Fixer-Upper

by Meg Harding

  The parts of the ground that weren’t covered with grass were nothing but a muddy mess that had to be walked through to get to the islands of grass scattered throughout the large yard. He’d gotten boots just for doing this work, on Dakota’s recommendation at the end of the first day, and they looked like he’d owned them for several years already.

  “How’s it coming?” asked the man in question, coming up beside Jake and clapping a hand to his shoulder.

  Jake smiled at him, hoping it didn’t look too forced. “Great,” he lied. “It’s coming along.”

  If Dakota doubted his word, he didn’t say anything. “Fantastic,” he said, grinning and clapping Jake again. “Don’t forget to take water breaks. You’re sweating it all out.” He walked away.

  His clothes were soaking, he could feel where the material was clinging to his skin in a frankly uncomfortable way, and he could feel the sweat dripping down his face, the moisture soaking his hair. He knew he was sweating a lot. Having it pointed out was mortifying. Especially when it was pointed out by a crazily attractive man who didn’t look like a drowned rat after being outside for a couple hours.

  If he’d had a solid surface to bang his head against, he totally would have.

  The shovel finally went into the ground, and he focused on the task of working it under and pulling the grass up. He put his foot into the divot of the shovel and pressed, leaning back.

  He possibly overcompensated.

  The grass came up with a tearing sound, and, not expecting it to be so easy, he went over backward. The grass went flying over his shoulder, and as his back connected with the ground, he watched the wet hunk of dirt and grass hit Dakota square in the chest before dropping to the ground. It left behind a large dirt smudge and a significant wet spot. Dakota looked from him to the lump of grass at his feet. He stretched out his shirt to look at the dirt.

  Laughter from Jasper and the construction crew could be heard, loud and boisterous as it was.

  “I can see it’s coming along great,” he said dryly, one eyebrow rising up in clear judgement.

  Jake closed his eyes and resisted the urge to cover his face.

  Day Six

  “DO NOT, under any circumstances, cut any of your own limbs off,” warned Dakota as he handed over the tree pruner.

  Jake took the pruner from him. “I’m not going to maim myself,” he said, affronted.

  “Do you know how to use it?”

  He looked from the pruner to the tree. “I saw with the sharp bit till the branch comes off?”

  Dakota took the pruner back quickly, his lips twitching. “Come on, I’m going to show you how to do this.”

  They stood under the tree, and Dakota extended his arm with the pruner firmly grasped in his hand. “You’re going to make a cut a little up from where you want the branch to end, like so. You need to watch what you’re doing so when the branch falls it doesn’t hit you. You’re going to make another cut here and another one here.” The branch fell to the ground with a thump. “It’s easy,” he said, handing the pruner back. “Once you’ve cleaned up some of the branches, we’ll move on to trimming the leaves.”

  “Got it,” said Jake, running over the steps Dakota had just outlined. It definitely looked easy enough.

  “Let me watch you do one,” said Dakota, dark gaze focused on Jake’s face.

  Jake did not want to do anything with Dakota watching him like that. He could feel himself getting nervous just thinking about it. What if he dropped the pruner or the branch landed on him? He couldn’t very well tell him no, though.

  Taking a steadying breath, fully aware of Dakota’s gaze on him even though he couldn’t see it, he stepped forward and mimicked the steps Dakota had just gone over with him. His hand shook a little at first, but he quickly steadied it, and soon the branch was falling to land beside the other one.

  He stepped back and aimed a smug smile at Dakota, hiding his surprise at how smoothly it had gone. “See,” he said, “I’ve got this.”

  Dakota still managed to look skeptical, but he nodded. “All right. I’m going to be working in the front yard. If you need anything, come find me or Jasper.”

  “Will do,” Jake assured him.

  “Don’t forget to take water breaks,” Dakota said before taking off for the front yard.

  Jake thought Dakota was a little obsessed with how much water he was drinking. He watched him walk away, gaze drawn to the way his torso narrowed and his ass moved as he walked. He jerked his gaze away. There was stuff to be done.

