Someone Like You Page 12

  But then she stepped toward him and, before he could register her intentions, had looped the tie around his neck, moving even closer as her quick, adept fingers pulled the tie into a tidy half-Windsor knot.

  Then she froze, and he realized she was every bit as surprised at her gesture as he was.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said, her gaze locked on the tie. “I just…habit. I used to—”

  Lincoln’s hands came up, resting gently on her elbows, wanting to settle her. “No complaints here, Wallflower. You did it better than I could do myself.”

  She let out a little laugh. “You haven’t even seen it yet.”

  “No, but I’ve seen the way you do everything else. You’re a perfectionist.”

  “I didn’t used to be.”

  It was a strange response. Most people were either Type A or they weren’t. Either rigid or not. One didn’t learn to be a perfectionist.

  Did one?

  He ordered himself to release her and step back, but his hands didn’t move. Very slowly, her gaze traveled upward from the knot of his tie, and the second her warm brown eyes locked with his, he felt a surge of want so fierce it nearly took his breath away.

  Let her go. Let. Her. Go.

  Instead his hands tugged her closer, his head dipping down.

  Daisy gasped and pulled back.

  He released her, although it seemed to take a split second longer than it should for his fingers to obey his brain.

  Shit. Damn it.

  Lincoln turned away, pretending to check her handiwork in the mirror, while really trying to disguise the fact that the lower half of his body was absurdly aware of her.

  Focus on the tie, focus on the tie…

  As expected, it was perfect, although he lifted his own hand to loosen it just slightly. He wasn’t, after all, at work. Not really.

  “Come with me tonight,” he said again, keeping his voice casual, his eyes locked on his own reflection. “We’ll have dinner after I talk to your friends.”

  Daisy said nothing, and he glanced over, saw her biting her lip. She wanted to. He could see it in the way her eyes lit then shadowed.

  “I can’t.”

  Can’t or won’t?

  “Wallflower—”

  “The nickname really doesn’t fit,” she interrupted. “You saw me once when I happened to be near a wall, but that doesn’t mean I’m the type to cower in the corner.”

  “Wait, what? I never said—”

  “I’m not afraid,” she said, a little desperately. “Not of putting myself out there.”

  But the way she turned on her heel and all but ran from the room made a liar out of her. She was afraid of something. Someone?

  The realization made Lincoln angrier than he’d been in a long, long time.

  Chapter 17

  “So at what point do I get to learn where I’m headed?” Lincoln asked.

  “Soon,” Daisy said, lifting a finger to point. “Take a right up here.”

  “That’s into a parking lot.”

  “It is? You sure you’re not CIA? Those are some keen observational skills.”

  “You sure you didn’t have sarcasm piped straight through the umbilical cord? Because your twin has the same smart mouth.”

  She gave him a cheeky smile, relieved that their weird interaction last night hadn’t affected, well…them.

  Daisy wasn’t sure what had come over her. One minute she’d been seeing if he needed anything before heading out for the night, the next she’d been tying his tie in the most wifely of all gestures.

  It had been humiliating. It had also been highly alarming how right it felt. The thought of then going to dinner with him, sitting across the table as though they were…what, a couple?

  Because friends didn’t tie each other’s ties.

  But then he’d made it even more confusing. For a second she’d thought he’d wanted to pull her closer. Kiss her.

  The thought of it had kept her up half the night, torn between panic that it had almost happened and regret that it hadn’t.

  She’d settled on hope. Hope that they could still be easy around each other.

  And luckily, this morning when he’d come over to the main house to sweet-talk her into making breakfast (which, of course, she’d already planned on), things had felt back to normal. There were no weird undercurrents, no tension.

  She’d asked him how his “date” had gone, he’d said great, and that had been the end of it. And even if maybe she’d wanted to know just a few more details, wanted to know if any of the women had intrigued him, Daisy hadn’t asked. And he hadn’t volunteered.

