Chapter 5

FIVE

Nolan Devereaux.

How on earth did that happen in this life? One of my first major clients had been Macy. Even before we'd established Designing Women, I'd been doing interior design on my own. I'd helped her overhaul the café and her offshoot Halloween-themed restaurant, The Haunt, as well as her apartment.

The apartments over the café were blank canvases and Gavin Forrester, the owner, had allowed for a lot of leeway with his tenants. We hadn't done a lot of structural changes in the apartment, but I'd definitely leaned into Macy's love for Halloween and horror. Since we both shared an affinity for it, we'd formed an easy relationship that had only grown stronger as Macy settled into the Cove.

We weren't quite as close as we used to be, thanks to our demanding businesses and her growing family. Macy, who'd been the poster child for no kids, now had a stepdaughter and a son. No one had seen that coming, including me, but love did crazy things in Crescent Cove, that was for sure.

"Being related to Macy would normally be a good referral. If she'd ever mentioned you."

His eyebrow arched in that way that made me want to slug him and... other things that I didn't want to think about. Especially now that I'd felt every freaking inch of him. Mercy.

Since he didn't seem inclined to elaborate, I tamped down my frustration. "I know. I'm the one who has to sell myself, Mr. Devereaux."

He just narrowed his eyes at me.

"You know what I mean." I huffed out a sigh. Getting information out of him was like using a crowbar for a pistachio. "If you'd follow me to my car, we can exchange information."

"Nope."

"What do you mean ‘nope'?"

"You know where I am." He put the mask back on and flung another rotted board into the Dumpster.

Before I could open my mouth again, he put his headphones back on. Stubborn, rude, beast of a man. With all the pride I could muster, I hobbled my way back around the house to the driveway where I'd left my car. Annoyed, I got inside and checked my phone.

Great. I'd missed two calls while I'd been risking my life for my dream mansion.

I reached behind the passenger seat for the ballet flats I kept in the pocket and tossed my ruined Michael Kors shoes into the backseat. I slipped on the flats as I scrolled my phone.

Two texts from my furniture contact about a couch that I'd been waiting on for a client. I quickly fired back a reply before I forgot then blew out a breath and checked my calls. One from Deb Gordon, the property manager of my building. My shoulders instantly hunched. I still had to deal with the water damage to my apartment as well as my downstairs neighbor's ruined bedroom. I hadn't heard back from Amberly about her date night with her boyfriend, but I'd wager I was still on her shit list.

The other missed call was my mother.

Fantastic.

There was a three-minute voicemail waiting for me. That would need to wait. I didn't have the headspace for that nonsense right now. Jeanine McKenna was...a lot. Ever since she and my dad had retired, they'd been driving me to drink. They both needed hobbies that consisted of something other than my love life. They wanted grandbabies and for their only child to be settled down with a husband and a dog.

Did they care that their only child was more a cat lady?

Not really.

My mother's endless badgering was one of the main reasons I'd actually signed up for that stupid HEA dating app. It wasn't as if I was opposed to finding my person, I just wasn't sure how I was supposed to fit the hunt for said interesting person, the dating part, and the falling in love portion of the equation into my already jam-packed life.

My phone buzzed in my hand, dragging me out of my musings.

Shelby: Where are you?

Me: Grabbing a bite and stuff.

Shelby: You mean mooning over your horror house on the lake?

Me: Funny you should mention it...

Shelby: Ugh. I'm afraid to ask.

Me: We'll talk when I get back. I'm on my way. Do you guys need food?

Shelby: Nah. Dex brought me lunch. TJ confiscated half of it.

Another reason I'd gotten the love bug. Seeing Shelby with a great guy who would do anything for her put ideas in a girl's head. I glanced at my— Nolan Devereaux's— house one last time as I buckled my seatbelt.

If he wasn't lying, I had an unlimited budget to bring her to life the way she deserved.

If he gave me the job.

I was going to put together a kickass mood board and initial design sketch and manifest the crap out of getting this job. I'd toured the property during one of Hamilton Realty's many open houses and had taken photos. I had a few dream sketches in my design program already. At least a few that might entice him to see just how perfect I'd be for the job.

A shadow in the third-floor window made my heart skip and dragged me out of my what-ifs. Was that Harriette?

I'd caught a glimpse of her before. She didn't show herself all that often, but sometimes I got a feeling there was something out here. I was open minded, and the house screamed for a ghost, dammit.

"I'm going to make this place amazing again, I promise." I mostly whispered it to myself, but maybe she'd hear me too.

