Made for Mistletoe, page 8
“That would look good—it’s pretty close to the photo. I think we could make it work.”
Heart in his throat, he crossed his arms, the chunk of wood dangling from his fingers. “We? You saying you want to do this with me?”
She tapped her sneaker-clad foot, shifting her gaze from the unfinished dower chest to the photo in the book and back again. “What are you paying?”
“That’s negotiable.”
She wet her lips and, for a second, all he could think about was how that lush mouth might taste, but then she named a figure. Not outrageous, but high enough to make his belly clench and remind him who she was to him. The look in her dark-green eyes was a weird blend of challenge and uncertainty.
He thought about his budget for this piece, which had already gone over what he’d expected because the price of poplar had gone up. He considered the money he was expecting to bank in the next few weeks. Four finished pieces would go out the door this week and be paid for. Then there was his salary, his reserves pay, plus the extra money Jack was paying him for the custom hickory cabinets in Mrs. Yoshida’s kitchen, as well as the built-in corner cupboard and the two glass-front cabinets on either side of the fireplace in that house.
He’d said negotiable, but he didn’t want to negotiate. Certainly, he wanted her artistic skill, but even more, he wanted to get to know her. To see if they were going to be friends … or more. To discover if this attraction was real, although it felt more real than anything he’d experienced since … Scarlett. The last thing he wanted was to bargain Harper Gaines out the door. Not when she was standing there, interest gleaming in those gorgeous eyes. “Deal.” He held out his hand to shake.
After hesitating for the briefest of moments, she accepted and they shook. Surprise, surprise, she took off her jacket and underneath it she wore a T-shirt and a pair of worn denim overalls with a paint-splattered University of Michigan hoodie unzipped over it all.
He laughed out loud. “You were so sure I’d accept your price?”
Her lips bowed in a smile. “I hoped, but I was prepared to walk if you didn’t.”
*
The look in Cameron Walker’s eyes gave Harper pause. She hadn’t seen that expression since the last time she’d welcomed Drew home from deployment. Hot, hungry, and yearning. She didn’t want to see any of that in Cam’s eyes … or any man’s for that matter, so she took up a quart of the blue paint and pulled a wooden paint stirrer out of the box. “I see you already did the water-based staining, so we can start painting right away.” She held out one hand. “Something to open the can with and brushes?”
“No primer?”
She shook her head. “I did some reading last night and—”
“You were thinking about me last night?” Cam put one hand over his heart. “I’m touched.” His blue-gray eyes twinkled.
“Are you always this”—she narrowed her eyes at him—“impossible?”
He grinned, playful and disarming. “Pretty much.” He was flirting, but it was so mild, it didn’t bother her.
Harper took the paint can opener from him, careful not to let her fingers touch his. “Don’t waste it on me, charm boy. I’m here to work.”
He waggled his brows. “Sure you don’t want to pop into the house, maybe check out my etchings?”
Harper burst out laughing. “That line may have worked for Louis Icart in Paris in the twenties, but—”
“Icart?” He held up one hand. “Wait, you know 1920s Paris? The ex-pat era?”
She had a degree in art for Pete’s sake, what did he think? “Of course, Picasso, Dalí, Hemingway, Fitzgerald—”
He laughed, clearly charmed. “Modigliani, Cole Porter, Max Ernst, Gertrude Stein … it’s my favorite era in history.”
“You’re joking.” It was hers, too, but Harper resisted clapping her hands in delight. “We may be the only two people our age in the entire town—the whole state for that matter—who know who Louis Icart is.” Very few people her age were as enamored with Paris in the Roaring Twenties as she was. She drove her college roommates crazy with her passion for Paris, and Drew used to groan and pretend to snore if she mentioned watching Coco Chanel and Igor Stravinsky—her very favorite Paris-in-the-twenties film.
He spread his arms, palms up in a gesture of surrender. “Midnight in Paris? Favorite Woody Allen film of all time. Hell, favorite film of all time. Seen it at least twenty times.” He ducked his head and suddenly seemed a little shy. “I’d love to go to Paris, live in a garret in Montparnasse, open a cabinetmaking studio in the Latin Quarter.”
