Holiday Sparks

She certainly wouldn’t let him forget. “Your house,” he said with a shrug.

She took a step back. “I’ll leave you to it.”

Before she could disappear, he touched her arm. The softness of her sweater lured him closer. “What am I allowed to play with?”

She licked her lips. “Sorry?”

He quirked a brow. “What areas do you want me to work on besides the tree?”

“Right.” She cleared her throat and looked around. The front end was neat and tidy but as sterile as a doctor’s office. “The surrounding platform. The chair that will have Santa on it. And the checkout stations. Just make sure that the cashiers can move around easily and that customers won’t trip.”

“I’ll concentrate on the tree area and do the register stations after hours. What time do you close?”

“Oh.” She looked more than uncomfortable. He was going to impress the hell out of her and he couldn’t wait. “Nine.”

“Okay, I’ll work on the big stuff. I’ll need to go out for more supplies. Do you want me to bring you back lunch?”

“I—” She looked so surprised at such a simple kindness. There was no way a beautiful woman like her wouldn’t be used to male attention. It just couldn’t be possible.

“I have to get something for myself anyway,” he said, trying to alleviate whatever it was that wouldn’t let her ask for help. Knocking on his door must have really burned her ass.

“You don’t need to trouble yourself.”

“We’ll need to talk over the plan sometime. Might as well eat while we’re doing it.” Christ, what was it about her that made him want to push for more? Not good, Hartley. Not good at all.

“I brought my lunch.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She unearthed a small electronic tablet from a holster at her hip and hugged it to her chest. “If you need anything just flag me down. I’ll be running around most of the day.”

He nodded and moved to the bin. Petey had brought him up a ladder and a shaggy-haired man hovered along the sidelines. He was average in every way except the way he watched Darcy. That, Ben didn’t like.

At all.

Chapter Four

Darcy left Ben to work, but throughout the morning she kept finding excuses to go back and check on him. She found herself smiling when she caught him with ropes of lights around his neck and shoulders. His black t-shirt was faded to charcoal and didn’t quite stay down around his hips. Not when he kept reaching up to tuck lights in whatever strategic way he seemed to have devised.

A heavy black belt gripped his hips and somehow seemed to accentuate how tight he was. Everywhere. Smooth skin peeked above the belt. Even the little flashes of flesh were muscled. And a tiny corner of a tattoo peeked along his side.

It made her want to push up the shirt and see what it was. It looked like words. Just what sort of words would Ben Hartley have tattooed to his flesh forever? A woman’s name? A line of poetry? A sarcastic saying that fit his lightning-quick wit?

And he was tireless. He was up and down the ladder, painstakingly wrapping branches in some pattern only he seemed to know. Petey, their receiving manager, kept coming out to see the progress.

Ben seemed so at ease with everyone. He had Petey cracking jokes, Jaime bringing him bottles of water hourly, and every cashier that could get away from their register volunteering to help him.

Was he giving off some sort of special pheromone?

That had to be why she was just as pulled to him.

She forced herself to look back down at her schedule. The midshift was coming in. She had breaks to cover and Jaime needed to take her lunch. And she had to sit down with Ben and talk about the design.

“Where did you find him again, Ms. Tucker?”

Darcy looked up from her tablet at Miriam’s voice. The woman was a cat. “He’s my tenant.”

“I thought you lived in the suburbs?”