The Carpenter's Bride

by Elana Johnson

  She heard a bark when she tested her weight on the bottom step, and her heart leapt. “That has to be her.”

  “Let’s see,” Cal said, moving ahead of her and up to the front door. He twisted the knob and opened the door, and Lisa’s little French bulldog came darting outside.

  She laughed as she scooped up the little dog, a bolt of happiness moving through her. Suzy’s wet paws soaked into Lisa’s clothes, and she glanced at the walls. The water here had gone up about six inches, which meant she’d be able to pack a bag of dry clothes and work toward getting back to normal.

  Cal touched her arm and said, “I’m going to call Sweet Breeze. Did you want a room too?”

  “Yes, please,” she said. “I’ll go get packed, and then we can check out your house.”

  Chapter Four

  Cal didn’t like the confining space of a hotel room. He stood at the window overlooking the beach from the fourteenth floor, actually envious of the tourists for the first time in his life.

  His phone rang, but he ignored it. He’d fielded a dozen phone calls from individuals, homeowners associations, and general contractors about helping to get homes habitable again.

  But he first had to get his own house ready to live in again. Sierra didn’t even have school, as it too had been hit with the tsunami. Everything on the island seemed to be holding its breath, while people scurried around, working, working, working like busy little ants.

  Garbage lined the streets, though crews worked around the clock to clear the debris.

  “I’m going down to the school again today,” Sierra said when she came out of the bathroom. Cal turned from his view. His daughter reached for her wallet, a tiny little thing that only carried a couple of cards and a few folded bills.

  “You have money for lunch?” he asked, pulling his wallet from his back pocket.

  “They feed us down there, Dad.” She smiled at him and walked toward him. He hugged her, glad his daughter liked such things. “I told you that yesterday.”

  “Right.” He sighed. “I forgot. I have a lot going on.”

  “Yeah, how’s the house coming?”

  “I have all the wet stuff out,” Cal said. “Everything’s dry. I’m going to get it all pieced back together today. We should only be here one more night.” He hoped. He sincerely hoped. But he knew not everyone had his skills, and that he still had plenty to do around the island to help others get back to their homes too.

  “Sounds good,” Sierra said. “Travis said his house is coming along too. They have a neighbor who’s been helping. And the local churches have been mobilizing to help people who don’t have family and stuff.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard that,” Cal said. “As soon as our house is done, Sea, I’ll take a job with an HOA to help out.”

  “I know, Dad.” She smiled again and tucked her hair behind her ear. “I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

  “Love you,” he said as she twisted the deadbolt to leave. “Be safe. Call me if anything happens.”

  “I will, Dad,” she said, completing their daily parting ritual. And then she was gone, the heavy hotel door slamming closed behind her.

  Cal sighed, replaced his wallet in his pocket, and looked at his phone. He didn’t recognize the number, but it had called more than once. Taking a chance, he called them back, only to get a chipper woman who said, “Thanks for calling me back, Mister Lewiston.”

  “I’m not sure who you are,” he said, checking his pocket for his keys.

  He followed his daughter out the door as the woman said, “I’m Hailey West, and I’m the manager for the Avenues homeowners association. We have quite a few residents here who need help with their homes, and I’ve been told you’re the guy for the job.”

  Cal appreciated whoever had recommended him. “I can’t start until Thursday,” he said, giving himself two more days to finish his own house. He’d get all the walls done today, and he and Sierra could do the texturing and painting tomorrow. Then he’d be ready for another job.

  “Thursday is great,” Hailey said. “I wasn’t expecting you to say yes.” She trilled out a light laugh. “Our residents will be so happy.” She cleared her throat. “I’d love it if you could come by today or tomorrow and do a quick walk-through, get a scope on the project, and give me a bid.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Would right now work? I’m just headed out for the day.”

  “Of course,” she said. “Let me give you the address for the office.” She did, and Cal used the obligatory hotel pen and pad of paper to jot it down. “Be there in a few minutes,” he said just as the elevator arrived. Good thing too, because there wasn’t great reception in these Sweet Breeze elevators.

  He didn’t need his app to navigate his way to the office for the Avenues. He’d grown up and lived his entire life on the island, and he knew where to turn to get to the right street without all the stop signs that would lead him over to the Avenues in East Bay.

  He glanced down Straw Avenue as he went past it, his heartbeat thumping out a few extra beats. Lisa’s house was the fourth one down that street, and he realized that if he took this job, he could be the one working on her house.

  He hadn’t seen her since they’d checked in together, though he knew what room she was in. She knew his room number. But they hadn’t exchanged phone numbers, and she was probably just as busy as he’d been, trying to manage her job with the cleanup process of her home.

  He parked in one of the four spaces outside the office, the other few filled with Dumpsters that seemed to still have space in them. He cast them a long look before going inside, where a blonde woman rose from a desk.

  “Cal Lewiston,” she said, her voice bright and a plastic smile on her face. “Thank you for coming.” She grabbed a map from her desk. “We can head right out. I’ll show you what we’re dealing with here.” She clicked toward him in her high heels, and Cal held the door open for her.

