Page 10 of Trophy
“Just let me know if you have any trouble.” His eyes never left her face, and his appreciative expression triggered a shiver of excitement that ran down her spine. “I’m good at helping.”
“Hey, West,” another man called out, coming from the back of the store. “We’re running low on the red cedar mulch.”
“I know,” Rob replied, focusing over Allison’s shoulder on the man who had spoken. “We’re getting a shipment in tomorrow morning.”
Allison’s eyes narrowed as she realized something. “Your last name is West.”
“Yeah. I told you that yesterday, didn’t I?”
“As in West Hardware?”
His eyebrows twitched up. “What of it?”
“So you don’t just work here.”
“I do work here. But it’s my store, yeah. Why?”
“No reason. I just didn’t know.” She was suddenly afraid he might think she was interested in him now that she knew he was a somewhat successful businessman. Maybe owning the hardware store was the top of the social ladder in Fielding. Reacting quickly, she gave him a little smirk. “So when you recommended I come here for this part, you were really just drumming up business for yourself.”
He laughed, his eyes warming with that appreciation she’d caught in them before. “That’s exactly what I was doing.”
She momentarily lost her breath as a wave of attraction washed over. This man might not be her type at all, but she couldn’t help but like how he looked, how he was laughing so naturally, how he was gazing at her.
She imagined herself kissing him, what his strong, rough hands would feel like on her body.
Suddenly realizing what she was doing, she snapped herself out of it. She was working on herself this year—figuring out who she really was, managing on her own—until she could get back to Charlotte. She wasn’t going to have a little fling with a blue-collar type, no matter how appealing he was.
“Well, thanks,” she murmured.
“I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
She’d turned to leave when she thought of something. “You’re not hiring here, are you?”
He’d been watching her walk away, but now his brows drew together. “Wasn’t planning on it. Why?”
“I really need a job.”
“You know a lot about the stuff we carry, do you?” His eyebrows had arched in a kind of questioning amusement.
She knew what that look meant, and her shoulders stiffened instinctively. “I could learn.”
“Maybe, but I’d end up with dozens of guys hanging around here, crowding the aisles, hoping to talk to you.”
She immediately understood what he meant, and she felt a little flush of pleasure that he thought she was pretty enough to attract dozens of guys to his store. “Maybe that wouldn’t be a bad thing. If they were hanging out here, they’d buy stuff.”
He laughed softly. “I can just imagine all the guys coming out of the woodwork.” Then he shook his head. “But I can’t hire you if you can’t actually help people find what they need here.”
“Maybe I could,” she said. “You don’t know whether I could do it or not.”
His face sobered as he moved out from behind the counter and walked down an aisle. Since she assumed he wasn’t just walking away from her midconversation, she waited for him to return.
When he did, he had two different items, one in each hand. He held them up for her. “Say I was trying to change a light fixture. Which one of these would I need?”
Allison stared at the two items in his hands. After a minute she let out a long breath, slumping slightly. “I have no idea.”
“I’m really sorry,” Rob said gently. “But I can’t just hire you to be nice, when you can’t do the job.”
“I know. It was nice of you to at least take me seriously.”
