waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve known you long enough not to be offended. You’ve always been that way. What did your dad used to call you? Doctor Distraction?”
“Yeah.” Quinn grinned.
“But I am glad you emerged from your daze long enough to offer me coffee this time.” She raised her cup in thanks and then gulped half of it. “Nice. I’m almost warm enough to go back out in that wind.”
“Hold on.” Quinn knelt down to rummage through the wooden box he kept next to the counter and dug out a knit cap. He tugged it over her hair. “This will help,” he murmured, as he concentrated on tucking a dozen stray curls under the cap.
“Stop!” She tried to duck away. “I don’t like hats.”
“It’s cold.”
“The coffee is enough.” She finally evaded his hands and yanked the stocking cap off, then stood, straightening out her hair and glaring at him.
“And I’ve always thought you such a simple woman. Who knew you were quirky and irritable?”
Lori rolled her eyes and tossed back the last of the coffee. “I should be done in about forty-five minutes.”
“Wait. Don’t storm out.” He pasted on a mock serious look. “This is turning out even worse than last time. I’m sorry I tried to put a hat on you. I apologize. That was inappropriate and horrible. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Amusement immediately replaced the annoyance on her face, and Lori laughed. “I just don’t like hats, okay? Drop it.”
She’d always had a great smile. In the rare moments on the school bus when both of them hadn’t had their heads stuck in books, Quinn would sometimes hear her laugh and turn to see her brilliant, wide smile. Not often, but that only made the smiles seem more important. And now? Now she was just a mystery. Unknowable and completely self-contained.
But she still had that smile.
He realized just how glad he was to see her. “Thanks for coming up to fix my machine, Lori.”
“You’re welcome, Quinn,” she called sweetly as she stomped toward the door in her big boots. “Give me an hour. Then we can discuss my bonus.”
L ORI PULLED a few more curls back into sproinginess as she stared at the backhoe’s engine. She made very sure that she appeared irritated instead of slightly excited. Those hands she’d wondered about had stroked over her forehead, her cheeks. Elegant as they looked, Quinn’s fingers were slightly rough, raspy from the work he’d done here on the mountain.
But it had been a fraternal sort of touch. As it should have been. Quinn was her best friend’s brother. He thought of her as a little sister or possibly not at all.
“More likely the latter,” she muttered, and forced herself to get to work.
“You say something?”
She jumped and banged an elbow on the angled hood. But Quinn didn’t notice. He was already back to staring down at his drafting table. “What are you working on?” Lori couldn’t help but ask.
He looked up, blinking as he always did when he surfaced for air.
She repeated the question.
“Oh, plans for the house.”
“But you’ve already started building.” She glanced toward the gray lines of concrete she could just make out at the edge of the meadow. “The foundation looks set.”
“Yeah, I’ve completed all the floor plans. Actually, I had everything done, but now I’m stumbling over the design details. I keep changing them.” He smiled in a self-deprecating way. “I do this every day for other people, but it’s much harder working on a house I plan to live in for decades. A brilliant new idea will come to me, then the next morning it’s clearly crap. I think I have a new sympathy for clients and their ever-evolving ideas.”
“That’s probably a good thing.” Lori looked around at the meadow and the trees and the blank expanse of sky suspended above the cliff. “You come here for inspiration then?”
His eyes lit up. “Exactly! The light, the color…shades and hues that change from minute to minute. I need to get the windows just right, the height and shape of them. The texture of the walls against the light. I need to know what the views will be in morning and afternoon and evening.” His hands gestured, and Lori greedily watched every arc, every twitch.
“That evening you were here,” he continued, “right after you left, the sun burst through the aspen, and I finally realized just the type of window I should place above the front door. The exact grade of stone to use on the fireplace where it rises up to the second floor…Shit, I’m sorry.”
Lori shook off the spell he’d cast with his bright eyes and deep voice. “What?”
“Sorry. I know I tend to go way past the boredom mark for most people. Not just computer engineers are nerds, I’m afraid.”
“No, I think it’s amazing! You look like you’re in love.”
“Oh.” He actually blushed. This tall, successful man standing in front of a log cabin in a flannel shirt. He blushed.
“It’s sweet!” Lori assured him.
“Yeah, great. Sweet. The ultimate nerd compliment.”
She couldn’t help but laugh. When he scowled, she laughed harder. “Give it up, Quinn. I’m not going to feel sorry for you. Even if you could convince me you’re a nerd, you’re still hot and rich and successful. Poor baby.”
Shaking her head, she set to work on removing the old starter. Maybe he was nerdy in the strictest sense of the word, but she knew plenty of girls in her junior high class who’d thought him tantalizingly mysterious before he’d gone off to college. Bookish and distracted took on a whole different meaning when the boy in question was also gorgeous and kind.
“Hot?” she heard him ask, and looked up to see him leaning against the porch rail watching her.
“Huh?”
“Hot. You said I was hot.” He kept his mouth serious, but his hazel eyes danced with laughter.
This time Lori’s face heated. She waved her wrench in his general direction. “I was just stroking your ego.”
“Well, nice work. It felt good, your stroking.”
She growled in frustration. “Go away. I can’t work with you staring at me.”
“You mentioned a bonus earlier. What did you mean?”
Something playful and husky had entered his voice, confusing her. And the word stroking was still echoing through her limbs. “Nothing,” she blurted out. “I just hoped you’d let me borrow the backhoe sometime. When you’re done with it.”
“That’s all?”
“Yes.