The drive back to Kensington Square was a quiet one. I kept turning around the ideas I had for the house, the shock of finding out who the stranger from the night before was, and dread for the meeting with Deb until I was pretty sure my brain was going to explode.

I managed to find a parking spot across from Designing Women. The only drawback of having office space on this particular strip of the city meant off-street parking. Bonus, I'd gotten much better at parallel parking. Kind of.

I grabbed my bag, as well as my untouched lunch, and hissed out a breath as I bumped my arm. I was a freaking mess. I should have gone home and changed, but I wasn't quite ready to deal with the property manager just yet. I'd just have to raid my stash of clothing I kept on hand for just these kinds of emergencies.

When you visited construction sites more often than not, things happened. Like that one time I brushed against a nail and took a chunk out of a pair of form-fitting brown pants. No saving those suckers, and of course I'd been wearing red polka dot panties that day, so I might as well have been clad in a damn flag.

After that, I'd kept at least two spare outfits on hand at all times.

I glanced through our gorgeous window before I walked in the front door to make sure there were no surprise clients inside. A quick swell of pride hit me at our logo etched in the glass. Classy and strong with a touch of feminine, thanks to the mix of traditional and script fonts. Luckily—or unluckily, depending on one's glass full mentality—there was no one inside other than TJ and Shelby.

Quickly, I slipped through the door and tried to rush for my office.

"What the hell happened to you?" TJ's deep and authoritative voice boomed.

I winced. "You'll never believe it."

"With you, we will. You might be our problem solver, but it's mostly because you always back into some sort of drama. What happened this time? Freak hurricane?"

"Har-har." I slumped into a chair at the conference table. " Ow ."

Shelby disappeared into our breakroom and came back out with our first aid kit—pink, of course. Couldn't have a plain one. This one was filled by our resident mother with all the things we needed for bumps, cuts, scrapes, as well as meds for any and all versions of headache, cramps, allergies, or sickness. Shelby was a thorough one.

She sat next to me, took one look, and cracked one of the quick acting ice packs. "Honestly, what happened? Do we need to go to the clinic?"

That was Shelby—cool and calm in the face of a crisis, but I did see the worry in her eyes.

I patted her arm. "I'm okay."

Her brow furrowed, but she nodded and started ripping open bandages. "Do we need to bury a body?"

I laughed. "Not yet. That remains to be seen. So, remember my truck guy?"

"Little Dick?" TJ grinned as she pulled a chair over so the three of us formed a little triangle. "I feel there's a story time upon us." She gathered her feet under her and sat crisscrossed in the wide, comfortable chair.

Shelby gave her sharp look.

"I haven't been to a work site. Boots are clean, Ma."

"They're never clean."

Shelby put a towel on the desk and unscrewed the cap on a brown bottle that would make me very unhappy in a second. Resigned to my fate, I set my arm on top of the thick black towel.

TJ rolled her eyes and her Timberlands thudded to the floor, then she crossed her legs normally and leaned in. "Now give me the story."

I hissed as Shelby poured peroxide onto my worst cut. "Ouch."

"At least you don't need stitches, but this is going to be sore."

I looked away from the disinfectant bubbles going wild on my skin. Ugh. "That was the worst of them. So, I went out to my house to clear my head."

Shelby narrowed her eyes. "Not surprising with all you've had going on this week."

I gave a gusty sigh. "That's the truth. Ouch, dammit, Shel."

"I gotta get it clean. Stop wiggling."

Distracting myself with thoughts of my favorite house, I closed my eyes against the blood. It didn't make me faint or anything, but I didn't need to see how badly I was banged up. Of course that opened me up to a flashback of all that wood and stone coming at me.

"So, truck guy bought my house."

"What?" TJ clapped and gave a gusty cackle. "That's so rich."

I opened one eye.

"Sorry, sorry. Go on." TJ sat back, her lips twitching against a smile.

"I saw the sold sign and heard someone demolishing the back of the house. If the shock of finding out my house was sold wasn't enough, I ran around the back to see this behemoth of a man whacking at the posts of the porch with a sledgehammer."

Suddenly serious, TJ grabbed my knee. "What?"

I opened both eyes and nodded. "Yep."

She'd been out to the Barrows Mansion, as well. Her carpenter heart had been just as enamored with the details as I was. Okay, maybe not quite as enamored, but she appreciated the craftsmanship.

Luckily, she'd grabbed my good knee.

TJ glanced down at my ripped skirt and snatched her hand back. "Girl, you are a mess."

I sighed. "Believe me, I know. Anyway, he's all black pants and tank top and covered in dust with a respirator on. Oh, and headphones so he didn't hear me."

