum up business?”

“Oh, I don’t mind. It’s cute. ‘It’s never too early to save for retirement.’ You’re a nerd!” She gave in to the temptation that had plagued her since he first positioned himself so close and hugged him.

She felt his body remain stiff for a moment. Then with an exhale that tickled her ear, he wrapped his arms around her too. The feel of him was better than she remembered. His warmth paired with his bulges and muscles in all the right places made a thrill of wanting zip all through her like forks of lightning.

“A nerd. That’s a new one.” His voice, low and amused, rumbled against her. “And you, my dear, are entirely too tempting.” He held her even more tightly for a moment, letting her feel exactly how enticing he found her, then stepped back. The items on the bench seemed to grab his attention. His voice still carried warmth. “And motivated and talented too. You’ve already given Jeffrey a new arm.”

Pleased, she pulled the string that controlled the arm and simultaneously levered the fingers. A wave.

“I’m sure you earn your pay at Helping Hands. As you would wherever else you chose to work.” He sounded approving.

“I wish I earned it doing this all the time.” The puppet trembled, then jumped to one side, cocking a hip, lifting a knee. Waggled his behind. A complex boogie. Ginnie smiled, feeling both proud and sad. “I’m in Events Management. Good money, right, very good, even, but…well, it’s not a creative position. Unless you consider setting financial goals, supervising grant requests and, most of all, controlling the workflow of subordinates creative.”

“Controlling your subordinates?”

Ginnie looked at him, but his gaze was on her hands as she untangled more marionette strings. “Someone has to set the performers and secretaries straight about the urgency of matters. Take the reins, be proactive, motivate people to do more than the minimum.” She didn’t tell him she’d been taken aside by two of the older ladies last week. During that closed-door meeting, she’d been accused of being a micro-manager, too controlling, not a team player. But their reaction was due to being intimidated by her, Ginnie was pretty sure. She’d explained herself to them. “I’d sure like to be behind the stage instead, though,” Ginnie finished, wistful. “It’s a joy to make your work come alive, connecting with the audience and inspiring imaginations in ways TV and Hollywood can’t touch.”

“So, why don’t you? If you enjoy it, do it.”

“It’s not that easy.” She should know. She’d had the years of apprenticeship, building sets and creating marionettes, touring with a medium-sized company. She’d lived and breathed puppetry for the better part of a decade. She’d actually gotten quite good.

Then Rick happened, and the gravitational pull back into her mother’s orbit and the accompanying destruction of the confidence she’d built up.

“It’s never easy,” she said. “Especially when the most important people in your life think it’s a silly habit of just playing with dolls. It’s really not. It’s a challenging form of art to operate a good puppet show, not to mention making handcrafted, quality marionettes.”

He nodded. Hesitated. “I occasionally perform construction on buildings along with the contractors. Woodworking, mostly. It can be rewarding to build something complex with your own hands. I imagine it’s like that for you?”

“Yes.” A warm glow of gratification unfurled inside her. He understood. “Exactly. But then again, bills have to be paid. Besides, they need me where I’m at.”

“Supervising.” Harry picked up a female marionette’s wooden handle. He jiggled it, and the painted girl jiggled too. He manipulated the finger-crank controlling her mouth—open, closed—and tugged on the strings to make her bend her knees.

Delighted, Ginnie boogied Little Jeffrey in a half-circle around the girl, a vigorous courtship. The girl wasn’t that good of a dancer and seemed somewhat mentally challenged, the way she gaped her mouth open and closed like a fish. And Little Jeffrey’s smashed face appeared a bit gruesome, as if he were a victim of some horrible mugging. But Little Jeffrey’s undiminished ardor for the girl had him bending and twisting and occasionally high-kicking, as if he were possessed by a passion beyond his control.

They danced awkwardly, and Ginnie laughed until tears ran down her cheeks. Harry had a broad grin too, she noted with satisfaction. “You’re a natural,” she praised him.

“Liar. You’re the natural.” He laid the puppet aside with obvious reluctance. “That was fun.”

