“I’ll make a deal with you. I’ll help you if you help me.”
She laughed. “I’m willing to bet you’ve never painted a room in your life, let alone stripped wallpaper and painted.”
“If my sisters can do it, I’m sure I can, too. Do we have a deal?”
She stared at him, her tawny eyes narrowed with calculation. “A room for a room?”
“Is that fair? You only have to plan my rooms, but I have to physically labor in yours.”
“I’ll have to shop for you, too,” she said with a small amount of heat. “I think it will be fair. We could count hours spent and make it fair.”
He opened the door and let her through. “In that case,” he said, following her outside, “I think we’ve made a deal. I’ll bring your plates back about one, and I’ll be dressed as a laborer.”
She dinged her car door unlocked, and he walked out onto the street to open it for her. Edging past him, she tossed her two bags onto the car seat and slid into the car. He watched her leave, triumphant. Finally, he had found a way to spend time with her.
* * * *
The bright morning light filtered into the room, reflecting a white glimmer onto the tabletop. Marigold dumped her weekly bags of goods onto her kitchen counter and swiftly unpacked. Since Hagen was about to arrive in barely over two hours, she wondered if she ought to prepare lunch for him. She decided to eat early and if he hadn’t eaten that would be his problem. Eating would waste good working time. She doubted he would last a full afternoon stripping wallpaper, anyway, unaccustomed as he was to physical labor. He would manage a couple of hours at best, though even that would be a great help.
After she had filled her fridge, she hurried out to the car and brought in the paint can, sandpaper, and brushes. Her adviser at the hardware store had recommended sugar soap to remove the wallpaper lining. When she had eaten a quick snack, she made up the solution in a bucket of warm water. She could have hired a steaming machine, but the less money she spent, the better. If all else failed, she would send Hagen off to pick one up while she worked.
She changed into old jeans and an older shirt and began ripping off the top layer of wallpaper. At this rate, she wouldn’t finish a single wall until next Easter. Eventually the doorbell rang and she ushered Hagen, dressed in old jeans and a rather nice denim shirt, into her mother’s bare bedroom. Scraps of torn wallpaper lay on the floor as witness to her mad effort to finish the job as quickly as possible.
“So, we’re ripping off the paper?” Hagen stared at her puny effort. “Don’t we have a more efficient way of doing this?”
She made a face of deliberate tolerance. “We strip off the vinyl layer and then we wet the lining paper and scrape that off.”
“We can’t do it all in one go?” He picked off a piece of lining paper.
“You can try, but this is the way the man in the paint shop told me how to do it.”
He glanced at her and turned back to the wall, beginning to rip off long lengths of vinyl. When she looked at her little scraps she was very disappointed with herself. She wanted to be able to do at least one thing better than Hagen. “You must have found the easy part of the wall,” she said with no grace.
“We’ll swap then.” His face a picture of patience, he moved over to her wall and began to tear off almost whole lengths.
“I hate you,” she said with no heat. “You remind me of Hubbell Gardiner. Life came easily to him, too.”
“Who?”
She shook her head with disappointment. “Morgan would know who Hubbell was. He was the hero in The Way We Were, an old weepy I still love.”
“If a film makes you weep, why do you love it?” He moved to the next wall and stripped the bleeding, bloody thing almost bare.
She was pleased to see that he hadn’t been able to move the lining paper as well. “It’s kind of satisfying to have a good cry once in a while.”
“This is one of the reasons why men will never understand women.”
She stood, staring at his back view, noting the width of his shoulders and the sinews in his bare forearms. The sight of him with rolled-up sleeves made her belly clench with the ache of helpless desire. He had always had a gorgeous male body—tall and broad at the shoulders and slim at the hips. His golden-tanned skin made him perfect. “And a good thing, too.” To distract herself from wanting a man she could never have, she started off a shaky rendition of the song, but not being Barbra Streisand she eventually warbled to a stop.
Hagen laughed. “That’s pretty awful. No wonder you cried the whole way through.”
She sighed loudly. “I’ll leave you to rip off the vinyl while I wet the lining. It will need to soak through for a while.”
Using long brush strokes, she sugar-soaped most of the first wall, by which time he had finished removing the top layer of vinyl. After she gave a detailed description of the items in her back shed, he came back with the ladder and took over from her, reaching high to the top part of the wall. “Pass me the scraper, and I’ll get this lining off while I’m up here.”
“I think we need to wait a while for the solution to soak through,” she said, raising her eyebrows.
Apparently not. Hagen ignored her instructions, as always. The soggy lining practically fell off the wall in long lengths in his hands, peeling off the bottom layers with the hanging weight. “I now double hate you,” she muttered darkly as a damp streamer landed on her head and stuck to her hair.
“You’re far too competitive,” he said in a companionable voice. “That might have been handy on the swimming team but working together rather than competing is more useful in this situation.”
“I’m not competing. I’m simply trying to show you that I am competent.”
“Has it ever occurred to you that I am, too?”
“No. You just are. Everyone knows that. You couldn’t be a golden boy if you had faults.”
He laughed. “I’m amazed to hear I have no faults. Why don’t you go and boil the kettle for a nice cup of tea while I finish this?”
