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a look, check it out before we take it up.”
“Yeah, yeah, I do. Be right there.”
“Flooring already?” Ford asked her.
“It has to rest on site, a kind of acclimating, for a few days before installation. Since we’re doing built-ins up there, the floor has to . . . Never mind.”
“Okay. If my services are no longer needed here, I’m going to go try to salvage some of my workday.”
“Good. Good,” she repeated, struggling against nerves.
“Oh, I finished scanning those photos for you. Remind me to give them to you.”
“God, I’d forgotten all about them. I’ll have to thank your grandfather.”
“I think he considers it thanks enough that he got to see you in a towel.”
“And thanks for that reminder.” They came around front where the delivery truck slowly backed down her drive. “Hot dog!”
“I’ll leave you to the thrill of your wood planks.” He caught her face in his hands, kissed her. “We’ll be waiting for you.”
They would, she thought. He and his strange little dog would do just that. It was both wonderful and terrifying.
FORD LOCKED HIMSELF in his box for four straight hours. It rolled, and it rocked along. Even with all the distractions—sexy neighbor, break-ins,a new friend in the hospital, worry about sexy neighbor and falling in love with her—he was making excellent progress.
It occurred to him that Brid might be finished just about the same time Cilla’s house was. That was some superior synchronicity. But now, he deserved to shut it down and indulge in some serious sitting-on-the-veranda time. He unlocked the box, stepped back to take a long, critical look at the day’s work.
“You’re damn good, Sawyer. Don’t let anybody tell you different.”
With his back warm from the self-pat, he walked downstairs, stopping to look out the window. Not a reporter in sight, he noted, pleased for Cilla. No trucks in sight, either, which meant her day’s work should be wrapped, too. He headed to the kitchen to get a cold one and to call Spock in from the backyard for the veranda-sitting, wait-for-Cilla portion of their day.
He found a note inside the fridge, taped to a beer.
Finished? If so, drop over to Chez McGowan.
Come around back.
He grinned at the note. “Don’t mind if I do.”
She sat on the slate patio, at a teak table under a bright blue umbrella. A trio of copper pots, filled to bursting with mixed plantings, cheered the three stairs of the veranda. With her ball cap on her head, her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles of her work boots, and roses rioting behind her, he thought she looked both relaxed and extraordinary.
She smiled—relaxed and easy—when he sat across from her. “I’m basking,” she told him, and gave Spock a rub.
“I noticed. When did you get this?” He flicked a finger up at the umbrella.
“It came in today, and I couldn’t resist setting it up. After I did, Shanna hauled over the planters. I picked them up on one of my sorties, and figured I’d get around to doing something with them, eventually. But she saw the table here, and ran out to the nursery, picked up the plants and did the job, just because. I’ll have to move them when we do the exterior staining and painting, but I really love looking at them now.”
She shifted, reached down and pulled two beers out of the ice in a drywall compound bucket. “And now, even better, you can bask with me.”
He twisted off the tops, then clinked his bottle to hers. “To the first of many basks under blue umbrellas. I take it you had a good day.”
“Ups and downs. It couldn’t get worse than it started, though there were bumps. My excitement over the flooring was short-lived when I discovered they’d delivered the wrong hardwood. Then claimed I’d called in to change the order from walnut to oak, which is just so much bullshit, and will delay the third-floor work schedule a full week. I did finish the closet in the third bedroom, and got a start on the one in the fourth. The vendor messed up the cut on a panel of the steam shower doors, which means a delay there, but the soaking tub I’ve had my eye on for the third bath, second floor, just went on sale. The insurance company is balking at giving me another loaner after getting hit with two claims in two days, and will surely raise my rates. I decided to bask instead of being pissed.”
“Good choice.”
“Well, delays and glitches go with the territory. The roses are blooming, and I have a
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