Stacking the Deck (A Betting on Romance Novel Book 2)(10)

What the hell was wrong with her? Had she no self-respect? No shame?

Granted, any woman’s heart would skip a beat when faced with that testosterone-ridden, mega-watt smile he was flashing. She was only human after all. But still.

Liz tugged the hem of her T-shirt down over her belly button.

“Hey, Bailey. How’s it going? Still over at Willard’s Auto?” Carter’s eyes passed over Liz’s chest as he spoke.

Bailey shook her head. “No. Willard and I had a parting of ways after I kneed him in the balls for pinching my ass. I’m cleaning houses now until I can afford my own shop.”

Carter’s eyes made a second pass over Liz’s front even as he raised one dark brow at Bailey. “I’ll consider myself forewarned.”

“Oh, honey,” Bailey laughed, her blonde ponytails bobbing, “You don’t need to worry. I only knee smarmy guys.”

They chuckled at each other, Carter grinning charmingly, Bailey’s baby blues twinkling over the lid of her mocha latte.

“Well,” Liz interrupted, stepping between them. “I hate to rush you, but we should probably get started.” She pointed to her watch. “You are late.”

She couldn’t say why she felt the need to point that out, but it was disconcerting having him standing there all relaxed and sexy and confident and flirting with her best friend when her stomach was doing odd little flip-flops in her gut right under her belly button. It annoyed her, especially, that he could waltz up to her after ten years, flash that trademark smile and make her feel like time had stood still.

But, of course, it hadn’t.

His eyes registered a moment of irritation, but he quickly covered it with a wider smile and something he did with his eyebrows that looked slightly naughty and made her woman bits stand up and take notice in a way they had no right to in old sweats being almost-engaged and everything.

“So. Liz, huh?” he asked.

Liz hid a smile. You’d never hear Grant saying the word ‘huh.’ If it even was a word.

“Yes,” she articulated in her most business-like tone. “In my first job, my boss’ wife was also named Beth.” She wasn’t about to admit she’d harbored a three year crush on said boss and had daydreamed of his choosing her over his ‘other favorite Beth’ until a reorganization in the firm had saved her from sure lifelong humiliation. “I decided I preferred Liz.”

“Fair enough.” He stared at her chest again. Hello! I’m up here! she wanted to yell.

They stood a few feet apart, Bailey uncharacteristically silent, Liz staring at a point beyond Carter’s left ear, Carter staring at her boobs—the sexist jerk. He was probably wondering if they were real. Would it be such a shock that she’d actually grown into a B-cup in the last decade?

Okay. Fine. Maybe he was just looking because she could not stop swiping at the damned paint flecks. Liz forced herself to drop her hand and look him in the eye. Chickadees tweeted inappropriately in the trees nearby.

“So,” he said again looking at her face for a change, “Bates? I thought you went to someplace in California.”

Liz stared down at her own chest. Oh, good God, he was looking at the logo? She felt her already flushed face creep up the heat scale a notch. “Bates was undergrad. I got my master’s at Stanford.”

“Right. Hard to get farther from home than that.”

“It wasn’t like that.”

His eyes told her she was lying through her teeth. Which she was, of course. The pervert mind reader. “So. What’s the job you want quoted?”

Bailey cleared her throat, causing Liz a momentary pang of guilt for having forgotten she was even there. “Well, love to stay and chat with you two, but I’m late picking up my mom. I’ll call you later, Liz. ‘Kay?”

“Sure.” Liz watched Bailey start her old Toyota and drive away before turning her attention back to Carter.

He raised that eyebrow again. Curse it.

Smoothing her hands over her sweats and telling her woman bits to calm the heck down already, Liz motioned for him to follow. Despite going through the charade for appearance’s sake, she had no intention of hiring him—even if he was her great-aunt’s best friend’s grandson.

After all, when you’ve spent the better part of your youth harboring a one-sided crush on the high school bad boy, you don’t generally want him to see you single, unkempt, and scraping your parents’ trim boards ten years later.

Unless you were single. Which she most definitely was not.

“Patio,” she said succinctly as she pointed around the back corner of the house.

“Patio?”

“My parents want a patio instead of the deck. It’s old and in disrepair and needs replacing.”

“So you want a similar footprint?” He leaned against the back split-rail fence, afternoon sunlight accenting the dark highlights in his hair.

“I guess.” Liz was only half-listening. The other half of her brain was wondering if his hair was as silky as it appeared. Her woman bits perked up at the word silky.

“Should I include cost of demolition and disposal for the deck?”

“I suppose. I mean, how much will that run? On second thought—no. I’m here. I’ll take care of it.” She licked suddenly dry lips, her fingers flexing at her side, wondering why they were bothering to discuss a job she had no intention of giving him. Except she hadn’t told him that. Yet. She made a mental note to add ‘deck demolition’ to her to-do list.