“It’s bound to get worse before it gets better. Mitch got home today,” Bonnie announced.
Her dad was visibly disappointed. His shoulders dropped. “How do you know?”
“He showed up at my house with roses in hand.”
He held up the nail gun like it was a weapon. “Me and that boy need to have a talk. He is not going to come back and put us in the middle of another war with the Coles.”
“I’d be happy to meet this Mitch guy.” Sasha punched his fist into his palm. “I’m sure I could be very persuasive about leaving our Bonnie alone.”
The last thing she wanted was for either of them to get in the middle of this. “You two don’t need to do anything to Mitch. He was actually very apologetic and didn’t make things weird. No talk about being in love with me anymore. Aaron is with him now.”
“Oh, Aaron’s on the case,” Sasha said with a chuckle. “He was probably all, ‘Back away from my girl, loser. There’s a new sheriff in Bonnie Town.’”
Bonnie could feel her cheeks flush. “There is no sheriff in Bonnie Town except for me. I’m in charge of what happens to me, thank you very much.”
“That’s my girl,” her dad said. “You don’t need any man in your life other than your dear old dad.”
She wouldn’t go that far. She didn’t mind having Aaron around Bonnie Town. He was welcome anytime, but he wasn’t in control. She was.
“You two should get back to work. Can I do anything to help while I’m here?”
Her dad nodded. “Aaron would love you if you could get that wallpaper off the walls in the living room. He was really struggling with it the other day.”
“I don’t think she needs to do anything to make Aaron love her,” Sasha said, picking up a sheet of drywall.
Bonnie shook her head, and her dad was not amused. At least Sasha was clear about where her heart was leaning. Maybe everyone else wouldn’t be so hard to convince. She certainly wouldn’t mind if Aaron was falling in love with her. The feeling would be mutual.
After twenty minutes of scraping wallpaper, Bonnie could see why Aaron hated this job. It was peelable wallpaper, which meant the top coat came off but the backing stayed stuck to the wall. She sprayed some more stripper on it to loosen it up. It smelled terrible, and her fingers were covered in it as she tried to get the backing off.
She could hear the alternating pop of the nail gun with the buzz of the saw from the master bedroom. The noise was distracting. There was a stereo plugged in and sitting on the card table. Music might help encourage her to persevere. She scrounged around for a rag to wipe her hands on. There was nothing out there. She went back to the bedroom to ask the guys where she could find one.
“Hey,” she said, accidentally startling Sasha, who was holding the nail gun. It discharged, and her dad screamed. His finger was now attached to the drywall. Bonnie thought she was going to pass out. The room started to spin, and her stomach turned.
Off to the hospital they went.
HAD DAVID BEEN a minor, Aaron was sure that Blue Springs Hospital would have called the authorities on him for endangering his safety on a regular basis. He checked in at the front desk.
“Hi, again.” He smiled at the receptionist. She was around his mother’s age and had long nails with tiny American flags painted on them. “My friend is here again. Can I go back?”
“I’m thinking it might be more cost-effective to hire a doctor on-site at this point,” she said, tapping those nails on her keyboard.
“I don’t disagree. That or I need to wrap my foreman up in Bubble Wrap from now on.”
“You sure Bubble Wrap would be enough?”
Aaron laughed, because no amount of Bubble Wrap would’ve stopped the speeding nail from puncturing David’s hand. “I probably need to rethink that. Maybe I can cover him in some titanium. That’s bulletproof, right?”
“I have no idea,” she said. “But you can go back to Room 103 and check on him.”
He thanked her and headed back. The doctor was in the room and had everything prepped to stitch David up. Bonnie was seated in the chair on the other side of the tiny room.
“I can’t leave you alone one day without an accident?” he said, stepping past the curtain that was partially drawn in front of his door.
“I’m starting to think it’s Bonnie,” David said. “Every time she’s over there, something happens.”
“No fair. I will admit that the sledgehammer accident was my fault, but the rest just happened while I was there. I played no part.”
“You distracted a man holding a nail gun. That was a little bit your fault,” David argued.
Aaron knew the last thing Bonnie needed was to be accused to being bad luck or the bringer of pain for her father. She had dealt with enough blows today.
“I think it’s safe to say that the only person cursed on this job is you, David. You better go see Madame Katrina on Main Street and get your tea leaves read and have her perform some karma-fixing spell or do something to your chakra.”
He managed to get a laugh out of Bonnie, who pushed him out of the room. “We’ll get out of the good doctor’s way,” she said.
“Are you okay?” He knew it was a loaded question but asked it anyway.
“No and yes. But mostly no.”
He pulled her close for a hug. To think an hour ago they were at her house kissing and forgetting about all the bad stuff that was literally right outside her front door. He wished he had better news to share, like Mitch had agreed to go back to Paris, but they weren’t that
