“I’m sure you’ll figure it all out. You’ll have to give me the whole story some time. I’m not in the gossip network you know. You must be very excited for your wedding.”
Her expression softening, Tara looked down at her hands in her lap and twisted her engagement ring. “I am, I’m just nervous. If you’d told me a year ago that I’d be getting married, I would have said you were nuts.”
“Because you couldn’t stand your fiancé?” Julia laughed. “Or some other reason?”
Tara shrugged. “It was a lot of things. I didn’t want my life to change, I didn’t want Justin messing in my business, I was— closed, if you know what I mean.”
Julia sobered. “I understand completely,” she muttered, feeling uncomfortable for the first time since her arrival. Reality slammed down hard on her heart, nearly taking her breath away. What was she doing, sitting here pretending she was normal? She stood and placed her glass on the tray. “Well, I better get going. Thank you for the lemonade.”
Tara looked up with surprise and sadness in her eyes and bit her bottom lip.
Immediately sorry for her unwanted turn of mood and her complete lack of social grace, Julia hesitated. “Want to come by and see how the kitchen is going?”
Tara’s expression relaxed and she stood. “I’d like that.”
“Come by when you have time to talk. I want to hear the long story about you and Justin.”
Standing and smoothing her skirt, Tara reached for Julia’s arm. “I’ll be there.”
Tara’s tentative smile and simple touch on the arm made Julia pause. The dank fear that had prompted her to run flipped over and now felt like a tiny glowing spark deep in her soul. Shocked by the sensation, she took a moment to consider and accept the friendship Tara offered. A smile played at the corner of her lips and crinkles formed at the corners of her eyes as she allowed the spark to ignite and warm her heart, finally bursting into a smile that transformed her expression from hesitant to radiant.
She placed her hand over Tara’s, welcoming the new bond of understanding between them. “I look forward to seeing you.”
* * *
“Ringo, George, stop it!” Julia fussed. The cat and dog froze in mid-wrestle at Julia’s feet, and Ringo’s ears dropped. Gingerly, he stepped away from George and trotted across the porch to jump into Julia’s lap to lick her hand. George, unruffled as always, calmly licked his paw and smoothed it across his head, as if to comb his hair.
Immediately, Julia felt contrite for snapping at her pets. They had only been playing – she was just tense and edgy as she waited for Chad to arrive. Scowling, she petted Ringo and wondered why Chad got her so riled. She didn’t have many distinct memories, but she was sure she’d been around handsome, well-built men and had successfully dealt with them. How had she ended up so tangled over this one?
A pickup truck rumbled to a stop in front of the house and Julia lurched to her feet, dumping Ringo on top of the surprised cat. George yowled and jumped off the porch.
Chad climbed from his truck and lifted a hand in greeting, then circled around the back to lift out a large machine and head toward the house.
Julia scrambled to open the screen door as he stepped onto the porch, and they clambered into the living room. Chad set down the red and silver machine with a huff. He brushed his hands together and bent to gather up the cord that had been looped on the handle of the dusty thing.
The song Penny Lane lofted through the room, stretching out the awkward moments. Ringo sniffed around the contraption, and Julia bent her head to one side, taking in the odd piece of equipment. Silence hung heavy in the air as the song ended.
“What is it?” Julia finally asked, careful not to make eye contact with Chad.
He chuckled. “It’s a sander.”
“Oh.” Awkwardly, Julia scratched the back on her calf with her other foot. “How does it work?”
“Nice to see you too,” Chad replied, waiting for some response from her.
A blush crept up Julia’s neck and she blinked up at him nervously. “Sorry, thanks for coming over to help me.”
“Not a problem,” he said. “Really, I’m glad to help.”
Her smile was apprehensive.
“So, Steve and Mac were here today?” Chad asked.
Julia nodded.
“I saw the front doors.” He motioned over his shoulder. “May I?” he asked, moving toward the kitchen.
“Sure.”
Careful to keep back enough to leave a buffer zone between them, Julia followed Chad to the kitchen. He bent to touch the patch on the wall where the sink had been. “Steve does good work, doesn’t he?”
