by Fiona Grace
“Oh, um …” Well, that was the type of compliment she expected to get. “Thanks.”
He wiped the sweat from his brow, his green eyes boring into hers. “Boston, huh?”
She nodded, her face heating. “How did you know?”
He pointed to the T-shirt she’d changed into. Boston College. Duh. “Only an American would be so forward as to stare at my butt that openly.” He eyeballed her bag. “What are you, a doctor?”
She burst out laughing. “I’m a vet. And I was not staring at your butt. I was staring at your house. I was wondering why you chose to paint it that color. It’s nice.”
“Riiiight.” He shrugged. “I like it. That’s all. Thought the street could use some brightening up.”
“Did you buy it for a dollar? Off a website?”
He grabbed a jug of water and sucked it down greedily. Audrey watched as his Adam’s apple bobbed in his thick throat. She tried to avoid staring, but the way he did it was like candy for the eyes. He wasn’t just handsome. He was gorgeous. No wonder he thought people were staring at his butt. They probably did. Often. “Yeah. Couple weeks ago.”
“I did, too!” Although, for someone who’d only moved here a couple weeks ago, his place was in remarkably better condition than hers. “What made you leave … um, where did you say you were from?”
“I didn’t.” He didn’t seem nearly as pleased to be talking to her as she was to have finally found an American. In fact, he was kind of an egotistical jerk. “I should get back to work.”
“Oh. Right. Sorry. Me, too.”
He reached for the scaffolding to hoist himself up. Then he looked back and said, “I’m from Charleston. Just had to get away.”
She smiled. Well, that was something. “Me, too. Um, I mean, not about Charleston. About getting away.” The maniacal giggle came back, but she quickly stifled it. “And you must be handy. Your place looks like it’s in much better shape than mine.”
He ran an eye over it. “It was a lot worse when I got here. But I wouldn’t have bought it if I wasn’t a contractor by trade. That’d be stupid.”
Audrey’s smile faded.
He noticed. For the first time, a smile broke out on his face, baring equally perfect white teeth. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I know a lot. My father was a contractor. I just … it’s different, when it’s all you.” She swallowed. “And I was a little misled. My own fault, really. I thought the place had plumbing, electrical, air conditioning … a lot more than it actually had. So I think I might be a bit over my head.”
“You thought the place had air conditioning?” He gave her a look that said, You really must be an idiot.
Her heart sunk. Yes, she probably was an idiot. Somewhere, over the rooftops of the other houses, her phantom shower was calling to her.
“My shower’s possessed,” she mumbled in a voice so low, she wasn’t sure he’d hear her. “And I don’t really know much at all about electricity. My dad told me always to hire an expert for that, so he always outsourced it.”
He released the scaffolding and looked back at his house. “What are you telling me? You need help?”
She frowned. “No. I wasn’t asking you—”
“Yeah, you were. With those little doe eyes of yours?” He smiled, this time genuinely. “It’s fine. I never could leave a damsel in distress. I’m too much of a gentleman.”
“I’m not in—”
“Fine. You’re not.” He pulled off his work gloves. “Where do you live? I’ll be there in an hour, when I finish the first coat.”
“Piazza Tre,” she said. “But you really don’t—”
He grumbled something and sucked down more water. And actually, his help would be amazing. Maybe then she wouldn’t have to spend the evening trying to wrangle up candles so she could see her hand in front of her face tonight.
She extended her hand to him. “Thanks. I appreciate it. I’m Audrey Smart.”
He looked at it and laughed. “Smart?” He didn’t add anything to that, or else she might have been tempted to knee him in his precious crotch. Instead, he shook her hand, his palms rough with calluses. “Mason.”
Letting go, and without warning, he gripped the bottom hem of his shirt and in one fluid movement, lifted it up over his head to reveal too much naked skin than Audrey knew what to do with. She stiffened and tried to look away, but her eyes had a mind of their own. They were glued to him as he easily hoisted himself up the scaffolding and got back to work, his tanned, bare back glistening in the sun.