  The task was a fairly repetitive one, and Jake quickly sank into a rhythm, moving from tree to tree, collecting a growing pile of chopped branches. He left them gathered underneath the trees, unsure what he was supposed to do with them.

  Jasper came by after a while, interrupting his rhythm. “There’s a couple branches higher up that need to be trimmed. Do you want me to do them?” Jasper asked.

  Jake tilted his head back, noticing the branches that stuck out even more noticeably now that the bottom ones were shorter. “I can do it,” he said, not wanting to leave the job half done. He looked down at the pruner. “Is there a longer one of these?”

  “I’ll get you a ladder,” said Jasper. “Hang on a second.”

  He came back with a ladder that had to be leaned against the tree for balance. Jake had to grit his teeth to steel himself as he climbed it, one hand clutching the ladder, the other the pruner. He felt like he was going to fall over backward. Deep breaths, he told himself. Just take some deep breaths.

  Maybe he’d ask Dakota to trim the leaves if it spared him having to spend all day on the ladder.

  Every time he finished one section of tree, he had to climb back down the ladder and move it, then repeat the process of climbing up it. Every now and then, it would shift beneath his weight, and he’d resist the urge to flail with panic, instead holding tightly to it like that would do any good.

  He was working on one stubborn branch that had him leaning out from the ladder, balanced with his hand on the root of another branch. He tried to ignore the ground below. His tongue was between his teeth as he concentrated. The branch did not want to be cut. He jerked the arm holding the pruner.

  The branch slowly began to tilt downward.

  He jerked his arm again.

  Down it tumbled. He gave a little cry of delight. It was echoed by a cutoff shout and a grunt of pain. He looked down.

  Dakota was sprawled out on the ground, facedown. Jake’s heart stopped. Had he killed him? Dakota started to push himself up. Jake rushed down the ladder, dropping the pruner to the ground.

  “Oh my God,” he said. “I’m so so sorry. Are you okay? Did it hit you? Are you all right?” He tried to help Dakota up.

  Dakota brushed his hands away, moving so he was sitting upright. He had a long cut going down his forearm, and the palm of his right hand was bloody. “I’m fine, calm down,” he said. “I tripped over it. Didn’t see it coming down.” He didn’t sound mad, just rueful, and he wasn’t glaring at Jake.

  Jake could feel how heated his face was, and it wasn’t because of the sun. “Stay here,” he said. “I’m going to go find a first aid kit. There’s gotta be one around here, and I’ll clean you up.”

  “There’s one in the truck,” said Dakota, ignoring Jake and starting to stand. He swatted away Jake’s helping hand. “Seriously, I’m okay.”

  “You’re bleeding,” pointed out Jake. “A lot.”

  “And it’ll stop in a couple minutes.”

  Jake kept pace with him as he headed for the truck. “Does it hurt?”

  Dakota sent him an incredulous look, but he didn’t say anything. Jake worried on his bottom lip. When they got to the truck, Dakota pulled out the first aid kit, and Jake took it from him. He pushed Dakota down onto the truck bed. “Let me,” he said. “Please.”

  Carefully, he cleaned the long gash on Dakota’s forearm. “Sorry,” he said, wincing along with Dakota as he rubbed the alcohol pad over the wound. “W
hat did your arm catch on?”

  “Think I hit a rock when I fell,” said Dakota. His whole face scrunched up. He reminded Jake of a pug. “If you say sorry one more time, I’m going to walk away.”

  Jake started to apologize and cut himself off. He couldn’t help it. He worked in silence for the rest of the time it took to clean Dakota up and cover the areas with bandages. He caught Dakota staring down at his scraped-up hand, now swaddled up tightly. The bandage was probably overkill, but he still thanked Jake, touching his non-bandaged hand to Jake’s shoulder briefly before walking off.

  It was Jasper who helped him trim the leaves.

  Day Eight

  THEY LOOKED exactly the same. He couldn’t find one difference between the two stones. Dakota was staring at him expectantly. “Well,” Dakota said, “which one do you like more?”

