Construction Beauty Queen

by Sara Daniel

  “Stick around, and it’ll happen,” Matt said. “This is construction, not a tea party.”

  Matt opened the refrigerator and began pulling out eggs, sausage, ham, mushrooms, peppers, onions, broccoli, and cheese. The appliance appeared well stocked for a guy who ate coffee and doughnuts on the run. And Matt looked as comfortable chopping vegetables and tossing ingredients in the pan as he did swinging a hammer.

  His brown hair curled around the neckline of his white tee, which stretched across his broad shoulders every time he reached along the counter. One back pocket of his jeans showed off a square white outline of his wallet. He flipped the omelet onto a plate and set two slices of buttered toast along the side.

  Then he turned away from the stove to face her, his brown eyes intense but gentle. His sensuous, full mouth curved slightly, outlined by his square jaw. He slid the plate across the table to her. “Eat. When you’re done, you can rest on the couch while I go back to the farmhouse.”

  Veronica blinked. She’d assumed he’d stay while she ate, that maybe he’d share part of her meal; there was no way she could eat all of it. In any event, she had to return to the job site with him. “You’re going to leave me here?”

  “I have things to do.”

  She needed to work, too, so she could make enough money to afford her next meal and not pass out again. “Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll come with you.”

  She lifted a forkful of egg up to her mouth, and her taste buds screamed in delight at the delicious flavors. “Oh my gosh; this is so good. You have to try a bite.”

  His gaze softened. “I have tried it. Trust me, it wasn’t that good the first time I made it…or even the tenth.” He dropped into the chair next to her. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off to build your strength up, then you can hit the ground running tomorrow?”

  “I hope that was an expression, and you don’t actually have a marathon planned.” She made a face, still attempting to eat quickly instead of savoring each bite, so she could help him fix the gate.

  He rose to his feet. “No marathon, I promise. But you have to take care of yourself, because no one is going to do it for you.”

  She looked from her omelet to him, her insides warming. “I think you just did.”

  “Did you come here looking for a man to take care of you? Because if that’s the case, you might as well tell Ron you want to end this job experiment.”

  Warmth deserted her. Pampering and coddling were the last things she wanted, especially from her boss. “I’m ready to go back to work right now.”

  Matt frowned at her half-eaten meal. “Not until you’ve finished every bite of that and rested. I’ll come back and check on you at noon.” With that, he marched out of the house.

  She ran to the door in time to see the pickup peel out of the driveway. He’d stranded her, but he must trust her, too. He wouldn’t have left her alone in his house otherwise, right? The thought made her smile as she looked around. Matt’s house had a definite masculine brown and cream color theme going. But it wasn’t completely sterile. The dishtowel hanging over the handle of the stove had a gaudy orange rooster on it. A flash of pink peeked out from under the edge of the worn couch.

  Her heart stopped and then thundered. How would she explain to his girlfriend what she was doing in his house if the woman returned before he did or before Veronica left? Knowing she was snooping, she walked to the couch and pulled on the scrap of pink. A Barbie throw pillow and Charlotte’s Web appeared. Not from a girlfriend. A daughter, maybe? Of course, that meant a wife was likely in the picture, too.

  She pushed the offending book and pillow back under the couch and returned to the table to finish her brunch. Then she took her dishes to the sink and her ice pack to the freezer. She paused with her hand on the refrigerator door. A child’s drawing of a man and a young girl holding hands was attached with magnets. The child’s writing labeled the man UNCLE MATT and the girl JENNY. In the top corner next to the sun were two tiny people with wings and the heart-stopping words, MOMMY AND DADDY IN HEAVEN.

  Veronica’s eyes filled with tears, and she felt an overwhelming urge to hold and comfort this girl, who’d endured an unspeakable tragedy in her young life. But of course, she didn’t need Veronica’s comfort; she already had Matt. Veronica had no doubt he was doing everything in his power to fill the gap and be both parents for his young niece.

