by Jeannie Watt
Alex shook her head, and when Nick smiled at her, she gave a comical grimace in return.
“I’ve probably gotten myself into a situation, but how could I leave the little guy behind?”
“Apparently you couldn’t.”
She was different today. Less guarded, more open. Because of the dogs? Or maybe because of their talk yesterday? Whichever, he liked this new side of Alex.
He tamped the thought down before asking, “Are you okay about the gate?” He’d already opened it so that his grandmother could drive through. She and Katie were working on some summer wreaths and welcome signs using ranching odds and ends.
“I am. It seems I have bad nights even when the gate is safely locked, so...” She gave an eloquent shrug.
“I know about those nights,” he said. She’d told him something of her life; he’d tell her something of his. “My youngest daughter has trouble sleeping sometimes.” He couldn’t bring himself to say that she had night terrors, because he still felt it was somehow his fault. “I spend a lot of time up late at night after she wakes me. Thinking too much.”
“What do you think about?”
“Parenting.” He said the word lightly, but his thoughts on the matter were anything but. He wasn’t about to confess that he worried about messing up, and filling voids. That he worried about filling the roles of two parents. Katie and Rosalie helped fill the mother role now that he’d moved home, but he still worried. Wondered. Prayed that his girls felt secure and loved and that he’d be there when they needed him.
“Big responsibility.”
“Yes.” Nick swallowed, not certain where to go from there conversationally. Seconds ticked by and then he said, “I’ll get started on the porch. Before I leave this afternoon, we can talk about the house and make a priority list.”
“Need help?”
He shot her a surprised look. “I’m used to working alone.”
“Just thought I’d offer, in case you needed someone to hold an end or something.” She spoke stiffly, and Nick let out a silent sigh. She’d made an overture and he’d accidentally squelched it.
“You know, if I do need help, I’ll give a shout.”
She gave a businesslike nod. “I have some sorting to do upstairs. So just...yell.”
“Will do.”
Nick let himself out the front door, carefully stepping onto the tilting porch floor that he’d bolt to the house again after jacking it into a level position. He felt oddly tense. Because he was seeing Alex differently? Because of the uncomfortable silence that had brought back memories of awkward teen encounters with the opposite sex?
Both?
Yes.
Nick put his head down and strode to the truck to get his tools. He’d handle this the way that he handled all stressful situations—by losing himself in his work. And he would not be calling Alex to help him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALEX HAD TWO dogs in her backyard and a man she couldn’t stop thinking about working on her porch. As she dragged the last of the storage boxes to the middle of the floor, she ticked off the reasons she really should stop thinking about him. She was in a tenuous position. Nick was a single father. He stayed awake at night worrying about parenting, which suggested that he wouldn’t want to do anything that had the potential to disrupt his daughters’ security. Like, say, getting involved with the woman next door.
Get involved. Get real.
It was, of course, highly unlikely that her next beau would set her up to take the blame for a major embezzlement; however, she still didn’t fully trust her gut, even if the guy pounding around downstairs appeared to be the picture of integrity and dependability.
Alex pulled the lid off the box, determined not to think about Nick Callahan for at least a minute or two, and moved aside the tissue that covered the contents.
Dear heavens...
Alex picked an intricately pieced quilt top out of the box and unfolded it. The work was amazing in detail. Postage-stamp-sized squares formed a pixelated picture of what appeared to be flowers. Alex got to her feet, and after laying the quilt top carefully on the floor she’d spent a good hour scrubbing the day before, she backed across the room. The riotous floral bouquet came into focus. Alex realized her mouth had fallen open and closed it again.
Alex went back to the box and pulled out two more quilt tops—a mountain scene and a sunrise over rolling hills, the latter only partially finished.
Juliet had a lot of talent, but she also flitted from interest to interest, throwing herself into her passions with laser focus, only to lose interest and move on to the next best thing. Her marriages had been similar, except that she had a penchant for choosing men who had money to share.
At the bottom of the storage container was a flat cardboard box, which held several pieces of intricate lace rolled over cardboard tubing. Another of Juliet’s talents? Or had she simply purchased these pieces and stored them away? Alex unrolled one piece and made a tsk noise with her tongue when she spotted the stain on one edge. She lightly fingered the rusty area, wondering if there was a professional cleaning service in the area that specialized in delicate jobs.
Carefully she rolled the lace back over the tube and began folding the floral quilt top. Perhaps she could hire someone to finish the quilts so that she could display them or actually use them to cover beds. The colorful pieced tops were energizing, and it struck Alex that perhaps this was what she needed to dispel the aura of neglect and decay that seemed to permeate her old house. Maybe she needed color in addition to repairs.
Alex set the tissue on top of the quilt tops, then closed the lid on the container. She’d never really used color before, having grown up with off-white walls, polished wood, neutral colors. Her mother’s idea of a pop of color was a few pale rose-colored accents here and there. The house was beautiful with its subdued color scheme, and Alex had, without giving the matter much thought, chosen neutral and muted colors herself when she decorated. And when she dressed. Even the flannel shirt she wore was a muted plaid.