  She was determined they get back to normal, as though last night never happened. It was important to her that she be the friend he needed right now.

  “Um, tell me we’re not in a Walmart parking lot,” he said.

  “Damn, wrong about the CIA thing. Yes, Lincoln, this is a Walmart parking lot. Grab the first spot you see.”

  “This is madness,” he murmured.

  “You should see it on a Saturday. Ooh, there. Guy just loaded the lawn chair into the pickup, he’s about to pull out.”

  Lincoln turned on his blinker and waited for the spot. “Holy crap, that’s a lot of toilet paper,” he said, watching in awe as a family of four pushed a stuffed cart toward their car.

  She glanced over. “Eh. Average.”

  “No. That’s a shit-ton of toilet paper, pun intended.”

  “That’s why people come here,” she said. “Stuff’s cheap, especially when you buy it in bulk.”

  “That’s great. But as a family unit of one with a temporary houseguest, what are we doing here?” he asked, pulling into the spot vacated by the blue pickup.

  “Let’s just say there’s a reason I told you to bring your notebook and iPad.”

  “You think this is going to be part of my research?”

  “Oh, I know it is,” she said, turning and pulling her oversize purse out of the backseat. “See, last night you met what I’d call the country club set. The well-coiffed, expensive-Chardonnay-for-lunch women. They’re not unlike the Park Avenue elite. You know Melody? She has a personal shopper. Rachel? Her personal hairstylist comes to her house three days a week.”

  “Yeah, I noticed they smelled like money,” he said.

  “Like me?”

  He smiled. “Like you.”

  “But,” Daisy said, holding up a finger, “we Southerners are multifaceted. You know how back in New York you’d handle a sexy dive-bar bartender different than you would a fancy Park Ave princess, different from a Columbia student, different from a hotshot lawyer…”

  “Hold up. A Columbia student? I’m not a creep.”

  Daisy waved her hand. “Grad student, whatever. You get my point.”

  “That different women call for different seduction, yes, I get it. Now explain to me why I’m outside Walmart for the first time in my life.”

  She stared at him. “You’ve never been to Walmart?”

  He lifted his shoulders. “I was born and raised in Tribeca. City guy through and through. No such thing as Walmart in Manhattan.”

  “Oh man, this lesson’s going to be even more important than I thought. Okay, get out,” she said, gesturing to the door handle of the driver’s side as she opened her own door and stepped into the autumn sunshine.

  He obeyed, starting to go around to the back of the car, then reversing when she gestured him toward the hood. “Okay, what are we buying?”

  “We aren’t buying anything,” she said, rummaging around in her bag until she found the plain white hand towel she kept in the rag pile in the laundry room.

  She stepped forward, tucking it into the waistband of his jeans before stepping back, tilting her head, and then nodding approvingly.

  Lincoln glanced down. “Um…”

  “Okay now, open the hood.”

  He stared at her. “Come again?”

  “The hood. Of the car. If you don’t know how, I can probably find i
t on YouTube…”

  She started to reach into her bag for her phone, but he all but snarled at her before turning toward the car and pulling some lever that popped the hood.

  “What’s wrong with the car?” he asked. “What am I supposed to fix?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Make something up.”

  Lincoln turned and gave her an incredulous look. “This is your grand plan?”

  She sighed. “Look, most girls won’t admit it, but they love a grease monkey. A guy who knows his way under the hood of a car, well…he knows his way around other things too.”

  His gaze narrowed. “Is that so.”

  “It is.”

  “That’s why you made me wear the jeans and the T-shirt. It’s a damn uniform.”

  “Yup. And the towel is the perfect accessory. See if you can’t get some grease somewhere under there. Get some on your hands, then wipe it on the towel. You’re going to have to really sell this.”

  “Sell what? Fake car problems?”

  “Just…” She blew out a breath. “Will you trust me on this? A guy in a too-tight white shirt—”

  “It’s an undershirt. I never intended to prance around in a Walmart parking lot wearing it.”

