The amused tone in her voice killed him. He could imagine the ornery smile that would be playing about her lips.
Teasing him again.
He wanted to shake her.
He wanted to kiss her.
He did neither. He abandoned the window and took the pie to the kitchen and put it in the fridge.
When he returned to his office, he didn't hear woman or girl. Only the brush of two paintbrushes against the wall outside. The piquant, chemical scent of paint was there, but not overpowering.
Time for his plan.
He occasionally recorded books that were in the public domain and donated the recordings to a free online library for the visually impaired. He'd chosen one today that had been a childhood favorite of his. It was about a boy who lived alone in the wilds of Canada and the dog who came into his life and changed everything.
If he was working, he would have to concentrate. Push all thoughts of Jilly and the kids out of his brain. There would be no room for them.
So he started reading in his halting way. He listened to the computer read one sentence in his headset. Then he repeated it aloud.
He hadn't thought about how awkward it would be to have the boys listen while he recorded. His process meant there were long pauses between sentences. Aiden acted as his sound engineer and would later edit them out, along with any mistakes. The little slip-ups where he mispronounced a word disappeared with the magic of technology.
Noah's face went a little hot as he began reading aloud, but he forgot about it as he became absorbed into what had been one of his favorite childhood stories.
During every pause, he could hear the muffled sounds of the boys still at work, their paintbrushes sweeping across the wall.
He kept reading.
Jilly didn't knowwhether Noah's strategy was to keep the boys interested as they worked on his house, or to keep from having to interact with them.
Whatever he'd meant by recording what he was recording, it was working. Both boys were wrapped up in the story, though Casey was pretending to ignore it. She kept seeing the tilt of his head as he tried to listen when his painting took him too far away from the window.
Honestly, she'd thought the boys too old to enjoy listening to a book being read aloud.
Wrong. One hundred percent wrong.
Maybe it was the story. She couldn't stop listening as a boy and his dog got lost in a blizzard in the wilderness. Lindsey was lying on her stomach on the picnic blanket, enjoying the sun and captured by the story.
Or maybe it was the man reading.
Jilly didn't want to miss one word. She hadn't realized Noah was so talented. His rich baritone was like honey. Flowing smoothly, but not too fast. Something about it stuck. And it was so delicious that she couldn't get enough.
She would've listened to him read a phone book.
This was not good.
She couldn't be developing a crush on the man's voice. His voice!
It was insane, more so because she didn't particularly like him. At least she didn't think so. He was prickly and difficult and...
He had a great voice. And he was good with kids. Or at least with Lindsey, who'd been all smiles this afternoon as they'd made that pie together.
Noah went silent at a very crucial part of the story, a cliffhanger that must be the end of a chapter.
Jilly came to her senses and realized the afternoon had waned. The sun was going down. The boys had made good progress during their ninety minutes this afternoon. The spray paint wasn't completely covered—it would take another coat of primer for that—but it was something.
Casey glanced at the window but was too far away to see inside.
"Is that the end?" He asked the question almost angrily, as if he were embarrassed to admit he'd been listening.