She physically forced her feet to start moving and pull her up the street. This time, she had to admit, she really was staring.
*
“Not too bad, actually,” Mason said an hour later, as he replaced a couple of fuses in the box. “Wiring’s pretty good. You might have to have it replaced along the line but it could be worse.”
“Really?” Audrey asked hopefully. This was the first good news she’d had about the place all day.
For a few moments, right before she returned to the house, she’d considered telling Maria to stuff those papers. But then she’d returned, dared to look in the bathroom, and realized that the shower phantom had vacated the premises. She flushed the toilet, and it gurgled harmlessly. She tested the shower, and after running for a few minutes, the water seemed almost normal. Still brownish, but definitely a step up from the sludge.
Mason went to the light switch and flipped it. Immediately, warm light filled the kitchen. “And there you go.”
Audrey clapped her hands. “Thank you! I can’t believe it. I thought I’d be using candles for the next few months.”
He shook his head. “No. But if my place was a dollar, this place should’ve been fifty cents. Where’s the rest of it?”
She frowned. “I know. It is small.”
“Small? It’s a closet. And I’d make sure you take care of that hole,” he said, studying the “skylight.” “You wouldn’t want to fall through that on accident.”
She looked up and said, “What hole?” because she thought it sounded cute. Much cuter than, I actually already fell through that hole.
He let out a short laugh, just as a commotion rose up outside. They both went out to the front stoop, where a van had parked, unloading a number of men with ladders and tools. It was so close to Audrey’s front door, Mason had to squeeze between it and the front stoop. “Looks like you’re getting a neighbor,” he said.
Audrey watched the men filing in and out of Piazza Due, across the street. “Guess so.”
Mason waved at her. “I’ll see you. If you need any more help, you know where I am.”
He disappeared around the corner as a tiny Fiat pulled up. A woman with stick-straight white-blonde hair and sunglasses popped out. She looked as though she was dressed for a day at the beach, with a tiny tube sundress and a floppy hat in her hand. She slipped a bit on the cobblestone in her kitten heels but righted herself as she dipped her sunglasses to look at the house.
An older worker asked her a question in Italian, and she motioned forcefully and shouted something back at him. Then she rolled her eyes, which landed on Audrey.
Audrey smiled. The woman frowned. She barked something else in Italian at another worker, motioning forcefully with a hand capped with blood-red, clawlike fingernails. She lifted her phone and started to speak into it in perfect American English. “Oh, I’m here. The place is a wreck. Absolute shambles. But I’ll make the best of it. You know I always do! No, no, I’m not staying in the house, of course, while it’s being renovated, with all those sweaty Sicilians around. I’m booked at a bed-and-breakfast. It’s not the Ritz, but it’ll have to do …” She paused, lifted her chin from her phone, and shouted, “Attento, stupido!”
She let out a grunt, tottered over to the front of her Fiat, brushed the hood, then growled something under her breath as she ended the call.
Audrey slipped out and waved at her. “You’re American? So am I. I’m Audrey. I live here in Tre
. We’re neighbors.”
The woman tilted her head at her and pushed a lock of curly hair behind her ear. She shook Audrey’s hand with just the tips of her slim, cold fingers. “I’m Nessa. From L.A. Not here for good. Just here to renovate.”
“Oh, so you’re not staying once you finish?” Audrey asked, perplexed.
“God, no. You think I’d live in this hellhole permanently?” She rolled her eyes toward the rooftops and fixed her sunglasses back over her eyes. “I have better things to do.”
She turned on her heel, flipped her hair, and strutted into the house across the way, doing a quick side-step to get away from a Sicilian worker who’d clearly invaded her bubble.
Audrey looked back at her own place. Her father used to say that homes were a lot like people; they had memories, and hearts, and feelings, too. It was important to nurture them, to only invite the good inside, to love them.
She touched the stone wall. No. You are not a hellhole. You are mine. And I am going to take care of you. Myself.