  Jake squinted. He still didn’t see the difference. “Which one do you like more?” he asked.

  “It’s not my yard,” Dakota said. “So I don’t think my opinion matters here.”

  Jake was a little surprised Dakota hadn’t whacked him over the head with the brick samples yet. They’d been shopping for going on two hours, and each decision had gone about the same. Dakota asked him what he liked, Jake asked him what he preferred, and Dakota tried his hardest not to decide for him. Jake wished he’d give it up and just make the damn choices.

  “They look the same,” he finally said. “What’s the difference supposed to be?”

  Dakota held out the brick in his right hand. “This one is slightly longer, but the width is shorter. It’s got a more reddish tone to it.” He held up his left hand. “This one’s shorter in length but slightly taller than the other. There’s a little more brown in the coloring.”

  Jake rubbed his forehead. “Go with the redder one.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Jake felt like throwing up his hands in frustration. “Yes,” he said. It didn’t matter which brick they got, he still thought they looked the same.

  Dakota set the brick in the cart. “We can get multiple types if you’d like. Sometimes mixing and matching looks nice, if done right.”

  “All right.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He’d had it wrong. He was going to strangle Dakota. “I said yes.”

  Dakota hummed. “Maybe we should look at stepping-stones first. Give you time to think about what you want.” He turned the cart around and headed off. Jake was left with little choice but to trail behind him.

  The stepping-stones were in the unshaded portion of the landscape section, and the hot sun beat down on them as they stood before the large selection. Jake considered randomly selecting stones just to move the process along.

  “If it helps we can buy a couple samples of these and bring them back to your house. It might be easier for you to make decisions when you can actually see what it will look like in the right setting,” suggested Dakota.

  Jake turned away from staring at the stones. He kind of liked an octagonal shaped one that looked like a mosaic. “Why didn’t we do that the whole time?” he asked. “That would have been so much easier.”

  “It’s not what I would normally do. I didn’t think of it till now.” He picked up the stone Jake had been staring at and moved it to the cart that was already brimming with samples. “We just won’t ask for more of what we’ve got in the cart. Do you want to go back and pick a couple other samples so you have a variety?”

  That was the last thing Jake wanted to do. “Can we just see how those look, and if I don’t like them I can come back?”

  “You’re the boss,” said Dakota, flashing a smile.

  Without the pressure of having to pick just one, Jake felt a little less annoyed and tense. He picked several stones and deposited them in the cart. The whole thing took maybe ten minutes, whereas everything else had felt like it took forever.

  “Back to the bricks, and then I think we can stop for today,” Dakota reassured him. “You’re almost done.”

  Jake did not want to go back to the bricks. He went anyway. By the time he was done picking bricks, going by how many there were in the cart, it looked like he’d chosen one of every type. When he said this to Dakota, Dakota looked from the cart to the shelves and, sounding like he was trying not to laugh, said, “I think you might actually have.”

  Dakota pushed the cart to the checkout and waited while Jake paid. It was a fairly pricey bill, and it was just the samples. Jake did not want to know what the bill was going to be like when they had to bulk order whatever he chose.

  Dakota had loaded stuff into the cart as the cashier scanned it, so Jake, being closer to the handle bar, pushed the cart once he was done paying. He put his back into it since the cart was so weighed down.

  “Do you want me to do it?” asked Dakota as they made their way into the parking lot.

  “Nah, I’ve got it.”

  And he did have it. He had it right up until they got near the truck, which was parked on a tiny downward slant. He didn’t lose control of the cart, but it did go rolling down the hill kind of fast, forcing him to keep up. And making it rather hard to pull the cart to a stop in time.

  He winced as he felt it run right over Dakota’s foot as he turned away from opening the bed of the truck.

  Dakota’s face leached of color, but he didn’t make one sound. He did reach out and grab the cart, though, forcing it to an abrupt halt. His teeth gritted. His long lashes brushed his colorless cheeks as he closed his eyes.

