Build Me Up Read online

  It didn’t draw blood, but she knew she’d be sporting a bruise in a near future and rubbed at the impact zone. When she looked up at the culprit her blood froze in her veins. Not again. Were there that few people in Greenport? Or was this just Mess With Kristen Day? Funny, she hadn’t seen that marked on the cat calendar hanging on Mrs. Breezer’s fridge this morning.

  “Seriously?” she voiced her frustration.

  “Kristen? Are you all right?” the waitress she recognized as Hallie jumped off a bar stool and came up to her. It really was a small town if a local waitress could keep track of the people coming in.

  With Hallie as an audience, she couldn’t very well lay into the jerk with the toolbox, so Kristen forced a smile. “I’m okay. I’ll be sore tomorrow, I’d bet, but I’m fine.”

  “Well, come, sit down. I’ll get you a martini - on the house, of course,” Hallie said and showed her over to the table she’d been heading for before the painful interruption. Hallie disappeared behind the bar – apparently the bartender was on a break at the moment, and Mr. Handyman walked over to her table, bracing a weathered hand on the tabletop.

  “I am sorry.”

  Kristen looked up at him. He had a gruff look about him, stubble that suggested he either was too lazy to shave or that hair grew like weed on him, but his green eyes were sincere.

  “Doesn’t make it hurt any less,” she said surly. Granted, not very gracious of her, but she’d had a crappy day and he’d played a double feature in it.

  His jaw twitched but he said nothing. If this had been L.A., he probably would have argued saying she was inattentive, never admitting he was at fault as that was just a lawsuit waiting to happen.

  “Here you go,” Hallie said, returning with a drink that had been poured into a highball glass and not a martini glass. “I figured you’d need a bigger glass,” she smiled as she set it down on a paper coaster. “Lunch, dinner?”

  “Is the kitchen open? I know I’m a bit early for dinner, and a bit late for lunch, but I’m kinda starving,” Kristen smiled.

  “Sure. How ‘bout a burger? Chef does a mean homemade barbecue sauce.”

  “Sold,” Kristen smiled.

  “Ford? Burger?” Hallie turned to the handyman.

  “Sorry, can’t stay,” he said and Hallie shrugged, heading over to the kitchen.

  “Ford?” Kristen frowned. Was it a last name or a first name?

  “If I give you my name, you’re not putting it on a police report, are you?” he squinted at her and it took her a moment to realize he was joking.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t sue for much,” she fired back, trying to keep a straight face.

  “Ford Hamm,” he extended his hand.

  Kristen almost fell off her chair. Not. Happening. There had to be another Ford Hamm in Greenport. One who wasn’t a contractor. One who she wouldn’t be forced to work with instead of against over the next year. One who didn’t get a dimple when he smiled. Oh, crap. She was so screwed.

  ”Ford Hamm, as in contractor Ford Hamm?” Kristen asked aloud. Better to find out now than when she had to face the mysterious contractor.

  “The one and only,” he confirmed. Great. Just perfect.

  “Do contractors always carry toolboxes around?” she blurted, not knowing if she should just cut to the chase or not. Maybe best to warm him up a bit and make him forget about their previous encounters. Operation Sweet Talker was officially underway.

  “Maybe they should,” he shrugged his big shoulders. “You never know when there’s an emergency.”

  “What, like a rusty nail that needs replacing – stat?”

  “Exactly. One can always use a hammer.”

  O….kay.

  “You sure you don’t want to join me?” Kristen gestured to the empty seat opposite her. “My treat. I think I owe you for being an ungrateful bitch earlier,” she cringed.

  “I hit you with a toolbox. I think we can call it a draw.”

  What, like he was so seriously wounded by their conversation? She was the one with a freaking bruise! Kristen tamped down her irritation and schooled her expression. No point arguing with the only contractor in town.

  “Okay, then you can pay for your own burger,” she said lightly. “In case you missed it, I’m new in town. I could do with getting to know people.”

  “Well, like I said, I need to get going. Hallie is a people person, though. You could ask her for recommendations.”

