way. I’ve always liked those qualities in a woman.” But he never thought he’d be able to work with someone who was as bullheaded as he was. That he’d had fun over the past hour was still messing with his mind. He added quickly, “But we do need to have a little discussion about what a carpenter can and can’t do. I’ve got a general contractor’s license. But I really don’t tend to touch plumbing or much electricity. The city and township both have codes.”
“Oh. Codes.” She said the word as if it were very interesting, she was listening, she cared, and then promptly moved on. “We could make her life totally better. And-if you need the help-I could do more than just the decorating and style side of things. I can hammer a nail straight. And stain. And varnish. And use a drill and saw…well, some saws. I can’t use a band saw. But a jig saw or…”
She was still wired up when they reached his house. By then they’d worked up a potential work program-some projects he had to work solo, and his schedule was always wildly different. But he knew he could give her an extra twenty hours a week, if she wanted it. She did. And that set her off on another spill of enthusiasm. In fact, she was still talking when she climbed out of his truck and aimed straight for his back door.
“Whoa,” he said. “I thought you had to close up the cafe? That we were just coming back here so you could collect my car?”
“That was the plan, I know. And I do have to make sure the cafe’s closed up tight by seven. But there’s plenty of time before that, and I have to use the bathroom, okay?”
“So you want to see the inside of the house.”
She grinned. “You got it.”
She shot in the back door and started snooping faster than a bat out of hell. He dropped his mail and keys on the counter, peeled off his jacket, started a kettle.
He suddenly badly wanted a cigarette, but since he’d quit smoking ten years ago, he couldn’t do that. A shot of liquor had equal appeal, but no question about Daisy, she was a woman where he needed every wit he had around him.
The same woman who’d waxed poetic at the cafe about living on yachts and wintering in the Riviera was beside-herself excited at the idea of designing a kitchen for a wheelchair-bound stranger. The same woman who regularly wore cashmere shamelessly boasted about her skill with a jig saw. The same woman who could likely convince a priest she was a spoiled prima donna was up at five, baking for a second-class cafe in a town she professed to hate.
“You used to have a dog, didn’t you?” Her face showed up in the kitchen doorway, disappeared again.
“Yes. Let’s not go there.” He followed her. The house-he’d liked it when he bought it. At the time he’d wanted solitude, a place in the country not too close to neighbors, where there was ample space for his dog to roam. At the time he’d accepted being too ornery to ever live with anyone else, so he had no one to please but himself.
The kitchen always seemed okay to him. He used the table for everything but eating-mail, projects, a place to store things he hadn’t had time to put away, like Christmas presents from his mother. The sink and counter were both clean. The refrigerator held the important staples-juice, ice cream, ice cream bars, eggs, mustard. He’d sort of forgotten that the kitchen wallpaper was pea green and orange. He was going to replace the wallpaper right after he moved in, but it slipped his mind. Now, though, he could see it through Daisy’s eyes.
Not good.
His living room said more for him. At least he thought it did. He searched Daisy’s face as she wandered around. The fireplace had a barn-plank mantel, a deep serious hearth. A two-foot brass lion sat at the hearth. No furniture there, just giant pillows, because if you wanted a good fire going, it was because you needed to stretch out and let the fire work on your soul. One step up was the more regular part of the living room, with bookcases and a couch and a theater TV. He had a massive chair-one of those that looked like an upscale lounge chair but actually had a dozen controls.
Daisy took one look at that chair and lunged for it. She sank in, closed her eyes and let out a heartless erotic groan. What controls she didn’t immediately find, he pressed for her. The chair was actually a rip-off. It worked; it was just a lot of money for something that he forgot to use most of the time. But watching her bliss out made him think it was worth every dime.
That thought pestered his mind, unsettled him. He was coming to realize that he could look at her-her face, her hands, her knees, or any other part of her-and never seem to get bored. Just looking seemed like chocolate. No matter how good it was, you wanted more. Even if you’d just had a look. Even if you’d just had a taste.
“What’s the woodwork in here?” she asked.
“Wild cherry.”
“It’s gorgeous.”
“Yeah.” He loved good woods. She already knew that. She was also suddenly bounding out of the chair and streaking for the hall. “Hey,” he said.
“So your dog was black and white, right?”
“How’d you know that?”
“Fur in the carpet, on the chairs, on the couch.” She turned right, with him trailing her. She poked her head in the bathroom, switched on the light, took a look at the dark-green and white tiles and sink and the puddle of thick, beefy towels on the floor and moved on. “So,” Daisy said, “I figured she was spoiled rotten.”
“My dog?”
“She was allowed everywhere. Good spare bedroom,” she announced after she’d inspected it.
Hell, she was starting to make him so nervous that he started chattering like she did. He used the spare room for an office, but had a couch that made into a double bed for when his parents or younger sister came to visit. He’d built the screen to hide the desk and file cabinet and computer then, to make it more a decent retreat for company. And that room had its own small bath. No towels on the floor. No toothpaste in the sink.
“Where’s the wild cherry wood come from?”
“Georgia. Maybe you don’t want to look down there.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve seen unmade beds before.” She smiled before opening the door to his bedroom. He’d built the frame to put the king-size mattress on, because his back could get tricky, and he needed a hard mattress. The double-down comforter was the opposite, all soft and fluffy and embarrassingly sissy-but hell, Vermont winters were damned cold. Especially when a guy was sleeping alone.
Because he was suddenly nervous-hell, he was
She chuckled. “I believe you. Completely,” she assured him.
“Good.”
“She was a girl, wasn’t she?”
“Who?” He hadn’t had a woman around in so long that he couldn’t fathom what Daisy could be leaping to conclusions about.
“Your dog,” she said gently, and motioned to the pink dog collar on the dresser along with all the rest of the debris. “Aw, Teague. You lost her recently, didn’t you? And you loved her a ton.”
“She was just a mutt.”
“Big deal. You still loved her beyond life. She owned the whole house, for Pete’s sake. It’s obvious.” Her voice was softer than sunlight, gentler than compassion.
Did he need this? Like a hole in the head he needed this. She could have commented on his messes and his ugly kitchen wallpaper. She could have teased him about the towels on the floor. Instead…
“What was her name?”
He’d called her Hussy. Which she wasn’t. She never left him, went with him to work anyplace they could tolerate dogs, never got in his way. “I wasn’t looking to have a dog. I just came across her in a ditch one day. Some car had hit her.” She’d been just a puppy, bleeding, bewildered, too close to dying to even whine. She never did have much of a voice. Worthless as a watch dog. The only one she ever watched over was him.
“Aw, damn, Teague,” she said softly. “I’m sorry. That’s rough.”
How the hell had she found out his weak spot, just like that, just walked in and in one look, found the one thing he didn’t want her to find.