Shelby gave me a look. "Quite the details on him."

"I notice things. I can't help it."

" Mhm ."

"Anyway, I didn't know it was truck guy until I screamed at him to stop hitting the post. You don't just whack away at a porch like that with no supports or without anyone else with you. It's dangerous. Well, I was so busy getting him to listen to me, I didn't realize how close I was."

I managed to resist a shiver due to the memory of Nolan with all those muscles showing. Totally different kind of shiver, but not the point. He was a beast of a man, so it didn't matter if he was also unreasonably attractive with all that dark hair and tanned skin and surprising muscles.

Hmm. I'd already mentioned muscles in my own brain and out loud. It wasn't important, dammit. This was about my house.

"So, of course, with the state of that porch, you needed a lot of support. Half of it is stone and the other half is wood, so that crumbling arch came down with the quickness."

TJ covered her face with her hands. "Oh, God."

"I know. My poor house."

TJ dropped her hands. "You could have been hurt, you idiot! What were you doing getting that close?"

"I wasn't thinking. And I certainly wasn't dressed for it. That stupid man finally heard me and after he ripped off the respirator, I recognized him. So, of course, we got into it again."

Quietly, Shelby listened as she cleaned up my arm. She did give me an arched brow look of reproach in her mom way.

I resisted the urge to hunch my shoulders. They hurt too, dammit. "Yes, it was stupid, I know. I kept trying to get him to stop whaling away at the posts as if he was trying out for a strong man role at a carnival, but we pissed each other off. Shocker."

TJ's eyebrows shot up as she sat back in her chair. "Hmm."

I rolled my eyes. "He cannot be destroying Harriette's house like that."

"Oh, here we go." TJ got up and went to our mini fridge hidden in one of the cabinets next to the conference table. A bunch of design books of paint, wallpaper swatches, and fabrics were neatly stacked beside the fridge. She grabbed one of her Diet Mt. Dews and a Diet Coke for me. She set the can in front of me. "Drink. Tell me this isn't going to be a ghost story again."

"No."

TJ didn't believe in my Harriette sightings. She was much too pragmatic for that kind of thing.

"But it is her house," I said with a huff.

"Now it's this new dude's house." She cracked the top of my can, then hers, and took a loud slurping sip.

"Don't remind me." I reached for the can with my good arm. I glanced at the forearm with a sigh. No, that one wasn't in any better shape, actually.

"So, you were screaming at Little Dick. Go on."

I winced. That name was so going to stick even if that was far from the truth. At least based on my quick encounter with said…appendage.

Would I stop calling it an appendage? Probably not. Especially considering the girth of it. Jeez.

"First, I was yelling at him for using a sledgehammer like a kid with a sword—shitty form, by the way."

TJ shook her head. "Girl."

"I know. But if he'd done it more carefully, we probably could have saved some of the stone. Now it's just freaking dust."

" We ?" Shelby paused as she was dabbing at my forearm.

"Not time for that part yet."

Shelby pressed her lips together and dabbed a little harder.

" Ow ."

She just kept working.

I sighed. "So, it all came down and he tackled me. So, I guess he saved me from further damage. Not that you can tell." I hissed as Shelby spread a large gauze pad over the underside of my forearm.

"You're lucky you weren't more hurt."

"I know. I just wasn't expecting him to be there. And if you can believe it, the story gets even more crazy."

"Oh, I can believe it." TJ propped her chin on her hand. "Go on."

"Don't encourage her." Shelby squirted triple antibacterial ointment on another square of gauze. "Turn."

I sighed and turned in my seat. My upper arm was more of a scrape, but Shelby was in full on mom mode. She would not be deterred. "After I got six feet whatever of him flying at me, we..."

TJ smirked. "Did you have a moment?"

"No." I cleared my throat. "Not exactly. He's a freaking beast."

"Beasts have their uses." TJ winked.

I couldn't remember what that was like. While my last boyfriend had managed to have a few interesting tricks under his belt, I wasn't exactly shattering the sound barrier with my shouts of pleasure. Not that a girl had to be vocal to enjoy herself, but that kind of girl was not me.

"You try having two-hundred-and-something pounds of guy land on you."

"Been there. Had a few enjoyable moments. Remember Ray?" TJ gave a gusty sigh. "He may have looked like Idris Elba, but he didn't have his panache in the end."

Shelby tossed a wrapper at her. "What did I say about encouraging her?"

"What?" TJ laughed. "Sorry, go on with your story."

"I'll admit, I wasn't expecting him to actually try to save me. We haven't had the best track record so far." And he'd certainly seemed worried about me for a moment.