  She got behind the wheel of a golf cart, and he joined her. “We have eight avenues here,” she said. “Many of the houses are owned by their occupants, and we have a lot of singles here, trying to manage their day jobs and their repairs, as well as several elderly couples who need a lot of help.”

  “All right,” Cal said, and he opened a note app on his phone. “Let’s go through them.”

  Hailey was nothing if not efficient, and she led him up and down the streets, knocked on doors, and charmed her way into damaged homes like she’d been born to do it. An hour later, he sat across from her desk, his head spinning.

  “This is huge job,” he said, glancing up from his notes. “I’ve only got four guys on my crew.”

  “Five of you is five more than we currently have,” Hailey said with her professional smile. “What would your fee be? And I realize you’ve only just seen things here, but a timeline would be helpful as well.”

  Cal sighed and looked down at his phone again. “We’d prioritize the homes,” he said. “Start with the ones that are still wet and need sheetrock ripped out and flooring pulled up.” His brain moved through the timeline for that. Five guys. One of his men could probably do a house in a single day.

  “So there are seventeen homes that need demo still,” he said. “That’s four days right there. Everything has to be bone dry to seal it up, so if we set up dryers—assuming we can get any—in the homes that are already pulled out, they’ll be dry after the four days we need for demo. So that’s five days….” He let his voice hang there.

  Then they’d need supplies. Manpower to hang sheetrock and rebuild studs, if they were too wet. Flooring and people to do that labor.

  “I could probably have your whole community put back together in three weeks,” he said.

  “You don’t have other projects going on?” Hailey asked, a measure of surprise in her voice.

  “I did,” he said. “But all new construction has been put on hold while things get back to normal.” He gave her a smile of his own, wondering if she could see the exhaustion in it.

/>   “Very well. Three weeks,” she said. “And the fee?”

  “Three weeks of work, and supplies and equipment rental….” He swiped over to his calculator. “Forty thousand.”

  Hailey blinked, and he wasn’t sure what was running through her mind. She glanced away and did some tapping on her own phone. “That’s a fee of seven hundred and eighty dollars per resident,” she said. “And our HOA board approved fees up to one thousand dollars.”

  “Great,” Cal said, starting to stand. “You get the paperwork—”

  “You should bid fifty-one thousand,” she said, rising.

  “Why?” Cal straightened, confused.

  “Because that’s one thousand dollars per resident,” she said.

  “Not all the homes need equal work,” he said. “What about the one that’s already dry and just needs the sheetrock and finishing?”

  “The residents all voted to share the cost.” She beamed at him. “We’re a real community here.”

  “Do you live here?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m on Hamantu Avenue.”

  Cal smiled at her, knocking on her desk. “Great. But the fee is still just forty thousand.” He turned to walk out. “Get me the paperwork, and I’ll get my guys here on Thursday morning.”

  “Thank you,” Hailey called after him, and Cal stepped outside. The blue sky above didn’t seem to know that a tsunami had ripped apart homes and lives only four days ago. He sighed, his thoughts moving to Lisa again.

  He’d get to work on her house, and he’d make sure he assigned himself to the fourth house on the right on Straw Avenue.

  Thursday morning, he got another map from Hailey, this one blank, with only numbers on each of the lots. His eyes moved to Straw Avenue, and he said, “All right, guys. David, you take zone one.” He continued assigning out the zones to each of his crew, making sure he got zone three, where Straw Avenue sat.

  “Cody, you have three of the worst houses in your zone, so Adam, will you go with him today? Maybe see if you two can get those three houses done today. We have seventeen to do in three days, and that will put us one ahead.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Adam said.

  “Marcos,” Cal said, “You only have one house in your zone, so let’s get it done today, and then we’ll team up to get everything cleared out.”

  “How many dryers did we get?” Adam asked.

  “Six,” Cal said with a sigh. “And I almost had to give a kidney to get them.” He indicated the back of his truck. “But we’ve got them, and we’ll put them in whatever we can get done today. Find out if the residents have fans too.” Most people in Hawaii did, and while a regular fan from a big box store wasn’t the same as an industrial drying fan, it was better than nothing.

  The crew broke up, each taking the supplies they needed and loading into their trucks. Cal watched them fan out, and then he got behind the wheel of his truck and drove over to Straw Avenue.

  Lisa’s house was one that hadn’t been demolished yet, and he was starting on it as soon as he set up the dryers on the house at the end of the street from hers. With that done, he pulled into her driveway, his heartbeat pounding when he parked behind a white convertible.

  He wasn’t sure what she drove, but that seemed like a car that would fit her.

  He climbed the steps and knocked on the door, only to have a cry come from inside. “Lisa?” he asked as he opened the door without waiting to be invited in.

  He found her balancing in the hallway, one hand pressed against the wall as she held up her foot. Blood dripped to the bare wood floor below.

  “What happened?” he asked, striding forward.

  “I stepped on a nail,” she said, lifting her brilliant blue eyes to meet his. “I managed to get some of the flooring up last night and look what I get.”

  Cal found her the sexiest woman he’d laid eyes on since his wife had died. And that was really saying something. Something big.

