Gray
One week later I was back at Tessa’s house finally finishing the meetings that had been cut short. The initial meeting for her home renovation had ended abruptly when Tessa shut the meeting down early—right after I’d caught her out in the fib about the Viagra, as a matter of fact.
Then there was the van reno meeting she’d cut short when she had something better to do than finish a meeting I’d changed my schedule to accommodate. How many places can a person go with a dog in tow? The dog park? Lunch with a girlfriend? Or a boyfriend? Which, good luck to whatever guy had the balls or eternal patience to take Tessa Madigan on. Sure there was something about her, but no way could it be worth the trouble. I’m talking capital T trouble. Things just did not add up with the woman.
Each meeting, phone call, and email exchange with Tessa Madigan left me frustrated and fuming. Thank God for our batting cage out back. Smacking the leather off a bag of balls was the only way to calm down so far. I figured my brothers had no sympathy for me because first, they were enjoying watching my pain. And second, they probably had bets going on who would quit first, me or Tessa Madigan.
And the worst part? The Madigan job hadn’t even fucking started yet. Not officially. I couldn’t even put together a proposal until she figured out what she wanted. I was beginning to think what she wanted was to drive me crazy. Every damn day she called having completely changed her mind on about seventeen different things. I’d even begged Beck to let this one go; all Beck said was a job was a job.
My goal for today’s meeting with Tessa was to show her my concept drawings and estimate for the van. If the drawings were acceptable, get her input for any adjustments and then have her sign off on them to get that rolling.
Next up, quickly and efficiently finish the walk-through of her house. Record the measurements and take photos of each room, and have a calm, professional, and thorough discussion about what she wanted in the renovation. And then get the hell out before everything went sideways. The way it usually did with Tessa.
But nothing ever goes the way I expect it will when it comes to Tessa Madigan.
I rang Tessa’s doorbell, standing back a polite distance from the door while I waited.
She opened it, looked at my shoes, and slammed it in my face. Again.
I waited. If this went like the last time she’d slammed the door in my face, she’d reopen it in a few seconds. As if on cue the door swung back open, and Tessa stood there with her dog Sully tucked up in one arm and a stiff smile on her face.
“Hello, Tessa.” I smiled my friendly smile, the one that usually put people at ease. But it only worked if a person saw it, and Tessa’s eyes had stopped somewhere around my chest. I glanced down to see if I’d spilled something on my shirt at lunch, but no, all good there.
“Gray. Please, come on in.” She turned her face quickly away as she led me in and back through to her kitchen. “I appreciate you fitting me into your schedule again, especially since it was my fault we didn’t finish this the other day.”
“Not a problem. I’m flexible.” Within reason. I didn’t like the idea of some spoiled woman jerking me around for her own amusement. I hadn’t come to that conclusion yet, but I also wasn’t ruling it out.
“Good to know. About you being flexible. With your schedule. Not you. I mean, maybe you are, and that’s good too. Flexible people have fewer lower back problems.” Tessa strung the sentences together, almost without taking a breath. All while she played follow the bouncing dot apparently. She looked at the flowers on the counter, my shoes, her shoes, her dog’s shoes (yep, I said the dog’s shoes). She looked everywhere but at me.
For the record, I was both kinds of flexible. Working out with Ash a lot made sure of it. I chose not to share that information.
“I thought we could finish the walk-through on your house so that SBC can put together a proposal for you. That way you’ll have something concrete to compare for any other bids you get. If you choose to go with us, we can get you on our schedule quickly, and you’ll be that much closer to getting your reno completed. How does that sound?”
“No. No, I’d rather start with the van.”
“Absolutely. I brought the concept drawings for the van ready for you to look at.”
“That was fast. I’ve delayed the van too long, so I’m anxious to get going on it.” She sat at the small dinette set, a dainty looking antique that I could picture in some sweet little old lady’s house. “Let’s see what you’ve come up with.”
I opened my laptop at her kitchen table, turning the screen around for her to look. “I think I’ve fit in all your wish list items. You even have about ten inches of extra space to work with. We can always stick a temporary filler there, so as you begin to use it, and find you need something else, there’ll be room.”
Tessa’s cell phone rang and I paused while she picked it up from the kitchen table to check the caller ID.
