“Oh, Avery. I’m sorry.” Trina sounded teary.

“It’s okay. You’re excited and emotional and want everyone as happy as you are. Please know that I am. Just in a different way.”

“Okay . . . I’ll let it go. Please talk to me. Anytime.”

“I know you’re there, Trina. I have to get in the shower. I’m meeting a contractor at my new client’s house and want to be there on time.” Omitting Liam’s name wasn’t an accident.

“I miss you.”

Avery smiled. “I’ll see you in a few days.”

Chapter Twelve

Liam was fifteen minutes early. Wearing a pullover shirt that hugged his chest like a glove and denim that made Avery’s palms itch, he looked even better than the last time she saw him.

He walked through the open front door while Avery stood alongside Felicia, the art expert from a local auction house.

Avery removed her reading glasses and excused herself from Felicia to greet Liam.

“Good afternoon,” he said. His eyes took her in, looking at her face, her head.

With an unconscious hand, Avery smoothed over her hair and ponytail. Work mode meant she hadn’t paid too much attention to what she was wearing. Today was about digging in closets and unearthing treasures. Skirts and fancy shoes didn’t hold up in those circumstances.

“You found the place okay?”

“Sat nav is an amazing thing.”

There was a moment of awkward silence when Liam stared at her and smiled.

Avery shifted from foot to foot, willing her pulse to slow.

“Thank you again for coming by,” she said, breaking the quiet.

Liam finally looked away and glanced at the foyer. “This is definitely in need of an update.”

“The question is how deep.”

Liam turned his gaze back to her. “Deep?”

“Yeah, beyond the cosmetic stuff. My client has no idea how new or old the plumbing is, the insulation. It was built in the late thirties originally, and then massively updated in the fifties. There were a few changes on record in the eighties, but I’m not sure the extent. The home is three generations old. Which is a lot of years for homes in the LA area.”

“Seems a shame to sell.”

Avery agreed, but who was she to judge? She’d sell her parents’ estate in a heartbeat. “C’mon, let me show you around.” She pulled him out of the hall. “If you need me, Felicia . . .”

“I have it, Ms. Grant.”

She walked him through the family room and around the crates that were already set up to accept the artwork on the walls. “There are four fireplaces. None of them look like they’ve had a fire in them for several years.”

Liam walked over to the hearth and knelt down. “This one is massive.” He knocked on the plain facade. “Bet this is covering up something.”

Avery shrugged and pulled her eyes away from his butt as he stood.

They walked through a den, or as Sheldon called it, his father’s smoking room. The massive dining room was off a spacious kitchen that needed a total gut, in her opinion.

Liam wrote a few things on a notepad as she continued the tour.

Outside, she pointed to the patio living area. “It’s been maintained out here. I think because the wife liked her garden.”

“Greenhouse?” he asked, pointing to the far side of the property.

“Yup. The groundskeepers use it now, but Sheldon said his mother once grew orchids.”

Back inside, she took him up the stairway to the upper floor. A maze of smaller bedrooms, a second laundry room, and a his and hers master suite. The rooms were separated by a sitting room like you’d see in the Windsor House in Westminster.

“Parents didn’t like each other?” Liam asked with a smirk.

“Maybe he snored.”

He traced his hands on the bedpost. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Snore?”

Caught off guard, Avery stuttered. “Is that . . . is that a professional question from a contractor to a client?”

“Nope. It’s one hundred percent personal.” He was smiling.

Avery paused. “Like a trucker. All night. I’m told it’s miserable.”

He laughed. “I sleep like the dead.” Liam moved away from the bed and opened a door. “A nursery.”

“Yeah, strange that it still looks like that. Their son is thirty-five years old.”

“Maybe they were hoping for grandchildren.” The room was a mausoleum, complete with scary dolls and black-and-white photos. And dust. Lots of dust.

“Sheldon’s single. But who knows.”

“Avery?” Felicia called her name from the hall.

Avery pointed toward the door. “Let me see what she needs.”

“Take your time. I need to poke around, get a few things from my truck, and look under the sinks, check the electrical panels.”

Damn, he was easy to look at. Tall enough, but not towering. Thick in all the right places . . . well, as much as she could tell without seeing him naked. Does he have any tattoos?

“Avery?” Felicia yelled again.

She jumped. “Right. Coming!”

Liam’s laughter followed her out of the room.

Avery jogged down the main staircase to the foyer and found the back of the Uber food delivery guy. “Perfect timing.”

He turned around and Avery almost tripped.

The dance all night, buy me drinks, but I’m not going home with you dude from the Basement.

Yeah, no name came to mind. Then again, she didn’t think they’d exchanged names.

“You,” he said, staring.

“Yeah . . .” Avery glanced up the stairs.

“Avery?” he asked, looking at his slip.

This wasn’t good.

She pointed a finger at the bags of food in his hands. “That’s for me.”

“Hundred and thirty dollars’ worth of sandwiches and salads . . . I’m guessing a chick like you can afford her own drinks at a bar.”

“Right.” She took the bags from him slowly. “About that. I’ll be sure and tip you well.”

He dragged his gaze over her frame. “You do that.”

“Hey, Avery?”

Oh, geez, what now?

Liam had turned the corner on the stairs.

“Yeah, just a minute.” She practically pushed what’s-his-name out the door. “Thanks for bringing the food.”

“I see what’s going on.” They had made it to the front porch, and Avery half closed the door behind them.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “Saturday was a weird night.”

“Uh-huh. Right.”

“I will tip you.”

“You be sure and do that, Avery.”

“I will . . .” What the hell was his name?

Nothing.

She had nothing.

It took him forever to get off the steps and into his car. He drove a Prius.

He buzzed around the driveway, coming way too close to her Aston for her taste, and disappeared.

With a sigh, she pushed back into the house and painted on a smile.

“I ordered lunch. I hope you’re hungry.”

Liam wandered the eight-thousand-square-foot home and the grounds for two hours. Every time he told himself to hurry up, that he had other jobs pulling at him, he ignored the voice in his head. This was a favor for Avery, and he didn’t want to lead her wrong.

His work phone buzzed. “Hey, Carlos.”

“When are you getting back here? The developer is poking around and asking for answers I don’t have for him.”

Carlos was his first in charge when Liam wasn’t on-site.

“I wasn’t expecting him today.”

“That doesn’t mean he isn’t here.”

“I’ll call him.” Liam checked his watch. “Give me forty-five minutes.”

He hung up the phone and searched for Avery.

He found her in a study, or a home office, although there wasn’t a computer on the desk or any sign of the normal equipment one would find in a functioning office space.

For a moment, he stood in the doorway and watched her.

Sitting behind the substantial wooden desk with her elbows firmly planted on the top, she rolled a thick pen between her fingers and stared beyond the object in her hands. Her eyelids twitched and her lips were in a thin, expressionless line. Liam couldn’t tell if she was deep in thought or upset . . . or what?

He cleared his throat and jarred her out of her trance.

“Am I disturbing you?”

Avery closed her eyes briefly and painted on a smile. “I’m fine . . . I mean, you’re fine.” She took a few quick breaths and dropped the pen on the desk. “Did you finish up?”

Her voice sounded strangled.

“Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Again she grinned and shook her head. “Of course.”

“I need to get back to my job site. I think I have everything I need here.”

She stood from behind the desk and walked toward him. “Let me walk you out.”

The closer she came, the better he could see the lack of color on her face. He glanced back at the desk. “What was that you were looking at?”

Avery looked over her shoulder. “Nothing, really. A pen.” She walked beside him down the hallway and around the crates that now lined the foyer walls.