Then she went inside to wait for Maria to come with the papers. Sure, there had been problems, but she’d overcome them. And she’d find a way around the rest of the obstacles, too. She was sure of it. She was ready to sign on the dotted line.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Perfection!” Audrey hammered the final nail into the final wood plank that would seal up her “skylight” between the bedroom and the kitchen, blew on her fingernails, and buffed them on her flannel shirt.
It wasn’t perfect, by any means. It was simply a stopgap measure she planned on using until she could get a real carpenter in to create the subfloor, since all the flooring she’d found on the second floor, under the threadbare carpet, was rotted and in need of replacement. Now, instead of worrying about falling into the hole, she’d have to make sure she didn’t stub her toe on the protruding wood planks. But at least it would stop anyone downstairs from looking up into her bedroom.
Happy with her work, she slid a roll of old, moldy carpet down the stairs and went down after it to get a glass of water. She scrambled around the roll, shoved herself out onto the first floor, grabbed a pitcher from the mini-fridge, and poured herself a glass. As she was sucking the drink down, she heard it.
The ear-splitting sound of a power saw. It was that, combined with the roar of a drill, a bunch of Italian voices shouting at the top of their lungs, and the beat of some Italian pop music being piped in from someone’s radio … that rattled inside her head. So much for the peaceful streets of a Sicilian village.
Audrey peered out a crack in the window. True to her promise, the “neighbor” who was clearly too good for Audrey was nowhere to be seen. But workers were. Dozens and dozens of them. They’d swarmed over the place like ants on a chocolate chip cookie, making as much noise as possible, starting at daybreak.
Her head throbbed. She would’ve closed the windows but it was too stuffy in the house. Besides, the windows were like Swiss cheese. She finished her glass of water and opened the door, just as some big burly dude screamed something to another crewman who was hanging off the roof, throwing his hammer. The crewman shouted something back and made a rude gesture. Great. So gentlemanly.
“Could you please at least try to keep it down?”
The man’s eyes drifted to her. He gave her a thorough once-over, then laughed, stuffed a cigar in his mouth, and strutted away. He had absolutely no hair and a gut and biceps the size of Mt. Vesuvius.
Gritting her teeth, she slammed the door. Fine. If they were going to make noise, she would, too.
Only, short of stomping all over the place and grunting really loudly, she didn’t know what else to do. If only she had power tools.
She made herself lunch, thinking about that poor little pup she’d seen yesterday. Little Dante. It was a good sign Francisco hadn’t paid her a visit. It meant the puppy was probably okay. She’d check in on him, her only patient, later. It was funny, now that she hadn’t been practicing in a couple weeks, how much she actually missed it.
Ten minutes later, she was stirred from those thoughts by the same guy, growling something in Italian at the top of his lungs.
She stomped to the door and tore it open. “Would you shut the—”
She stopped when she realized Mason was standing there, knuckles raised, ready to knock.
“Oh, hi,” she finished. But apparently, she wasn’t finished, because she kept babbling. “Um, hi. Sorry. Hi.”
“This a bad time?”
It wasn’t for Mason, that was for sure. He looked like he’d just been posing for some Carpenter’s Quarterly photo shoot, his jeans and tanned arms dotted in paint, sawdust in his hair, his stubble just the right length to make him look rugged without being a mountain man. She gaped, like usual, and of course, giggled maniacally. “No. No. No, it is not.”
“Good …” He eyed her suspiciously, like it was finally dawning on him what made her so repellant to men. “You mentioned you were a vet?”
She blinked. “I did. I mean, I am. Are you … do you have a pet?”
“No. But I have a situation.” He motioned her toward him. “Have a minute?”
He might as well have had her on a string, because she was pulled out of her house so willingly that she nearly forgot to close the door. She went back only because he stopped abruptly, making her nearly slam into his hard chest.
“Bring that … medical bag thing you have.”