“Sorry, I need to grab this,” she said, and then took the call. “Hi, Daddy. What’s up?”
Sully perked up from under the table at hearing “daddy” so I assumed “daddy” was one of his favorite humans.
“You finished my website? Thanks, Dad.” Her eyes flicked across to me. “I’m meeting with my guy about the reno, so I’ll give it a look as soon as it wraps up.”
Okay, the fact that my dick twitched when she said “my guy” meant I needed to get laid. Only two problems with that: I was still suffering from the man flu and I had the no-sex bet going. Also, did this woman do anything for herself? Her dad did her website. I was doing her van. She didn’t even drive herself as far as I could tell because her Volvo was still sitting blocked in by her van and she was on a first name basis with her Uber driver.
Whatever her father said next had her sitting up straighter. “Paul called you? Yeah, I was afraid of that, but thanks for the heads up. Okay, I’ll look after my meeting wraps up. Love you, Daddy.”
Shoot, I’d lost where we were in the discussion before her phone rang…her van. Right. “So, for your van, I—”
“Hold.” She held a finger up, silently asking for a moment while she tapped out a text on her phone before looking up. “Okay, release. I mean, go on, please.”
What the heck? No. I wasn’t even going to puzzle her out. I’d just keep going and try to get her to commit to something today.
“You were about to look through the options I’ve come up with for your van.” I moved the laptop closer to her.
She leaned forward to examine the renderings. I had drawn up four: one for each side of the van, a top view showing the entire van layout, and one rendering for the possible ramp and tub storage. While she took her time looking through them, I did everything I could not to stare at her. Because…client. And things had already gotten off on the wrong foot. The last thing I wanted was to add to the tension between us. Tension I didn’t want to attempt to examine.
The thing was that a good designer got to know their clients. Knowing a client’s lifestyle, their likes and dislikes, their goals and ideal vision for the space was a necessary part of a good design and a satisfied client. Design was very personal, and when it came to her house renovation I’d have to figure out what Tessa got off on, so to speak, to make this work.
“I’ve included some links to suppliers for the different items you requested, such as the refrigerator, the sliding stack of drawers, and the portable tub. I did a bit of research and included only the best-rated items in the estimate.”
She nodded, clicking through and studying each drawing. I tried not to stare at her, but my gaze kept floating back. To the soft rioting curls of her light brown hair that barely brushed her shoulders, to her light green eyes, to the sharp cheekbones and pointed chin of her face. She was on the thin side and had pale skin, as if she wasn’t the outdoor type. Or was darn good about applying sunscreen.
“Whatever changes you’d like, let me know, and I’ll revise it. Once you approve it, we can start right away. I’ve got a guy I trust who does van conversions. He’s good. I’ll supply the material and he’ll install it. You can see his labor is added already in the estimate. I can’t imagine this will take more than a couple days. We can get you up and running and driving around town in less than a week.”
I expected some sign of enthusiasm about that one week turn-around. A smile. A thumbs up. A nod even. Instead she frowned and wrapped both arms around her dog.
Sully sat perched on her lap looking a bit like a cocktail weenie stuffed into a beige sweater with snowflakes on it. Was it my imagination, or were his eyes begging me for help?
I looked closer to make sure he wasn’t blinking out a signal in Morse code. And I knew Morse code since my brothers and I had used it to communicate to each other when our father was hung-over and demanding complete silence in the house.
Deciphering the dog’s long blinks (dashes) and short blinks (dots) and—what the fuck? Not an S.O.S. I’d swear the dog just blinked out “Need bacon.” Or, I needed to get more sleep at night. If my doc couldn’t give me a shot for my man flu, I might have to ask her for some sleep aid. Because my old-fashioned, time-tested method of sex was off the table for now. A bet was a big deal among Thornes.
Thinking of sex sort of relaxed my guard, and my eyes drifted back to Tessa. Not that I was thinking about sex with Tessa. Nope. That hadn’t crossed my mind. Not until right now, now that the thought was sitting there—all shiny and attention-grabbing—all teed up, if you will.
My mind went back to Halloween night, when I’d let my temper get the best of me, and I’d gone over to impart some good sense into a woman crazy enough to pull that trick with a stranger. I remembered getting the softest scent of freshness, when I whispered in her ear. Like when a soft breeze carries the faintest touch of gardenias in a garden through the air.
