his wonderful smile lines, but he kept them hidden as he approached.
She lowered the camera. He lowered his hand.
“How are you feeling this morning?” he asked.
Sensing the smirk just beneath his affable grin, Libby quickly forced her lips into a wide, bright smile as she responded, “One hundred percent.”
He cocked his head and narrowed his autumn-colored eyes, scrutinizing her face. “Really?”
“Well…” Libby shrugged. The man knew all too well what her condition had been the night before. She had nearly thrown up on him, after all. There wasn’t much use denying it. “Maybe ninety-five percent. Actually it’s more like eighty-five percent, but definitely trending upward.”
“Yeah,” he said, bending to pick up her coffee, then placing the mug in her hand. “Booze tends to do that more often than not.” Now his gaze strayed from her face, moved down past her turtleneck, paused at her breasts for a second, then focused on her Nikon. “What’s the camera for?”
“I’m a photographer.” She took a sip from her mug.
“I thought you were a motel sitter.”
Libby laughed. “Well, I’m both I guess. I’m Libby Jost.” Locals more often than not recognized her name from the photographs in the paper, but it didn’t seem to ring even a tiny little bell for Mr. Marlboro Man. She extended her hand. “And you are…?”
“David,” he said, reaching out to grip her hand more tightly than she expected. “I’m…” He frowned slightly, then angled his head north in the direction of the hotel across the highway. “I’m the architect of that big shiny box.”
At that particular moment the big, shiny, mirrored façade of the Halstrom Marquis was full of lovely blue autumn sky and a few crisp white clouds. Libby loved it more every time she looked at it, she thought.
“It’s stunning,” she said. “You did a truly spectacular job. And I confess I love taking pictures of it. It’s a completely different building from one day to another, even from one minute to another. Today it’s like a lovely perpendicular piece of sky.”
“Thanks. Just a few more weeks until the grand opening. Would you like an invitation?” He chuckled rather demonically. “I’m sure the liquor will be freely flowing, if that’s any incentive.”
Libby rolled her eyes. “I’ve sworn off. Trust me. But I’d love an invitation. Thank you.”
“You’ve got it.” He plucked a cell phone from his pocket and mere seconds later he was directing someone to put her on the guest list. “No, that’s all right. Don’t worry about the spelling right now. No address necessary,” he said. “I’ll deliver it personally.”
For some odd reason his use of the word personally and the way he locked his gaze on her when he said it suddenly caused a tiny shower of sparks to cascade down Libby’s spine. She took a quick gulp of coffee, hoping to extinguish them.
This guy was good, she thought. He was good not only with buildings, but with women, too. At least his technique seemed to be working fairly well with her at the moment. She swallowed the rest of the coffee.
She was so conscious of her sparkling, sizzling innards that she didn’t even realize the painting contractor had walked up behind her until he cleared his throat rather loudly and said, “Here’s your estimate, Ms. Jost. I guess you know it’s a pretty big job, considering the age of the place and all. My numbers are there at the top,.” He pointed with a paint-crusted fingernail. “You just give me a call whenever you decide.”
“All right. Thank you so very much for coming. I’ll definitely be in touch.” She was thrilled—amazed actually—that he was willing to take on the work.
The man had turned and walked away as Libby flipped a few pages to glance at the all important bottom line. Reading it, she could almost feel her eyes bulge out like a cartoon character’s. She didn’t know whether to scream or to faint dead away or to throw up—again—right there in the driveway. She might just do all three, she thought bleakly. This was terrible.
He wanted thirty-seven thousand dollars for all the painting and patching that needed to be done, which would leave her the not-quite-staggering sum of thirteen thousand dollars for additional, equally necessary repairs and renovations like plumbing fixtures, tile, carpeting, new beds and bedding and lighting, not to mention a bit of advertising and a new damn sign over the office door. She’d had no idea, none whatsoever, that her dreams were so damned expensive and so dreadfully, impossibly out of reach.
Libby was so stunned, so completely stupefied that she was only vaguely aware that David had taken the paper from her, and then the next thing she heard was a gruff and bear-like curse followed by the sound of tearing. Her painter’s estimate, she observed, was now falling to the ground in little pieces, like an early, quite unexpected snow. It was a good thing she didn’t want to hang on to it, she supposed.
“This is absolute bull,” David said. “It’s worse than highway robbery. I’m betting the guy doesn’t even want the job, Libby, and that’s why he jacked the price up so high. He probably just wanted to scare you off.”
“Well, it sure worked,” she said, trying to accompany her words with a little laugh. A very little laugh. “Gee, now I can hardly wait to see if the plumbing guy and the electrician try to scare me, too. I can imagine it already. It’ll be just like Halloween here every day of the week. Trick or treat!” There was a small but distinct tremor in her voice that her sarcasm couldn’t even begin to disguise. At the moment, quite frankly, Libby didn’t care.
“Look,” David said. “I can get my guys over here for two or three days or however long it takes. They can do the painting for you for a tenth of that amount. Even less than that, I’d be willing to bet.”
“Your guys?” Libby’s headache took the opportunity to make a curtain call just then. She closed her eyes a moment, hoping to banish the unwelcomed pain. “I don’t understand this at all.”
David was already opening his phone as he responded to her. “Painters. From the Marquis.”
“But you’re the architect.” She blinked. “How can you…”
“Architect or not, I just happen to be the guy in charge over there right now,” he said, sounding most definitely like a guy in charge.
“But…”
He snapped the phone closed and gave her a look that seemed to question not only her ability to make a decision, but her basic intelligence as well. “Look,” he said. “It’s really pretty simple. Do you want the painting job done, done well at a reasonable price, or not? Yes or no.”
This was obviously a man who made lightning-quick decisions, Libby thought, while she tended to procrastinate and then a bit more just to be absolutely sure or, as in most cases, semi-sure. Procrastinating had its benefits, but maybe lightning quick was the right way to go at the moment.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do want the job done at a reasonable price. Actually, what I want is an utterly fantastic job at a bargain basement price.”
“You’ll have it,” he said. He stabbed in a number, barked some commands that were punctuated here and
