bullheadedness was a treat.
“I
“I’m sure you do. And it’s been years since I watched my dad do ours when we were growing up. I’m not sure I remember what he did, or that I can do it besides. But the generator’s still in the basement.”
“So?”
“So you can’t get down to the basement with that ankle. So it has to be me.
“I’ll sit at the top of the stairs in case you come up with questions.”
She screwed off the sweeper end of a broom to create a makeshift cane. Brought in another load of logs. Tended the fire. Battled the generator in the basement, couldn’t figure it out, braved Mr. Cunningham’s desk to see if she could find a file of appliance instructions, tried a second time to get the generator going. Failed again.
So they were going to be cold. At least they had the fire and firewood. Nobody was going to get frostbite or die or anything. But if the darn wind would quit howling and the sky quit dumping buckets, the power would have a chance to come back on. Then the snowstorm would just be a pain in the behind, but not really uncomfortable.
“I can go down in the basement,” Teague argued again.
“Yes. But what if you fell on that ankle? I couldn’t possibly carry you back upstairs.”
“I wouldn’t fall.”
He was so male. Only a male would make such a ridiculous statement. By that time she’d fixed them both an early dinner. “Eat,” she said, looking to divert him.
It worked. She looked at the wound on his head every time she could sneak a glance-which wasn’t easy, when he kept claiming it was fine. It wasn’t remotely fine. The gash was a good three inches, with a lump under it that looked bruised and swollen. On the other hand, she reasoned, he couldn’t be too injured if he could eat like a wolf at his last meal.
“I don’t understand how you could make this out of a nonexistent kitchen,” he said.
“Are you kidding? This is the kind of cooking that’s all fun. You get to use your imagination instead of just opening a can and punching a microwave.” Truthfully, he was giving her a bunch of unwarranted praise. She hadn’t been that creative, just unearthed some clothes hangers to twist into spits, then raided the Cunninghams’ freezer for a couple of steaks. She was going to owe them all kinds of supplies when this was over with. Anyway, she’d rubbed some garlic and tarragon and a few other surprises on the steaks. Wrapped some potatoes in foil. Added this and that. The thing was, everything always tasted good by fire. It’s not as if she’d pulled off a miracle.
“It wouldn’t be so hard if we just got the generator going. I
That again. If she kept him out of the basement, it’d be a miracle. She tried diverting him again. “So exactly how did you get into the demolition business?”
“Demolition?”
“Yeah. You know. Tearing up kitchens. Tearing down walls. Getting to use power tools all day, make noise and lots of sawdust. I mean, have you always had this calling, or did you just never grow up?”
He almost choked-but Teague, it was clear, was never going to waste a good bite of steak, even when he had to fight not to laugh.
“I was playing with wood from the time I was a little kid. Couldn’t shake the love for it, so made a career out of it. The Cunningham job, though, was more a favor than the kind of work I normally do. They were going to be out of town for a few weeks, so I could fill in here when I had time from other projects. Mostly, though, I do reconstruction stuff. Old wood. Uneven floors. Tilted ceilings. Ruined woodwork-”
She could hear the joy building up in his voice like an opera singer letting loose with an aria. “Now, don’t go have an orgasm on me.”
He grinned. “I can’t help it. That’s the stuff that pulls my chain. I went to college to be a lawyer. Just wasn’t for me, hated every minute of it. Went back to do the apprentice thing with a master carpenter.”
“So. Why are you working solo and how on earth did you get stuck in White Hills?”
“What makes you think I’m stuck?”
“Because I know you didn’t start out here. I’d have known you-we’d have gone to school together. Or I think we would have. How old are you?”
“Thirty-four.”
“A few years older than me. Which means I’d definitely have known you, because I knew every cute boy who was a few years older than me. And I’ll bet you were downright adorable in high school, because you’re so delectable now.”
That almost made him choke on his food a second time. “Campbell, you are one bad, bad woman. You always tease like this?”
“Good grief, no. Only with people I’m stranded with. Especially when I’m stranded with someone for an unknown period of time without deodorant or enough water to take a shower.”
“There’s deodorant in the downstairs bathroom.”
She lifted a brow. “There’s some upstairs, too. I was just trying to make the subtle point that we’re stuck with each other for company, so we might as well enjoy it. Which means I think you should tell me why in God’s name you picked a rustic village like White Hills to live.”
“Hey, there are lots of old homes here. Homes, historic buildings, stores, churches. And that’s what I love best. Restoring stuff. Not necessarily restoring it back to how it looked historically, but taking something that’s turned ugly and bringing it back to life.”
“That’s cool. But you couldn’t find any place more exciting than White Hills?”
“Maybe I didn’t want to.”
“Maybe you’re hiding a deep, dark secret,” she suggested instead.
He looked amused at her nosiness. “For the record, I’m making money hand over fist in your little burg.”
“That’s nice. But it doesn’t answer the question why you picked this town to live in.”
“I had a job here once, liked the place. And since moving here about five years ago, I’ve built up more work than I know what to do with. The only thing really holding me back is being so unartsy.”
She cocked her head. “You need to be artsy to be a carpenter?”
“Not always. I mean, give me a kitchen, a blank room, and I’ll come up with a floor plan, a way to use the existing features and space to make the most of it. I love that kind of creative work. But these days, people hire someone for a major restoration project, they really like all the experts in one basket. I’m first fiddle in the carpentry department. But when they want me to pick a color for a wall, or what knobs on a door, or what furniture to go with the floor…hell, I don’t see why they want decorator stuff from me. But that’s the part I’m missing. Assuming I wanted my business to grow. Which I don’t. But sometimes that does hold me back.”
“So hire an interior decorator.”
“Wouldn’t work.”
“Ah.” She rubbed her hands together. “Am I picking up the real reason you ended up in a godforsaken small town? An affair with an interior decorator?”
“Did anyone ever mention that you were nosy?”
“Just my mother. Come on, give. What good is a secret if you don’t tell it?”
“It isn’t a secret,” he said with exasperation.
“Well, that’s great, because then you can tell me the story for sure,” she said beguilingly, and made him laugh. More to the point, he gave in.
“I started out in Raleigh, North Carolina. Grew up there. Still have family there. I was engaged once, back when I was still going to be a lawyer, but she didn’t like it when I turned blue collar.”
“So she was stupid. Thank God you got rid of her,” Daisy filled in.
“Um, actually, she got rid of me-”
“Either way, you got saved from a fate worse than death. So. What happened after that?”
“After that, I met up with Jim Farrington-the best carpenter I ever met. I started apprenticing with him. He was obstinate as a mule, but fantastic as far as his work. He had a younger sister.”
“Aha.”
“Yeah. I guess you could say that was an ‘aha.’ I took one look at her and fell so hard I’m not sure I ever got up again. I was ready to marry her on the first date, but actually, it made more sense for me to work my way into a partnership with Jim. It takes money to marry, start a life. And she didn’t want to settle down that fast, anyway. So