  “Let me help you,” he said when he reached her. He couldn’t help smiling at her, and she smiled back. “And you know, this doesn’t count as the dance.”

  She giggled, tucked her loose curls behind her ear, and looked up at him through those lashes.

  “And I should totally get your number,” Cal said, some of his previous flirting skills coming back to him in that moment. “That way, when you find yourself in another jam, you can call me.”

  “Oh, is that all you want my number for? Seems like I should get your number. You don’t need mine.”

  Cal grinned at her, leaning closer though she was still steadily dripping blood onto her subfloor. “Lisa, if you want my number, it’s yours.”

  Chapter Five

  Lisa enjoyed the touch of Cal’s fingers on her foot. Who knew the foot had so many nerve endings? Lisa didn’t—unless the way her heels made her feet ache counted. Which it probably did.

  “I think that’s it,” he said, his voice as low and powerful as it had been when he’d been panicked and talking to his daughter during the tsunami.

  That silly tsunami.

  Hope had closed Your Tidal Forever for the time being, but Lisa would honestly rather go to work. She couldn’t rip up flooring and tear down wet sheetrock by herself. Since everyone around her had the same problems, and their own houses to fix, she hadn’t been able to find much help.

  Until now.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Your HOA hired my crew to get everyone back up and running.” He cocked a grin at her. “And I’m starting with your place.”

  An electric charge filled Lisa’s whole body, and she had the strangest desire to duck her head and tuck her hair. Again.

  So she refrained from doing that. The man had asked for her number, and she wasn’t letting him leave here without it. In fact, if she could help it, she’d be leaving here with him.

  “You’re still at the hotel, right?” she asked.

  “Actually, no,” he said. “Sierra and I went home yesterday. She’s finishing the painting today.”

  “Wow.” Lisa glanced around, as her house still looked like a war zone. Fine, maybe not a war zone. She put dishes away, and she’d managed to pull up some of the flooring. It had been really hard though, and her shoulder still ached from where she’d ripped up the panel near the front door.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll get your house back to normal in no time.” He stood up, taking his beautiful presence with him. “So today, I’m going to do all the demo. It’ll look worse when the day ends, but seriously, don’t worry. It has to be torn apart in order to put it back together.”

  “I can help,” Lisa said, and she would’ve called in “sick” to work had she been required to go into the office.

  “All right,” he said in that easy way of his. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t gotten his number days ago, when they’d checked into the Sweet Breeze together. But the line had been an hour long by the time they’d checked his house, collected his daughter and Travis’s family, and she’d honestly collapsed onto the hotel bed when she’d reached the eleventh floor.

  She loved the hotel, and they’d gotten everything on floors three and above up and running the very next day. Their room service wasn’t operational yet, as the kitchen was on the first floor, and they were having some electrical problems down there.

  But there were three restaurants on the fourth floor, and everyone seemed to be getting fed. The most important part of the hotel, in Lisa’s opinion, was the coffee shop on the fifth floor—and she wasn’t the only one lining up at all hours of the day.

  But she’d gotten her car from the parking lot at Your Tidal Forever, and thankfully, there had been no water damage to it. It had been banged around with a few other cars in the lot, but it still ran, and she’d been able to drive from her house to the hotel and back.

  Technically, she could sleep at her house, but all citizens had been warned about mold spores, so she’d opted to stay at the resort with her F
rench bulldog until everything was deemed safe.

  “Do you have a fan?” Cal asked, bringing her back to her kitchen.

  “Yes,” she said. “Two, actually.”

  “I have one industrial one,” he said. “We’ll find the wettest spot and put that one there. We’ll use yours in other key spots.”

  “Okay,” she said, standing up and testing her weight on her injured foot. “Not bad, Doctor Lewiston.”

  That got him to laugh, and Lisa sure liked the sound of it.

  “I’ll go get my tools and everything. Be right back.”

  “I’ll make more coffee.”

  “Ah, you know my love language.” And with that, he walked away, deftly avoiding the exposed nails in the hallway that led to the front door.

  “Love language,” she repeated to herself. The man probably had no idea what he did to her pulse. The lingering scent of his cologne entered her nose as she hobbled over to the counter and poured the old coffee down the sink.

  She knew the moment he re-entered the house, and not only because of the clomping of his work boots. He had a presence and a charisma that vibrated in her chest, and she wanted to be near him a lot more.

  “Okay, how are you with a hammer?” he asked.

  “Uh.” She turned around, a bit of trepidation filtering through her. “I’m more of an online calendar type of woman.”

  “It’s not too hard,” he said. “I’m going to use my moisture detector to find the line where your sheetrock moves from dry to wet, and I’ll cut a line in the wall. You pound out everything below it.”

  “Pound out?” she asked, taking the hammer from him. The smooth, black handle indicated that this tool was well-used, and Lisa felt like she’d knock herself unconscious before lunchtime.

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “Pound it all out. Rip it down. Throw it in the bin.” He indicated the big blue bin behind him. “Do you have gloves?”

  “Gardening gloves,” she said. “Do those count?”