Wild in the Moment by Jennifer Greene Page B

before she could even try leaping to a wrong conclusion, he filled in what he was thinking.
    â€œI told you, Daisy. I need help. Exactly the kind of help you could give me. I’ve got more carpentry work than I know what to do with, but I’m lousy on the decorating end. For a while, when you wanted to, you could work as a consultant. Even better, you could work when you had free time, because the specific hours wouldn’t matter to me.”
    She stiffened. “Trust me. I don’t do charity.”
    â€œI’m not talking charity.”
    She pushed off the edge of the bed and started pacing—not that there was more than a few feet potential to pace with. The most walking she could get in was a circle around the couch. “Come on. You told me flat-out that you had trouble working with other people. You said that was how you ended up in White Hills, because you wanted a place where you could make a one-man business work. Trying to do a partnership didn’t work out for you, you said. You always want to be boss, you said. You—”
    â€œYeah, yeah, I know all that stuff I told you. And it’s all true. I’m a pain in the butt. Domineering. Single-minded. And it doesn’t help that I’m always right.”
    She had to grin at his arrogance, even if she still couldn’t relax enough to quit pacing.
    â€œBut this is different,” he said.
    â€œYeah, it’s different. Because I admitted being broke right now, so you got the idea I needed a white knight. Only I don’t do white knights. And I didn’t tell you so you’d feel sorry for me. I’m not having any trouble living poor for a while, so don’t waste your breath thinking I need your charity.”
    â€œIt’s not charity I’m offering.” Now he was on his feet, pacing, too. There was something strikingly alert in his eyes suddenly—like she shouldn’t have mentioned not doing white knights, as if she had once, as if he were taking in that information like a robber learning a bank code. He didn’t make anything of that, though. Didn’t ask. He just started firmly arguing. “I need help, whether you do or not.”
    â€œSure you do,” she said dryly.
    â€œI’m serious. And I told you straight, that I failed playing well with others in the sandbox in pre-K. Butour situation’s different. I know you’re not going to stay in White Hills for long, so it’s not as if either of us have preconceptions about a long-term future. And for right now—you don’t know anything about carpentry, so you’d have no reason to fight with me about how I do things. And I have no interest in interfering with any ideas you’ve got about style or decorating whatsoever, so you’d have a free rein. It seems like a workable plan to me. You wouldn’t have to be pinned down to a set schedule. You could just work whatever hours you had free.”
    Probably because she was looney, it was starting to sound like a good plan to her, too. Of course, she’d fallen prey to persuasive men before, and knew better than to just blindly trust her own judgment. She plunked her wineglass down by the minisink on one of her pacing rounds circling the couch. “It still won’t work. I don’t have a car, Teague. How would I get to wherever you were working?”
    He plunked down his wineglass, too, which was still full. He really wasn’t a wine man. Just like her, though, he seemed to instinctively pace when he was thinking. “Hmm. Well. I’ve got both a car and a work truck. I need the work truck.”
    â€œI hear a ‘but’ in your voice.”
    He scowled. “Because there is one. I do have a spare vehicle. So in principle it’d make sense to let you use it for a while.”
    â€œI still hear that ‘but’ in your voice.”
    â€œBecause it’s a Golf GTi.”
    She’d never heard of the car, but