No words came to mind, so Julia remained silent, offering only a head bob in agreement.
Crossing the room, Chad’s eyes darted from the edge of the sink to the edge of the window. “I guess Mac measured to be sure the hutches would fit?”
Once again, Julia nodded mutely, amazed and irritated at her fascination with the purely male way Chad approached the project.
He sighed. “Sorry I growled at you back there.”
She shrugged, feeling a little guilty for asking him to come help when she wasn’t interested in him the way he wanted her to be. Or so he thought. “It’s okay, I was rude.”
“No, I was rude,” Chad replied, cramming his hands in his pockets.
Ringo trotted into the room and sat at Julia’s feet. Chad glanced at the dog then back to Julia. When their eyes met, he caught a glimmer in her gaze, and the hair on the back of his neck stood up.
He yanked his hands free and took a step forward, well within her personal space, to soak up the sparks coming off her skin. She stared at him wide eyed, almost as a challenge, with her feet riveted to the floor, helpless to move or speak. He raised a hand to touch her cheek, and the screen door hinge in the living room screeched as the door banged open.
“Hey, are you guys in the kitchen?” Bobby called.
Wrenched from the moment, Julia staggered backwards with one hand on the wall to steady herself. Chad didn’t move, his eyes boring into hers.
“Oh, there you are,” Bobby said, striding into the room. “How come you didn’t answer? Hi Miss Julia.” His head bobbed in greeting.
Julia croaked, cleared her throat and tried again. “Hi Bobby.”
“You moved the sink,” Bobby commented, tromping across the room. Then he turned to Julia, his chest puffed out and shoulders stiff as he adjusted his belt. “I knew you liked my idea.”
Chad snorted. “Come on, let’s get started,” he grumbled as he headed back to the living room to get the sander. Julia waited, once again engrossed with his every movement as he carried the machine to the kitchen and unwound the cord. The base of the sander was round and flat, with a handle extending up into a T, with grips on each side.
Chad headed for the nearest outlet, the cord spread behind him, while Bobby fiddled with the machine, flipping the switch and adjusting knobs. Chad plugged it in and got two steps away when the machine roared to life, and Bobby grabbed the handles in shock.
Before anyone could react, the sanding machine whirled violently in a circular pattern across the floor, practically jerking Bobby’s arms from the sockets. Within a fraction of a second, it drove directly across the cord. Quick as a flash the apparatus sucked up the cord, violently whipping it through the room as it wound around and around the base of the machine. Bobby clung to the wild thing, his upper body half a rotation ahead of his lower body as the sander jumped across the room. Ringo yelped and scuttled out the door.
Chad dove for the plug and yanked it from the outlet as Julia cowered against the wall with her hand over her face and one knee up. The contraption slowed to a halt, jerking Bobby one last time behind it as he scrambled for footing.
Silence fell across the room and Bobby jumped back from the sander, rubbing his upper arm with the other hand.
Chad’s face was dark as night, and he looked as if wanted to throttle someone, but instead he
huffed out a breath. “You okay?” he asked Bobby.
The thin man nodded, his Adam’s apple working and his eyes far too large behind his crooked glasses.
Julia stood gaping, her mouth open. “Is that how it’s supposed to work?” she asked.
“No!” Chad bellowed, then scrubbed his hand across his scalp, composing himself. “No, it’s not.”
“Oh,” Julia squeaked.
Ringo’s head popped around the doorjamb, and he trotted into the room to sniff the machine and tangled cord.
“No, Ringo,” Julia said, pitching forward to scoop up the dog, lest it suck him up too.
Chad took a deep breath and blew it out. Muttering under his breath, he bent to untangle the cord from the base of the machine. Bobby picked up the plug end of the cord, and Chad swung toward him, his index finger extended. “Drop it.”
The little man dropped the cord as if it was hot and took a step back, his hands up.
