Chapter Five
Haley tried on one pair of jeans after another. Sam was due to arrive at six thirty—with his brother, of course. Tossing her most recent denim selection over her footboard, she huffed out a breath. Ridiculous. Who cared how she looked? They were tearing out her kitchen, for crying out loud, not going out on a date.
She snapped and zipped the jeans she had on and scowled at the evidence of her momentary lapse in sanity—several pairs of jeans piled on top of her bed. Well, if anyone—anyone being Sam—caught a glimpse of the pile on her bed, they—meaning Sam again—would likely think she was cleaning out her dresser.
Haley headed for the takeout meal she’d set on the dining room table. She had thirty minutes to relax and eat, and she’d best take advantage. Who was she kidding? Even thinking about being anywhere in Sam’s proximity made relaxation impossible. Being around him gave her a bad case of the jitters.
Even worse, something about him had her itching to run her hands all over those broad shoulders, firm chest—and his butt. Especially his butt. Yep, Sam the handyman had great glutes, firm and nicely rounded. Michael’s butt had been pretty much nonexistent. Flat, as if someone had let out all the air from both cheeks.
“Enough already,” she muttered. Haley took a seat and opened the bag containing her soup and sandwich. She’d told Sam there would be no touching. That had to be the reason why she wanted so badly to touch him. Plus, he was a very fine specimen of masculinity. All that hardness under sexy worn denim, soft flannel and white cotton T-shirts didn’t help matters. Did he wear boxers or briefs?
Were those muscles a result of what he did for a living, or did he work out? She could see why some women threw themselves at him. She refused to be one of them. Is that why he insisted on calling her Ms. Cooper?
A flash of irritation burned through her. He was mocking her; she was sure of it. He probably saw her as uptight and prudish, just because she’d turned down his special touch. She grabbed the magazine she’d been reading. Not that she cared what he thought, but . . . if he could see what went on inside her head, then he’d know she was no prude. She grinned. Good thing he couldn’t see the show-and-tell going on in there.
She finished her sandwich and turned the page of her magazine just as someone knocked on her front door. She checked her wall clock—it was only ten after six. She moved to the front door and peeked through the small window. Sam stood beneath the light, a crowbar and a sledgehammer in hand. He smiled at her, and her stomach performed all kinds of acrobatics. She opened the door and let him in. “You’re early.”
“Am I?” He pulled out his phone and checked the time. “Oh. Sorry. I thought it was later than it is. The clock on the dashboard of my van broke years ago, and it gets dark so early now, what with the end of daylight saving time a couple of weeks ago and all.” He gestured toward said van with his thumb. “Do you want me to wait outside for twenty minutes? Because I—”
“No. Come in. I was just having my supper.”
“I don’t want to disturb you.” He followed her to the dining room and leaned his tools against the wall.
“Where’s Wyatt?” she asked.
“He’s meeting me here. Mind if I fill my water bottle before we tear out your plumbing?”
“Go ahead.” While he was gone, she lifted her tomato soup and took big hurried gulps from the cardboard container. No way did she want to eat soup in front of him. She was way too self-conscious around Sam as it was, and with him watching, she’d likely dribble soup down her chin.
He returned and settled himself at the table. “Tonight you get to do a supervised tear-out. You excited about that?” His eyes lit with amusement.
Was she? “Sure.” Haley lifted the plastic spoon, dipped and sipped the little bit of soup that remained.
“So . . .” Sam traced a finger along the wood grain of her table. “While we were doing the bathroom tear-out, you mentioned remodeling the semi-finished basement, and—”
“Are you angling for more work, Sam?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I was just wondering. You said we that day, as in we planned to remodel the basement. Who is we?”
Her jaw dropped. “You came early to snoop!”
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes you did.” Her eyes narrowed.
“OK, maybe I did.” He shrugged. “I’m curious. The way your mother set me up, the whole situation, you have to agree it’s weird. Can you blame me for trying to figure out why she did it? I thought maybe the we thing might be a clue.”
She huffed out a breath. What difference did it make anymore? It’s not like the whole mess was a big dark secret. In the entire history of weddings, she certainly hadn’t been the only bride jilted. Besides, Sam had been pimped out by her mother. He had a good reason for wanting to know what Trudy had going on in her twisted brain.
“It’s no big deal,” she said. “Not anymore, anyway. I was supposed to get married last May. My fiancé and I bought this house together.” She grabbed the paper sack from her meal and crammed the soup container, napkin and sandwich wrapper inside.
“And?”
