Fix Her Up (Hot & Hammered #1)(10)

Really? Not even my heart? “Just in case, you should take an umbrella.” With a twist of her wrist and a sleight of hand, a rainbow-colored umbrella bloomed beneath the scarf, sending it fluttering to the ground. Oh, he struggled not to be confused, but failed, quite possibly making her life complete. “I know what you’re thinking. Will I perform at your birthday party? I usually only book children’s events, but I’ll make this one exception.”

He shook his head, studying her for a moment. “You weren’t always like this, were you?”

“Delightful?”

“Sure.” He graced her with a too-brief smile, then pushed off the wall, moving in that long-legged stride back toward the living room. “We’ll call it ‘delightful’ instead of ‘weird.’”

Georgie caught up to him in front of the fireplace, just in time to watch his hand run over the brick.

“You haven’t, uh, heard anything about some competition in town . . .”

“The competition to go on a date with you?”

His head fell back with a groan. “Oh God, it is real.”

“And you’re not thrilled about it?” Georgie mentally reviewed the conversations she’d heard around town all week. In the bakery, at a birthday party, simply walking down Main Street. “I mean, even if you’re not thrilled, you’re at least used to this kind of attention from women, right?”

A shadow passed over his face. “Yeah. Something like that.”

A jealousy fountain tried to bubble up, but she stuck a rock in it. The green monster was useless where Travis Ford was concerned and always would be. Instead, she focused on what his body language was telling her. The stiffness in his shoulders, the bunched jaw. “You’re not thrilled about it.”

He stared straight ahead at the fireplace. “No.”

“Why?”

It took him a moment to answer. “I guess I don’t want to be a novelty anymore. A good time. Something easy, not to be taken seriously.” He ran a rash hand through his dark auburn hair. “It’s no one’s fault but mine. I made myself the punch line of a bad dirty joke, didn’t I?”

“I don’t think of you that way. You could never be a joke,” she whispered, taken aback. “I’m sorry if the mean things I said in your apartment made you feel this way.”

“No. What you did was different. I needed that.” He reached over and tweaked her nose. “There. You finally got me to admit that throwing food and calling me on my shit is why I’m back among the living.”

If he hadn’t just played gotcha with her nose like she was five, Georgie might have kissed him then and there out of pure joy. But he had. So she didn’t. “You’re welcome.” She curled her fingers into the edges of her apron. “Ignoring the competition is only going to up the stakes, you know. Long Island women take betting seriously.”

“Let me worry about that.” As if becoming conscious of time and place, Travis cleared his throat hard and headed for the door. “I’ll talk to Stephen about the fireplace, all right? Thanks for breakfast.”

“Travis?”

He stopped with a hand on the knob, but only gave her a half-turn of attention.

“Thank you for staying.”

The door closed in reply.





Chapter Four


Take off your shirt!”

Ignoring the shouted suggestion, Travis clamped his teeth around the pencil in his mouth and focused on the laser leveler in his hand, eventually lowering it to make notations. The major downside to renovating a house was definitely the lack of windows—there was nothing to muffle the outdoor noise. A crowd of around a dozen women and a handful of men had gathered on the curb outside the flip, snapping pictures of Travis with their camera phones—and if the portable Dunkin’ Donuts coffee dispenser was any indication, they were planning on getting comfortable. Yes, safe to say the Date Travis Ford competition was in full swing.

Out of the corner of his eye, Travis watched a petite redhead break from the pack, approaching a clipboard-holding Stephen with a casual air. “So . . . I’m thinking of doing some work in my kitchen this fall.” Her smile broadened. “Do you think I could ask Travis a few questions? I’m trying to decide between vinyl and ceramic tile.”

Blessedly clueless that he was being played, Stephen slapped the clipboard against his thigh. “Look no further. I could talk flooring for hours.”

The redhead’s smile transformed into more of a baring of teeth as Stephen launched into a presentation, complete with hand gestures and his iPhone camera roll.

“Yo, Ford,” one of the freelance workers said, wiping plaster onto the front of his T-shirt. “There’s enough people wanting to see you naked out there, you could crowd-surf over them. I’m personally offended by your bored attitude.”

“And here I thought I was being polite by not showing you up.”

“Please show me up!” He gestured toward the growing crowd. “You are mocking a gift from the Lord God himself.”

With a snort, Travis went back to making measurements. Once upon a time, he would have been front and center, absorbing the attention. Basking in it. As soon as he’d been let go from his final team, he’d learned pretty fucking fast that that kind of superficial admiration was cheap and fleeting. The women who’d once flocked to him had moved on to the next big thing, just like his coach, the team managers, and the fans. None of it had ever been real—and it wasn’t real now.