Rescue Me

by Rochon, Farrah

  “Why did you throw the eraser and call Mrs. Overland names, Jasmine?”

  “I don’t know,” came a tremulous reply.

  “You know it was wrong, don’t you?”

  She nodded.

  “So, why did you do it?” he asked again.

  Another shrug and a huge snuffle, followed by a single tear that trailed down her cheek and landed on the edge of her plate.

  He couldn’t do this. One of the hardest things for him to endure was seeing his little girl cry, and he could not stomach being the cause of her tears.

  “Come here, baby.” Alex pushed back from the table and held out his hand. Jasmine leaped out of her chair and onto his lap.

  He knew he would have to get to the root of her discipline problem soon, but Alex wasn’t up for that discussion today. She’d admitted the name calling was wrong. That was a start.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy,” came her soft, muffled voice.

  “I know, baby,” Alex answered. He wrapped his good arm around her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I know.”

  Alex pulled up to the curb at the address Renee had written on the pamphlet and shifted his truck into park. He was finally getting the hang of one handed driving. He walked up the cemented walkway that led to a classic Creole style cottage with a wide wraparound porch. Even though the house was on pillars, the faint water line that still rimmed the exterior siding suggested the house had taken in a good four feet of water. The homes in this neighborhood had remained submerged in floodwaters for nearly two weeks after Hurricane Katrina. Whatever the actual water had not destroyed had probably been ruined by toxic mold.

  Alex spotted the small pop up camper off to the side. The trailers issued to residents by the Federal Emergency Management Agency had become a part of the landscape of post Katrina New Orleans.

  He climbed the steps of the house, noting the superior workmanship. He tried the doorknob, but it wouldn’t budge. He walked along the wraparound porch to the side door, taking in the warped wooden boards under his feet. If these bloated floorboards were any indication of what he’d find inside the house, Alex figured they were looking at total demolition and rebuild. Sometimes, it was easier to just bring in a wrecking ball and start out with a clean slate.

  Alex jiggled the handle to the side door, but it, too, was locked. He walked back around to the front of the house. The car Renee had gotten into earlier that week when he’d accompanied her to the parking lot at St. Katherine’s was parked next to the FEMA trailer.

  Alex walked over to the trailer and up the three wooden steps. He knocked. There was no answer. He knocked again.

  He tried the handle on the trailer and was surprised and a little confused when it turned. Did she say the trailer would be open and not the house? Maybe he’d misheard her instructions.

  Alex pushed the door open and felt his stomach drop as a glisteningly naked Renee screamed at him to get out.

  For several interminable moments, Alex was rooted where he stood, incapable of doing anything but stare at the amazing body that was quickly being wrapped into a towel. In that millisecond he noticed high, firm breasts, a small waist, curvy hips, and deliciously smooth, toned thighs.

  “Get. Out!” she screamed.

  Alex snapped to attention, his brain registering where he was and what he was doing. He shut the door and clumsily made his way down the steps. Leaning against the outside of the trailer, Alex took several deep breaths. This was bad. Really bad. Should he go back and apologize? Should he just leave?

  He’d embarrassed the hell out of himself, and would be lucky if Renee didn’t come running out of the trailer wielding a butcher knife.

  He should definitely leave.

  Yet what he really wanted to do was break the door off that trailer and get another eyeful of the heavenly, dripping wet creature standing just on the other side of it. She could not have been as perfect as she had appeared. But it was his shoulder that was banged up; not a damn thing was wrong with his eyes.

  The door to the trailer opened, and Renee stepped out wrapped in a yellow bathrobe. Alex had a feeling he was more the cause of the red tinge to her cheeks than the shower she had apparently taken minutes before he barged in on her. He could not believe he’d just done that.

  “I’m sorry,” Alex said. Because, really, what else did you say after walking in on a woman when she was naked?

  Renee held up her hand. “Let’s put the awkwardness behind us right now. We’ll just pretend you didn’t see anything, even though I know you did.”

