Love on Lexington Avenue(7)

He ran a palm over his stubble. Four days seemed about right. “Good eye.”

She shrugged. “You date kitchens; I date men’s grooming. Seven years of marriage will do that for you.”

Right. He’d been so eager to get this meeting over with, he’d forgotten that Claire Hayes was a relatively recent widow. “Sorry about that,” he said gruffly. “Heard he was a real asshole.”

Over the past year, Scott had gotten to know Oliver’s girlfriend, Naomi, who’d filled him in on some of the dirty details of how she’d met Claire the day of her husband’s funeral. It pissed him off. He didn’t put stock in relationships, but he damn well expected people who did enter them not to cheat.

She laughed into her coffee. “Are you sorry because he died, or because he was a real asshole?”

Scott shrugged again. “You tell me. I didn’t know the guy.”

Claire set her mug aside. “To be clear, Mr. Turner, if we decide to work together, discussion of my deceased husband is off-limits.”

“Fine by me.” He preferred it, actually.

She nodded in acknowledgment. “So. Are you interested? I know it’s small compared to what you normally do. And I’ll tell you right now that I have some money set aside, but I know this is no minor undertaking, and I have no idea how much it’ll cost, or if I can afford it. Depending on the quote you come back with, I may have to phase out the renovation.”

He nodded, already knowing he’d fit the project to her budget, not the other way around. Even before he’d been financially secure, Scott had never made his decisions based on the money. It all came down to instinct, and he’d known the moment he’d walked in the door that this was the challenge he wanted. The chance to build a home, his way, not some sterile, elaborate showpiece whose primary purpose was to get a write-up in Architectural Digest.

“Let’s forget the budget for now,” he said, helping himself to more coffee. Scott held up the pot, silently offering a top-off, but she shook her head.

He turned toward her, leaning back against the counter, which he noted was a full two inches too low. Either it had been designed for someone exceptionally short or, more likely, whoever had built the house hadn’t given a crap about detail.

“What’s your vision?” Scott asked her.

She gave a small smile, the first one he’d seen yet, though it was still guarded. “How much time do you have?”

He tried not to wince. “So, you’ve got specifics in mind?”

Scott had been hoping for the opposite. That she wanted someone else to make the decisions. Him. He wanted to make the decisions for this place.

“Lots.”

He sighed. “Let’s see them.”

She hesitated, and his interest piqued. Based on the excitement he’d heard in her voice a moment ago, he’d have assumed she’d come at him ready with paint swatches and Pinterest boards.

Not that he minded the lack of the latter. Pinterest was his and every contractor’s worst enemy. Actually, scratch that. Pinterest was bad, but it was the damn house-flipping shows that were the real nightmare. Gone were the days when customers maybe had some vague opinion about the paint color for their bedroom but more or less trusted the contractors to take care of the rest. Now, people had rooms planned down to the square inch, wanting things like skylights on the ground floor.

The trouble was, most people didn’t have any vision. It was why he was so good at his job. Not only did he have vision, but for all his hermit ways, he also knew people. At least as it related to what they wanted out of their residence or office building or commercial project. That was what he was good at. Building what people didn’t even know they wanted.

“I’m still sort of . . . deciding,” she said, sounding hesitant in a way he guessed wasn’t typical for her.

“Explain,” he said bluntly. If they were going to work together, he needed to know up front if Claire Hayes was a loose cannon who wanted to turn her living room into an aviary or her master closet into a panic room.

“What’s your favorite cupcake?”

He stared at her. “Sorry?”

She laughed, looking surprised both by her own question and the laughter that followed. “Never mind. Let’s just say that I’m still working out the details on what exactly I want, but I know I don’t want boring.”

“I don’t do boring.”

“Do you do strawberry lemonade?”

Scott rubbed the back of his neck. Hell. Oliver and Naomi had conveniently forgotten to mention that Claire Hayes was off her rocker.

“What’s that have to do with the reno?” he asked.

“I’m still working on it,” she repeated. “But you can get started without knowing the details, right? Ripping up carpet, tearing off wallpaper, that sort of thing?”

He could. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to. Not if he was going to end up building a Candy Land house for a woman who was talking about cupcakes and strawberries.

“High-level vision,” he pressed.

“I already told you. Strawberry lemonade. You know, little touches of pink. Unexpected . . . delights.”

“Oh God,” he grumbled.

“A man who doesn’t like pink,” she said drolly. “How very original.”