He nodded. He reached out and stabbed his fork into the salad. “Nice salad.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but this pasta is much better.”
“Maybe,” he said, “but—”
“Don’t change the subject,” she said. “Is anybody calling foul play?”
He shook his head as he took another bite of a salad.
“Too bad,” she said with a heavy sigh.
He gave her a sideways glance, and she shrugged.
“I have lots to work on,” she announced. She could almost see the relief swipe across his face, and she chuckled. “I’m really not that hard to get along with.”
“I’m not saying you are,” he said comfortably, as he dug back into his pasta.
They ate in comfortable silence, and then she said, “If we’re working on the deck this weekend …”
He nodded but didn’t look up, busy working on his plate.
She leaned forward and dropped her chin onto her hands, then asked, “Will I be enough to help you, or do we need to get some men in? I don’t want you working on the deck and hurting yourself.”
Surprise lit his eyes. “So are you worried about me?” He looked at her and grinned. “You might find it a very expensive weekend if you are planning on bringing in laborers.”
“I know,” she said with a wince. “I was afraid I would have to hire people anyway.”
“Don’t worry about that,” he said. “I’ve asked a couple guys, if they’ve got time, to come and give us a hand.”
“Oh, wonderful,” she cried out. “If anybody’ll come,” she said, her voice lowered. “Don’t forget that I’m hardly the most popular person in town.”
He chuckled. “You’re more popular than you think,” he said. “But what you don’t realize is, if people come and do work and volunteer like that, we have to supply food and beer.”
She stared at him in shock. “Oh my.”
He nodded sagely. “And that’ll cost.”
She reached up a shaky hand and asked, “How much?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” He motioned at the bowl of bills and coins sitting atop her kitchen table. “You may want to sort that out and donate it to the cause.”
She looked at the bowl and smiled. “I’ve barely thought about that yet. I did show it to Nan though.” She stood on the deck to get it from the kitchen, when he reached across, grabbing her hand. “Eat first,” he said.
She groaned. “Will it take much money?”
“Well, we’ll pick up some beer,” he said. “At least a couple cases. So that’ll be forty to fifty dollars.”
She swallowed bravely and nodded. “Okay. Go on?”
“We’ll need food,” he said gently. “And you can’t make any, and I’ll be out working. So generally we’re talking about bringing in sandwiches or pizza.”
“Okay,” she said. “And how much will we likely need?”
“At least another thirty bucks in pizza,” he said. “It’d be hard to feed very many people without at least a half-dozen pizzas here.”
She swallowed again and said, “Okay.” But she could see the hundred dollar bill sticking out of the bowl. She headed inside and snagged it, then put it down on the deck table. “I found this in one of Nan’s coats.”
He looked at it, stared at her, looked at the hundred-dollar bill, then at her again, and said, “Wow. I wish your Nan had left me some coats.”
She chuckled. “Right. My biggest nightmare is that I’ve left something in the clothing before I sent it off to Wendy’s.”
“I doubt it,” he said. “If you did, and Wendy found any, she would tell you. But, I know you, and you probably searched inside the lining.”
“Well, I did on some stuff,” she said, “because Nan was safety-pinning money on the inside of a lot of her garments.”
He studied her for a long moment. “Why would she do that?”
“So she didn’t have to carry a purse,” she explained. “But, as for the coats, I don’t know.” She shrugged. “But I did find a bunch of money.”
“Well,” he said, “you’ll need at least this hundred-dollar bill. I can see a fifty from here. You need to pull that out and be prepared to spend it too.”
She drew in a heavy sigh and stepped inside once more to snag the bowl this time, then added the fifty to the hundred. “Do you think that’ll be enough?” she asked.
He frowned as he studied it, yet he continued to eat. “I’m hoping so,” he said. “But honestly, I don’t know. You could have four guys show up, or we could have ten guys, and ten guys will eat a lot of food.”
“Right,” she said.
And he said, “Don’t leave that bowl where they can get into it because, although they’re all good people, that doesn’t mean somebody won’t be tempted when they see money lying around.”
“I won’t do that,” she said. “I need to sort through this bowl again, as it is.”
“I thought you would have already done that by now.”
“Nan and I counted it one day real fast. However, I’ve been holding off on touching it again,” she said. “It’s almost like having a chocolate bar waiting for you, and you really want it, but, once you eat it, then it’s gone. In this case, once I start spending what’s in the bowl, then that money’s gone too. It’s like my emergency fund.” She finished the last couple bites of her pasta. “That was excellent,” she said. “And I’m full now.”
“I’m not,” he said. He hopped up and served the last little bit to himself. “But I’ll finish this with no problem.”
“Then I won’t have any leftovers,” she grumbled good-naturedly.
“No,” he said, “you won’t. I’ll be here early in the morning because I don’t know how long it’ll take to get the groundwork done.”
She smiled and said, “Good enough. I’ll make sure I’ve eaten by the time you get here, so I can jump right in and help you.”
“Do that and plan on pizza for the rest of the day.”
“What about