What was I doing? Shut this down. I’d never fucking slept with a client. And I never would. That was a hard and fast rule. Helped keep the crazy out of my work life. I liked a non-crazy work life.
I jerked my gaze to Tessa, checking to see what was taking so long. It was a van for Christ’s sake, not a whole house plan. There was only so much to look at. Maybe she hated it and was too polite or shy to tell me.
“What do you think, Tessa?”
“No….no problems that I can see.” She glanced over at me, but her eyes only made it to my chin.
Was she avoiding looking at me? Maybe I made her uncomfortable. Or maybe she was still a bit snooty because I got a little pissed when she bailed on our last appointment.
“That’s great. Then next we need to talk materials and color scheme.”
“No.” Tessa frowned and stood abruptly, walking to the kitchen window and back. She had a hitch to her walk, like when you get a Charlie horse in your calf. “No. If you don’t mind, I’d like to go ahead and take you through the rooms for renovation, and then we can go back to the van.”
“Sure. That works,” I agreed, trying to cooperate, accommodate, and be as low anxiety inducing as I could. I grabbed my small camera and notepad and followed Tessa through the first floor. She’d said her grandmother used to live here, and everywhere I looked were signs of her. The hallway from the kitchen back to the three bedrooms had hand rails attached on both sides. Those same safety rails were also installed in the only full bath on the first floor, both in the shower and next to the commode.
The biggest bedroom contained a hospital bed. The kind that let you raise both the head and foot section separately, plus an overhead pulley to help a person maneuver in and out of bed. All the other furniture in the room, dressers, night table, rocking chair, had been pushed to along the walls to allow enough space for the bed. It was all falling into place. What Tessa was dealing with. Tessa’s unpredictable behavior was beginning to make more sense.
“All I know is I want this room changed top to bottom. Starting with the ceiling. That far corner by the front window has a web of cracks in the plaster. If you stand near the bed, the crack looks like an evil grin. It’s creepy and disturbing.” Tessa’s shoulders gave a slight shudder, and Sully hustled over from where he’d been sniffing around, placing a gentle paw against her leg as if he sensed her mood and knew to comfort her.
Huh. I walked over for a closer look, pulling a miniature flashlight from my pocket, and shining it into the corner. “Looks like water damage. Could be a leak in the roof. We can get someone up there to see if it needs replacing or just a patch.”
Next we moved on to the smallest bedroom which looked like it was being used for both storage and exercise. There was a mat on the floor and a few lightweight dumbbells. Really lightweight. Talking two, five, and ten pounds. Nothing bigger. I pictured her grandmother sitting in a chair lifting the two pounders to keep the osteoporosis at bay.
A wheelchair, walker, and a pair of beat up looking crutches were shoved in the far corner. Well, hell. It suddenly made sense. Tessa’s grandmother, the one she’d lived with and spoken of with deep affection, had passed away. It explained everything.
Tessa’s reluctance to move forward with the renovation. The fact that she set up the meetings, but then cut them short. Her need for a companion animal while she dealt with the grief. People handled grief in different ways, sometimes there was no rhyme or reason to how it hit a person. It could turn a person crazy.
I didn’t say anything. She hadn’t mentioned it, so I figured it was too painful. It had to be hard to live amongst the remnants of her grandmother’s final days. The reminders of the end. The hospital bed, the rails, the wheelchair. Yeah, I’d want to yank all that shit out and only remember the good stuff.
Dammit. The longer we stood in the room, the deeper Tessa’s frown got. Not good. I took my measurements quickly and moved on to the last bedroom which held a queen bed, freshly made, and the soft scent of gardenias. So, Tessa’s bedroom. I took these measurements just as quickly and was writing down the last numbers when a voice called from the foyer.
“Hellooo, Tessa!”
“Drat.” I watched Tessa’s eyes go big. Then she frowned, shook her head, and shoved me into the bedroom closet, following behind me and closing us both inside the cramped space.
All of us crammed into a space not much bigger than a chimney. By “all of us” I meant me, Tessa, Tessa’s addicting light floral perfume, and her tight little body plastered up against mine. Yep. Just like it always did, things had just gone sideways with Tessa.