The Best Man (Blue Heron #1)(62)

Then the kiss was over, and she was panting in shaky gasps, as if she’d run all the way up to the barn. Her eyes needed a second to focus, and her legs wobbled.

Levi did not look similarly affected. He blinked. Twice. “I didn’t see me doing that,” he said, frowning down at her.

“Oh, well, you know...you could do it again,” she breathed.

He stepped back. “I don’t think so.” He ran a hand through his hair, making it stand up even more.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“Yeah. That was a bad idea. That was a mistake. I definitely shouldn’t have done that. Sorry, Holland.”

She just stared at him for a minute. Nope, he was serious. Dead serious, from his expression.

Men. Just...men! Was there ever going to be a normal man in her life? Huh?

“Out you go,” she said, shoving his hard chest. “Bye! Thank you for everything, you jerk. And you know what?”

“What?”

“Nothing. Get out.” She hustled him to the door, opened it and waved. “Bye.”

Levi stepped into the hallway, and Blue bounded out as well, then attached himself to the horrible man’s leg. As goes the slutty owner, so goes the slutty dog. “Blue, get back here!” she ordered. Her dog obeyed, and she took one more look at Levi’s expressionless face. “Have a nice day.”

Then she slammed the door. Opened it and slammed it again, just in case he missed the point.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THE GOOD NEWS WAS, the barn was going beautifully.

The arborist had come in and removed five trees, which opened up the view just enough. She’d hired Crooked Lake Landscaping and a very cute Irish stonemason (married, sigh) to work on the parking area, a wall along the path and the retaining wall. Samuel Hastings, a Mennonite carpenter, and his son would build the deck that would extend out over the hill. The electric had been run, and things were clicking along.

Faith was doing a lot of the work herself. That wasn’t usually the case; as the designer, most of her work was done at a computer, figuring out things like water runoff rates and soil retention. But this was Holland land, and the barn was her baby. Faith wanted to filter the dirt and help build the rock walls, dig holes and loosen root balls, and hear the sound of hammers ringing out over the hill.

She’d been working a lot. At the library, studiously not looking across the green to the police station. At the other vineyard. Up here at the barn.

As for Levi—he’d nodded at her three days ago as their paths crossed at O’Rourke’s. She’d glared; he’d said nothing.

“So you must see Levi a lot,” Jeremy said, practically reading her mind.

“Not really,” she answered, shoveling some gravel from a wheelbarrow to line the path that led to the barn’s entrance. Jeremy had come up on his lunch hour, bearing a glorious Cubano sandwich from Lorelei’s. Things were still a little awkward since their reunion, but, hell. He was such a good guy. And he brought food, so...

“Oh,” Jeremy said. “I thought you lived across the hall from each other.”

“We do.” Her tone must’ve hinted at Panty Twist Supreme, because he didn’t pursue the subject further.

“This is going to be amazing,” he said, gesturing with his own sandwich. “I’ve already told Georgia to start referring people here. We get a lot of requests for weddings, but you know. A tent is nothing compared to this.”

“Thanks, ba—buddy.” She’d been about to say babe. Old habits.

He picked up the tennis ball and fired it into the woods, putting his quarterback arm to use. Blue bounded after the ball joyfully. Faith wondered if her pet remembered Jeremy, who could throw farther than anyone.

“One of my patients asked about you yesterday,” Jeremy said. “He wants to surprise his wife with a water garden, and I told him that’d be a piece of cake for you.”

“Thanks,” she said, hefting another shovelful of gravel and tamping it into the path. “I hope he calls.”

“Have you thought about staying here permanently?” Jeremy asked. “I imagine you’d have clients by the dozen.” He offered her some potato chips, and she took a few.

“I want to stay,” she admitted. “I’ve been here a month now, and it’s hard to think about going back to California. I see my dad and the grands almost every day, have dinner with Pru and the kids once or twice a week. Colleen and I hang out all the time... I wonder how I lived without everyone for three years.”

You included, she didn’t add. But Jeremy’s friendship, this new phase of it...that was becoming important, too.

“But I do have a very nice life back in San Francisco,” she added. “Can’t just forget that. I pitched a job in August, and it’s supposed to move forward soon. So we’ll see.”

Jeremy fired the ball into the woods again for the never-tired Blue. “You’re different now,” he said. “You’re really...solid.”

“Pick another word, quick.” She smiled as she spread another shovelful of gravel onto the path.

“Sorry.” He grinned. “Confident in who you are.”

“Better, better.”

“So what’s on your mind? You seem a little distracted.”

Levi’s on my mind, Jeremy. I may want to kill him. That, or handcuff him to the radiator, rip off his clothes with my teeth and have my way with the man. “Oh, just work stuff,” she lied.