Intriguing. She grabbed it, closed up the house, and followed him down the street, back to his place. As they walked, he said, “You making friends already, huh, Boston?”
“The woman across the street from me might as well be renovating the Ritz Carlton,” she muttered. “She has like, half the town employed, fixing the place up.”
“You sound jealous.”
“I … totally am,” she agreed. Then she shrugged. “Sometimes. But there’s a lot to be said by doing things yourself. The hard way. It makes the reward that much sweeter.”
He nodded. “That’s one way to look at it.”
“As long as I don’t electrocute myself or unknowingly sell my soul to my demon shower, I think it’ll be worth it.” They walked another few paces in silence. Truthfully, the second she met him, she’d expected she’d be calling him over to her place about a million times a day. She never expected him to be calling her. “What is this about?”
“I found something in my backyard.”
She stopped and stared at him, jaw dropped. “You have a backyard? Seriously?” When he shrugged, she said, “Now I’m jealous.”
Instead of taking her to the door to his little, bright-blue place, he brought her through a small wooden gate to a darling outdoor patio, complete with a little vegetable garden and a very Italian bistro set. Her envy only grew.
But it melted away when she heard the fragile, anguished cries of an animal coming from somewhere near the wrought iron fence. “What’s that?”
“That’s my problem.”
He pushed aside some overgrown vegetation to reveal a tiny red fox, curled into a ball. It was only a juvenile, barely the size of a house cat. It kept letting out little yelps that tore at Audrey’s heart. “Oh!”
“That’s what I’d thought you’d say. So, can you take it off my hands?”
She gave him a look. “I’m not animal control. This is a wild animal.” She peered closer and spied a little bit of blood on his fur. “Oh, the poor thing hurt its leg.”
She reached over, careful to avoid the creature’s sharp teeth. The animal was surprisingly docile, probably because it was in so much pain. It allowed her to move aside its tail and take a look at the wound.
Studying the surrounding area, she pulled out some antiseptic, gauze, and tape. “Looks like he got it caught on that fence. See how sharp those spikes are, there?”
He touched one of them and when he pulled back, his fingers were coated in red, blood from the poor fox, just as she’d thought. “I was going to change this fence out anyway. Makes th
is place look like a prison yard.”
“At least you have a yard,” she muttered, winding the gauze around the fox’s tiny leg. She ripped some tape off with her teeth and applied it to the bandage, making it secure. “There we are. Good as new.”
She zipped her medical bag, stood up, and brushed her knees.
“I’ll send you my bill.”
“Wait,” he said as she made a move for the door. “Aren’t you going to take it with you?”
She froze. “You were serious about that?”
He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Were you serious about the bill?”
She shook her head. It was probably the least she could do, considering all the tasks she’d probably need him for in the coming weeks.
“I was serious about the creature. You’re a vet. You like furry, wounded things like that. Don’t you?” He eyed the animal with more disgust. It’d stopped crying, but now it was just lying there, suspiciously prodding the bandage on its foot. “Besides, I hate animals.”
“You hate animals,” she repeated slowly, trying to force the words into her cranium, but any way she tried, they wouldn’t fit. How was that even possible? Especially considering how darn cute this fox was?
He nodded like he hadn’t just committed the worst sin against humanity known to man.
Brina had made fun of some of Audrey’s Tinder matches, like Bruce, aka the creep from The Silence of the Lambs. Yes, there had been a lot of losers. She’d had to deal with men who smelled bad, picked their teeth with a fork at the dinner table, belched loudly, thought wifebeaters were an acceptable first-date outfit, called her Hot Stuff, pinched her butt, drove their mother’s car to pick her up … and yet as she stood there, gazing at this specimen of human perfection, she realized something.
She had never met a bigger dealbreaker than that.
Audrey moved aside some vines and crouched in front of the poor injured animal. She couldn’t let it just stay here, on the property of someone who clearly had no soul. She shrugged off the flannel shirt she’d been using as a jacket and laid it down, then gently lifted the fox into it, cradling him there, in a little nest.
