Page 20 of You Can Leave Your Hard Hat On
“Ah.” He nodded, but his eyes looked wary. “Does that happen often?”
“No,” she assured him, then they lapsed into a tense silence of smiling and shifting. She wracked her brain for something to say. Had it been so long since she’d talked to a man about something other than retaining walls and site specifications?
“Well, I’ll get that sugar for you,” she said cheerfully. “How much do you need?”
“Oh, about a half cup should be fine.”
She dipped sugar from a stainless steel container. “What are you making?”
“Uh…cookies.”
She smiled. “An attorney who bakes? I’m impressed.”
He blushed and stabbed at his glasses.
The doorbell rang again, and Sam frowned. “Excuse me. I don’t know who that could be.”
She handed the measuring cup to Stewart and walked to the door, then looked through the peephole. When she saw Teague’s bottle-green eyes looking back at her, her heart skipped a beat. She straightened and glanced at Stewart. This could be awkward.
Swallowing hard, she opened the door. Teague stood there in dusty jeans and mud-caked work boots, his T-shirt sweat-stained and torn, a blue bandana tied around his head. His yellow hard hat hung from a loop on his belt.
“Hi, there,” he said, oblivious to the fact that he looked so devastatingly sexy.
“Teague,” she managed to say. “What are you doing here?”
“Sorry to bother you,” he said. “We hit a snag on the site, a shelf of limestone that we weren’t expecting. I think I know a way around it, but I wanted to run it by you tonight so we could get on it first thing in the morning.” He jerked his thumb toward the elevator. “The guy in the monkey suit in the lobby tried to call, but your line was busy, so he told me to come on up.”
“Come in,” she said, repressing the urge to tell him to take off his muddy work boots.
He stepped inside, having left a trail of mud, she noticed, cringing, from the elevator to her door. She closed the door and suddenly remembered Stewart, whowas still standing in the door of her kitchen holding the measuring cup of sugar.
“You should have said you had company,” Teague said, eyeing the slender, well-dressed man.
“Uh, Stewart is a neighbor,” she said quickly, then gestured toward Teague. “And Teague is a…a…”
“Employee,” Teague supplied, bouncing the rolled-up plans against his palm.
“I was just getting some sugar,” Stewart said, holding up the cup.
Teague gave him a flat smile. “You can never have enough sugar.”
Samantha glared at Teague, then remembered the phone. Good grief, Carley had probably heard every word. “Excuse me.” She picked up the phone. “Are you still there?”
“Are you kidding me? You have two guys there, and you think I’m hanging up? Who’s Teague? He sounds hot.”
“I’ll call you back.”
“But—”
Samantha disconnected the call, then ushered Stewart to the door apologetically. “I’m sorry. This might take a while.”
“No problem,” he said, looking Teague up and down, then he leaned in. “Are you sure it’s okay for me to leave? He looks…unsavory.”
One glance at Teague’s rolled eyes told her that he’d heard every word. “No, it’s okay,” she whispered.
“I’ll call you,” Stewart said.
“Yes, do,” she said, then closed the door behind him.