“It is fun, isn’t it?” They looked at each other, still smiling. She dragged her gaze away with an effort. She noticed he immediately stepped farther away. He didn’t want a relationship.

Why not? Not that she necessarily wanted one, either, but…

He liked her and he wanted her, she could tell. And he was the sexiest thing she’d ever known. And he was a hottie with a fabulous house. And they had fun. She was willing to bet Harry didn’t have fun very often. “Harry, what did Jaye Rae do to you?” she blurted.

His head whipped back, and his eyes ignited with an icy blue fire. He didn’t speak, only stared at her. It made her feel as if she were a novice with a puppet on stage for the first time, alone in the glare of spotlights without a clue what her line was supposed to be.

“Never mind.” She gathered up Little Jeffrey. She needed more materials from her own basement. She needed supplies from the store.

No, she needed answers.

She put down the puppet.

“Never mind the never mind. Harry, I don’t want to pry, but whatever it is, it can’t be that bad. You’re a wonderful, generous, attractive man in your prime. With great taste in tenants.” The joke fell flat. “Breakups can mess with your mind,” she said, speaking from experience. “I’m a good listener, if you want to open up about it. Go ahead. It’s safe.”

Harry continued to stare at her.

Finally he spoke. His controlled voice, so different from the carefree one of just a few moments before, gave her a chill. “I appreciate your good intentions. But don’t tell me what to do.”

She felt slapped.

“I don’t share, I don’t open up, I don’t have the slightest need to add up the same old problems to see if I can get a different solution. It’s done. It’s simple—I was a chump. Now I’m a cold son of a bitch, and I’m not ever going to change.”

“He’s impossible,” Ginnie finished after giving Lara an abbreviated version of things the next day.

She spoke as she filled in the endless insurance forms and declarations that covered Lara’s desk. “We were having such a good time with the puppets, and then, boom. He leaves.”

Lara’s curly, dark auburn hair gleamed even under the deadening fluorescent lights as she twirled first one lock then another around her purple-frosted nail. Darlene still hadn’t returned from her “business meeting”. She also wasn’t returning any of the property management company calls. Lara didn’t expect her to come back, she’d confided. Word was she’d been fired by someone at the highest level.

Lara nodded. “So Harry just up and marched away from you? Definite hot button topic.”

“He’s not the only one with a past,” Ginnie said. The more she thought about it, the more determined she felt. Just because someone once treated you badly, that didn’t mean you had to swear off relationships forever. Just look at her. If anyone was entitled to become a bitter old misanthrope, it was her.

But she was actually considering another relationship. Something more than a one-night stand.

Which of course reminded her of how non-celibate they’d been. An aftershock of lust slammed through her, lingering pleasantly, butterflies in her belly. “He’s unbearably sexy, isn’t he,” Ginnie murmured.

“Work!” Lara commanded, shooing at Ginnie’s idle writing fingers. “And, sure, I suppose. If you like the buttoned-up, aloof, brooding type. I prefer a more fun-loving guy.”

“Harry can be fun,” Ginnie protested. “Lots and lots and
lots
…”

“I get it.” But Lara stopped smiling. “Ginnie. You have to protect yourself. I mean, he’s said he doesn’t want a relationship. He flat out, no-compromise declared he’s never going to change. I hate to break it to you. You know what I’m going to say, don’t you? Jeez, it’s not fair. You’ve had a couple of years’ worth of drama packed into a week, and here’s Mr. Wonderful telling you he doesn’t want a relationship. It sucks, but…you have to believe it. You can’t change people, however much it’d be in their best interest.” Her dark eyes were warm and sincere and sad.

Ginnie stared in amazement. “You’re only, what? Eighteen? Nineteen? Too young to sound so experienced. And so smart.”

“Twenty-two, and thanks.” Lara preened, her eyes full of laughter once more. “I likes me my fun-lovin’ guys,” she admitted. “It’s gotten so that I can read between their lines pretty easily now. But ‘I’m not ready for a relationship’ always means just that. They’re not available, no matter what other signals they send up. Like inviting you to sleep over. There’s a big mixed message there. Move in to my place.”