Chapter Seven
Julia stepped back from the tree in her front yard and brushed her gloved hands together to shake off the dirt. Humming Hide Your Love Away under her breath, she tilted her head to one side and scrutinized the flowerbed she’d built circling the tree. The retaining wall made from curved terracotta blocks, which Fergus had suggested, worked well but the arrangement of blooms she’d positioned in their temporary pots looked sparse to her newly-honed gardener’s eye. Walking to the back of her truck, she counted the remaining plastic pots of flowers, then counted them again. She lifted four more pots of flowers from the tailgate, two pinched between the thumb and forefinger of each hand.
Suddenly, she realized that she hadn’t given much thought to rising from the flowerbed or even bending over it. She’d reached out for the flowerpots and pinched them firmly as if she’d always been able to grasp and pull. Dumbfounded, she supposed her new flexibility must be from all the work she’d been doing on the house and the yard. Activities that were interesting and fulfilling were definitely more fun than repeating exercises in physical therapy over and over.
Humming once again, she headed back to the tree. A car slowed in front of the house, the driver’s attention was focused on her house and yard. “Excuse me, ma’am, could I ask you a question?” the driver asked.
Julia paused and placed the flowers on the grass, wiping the back of one wrist across her brow as she turned toward the street. “Sure,” She said hesitantly, nearly certain she would have no idea whatever it was they wanted to know.
The driver smiled, her eyes flashing with relief. “I’m looking for the Serendipity Inn. Do you know where the turn off is?”
Julia grinned, her gloved finger pointing to the sign over her bush in the corner. “Right there.”
Her eyes widening, the driver scoffed with a shake of her head. “So, it is! I was so busy marveling at your yard that I didn’t even see it.”
With warmth and happiness glowing in her chest, Julia smiled and dipped her head. “Thank you.”
The lady waved as she drove away to turn down the gravel drive to the B&B.
Julia bent and retrieved the flowers, placing them in the flowerbed, her heart feeling lighter than it had felt in eons. Rearranging the new flowers to make room, she stepped back again, liking what she saw.
Thirty minutes later, she was spreading mulch around the fresh plants when Chad’s pickup truck rolled to a stop in front of her house. Self-conscious, she tucked a wisp of damp hair behind her ear, depositing a smudge of black mud across her cheek.
Chad climbed from his truck and rounded the front, lifting a hand in greeting.
Ringo roused from his nap on the porch and trotted across the lawn to greet Chad. Bending to pat the dog’s head, Chad grinned up at Julia, examining her expression for some sign of how she might feel about him today. “Your flowers look nice,” he said, testing the water.
Contented and happy, Julia glowed. “Thank you.” Her eyes sparkled as sunlight glistened off her curls.
Silent, he stood studying her, causing her pulse to flutter and her stomach to lurch. After a long moment, Julia glanced over his shoulder to his truck. “Can I help you with something?”
Shaking himself visually, he appeared chagrinned. “Oh, right, Tara’s appliance guy called me yesterday and said your new old stove was ready to deliver. I guess we need to stain your floor so you can get your kitchen put together.”
Julia felt like clapping with excitement, a feeling that just weeks ago she had been certain she would never experience again. Her eyes rounded and she grasped Chad’s arm, her gloves making five muddy smudges on his skin.
“Oh, sorry,” she said wiping at the marks, making them bigger.
Chad laughed, taken aback by her obvious cheerfulness.
Perturbed by the muddy mess she’d made of Chad’s arm, Julia tugged off her gloves. “I’ll get you cleaned up. I just need to water these flowers and we can go in.”
He nodded and moved back a step to watch her head for the spigot by the porch and bend to twist the tap handle. She was wearing shorts, her knees smudged with mud and dirt; when she bent, he could see a light tan line on her thigh, indicative of how much time she’d been spending on the yard.
She dragged the hose to the flowerbed and turned it on the mulch between the blossoms. “What do we still need to do on the kitchen floor?” she asked, squinting into the sun toward him.
Chad stepped up beside her, swished his fingers under the water, and then reached out to wipe at the mud on her cheek.