  “Thanks,” Kristen said to his already retreating back. Well, that went well…

  Ford put his toolbox in the back of his truck before heading over to the Food Shopper to pick up Annabelle. Stupid name, as the store sold a lot more than food to its customers, but old man Crenshaw had named it after his favorite magazine, which was now long gone. It was the only grocery slash convenience store in Greenport, but Crenshaw was an honest man and kept his prices fair. The souvenir shops had no qualms about pricing, though. Ford supposed they had to keep the money flowing in during tourist season if they were going to survive the rest of the year. Of course, most of them had other shops in the state, ones that stayed open all year long, and their businesses in Greenport were just a lucrative side venture.

  He raised his hand in greeting as he walked in and spotted Mrs. Crenshaw – old man Crenshaw’s daughter-in-law who was the current manager of the Food Shopper – stocking the fresh baked bread section.

  “Hiya, Ford,” she called back, sliding an empty tray back into her trolley. “You just missed her.”

  What? Annabelle knew he was picking her up today. They were supposed to go visit his grandfather’s grave at Greenport Cemetery.

  “She left already?” he asked, walking over. He could smell the sugar on the donuts she’d just piled. His mouth watered and his stomach let it be known he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.

  “Oh… you didn’t have plans, did you?” Mrs. Crenshaw gave him a look of pity. Or was it solidarity? Her own kids were a few years older than Annabelle, and he knew they’d been a handful over the years.

  Ford sighed. “Yeah.”

  “That boy was here – Donny Preston? You know, Donna Preston’s son?”

  Ah, the lady with the clever name selections for her kids – Donny, Donyelle (because Danielle was just too ordinary) and Donner. Chairman of the PTA and overall busybody. Her kids were the spitting image of their mother.

  “What was Annabelle doing with Donny Preston?” Ford asked even as the obvious answer was staring him right in the face. The pharmaceutical section was practically jumping out at him and screaming ‘sale on prophylactics’. He cringed.

  “Oh, Ford,” Mrs. Crenshaw clicked her tongue and shook her head. “You should bring Annabelle over for dinner one night. I’ll make sure to have the grandkids around.”

  “As a scare tactic?”

  “No, as a distraction. I could get my kids to hire Annabelle for babysitting, keep her busy until she heads back to her mom.”

  “I’m pathetic, aren’t I?” Ford sighed.

  “You’re human,” Mrs. Crenshaw said and patted his cheek. “Heaven knows I had my moments when I considered dumping the kids with Mom and flying out to Vegas.”

  “They’ve turned out well, though.” It was true. The Crenshaw kids had wreaked havoc on the town for awhile, but now they all held steady jobs and were raising families of their own. All except the youngest, who was going to college in Boston.

  “I had a good team backing me,” Mrs. Crenshaw said. “It was tough going when Bobby died, but my parents and his all pitched in to help out. “It can be done, Ford.”

  “I appreciate everything you’ve done for us – giving Annabelle a job here and all. I know she can be-“

  “She’s a teenager,” Mrs. Crenshaw cut him off. “A little rough around the edges, but a sweet kid. She’ll be all right, Ford.”

  “I feel like I’m failing. She’s growing up so fast, and I’m missing out on everything in between visits.”

  “Did you talk to Suzy ab
out California?”

  “I can’t afford to move out there. I’m struggling to pay the mortgage and child support every month. I have a business here. If I go to California…” he shook his head.

  The money wasn’t the only issue, of course. He didn’t want to live the life Suzy wanted, or the one Annabelle was starting to crave. Then there was the custody agreement. Even if he did manage to move out to California, in some small town outside of L.A. where he could start up a contracting business, he still wasn’t allowed to see Annabelle more often than the agreed upon times. And as long as he could get her to come out here, to Greenport, he had a chance to show her that there was more to life than shoes and makeup.

  “You do what you need to do,” Mrs. Crenshaw said reassuringly. “I’d better get back to the oven – freshly baked bread draws in the crowds, you know.”

