“And leave you here to fend for yourself? Nah.” He took one step, bent over, and picked up the flashlight, clicking it on. “Looking for this?” When she just stared up at him, irritated and a little confused, he added, “Night vision, remember?”
There went that glare again. It should have been scary as shit to be hit with that look, but considering she was on her knees and her overall adorableness, it only managed to turn him on and make him smile.
With a huff, she stood and he lost his view—and the flashlight. “Thank you. Now you can go.”
Instead of heading out the back door like he should have, he followed her to the front part of the warehouse and braced a hip against an entry-wall arch she was sizing up.
She ignored him, scribbled a few notes in that notebook of hers, then, flashlight stuck between those pursed lips, reached up to measure the height from the top of the arch to the floor. Only she was too short.
She tried again, giving a little hop that did nothing but make him grin, then kicked the wall—twice—and mumbled something about the male gender that was way too dirty to be darling.
Smart man that he was, he silently took one end of the measuring tape from her clutches and pulled it all the way up until it touched the highest point of the archway—being six five had its benefits.
Abby paused for a moment, as though deciding if she wanted to kick him or just write down the measurement so she could get away from him faster. Amazingly, she took option two, and they worked their way around to the back part of the room, him reaching the tall parts and her making detailed notes.
If she was thankful for the help, she didn’t say. In fact she didn’t speak at all. So when they moved into the main part of the warehouse, he was surprised when she opened her mouth.
“I guess Babs was one of the investors in Richard’s winery.” She looked over her shoulder and snapped the measuring tape, and he flinched. “But I assume you already knew that, considering you’re Ferris’s new go-to guy and all.”
“Yeah.” He knew. Although Ferris wasn’t his anything—other than another potential client. Tanner wasn’t even sure he liked the guy.
After his mom had walked out, Tanner was too young to stay at home and had spent his summers swinging hammers with his old man for college money. He’d worked on a few Hampton projects in high school, but hadn’t officially met the developer until they both lost big on a local start-up winery gone bad. Richard’s.
“Wait. You didn’t know?”
Abby shook her head and, holy Christ, he didn’t know how it was possible she hadn’t known. Not that he should be so surprised; Abby was so damn trusting she was the last one in town to figure out she’d married a lying, cheating sack of shit.
“Nope, and I am tired of being left in the dark. Tired of being screwed with. Which is why I went to see Judge Pricket after meeting with Babs today about getting my divorce.”
“What did he say?”
“That it’s too late. Richard is, um . . . three years ago he was in a car accident in Budapest and he and the passenger both, um . . .” He heard her swallow, and a bad feeling settled in his gut. “Rodney was telling the truth.”
Ah, hell. He hated the SOB for what he put Abby through, but for it to end this way was probably tearing her apart. Especially since he’d bet everything that Richard’s passenger was a very young, very attractive woman. “I’m really sorry, Abs.”
“Me too.” She cleared the rawness from her throat. “Since the divorce wasn’t filed until this year, I am legally his widow.”
“Abby.” He moved in to hug her, but was met with a tape measure instead.
“Can you tell me the measurements of the windows on the wall behind you?”
He looked at her for a long moment, and when he saw that she needed a minute, he eyeballed the top of the window and said, “Eleven by four.”
She shrugged and wrote it down.
“Are you going to fight for a divorce?” he asked gently. Richard was the last person he wanted to talk about, but if she had just been hit with that news, she probably hadn’t talked about it with anyone yet.
“I don’t think so.” She dropped her head to look at—well, he didn’t know, except that it wasn’t at her sketch. And that she didn’t do it fast enough to hide the way her eyes shimmered, or the way she worried her lower lip—something she did when she was lying. All signs Richard had won, and he hated that. Hated that Abby had worked so hard to open her firm, get her life back on track, only to have that son of a bitch weasel his way back in and derail everything.