Material Girl (13 page)

Damn. This was precisely the sort of thing that always got her in trouble.

Robin lifted her head again, groaning beneath a monstrous headache, and peered bleary-eyed at the clock. Eight a.m. Fabulous. Still enough time left in the day to learn all about the many intricacies of Styrofoam peanuts. Oh joy, she could hardly wait.

She heard Evan's voice again, managed to push herself up, and as she groped around for her robe, the door opened and Evan came in, carrying two cups of coffee, wearing little more than a ridiculously broad smile. “Good morning, sweetcakes.”

“Uh-huh,” Robin muttered, and wrapped the thick terry cloth robe tightly around her while Evan stood there smiling at her. Self-conscious, she pushed her hands through her Amazon hair. “Who were you talking to?” she asked as Evan handed her a cup of coffee.

“Your contractor.”

Her contractor… Oh! Oh Oh Oh! How could she have forgotten that the delicious hunk of a man would be here this morning? Oh shit—he had seen Evan! He had seen Evan in his boxers! She could feel herself color deeply, and while she was trying to figure that out, Evan reached for her waist, leaned down, and kissed her neck. “You are one gorgeous chick in the morning.”

Oh man, what a colossal mistake she had made! Disastrous! Boobhead! “Evan—”

“You were wonderful. I'm getting hard just thinking about it.”

Ugh . “Yeah, but I was sort of lit—”

“Baby, you were lit, all right. I'd forgotten how feisty you can get.”

Well, someone had to be feisty, although she really did not care for the reminder. “What I'm trying to say is, I really shouldn't have done that.”

Evan laughed deep in his chest. “You can do that anytime you want, beautiful.” He nibbled her ear and Robin wriggled out of his embrace, spilling a little coffee on the thick oriental carpet she had bought on one of her shopping whims.

“Please listen to me,” she pleaded, turning to face him, but noticed that his boxers were tenting. Hated the tent. She abruptly turned away, put her coffee down, and tightened her robe around her. Her temples were pounding, her mouth tasted like dirt. “You know what?” she said, avoiding Evan's gaze—and boxers—“I can't talk about this now. I have to get dressed for my new job. Can't leave the bubble wrap waiting.”

He smiled crookedly. “Want me to help?”

“No!” she said quickly, and grabbing her coffee, darted into her bathroom, shut the door behind her, and locked it.

After a moment, Evan said, “That's okay, I'll just use the guest bath.” His proximity directly on the other side of the door startled Robin, and she reared back, held a hand over her heart for a moment before sinking onto the edge of the spa.

So. How did she get into this mess, again? As if her life could get any more ludicrous, as if it were possible that one person could make so many stupid, stupid mistakes in the space of a week! A sudden attack of panic assailed her, a strange feeling like she was standing too close to the edge and was in danger of throwing herself off.

Run. Not away, although that sounded pretty appealing at the moment, but down the street, enough to pound out her frustration. Yes, run.

Robin got up, brushed her teeth, tried to brush her hair,

found a bottle of aspirin and took four (no sense beating around the bush). She then peeked out the bathroom door, saw her bed was made, but all other signs of Evan removed. Cautiously, she hurried to her closet, found her running gear, and hoped that he was gone from her house.

No such luck. Evan was seated at her dining table, dressed in slacks and a polo shirt, one leg casually crossed over the other as he read the paper. Worse, Jake Manning was quietly working in the entry, wearing carpenter pants that hugged his very fine butt and a T-shirt that strained across his chest.

Evan looked up from the paper and smiled. “Ah, there she is! Oh! You're going out for a run? You should have told me—I would have gone with you,” he said cheerfully.

Robin tried very hard not to look at Jake. “Yeah, but you don't have time, do you, Evan? Aren't you headed back to Dallas?”

He casually sipped his coffee. “Actually, I'm going to be around for a few days. We have to get you set up, don't we?”

We? She did not like the sound of that at all, and walked to the kitchen before he could say more. She opened the fridge, studied the empty box, and vowed to make it to the grocery store this calendar year. With a sigh, she went back into the dining room. That was when she spied the box of Krispy Kremes on the edge of the table and instantly looked at Jake.