  Veronica set down her dishes and dabbed her eyes. Then she washed the plate and cup and wiped the counter. Matt probably assumed she would leave her mess for him to clean up. He seemed so sure she wanted to be pampered that it felt important to prove she could hold her own without an entourage to care for her. She’d already confirmed his belief that she needed someone to look after her on the job.

  After that, the couch was too inviting to resist. She lay down, only for a minute until her headache was gone.

  The next thing she knew the shadows were coming from the other direction, and a blanket covered her body. Her headache was gone. The pain in her thumb had subsided to a dull, forgettable ache.

  She had no idea how long she’d slept. But clearly, it had been substantially longer than a minute. She started to fold the blanket and paused. Matt must have come to check on her, as he’d promised, and covered her while she was sleeping. She tried to envision the look on his square, tan, handsome face as he’d settled the blanket over her. Tenderness, perhaps? Maybe he was starting to care about her.

  Or was he simply disgusted that she was sleeping all day when she should have been working? She sighed at the more likely scenario and set the blanket on the end of the couch. It was time to figure out how to get home—her trailer home.

  She had no idea where Matt’s house was in relation to the rest of town—she’d kept her eyes closed on the ride over. At the time, it had seemed like the only way to keep her headache at bay.

  All right. She might not have her GPS, and she didn’t trust the townspeople to give her directions to anywhere but the interstate, but the town was small and she was wearing comfortable shoes. She’d find her way—to the house with the broken gate, to the convenience store, or to the Kortville Construction office. Wherever she arrived first, that’s where she’d put in her time. Then she’d go home.

  After twenty minutes of walking, her toes pinched and her boots felt like torture chambers instead of practical, comfortable footwear, but she knew where she was. She could see the convenience store sign. Perfect. She’d cover the doughnuts and spend the rest of the day hanging drywall and spreading joint compound.

  The plan lost a little of its perfection when she got closer and saw that Matt’s truck wasn’t in front of the store. Her anticipation over the job disappeared without him to share it. She couldn’t stop thinking about him walking in and covering her with that blanket, instead of demanding she wake up and get back to work—which he would have been well within his rights to do. If her father or Trevor had been half as thoughtful, she might never have left home.

  She limped through the parking lot, favoring her brand-new blisters. The convenience store door was propped open with the beer boxes again. She tried to convince herself this was the best-case scenario: she’d finish the job. When Matt saw what she’d accomplished, he’d realize she was an asset to his team, not someone he needed to babysit.

  “Look who’s here.” Barney hustled around the counter to her side. “Just the person I wanted to see.”

  “I am?” She smiled, pleased that she was making headway with the townspeople.

  “Absolutely. My freezer was accidentally unplugged all night, and I have this box of ice cream bars that I need to give away.” Barney lifted a box. The corners were discolored, damp, and squishy.

  She couldn’t allow for a repeat of yesterday. “Thanks, Barney, but I actually came here to polish off the remodeling project for Matt.”

  “I thought you were spending the day lounging on his couch.”

  Matt had told everyone she was a slacker. Nice.

>   “Anyway, I hired him, not you. Have some ice cream.” He held out the box, which dripped a steady stream of white cream onto the gray concrete between them.

  “You hired Kortville Construction,” she corrected, doing her best to pretend she didn’t see his gift. “I am an employee of the company.”

  “You’ve got to take this ice cream and get it out of here right now. It’s making a big mess on my floor.” He shoved the cold, gooey box against her chest and nudged her toward the door.

  Ick. She much preferred the dusty doughnuts. “Barney, I’m going to give this box back to you if you don’t explain to me why you won’t consider one single thing I ask for when I come inside your store.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His face was a picture of pudgy innocence.

  She held out the box, and the ice cream stopped soaking her shirt and starting pooling on the floor.

  “Okay, okay.” He pushed the box back against her again. “You’re ruining everything. You think I’m remodeling because I’ve got money to throw around? No, I’m spiffing this place up because it’s going to be the place to hang out. People will grab Gatorade, doughnuts, ice cream, pizza—everything they need for the big game.”