“Because I won’t be shunted off to do a so-called woman’s job so that you can be manly.” She planted her fists on her hips.
He turned and grinned at her. “I wouldn’t call you a so-called woman. You are definitely a woman, obstinate, and cranky. If you would rather finish this while I rummage around your kitchen trying to find cups and what-all, that’s okay by me.”
“I wouldn’t and you know that. I’ll make a cup of tea while you be a man.”
“I’ll be one whether you make a cup of tea or not.” He turned his back on her again.
“I know. And you always have to have the last word,” she said as she huffed out of the bedroom, making sure she had the last word.
She pulled a couple of stools up to the countertop and placed two mugs of tea on the laminate, already knowing he didn’t take milk or sugar. “Tea’s ready,” she called. “I hope you’ve finished, Superman.”
“One last scrape and done, Lois.” He strode along the passage, confident and masculine without a hair on his golden head disturbed. “We’ll have time for the first coat of paint today at this rate.”
“Oh, joy. Have you painted before?”
“I’ve done a brush stroke here and there. I’m sure it’s not difficult. I might find an instruction or two on the paint can.” He widened his eyes in a gormless way.
She sighed loudly. “I’m absolutely sure that your confidence in yourself is not misplaced. Painting this wall will be the same breeze to you that everything else is.”
“Not everything.” He stood perfectly still, his softened gaze meeting hers. “You are more like a gale.”
“Let’s not get into times past, Hagen. We were doing so well.”
His gaze flickered and the blink of his eye said subject ended. “I have the idea that we might have to wash the wall before we
start to paint. How about if I do that while you prepare the brushes, or whatever needs to be done?”
“I can’t leave you with the dirty work.”
“Yes, you can. You might not understand, but it’s doing me the world of good. I don’t have to think. I simply need to do. It’s therapeutic.”
“Go ahead,” she said, waving him off. “I wouldn’t want to deprive you in that case.”
Trying to remember why they were wrong for each other, she turned her back on him while he walked into the bedroom. He might have been her crush since she was sixteen, but even then she knew he needed a feminine, helpless woman who would stand around admiring him, not that Marigold couldn’t do that as well. She simply thought she owed it to him and herself that she shared the load. But what would she know? She was the product of a dysfunctional marriage, and he was the product of a successful one. If she’d had half a brain, she would have learned from him rather than try to fight him every step of the way.
Collecting the sandpaper from the pack she had left in the kitchen, she followed him. He held the handle of the bucket of sugar-soap solution in one hand and the big sponge in the other. His arm swept over the wall, swishing steadily.
She kneeled and began to sand down the skirting boards.
“Are you going to do that by hand?” he asked in an interested voice.
“I don’t know a way to do it with my foot.”
“Don’t you have an electric sander?”
“No.”
“Are you going to sand down the floor boards or install carpet?”
She worried at a bump of thick paint. “Sand. I want polished floor boards in here, the same as before.”
“Then you’ll want to sand the floor boards around the edges, too. Stop doing that the hard way. I have an electric sander. I’ll run home and get it. Are we planning on painting the walls tonight?”
“What are you? Some kind of masochist? I’ve barely done an inch of this skirting board and you want me to start on the edges of the floor.” She frowned up at him.
“If you want this room done this weekend, you’ll need a plan.” He stepped down from the ladder. “You continue washing the walls while I get the sander. We’ll do the first coat on the wall tonight after a quick meal. Tomorrow Kell will come and sand the floors. I’ll get the edges done and that will save him time.”
“Kell will sand the floors,” she repeated in a tone of disbelief. “I don’t happen to owe him a single favor. I can’t ask him to do that for me.”
“I can. If he has other plans for tomorrow morning, I’ll find out and he’ll have to do the floor another day.”
Open-mouthed, she watched him slide his phone out of his pocket and call Kell. He turned his back on her while he spoke. “Hagen here. Do you have plans for tomorrow morning?” He laughed. “No, I want you to go to AA’s workshop and pick up the floor sander. Marigold needs help with a floor.” He listened. “Yes, I’m sure Calli will find something to do. I’m planning on being at Marigold’s house around nine tomorrow. I’ll get the windows covered up. Right. See you.”
“I was going to sand the floor myself. I don’t really have the money to pay someone to work for me on a weekend,” Marigold said, totally embarrassed.
“He and Calli are only too pleased to help. The company owns the floor sander so there won’t be any cost to you. However, we need to do as much as we can tonight in prep. The floor dust takes a day to settle and so you won’t be able to paint tomorrow. If we can, we’ll finish tonight.”
“I didn’t know you had an electric sander,” she said in a robot voice as he wiped his wet hands down the sides of his jeans. She couldn’t quite handle how he had taken over. Not having to sand the floors herself was a great relief but everything was moving too fast for her, and now Hagen was organizing her. She never did take well to having someone telling her what to do. Next he would be mansplaining and she would clock him one. “But, by all means get it. And I’ll take over washing the walls while you’re gone. Unfortunately, we won’t have time to paint the room tonight.” She lifted her chin.