  “I broke your foot, didn’t I?” asked Jake, feeling sick. “I can drive you to the hospital.”

  “You didn’t break my foot,” gritted out Dakota.

  “You look like you’re going to pass out.”

  “It’ll pass.”

  Jake shifted from foot to foot, wishing for the ground to open up and swallow him. “Why don’t you sit in the truck, and I’ll put this stuff in the back?”

  Dakota limped his way around the side of his truck and climbed into the driver’s seat, all without speaking.

  The lack of an argument somehow made Jake feel even worse. He put the samples in the bed of the truck, all the while wondering how he was going to convince Dakota to let him drive.

  Dakota would probably be terrified Jake was going to wreck his truck. He thought, given his luck around Dakota, it was a very real possibility.

  Chapter Three

  FIRST AND foremost, Jake had always been an intelligent man. He was smart, and he was likable. At least that’s what he’d been told. Jake did not currently feel smart or likable. In fact he was 100 percent sure Dakota thought he was the most incompetent man to ever cross his path. With every day that passed, the conviction only grew. Jake was making a mess of things in a truly spectacular fashion.

  It had taken some deep thought, but Jake had determined that the only explanation for this surge of stupidity was that he’d developed a bit of a crush. Just a tiny one. Dakota was attractive and capable, and he made Jake’s stomach squirm. Jake hadn’t experienced a crush like this in almost two decades. He couldn’t remember if he had been this stupid the first time around.

  Now, here he was on the tenth day, and he wondered if it would be the day he permanently maimed Dakota. He was in the midst of wondering just what disaster might take place when Frank, the carpenter he’d hired on Lincoln’s recommendation, popped his head out the front door and hollered for him. He’d been crawling all over the house for the last two days, taking measurements and jotting down ideas. At the end of each day, he met with Jake to discuss their options. This was the first time he’d summoned him before the end of the workday.

  Jake went to him, sparing a glance for the outside of the house. It was coming along nicely, the roof already done, the first coat of paint settling in. The inside was a different matter, having to be somewhat gutted before any real work could begin. He followed Frank up the creaky stairs and into the master bedroom. “I was thinking,” started Frank, “about the closet in this room.”
He gestured to the pitifully small closet, missing its doors. “Why don’t you ask Lincoln to make you a walk-in, and widen this—” He motioned to the opening. “—as well. I can make custom doors for it. I’ve already got a couple ideas. We could make this look quite nice.”

  “He won’t mind?” wondered Jake aloud.

  Frank looked at him. “You’re paying him. He remodels for a living. No, of course he’s not going to mind.” He turned back to the closet, one hand stroking his beard. “I’ve got the perfect design in mind.”

  “Can I think about this, or do you need to know right now?”

  “Think about it. I’ll talk to you later, and I need you tomorrow. Today’s my last day doing the measurements. I’m getting the supplies tomorrow, and I’m guessing you’ll want a say.”

  He definitely would. He told Frank so and left him as he disappeared into the master bath to take a gander at the counter and cabinets. It looked like he’d be doing a lot of shopping in the next couple days.

  As he came down the stairs, mindful of his steps lest he go falling through them, he heard a familiar deep tone coming through one of the broken windows on the side of the house. The construction crew hadn’t started yet, still out front going over their plans for the day, so the house was quiet, and he could clearly hear Dakota.

  “I’ll take him shopping.”

  “Are you sure?” asked Jasper. “I can do it if you’d rather not. Last time you went shopping with him you limped for the rest of the day.” There was a hint of laughter in his tone. He’d laughed heartily when he’d seen the limp and even more so when Jake had explained how Dakota had come by it.

  “It’s fine. I can do it.”

  Jasper started to reply, but Jake didn’t listen to the rest. He hurried outside, hands shoved in his pockets, stomach rolling and rolling like it was taking a tumble in the wash. Of course Dakota would be hesitant to do anything with him. If Jake were him, he’d be hesitant too. Really, he couldn’t blame him.