She swatted at his hand and rubbed her cheek with the back of her wrist. “I must look a mess.”
He grinned. “You look great. Happy.”
Pleased beyond all reason but uncomfortable with the closeness, Julia scoffed and scuttled to one side. “Thanks.”
Chad wiped at his arm, cleaning off the mud and watching Julia as she returned to the spigot. She washed the mud from her knees and hands, then cranked the handle and tossed the hose in a coil and headed up onto the porch. “Come on, I’m thirsty.”
He nodded and followed, Ringo trotting by his side as they passed through the living room to the kitchen. The kitchen floor was smooth and flat, muted from the sanding, the wood bare and raw. “How dark do you want to stain this?” he asked, watching her tug open the ugly yellow fridge they’d pushed into the mud room so they could sand the floor.
Julia tossed him a can of soda, which he caught smoothly.
She cocked a hip against the doorjamb and popped open her soda. “I don’t know what stain color options there are,” she commented, rubbing her toe across the floor, “I just want it to look like it goes with the house.”
“Goes with the house?” he teased as he popped open his soda, cupping one hand to catch the frothy white bubbles that fizzled from the can before they hit the floor.
Still uncomfortable with his teasing, and yet wanting him to feel good about helping her, she snorted. “You know what I mean.”
He gulped from his soda can, flicking the bubbles from his hand into the sink, working to hide a smile as he swallowed. He lowered the can, a grin still on his face. “Yeah, I think I do. When do you want to stain it?” He waited for her answer as she drank her soda, watching her chug the cold drink.
She dropped the soda can in the trash and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, country style. Her shoulder shrugged. “When is good for you?” she asked.
“I could come by tonight,” he offered, finishing his drink.
Tonight, she thought, just like that, tonight. She offered a nod, ignoring the currents of energy flowing between them. She needed the help, and she was thankful he was willing to offer it. “Okay, how long does it take to dry?”
“It depends,” he said, rubbing his fingers along his jaw as he surveyed the floor. “Do you want polyurethane on it too?”
Her brow lowered. “Polly what?”
He laughed. “It’s a sealant, makes the floor shiny and waterproof.”
Julia pushed away from the wall and walked i
n a circle around the kitchen, gazing at the floor as if it were a fine painting. What did she want? Mostly she wanted the floors to be finished so the man dominating the room would leave. She couldn’t function with him so close. “I don’t think I want shiny.”
Chad shrugged. “It’s your call. If all you want is stain, you can walk on them the next day, depending on how many coats you need.”
Her gaze flew up. “How many will I need?” she asked, wondering how many more days would drag on with the torment of him in her space. Embarrassed at her bad attitude toward someone being charitable, as well as the sexual thoughts that kept climbing under her skin, she blushed.
Thinking for a minute, he considered her expression. “Shall we try one coat and see if you like it?”
She relaxed, relieved that at least the floor might be that simple. “Sounds reasonable.”
“You’ll have to keep the pets off it overnight,” he warned.
“I figured. It sure looks different now, doesn’t it?” she said, thinking about Bobby being jerked across the room by the sander. Her eyes sparkled with humor. “Bobby –” laughter bubbled up from deep in her gut, causing her shoulders to shake. Her hand came up to cover her mouth.
Chad shook his head, looking embarrassed. “Yeah, that was quite the show.”
For the first time since she’d come to town, Julia had the upper hand in a conversation and the sensation burst upon her, feeling as if a small part of Julia, the person, had been snapped back into the broken jigsaw puzzle of her personality. She allowed her laughter to roll into the room, sounding foreign in her own ears.
Chad’s neck turned red and he ran his fingers through his hair. “That’s right -- laugh it up,” he chuckled, embarrassed but immediately taken with her turn of attitude.
Julia sniffed and wiped at the corner of her eye, feeling more comfortable in her own skin than she had since forever.
Silence settled back over the room and Julia sighed, reveling in the sensation of being normal. Then her eyes met Chad’s across the room. He grinned, his expression soft and warm.
Hometown Series Box Set Page 36
