“Are you okay?”
She opened one eye. He leaned over her, hands on his thighs, peering down at her.
“Pretty good. Thanks for asking. I think your fence needs some work.”
He shook his head, his lips quirking. “You fall a lot.”
Glaring, she ignored his hand,again,and rose to her feet with as much dignity as she could muster. Which wasnota lot.
Instead of answering him, she wiped off her shorts, ignored the stiffness in her leg, and went to inspect his hedges.
“They’re crooked.”
“They are not,” he said.
She stood back from the ladder, hands on her hips, and stared at them. He gave a sexy little growl when she tilted her head to the side.
“They’re definitely crooked.”
“You probably have a concussion from fence diving.”
Turning, she stared at him, trying not to focus on how good he looked with no shirt. Worth the fall, for sure. But the scowl detracted from the view.
“You should hire a gardener. You’ll want to for the palms anyway,” she said, pointing to the other side of his property, where the overgrown trees blocked a lot of his beach view.
“I don’t need a gardener,” he said.
A small smile tilted her lips up. His jaw was granite, like his stance. Touchy subject? “Okay. Well, good luck.”
As she walked away—let’s face it, with no dignity, because falling in front of the same man twice in one day did not warrant such things—she felt his gaze.
“You know what? I think you’re right.”
Grace turned at the end of the fence, immediately suspicious. “I am.”
He huffed out a laugh, ran his hand through his damp hair. “I’m going to call someone and have them taken out completely. Better view that way.”
Now why did that sound like a thinly veiled threat?
“You want the view in the other direction. Toward the beach. Not my place.” She shrugged because if he thought it was a threat, he was wrong. She’d benefit from the view.
“Yeah but when I convince you to sell, the hedges have to go anyway.”
She shook her head. She didn’t grow up in circles where peoplewere rolling in money. Most everyone she’d known was rolling in debt and bad choices. This guy didn’t wear his in slick suits—though she had no doubt he’d look good in one—but in his very essence. Polish. Confidence that bordered on ego. Things that didn’t impress someone who worked their ass off to get to this very point.
“Like I said, good luck.”
It wasn’t happening. She’d finally received a little piece of family—though the word was mostly foreign to her—and she wasn’t letting it go.
“Everyone has a price,” he called after her.
“Not me,” she called back, her earlier calm replaced by a restlessness that made her wish she had paint so she could start on the living room.
“We’ll see,” he called back.
Grace ignored him, went into the house and grabbed her keys, her purse, and headed for her car. Paint. This agitation she felt could be rolled out as easily as a feature wall.
Before pulling out of the driveway, she checked her phone to see if John had replied about his son. He had. But there was another text.