  “All right, I’ll get out of your hair,” Ford smiled. “Thanks for the pep talk, Mary.” He leaned in and gave her a peck on the cheek. “If you see Annabelle, tell her-“

  “That she’s invited for dinner tomorrow night,” Mrs. Crenshaw filled in, winking. That wasn’t what he had been about to say, and she knew it. Realizing there was no point in protesting, Ford simply shook his head and headed out.

  FOUR

  Kristen spent the time waiting for her burger to arrive to ponder her situation. Maybe she should have introduced herself to Ford Hamm, explained how they were supposed to work together on a year-long project and so on. But she’d been thrown by the toolbox event and the following surprise reveal of Annoying Guy’s identity. He seemed to know the waitress well, though. Maybe she could glean some information about him from Hallie.

  Hallie arrived with her burger and Kristen was just about to ask about Ford when the man himself walked back into the restaurant and Hallie was distracted.

  “Change your mind?” Hallie said and Kristen shamelessly eavesdropped.

  “Change of plans,” Ford shrugged. “Burger still on offer?”

  “For you? Always,” Hallie winked and patted his chest before heading off to the kitchen. Kristen couldn’t help wondering what that broad chest felt like. Like, was the T-shirt damp from sweat? She couldn’t see any stains, but you never knew.

  While she was subtly looking for sweat stains, Ford turned slightly and made eye contact. Kristen quickly snapped her head around to spear a fry with her fork. She could sense he was still there, but when she casually glanced back over at him, he was pulling out a chair over at the bar. So much for her tingling spider sense.

  The bar stools had half-backs, but Kristen still got a good view of how the contractor’s jeans stretched over his backside and thighs, and the way his shirt stretched over his shoulders. Was there a special store for stretchy clothes in Greenport? Like, not vacationing-seniors-in-sweatpants kind of stretchy but like sexy stretchy?

  Sexy stretchy? Kristen mentally cringed. What was going on with her? Surely she couldn’t be that starved of physical interaction with the opposite sex, right? After all, it had only been a couple… okay, maybe more than a couple, of months since she last… Darn it, she had to stop thinking about that. One year of celibacy wouldn’t kill her. In fact, it might even make her a better person, more in tune with nature and intellectual stimulance and… oh man, those jeans fit him well.

  Ford got himself comfortable on the bar stool. He’d noticed the woman – Kristen, was that what Hallie had called her? – looking at him. He wasn’t entirely sure if he should take it as a compliment or not. He got the impression she was sizing him up for some reason.

  Maybe he’d been rude, refusing her offer to join her because he had plans and then coming back and sitting down at the bar instead, but he didn’t know her. If she was so desperate to get to know people, there were plenty of fish in the sea. Crustaceans, too.

  Not that Kristen-or-what’s-her-name wasn’t attractive. When she wasn’t sneering or scowling, that is. To her credit, though, she’d apologized for her part in their earlier encounter, so maybe he should give her a chance. Except he didn’t need the hassle. He already had a girl in his life – one he was responsible for even when she wasn’t around. And right now he had no idea where she was.

  “Here’s your burger,” Hallie said and slid a plate in front of him. “Beer with that?”

  “Might as well.”

  Hallie nodded and walked around the bar to grab a bottled beer from the fridge. “What happened with Annabelle?”

  “She’d already left with Donny Preston,” Ford sighed and took a swig of the uncapped bottle.

  “So you’re fancy free, huh?” Hallie said, propping her elbows on the counter and somehow managing to push up her breasts in the process. He wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t at least glance at the view, but he wasn’t feeling in an easy, breezy mood. Hallie was too young to understand that he wouldn’t be able to relax when he didn’t know where his daughter was.

  “Something like that,” he mumbled and took a hearty bite of his burger. It had the dual purpose of satisfying his appetite and avoiding having to answer questions. Hallie seemed to get that he wasn’t in the mood to chat, or she was distracted by something shiny across the restaurant, because when he looked up from his plate, she was gone.

