Truly Madly Yours

were pretty ticked off the day Henry’s will was read.”

“So were you.”

“Only because he was manipulating me.”

“You haven’t a clue.”

She sipped her coffee. “What do you mean?”

“Never mind.” He set his mug next to the thermos and shoved his hand back inside his glove. “Let’s just say I got exactly what I wanted out of Henry. I got property any builder would cough up a gonad to own, and I got it free and clear.” He fished around in the pouch of his tool belt for a screwdriver.

Not quite free and clear, she thought. Not yet anyway. He had to wait a year just like she did. “So you weren’t angry that you only got two pieces of property, and I got his businesses and money?”

“No.” He removed a screw and tossed it in the box to his right. “You and your mother are welcome to the headache.”

She didn’t know if she believed him. “What does your mother think of Henry’s will?”

His gaze cut to hers then returned to the door handle. “My mother? Why do you care what my mother thinks?” he asked as he removed both knobs and threw them in the box.

“I don’t really, but she looks at me like I mutilated her cat. Sort of furious and disdainful at the same time.”

“She doesn’t have a cat.”

“You know what I mean.”

He used the screwdriver to pry out the latch bolt. “I guess I know what you mean.” He reached for the new part and removed it from its packaging. “What do you expect her to think? I’m her son, and you’re the neska izugarri.”

“What does neska iz-izu, whatever mean?”

He laughed silently. “Don’t take it personal, but it means you’re a horrible girl.”

“Oh.” She took a drink of coffee and looked at her feet. She guessed being called a “horrible girl” wasn’t too bad. “I’ve been called worse, of course usually in English.” She glanced back at Nick and watched him screw the shiny new knobs in place. “I always wanted to be bilingual so I could swear and my mother wouldn’t know it. You’re lucky.”

“I’m not bilingual.”

A chilly breeze picked up the ends of Delaney’s hair and she burrowed deeper inside her coat. “You speak Basque.”

“No I don’t. I understand a few words. That’s about it.”

“Well, Louie does.”

“He knows as much as I do.” Nick bent down and picked up a dead bolt. “We understand a little because my mother speaks Basque with her relatives. She tried to teach us Euskara and Spanish, but we really weren’t interested. Mostly Louie and I know swear words and body parts because we looked them up in her dictionary.” He glanced at Delaney, then shoved the dead bolt through the hole he’d drilled in the door. “The really important stuff,” he added.

“Louie calls Lisa his sweetheart in Basque.”

Nick shrugged. “Then maybe he knows more than I thought he did.”

“He calls her something like alu gozo.”

Nick chuckled deep in his chest and shook his head. “Then he’s not calling her ‘sweetheart.’ ”

Delaney leaned forward and asked, “So, what is he really calling her then?”

“No way am I telling you.” He dug in the pouch of his tool belt for screws then clamped two between his lips.

She fought an urge to punch him. “Come on. You can’t leave me hanging.”

“You’d tell Lisa,” he muttered around the screws, “and get me in trouble with Louie.”

“I won’t tell-pleeaase,” she wheedled.

A chirping from the vicinity of Nick’s chest stopped her pleas. He spit out the screws and bit the middle finger of his glove again. Then he reached inside his jacket and pulled out a slim cell phone. “Yeah, it’s Nick,” he answered and shoved his glove into his pocket. He listened for a minute, then rolled his eyes skyward. “So when can he get out there?” He wedged the phone between his shoulder and ear and continued securing the dead bolt. “That’s too damn late. If he doesn’t want to sub with us, he needs to say so, otherwise he better get his ass, and his PVC, on the job no later than Thursday. We’ve been lucky so far with the weather, and I don’t want to push it.” He talked of square feet and board feet and Delaney didn’t understand any of it. He fastened the strike plate to the door frame then shoved the screwdriver into his tool belt one last time. “Call Ann Marie, and she’ll give you the numbers on that. It was either eighty or eighty-five thousand, I’m not sure.” He pressed the off button on the cell phone, then slipped it back beneath his jacket. He dug around in the front pocket of his jeans, then handed her a set of keys. “Try it,” he ordered as he stepped into the salon and slid the latch bolts into place.

When she did as he requested, both locks opened easily. She retrieved Nick’s coffee mug and the thermos from the ground and entered the back of the shop. With her hands full, she kicked the door shut and walked into the storage room. Nick’s tool belt and jacket sat on the counter next to the microwave. His drill lay on the floor still plugged into the socket, but he was nowhere to be seen.

From behind the closed bathroom door, she heard the toilet flush as she shucked out of her coat and gloves. She hung them on the coat rack by the door, then grabbed a fresh cup of coffee for herself and hurried to the front of the salon. For some weird reason, standing across the hall while Nick used her bathroom made her feel like a voyeur, like the time she’d hidden behind a display of sunglasses at the Value Rite and watched him buy a box of a dozen-large, ribbed for her pleasure- condoms. He’d been about seventeen.

Delaney opened her appointment book and stared at the blank page. She’d had her share of boyfriends, and they’d certainly used her bathroom. But for a reason she couldn’t explain to herself, it was different with Nick. More personal… almost intimate. As if he were her lover instead of the guy who’d provoked her most of her life, then used her to get back at Henry.

She heard the door to the bathroom open, and she took a long sip of coffee.

“Did you try the front door?” he asked, the heels of his boots thudding on her linoleum as he walked toward her.

“Not yet.” She glanced over her shoulder at him and watched his approach. “Thanks for the new locks. How much do I owe you?”

“It works. I already checked it for you,” he said instead of answering her question. He stopped beside her, then leaned his hip into the counter next to her right elbow. “That was on the floor when I changed the front lock,” he said and pointed to an envelope lying on the top of the cash register. “Someone must have slipped it beneath your door.”

Her name was the only thing typed on the white paper, and she figured it was probably some kind of notice for a downtown business association meeting or something equally exciting.

“Your cheeks are red.”

“It’s a little cold in here,” she said, but wasn’t sure temperature had anything to do with it.

“You’re not going to last the winter.” He wrapped his hands around her coffee mug for a few seconds, then cupped her cheeks in his palms. “Any other parts you need warmed up?”

Uh-oh. “No.”

“Sure?” The tips of his fingers brushed her hair behind her ears. “I’ll warm you up real good.” His thumb slipped over her chin, then fanned her lower lip. “Wild thing.”

She made a fist and punched him in the stomach.

Instead of becoming angry, he laughed and dropped his hands to his sides. “You used to be more fun.”

“When was that?”

“When you used to get all wide-eyed and mad and look like you wanted to hit me but were such a little goody- goody you never would. Your jaw would get all clenched and your lips puckered. In grade school, all I had to do was look at you, and you’d run away.”

“That’s because you practically knocked me unconscious with a snowball.”

A frown creased his brow and he straightened. “That snowball thing was an accident.”