  “The big game?”

  He pointed across the street. “Ron promised to clear out the trailers and donate the old trailer park for a community baseball field. People were going to start playing ball this summer. By next spring he was going to donate the funds for lights, so they could play night games. Kids’ leagues, adult leagues, teams from neighboring towns. They were all going to come here, and they were going to get gas and snacks at my store.”

  She tried to envision it, but her sticky, wet shirt stole her concentration. “And I’m living on third base?”

  He almost smiled. “Over home plate, actually.”

  “Well, that’s a problem,” she agreed, giving him her brightest smile. “But this is only temporary, Barney. I don’t want to live in that trailer forever. Hopefully, long before next spring, I’ll have solved my income problem and I’ll have a nice little house far enough away that I won’t have stray foul balls coming through my windows.”

  He didn’t look appeased. “If you’re here at all, working for Ron’s distribution warehouse, that means he didn’t sell it, so he won’t have the cash lying around to pay for the lights like he’d promised—not to mention the new library building, the community closet, or the food pantry.”

  “Ron promised all that?” Despite offering her a job, he hadn’t struck her as the most generous of men.

  “He’s willing to give money to every cause. He just needs to sell his business before he has the cash to fund everything.”

  And if she took over, his money would be tied up and unavailable for distribution. Ugh. No wonder everyone hated her. She couldn’t just give up the job Ron had promised her to make them happy—she needed it to build her own foundation. She deserved that as much as they deserved a new baseball field or library building. But now guilt warred with her ambitions. She’d never imagined that she’d be taking away things that others needed to meet her own goals.

  Veronica took off her sticky shirt and cleaned up the mess from Barney’s ice cream before donning a clean knit top. She couldn’t make any of the same missteps tomorrow that she’d made today. That meant she needed to find out from Matt if the start time varied by day or if it was always at seven a.m. and where she should meet him. She rummaged through her purse for her phone and dialed.

  “Kortville Construction. This is Matt.”

  “Hi, Matt, this is Veronica.”

  “Hey.” He sounded a lot less welcoming.

  She forced herself to maintain the same level of cheerfulness. She wouldn’t let his lack of enthusiasm rub off on her. “Is your house intact? No one ran off with the good silver while she had free run of the place?”

  “My niece can’t find her Barbie pillow. Otherwise, we’re fine.”

  “Under the couch,” Veronica answered automatically.

  He was quiet, probably mentally picturing her snooping under each piece of furniture.

  She hurried to change the subject and keep her tone lighthearted. “I called to check on the agenda for tomorrow. What macho job do you have planned for me?”

  “We’re stripping a roof.”

  “Excuse me?” She’d tolerated blatant discrimination from the townspeople, her parents’ barbaric beliefs about marriage and working women, and Barney’s twisted ideas of edible gifts, but Matt had crossed the line. She absolutely was not going to stand for it. “If you want to see me naked so badly that you think you can make up a job where I have to strip on anyone’s roof—”

  His booming laughter interrupted her tirade. “You obviously didn’t get to that chapter in your book yet. Stripping a roof is ripping off the old shingles, not your clothes.”

  “Oh.” Of course it was an incomprehensible industry term. She’d made herself sound like a complete idiot and a shrew to boot. “I-I forgot my book when I left the job this morning. I’ll get it, so I can study up tonight.”

  “I have it in my truck,” Matt said, his laughter subsiding but his voice still full of amusement.

  “Oh,” she said again. She wasn’t sure what she thought about him picking up after her. It wasn’t quite as sexy as tucking a blanket around her shoulders as she slept, but no matter how much he protested, taking care of other people was clearly second nature to him.

  “Do you mind if I drive over to your house and get it?” she asked. She definitely wasn’t going to walk, not with the way her feet were killing her from making the trip earlier.

  “I’m pulling into the diner now. I’ll swing by your trailer and drop it off after I’m done eating.”