Harper was too stunned to even respond. Paris had been her fantasy from the time she was ten and found a packet of postcards in an old trunk in her grandmother’s house. Grammy Jean had let her and her cousin Susie spend a rainy summer afternoon going through the stuff in the attic of her house in Warren. The place was a child’s paradise—National Geographic magazines from the fifties, boxes of old toys and books, clothes that smelled like mothballs—a cloche hat, flowered dresses from the forties, a deteriorating rubber girdle, and aprons, and near the back, a trunk with crumbling leather straps.
Inside the trunk, they’d discovered love letters between her great-grandparents during World War II, black-and-white photographs of a woman who looked remarkably like Harper’s mother, another of a man in uniform standing in front of the Arc de Triomphe, and postcards. Dozens of postcards from Paris, where according to the letters, her great-grandfather William had been stationed. Somehow, between the photos, the letters, and the postcards, Harper fell in love with Paris.
How impossible that she’d run into the only other person even close to her age who loved that era in Paris as much as she did. On the other hand—figured it would be this guy. Not that she was attracted to him—that part of her was … maybe not dead, but definitely hibernating. No, it wasn’t that, but he was funny, smart, talented, and very nice. He could be a friend, but only if he realized that was all he could be. She was going to have to watch her step.
She stirred the paint. “Have you actually been to Paris?”
“No, I’ve always wanted to go, ever since I saw Midnight in Paris for the first time. That was, I dunno, maybe senior year in high school? But”—he gave a little shoulder lift—“it hasn’t happened yet. Life gets in the way, you know?”
She nodded. It sure as hell does.
When she didn’t say more, Cam asked, “Have you?”
An automatic response, yes, was on her lips. But … suddenly, as she set the stir stick on the newspaper beside the paint can, a dull ache rippled through her. She clutched her heart as a memory washed over her. Her one trip to Paris hadn’t been wonderful at all. It had been awful.
They were stationed in Germany and Drew had had a weekend pass. At Harper’s urging they’d flown to Paris instead of going to a soccer … er, football weekend in Munich with some of his buddies. She’d booked them into a boutique hotel with a spectacular view of the Eiffel Tower. They’d sat on a wrought-iron balcony that first evening, drunk champagne, and watched the city lights reflected in the Seine. Romantic and perfect, except that Drew kept checking the scores on his phone. Then he’d ordered another bottle of champagne and finished the night sprawled across the bed.
In the morning, Harper had gone out on her own to find coffee and croissants at a little café across the street, ambling along the way, enjoying the sunny June day. She’d made a list of all the places she wanted to see—Musée d’Orsay, the Left Bank, either the Louvre or Hôtel National des Invalides since they wouldn’t have had time for both museums. She’d read up and thought perhaps Drew might’ve enjoyed Invalides more because it was the French military museum. She’d wanted to wander along the Seine and check out the booksellers’ stalls, see the flower mart, and cross one or two of the many bridges in Paris. Excited to begin their day, she’d carried coffee and pastry back to their room, where Drew had been still fast asleep.
When she’d shaken him and held up the coffee and croissants, he’d groaned and announced he was too sick to go anywhere, and proved it by rushing to the bathroom and emptying the contents of his stomach. They’d spent the day in the hotel room—Drew watching football and Harper sitting on the little balcony watching Paris. She wondered now why she hadn’t simply gone out on her own. It wouldn’t have occurred to her back then. She hadn’t been that brave, and Drew would’ve probably objected. The next day they’d had just enough time to walk along the Seine, past the Eiffel Tower, and eat breakfast in a little café before they’d had to fly back to the base. So, no … she hadn’t been to Paris. Not really.
She almost told Cam the whole story, but instead, simply shook her head. “No.” It bugged her that he had that effect one her—that he made her want to open the locked-away places inside her. The places she was so reluctant to go. Times with Drew that weren’t perfect.
