Chapter 17
Basically, the dog was following her to work.
Not that Lindsey minded. Booger was actually really good with the residents—gentle and patient, more or less doing what he was told. The fact that many of the Shady Grove cardigans were now full of dog treats surely had nothing to do with that.
But she couldn’t always take the dog to work. It was nice, but it was distracting. Plus, she knew Walker missed him. He hadn’t said so—the chance of Walker admitting a weakness was as unlikely as the chance of him willingly telling his secrets. But it wasn’t clear who wagged his tail harder when she and Booger came home from work. She was starting to feel insulted.
Walker usually made up for that.
God, he was good in bed. She never would have guessed that a man who was so reserved in real life would be able to open her up the way he did. It had been almost every night since that first time, and if he woke up early enough, every morning, too. She should be exhausted.
She was a little exhausted.
Keeping track of Booger on top of her actual job didn’t help. She spoke to the residents about how, for now, Booger was going to be a “sometimes” visitor, not all the time. And since she was pretty sure Walker would sometimes need to leave the house, they had to figure out a way to keep Booger contained.
“We need to fix the fence,” she told him over a lazy Saturday cup of coffee.
He raised his eyebrow. “We?”
“Well, you’re the landlord, but it’s my dog, so, yes. We.”
“Do you know how to fix a fence?”
She looked deep into her coffee mug. It contained no answers. “No.”
Walker tipped his chair back so he was balancing on two legs. She hoped he tipped over, if that would wipe that self-satisfied smirk off his face. “So, I need to fix the fence.”
“Do you know how to fix the fence?”
The chair crashed down on all fours. “No.”
Since it had been over three minutes since Walker had touched her, Lindsey felt compelled to climb in his lap. That, and the fact that she wanted to preserve her chair legs.
“So . . .” She stroked the hair at the back of his neck.
“So,” he said. They looked at each other for a long moment, and Lindsey forgot what the problem with the fence was, again. Something about the dog. And the broken . . . God, he was handsome.
“Linds,” he said, brushing a curl behind her ear. “It’s pretty clear to me that you already have a plan for the fence, so why don’t you just go ahead and tell me.”
Oh yeah. The fence. “Well . . . I was thinking.”
“Mmm hmm.”
“Since we already know a guy who knows how to fix stuff, maybe we could just call him?”
“Who do we know?”
“Jake Burdette.”
“Okay, I’ll call him.”
“Well . . .”
“Let me guess. You already called him.”
“I just thought, since you guys sort of knew each other already, that maybe it would be nice for you to work on the project together.”
“You don’t think he would rather get paid to do it himself?”
“I bought beer.”
He looked at her, that little crease forming between his eyebrows. “Lindsey. Are you trying to set me up with Jake?”
She shrugged. “Just as a friend. He’s really nice. And he likes to do dude stuff, and you like to do dude stuff, so I thought . . .”
“We could do ‘dude stuff’ together?”
“Yeah. Plus, Booger really likes him.”
“You realize I’m straight, right?”
She slapped his shoulder. “I just want you to have some friends, that’s all. You spend so much time alone.”
“I like being alone.”
She’d hurt his feelings. Real smooth, Lindsey. She knew nothing made Walker more defensive than challenging that Lone Wolf vibe he had going on. She leaned into him, resting her forehead on his. “I know.”
He wrapped his arms around her waist. “Quit trying to make me make friends.”
“Okay,” she said softly.
“I don’t need friends.”
“I know.”
They sat there like that, wrapped up in each other, neither of them believing Walker for a second.
“He’s still coming over to fix the fence,” she said. “I promised him beer. And that you’d help him.”
Walker growled and stood, taking Lindsey with him. He tilted her back, and proceeded to compromise the structural integrity of her kitchen table.
For a man who liked being alone, he sure was good at being with her.
Walker’s stomach decided to do a round of somersaults when he saw Jake’s truck pull up the driveway.
For god’s sake, he was just coming over to install a fence.
This wasn’t a damn date.
“Hey, man.” Jake climbed out of his truck. “I heard your escape artist got out again.”
Walker looked toward the house, where Booger was looking pitifully out of the window at them. “Yeah. Thanks for dropping this off. You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s no problem.” He slapped Walker on the back. Jake seemed to be a bit of a back-slapper. Maybe that was some kind of ‘friends’ signal.
Or maybe Walker was acting like a virgin on prom night.
He’d had friends before. Jesus, Jake was his friend back in high school. There was no reason to feel pressure.
“You can just unload it here if you want.”
Jake tipped his eyebrow up at Walker. “I thought we were putting it up?”
“Well, I don’t want to—”
“And Lindsey said she had beer.”
“Yeah, it’s inside.” He led the way inside, then handed Jake a bottle from the fridge.
“Lindsey here?”
“No, she had to go take care of some paperwork.”
Jake took a swig. “You know, whenever I try to get Grace to work on a big project at home, she suddenly has to meet with a student or grade papers. It’s amazing.”
“Oh, I think she really did have paperwork. She’s been bringing Booger to work with her, and she said she needed to catch up . . .”
“Relax, man. I’m just joking.” He followed Walker and his beer out the front door. “Although I’m not joking about Grace. She hates home reno projects.”
“That doesn’t bother you? That you do all the work?”
Jake shrugged. “I love that woman, but if you saw her with a hammer, you’d want her to go grade papers, too. It’s actually easier if I do all the work. So, are we doing the whole yard, or what?”
Walker walked Jake around the property, showed him where the holes were the worst. Jake declared the fence pretty shoddy—which happened when wood went untreated for twenty-odd years. “Not your fault,” he assured Walker. “It was probably not that much better when you bought the place.”
“Yeah, but when I bought the house, I didn’t have a dog.”
You still don’t have a dog, he reminded himself, as Booger scratched at the screen on the back door.
Jake shook one of the sturdier-looking fence posts, which sent a ripple down the entire fence. “I don’t know, man. I think this whole thing has to go. That’s okay, there should be enough.” The two men walked to the front of the house again, then to the back of Jake’s truck, where he pulled a tarp off the bed.
Walker looked at the fence Jake had salvaged from a finished job where it wasn’t needed. It was white. Walker supposed beggars couldn’t be choosers, but it looked very . . . wholesome. Did everything Lindsey touch turn to Pollyanna?
“How long is this going to take?” Walker asked. “Not that I have anything better to do—I just want to know.”
“That depends,” said Jake, hoisting the first piece of fence out of the truck. “How much beer you got?”
WHAT WERE THEY DOING TO HIS YARD.