At least before he'd gotten off me and left me in the dust. Jackass .

TJ snickered. "Starting off your romance with gouging Little Dick into his truck isn't going to do it."

"There's no romance. I just want his house."

This time, Shelby's lips twitched with humor.

"After we screamed at each other for a few more minutes, I convinced him to give me a chance to work up a quote for him."

"You what?" Shelby dropped the tube of antiseptic.

"I know, I know. But this man is loaded. At least he says he's loaded. I have to look him up to be sure."

"Wait—"

I rushed on. "He said money is no object. He just wants to rehab the house. And wants to keep the Gothic architecture." And he wanted to be included in the remodel, but I didn't need to lead with that part yet. "And it sounds like he wants to make it even more spectacular. I always pictured stained glass for some of those skinny windows. Imagine?"

"Dahlia…" Shelby sighed.

"Right. Anyway, this is my dream project and my dream house."

"Okay, back up." Shelby sat back in her chair. "That is not a house, it's a mansion. We'd need to coordinate a huge crew to work on a job that big."

"I know. But it would be a great addition to our portfolio. Especially with so many people buying up houses on the lake and in Crescent Cove. That's some big money. Not just a little living room remodel. And besides we managed to do Dex's house and that was a huge undertaking."

"Yes, but Dex's place took months to do. Lining up crews as well as ordering all the details for his place is one thing—this is a historical remodel, which will need some expertise we don't have."

"But we have the connections. We've been building them for years. And those we don't know, we can research and find through our contacts."

Shelby opened her mouth.

"One last thing."

Shelby sighed. "What?"

"He's Macy Devereaux's brother."

TJ gave a long whistle. "Girl. I didn't even know she had a brother."

"I know. I've known her for years and I didn't either. But this isn't some random dude. Between that and this house, this would be so good for our name. Dex started our level up, but this..."

Shelby tapped one short, pink nail on the table. "It would take a lot of work and scheduling."

I could tell she was seriously thinking about it. I was the problem solver, but Shelby was our logistics girl.

I pulled out my phone and quickly opened the real estate listing for the house. "Look at the library, TJ. The built-ins need your love and attention."

"Low blow." But she took my phone and swiped through the photos. She'd only taken a brief tour of the house so far. "Shit."

"You know this house is amazing. Between your carpentry skills and my knowledge of this house and Shelby's spatial prowess, we could make it so great. There are so many rooms to be redone."

"Wood rot for days," TJ muttered.

"But you know it was built to last back then. There's so much detail to restore."

TJ handed me my phone. "This would take months. And you don't even know if this dude actually has money because, girl, this is a money pit waiting to happen. No one has lived in that house for at least ten years."

"Twelve."

TJ stood and took her can. "I'd have to see it. And then maybe?—"

I stood and threw my arms around her. "Yes!"

"I didn't say I would yet." TJ didn't hug me back. She was just as stubborn as our new client was.

I let her go. "You will. You'll see the inside and fall in love with it like I did."

"You have a lot of prep work to do."

I sat back down. "I know. I have to go through all my papers and do a walk-through with Nolan."

"Nolan? That's this dude's name?" TJ snorted.

"I know. Doesn't fit the muscular, scarred thing he has going on."

"Scars? You didn't tell me about scars."

I tugged at the rip in my skirt, but it was hopeless. "Yeah, he has a really big scar going down his eye, cheek and neck." I swallowed at the memory of those dark blue eyes blazing down at me as he hovered over me. The scar didn't repulse me—quite the opposite. "Under his shirt too."

"And just how did you see under his shirt?" TJ paused at my chair.

"When he tackled me." I cleared my throat. "We got very close."

" Mmm . Very interesting. Sure you just want the remodel, cupcake?"

"Even if I was interested—which I am not—he does not like me. In the least."

"Fine line between love and hate." TJ gulped from her can as she headed for her office at the back of the room.

I huffed out a breath and turned to Shelby. "And how do you feel about this?"

She continued to tap her nail on the table, then slowly, she packed up the first aid kit. "I have to think about it. Write up a proposal and we'll all vote on it."

"Okay. That I can do. After I meet with my property manager at The Heights."

Shelby winced. "I don't envy you that one. Gizmo really made a mess of things."

"He sure did." I sighed. "First, I have to wash up and change. Can I borrow your black jacket? I don't want to walk in looking like this." I held up my bandaged arms.

"Sure. But maybe they would take pity on you in your current condition."

I laughed. "Okay, well, there is that."

I was not looking forward to this in the least.