Sitting back on her heels, Alex considered the room, wondering why Juliet, who obviously adored color, hadn’t gone a little wild herself. The interior of the house was painted almost the same color as the interior of her mother’s house.
Maybe her husband hadn’t liked the idea of painting the rooms bright colors. Or perhaps Juliet liked to use the neutral walls as a backdrop for colorful artwork and accents. Alex recalled a number of bright paintings adorning the walls. Yes. That was probably it. The next time she talked to Juliet, she’d ask her.
After stowing the box away, Alex went to the bathroom to run a bucket of soapy water. The floors were a mess, with built-up dirt in the cracks between floorboards—the kind of dirt that required a scrub brush rather than a mop.
Before tackling the floor in the last upstairs bedroom, Alex went to the window overlooking the backyard to check on her dogs and to make certain that Roger was still there.
He was. Lying on his back in the grass, all four feet in the air as Gus took lazy fake bites at his tummy, poking him with his nose as he closed his teeth on air. Yes, Roger was still there, and Alex was glad she’d brought him home. His owner had broken his commitment to the little dog, and now Roger needed stability.
And you’re not going to break your commitment?
Different commitment. She’d agreed to foster dogs, not adopt.
Like Roger and Gus will understand that.
Alex pushed her hair back from her forehead as she stepped away from the window. If she stayed, she’d adopt. The question was would she stay. Only time could answer that one.
Alex got onto her knees and dunked the scrub brush into the bucket and then started scrubbing away, the brush making a rhythmic scratching sound as it moved over the floorboards.
Working her way backward from the far corner to the door, Alex scrubbed, drag
ging the bucket along with her. She was halfway across the room when a yell from outside the house startled her into dropping the brush. Dirty water splashed onto her shirt, but she barely registered the yuck factor as Nick once again yelled her name, his voice strained.
Alex raced down the stairs, taking them two at a time. When she reached the living room, she could see Nick straining his body against a steel bar, struggling to pry... something...upward.
As soon as he saw her through the glass of the newly installed window, he called out, “Go out through the back door.”
Out the back door she went, startling the dogs, thus giving her time to get through the side gate and close it again before either of them considered following her.
When she got to the front of her house, she instantly saw the problem. Nick had been supporting the porch base with jacks, and somehow one of them had slipped. He was now single-handedly holding up one corner of the porch with the steel bar, one end of which was levered into the dirt under the porch.
“Can you get the jack back under that corner?” he asked through gritted teeth.
Alex knew nothing about jacks, but she grabbed the implement and set it upright like the one holding up the other corner.
“See if you can shove it under that joist, but if I say to get clear, then get out of the way quickly.”
“Got it.” This was no time for performance anxiety. This was a do-or-die situation. Alex bit her lip as she struggled to get the jack back in place. Nick let out a low groan as he shoved on the bar, prying the edge of the porch up just high enough for her to get the job done.
Gently, he lowered the bar. The porch settled onto the jacks and he let out a long breath, dropping the bar with a heavy thud and planting his hands on his thighs as he fought to catch his breath.
“When I said just yell, this isn’t what I meant. How did this happen?”
“I thought I could snug the porch up closer to the house with the bar, but the jack shifted, and next thing I know, I’m holding up the corner. If I dropped it, then I’d be rebuilding the whole thing from scratch.”
“I think I’ll help you for a while,” she said. He started to respond, then apparently thought better of it when she gave him a look. “I’m tired of working inside.”
She could scrub floors anytime. Right now she wanted to be outside with her contractor and make certain he didn’t get himself into trouble again.
“You’ll need your gloves.”
“I’ll go get them, but you have to promise not to knock the porch down while I’m gone.”
The corners of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t smile.
* * *
AS SOON AS Alex disappeared around the house, Nick blew out an audible breath and then studied the porch that had almost done itself in due to its own weight and a poor decision on his part. He rubbed the shoulder that had put most of the work into keeping the thing from destroying itself. He’d taken a chance. Gambled. Lost.
Almost lost.
Thanks to Alex not freaking out or asking questions. She’d done as he’d asked...and now he had a helper.
Was she afraid that he’d stupidly get himself in trouble again? Or did she want some human contact?
Nick reached down into the cooler he’d stashed under the old elm tree that had caused the damage he was now repairing and pulled out his water bottle. He took a long drink as noises came from the backyard. The house door opening and closing. The scramble of canine toenails on the steps. Then “Roger, no. Good boy. Stay back.”
The side gate opened and then banged shut, and Nick put his bottle back in the cooler. Alex came around the house, orange flowery gloves on her hands and a sheepish look on her face. “That’s one fast little dog.”
“But I see that you’re alone.”