She cringed inwardly. “And two weeks before the wedding, Michael moved to Indonesia without me. No explanation. Nothing. He just signed the house over and left.”
“Oh, man. What an ass.”
She nodded, her throat too tight to speak.
“See, that’s why I never get involved.” He arched an eyebrow and leveled a sharp look her way. “No involvement means no pain. You think I’m this big lothario—which I looked up, by the way, and you’re wrong. I don’t disrespect, abuse or exploit women. I’m completely up front, and I make it clear from the get-go that I’m not looking for a relationship. There are plenty of unattached females who feel as I do. They don’t want to get close either, and—”
“Hold on.” She canted her head. “Are you saying you’ve never been involved in a serious relationship?”
One side of his mouth quirked up. “Now who’s snooping?”
“Hey, fair’s fair. Have you ever been seriously involved?”
“Nope.”
A shadow of something—was it hurt?—flitted across his face for a nanosecond and disappeared. The shadow was replaced by a glint of challenge. Clearly he intended to defend his position should she wish to argue the point. He’d probably had to do plenty of defending since Loaded Question had aired.
She studied him, searching for any hint of the pain she’d glimpsed, but he’d masked whatever it was, and only the cocky handyman remained. Someone must have broken his heart at some point, or he wouldn’t have closed himself off the way he had. She ought to know. It took one to know one, as they say. “How old are you, Sam?”
“I turned twenty-nine a couple of weeks ago.”
“Hmm. Almost thirty, and you’ve never had a serious relationship?” She frowned. Curious. She opened her mouth to delve deeper into his lack of involvement, but he beat her to the punch.
“Back to the original topic.” He flashed her another one of his blue-eyed pointed looks. “What did your mother hope to achieve by setting us up?”
“Right.” She shifted in her chair. “A couple of friends and I have figured it out. Trudy believes—”
“Trudy being your mother?”
“Yes. Trudy thinks—”
“You refer to your mother by her given name?”
“I do, but only when she pulls manipulative, definitely un-motherly shenanigans like this one.” Haley gestured between the two of them. “My mother loves to meddle. Correction, make that she lives to interfere in the lives of her children. It’s her only hobby.
“After my brother and I were born, she quit working outside the home, and by the time we started school, she’d discovered her true vocation in life—messing with our personal lives, which generally leads to excruciatingly embarrassing situations. Not for her, or course, but for us.” Haley shook her head. “And here’s the strange part. My mother is not a mean person. She thinks she’s doing right by me and my brother.”
Sam laughed, and tiny shivers of pleasure skipped down her spine. He really was gorgeous. “My friends and I believe Trudy hired you after hearing the radio show. She thinks I haven’t gotten over what happened with Michael, and—”
“Have you gotten over what happened with Michael?” His gaze intensified.
“Who recovers from something like that?” She had to fight the urge to squirm. “I could’ve handled a breakup much easier than desertion. If he’d told me he didn’t love me anymore, or that he’d found someone else, I’d have gotten over it eventually. But the man just up and moved to the other side of the planet to get away from me, and I’ll never know why. That’s what I can’t get past.”
“He’s gay.”
Not the first time someone had suggested Michael was gay. Wouldn’t she have known? They’d had a sex life. Plus, he could’ve told her if that had been the case. They’d been best friends since their junior year in high school. “You never met the man. How can you possibly make such an assumption?”
“No, I haven’t met him, but I do have a gay cousin. I know how difficult it was for him to come out after hiding it for so long.” He smiled. “We’d all figured it out years ago though, and it didn’t matter to us. He’s a great guy, and he’s family.”
Sam leaned back and crossed his arms. “There’s still a lot of prejudice out there. Your fiancé probably freaked out. He realized marrying you would be colossally unfair—to you both. I’m guessing he didn’t know how to handle the situation, so he disappeared. Disappearing probably felt far easier to him than coming out of the closet two weeks before your wedding.”
“You have an active imagination.”
“Maybe, maybe not. You’ll never know unless you ask him.”
“You think I should contact Michael and demand to know what his sexual preferences are?”
“When you put it that way, no. But you could ask him why he did what he did. Enough time has gone by that the two of you might be able to have a conversation without all the emotional drama.”
“I’ll think about it.” He was right. She knew he was right, but even thinking about contacting Michael churned up the hurt she’d gone through. Still, getting the answers she needed might help her get past the pain once and for all.
“Regardless of his reasons, your ex is a selfish jerk. Nobody deserves to be treated the way he treated you, Haley. It’s about him, not you.”
