Page 47 of His Build

Lucy was dying to see the rest of it.“Can I look around? In a professional capacity, of course.”

“As a life coach?” he said, his eyes twinkling with the joke.

“If you’re not careful.”

“Make yourself at home. Or I can give you a tour?”

“No,” she said, striding ahead. “I’d prefer to look around myself. Unless that’s too weird for you.”

Graydon laughed. “I should have known. And no, I prefer the deck anyway.”

Lucy smiled, genuinely grateful he didn’t make her feel weird about wanting to take in the space on her own.

People might think it was strange, but Lucy always preferred getting first impressions of interiors on her own. She didn’t like being influenced by other peoples’ views, or worse, conforming to other peoples’ opinions without truly understanding if she liked something on her own. This was one of the reasons she never wanted to be in a partnership. Having a partner meant swaying your own opinions to meet someone else’s expectations. The way her mother had always swung towards Stan, no matter how terrible his viewpoints. Stan had thought the epitome of style was a TV that took up half of their living room and that only played football and old sitcoms where the men wore hats and women were nags.

As Graydon made himself scarce, Lucy wandered through the living room, taking in the wood-burning stove and deep, cozy couch. She couldn’t help but tweak the interior in her mind. It was lovely—lived in and cozy, but a few touches could make the space really pop. She’d rearrange the furniture here, move the potted plant there by the window.

She loved this about design; it was the thing she’d missed: taking what someone already had and making it sing. It was the same thing she loved about coaching—taking people’s biggest heart-wish and bringing it out to shine.

What was her biggest heart-wish, she suddenly wondered? Had she figured it out since she got here? What the thing was that had been missing?

Being here, away from the city, she felt good.

A little too good.

She knew it wasn’t going back to design. She enjoyed moonlighting, but it had been way too stressful as a full-time gig.

Maybe it was being in the country. Or maybe it was the fling she was currently smack in the middle of.

She pushed on to the dining room, not wanting to entertain any thinking about how this fling was dabbling in feelings territory. The broad oak table was overloaded with things not related to dining: balsa wood building models; precarious towers of architectural books. She smiled at the pile of Miyazaki-specific books in the middle of the table.

The other side of the dining room opened up onto a gorgeous kitchen, with professional-looking appliances and butcher block counters. Through the French doors, Graydon sat out on his deck, facing the water with his back to her. His hands were laced behind his head; his long legs stretched out before him.

He could have insisted he take her around his personal space, but he didn’t. He’d let her do her own thing, and he didn’t seem wounded about it either.

Maybe some partnerships didn’t have to involve subverting to someone else’s views.

Maybe.

Lucy passed by the stairs leading to what was likely the bedrooms on the second floor. Inspecting Graydon’s bedroom seemed like too intrusive an act, despite what they’d just done together down on the dock.

A tingling warmth spread between Lucy’s legs. She walked briskly down the hallway as if she could walk away from the feeling, passing Graydon’s office, with its expansive view onto the lake. She should do what she came here to do and head back to the motel. This fling, or whatever they were calling it, shouldn’t involve making herself at home in his house.

Lucy was about to head out to the deck to find Graydon when her eye caught another room across the hall. Through the open door she caught a slice of a window, with a single armchair and table next to it. Something about that room drew her attention, and she took the few steps over to the space. Except for the armchair and end table, the room was stuffed with boxes. A storage space—nothing to get excited about. She should have left then. But instead she looked out the picture window next to the armchair. And she was suddenly slammed with a dizzying sense of déjà vu.

The window looked off the backside of the property. It framed a grassy meadow with clusters of trees at its edges, and on the far side sat the old but well-maintained barn they were here to see. Then it hit her—except for the barn in the corner, the view from this window was almost exactly the same as the photo in her living room; the centerpiece of her apartment.

The one calledHome.

17

Lucy backed up, her legs hitting the end table.

A coincidence. That’s all it is.

The lamp perched on the table wobbled, and as she grabbed it to keep it from falling, Lucy knocked a picture that had been propped there onto the floor with a bang.

Shit.

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