  “A too-tight white shirt,” she continued as though he hadn’t interrupted, “strained across a great chest, really great biceps, and his head under the hood of a car, a little sweaty, a little messy, a lot handy.”

  “You sound like a pimp.”

  “You’ll thank me when the babes come crawling and you’ve got a whole batch of fresh notes for your article.”

  He glared at her. “And what are you going to be doing? Won’t you cramp my game?”

  “I will. Which is why I’ll be in there.”

  She hitched a thumb toward the behemoth store.

  “Buying what?”

  “Paper towels. Cleaning supplies. Tampons,” she added, just to ensure he didn’t try to follow her in.

  He flinched, just as she’d known he would. Lincoln might be evolved, but he was still a guy.

  “Don’t worry,” she said sweetly. “I’ll take my time. I wish I’d thought to bring a squirt bottle. We could have sort of faked the sweat, really sold this whole thing.”

  “I swear to God, Daisy—”

  She backed away a couple steps because he looked good and ready to haul her toward the car door and shove her back inside. “Good luck!”

  “Wallflower—Daisy!”

  She turned on her heel, walking quickly into the safety of the store.

  She’d always sort of loved the anonymity of Walmart. It was just so darn big, and nobody looked at you twice. You could roam the aisles for hours and nobody would even know. Hadn’t there been a book or a movie or something about a woman living in Walmart?

  It wasn’t hard to imagine. The store literally seemed to have everything.

  As promised, Daisy took her time. In the cosmetics aisle, mostly. Generally speaking, she tended toward high-end makeup found in department stores, but she’d always had a weakness for nail polish. She loved a good manicure but hated the process of sitting and paying to have one done professionally when there were so many DIY options.

  Blue was apparently in style. She debated among a dozen shades ranging from midnight navy to the palest robin’s-egg pastel before deciding to kick it classic, and picked up a deep, dark red that felt perfect for fall.

  Next she grabbed the box of tampons—she really did need them—then she ambled through the book section. She mostly read ebooks, but for the occasional bubble bath, she preferred an actual paperback to avoid any technology mishaps and electronics in the tub.

  Into the cart went three books. One about a billionaire’s fake marriage, another about a hot mayor who hooked up with a female firefighter, and the last about a Nashville singer who retreated to Nowhere, Louisiana, to have sexy times with a bad boy.

  Lastly, she hit up the home goods section, maneuvering a massive package of paper towels into the cart, followed by a bottle of her favorite apple-scented all-purpose cleaner.

  The checkout line was crazy-long, giving Lincoln even more time to work his magic, so by the time Daisy finally wheeled her cart out of the store, she braced herself for him to have female company.

  She was right.

  Daisy shook her head in bemusement as she noted not just one woman, but three. There was a girl who couldn’t have been a day over twenty-three wearing tiny weather-inappropriate denim shorts, a bona fide cougar in a boobtastic tank top, and a woman about Daisy’s age who looked, well…nice.

  Then the blondie in the booty shorts moved to the side, and Daisy got a look at Lincoln. Her footsteps faltered, her breath hitched.

  Until this moment, she hadn’t realized that when she’d said some women were suckers for the grease-monkey look, she’d apparently been talking about herself.

  Daisy’d always considered herself the type that preferred Italian suits and golf polos to jeans and tight T-shirts, but seeing Lincoln now, playing up the whole handyman vibe, she got it.

  His toned arms were just the slightest bit shiny, as though he’d taken her advice in faking some way to work up a sweat. She watched as he wiped an oil-streaked hand on the towel along his thigh as he laughed at something the cougar said.

  It was perfect. He was perfect. He’d mastered the perfect combination of confident and aw shucks—alpha enough to be aware of his appeal to women, but modest enough to pretend that he hadn’t been prepared for all this attention while fixing his car.

  Good Lord, she’d created her own Kryptonite.