  Kristen paid her bill and headed out, glancing over at the taciturn contractor sitting by the bar as she went. She would go back to the room and do her new drawings, then she’d send them off to Bankhead for approval, and then she’d get some sleep before she contacted Ford Hamm again.

  When Kristen woke up after her second night at Casa Breezer, it was to a duet performed right outside her door. Oh, great, Frank Sinatra had brought a back-up singer to serenade her. Kristen contemplated ignoring the feline choir howling at her door, but figured she’d be pounced on whenever she dared leave the safety of her room.

  For a brief moment she entertained the idea of never leaving her abode – or shimmying down from the balcony – but gave it up. She needed to eat, and she needed to get to work. So she folded back the comforter and padded over to the French doors, opening them wide. Then she walked over to the door, turned the handle, and stepped back, using the door as a shield to ward off any evil that may come flying through the passage.

  She peered out behind it to watch as two cats – Frank Sinatra and Charlie Chaplin – darted out onto the balcony. Then she executed a sprint worthy of an Olympian and successfully closed the French doors. She worried that the number of cats wanting to use her room as a passageway would increase exponentially as time passed. She really needed to find another place to stay.

  After receiving a confirmation from Quinlan Bankhead that she could proceed with the design she’d sent over, Kristen had her drawings forwarded to the Greenport municipal board for the building permit process. They had been granted a permit for the original design, but with Mr. Bankhead’s last minute alterations, Kristen needed to file an amendment and keep her fingers crossed that it went through.

  Next on the agenda was setting up an appointment with Ford Hamm, Greenport’s only contractor and the only one in the state certified for heritage renovations. Kristen was inclined to think that the certification – only issued by the Greenport municipal board – was bogus. Not that he wasn’t capable or anything, but the board had undoubtedly decided to instate a set of requirements to be met simply so only a handful of people could come in to Greenport and work. If things really didn’t work out with Ford, maybe she’d call up her college roommate – now a partner at a law firm back in L.A. – and ask if she knew any good lawyers nearby who would take on Greenport municipality and throw out their silly town statutes. But for now, she was going to play nice.

  After a quick cereal breakfast, Kristen grabbed her phone and went outside to get some non-cat-hair-filled air – and escape the stench of the litter box. The sun was out and she sat down on a warm rock close to the water before dialing the number of the contractor’s office. Maybe she’d be able to set up an appointment with an associate of his?

&nb
sp; “Hamm Contracting,” a rich voice answered on the third ring and she recognized Ford’s timbre immediately. A gust of wind coming in from the sea made her shiver.

  “Yes, hello, I’m… my name is Kristen Barnes. I’ve been hired by Mr. Quinlan Bankhead to design his new home here in Greenport, and…”

  “You can tell Mr. Bankhead he can go design a house somewhere else,” the gruff voice said and then the call disconnected.

  What the-? As far as insults went, that one was pretty tame, but it was still very rude. He must have known about the build already, and he probably had gotten his say at some sort of town meeting, but this was reality, and he needed to face it. Kristen clicked redial.

  “Hamm Contracting.”

  “Mr. Hamm? I believe we met yesterday – at The Sea Shack?” Kristen forced herself to keep the annoyance out of her voice. She’d schmoozed way more important people in her days.

  “Sorry?”

  Well, at least he wasn’t hanging up on her again…

  “Kristen, from the restaurant? The toolbox assault victim?”

  “Right… how did you get my number?” He sounded like he was frowning. Was he that dense?

  “Like I said before you hung up on me, I’ve been hired for the lighthouse project, and I’d like to set up a meeting with you to discuss the plans.”

  “You’re the Tinseltown designer?”

  “No, I’m a licensed architect and interior designer,” Kristen said coolly. “I understand that Mr. Bankhead has already hired you for the contracting work, and I really hope we’ll be able to work together instead of against each other. Do you think yourself capable of such maturity?”

  Okay, Smooth Talking Kristen was a massive failure. She couldn’t help but return the condescension she was treated with. Mrs. Kale would be very disappointed in her. There was silence on the other line and she wondered if he’d simply set the phone down and walked away.