Her throat closed up, and her eyes stung. “Thanks, Sam.” She rose from the table, and a knock sounded on the front door, ending the conversation.
“That’ll be Wyatt,” Sam said. “You didn’t tell me what you and your friends figured out. Why did your mom set us up?”
“Some other time. Your brother is here, and I’m ready to tear stuff up.”
Sam held his stud finder to the wall. “We’re going to locate and mark the studs on this outside wall,” he told Haley, careful to keep his eyes off the way the long-sleeve T-shirt she wore hugged her breasts and the curve of her waist. Talk about a challenge. “Once the studs are marked”—he penciled an X on one and moved to the next—“then you can hammer at the plaster between the marks.” He called to his brother, “You about done down there, Wyatt?”
Wyatt, crouched under the sink to disconnect and cap the plumbing, backed out. “All done.”
“Do you want to take out the counters first?” Sam asked. Haley grinned and nodded, and his heart skipped a beat. “OK. Remember what I told you. Have at it.”
He and his brother set Haley loose and stood back to supervise. She wedged the crowbar between the remaining kitchen counter and the wall and put all of her muscle into separating the two. She made noises, grunts and groans that went right through him. And when the pieces finally came apart, she whooped and fisted the air with a look of triumph on her flushed—make that blotched—face.
Sam laughed. “Wyatt and I will haul this out, and you can start on the upper cabinets.”
She stepped back and surveyed her work. “Yeah . . . how do I do that again? I didn’t see any bolts or anything when I emptied them.”
“Same way. Why don’t you wait for us to return? It’s best if we treat it as a two-man job anyway. You don’t want to get hurt when the cabinets drop.”
“I’ll knock out some plaster while I’m waiting.” She set the crowbar down and hefted a sledgehammer.
“She’s really into this tear-out stuff,” Wyatt said, taking up his end of the load. “It’s a little scary.”
“Good.” Haley lifted the hammer and swung at the wall between the graphite Xs. “Every woman should have a scary side.” Post-World-War-II plaster crumbled and fell to the floor in a pile. She let loose with a peal of feigned maniacal laughter.
“She is scary,” Sam said, laughing again. “We ought to talk Grandpa Joe into hiring her for tear-outs.” Haley truly was something to behold in demolition mode. All the prim and proper fell away, and he caught a glimpse of the passion she kept under wraps. She threw herself into the task of destroying her kitchen, no holds barred. Still grinning, he and Wyatt hauled the old kitchen counter toward the front door.
“What time did you get to Haley’s house tonight?” Wyatt asked once they were outside. They set the counter on the driveway and lowered the tailgate of the dumpster.
“A few minutes before you got here.”
“How many is a few in Sam time?” Wyatt asked as they hoisted the old counter and walked it into the dumpster. “Like, thirty or sixty?”
Sam frowned at his younger brother. “Why the third degree? Did Grandpa Joe or Grandma Maggie tell you to babysit me or something?”
“No.” Wyatt shook his head. “Haley seems really nice, and I don’t want to see you do or say anything that might upset her. I have a feeling she’s in a vulnerable place right now.”
“Look at you, using words like vulnerable. When did you turn into Mr. Sensitive?” Sam smirked. “I’m not going to cross any lines. Haley’s mom did what she did for a reason, and I intend to learn what that reason is. I came a little early so I could ask Haley a few questions. I had hoped to get some answers. That’s all.”
“Did you get answers?” Wyatt asked, starting toward the house.
“Not entirely, but you were right. She went through a bad breakup. Two weeks before her wedding last May, her fiancé up and left the country without a word of explanation.”
“What an idiot,” Wyatt huffed out. “He could have at least written her a letter or something. To leave her hanging like that . . . wow.” He shook his head. “Selfish prick.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
By the time they returned to the kitchen, they found Haley issuing battle cries at the wall as she swung her sledgehammer—the female equivalent of a Norse god with her mighty hammer of doom. “Keep doing what you’re doing, Haley,” Sam told her. “Wyatt and I will work on the cabinets.”
“OK.” She grinned at him over her shoulder, her face beaded with perspiration. “This is fun.”
The way her eyes sparkled and her skin glistened weakened his knees. He imagined her in bed, sweaty and hot, writhing beneath him, wearing nothing but that same expression of passionate abandon. Swallowing the groan rising in his throat, Sam tightened his jaw and focused on tearing out the cabinets.
Wyatt had already moved the stepladders into place beneath the cabinets. Crowbar in hand, Sam joined his brother, determined to keep his mind out of the gutter and far, far away from images of Haley naked. Not easy. In fact, damn near impossible.
