Page 11 of That Reilly Boy
“More or less just like that. He didn’t really put up a fight. Also, I did reimburse him for what she’d cost him, and then I fired him a week later.”
“Because of how he treated Penelope?”
He chuckles and the sound makes my toes curl. “No, but the way Kirk had treated Penny may have been the reason I didn’t give him the benefit of the doubt in the situation I did fire him for.”
I stifle my amusement. I do not want to like this man, and I definitely don’t want him to think I do.
I don’t like you.
You used to.
Yes, I used to like him very much, and that didn’t get me anywhere but crying into my pillow every night.
Now I don’t like him at all, but I need to be civil until he’s paid me, at least. And I still need to figure out how to bring the conversation around to the fact he made an offer on our house.
“So,” I start, hoping I’ll sound casual without being suspiciously casual. “What brings you back to Sumac Falls?”
Chapter Eight
Hayden
My guilt over making Cara go through the motions of small talk when she’d probably rather plunge the nail file into my heart is significant, and the way my pulse is still racing from the two of us being in the same room doesn’t help.
As soon as I walked through the door, I realized that no amount of anticipating this moment could have prepared me for seeing Cara Gamble again.
The lush brown hair—a few shades lighter than her chocolate eyes—that I’d loved to run my fingers through is pulled up in a ponytail. She’s curvier now, and my hands twitch with a need to skim over her hips. She’s aged, of course—we both have—but she’s still one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen.
And I’m pretty sure if I was on fire, she would pour a glass of water and then slowly drink it right in front of me.
But neither making Cara like me nor Penny’s unnecessary canine pedicure are the reason I’m here. It’s time to focus on my end goal.
“I come back now and then to see my mom. And Aaron, Hope and the kids,” I say. And as awkward as it’s going to be, I know this is my opening. “Every time I drive by your house, it breaks my heart a little.”
She stills for a few seconds and then resumes filing. “My mother told me you want to buy the house.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Considering the offer I made was for more than the property’s worth and doesn’t require inspections it would undoubtedly fail, I’m not sure it matters. “I have a soft spot for those big, old New England houses—especially the ones that haven’t been converted into apartments—and seeing the most beautiful house in Sumac Falls fall into disrepair is sad.”
Her cheeks flush, but there’s really no way to dance around the subject. And it’s not her fault her ancestors just assumed future generations would have enough money to maintain the property. She finishes with Penny’s paw and I have to move as she slides the stool to the dog’s other side.
“I’d love to restore it,” I tell her. “But our families haven’t exactly been friends over the years, so I’m anticipating some resistance from Gin.”
She snorts. “So much understatement in one sentence.”
Aaron was right, then. Gin might sell, but she sure as shit ain’t going to sell it to me. “Since you live there, too, I thought maybe you would be…an ally, I guess.”
“And you thought inventing a reason to come into my place of business so you can bring it up while I’m working would help your case?”
“You’re filing my dog’s nails.”
She pauses and without letting go of Penny’s paw, gives me a look that drops my core temp five degrees. “Insulting my profession is an interesting way to go here.”
“I apologize. What I was trying to convey was my certainty that you can file and talk at the same time, and also I didn’t really an invent a reason since you’re actually doing it.”
She turns her attention back to Penny’s nails, and I resist the urge to fill the silence that stretches on.
