Word had come to me while I was in college about her antics. It hadn’t bothered me in the way she’d hoped, letting me know I’d made the right decision. “You only hurt yourself.”
She looked away and waved a hand. “No matter. I’ll be announcing my engagement to the mayor by the end of the year.”
“You’re involved with Malcolm Wright?” He was older than me by several years, so I didn’t know him very well. He had a reputation that rivaled Darcy’s.
“Of a sort. He’ll come to the right conclusion. We are of the same mind. Who better to marry than someone who will overlook his eventual indiscretions?”
I didn’t think Malcolm was looking to settle down. So I took her comments to be fanciful thoughts or a way to make me jealous. Still, I cared about her. If true, I didn’t want to see her hurt. “And you’d be okay with that?” She acted tough, but I knew her better than she thought. She deserved love better than Malcolm or I could give her.
“Of course, as I would have my own indiscretions.”
It sounded like a world of trouble in my opinion, but it wasn’t my business. Yet, I said, “There’s a guy out there that will put you on a pedestal if you’d just slow down and see him.”
“For you, I’d be downright virginal.”
I chuckled. “Not me, Darcy. Someone else will adore you in ways I can’t.” She frowned and I blew out a breath. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She stepped back and waved me off. “I was only teasing. Anyway, I came here to offer you my services.”
I gave her a weary look.
“Ah, not that.” Her eyes swept up and down. “Although I admit, you were a natural in bed.” Her eyes lingered on my crotch. “How much skill or just damn luck to be blessed with a dick like yours, I might never know.”
“Darcy.”
“Oh, don’t be such a prude. A girl can reminisce. Anyway, I heard you were buying this place and I know it needs work.” She was in business mode, and I relaxed.
“I’m aware.”
“And we both know you may be good with your hands.” Her eyes met mine knowingly. “But you don’t have a lick that will stick when it comes to decorating.”
After she said lick, she seductively touched her tongue to her top lip before moving on. Malcolm had met his match. If I were a weaker man, I would haul her up and into the house. But I wasn’t a stupid man. If I gave in, the town would know by supper that I’d bedded her by her very own words. Then any chance I had with Emma would be out the door.
She was right about one thing; I didn’t know how to decorate. “Okay. What’s your proposal?”
I’d used much of my savings on the house. There was no way I was asking my father for a loan.
“I propose a lot of things.”
“Darce,” I warned again.
“Fine. I’m just starting up my business. You’d be my first official client. I could work evenings for beer and a meal.”
Her eyes held mine. We both knew what the town would say if they found out she was coming around. What choice did I have? My budget was small. And this home could be the beginning of the future for me in a lot of ways.
“This is between us. Don’t use me to make Malcolm jealous, otherwise, I’ll just ask my mother.”
She touched her finger to my lips. “Ye of little faith. I won’t tell a soul if you won’t.”
We shook on it. “Tomorrow?”
“I still need to unpack and don’t know how long I’ll be.”
“Friday, then. That will give you the week.”
As much as I knew this was a very bad idea, I agreed. “Friday.”
Darcy was long gone when I sat on my porch enjoying a beer at sunset when a car pulled up in front of the house. I knew the car and the woman who drove it.
She got out looking as pretty as a picture, leaving me swallowing my tongue as she walked up to the porch. Now wasn’t the time to tell her all the things I’d waited years to say when her beautiful gray eyes were shadowed after burying her father.
I had to wonder what she was doing here and not with her fiancé whom I’d spotted holding her hand as she left the church.
What could she possibly want from me?
Chapter 3
Emma
Damn the man for looking so good. Tall, dark, and handsome as cliché as that sounded described him to a tee. Ruggedly sexy with a chiseled jaw and a mouth that curled into a sexy smirk. Get it together, Emma, I warned myself as his piercing hazel eyes held on me.
“Aiden Faulkner,” I said, stopping at the bottom of the steps that led up to the wide porch.