At thirty-two years old, he had higher standards now.
Usually.
Skidding to a halt between the kitchen and the living room, she stared at him, clearly shocked to find him still there. “Oh,” she said, blinking huge chocolate eyes that suddenly seemed…different.
“Yep. Still here.” He wondered what she’d done, exactly, because though a sexpot was a sexpot, it was almost as if she was a completely different person.
“Oh,” she said again, ignoring her cat, who walked away from her, tail switching back and forth in annoyance.
Very strange.
“Did you forget I was here?” he asked, her reaction reinforcing his earlier thought-he was working for a woman missing a few marbles.
“I…yes. Yes, I guess I did forget.” She bit her full lower lip and looked at him, as if she’d never seen him before.
She was sleepy-eyed and pouty-lipped and could have just bounced out of bed, if not for the fancy clothes. He had a feeling she always looked that way, that she knew how to get exactly what she wanted by showing off her tall, lush body to her advantage.
In his dubious maturity, the one that came with preferring steady income over a hot babe to look at, he took a big mental step backward.
First of all, he was finally at work doing a job he loved after a year from hell fraught with family tragedy. He needed the work.
Not to mention, Cami Anderson was living in a great fixer-upper that he badly wanted to get his hands on. In fact, he was practically salivating at the opportunity. This particular town house complex was over a century old, and though it had been sorely mistreated by age and neglect and the severe weather of the Sierras, it had the potential to be brought to its former glory.
With his help.
Running a hand over the scarred, original wood flooring, he smiled. Yeah, definitely, beneath the abused material was a foundation based on character and strength. Personality.
And he couldn’t wait to dig in-with or without the nutty lady.
“Um…” She continued to gnaw on her lower lip. “Why are you here again exactly?”
Tanner laughed, but when she didn’t so much as smile, his humor faded.
Ah, hell, she had lost a few marbles. “To work,” he said carefully. “Remember?”
“Work.” She nodded. “Well, if you’ll excuse me a moment.” And before he could so much as move, she took her made-up self down the hall. Toward what he knew to be the bedroom.
Again.
Was there another exit that hadn’t been on the set of plans he’d studied and memorized? Or had she crawled out her window to come around?
“Nutty to the bone,” he muttered, shaking his head and returning to the plans.
DIMI MOVED down the hall and barged into Cami’s bedroom, her face serious and intent as always. “First,” she said to Cami, who was still dressing.
Or attempting to.
“First, I need my lipstick back. Stop stealing it and buy your own.”
Cami ignored her twin, who’d obviously let herself in-again-and tried to zip up the trousers she’d just found. Man, she really needed to stop eating doughnuts for breakfast.
Wincing, she lay flat on the bed and sucked in a breath. The pants closed, barely, though she wouldn’t be able to so much as sneeze all day.
“And second…” Dimi let out a rare grin. “Oh, baby, major hunk alert in your living room.”
Cami managed to find a shoe. Breathless, she looked up. “What?”
Dimi gestured down the hall. “Don’t look now, but you’ve got a really amazing-looking guy out there. He’s wearing a tool belt and a killer smile, to boot.”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t something Cami thought about often, because it was stupid. But when it came to men, she was actually jealous of her sister. Dimi was her identical twin, but somehow she seemed far more put together than Cami could ever hope to be. Prettier.
More likely to get lucky.
As a result, Cami rarely told anyone, especially any date she might be lucky enough to get, that she was a twin. Didn’t say a lot for her confidence in herself, but it was a fact. “Oh, damn.”
“What?”
Cami held out her shoe, which had a suspicious-looking lump in it, one that smelled like…Craning her neck, she glared at Annabel.
From her perch on the dresser, the cat blinked innocently.
“Ugh,” Dimi said, wrinkling her nose. “Dump the cat. But the guy, let’s not dump him. Did you know that he thinks I’m you?”
Cami sighed. “Did you tell him you’re not?”
“Now why would I do that and waste a perfectly good opportunity to mess with his head?”
“Don’t you have work or something?”
“Yep.” Eyeing Annabel warily, Dimi grabbed Cami’s purse off the dresser, dumping it out onto the bed. Rifling through, she pounced on the tube of lipstick and pocketed it. “Don’t you have work, too?”
Cami had made her way through college by sewing clothes. By using her own designs and materials obtained at cost through school, she made enough money for tuition, books, gas and her mortgage. Whatever was left over went into the redo-Cami’s-town-house fund, which meant she ate lots of cheap soup, but she’d gotten used to it. “Less than usual now that I’m looking to get my designing going.”
“Hmm. I’m trying to convince my boss to let you come redesign the studio.”
Redecorating Dimi’s kitchen studio for her cooking show would be nothing short of huge. “Really?”
“Really.” She grunted when Cami threw her self at her and hugged her hard. “Jeez, wait till you get the job.”
“Thank you!”
“Yeah.” Dimi disentangled herself and headed toward the door.
“Wait. You’ve got my lipstick.”
“You owe me. Hey, want to double date with me this weekend? The guy I met at the doughnut shop has a brother who needs a date.”
“I already agreed to go out with Great-Aunt Lulu’s cousin’s brother-in-law.”
“Mom caught you, huh?” Dimi looked superior, and not just because she was wearing a great-looking suit while Cami had managed stained slacks and a wrinkled blouse.
“How many times do I have to tell you, screen your calls.”
“He doesn’t sound that awful,” Cami said in her defense. “He’s got all his hair.”
Dimi slanted her a look of sheer pity. “Have we forgotten who’s setting you up? Mom has a terrible track record. You know this.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“No? Remember Ed? He had all his hair, too.”
Unfortunately most of that hair hadn’t been on his head. The guy had been a virtual gorilla. Remembering that, and all her other recent pathetic dates, Cami sunk to her bed, mystified. “What do you think is wrong with us?”
“Nothing’s wrong with me. But you? You’re a case.”
“Thanks.”
Dimi pointed to the living room. “What about pretty boy? Why don’t you go out with him?”
Humiliating as it was, Cami always told Dimi the truth, even when her sister didn’t want to hear it. Like that time Dimi had gone out with a resident doctor and had come home dancing on air, baffled because her “perfect” date hadn’t kissed her at the door.
Cami had been the one to break the news-the large piece of spinach stuck between Dimi’s two front teeth, the result of the lovely Italian dish they’d had two hours earlier.
Dimi, queen of hygiene, had nearly died.
“What happened?” Dimi asked, already sensing something good. “Don’t even say nothing. Something is all over your face.”
“All right, fine. You want the horrifying scoop. I answered the door naked and pretty boy, as you call him didn’t even notice.”
“Didn’t notice, or was being polite?”
“Dimi, I was naked. There’s no polite when you’re naked.”