Build Me Up (14 page)

“You’re leaving?” Annabelle suddenly appeared in the doorway and Kristen quickly went over what she might have overhead. Nothing too bad, thank goodness.

“Uh… well, I don’t want to intrude on your space…” Kristen started, but the teenager cut her off.

“Don’t leave because of me. I can sleep on the couch. I mean, you’re paying rent, you should have the bed.”

“Annabelle,” Ford turned to his daughter, “this is your
home
.”

“No, it’s not. I just visit sometimes. I’m fine with the couch. Really.”

“Thank you for that truly generous offer, but your dad is right,” Kristen said quickly, noticing how Ford was gearing up for a confrontation. “This is your home, and if anyone’s sleeping on the couch, it’s me.”

“Okay, I sense this is going to be a never-ending discussion, Ford broke in, “so how ‘bout
I
sleep on the couch tonight and Annabelle can stay in my room. Then tomorrow we’ll see about a different solution.”

Ford thought he was pretty clever, putting Annabelle in his room and Kristen in his daughter’s room, thereby making it impossible for him to imagine getting into bed with Kristen once Annabelle was asleep. Instead, he lay wide awake on the couch in the living room, listening for creaking steps on the staircase, fantasizing about Kristen sneaking downstairs to straddle him on the couch.

Kristen clearly had more self-control than he did, because she never came. Eventually, sleep overtook him and the next thing he knew, it was morning.

Ford listened for sounds from upstairs, and when he couldn’t hear anything that suggested anyone else was awake, he went into the kitchen and started breakfast. Blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and some fresh fruit on the side. Since Kristen moved in, he’d found a new appreciation of fruit… and also canned whipped cream, but that was a different story.

The first one drawn to the kitchen was Annabelle. She walked in, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, and plunked down on one of the chairs without as much as a ‘good morning’. Ford put a couple of pancakes on a plate and set it down in front of her.

“Thanks,” she mumbled and grabbed a fork and knife.

Within a few minutes, Ford could hear another set of footsteps approaching, and he grabbed a mug from the cupboard to pour Kristen her morning coffee. She, unlike his daughter, managed a ‘good morning’ and ‘thank you’ before taking a seat at the table, but he knew that came out of sheer willpower to be polite and gracious in front of Annabelle.

Had Annabelle not been there… well, he’d be kissing Kristen good morning and then handing her a coffee without expecting her to speak to him until she’d had at least one drop of caffeine to restore her balance.

“So… how did everyone sleep?” Ford asked as he served Kristen a stack of pancakes, drizzled with syrup and topped with extra blueberries. He felt like he was playing a part, and in a way, maybe he was. He was making an effort to be friendly but not too friendly.

“Great,” Kristen responded cheerily while Annabelle chewed on, apparently lost in her own world of thoughts. “You?”

“Fine.” Ford replied, a little surliness creeping into his voice. She didn’t have to be so happy about sleeping alone. “I was thinking… if you wouldn’t mind the inconvenience… I could probably put in a heater and a cot in the office trailer at the building site. I’ve stayed there a few times when I’ve worked late on locations out of town.”

“Actually, I did go online to check for places to stay in the area last night,” Kristen said, putting her coffee mug down. “There’s a newly opened B&B not too far from here. No cats allowed. I made a reservation.”

“Oh.” He really shouldn’t be this disappointed. It was what they both had agreed would be the right thing to do, after all. “Well, if that’s what you feel most comfortable with…”

“It is,” Kristen cut him off, refocusing on her plate.

“Hey,” Annabelle suddenly spoke up and Ford looked over to see she had a confused look on her face. “Aren’t you going to visit your family over the holidays?”

“Um… no, I’m staying in this area,” Kristen said evasively.

“Why?”

“Annabelle, don’t be rude,” Ford admonished.

“I’m not being rude,” she huffed. “I’m just asking a question.”

“Sometimes people don’t want to talk about their personal lives with people they don’t know.”

“Well, how do you get to know ‘people’ if you don’t ask them questions?” Annabelle fired back.

“You’re right,” Kristen cut in. “The best way to get to know someone is to ask them questions. And no, I don’t think you’re rude.”

“See?” Annabelle said, looking at Ford triumphantly before turning her attention back to Kristen expectantly.

“That doesn’t mean I have to answer every question,” Kristen said with a cheeky smile.

“Oh, come on,” Annabelle whined. “That’s just mean.”

Ford was just about to scold his daughter when Kristen laughed. “Fine. Fire away.”

“Why aren’t you spending the holidays with your family?”

“Well, my parents are divorced, and they’re both spending the holidays with their new families. Besides, I’m busy with this project and the sooner I can complete it, the sooner I can take a nice long holiday,” Kristen added with a big smile.

“My mom’s going away with my stepdad this year. She doesn’t want me around,” Annabelle admitted in a low voice.

Ford was on the verge of emphatically telling her that wasn’t the case, even though he’d thought the same thing when Suzy suddenly offered to let Annabelle stay with him this year, when Kristen stepped in and said exactly the right thing – at least if the look on Annabelle’s face was any indication.

“You know what? Us single girls have to stick together. I know we’re only starting to get to know each other, but what do you say we hop on that awful flight to JFK and have ourselves a proper shopping splurge in New York this weekend? Your dad can come, too, if he behaves,” Kristen added with a wink at him.

“Seriously?” Annabelle’s eyes were almost busting out of their sockets with excitement.

“I have a couple of friends that work in the city,” Kristen nodded. “I’m sure they’d hook us up with a couple of sample sale invites.”

“You’re kidding? That would be so awesome! Dad, we’re going, right?”

Ford hadn’t seen his daughter beam with joy in years, and the idea that he could perpetuate that state for even the duration of a weekend was too tempting to refuse.