He cast a look at her as she shouted another battle cry and pounded the poor wall. He wanted to laugh and growl all at the same time. One thing for certain, he’d better get his answers and finish this job quickly or he’d be in serious trouble where Ms. Haley Cooper was concerned.
Haley clutched her Thanksgiving contribution in her hands and walked between the parked cars in her parents’ driveway. Her aunt and cousins were already there, and so was Junior. All the lights inside were on, giving her childhood home a warm, cozy glow. She opened the front door and walked into the living room to find her mother waiting for her.
“Hi, Mom. Sorry I’m late,” she said. “Here’s the caramel apple crisp as promised, and I have a can of whipped cream in my purse.”
“You’re not late.” Her mom took the dessert from Haley’s hands. “Everyone else came early.”
“Hey, sweetie,” her aunt called from the kitchen.
She waved and inhaled the scent of roasting turkey, dressing and all the fixings. “Mmm. Smells delicious in here.” She took off her coat and hung it in the front closet. “Where is everybody?”
“Everyone is in the rec room downstairs watching football on the big-screen TV. Nanci and I are getting the food ready to put on the table. Why don’t you join us in the kitchen? We could use your help.”
“OK.” Gulp. The not-so-subtle probing and prying was about to begin, and Haley so wanted to confront her mother, but no. Not yet. Not until she came up with a way to make it count and end this kind of interference in her personal life for good. Instead of asking—How could you?—she rolled up her sleeves and followed her mom to the kitchen.
Aunt Nanci stood at the stove, whisking the gravy. “What’s new, Haley?” she asked as she turned off the burner. “Seems like I haven’t seen you for months.”
“Not much, and it has been months,” she replied. “What would you like me to do, Mom?”
“All the serving dishes are right there.” Trudy pointed to the far counter. “Start loading them up and transferring them to the dining room.”
“So,” her aunt said, exchanging a surreptitious peek at her mom. “How’re things coming along with your house? Your mom said she and your dad hired a construction company for the remodel.”
Ah-ha. Her aunt was in on the setup. Haley should’ve known. Trudy and Nanci were cut from the same cloth, after all. “It’s going great. The Haney brothers are teaching me a lot. My muscles are still sore from last week’s tear-out.”
“You’re doing the work?” Trudy frowned as she scooped the dressing from the turkey and added it to the serving dish in front of her. “What are we paying them for if you’re doing the work?”
“I’m helping because I want to learn how to do things myself. Both the kitchen and the bathroom are completely gutted.” She grabbed the pot of mashed potatoes from the stove and moved to the opposite counter to transfer them into one of the china serving dishes. “Saturday, their uncle Dan is coming over to install the shower in the bathroom, and Wyatt will be doing some rewiring. I’m having an additional electrical outlet added, and he’ll also install the new light fixture. Then, once their uncle is done, Wyatt and Sam are putting up the new walls and starting on the ceramic tile work around the tub.”
“Sounds like you have an entire crew there,” Aunt Nanci remarked, sharing another look with her mom.
“Yep. Pretty much.” She smiled. “Things are really coming along.” It was obvious the two still hoped something would happen between her and Sam. Unbelievable, Haley thought. They’re probably going nuts right about now, speculating and watching for my reaction. But she wasn’t about to give any hint that she knew what they were up to. Even without a plan, at least she could take pleasure in having thwarted them by keeping the two in the dark.
Having her mom and aunt stew over what they didn’t know wasn’t the only plus in this bizarre situation. So far, working with Sam and Wyatt had been fun, and the three of them had cut loose a little while destroying her kitchen. The two brothers had talked a lot about their huge extended family, and how they all gathered at their grandparents’ house for the holidays. She imagined Sam was there right now, enjoying a feast surrounded by family.
She straightened as it occurred to her that neither one of them ever mentioned their mom and dad. It was always Grandpa Joe this, or Grandma Maggie that, uncles, aunts and cousins, but never Mom and Dad.
Was it because his parents weren’t involved with Haney & Sons? Maybe they didn’t even live in the same state. Well that certainly bore looking into, especially given the way Sam had pried into her personal life. He owed her. “Humph.”
“What, Haley?” her mom asked.
“Hmm?” Haley set the lid on the serving dish of mashed potatoes and carried the empty pot to the sink.
“You humphed. Something on your mind?”
“Always, Mom.” Haley grabbed the green bean casserole. “I was just thinking about work and something I forgot to do yesterday. I won’t get to it until Monday now, and that’ll back up everything else on my pile, that’s all.”