He was watching her; even seemed a little disconcerted she had caught him doing it. He barely glanced at the box before turning away. He brought her doughnuts. He did, didn't he? Jake Manning had brought her doughnuts! Cha-cha cha-cha cha-CHA! Cha-cha cha-cha cha-CHA! Evan could bring all the outrageously expensive wine he wanted, but doughnuts—now here was a man who really knew how to impress a woman.

Robin walked over, and with two fingers, lifted the lid to the mouthwatering treats, until a T-square came crashing down on the lid, missing her fingernails by a hairbreadth. Robin squeaked, jerked her hand back, and looked up at

Jake, who was holding the T-square firmly on top of the doughnut box, glaring at her. “Those are mine. Remember our little talk?”

“You almost hit me with that thing!” Robin whined.

“Let's review—I am not your local Pac-n-Sac. Keep out of my stuff.”

“Goodness,” Evan said. He turned the page of the business section and continued reading.

“They're just doughnuts,” Robin groused at Jake's back as he walked back to the foyer. “Stingy!”

Evan looked up over the business section, one brow lifted above the other. “Get up on the wrong side of the bed, sweetheart?”

Actually, just the wrong bed, and at the moment, she wished Evan would go far, far away. But he turned his attention back to his paper. “Rats. IBM stock is down.”

Robin looked at the doughnut box, then at Jake over the top of Evan's head. Hey… that was a smirk, she thought, as he turned away, at least a smarty little twinkle in his eye, wasn't it? Just to be sure, she walked over to the wall where he was working, pretended to look at what he was doing. Yep, it was a twinkle, all right. Smart-ass.

She moved until she was standing so close that her arm brushed his sleeve. “Still testing the layers?”

Jake looked down, smiled a crooked, I-know-what-you-are-doing kind of smile. “Yep.”

“Oh, by the way, t hank s for the doughnut. Not.”

“Ah, come on now, Peanut—you don't really look the doughnut type.”

“Hey!” she exclaimed.

“What's that?” Evan called, forcing Robin to glance over her shoulder. He was watching her intently, his expression curious. “I thought you were going for a run?”

Okay. There were too many guys in her house, and his name was Evan. “Yes. I am. See you later,” she said coolly and walked across the foyer.

“Have a good run,” Evan said, looking at Jake.

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled, and walked out the door and proceeded down the street.

When the door shut behind Robin, Jake heard a heavy sigh and the rustle of newspaper behind him. “I swear to God she's going to be the death of me.”

Good.

“I don't know what it is about women—one minute they can melt you, the next minute they make you want to jump off a cliff. Know what I mean?”

How about jumping off a cliff right now? “I suppose,” Jake muttered.

The man's chair scraped against the floor; in the next moment, he was standing directly behind Jake. “So… what are you doing here?”

Man, oh man, he was destined to have a lousy morning, wasn't he? And he had such high (thought admittedly asinine) hopes. “I'm testing the layers of paint to see what we're working with before I strip these walls.”

“Ah,” the dolt said. “I've dabbled a bit in this kind of work.” When Jake didn't take the bait, he continued, “Redid my living room. Had that old-style paneling, you know what I mean? I took that out and textured the walls.”

Yep, a bona fide expert with latent homosexual tendencies. “Hmmm,” Jake answered.

The man turned away from the wall. “I better get over to the yard.”

If he expected Jake to say something, he was going to be disappointed. He continued working as he listened to the sound of the man gathering his things, fought the urge to help him, and felt a rush of relief when the kitchen door finally shut behind him. If there was one thing he hoped for this job, it would be that that guy would not be around too often… but wait a minute, there was that dipshit thinking again. Jake paused to wipe the brush he was using, shook his head again at his own great foolishness. He really had to shake the thought of Robin from his mind as he worked. Or at least the memory of her scent when she had stood so electrifyingly close to him this morning.

Meanwhile, Robin was pounding the jogging trail in slow, leaden steps, her hangover forgotten in favor of thinking about Jake. What it was about him she couldn't be entirely certain, other than the fact that he was so ruggedly male. And handsome. Very nice coppery eyes. And as she turned around the corner and headed up North Boulevard again, she thought about the care he took with the antique brick, his fingers stroking it—Okay, enough already. What was she doing? Wasn't it bad enough that she had fallen into bed with Evan? Now she had to go and fantasize about a perfect stranger, and a contractor at that?

God , she really needed a hobby.

