Her Naughty Holiday(4)
“I don’t buy it. Why you?”
“Why not me?” she asked.
“Because you own and operate your own business. You know more about plants than anyone in this entire state. You’re respected by your employees, even my daughter, who doesn’t respect anyone or anything, and you’re...you know.”
“What?”
“Easy on the eyes,” he said.
“I am?”
“My eyes aren’t complaining,” he said. “Just saying, my mom’s always trying to get me to shave. She hates beards. But Ruthie won’t let me shave it off.”
“Why not?”
“One of her friends made the mistake of telling Ruthie her dad was ‘hot.’ Ruthie said I either had to grow a beard or wear a bag over my head.”
“The beard was the right choice.”
“But you don’t have a beard from what I can tell.” He narrowed his eyes at her face and Clover turned left and right, giving him a good look at her nonexistent beard. “Nope. No beard. No reason to pick on you for anything.”
“They’ll find a reason. They always do.”
“I have a cousin in jail for bouncing checks, my grandfather’s favorite hobby is sitting on his porch shooting his rifle at crows, and my aunt raises pygmy goats inside her house so, you know, your family should count their blessings.”
“I’m thirty. I’m not married. I’m not dating anybody. I have no kids. I could have a billion dollars and be crowned Queen of the Mountain and that still wouldn’t be enough for my family.”
“Ah...that explains Sven.” He nodded sagely.
“I’m about ready to hire him to play boyfriend for a week if it’ll shut my family up about my biological clock for one day. Which reminds me—you free this week?”
“You asking me to be your Sven?”
Clover laughed. “No, I was actually asking you if you could fix my deck.”
“Oh. Well, yeah. Sure. Big job?”
“Two loose boards and a broken slat.”
“What color stain?”
“Clear. Homewares brand.”
“I have some of that in my truck. I can come tomorrow morning, if it’s not pouring.”
“I’ll write down my address for you,” she said as she scribbled her home address on a note card and passed it to him. “I appreciate it. I have a fire pit and I know the kids will want to use it for marshmallows.”
“I can get it all done in an hour. My treat.”
“I pay people for the work they do. No freebies.”
“You gave my daughter a job when nobody else would. I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me a thing. Ruthie’s great at this job.”
“I know she is, but she wouldn’t have been great at her job if you hadn’t taken a chance on her. Nobody wanted to give a sixteen-year-old girl with green hair, a horrible attitude and a criminal record a job except you. Not even McDonald’s. Please. Let me fix your deck as a thank-you for keeping my kid out of trouble.”
“Fine. Since it’s only an hour’s work. Then we’ll call it even.”
“Great. See you tomorrow morning around eight.”
“Thanks, Erick. Have a good night in your empty house.”
“You, too,” he said. He started for the door and it was then that Clover realized that Ruthie was sneakier and more evil than she’d ever given the girl credit for. She’d left her phone here on purpose so Erick would have to come back for it and they’d be alone together. Clover would be angry except for one thing—she did really like Erick. And for that reason alone she said what she said.
“Hey, Erick?”
He turned back around in the doorway, and he did it so quickly it was as if he’d been hoping she’d say something to stop him.
“Yes, Clover?” he said in a playfully husky voice.
“I have something weird to ask you.”
“You’ve met my child. You know I can handle weird. Ask it.”
“Do you...would you...maybe would you want to be my Sven this week?”
2
ERICK STARED, SLIGHTLY slack-jawed, at Clover, who stared back, slightly sheepishly, at him. She was blushing, which he’d never seen her do before. It looked good on her, that blush. A little color in her pale cheeks. He’d thought more than once about the various ways of making her flush, blush and redden, but he hadn’t considered this one. He should have.
“Are you offering to pay me to sleep with you?” he asked. “I hope so. That’s been a fantasy all my life. I can go to a bar and you can come in and pick me up. We don’t have to use real money. I’ll accept Monopoly—”
“That is not what I’m asking.”
“Bummer,” he said. It was. He’d been nursing a crush on his daughter’s boss for a good year now, ever since he met Clover the day Ruthie started working at the nursery. He hadn’t done or said anything about the crush. Ruthie needed a job and a steady female presence in her life much more than he needed a girlfriend. But that fact had only stopped him from asking Clover out. It hadn’t put a dent in his crush.
“Here’s the thing,” she said. “I could really use somebody to play boyfriend for Thanksgiving. That’s all. Somebody to deflect all those questions I get from my family about why I’m not married yet, when I’m getting married, when I’m having kids...”
“Can’t you tell them to mind their own damn business?”
“You sound like Ruthie. Does it work when she tells you to mind your own damn business?”
“Well...no.”
“See my problem? It would make everything so much easier if I had a date for Thanksgiving. I know you’re alone this week. Ruthie told me. It’s a free meal and you wouldn’t have to be alone on the day. Interested?”
“Hmm...”
“Hmm...?”
“I kind of like being alone,” he said. “Thanksgiving isn’t a huge deal in my family. My grandmother’s Coquille. She’s always called Thanksgiving ‘What exactly am I supposed to be thankful for?’ Day.”
“Yeah, can’t blame her for that. Do you like free food?”
“I don’t usually turn it down, but I don’t drive out of my way for it.”
“Okay,” she said. “Just thought I’d ask.”
“Wait. You’re giving up on me already? That hurts.”
“I’m not going to try to convince you to do something you don’t want to do,” Clover said.
“Why not?”
“Because no means no.”
“I didn’t say no.”
“Then it’s a yes?”
“I didn’t say that, either. Come on. I’m a businessman. Let’s haggle.”
Clover laughed a nervous laugh, almost a giggle. She sat behind her desk and he sat on the desk next to her.
“You’re pretty when you laugh,” he said. “But you’re also pretty when you don’t laugh.”
“You’re sweet,” she said. “I feel like I shouldn’t have brought this up. I had a weak moment and your daughter set me up.”
“She left her phone here on purpose, didn’t she?” Erick asked.
“I am ninety-nine percent certain of it,” Clover said.
Goddamn, she was pretty when she blushed. No doubt about it. Blue eyes, blond hair and the natural beauty of a woman too busy to bother wearing much makeup. She always sported lip gloss, though. An icy pale pink that gave her a sixties mod look. A kissable color like bubble gum. He wondered what she tasted like.
“That girl will do me in someday, I swear.”
“She’s just worried about me,” Clover said. “It’s sweet.”
“I’m not used to my daughter being sweet. I’m more used to my daughter painting her bedroom walls and ceiling black, bribing an ex-con to give her a tattoo and flipping off the next door neighbor’s cat.”
“She flipped off the cat?”
“She said he was judging her.”
“I think she’s just trying to live up to her own reputation.”
“It’s working,” he said. “So do you really need someone to play boyfriend for the week? It’s that bad with your family?”
She sighed heavily and sat back.
“It’s hard,” she said. “They love me but that doesn’t make the stuff they say easier to hear. They think they’re saying, ‘We love you and we want you to be happy,’ but what I hear is, ‘You’re inadequate, you’re a disappointment and you haven’t done what you’re supposed to do to make us happy.’ They bug me so much about getting married that I’m scared to even date because I don’t know if I’m dating to make them happy or dating to make me happy. I’ve almost signed up for Tinder ten times in the last year and talked myself out of it.”
“I’d rather take a vow of celibacy than join Tinder. And I’m not even Catholic.”
“Don’t do that. That would be a waste.”
He grinned at her and shrugged. “You think I’m cute?” he asked.
“You’re hot,” she said. “Like UPS-driver hot.”
“That’s hot.”
“Smoking.”
“This is fun,” he said. “Why haven’t we ever flirted with each other before?”