He gave her a glance of tolerance and he actually drove to his house two streets away while she washed the walls with the long-handled floor sponge. She had almost finished when he arrived back with two electric sanders, reams of sandpaper, and a large can of ceiling white. “I thought finishing the ceiling first might be smart,” he said with an apologetic smile. “And I had this in the garage, left over.”
She groaned. “Getting the walls of this room painted seemed like simple exercise to me yesterday. You’ve made it into a full production.”
“You don’t want to start something that you’re not prepared to do properly.” He plonked his hands on his hips and stared a challenge at her.
“What’s the time?”
“Half past four.”
“Right. So, I’ll paint the cornices and you can do the rolling of the ceiling. We should be finished in a couple of hours.”
In the end, they finished layering two coats on the ceiling in about an hour and a half.
Chapter 6
Hagen hammered on the paint can lid while Marigold folded the sheets they’d used to protect the flooring. “We need to re-energize before we start on the walls.” He glanced at her.
One side of her mouth lifted in a smile. “It doesn’t matter if I don’t get the walls done this weekend. I’ll still be ahead because the floor will be done. I can do the rest of the painting next weekend instead, or maybe during the week if I can get myself organized.”
Which was not the answer he wanted. Although he knew she didn’t have a previous engagement, he wasn’t sure that she would go out for a meal with him. She had made her feelings quite clear about not dating him six years ago. If he said anything about a meal, she would see that as a date—unless he could keep his manner casual. At this stage of his life, an out and out rejection from Marigold might start off a series of events that would put him back to square one. “What about a quick meal at the local pub? No prep, no dishes, and then we can finish the walls tonight.”
She looked doubtful. “Tempting, but I’m a mess. I don’t think I have the energy to get dressed up.”
He examined her, carefully performing the disinterested act he had once had down pat, the way he had treated her long ago, before she grew old enough for him to romance. “You’re not a mess. You’ve got wallpaper in your hair and paint on your shirt but if you change your top you’ll look presentable.”
“Wallpaper?” Leaning over, she ruffled her hair with both her hands, worrying out the dust and the scraps. The back of her neck looked soft and white and entirely too vulnerable. “Better?”
He nodded. “So, that would be a yes?”
She whooshed out a breath. “Okay. That would be far easier than trying to get together something to eat. I hadn’t expected to finish the whole room in one day but now that we’re almost there, I’d rather keep going. If you’re sure you don’t mind being seen with a woman who looks like a laborer?”
She looked as much like a laborer as a cat looked like a lion. He smiled. “So, change your shirt and we’re off.”
She came out of her bedroom at the far end of the hallway, wearing the dark blue knit he had put in her bag yesterday, and she detoured into the bathroom. When she came out, her hair had been brushed into an autumn haze and collected into a mass of curls at the back. He turned away, certain that his expression would show how much he desired her, and he led the way to the front door.
She followed. “I hope we’re going in your car. I’m more likely to get away with wearing old jeans if I swing out of a Porsche.”
“You clearly think that I’ll be parking in the bar. Sorry to tell you, but I have to use the car park like everyone else.”
“My confidence comes from my thoughts, not my reality.”
He laughed, shaking his head. T
he drive took about five minutes and being early on a Saturday night gave them a table and quick service. He had some sort of pasta dish and she had the same, washed down with a glass of red wine. Although he would have liked to dally with her, she clearly wanted to get back to work.
By around ten that night, they had painted her new bedroom with two coats of a medium shade of blue. He drove home satisfied. She was expecting him early tomorrow morning, and he couldn’t ask for more than that.
When he arrived the next day, Kell’s white pickup stood outside the house. The front door currently ajar, Hagen entered the dark hallway, hearing the voices of two women. Not unexpectedly, Calli had arrived to help, too. “Morning,” he said as he entered the kitchen where the others stood. “I thought I was early, but apparently not. Nice to see you here, too, Calli.”
His sister stood on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. She wore jeans and a khaki shirt, clearly prepared to work. “I thought if you could be useful, I could be, too. We brought over a can of floor sealer but I didn’t know what else might be needed. But if Marigold is glossing her floors, she will need a carpet square and she is dubious about us finding one in the warehouse that might be good enough for her.”
Marigold gasped, and plunked her fists on her hips. “If that’s not a twisted tale, I don’t know what is. I was telling her that I can’t possibly raid your staging supplies for my own use.”
“Most of our carpets have a limited life,” Hagen said, mentally blessing Calli for her idea. “Quite a few are off-cuts, hemmed, and others we bought from auction houses for a few dollars. None are valuable. They’re chosen for their colors, which makes them too memorable to be dragged out too often. If we can’t resell them after a certain time, we throw them out.”
Calli sent him a glance of gratitude before settling her gaze back on Marigold. “So, if you take one, you would be doing us a favor by contributing one less article to landfill.”
“I know,” Marigold said drily. “The same favor I’m doing you by letting you spend your Sunday sanding my floor and the same favor I’m doing you by accepting your free paint leftovers.” She made the air quotes. “You Allbrooks are hard to match, and I’ll never be able to pay you back for all the nice things you do for me.”
Golden Opportunity Page 9
