Page 27 of His Build
* * *
After the phone call,Lucy checked the time and saw she still had an hour before Graydon was was set to get her.
A fling. Adrenaline churned through her. She had no idea how to go about actually commencing a fling. But the first thing was probably to start with a cool head. She grabbed the frilly bathing suit and five minutes later was springing off the edge of the dock in a shallow dive.
The effect was immediate—as her body plunged into the cold water her mind was stripped clear, so that all she knew now was the feeling of the lake cloaking her body. She pushed herself to do a few laps—twenty-five strokes in one direction, twenty-five in another. When she was done she flipped onto her back for a moment, staring up into the brilliant blue early morning sky.
What was happening to her? Actually contemplating a fling was so utterly unlike her. Was it being out of her element? This place was so different from her life in the city. It was pristine, and so quiet.
Or was it Graydon?
She began a slow backstroke back to the dock.
Maybe this place was good for her. Something about being in nature like this—the way she’d been as a child—filled her soul with peace. Could she see herself living out here? She knew now she could take care of her clients remotely.
Then she chided herself. No, her life was in the city. She was going back, and she was glad for it. She couldn’t wait to go out for some sushi; to catch a concert. To go for a jog in Central Park. All the things she couldn’t do here. Her life was back in New York; this change in scenery was just a pleasant change up. A temporary distraction.
A fling.
10
“Morning, Lucy,” said Toby as she entered the lobby half an hour later, her still-wet hair dampening the shoulders of her t-shirt.
“Toby!” Lucy said. “Just the guy I wanted to see.”
“Oh yeah?” he said.
“I’m heading out on a furniture scouting mission, and I need to know where you found these beauties,” she said, pointing to the set adorning the hotel lobby. “I have someone driving me around, but his knowledge about fine furniture is… limited.”
Toby’s eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands together. “You’ve come to exactly the right place,” he said.
By the time Graydon pulled up under the overhang, Lucy had a list of no less than a dozen antique shops within a hundred miles in any direction. Turns out the region was an antiques paradise.
“Thank you, Toby,” Lucy said, pocketing the list.
Toby nodded, but when he glanced over her shoulder, his eyebrows shot so high they nearly met his hairline.
“Is this some kind of date, Ms. Fulham?” he whispered, even though Graydon had only just stepped out of his truck.
“Strictly business,” Lucy said, even as the word ‘FLING’seemed to string across the room next to them like a party banner. She felt the pink in her cheeks before it even arrived.
“Oh reallllly?” Toby said, drawing the word out as Graydon came in the door.
“Hey there, Toby,” Graydon said.
Lucy swore she saw a flush in Toby’s cheeks.
“Lucy,” he said to her.
She nodded, her cheeks burned brighter.
He didn’t seem to notice the effect he had on both of them. “How’re your folks, Toby?”
“They just left for Orlando to visit Tammy.” He turned to Lucy, “My sister,” he explained. “She and Graydon went on a couple of dates way back when.”
This time it was Lucy’s eyebrows that went up. “Is that so?”
“Toby, come on, that was a decade ago.”