  “Yeah, I did,” Alex admitted. He was sure he would see her in his dreams every night for at least the next year, if not forever.

  “Okay, stop staring at my chest,” she said, and pulled the collar of the robe tighter.

  Alex knew he was staring. He knew it was rude. He knew it only added to both their embarrassment.

  But he could not stop.

  “Alex!” she said, her voice hitting a new level of agitation.

  “What?” Alex looked up into a face that was seriously pissed off. “I’m sorry,” he said again. He needed to pull his head together and stop thinking about what was underneath that robe.

  “I’m assuming you needed something,” Renee said. She clenched the bathrobe so tight at her throat her knuckles were white.

  “Uh, yeah,” Alex answered. “I need to get into the house.”

  “The door should be open.”

  “That’s what I thought you’d said, but it’s not. I tried both the front and side doors; they’re locked.”

  She blew out an aggravated breath. “Aunt Lorna was supposed to unlock the house. I’m sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry,” Alex said, for what, the third time?

  It was those FEMA trailers. If they were equipped with bigger bathrooms, she would have been in there instead of drying off in the middle of her kitchen/living room/second bedroom.

  “It was a mistake,” Renee said. “Stop apologizing.”

  “Do you have a key for the house?” Alex asked, anxious to think of anything else but her body.

  “Give me a minute.” She stepped back into the camper and, seconds later, returned with a single key on a plain metal key ring. “This is for the side door.”

  Alex took the key from her outstretched fingers and had to swallow back the groan that nearly escaped his throat when their fingers touched.

  “I’ll, uh, get to work,” he said.

  This bordered on ridiculous. He was as aroused as a teenager who had just discovered girls. Although, after six years without a woman, what did he expect? He was impressed as hell that he’d refrained from dropping to his knees and begging Renee Moore to get naked for him again.

  “Let me get dressed. I’ll show you what the other contractor didn’t do before he skipped town with Aunt Lorna’s money.”

  “Okay,” Alex answered, and quickly headed for the safety of the dilapidated house. He was way more at ease surrounded by lumber and insulation than a nearly naked woman. It hadn’t always been that way, but life had a funny way of changing on you.

  Alex entered the house, the stale, mildew stench assaulting him as soon as he opened the side door. He hadn’t even thought to bring a mask when he’d left the house. He might have one in the glove compartment in the truck, but Alex figured his cursory inspection of the partially gutted home wouldn’t take long to complete. The proverbial writing was on the torn down walls.

  He pulled the memo tablet out of his back pocket, along with the short, stubby carpenter’s pencil he’d lifted from his desk before he left home. Being left handed, Alex was grateful that beam had fallen on his right shoulder. This way, at least he wasn’t completely useless.

  He slowly made his way around the hollowed house. Some of the walls had been torn down to the studs, but much of the mold ridden Sheetrock remained. Patches of black and green mold dotted the ceiling tiles.

  Alex turned at the sound of the door opening. He spotted Renee entering the side d
oor with a hospital mask covering half her face, and another dangling from her hand. She was also fully clothed in a dress that was pretty inappropriate given all the dust on the construction site.

  “I forgot to tell you that you’d need a mask,” she said, handing him the mask she carried.

  Alex put it over his nose. He tried to bring the elastic bands around his head with his good arm, and nearly dropped it.

  “Bend your head,” Renee said, plucking the mask from his fingers and fitting it around his head. As he leaned over, his face was just inches from the exposed cleavage beautifully displayed by the V-neck collar of her wraparound dress. Alex was convinced his weakened knees would give out in the next sixty seconds.

  The deep pink dress clung to her subtle curves. She wasn’t nearly as voluptuous as Chantal had been, but that was a good thing. Alex had a particular repulsion for women who even slightly resembled his late wife.