  She ordered her feet to keep walking, her dumb heart going into overdrive when he saw her out of the corner of his eye and then turned his full-blown smile on her.

  “Hey babe.”

  Daisy blinked. Babe?

  Then he was moving toward her, digging the keys out of his jeans pocket as he hit the button to pop the trunk. Before she could register his intent, he slipped a hand around her back, brushing his lips against hers.

  They both froze.

  The kiss was meant to be casual and fake—part of the role he was playing, she knew that. Knew that he did too.

  But there was nothing casual or fake about the electricity between them. His eyes searched hers, looking as bewildered and frustrated as she felt.

  Then he stepped back and reached for the package of paper towels.

  He was back to regular Lincoln when he glared at her with intent she understood immediately. You got me into this mess with these women—now get me out.

  Daisy forced herself to snap out of it. “Hey hon, you get the car fixed?”

  She reached for one of the bags and then stilled, looking at the other women as though just now spotting them. “Oh! Hello there.”

  The cougar was long gone, experienced enough on the prowl to know a lost cause, but Ms. Short-Shorts and the brunette lingered as though hoping their conversation with Lincoln had been so stimulating that he might ditch his paper-towel-buying girlfriend for one of them.

  Lincoln played right along, glancing at the women as though just now remembering they were there. “Oh right. Daiz, this is Holly and Melora.”

  “Hello!” Daisy said in the perfectly pleasant voice of a woman who was secure in her relationship, confident that her man wouldn’t step out on her, no matter how short the shorts or how tanned and toned the legs. “I’m Daisy.”

  The younger girl gave the fakest of smiles before fixing Lincoln with one last sultry gaze and then heading toward the store.

  The other woman had a sweet face, and she smiled at Daisy, even as her gaze immediately went back to Lincoln with hopeful longing. “Nice to meet you, Lincoln. Thanks so much for the car advice.”

  “Anytime, glad to help.”

  The woman managed one smile before pulling her car keys out of her purse, winding her way through the line of cars toward her own.

  “Were you actually any help?” Daisy asked as she dropped the bag into the trunk.<
br />
  “I said the words engine, belt, and torque steer, so most definitely. You think I should have charged them?”

  She laughed. “I’m not gonna lie, it kind of works for you.”

  “What does?” he asked as he grabbed the last bag and dropped it into the trunk. “Car talk, huh? You like that, Wallflower? Your engines revved?”

  She laughed. “Save it. But admit that I was right,” she said with a gloating smile. “Those women ate up the whole everyman mechanic routine. Don’t worry. I won’t rub it in.”

  “Don’t worry, I won’t rub it in either,” he said with a grin as she slammed the trunk shut.

  “Rub what in?”

  He leaned forward, crowding her, but not uncomfortably so. “That your plan backfired. The whole dirty towel in the belt thing really did it for ya, huh?”

  Lincoln winked and headed around to the driver’s side, and Daisy was torn between being impressed he’d read her so well, and embarrassed at having been caught.

  Chapter 18

  By Saturday night, Daisy was a little surprised by how quickly the week had gone. And a little sad that Lincoln’s stay in Charlotte was almost half over.

  They’d developed a nice routine, the two of them. Comfortable, without ever being boring. Despite the fact that he had his own coffeepot in the guesthouse, he made his way over to the main house every morning after Kiwi did her morning business.

  Together they’d have coffee—heavy on the cream and sugar for both of them—and she’d relish the chance to have someone to compliment her admittedly impressive omelet skills.

  Later they’d go to her gym, where she’d gotten him a guest pass for his stay, and they’d work out for an hour before coming home and showering.

  After that, Lincoln settled into the makeshift workstation he’d set up on the kitchen counter in the guesthouse, and Daisy did her usual. Putzed around the house, ran errands, grabbed the occasional coffee with Whitney. She’d brought him lunch twice, but mostly she gave him space during the day, not wanting him to think she was a little woman with nothing better to do than make roast chicken clubs for a man.