He was curious. She could see the wheels turning behind those gray eyes, but he didn’t press. Instead, he got a screwdriver from his very organized tool drawer. “I’m going to take this top off. It’ll look better if we remove the hinges and paint it separately, don’t you think?”
“Sounds good.” She watched as he took the chest apart before she began brushing the soft blue buttermilk paint onto the surface. The texture was different—richer than acrylic or latex.
“Will you draw the designs on with a pencil before you paint them?” Cam set the heavy poplar lid across a pair of sawhorses he’d set up and removed the hinges.
Harper had already thought about it and had practiced the tulips and trees and other images she wanted to use with her watercolors on cardboard pieces at home the night before. With a fine enough brush, which she’d brought with her in the canvas tote she’d set by the door, she thought she could do the work freehand. “I read about an eighteenth-century artist named Christian Selzer, who did a lot of these kinds of chests and he did them freehand. A lot of the craftsmen used templates, but he didn’t. His chests were extraordinary.” She opened Cam’s book to the index and, not surprisingly, found Selzer’s name. Turning to the correct page, she discovered photos of the same chest she’d found online the night before. “Here, look.” She carried the book over to him. “I want to try it his way if you’re okay with it.”
“That’s pretty cool. Sure. You’re the artist.” His breath was warm against her cheek, and she stepped back, too aware of his muscular frame and the woodsy scent of him. If he noticed her edging away, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he tilted his chin toward the wide plank on the sawhorses. “I’ll get the first coat on this while you work on the chest. While it dries, we can grab some lunch and then rub it down with those”—he pointed to a package of light-duty scuff pads—“wipe ’em off and do a second coat.” He winked. “I did some reading, too.”
Harper wrinkled her nose. “Hmmm … second coat is optional. Would you get more of an old look if we just did one, scuffed it down, and finished with a wax or a water-based varnish after I get the designs done?”
His lips twisted for a second. “Maybe. Let’s get the first coat done and see what we think.”
They worked steadily for the next couple of hours, occasionally exchanging a word or two, but for the most part, in silence, except for the big ceiling furnace. Harper was impressed with the joinery on the chest—dovetailed corners and a carved bracket base. Cameron Walker was a fine cabinetmaker. “Cam, this piece is exquisite. You have a real gift. Have you ever thought of doing this full-time?”
He tossed her a grin. “Thanks.” He sauntered over to where she was applying final touches to the base of the piece. “That looks great.” He leaned against the workbench, his long-sleeved knit shirt shoved up to reveal impressively muscled forearms. “That’s my dream. I’m saving every penny I can to have my own shop one day.”
She furrowed her brow as she walked slowly around the table, checking for any spot she might have missed with the blue paint, dabbing here and there when she came across something that appeared unfinished. “It would be a big investment.”
“I’d welcome a partner.” There was that twinkle again and the slight upturn of his full lips. He was an irrepressible flirt, but in spite of it, he was pretty much keeping his distance as if he understood she wasn’t available for anything more than friendship.
“Don’t you have to be at your real job today?”
“Monday’s my day off. Don’t you?” He returned with a grin.
“Sad to say, you are my real job at the moment. Until I hear from the nursery school anyway.”
Cam’s eyes crinkled in amusement. “I’ve never been someone’s real job before.”
Harper glanced at him over her shoulder. “Somehow, I find that hard to believe.”
He chortled and pointed a finger at her. “You’re flirting with me, Harper Gaines.”
Harper rolled her eyes as she dropped her paintbrush in the bucket of soapy water he’d fixed for cleaning them. She truly wasn’t flirting or even interested in flirting, but Cam’s sunny nature did make it easy to tease with him. “In your dreams, buddy. Now, what’s for lunch?”