She smiled, and he felt the impact, the warming sensation deep in his gut, the sense of a tenuous connection. He liked Alex without all those barriers up. And maybe he liked the idea of working with her today.
“What’s the plan?” She came to a stop a few feet away from him, bringing her hands together in a let’s-get-it-done gesture. He pointed at the porch.
“We’re going to bolt the porch back to the house, then replace the newels and start building the roof. I don’t think I can match the roofing exactly, but I can come close.”
“I’m good with that.”
He looked back at her. “The proper thing to do would be to reroof the entire house. It leaks.”
“I know. My first night here, when I was wondering what I’d gotten myself into, it was raining, and after I got into bed, there it was—a nice, slow drip. Drip. Drip.”
“Just enough to keep you awake?”
“Trust me. I wasn’t going to sleep.” She followed him as he went to the porch and picked up his drill. “Did you know that when you sleep in a strange place, there’s a part of your mind that doesn’t relax? It’s hypervigilant.”
“I didn’t know that, but it explains why I can never sleep in motels.”
“Yeah. Me, either.” Alex put her hands on her hips. “What do you want me to do?”
His gaze slid from the earnest expression in her eyes to the soft curve of her lips, and a thought that had no business in his head struck him hard and fast, like a thunderbolt.
“I...”
She titled her head, her expression openly curious, making him feel like a jerk. This was not a woman who trusted easily, yet here she was trusting him, and he was thinking about kissing her.
Except that she was looking back at him in a way that set his nerves humming, making him wonder just what she was thinking about.
Oh, man.
“To begin with, why don’t you just hang with me, hand me stuff when I ask for it. Then after the porch is bolted on—”
“You’ll come up with something to keep me busy?”
His smile broke through on that one. “I need to assess your skill level.”
“Novice.”
“Then we’ll start by handing tools. How are you on a ladder?”
“Fearless.”
“You sound certain.”
“I used a ladder more than once to climb to the top of the caretaker’s house, jump to the roof of my dorm and climb in through a window.”
“College?”
“Boarding school. Upper elementary. It was common practice when we wanted to swim after dark or some such thing. I was not a big rule breaker, but sneaking out at night was pretty much the norm.”
“You went to boarding school?”
She gave a casual shrug, but her carefree attitude became a touch more self-conscious, as if she’d suddenly become aware of the cultural gap between them.
“I went to public school,” he said, crouching down to take a look at the job ahead of him. “Kindergarten through high school.”
“Then college.”
“Cal Poly.”
“Impressive.”
“I’ll just bet your college was equally impressive,” he said. She didn’t answer, but when he glanced over his shoulder at her, she was half smiling, her expression once again relaxed.
“Do you need a tool yet?”
“Almost.” He eased his way under the porch.
“You know that this makes me nervous after what just happened.”
“Well, since there isn’t a big lunkhead levering the corner of the porch up off the jack, everything is fine.”
“If you say so.” There was a touch of amusement in her voice.
“I do.” He crawled out from under the porch. “I won’t need much tool handing for this job, but when we start putting in newels and building the roof, I will.”
To his surprise, she held out a hand, so he took it as he got to his feet. And the crazy thing was that he could feel the warmth of her palm through those silly gloves.
She cocked her head at him. “I’ll stand back and supervise during this phase of operations. You know...make sure you don’t accidentally bring everything down on top of you.”
He tucked his thumbs into his front pockets, looking down at her. “It’s going to take me a while to live that down, isn’t it?”
“Maybe a little.” She smiled, making a dimple show near the corner of her mouth, and Nick felt another gut punch of attraction.
This could turn out to be one interesting project.
* * *
“THE NEIGHBOR ADOPTED little Roger?” Katie said as she put the finishing touches on a salad. “I have to meet this woman.”
Nick looked up from where he was cutting onions to fry for the top of the hamburgers. “He was kind of an add-on to the dog she intended to foster.”
“A poochie plus one?” Katie asked. She went to the fridge and moved items around to make room for the salad until dinnertime.
“That sums it up.”
“Well, I’m glad Roger found a home. Remember how many times animal control came by Grandma’s house trying to nab him?”
“Yes. Roger was that poor guy’s white whale.”
Nick laughed. The dogcatcher had taken not being able to catch Roger personally after weeks of near misses. The terrier had spent the night in the bushes near the empty house next to Rosalie’s after she and Gloria had first moved in. They’d taken to feeding him, but he was a crafty little canine and would eat only after the animal-control man went off shift. By morning, he was long gone, roaming the streets of town, looking for the jerk who’d abandoned him.
“I’m glad Wanda got him first, so that he went to the no-kill rescue instead of to the pound.”
Wanda didn’t work by the clock, so she was able to trap him after hours with a nice, juicy chunk of meat set in a small portable enclosure.
“He’s pretty attached to the golden retriever, so yeah. Happy ending. Unless Alex leaves the area.”
“Then what?”
