V is for Valentine (Holly, Idaho Book 3) Read online

  The only thing missing would be the woman who kept him on his toes as he waited for the next interesting thing to go down.

  *

  Danny was gone for just over an hour, and when he returned, he immediately shrugged out of his jacket, swapping it out for his tool belt. He hung his jacket on the same nail from which the apron holding the drywall screws had hung, then retrieved his drill from the charging station.

  “Everything okay?” he asked as Felicity finished cutting a door opening in the wallboard, having used the piece that had cracked when she’d slipped and fell two days ago.

  “Nothing blew up while you were gone, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “That is exactly what I’m asking. Would you tell me if something had?”

  “No.”

  He laughed and Felicity realized with a start that she liked the sound. And she liked having him back in the building, which had felt oddly still and lifeless without him.

  “We’re going to be done hanging drywall today,” he said.

  “Yes, but Stevie told me not to brag about being on schedule because something will happen.”

  “She’s probably right,” Danny said as he headed to his work area, which was only yards away. They’d spent the past two days working from opposite ends, walling in offices and meeting rooms, and now they were about to meet in the middle, in the hallway that led to the boardroom just off the large entryway.

  “Did your meeting go all right?” Felicity asked with exaggerated casualness. “You know. The one in the secret locale?”

  He gave her a wry look. “There are some issues with scheduling, but yes, I’m satisfied.”

  “Ah.” She punched in a couple of screws in rapid succession.

  “How are things with your job?” he asked.

  “I have no idea because I’m on vacation.” She dropped the drill in the holster.

  “You can just put it out of your head?”

  “It’s not easy,” she admitted. “But it’s healthy. Besides, my job is not like Tess’s at the shelter, where she’s the life’s blood of the operation.” She maneuvered a wallboard into place. “There are people who can handle my work while I’m gone.”

  “Even on short notice.”

  “Even then.”

  “What if they mess up?”

  “They suffer consequences, like anyone else.” She gave him a look. “You’re surprised I’m not trying to control things from a distance, aren’t you?”

  “I think you’re a strong personality, Felix.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Maybe a little.”

  “And a bit rigid.”

  Her drill slipped, scarring the drywall. She wrinkled her forehead as she turned to him. “Rigid?”

  “It’s the opposite of flexible.”

  “Where are you getting rigidity?”

  She’d be the first to admit that when she got an idea, she stuck with it, but that was different than being rigid, which implied no give, regardless of circumstances. Besides, she didn’t need judgment from Danny.

  “I don’t know. Maybe the part where you refused to even consider working together and saving yourself a lot of sore muscles.” He smiled a little and focused on mounting the next sheet of wallboard.

  “I’m focused and…” she set a screw with a whir of the drill “…exacting.”

  Which, coupled with an unyielding stance on certain issues, was a safety measure. The one time she’d been seduced into straying from her life plan, she’d run headlong into trouble. Trouble she was still recovering from.

  “Hey. It doesn’t matter what I think.”

  “You’re right.” She lowered her drill and looked over her shoulder at him.

  “How late do you think we’ll be tonight?” he asked without looking at her.

  Hot date?

  The words wouldn’t come out and she wondered why. Was it because she didn’t want to know or because she didn’t want to get too personal? The latter was a stretch because they’d never had many boundaries. Secrets, yes. Boundaries…not a thing.

  “The usual. Six or seven,” she said casually. He’d arrived an hour before her that morning, true to his word, and had been hard at work when she arrived, yawning, with her giant coffee mug and donuts. Velma had offered a heart cookie, gratis, in addition to the donuts, but Felicity had turned her down. She was not going to encourage Danny on the Valentine’s front. She hadn’t been kidding when she’d said she did not look favorably on the day and she didn’t want to explain why. It was too chagrining.

  “Let’s do something afterward.”

  Felicity almost dropped her drill. “You’re kidding.”

  “No.”

  She scowled at him, waiting for the “gotcha” that was sure to come if she agreed, and quite possibly if she didn’t. “I’m meeting up with my sisters at Dad’s place.”

  “Another night.” He lowered his drill. “You name it.”

  “No.” She managed to sound decisive, not defensive. Somehow. Why was the idea of going out with a lifelong rival, the man who was saving the day for her father, so threatening?

  He gave a careless shrug and then maneuvered another wallboard into place. “Rigid.”

  “I just don’t want to go out with you.”

  “It’s not going out, going out.”

  “It’s just going out.”

  “It’s two associates enjoying a nonwork environment.” He shot her a look. “It’s not a trap, Felix.”

  “Feels like one,” she said matter-of-factly, again addressing the wall so that he couldn’t see that she’d been knocked off her game for a second or two.

  Before he could reply a rattle on the front door brought their heads around. “Expecting company?” he asked.

  “This had better not be my father,” she muttered as she headed down the nearly finished hallway to the entry area. Just inside the front doors stood a man brushing snow off his expensive overcoat and a woman in an equally expensive coat and fur topped boots.

  “Felicity!” the woman said, pressing her hand to the front of her coat.

