He shook his head. “Not really.”
“Want to start work? Just a half day, over on the big lake. And then we could do some shopping. Stock up on food and get some stuff so it looks like you actually live here.”
“Sounds good. What time?”
“I usually leave here at seven-thirty. I can probably meet you somewhere so you don’t have to get up even earlier to drive over here.”
“I’ll be here. I never sleep past six anyway.”
“Never?” She was up at six on weekdays, but on the weekends she liked to sleep in a bit.
“Never. And I like a big breakfast, so I hope you’re a morning person.”
He kept a straight face, but Emma could see the amusement in his eyes. “You can get two doughnuts at the coffee shop drive-through, then.”
When the amusement spread to his mouth, Emma took a long swig of her beer and looked anywhere but at the curve of his lips. He had nice mouth. A really nice mouth that looked like it knew its way around a kiss and since the thought of kissing Sean gave her a need to squirm in her chair, she looked at the clock over the stove. And at the grocery list stuck to the fridge.
But, dammit, right next to the grocery list was the picture of her and Sean and the grin didn’t lose its potency in two dimensions. Thank goodness he had those good manners and wasn’t the kind of guy to plant one on her in front of her grandmother.
The discussion turned to first-date small talk while they ate. They both liked cheesy action movies and preferred home-style diners to fancy restaurants. Emma read romance and Sean read horror and biographies. They both preferred half-hour sitcoms to hour-long dramas or reality shows, and they both hated shopping for clothes.
It was a start, she told herself as she walked him to the door. Hopefully he’d look through the notes she’d written for him, and she knew a lot about him already, thanks to Lisa. It would have to be enough.
As soon as she opened the door at twenty after seven, Sean could see Emma had spent as much time tossing and turning the night before as he had. She looked tired and her mouth was set in a way that made her look a little cranky.
“I’m running a few minutes behind,” she said. “You want a coffee?”
“Sure.” He followed her into the kitchen and when she waved in the direction of the coffeemaker before sitting at the table, he assumed he was on his own.
Maybe it was a test, he thought as he opened the cabinet over the coffeemaker in search of a mug. Luckily, she organized her kitchen in a way that made sense to him, so he didn’t have to rummage through drawers looking for a spoon. He could almost pass for somebody who lived there.
Once he’d put the half-and-half back in the fridge, he pulled up a chair across from her. She ignored him, sipping her coffee while she flipped through an enormous leather-bound organizer. Then she pulled out her phone and hit a button.
“Hey, it’s Emma,” she said after a pause. “The Duncans decided they don’t like the black mulch, after all. Or Mrs. Duncan did, rather. She thought it would be artsy but it—and I quote—‘swallows up the accent lighting.’”
Another long pause while she rubbed her forehead. “I can use most of it to touch up for my other clients with the black, but I’ll need three yards of the gold cedar for the Duncans. And yes, she knows how much it will cost.”
Sean tuned her out, then picked up his coffee mug and wandered out of the kitchen. It seemed a little rude to go roaming around her house, but her grandmother might suspect something was up if Sean had to ask her for directions to the bathroom.
He found another picture of himself and Emma in the living room. It took him a few minutes to figure out it was Stephanie who’d been replaced that time, and only because a balloon was barely visible along one edge. He’d been home on a short leave and took the time to drive over from Maine for Stephanie’s birthday because her long, funny letters meant the world to him during deployment.
Besides a half bath and a boring formal dining room, he found her office on the ground floor. It wasn’t a big room, but bookshelves full of romance novels lined the walls. In one corner, a fat easy chair begged to be relaxed in and a gas parlor stove stood across the room. A desk sat under the window, holding a fairly new computer and piles of paper threatening to slide off in every direction. He wondered if the filing cabinet next to the desk was full or if she just ignored it.
He could still her voice coming from the kitchen, so he set his coffee down on an end table and made his way up the stairs. All of the doors stood open, so he peeked his head in each room as he walked down the hall.