From where I was sitting, it looked like he was blushing, but maybe it was just the way the sun was coming through the window that he was now looking out of. Was he embarrassed thinking about our encounter? I’d been the one still in PJ’s.
“How long do you think all this work is going to take?” I asked.
Josh looked at me and shrugged. “You in a hurry?”
I shrugged back. “Having company this early messes up my morning routine.”
“What’s your routine?”
“The usual girl routine.”
“It’s just me and Dad. I’m not real familiar with the usual girl routine.”
“What about your mom?”
“She got tired of the winters.”
I couldn’t help myself. I gave him a mischievous grin. “You mean, the winters like the cold and snow, or the Wynters, like father and son?”
“Both, I guess.”
I didn’t know what to say. I’d been teasing, but apparently…
He set his mug on the counter. “I need to get back to painting that room.”
He started to walk out. I got up so fast that I nearly toppled the chair and lost my balance.
“I was just teasing. I didn’t mean anything. I didn’t think she’d really left left.”
He furrowed his brow. “So what did you think?”
“That she didn’t like the cold, maybe went to Florida for the winter or something. You know. Short-term getaway.”
“Nope. Long-term getaway. Been about ten years now.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No big deal. Hell, I don’t even remember what she looks like.”
Before I had a chance to remove one foot from my mouth and jam the other one in, he walked out of the kitchen.
6
Why was I always saying idiotic things around Josh? I’d always been as comfortable around boys as I was around girls. Best buds and all that. But then, I’d always known best buds was all we’d ever be. Nothing serious. Why did thoughts of being serious keep popping into my mind?
Why did I care so much what Josh thought of me? My whole reaction to him was totally strange.
Part of me wanted to avoid him, but he was going to be in my house constantly until the work was completed. I didn’t want to be creeping around, dreading running into him. I was going to have to face him.
I took my coffee mug to the sink and rinsed it out. While I was standing there, Mom and Mr. Wynter came back into the kitchen. Mom was laughing again, lightly. Clearly she’d found something he said amusing. I wondered if he was flirting, if maybe I should tell Mom that his wife had left him.
Not that Mr. Wynter looked like a player. He was big and burly, with thick black hair like his son’s and a short beard that made him look like a large, cuddly teddy bear. He wore overalls over a plaid flannel shirt. Not really player material.
“Did you make a decision?” Mom asked now. “About the wallpaper?”
“Not really. Can I think about it for a while?”
“Sure,” Mr. Wynter said. “We’re seldom in a hurry around here. That’s the beauty of island life.”
“Thanks.”
“I thought we might practice serving tea this afternoon. I found a recipe for watercress and cheddar sandwiches,” Mom said. “Don’t those sound lovely?”
“Uh, I guess.” I was a burger girl.
“What do you think, Mr. Wynter?” Mom asked.
“Sounds great to me.”
He grinned at her. I had a feeling she could have suggested dirt mixed with autumn leaves and he’d have said it sounded great.
“I’ve still got a few boxes to unpack so I’m gonna go…” I fluttered my hand and then made a hasty retreat.
Once I started up the stairs, I was hit with the smell of fresh paint. My instincts screamed for me to simply walk on past that first bedroom, get to my room as soundlessly and quietly as possible. And that’s what I’d planned to do. But as I went past, I peered inside.
Josh was using a long-handled roller to apply a creamy yellow to the wall. Like mine, this room wasn’t wallpapered.
He’d covered the furniture with the tarp I’d seen him lugging inside. He turned to dip the roller into the paint pan and froze as he caught sight of me.
“My dad left us,” I felt compelled to say.
He seemed to think about that. Then finally he asked, “How could he have left you when he was never here?”
“Well, first he left, and then we left.” I shook my head, as if doing so would clear it. “He left my mom about two years ago. We left because he’s about to get remarried.”
“Bummer.”
“Totally.”
He gave me a small grin. I smiled back.
“I’m not sure what’s worse,” I confessed. “You not remembering your mom or me not being able to forget my dad. I really miss him.”
That was something I could never tell my mom, because it would just make her feel guilty. And telling it to a guy I’d just met—a guy I didn’t know well—was weird for me. While I’d dated several guys, I wasn’t in the habit of baring my soul to them or sharing secrets.
“Anyway, I just…” I did the whole flapping my hand thing again, like I thought that was the way to create words. I gave up and just shrugged. “Thought I should say something, because I’m sure your mom liked you and it was the cold, not—”
“Hey, forget it. Like I said, I don’t even remember her.”
I couldn’t imagine that. “Not at all?”
“Want to help me paint?” he asked.
I didn’t blame him for the abrupt subject change. It was more polite than telling me to butt out of his business.
I narrowed my eyes. “Isn’t my mom paying you to paint?”
“Actually, she’s paying my dad.”
“Who no doubt pays you.”
He grinned. “Sometimes. What else have you got to do?”
“You tell me. This is your island. Seriously, what is there to do around here?”
“Lots.” He finally got around to dipping the roller into the pan and started painting the wall again.