  “Hi, Mrs. Braddock. Mr. Klein.” She smiled at the two city council members. “What brings you by?” Her dad and Mr. Klein were not exactly best buddies and her spider senses were tingling.

  “We were in the area—” Mr. Klein began before being cut off by Mrs. Braddock.

  “And so excited to see what progress has been made.” She brought her gloved hands together and made a show of looking around the unfinished entryway.

  “Exactly,” Mr. Klein said on a faintly sour note.

  Despite Felicity helping his son, Cade, with his studies during high school, Kenneth Klein had never been particularly friendly with the Evans family. Mrs. Braddock, on the other hand, had warmed to the family after adopting animals from Tess’s shelter for her grandsons.

  “Are you going to be done by the fifteenth?” she asked on a note of concern.

  “We are,” Felicity said with casual confidence.

  “We heard about Pete’s accident,” Mr. Klein said. “Please send him our wishes for a speedy recovery.”

  “Will do,” Felicity said in the voice that had become her default when she needed to be pleasant, but really wanted people to state their business and then move along. She was losing time, and the less than sincere note in Mr. Klein’s voice was causing her to lose patience as well. But her father didn’t need her stirring up ill-will with council members, so she worked up a sincere expression and asked, “How is Cade? I haven’t seen him in years.”

  Mr. Klein didn’t seem to appreciate the reference to his son, possibly because it forced him to acknowledge that he and she had a connection. A nebulous one, because she and Cade hadn’t been tight when they weren’t studying, but she had gotten him through calculus and he’d gotten her through AP biology—oh, how she hated the cell—during their senior year.

  “Cade is doing well, and you have a lot of work to accomplish in a short time, young lady.”

/>   Before Felicity could address being referred to as a “young lady”, Mr. Klein strode into the hall, then nearly jumped out of his skin when Danny casually stepped out of the unfinished boardroom.

  “Morning, Mr. Klein,” he said easily.

  “Good morning,” the older man answered brusquely. He looked Danny up and down before stepping into the room. “I don’t see how you are going to finish in time.” He shot a look at Felicity, who’d followed behind him with Mrs. Braddock. “I hear Pete had a hard time keeping good help.”

  He made it sound like it was Pete’s fault for being a poor boss, and Felicity felt her hackles start to rise. She rarely allowed herself to react emotionally in a professional setting, but this guy needed taken down a notch or two. Before she could speak, however, Danny fixed Mr. Klein with a cool gaze and said, “It’s a shame that so many of his employees were poached. I know for a fact that Zach was recruited.”

  “Is that a fact?” Mr. Klein practically harumphed as he spoke.

  Danny nodded.

  “And you know this how?”

  “Mr. Klein.” Felicity spoke up. “Do you want a tour?”

  “Yes,” he said at the same time that Mrs. Braddock said, “No.”

  Mrs. Braddock took over, taking Mr. Klein by the arm. “Kenneth, we can tour with the rest of the council and the city government officials on the sixteenth, as planned. After the inspections.”

  Mr. Klein drew in a breath. “Very well. It looks like you need every second you can scrape together.”

  Felicity nodded, thankful that he was on his way. “I’ll pass your good wishes along to my father. Tell Cade I said hello,” she added pointedly.

  After the city councilmembers had made their way out the double doors and were walking down the steps leading to the street, Felicity turned to Danny. “Was Zach recruited?”

  “I’m assuming so.”

  “That’s not the same as knowing it for a fact.”

  Danny shrugged, unrepentant. “He’d been recruited before. I know that. I heard him bragging at Pizza Bob’s. Not a complete untruth and I didn’t like Klein disrespecting your dad.”

  Felicity felt herself go soft inside at the thought of Danny defending her dad. It wasn’t until her palm met stubble that she realized that she’d lifted her hand to touch his cheek. The flash of surprise in his eyes didn’t help matters. “Thanks for the backup,” she said in a remarkably normal voice before dropping her hand. “Time to get back at it.”

  “Right. Back at it. So…” he headed to his side of the room, “…we were discussing a night out.”

  Felicity rolled her eyes and let out an audible sigh before tackling the next wallboard. Some things were better left unanswered.

  Speaking of things without answers…what had she been thinking, touching him like that?

  She hadn’t thought, and that was alarming.

  “Felix?”

  “Leave me alone. I’m implementing behavioral extinction.”

  “Which is?”

  “Ignoring a behavior until it goes away.”

  Danny laughed. “Fat chance.”

  “After it escalates.” She gave him an arch look. “The phase I’m sure we’re about to enter.”

  “This leaves me in a tough spot. Either way, I lose.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So,” he said briskly. “The only option is to change your behavior.”

  “How do you propose to do that?”

  “By laying one of the neat traps that you always fall into.”

  “I do not fall into traps.” Which was why she hadn’t trusted his invitation to go out.

  He cleared his throat. “You’re falling into one just now.”

  “I am not.”

  “You aren’t ignoring my behavior.”

  Felicity made a low growling noise, then set three screws in a row, enjoying ten seconds of blessed silence before Danny said, “What does Mr. Klein have against your dad?”