  Renee was Chantal’s complete opposite. Where Chantal had been vanilla light, Renee’s skin tone was a rich walnut brown. She had deep brown eyes, and wore her hair straight, just past her chin, unlike Chantal’s long, bouncy curls.

  “What do you think?” Renee asked. It took Alex a moment to realize she was talking about the house and not the way she looked in that dress. Replying that it was a nice view would definitely have gotten him slapped.

  It was a nice view, though.

  “It looks like the contractor only got through half the demolition,” Alex answered. “And he wasn’t very thorough.” He pointed to the patches of dirty pink insulation still attached to some of the studs. “How much did your aunt pay him?” Alex asked, moving toward the back of the house to inspect the sturdiness of the remaining studs there.

  “Forty thousand,” Renee answered.

  Alex whipped around. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “I wish I were,” she answered. “He gave her an estimate of eighty five thousand for both demo and construction, but told her she had to pay half as a down payment before he could start working. She emptied her savings.”

  Her aunt had been ripped off, big time. “Let me guess,” Alex said. “Verbal contract?”

  Renee nodded.

  That money was gone.

  “She called me after the guy didn’t show up after three weeks. I swear if I ever find him I’m going to take joy in killing him.”

  Alex shook his head, sharing her anger. The number of fake contractors out there ripping people off was staggering. The demand was so high, all a criminal needed was a pickup truck and a sign on the door advertising his fake business.

  “We’ve been trying to do as much as we can on our own, but it’s been slow,” Renee said. “We don’t have the proper tools. Just that old sledgehammer and our hands.”

  “Wait? You and your aunt have been working in this house?”

  She nodded.

  “What did the contractor do?”

  “That’s it. He didn’t do anything. He wouldn’t start the work until my aunt gave him half, and when she did, he took off. I’m just sorry she waited so long to call me. By the time I moved here from Florida, all of this had already happened. There was nothing more for me to do but to help her out as much as I could with the demolition.”

  A car horn blew.

  “That must be Rashad,” Renee said. She walked over to the side door and poked out her head. A minute later, Rashad Richards came through the door.

  “What are you doing in here?” Alex heard him ask.

  “We’re checking out the house,” Renee answered.

  Richards turned, spotting Alex for the first time. “Mr. Holmes, how’s it going?” he said, reaching out to shake Alex’s hand. Alex returned the gesture, unnerved by the surge of jealousy that shot through his system at the realization that Rashad Richards was the reason behind Renee’s knockout dress. Alex had figured they were a couple when he first saw them together in the teachers’ lounge at St. Katherine’s, but having it confirmed, especially after catching a full frontal view of a naked Renee, was way past disappointing.

  “Are you ready?” Richards asked, covering his mouth and nose with his sleeve.

  “We still have a few minutes, don’t we? I want to show Alex the copper piping in the bathroom and kitchen.”

  “We’re going to smell like mold. They’ll put us out of the theater.”

  “I can check the piping on my own,” Alex said. “You want to try saving it, right?”

  “If at all possible,” Renee answered.

  “I’ve got a pretty clear picture of what needs to be done already,” Alex said.

  “Yeah, everything,” Richards said with an insensitive snort.

  “Basically,” Alex agreed. “But most of the framework is still in good shape. This cedar is from the swamp, so it can hold up to the waters from the flood without encountering too much damage. We’d have to get rid of the warped ones, but most of it can be saved.”

  “Renee? The smell,” Richards whined like a schoolboy. What was she doing with a guy like this?

  “Why don’t we get out of here,” Alex suggested, “so you don’t get put out for stinking up the theater?” He hoped Richards caught his sarcasm.

  Renee did. Alex could see the smile in her eyes, and couldn’t help but return it. He wondered if Richards realized just how lucky he was to have that woman, with that smile, wearing that dress, on his arm to night.

  Richards was first out of the house, followed by Renee, then Alex. Once they were on the porch, Renee pulled the mask over her head, and shook her hair out.

  “So, what do you think?” she asked Alex.