Or a boyfriend. Ooh yes, that was exactly what she needed, a boyfriend, someone who had nothing to do with her house or her work, completely disengaged from her life, existing simply to adore her and buy her gifts. That way, she wouldn't be sleeping with Evan or fantasizing about some hired Hammerman who was working on her house.

Only one little problem—she really had such putrid, rotten luck when it came to guys. And boyfriends bored her.

When she opened her front door, her gaze immediately swept the entry and dining room, but there was no sign of Evan.

“He went to the yard, whatever that is,” Jake offered.

Robin colored slightly, came in and shut the door, and stood there with her back to it, feeling very uncertain. And fat. Oh, man, she felt FAT in running tights that were crawling up her butt. She stole a glance down the hallway to her room, mentally calculating the distance—she could make a mad dash for it, but then, he'd see the jiggle in her butt. Eeeww!

Jake looked at her expectantly.

Robin chuckled, thought she sounded an awful lot like Olive Oy!. “Well. Well, well.”

“Pretty humid out, huh?” he asked, turning back to his work.

What did that mean? Did she… oh Lord, help her—

smell? “It's not too bad,” she lied and suddenly pushed away from the door. “I've run in much worse. I really hardly broke a sweat.” Hello, what crap was that?

“You must be a pro,” Jake said, looking pretty dubious. He paused, went down on his haunches next to a tool bag, and fished inside. Robin ended up at the dining table, acutely aware that she was, once again, trying very hard to look at Jake without actually looking at him. Gawd. She went to the kitchen, scrounged up a bottle of water, then went back to the dining room. Her gaze fell on the box of doughnuts. The lid was up, the box was empty. Damn.

“So… what else do you do, Robin Lear?” Jake asked as she took a swig of water.

The question startled her. “Wh—What do you mean?”

“I mean besides run and steal doughnuts. You into sports?”

A… sports. Her penchant for interpreting everything he said as being sexual innuendo was beginning to alarm her. “I guess so. I play tennis when I can. And golf—”

“Oh yeah? Where do you play?”

“River Oaks.”

“Oh.” He continued digging through his tool bag. “Never played there.”

Well, of course not—River Oaks Country Club was the most exclusive club in all of Houston and not just anyone could play there. Actually, very few people could play there. He certainly could not play there. “Uh… what about you? Any sport?”

“Baseball.”

“Oh, me, too!” Robin quickly responded, pleased to have found something in common. She walked into the foyer, her tights forgotten. “I love the Astros—”

“No kidding?” he asked, obviously surprised. “I try to get to all their home games.”

“Really? I wish I could get to more of them than I do, but I travel so much. But when I'm in Houston , I go every chance I get—we have a box, you know.”

“Ah. Lucky you. So who do you like?”

“Moz,” Robin said, propping herself precariously on one

rung of a ladder he had brought into the foyer.

“Oh my God, I should have known! Are you out of your mind?”

“Why? He's the best pitcher they have!”

“He's too old and he's overpaid, and that's about the best you can say about him.”

“Ha! Shows what you know—he's as good as any of those skinny little twenty-year-olds they have on the mound,” Robin said with all due indignation on behalf of Moz.

Jake snorted. “Please. He's a washed-up has-been and he's ruining the salary caps.”

“Oh, so now I get it. You're one of those guys who doesn't like anyone to make more than he does, right?”

“Excuse me? Moz makes more than God and he can't even pitch his way out of a paper bag! You must be one of those who thinks money is an entitlement instead of, heaven forbid, earning your keep.”

That struck a raw nerve in Robin and she instantly retorted, “I do so earn my keep!”

Jake laughed. “Okay. But we were talking about Grandpa Moses, not you.”

Oh. Right. Robin's face colored. “What a moron,” she muttered, uncertain if she was speaking of Jake or herself, and now feeling terribly self-conscious, jumped down off her perch on the ladder. Only she didn't go very far—her running tights caught on a screw or something behind her.

Jake laughed, which only made her face flame. “Jesus, what is that?” she snapped, suddenly twisting and turning to dislodge herself, rattling the ladder in the process.

“Hey, what are you doing? You're scarring the brick!” he warned her.

But Robin was too mortified to care about brick. “I'm stuck!”

“Serves you right, Hotpants,” Jake said. “Moz!” With a heavy sigh for her benefit, he put down his brush and stepped forward.