  Pauline’s Diner. It was dinnertime. She shouldn’t have been hungry for a week after that magnificent omelet, but her stomach growled anyway. “I need to eat, too. I’ll meet you at the diner.”

  “Veronica?” Matt stopped her before she hung up. There was a hint of mirth in his voice.

  “Yeah?”

  “If I wanted to see you naked, I wouldn’t need to get you on a roof. All I’d have to do is look through your bedroom window.”

  …

  “Come on, Uncle Matt. What’s taking so long?” Jenny tugged on his hand.

  Matt pocketed his phone and allowed her to drag him out of his truck toward the diner entrance. He wished he could take back that last comment he’d made to Veronica. Whether she needed curtains on her windows or not, he shouldn’t have flirted with her. He was her boss, and his impressionable niece was within earshot.

  “Hey, my favorite couple.” Pauline greeted them with a wide smile as they stepped inside the restaurant. “Take a seat, and I’ll be right with you. You’re in luck. I’m trying out a bunch of new espresso recipes today.”

  Jenny led him to a table in the middle of the restaurant. He raised a hand in greeting to the chairwoman of the library board and her husband in a booth near the door and a family from Jenny’s school at the table next to them. All of them gave him a subtle headshake on the espressos.

  Jenny picked the seat facing the door. Matt settled in across from her as Pauline bustled back. “I have cinnamon-mocha-apple, caramel pistachio, cherry-vanilla-squash, and hazelnut parfait espressos,” she said.

  “We’ll just have the usual,” Matt told her.

  “Are you sure?” Pauline’s enthusiasm deflated. “These espressos are the best yet.”

  “Grilled cheese is the best,” Jenny declared.

  The usual meant milk to drink, along with grilled cheese for Jenny and the cook’s nightly special for Matt. Liver and onions was the only meal that Matt couldn’t stomach, and only on those nights did he reluctantly venture into trying Pauline’s bizarre concoctions.

  Pauline set out two glasses and uncapped the jug of milk. The front door jingled, and she poured the milk right over the rim of his glass.

  “You’re overflowing,” he said, since
she didn’t appear to notice. The white liquid headed straight for his lap.

  She set down the jug and handed him a stack of napkins, all with her gaze locked on the front door. “Oh my gosh. The city girl has come to my diner!” She rushed across the room to pump Veronica’s hand. “You are going to love my espressos, honey.”

  “Uh, thanks. You can call me Veronica.” She shot Matt a questioning glance, as Pauline led her to a table directly in front of the door.

  “I’m going to let you try one of each flavor.” Pauline rattled them off again. “And you have to give me your honest-to-goodness opinion if they’re better than what you drink in those fancy coffee shops, okay?”

  “Um, sure. May I order some food, too?” Veronica’s eyes lit up with amusement as she smiled at Pauline.

  “We’ll get to that. The good stuff comes first.” She bustled away.

  Veronica’s gaze flicked around the room, where no one would meet her eye. When her gaze came to him, Matt nearly laughed out loud. “Welcome to the diner.”

  Her eyes widened. “Are these espressos like Barney’s ‘gifts’ from the convenience store?” she whispered.

  “Nope. Pauline doesn’t play favorites. She’ll try out her concoctions on anyone who’s not quick enough to order the nightly special.”

  Pauline came back before Veronica could reply and set four mugs and saucers in a row in front of her, along with a pen and an inch-thick stapled booklet.

  Jenny’s eyes widened. “Uncle Matt, she’s not really going to taste test, is she? Someone has to warn her.”

  “I think it’s too late,” Matt murmured back as Pauline opened to the first page in the booklet.

  “See this checklist? I want you to rate each of these drinks on a scale of one to ten based on the criteria on the paper. I doubt it would happen, but just in case, if you rate anything less than a ten, please write an explanation below. I have extra blank pages in the back if you need more space.” Pauline smiled widely at her.

  “Okay,” Veronica said uncertainly.