Mac was smart.
“About that. I just... Okay. While it was good...”
“No, we established, the lasagna wasgood.”
But now he also looked alert. And tense.
“Okay. Yes. I agree. This was... what we did was... something else. I mean, it was really... And it was... a surprise.”
“Was it?” he said. Ironically amused.
She ignored that. “BUT...” She took another long sustaining breath. “I’m sorry, but I shouldn’t have. I just... the thing with Corbin is so recent and I don’t know where my head is at, honestly. Or where I’ll be a month from now. I just have no business getting involved in anything like... I just don’t think the pre-lasagna activity is a good idea. Going forward. Is that okay?”
Wow. Nothing like a little Word Salad to go with the lasagna, Avalon, she told herself. Silently.
Mac had gone still again.
He took this in during a silence that seemed to ring.
“Okay,” he said evenly. Finally.
She hadn’t the faintest idea what he was thinking. But she recognized that look as one disguising an awful lot of internal mulling.
He didn’t ask for clarification. Even though God only knew it was warranted and an argument could be made that he was entitled to it.
She didn’t ask him if he had any follow-up questions. She wasn’t giving a presentation to the Young Entrepreneurs club.
He was watching her now with a certain curiosity. Trying to read her.
“But... I’ll admit I can use some general contracting work in the house...”
“Somegeneral contracting? You don’t need a thesaurus. You need a dictionary.”
“...and since you’re about as general as a contractor can get, and you’re always underfoot anyway, I would appreciate it if you’d undertake some of the work. I want to get it all done by the first of the year.”
He smiled slowly at this.
“Same terms as your groundskeeping contract,” she added quickly.
“Ha. Nice try. Not if I’m doing more work.”
Ava actually loved to negotiate. Mac turned out to be startlingly nimble at it, too. Must be in the genes, she thought. Wasn’t that basically what his dad had done? Make deal after deal after deal? Right up until that deal with the prosecutor for a decade less jail time?
They happily bickered for a few minutes and arrived on a deal that was pretty much what she’d intended to pay him all along. If a little more.
“I’ll get a contract drawn up by tomorrow morning,” she said.
“Okay. Have you made a list of things you think need repairs or updating?”
“Of course.”
He smiled at that. “Can you email it to me tonight? I’ll add my two cents, then I’ll work out budget estimates and a schedule and we can make decisions based on that from there. Shall I stop by around ten a.m.?”
Wow. The efficiency was as breathtaking as his abs and nearly as erotic as what they’d just done on the barge couch.
“Sounds good.”
At the rate all of this professionalism was going, next they’d be exchanging business cards and a brisk, pumping handshake. She supposed she was relieved.