“Okay. You’ve got some shopping money, though, right?”

“Mm-hm,” Annabelle nodded.

“By which I don’t mean your mother’s credit card,” he added, his brows furrowing.

“Dad!”

“You’re not going to New York with a stolen credit card in your bag,” Ford said firmly. He had to draw the line somewhere, after all.

“Yeah, the cops will totally catch you,” Kristen interjected sympathetically. “It’s pretty embarrassing being driven home by a mall cop without those cute Manolos you had your heart set on.”

“Did you ever do that?”

“Mm-hm,” Kristen nodded. “And let me tell you, it is
so
much better when you get your first paycheck and you can hand over a credit card with your own name on it. Totally worth the wait.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Annabelle sighed and rose from the table, presumable to go get the card she stole.

“I hope I didn’t overstep,” Kristen looked up at him, nibbling her bottom lip. “I just know how embarrassed I’d be if my parents called me out on something in front of a stranger, and I just wanted to distract her… I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine. I don’t think you should make a habit out of it, though. I can’t exactly support this kind of lifestyle on my income, and I wouldn’t want to.”

“Oh. Damn, I didn’t think,” Kristen ran a hand through her hair. “I guess I got all my conflict resolution skills from my parents. I meant I was footing the bill, of course, but-”

“You’re not buying my kid anything, and you’re certainly not paying for a hotel,” Ford said sternly. He had
some
pride, after all.

“Ford, I didn’t mean to-”

“We’re not together,” he cut her off again, his voice rougher than intended. But he couldn’t let Annabelle get attached to Kristen when she wasn’t staying around for the long run. He also couldn’t get the picture of them sharing a hotel room out of his head.

“Okay,” she swallowed. “You pay for the room for yourself and Annabelle and her shopping spree. I’ll pay my own way. Don’t worry, I know where the bargain places are. It won’t cost you a fortune.”

“By whose standards?” Ford muttered but Kristen’s reply was saved by Annabelle’s reappearance.

“Here,” she said and handed the card over. “And I talked to Mom. She said I can charge up to 1,000 dollars on the card.”

Ford bit back a curse. Suzy had expensive habits, and he couldn’t match them without stretching his budget beyond the edge of reason, which to Annabelle made him out to be a scrooge. He had no doubt Suzy was going to claim the money from him as child support, even though her new husband could easily cover her expenses.

“Okay. I’ll book us a room,” Ford said. “Kristen, do you have any good hotels you know of?”

“Yeah, I have a few ideas. We can talk about that later. For now, I need to get to work.” Kristen rose from the table and put her empty plate in the sink. “Thanks for breakfast. See you later, Elle.”

“Bye, Kristen,” Annabelle said, the grin back on her face, no doubt thinking of her shopping weekend ahead. Ford couldn’t help thinking that between those two in his life, he was in big trouble.

“I thought I would find you here,” Ford said as he opened the door to the office trailer to find Kristen making herself a cup of coffee. She turned towards him with a sigh. “I know, I know, I’m a vapid, spoiled little princess who doesn’t know the first thing about parenting and I should learn to keep my mouth shut.”

“Are you hearing me saying any of those things?” Ford frowned.

“Only a matter of time,” Kristen shrugged. “I figured I’d get it out of the way. More efficient that way, don’t you think?”

“You can’t just walk into my life and make my daughter think you’re the coolest person on the face of the planet and then walk back out again.”

“Okay, first off, in no way would Annabelle think I was the ‘coolest person on the face of the planet’, and second, she lives in L.A. We could, hypothetically, hang out once in awhile.”

“Why would you do that? She’s no-one to you.”

“She’s your daughter.”

“And? That only means something if
I
mean something. Which we both know I don’t.”

“That’s not-”

“Don’t, Kristen. There’s no point pretending that a couple of hookups mean we’ll be spending the foreseeable future even remotely close to each other. Once you’re done here, you’re moving on. I’m not complaining,” he added, putting his hands up before she could interrupt, ”just stating facts.”

“Fine.”

“Fine, what?”

“You win. You’re right about everything. That’s what you want to hear, isn’t it?”

“What I want is…” Ford ran out of words and steam at the same time. What
did
he want? He knew what he
didn’t
want. He didn’t want Kristen to disappear from his life. But he couldn’t say that to her.

“What? What do you want?” Kristen challenged him, stepping into his personal space and tipping her head up to look him in the eye, daring him to reply.

“You,” he practically grunted and pulled her flush against him, fusing his lips to hers. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear welding jobs being carried out, but the flames inside burned much hotter. He was desperate for her, and he didn’t care how pathetic that made him. Instead, he pulled at her clothes in an attempt to reach soft, warm skin and when he struck gold, he lifted her onto the table.

The table wasn’t equipped to handle the weight of one person, much less two, so it caved, making Kristen shriek until he clumsily caught her before she hit her head on the shards of wood now littering the floor of the trailer.

The technical fail diffused the tension and Kristen laughed as he helped her stand and she rearranged her clothing. “We really need to stop breaking furniture.”

“I for one hope we never do,” Ford chuckled, and then the sincerity of that hope set in and his good humor faded. “So, this weekend…”

“I forgot. I have miles. We can use them for the hotel, too. Don’t worry, Annabelle will never know.”

“I’m going to sneak out when she’s asleep.”

“Really? What are you planning? Catching a late night game at the Garden?” Kristen teased.

“You’re getting a room on the same floor.”

“Oh, I am, am I?”

“On the opposite end of the corridor.”

“Why not the room next to yours, or across the hall?”

“No way,” Ford shook his head vehemently.

“You don’t think I can keep it down?” Kristen raised her eyebrows at him.