“Oh.”
Good save. “I’m starving, and this all looks so good. You’ve outdone yourself this year.” In more ways than one. She sighed. At any rate, she’d managed to thwart her mother’s scheme. She’d still come out on top. She and Sam had a deal—the no-hands-involved clause. She ignored the ping of regret that thought caused and focused on transferring the green bean casserole into a serving dish.
“Humph,” Haley grunted again just for the hell of it, grinning at her mother and aunt.
“Good morning,” Haley greeted the receptionist as she walked into Bremmer, Stevens & Schmitt on Monday. “Did you have a nice Thanksgiving, Julie?”
“I did. How about you?”
“It was great.” Haley unbuttoned her coat and slipped it off.
“Brent wants you to stop by his office first thing,” Julie told her.
“Thanks.” The front desk phone rang then, and Haley headed down the hall toward Brent’s office. He was one of the lawyers she was assigned to, and they’d become good friends in the three years she’d worked for the firm. He walked out of the employee lounge just as she reached the door. “You wanted to see me?”
“I do.” Brent nodded toward his office. “Put your things away first.” He held a napkin-wrapped treat in one hand, and coffee in the other. “Somebody brought doughnuts this morning. If you want one, you’d better get it now. You know how fast sweets disappear around here.”
“I couldn’t. I’m still full from Thanksgiving.” She grinned and continued on.
A few minutes later, she walked into his office. “What have you got for me?”
He handed her a sheet of paper with notes scrawled on the front. “I have some research I need you to do for me.”
“When do you need it by?”
“End of the week?”
She scanned the sheet. “No problem.”
“Say.” He straightened the notepads on his desk. “The firm’s Christmas party is coming up.”
“I know. I got the same e-mail you did,” she teased.
“You want to go together?”
The firm always had their party early because the senior partners took vacation time over the holiday. They also allowed their staff to bring a significant other or a date. Her heart gave a painful squeeze. This would be her first Bremmer, Stevens & Schmitt Christmas party without Michael. “Wait.” Haley frowned. “I thought you were seeing someone? Josh, right? I thought he was the love of your life?”
“Yeah, well, so did I.” He shrugged. “It didn’t pan out like I’d hoped. We didn’t want the same things.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you want to talk about it?” Haley moved to sit on one of the chairs in front of his desk.
“Not here. Maybe over drinks after work sometime.”
“Plan on it,” Haley said with a sympathetic smile. Like her, Brent wanted a life partner and a family, and yet they were both still single. Brent was nice looking and had so much to offer, and he was such a wonderful man. She couldn’t understand why someone didn’t jump at the chance to be with him. The two of them had bonded over their thwarted dreams shortly after Michael had dumped her. “Sure. Let’s go to the Christmas party together. It’ll give us a chance to get caught up.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up at seven.”
“Brent, do you mind if I ask a question?” She fidgeted with the sheet of paper in her hands.
“Not at all. Fire away.”
“You met Michael more than once.”
“Yes?”
“Is he . . . Do you think Michael is gay?” she asked. “Did you get that vibe from him?” Sam popped into her mind. Where Michael had been slight and more brain than brawn, Sam was broad, rugged, with callused hands and a scruffy, totally masculine attractiveness. He had the kind of physique to make a woman drool. She forced him out of her head and focused on Brent.
“Oh. I don’t know, Haley. My gaydar has never been all that reliable. In fact, in my case, I suspect my perceptions are more wishful thinking than anything else.” Now it was his turn to give her a sympathetic smile. “All I can offer is a maybe. It makes sense though, given what happened. Sorry I can’t be more certain.”
“That’s OK.” She rose. “I have a brief to finish this morning. Once that’s done, I’ll start on this research.”
She walked down the hall to her tiny office, her mind on anything but work. Would getting over Michael be any easier if she went with the he’s gay theory? Probably not, because it would only be conjecture. Before she could move on, she needed to know why Michael bailed on her the way he had.
His parents would know how to reach him. Would they be willing to share his contact information? Of course they would. She’d been close to the entire family once upon a time. She’d gone on vacations with the Swensons and spent as much time with them as she had with her own folks.
After Michael had bolted, she’d been too emotionally wrecked to reach out to him and demand the answers she so desperately needed. Maybe it was time she did. Her heart pounded at the thought. She’d been so devastated and humiliated. Even if her life had depended upon it, she couldn’t have faced Michael’s parents at the time. Could she face them now? She had to. If she really wanted to move on, she had to.