  Safe topic. Finally. “Dad’s been best friends with Bud Pratt since they were kids, so he buys from Pratt’s Building Supply instead of Klein’s Lumber.”

  “That seems petty.”

  “It’s all I can come up with. They all grew up together. Maybe they hated each other as kids, and it carried over.” She shot him a look. “What would that be like?”

  He lowered his drill and there was something in his expression that made her heart do an odd double beat. “Did we hate each other?”

  “There may have been moments,” she replied slowly, all traces of snark gone from her voice. “You drove me absolutely nuts.”

  He gave a low laugh, the sound rolling over her, warming her from the inside out. “I have no idea what that feels like.”

  “Do you remember an inciting incident?”

  “I do,” he said, keeping his profile to her. “You moved in next door.”

  “I was four.” As was he.

  “A frightening four. When I came into your yard, I think you threatened me with the three-headed dog that your dad kept in the garage.”

  “I was a little territorial,” she said. “Dad said that after Stevie was born, I acted up. I guess, since she was the second little sister I’d gotten in two years, I thought the babies would keep coming, and my part of the parental pie would keep getting smaller.” She laughed a little. “Three-headed dog?”

  “I remember the threat very well. Although I think you called it a fee-headed dog. Nevertheless, I got the drift. Battle lines were drawn, I was afraid of your garage for years, and here we are today.”

  “The dog was in an old movie we watched.”

  “Which movie? It was too early for Harry Potter and Fluffy.”

  “Clash of the Titans. I watched it to see Pegasus mostly but found the dog very impressive.” She finished her last screw, then turned to Danny. “Are you sure I started this?”

  “Positive.” He carted another sheet of wallboard across the room. “You don’t remember?”

  “No. But I do remember you rising to the challenge.”

  “Four-year-old me wasn’t going to tolerate lines drawn in the sand. Or in the sandbox, as it were.” He set the screws that held the board in place. “Every time I ran into you, you were mean.”

  “And vice versa. The first day of kindergarten you and your friends teased me about…” She tipped her chin toward the ceiling as she fought to remember. “My hair. Yes.”

  “You cut off all your long hair.”

  “Literally, as in I did it.”

  He shot her a smiling look. “Really?”

  “I got hold of the scissors and decided to pretty up for the first day of kindergarten.” She touched her hair. “I’ve worn it short ever since.”

  “You were a handful.”

  “Look who’s talking.” She set the hand with the drill on her hip. “I used to feel sorry for your very nice parents because they had such an obnoxious son.”

  He gave another soft laugh as she turned back to her work determined to focus on the job for at least a few minutes. A silence fell as their drills whirred, then thankfully stretched on as they alternately pulled wallboard from the pile, Danny using the lift to mount the upper wallboards, then Felicity mounting the lower after he’d moved on.

  Yes, it was easier to work this way and just as fast, but that didn’t mean she’d made a mistake by insisting they work alone. She hadn’t been ready to deal with maximum Danny on the day they started.

  She cast a quick glance at him, watching his shoulders flex beneath the white T-shirt as he lifted a wallboard before she resolutely pulled her gaze away, feeling a touch warmer than before.

  Oh yeah. She’d made the correct decision on day one.

  No regrets.

  Chapter Five

  It was going on six o’clock when Sandra finally returned Danny’s call concerning the warehouse and the cleaning crew. He and Felicity were preparing to mount the last wallboards near the basement door when the phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocke
t, glanced at the screen, and said, “I need to take this,” before stepping around the corner.

  “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Sandra said after he answered. “I was swamped today. You were fourth in my line of emergencies.”

  “Must have been a day,” he said.

  “It was.” She sighed. “I contacted Fork Horn after getting your message. They are on a tight schedule. They want ninety days free rent for fixturization if they decide to go with the property, and they want to start work the first week of April. The latest they say they can push back to is the seventh.”

  “Meaning they want to do the walk-through on the fifteenyh as planned.”

  “Yes.”

  “The place is a disaster.”

  “I know. And it’s hard to demand top dollar when showing a boarded-up building with grime covering the surfaces. That said, I think their timeframe might work to our advantage. The warehouse is perfect for them size-wise, but they’ll use the condition to bargain us down. I suggest we do the walk-through as planned, stick tight with the proposed rent, but offer them 120 days for fixturization, and guarantee pristine conditions by April 7th.”

  “Thanks, Sandy. Let me know how it goes.”

  “There’s more. I heard rumor that the lot next door is coming up for sale.”

  “Additional parking,” Danny said. Which he needed, as the warehouse took up most of the lot upon which it sat.

  “Exactly. I’ll keep my ear to the ground.”

  “Thanks, Sandy.”

  When he walked back around the corner, Felicity was tipping the last piece of wallboard into place. He pulled his drill out of the holster and zapped in a screw to hold it. Felicity answered him by setting a screw on her side. Danny returned the favor, and then they seesawed back and forth until the board was firmly mounted. Felicity lifted her drill and pretended to blow on the barrel, gunslinger style.

  “Phase one is done.”

  “Yep. Would this be a good time to tell you I need another hour off tomorrow morning?” He had to get the window guys lined out, which meant unlocking the building.