“Care to share?”
“Cross-country skiing is wildly popular.”
“Slight problem there. I’ve never been on skis.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Hello? Texas? We don’t get a lot of snow.”
“I can’t imagine.” He glanced over at me. “What’s winter without snow?”
“Warm.”
He laughed really deeply, shaking his head. “I don’t see the point.”
“Well, I’m having a bit of a problem seeing the point to winter.”
He arched a brow.
“The season,” I added. I was beginning to see a point to Josh Wynter. He was someone to talk to.
“Is your dad a comedian or something?” I asked.
He turned around, grinning. What was it with the Wynter guys that they were always grinning?
“Actually, he does a stand-up routine down at one of the pubs on amateur night.” He grimaced. “It’s pretty bad. Why?”
I shrugged. “My mom seems to laugh a lot when he’s around. I guess he’s practicing.”
“Not if she’s laughing. Trust me. No one laughs at his jokes. They’re pretty lame. But for some reason, he knows how to make our customers laugh.”
“So my mom’s not special?” Was Mr. Wynter going to break her heart?
“He likes people to be happy. Why get bent out of shape about that?”
“I’m not bent.” I resented that he thought I was. “I’m just not used to hearing my mom laugh so much.”
“You say that like laughter’s a bad thing.”
It was if my mom got hurt. I sighed. She was a big girl, she could take care of herself. After all, she’d survived a major breakup.
“You should try it sometime,” he added.
“I’ll have you know I laugh plenty.”
“I don’t think plenty means what you think it does
. It means often, a lot—”
“I know what it means. I’m a laugh a minute. Ha, ha. And I’ll laugh again in another minute.”
He just stared at me like I’d totally lost my mind. Maybe I had. Chase had thought I was cute when I’d said almost the same thing. I didn’t know why it had worked with him and not Josh. Time for a serious subject change.
“So, are you, like, one of the five students in the junior class?”
I’d researched the single school on the island so I knew that each classroom had two grade levels in it—until eighth grade. So students at different levels intermingled a lot more here than they did back home.
“Nope. I’m one of the six in the senior class.”
Oh, an older guy. Intriguing. I crossed my arms, leaned against the wall.
He grimaced. “You probably shouldn’t have done that.”
“Oh, shoot!” I pulled away from the wall, bringing a good deal of the paint with me. “You could have posted a sign.”
“I thought it was pretty obvious that wet paint was going on the walls.”
“Well, still…”
He placed his hand on my shoulder. “Step aside.”
I did as he ordered, watching while he rolled fresh paint over the mess I’d made.
“I’m going to go change,” I mumbled.
“Let me know when you’re ready and I’ll come to your room.”
My heart thudded. “Excuse me?”
“To take measurements for those shelves.”
“You were serious about making them?” I asked.
“Sure.”
“Okay, then.”
“Don’t get too excited.”
“What do you want me to do? Hug you?”
His eyes seemed to darken, then he shook his head and turned back to the pan. “Just holler when it’s okay for me to come up.”
I backed up a step. “Give me ten.”
“Ten?”
“Minutes. Just come up in ten minutes.”
Which, under normal circumstances, was all I would have needed, except my cell phone was ringing when I got to my room. I took off my paint-splattered clothes as fast as I could and answered the phone right before it went to voice-mail. It was Tara.
“Hey,” I said, holding the phone to my ear with one hand, while scrounging through a stack of clothes on a chair with the other.
“The fudge arrived and omigod!” she exclaimed. I could hear her eating. “It’s amazing.”
I laughed. “I figured you’d like it. The street is lined with fudge shops, but since Nathalie works in one, I’m not sure how I can try out the others without being disloyal.”
“Wear a disguise, because you are obligated to try every one. It’s, like, the law or something.”
“Or something. You just want more fudge.”
“You bet. So how are things up there?” she asked.
“Cold.”
“Are you going to say that every time we talk?” she asked.
“Well, it’s really cold right now, because I’m half naked.” I yanked a pair of sweats free from the pile and managed to pull them on, while holding the phone between my head and shoulder.
“Are you just now getting up?”
Unlike me, Tara’s a morning person. She loves dawn. Go figure.
“No, I ran into some wet paint.”
“Huh?”
I explained about Mom’s renovations, how I came to have paint on my clothes, and that Josh was coming up so I really needed to cover up the old birthday suit.
“So is he hot?” Tara asked.
“It’s too cold for anyone up here to be hot,” I said, digging out a shirt.
She groaned.
“Hold on.” I set down the phone and pulled on my shirt, just as a knock sounded. I picked up the phone, opened the door, waved Josh in, and went back to talking. “I’m back.”
“Is he there now?”
“Yes.”
I’d never had a guy in my bedroom. My heart started thundering again, but it had to be the situation, not the actual guy.
“So why are you still on the phone?” Tara asked.
“Because—”
“Shouldn’t you be trying to hook up with him?”
Him was walking around my room, looking at my various candles. I had one that sounded like a crackling fire when it burned. It was my favorite. I also had lots of little fuzzy toy mice and china figurines of cute rodents.