“Huh?” Ginnie’s thoughts had to scurry to catch up after hearing ‘sleep over’. She and Harry hadn’t done much actual sleeping together. “Move in with you?”

“Sure. I have a two-bedroom apartment, and only my cat uses the other room. When you get the deposit and settlement check—” She tapped the paperwork, “—you can get your own place. Or you can stay. We seem to get along pretty well.”

Ginnie smiled at her new friend. Lara was a wonderful person. And maybe getting away from Harry would clarify matters. He probably preferred she go, anyway.

The man didn’t want a relationship.

Ginnie felt a pang of regret. “Okay. Later this afternoon? I’m packing pretty light these days.”

Lara laughed. “Of course. I’ll help anyway. It’ll be fun to get another look at that fabulous house of his. That living room was like crawling inside a TV into
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
. I’ve been in real estate for a few years now, and I’ve never seen a home as gorgeous as his, not outside of the historical register.”

Ginnie had to agree, it was a stunning home. Her mother would be drooling over it and, if she could, picking Ginnie up and throwing her at Harry. She wouldn’t care that Harry said he didn’t want a relationship. She’d only care that he was single and rich. Her biggest concern would be that Ginnie would screw it up.

Suddenly Ginnie was seventeen again, standing in the small bathroom she shared with her mother. She was getting ready for a date, brushing her hair, when her mother walked in. Her mom was dating, herself, in the aftermath of Ginnie’s father’s abandonment, and the woman was gazing in the mirror and smoothing a low-cut silky black cocktail dress.

“What do you think, Mom?” Ginnie posed in her new jeans and a figure-hugging peach cashmere sweater. “Good enough?”

Her mother stared. Finally she said, “No. You’ll never be a man-magnet. But if you’re shrewd and don’t do anything stupid like fall in love, you might do okay.”

Her mother’s words were a curse, piercing Ginnie through the heart. She wanted to cry. She wanted to curl up in a ball somewhere dark and stay there forever.

She’d gone on the date, but felt clumsy and ugly and painfully self-conscious the whole time. Added to the guilt she felt over her dad’s abandonment, it hammered her self-esteem into the ground. Where it more or less stayed.

She hadn’t felt fully appreciated, or truly seen and cherished, until that night with Harry.

“Ginnie?” Lara leaned across her desk. “Are you okay?”

“I’m just realizing you’re right. I can’t change Harry. He doesn’t want me, not in any way that counts, so I shouldn’t do anything stupid like fall in love with him.”

Lara scraped off a fleck of purple nail polish, thoughtful. She placed it carefully into the trash next to her desk. “He is an idiot,” she pronounced, with the gravity of a doctor declaring a time of death.

“You’re right, we will get along fine,” Ginnie said, and they both laughed.

The laughter eased her hurt. As for Harry, the man didn’t want her around. He’d made himself very clear.

She had to respect that, and respect herself enough to let him go.

Chapter Five

Ginnie opened Lara’s door and stared. At Harry.

Harry stood on Lara’s porch.

Only one week had gone by, and he looked exactly the same—pulled-together and delicious. Her heart gave a lurch. He was really here, just as she’d dreamed.

She wished she weren’t wearing her ratty old flannel pajamas at one o’clock in the afternoon, and that her hair wasn’t flattened from being slept on. Most of all, she wished he wasn’t seeing her blotchy face, reddened eyes and cheeks wet with tears.

“What are you doing here?” She wiped her face with her sleeve.

His face was almost comical with guilt. At another time, she might have been amused. Or gratified.

At the moment, all she felt was miserable.

“Um. Are you okay?” Harry fidgeted. It was funny to see such a solidly built, in-charge man fidget. Clearly he thought he’d mortally wounded her.

“I’ve been better. This…” She indicated her face, “…has nothing to do with you.” Best to get that fact across quickly. No sense in his thinking for a second she was moping over him. Even if she’d missed him worlds more than she’d thought she would. “What brings you across town?”

“Your stuff. The trunk on my porch is gone. And one of the neighbors across the street saw a man putting it into a sport wagon. He didn’t know if the man was a friend of yours. Are you okay?” he repeated, with more concern.