Chapter Nine
The finger of one glove clenched between her teeth, Harper shivered as she punched the key code into the lock on Cameron’s workshop door. It was stiff from the cold, so she set her thermal coffee mug and a bag containing a fried egg sandwich and a bear claw from Paula’s Bread & Butter bakery on the bench by the door in order to use both hands to open it. At last, it turned and she grabbed her breakfast and stepped inside, flipping light switches as she closed the door behind her. She set her food and coffee on the workbench, stuffed her hat and gloves into the pockets of her winter jacket, and hung it on a double hook by the back door before taking a sip of coffee, trying to decide where to go next. Maybe the top…
Crap, she’d forgotten her drawings in the car. Without thinking, she grabbed the first coat she came to—Cam’s denim jacket—and slipped into it. Her heart stuttered and she almost yanked it off again, but instead she stroked the faded barn jacket, inhaling the scent of sawn wood, varnish, and Cam that permeated the worn fabric. Memories assaulted her for a few seconds, taking her breath away, and she closed her eyes. She’d often pulled on whatever jacket of Drew’s was hanging by the door when she’d run outside to grab the mail or get a package left in the driveway of their little cottage in St. Clair Shores.
A few deep breaths later, she opened her eyes, thinking she should take it off and put on her own coat. But there was something incredibly comforting about wearing a man’s jacket—almost as if you were in their arms. She’d missed that feeling of being protected, safe. She put her hands in the pockets, pulling out a few loose coins, a crumpled five-dollar bill, a couple of receipts, and a pair of brown jersey gloves. She had to chuckle as she hurried out to her car. She’d have found exactly the same things in Drew’s jacket. In some ways, men were all the same.
Inside again, she replaced the jacket and pulled out the still-warm sandwich, munching as she circled the dower chest. In the past few days, she’d shown up every morning at nine, using the code Cam had given her to let herself in to work. He’d also written the key code to the house on a scrap of a brown paper bag, but she’d never used it. Going into his house was too familiar, too intimate. The little washroom he’d installed in the workshop was just fine for her needs, although she did have to give it a quick scrub the first day she was there by herself. Not that it was grubby, just not as spotless as she wanted it. If he noticed, he never mentioned it. The place was hers from nine to five, and she relished the peace of solitary creative work.
She hadn’t seen much of him since that first day—the rest of the hickory had come in, so he was busy up at the home overlooking the river that Walker Custom Homes division of Walker Construction was constructing for the Japanese businessman. He’d taken his tools out to the house to build the custom cabinets onsite, and he was gone in the morning before she arrived. He must’ve been working late into the night out there because she always locked up and left before he got home.
She was surprised that he’d turned the dower chest over to her so completely, giving her the code to the workshop and telling her do your thing, text me if you need me. He was checking her work each night after he got home—he’d left her sticky notes on the table that the piece sat on. Love this! Awesome! More yellow—Mom loves yellow. Medallions on the top are amazing! Every day, a couple of new messages. This morning, she found a smiley face and Wow, you’ve nailed this!
The chest was coming along. Harper was proud of her work. Using the pictures in the book and her own drawings as guides she’d created a literal festival of color with flowers, trees, hearts, and folk-art images that made her want to squee with happiness each morning when she came into Cam’s studio. And oh, how good it felt to be busy, to be doing something useful and creative. She realized after a couple of days that she’d almost entirely stopped talking to Drew. She still thought about him all the time, but she no longer spoke aloud, no longer wondered what he would think beyond believing he would be proud of her efforts.
She was also settling into her apartment above Mac’s garage. She liked the furniture that came with it and the colorful dishes and linens, but she’d asked her mom to go to her house in St. Clair Shores and pack up a select few of her personal things and some favorite paintings. Three cartons had arrived last night, and Harper had a wonderful time replacing Mac’s art with some of her own watercolors. One of Lake Michigan in the winter, another of children playing on the beach, a special one of a sunset over Lake St. Clair Pier, sailboats skimming across the water. Nothing that made her yearn for Drew. Rather some things that made the apartment more hers.
She finished her sandwich, decided to save the bear claw for lunch, and got to work. So focused was she on painting the figures in the medallions on the top of the chest that she didn’t hear the door open.
Cam’s “Hey,” made her jump and nearly drop her fine brush. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.”