Josh was looking at things like he thought the assortment was odd. Maybe he’d never been in a girl’s room before.
“I mean, that’s your usual modus operandi—date, date, date.”
Tara still didn’t get my whole no-boyfriend-until-I’m-older attitude. Which was fine. I still didn’t get her whole hooking-up-with-Shaun-of-the-Dead thing, so that made us even.
“Yeah, I need to go.” Even if I wasn’t exactly sure if I should be flirting with Josh.
I snapped my phone closed. “My friend Tara.”
“Can’t be a very close friend if she doesn’t know you well enough not to call before noon.”
“Ha-ha, very funny.”
He grinned, still glancing around. “You like mice?”
“You say that like it’s weird.”
“I just picture most girls screaming and squealing whenever they see a mouse.”
“I’m not most girls.”
“I guess not.” He seemed to think about that for a while, or maybe he was thinking about the room, because he suddenly said, “I see what you mean about the shape. This is kinda wasted space.” He went to the rear of the room, where the roof slanted down. From his shirt pocket, he pulled out a small notebook and pen. He held them toward me. “You write down the measurements.”
Using a rolled metal measuring tape, he began calling out numbers. When he was done, the tape snapped back into the roll with a loud thwap.
He duckwalked out until he could stand up straight. He was quite a bit taller than me. I had to look up at him when he took the notepad back. He wrote some things down on it.
“What color?” he asked.
“What?”
He looked up. “What color do you want the shelves?”
“Uh…” I shrugged. “White? Brown? I really don’t care. You don’t even have to paint them—”
“Wynter Warranty. Everything done to your satisfaction.”
“How much are these going to cost?”
“Don’t worry about it. And don’t worry about the color, either. I’ll take care of it.”
“I wasn’t worried exactly.”
We stood there, looking at each other like there should be something else to say. Having a guy in my bedroom made it seem so much smaller.
He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Guess I’d better get back to painting. Sure you don’t want to help?”
“Actually,” I said, surprising myself with the words that followed, “I do.”
“Know anything about stenciling?” he asked when we got back to the guestroom.
I remembered that Mom had mentioned putting borders along the walls near the ceilings in some rooms. “I know what it is, but I’ve never done it.”
“I’ll bet you’re a natural.”
He shoved a ladder over to the portion of the wall that was already painted. He found a stencil—one that Mom had picked out, I guessed—and climbed the ladder. Reaching into a huge pocket on the leg of his coveralls, he brought out a roll of masking tape and secured the stencil in place. He hopped to the floor.
“Climb on up,” he ordered, before moving to another part of the room where cans of paint were lined up like good little soldiers.
“What if I mess it up?” I asked.
“Won’t happen,” he said. He was crouched, pouring purple paint onto a small plate.
“For all you know, I have no talent at painting.”
He glanced over at me. “If you screw up, I’ll paint over it. It’s no big deal.”
Not exactly what I’d wanted him
to say. Actually, I guess I was looking for some sort of praise, something like—
“Besides, I wouldn’t have offered to let you do it if I didn’t think you could do it,” he added.
Okay. That was more along the lines of what I wanted to hear.
Why do you care if he’s impressed, Ash? You’ve got a date with another guy. And they’re bound to be friends.
Before moving to the island, it had been easy to have dates with different guys, because there were so many of them—and the odds were good they wouldn’t be friends. Chase and Josh had to be friends. Dating both of them wouldn’t work.
So Josh Wynter wasn’t even on the menu to sample. I’d already chosen the entrée: Chase.
Still, I kicked off my fuzzies and climbed up the ladder.
The ceiling was high, like maybe a thousand feet. Okay, closer to ten, but still…The ladder was a little shaky, especially when Josh started to climb it.
“Uh…what are you doing?” I asked.
“Coming up to show you how to do it.”
And suddenly he was there, his arms coming around me as he put the plate of paint and a brush on the top step of the ladder. Or was it the top of the ladder? Would I really want to stand on the very top of the ladder with nothing to hold on to?
I was obsessing about the ladder and what its various parts were called because that was a lot safer than thinking about the fact that Josh and I were so close. He smelled really good. Not like paint, as I’d expected.
He smelled like a lumberjack, like pine. Woodsy. And even though it was winter, his skin had a brown hue, so I figured in the summer, he spent a lot of time outdoors. He looked the type.
“Are you listening?” he asked.
“Huh?” I sounded breathless. Probably because I was. Having his chest pressed to my back felt so good. I grew warm, kinda dizzy. Maybe it was the height. But I didn’t think so.
“I’ve been showing you how to prepare the brush, how to make sure you don’t have too much paint,” he said.
I nodded. “I got it.”
“You can either dab or swirl,” he said, leaning forward to show me.
Which put him even closer, close enough that it was almost an embrace. So close that my mouth went dry.
“Personally”—he cleared his throat—“I like the swirl.”
He was giving me other pointers, but I was barely listening. All I could think about was the swirl. The type of swirl that might take place if we were kissing.
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