  That she had the prettiest brown eyes he’d ever seen. That her legs looked amazing in that dress. That they looked even more amazing out of it.

  “Mr. Richards summed it up,” Alex answered. “Everything needs to be overhauled.”

  Her eyelids slid closed and she brought her hands up to rub her temples. “I know there’s a lot of work ahead of us.”

  “Don’t worry about any of it right now,” Alex said. “I’ll have a crew out here tomorrow to tear out these walls and the ceiling. Once they’re done, they’ll wash down the studs with a mold killing solution and set up dehumidifiers throughout the house. I want to make sure we save as much of that cedar as possible. That wood probably goes for twenty times as much as it did when the house was built.”

  “I know this is early, but can you give me a ballpark figure of what this is going to cost?” Renee asked.

  Alex hunched his good shoulder and shook his head. “I can’t be sure. Give me the weekend to work on it. Once my foreman gets a look, he and I can get a clearer picture of exactly what we need and I can give you a few numbers.”

  “Renee, we need to get going,” Richards said. “The movie starts in an hour and we have to eat first.”

  God forbid the woman worry about putting a solid roof over her head, not when there was a movie to watch. This was just another reason not to like Richards, in addition to the fact that the insensitive bastard was dating Renee.

  “Give me just a minute, Rashad.” Renee turned back to Alex. “Thank you so much for doing this. Keep the key, just in case no one is here tomorrow when your crew comes.”

  Great. Just what he needed to think about to night, Renee Moore not being at home because she’d spent the night at Richards’s place.

  She took his left hand and squeezed it. “Thank you so much.”

  “My pleasure,” Alex answered. He stood on the front lawn long after Richards’s blue Mustang had pulled out of the drive.

  Chapter Seven

  “I can’t do this anymore.”

  Margo took a sip of her dry white wine and waited for a reaction from the man sitting across the table. There was none, just as she’d expected. Gerald Mitchell brought the linen napkin to his mouth and dabbed at both sides. He folded it, returning the napkin to his lap.

  “Gerald, did you hear me?”

  “Yes, I did,” he answered with a calmness that was th
e complete opposite of the anxiety coursing through her bloodstream. “What exactly do you mean by that?”

  “Just what I said. I can’t do this anymore. I cannot continue lying to my boys.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “That’s your solution?”

  “Yes, Margo. I’m still not sure why you had to lie to your sons in the first place.”

  “Gerald, you don’t know my boys. They would have a fit if they knew I was seeing you.”

  “They’re grown men. They can handle it.”

  Margo pushed her plate of half eaten pecan crusted flounder to the side and finished off her glass of wine, her hand shaking slightly as she set the glass on the table. She knew it was time to tell her sons about Gerald. She was growing weary of coming up with excuses about her whereabouts.

  It had never been her intention to deliberately keep Gerald a secret, but the more serious their relationship had become, the more Margo had to consider how news of her seeing a man would affect other aspects of her life. After so many years alone, it had taken her a few months to get used to the idea of dating again. She couldn’t just spring Gerald on her family.

  Thank goodness she had her future daughter in law to confide in. Monica was the only one she’d told about Gerald. And even though she thought Margo was being too considerate of her boys’ feelings, Monica had proven to be a wonderful ally.

  But the subterfuge had gone on too long. After their six months of seeing each other several times a week and talking on the phone nightly, it was obvious Gerald had become an integral part of her life. She just had to figure out how to integrate him into the rest of her life.

  Gerald reached over and covered her hand with his. Margo looked up and smiled at him. He was a handsome man who looked much younger than his sixty three years. His black hair had only a sprinkling of gray around his ears, which were a bit darker than his walnut colored skin. He’d probably gone out on his boat without any sunscreen on his ears.

  Margo tamped down the urge to chide him. She’d spent so many years mothering her boys; it was hard for her to switch hats. But Gerald didn’t need a mother. He needed a companion, a lover.