by Sherry Lewis
Should he tell her? He bought some time by working the wood into place. “As a matter of fact, I did.”
“You heard?” She lowered the basket to the floor and closed the distance between them. “Everything?”
“Every word.”
“You aren’t going to tell my mom, are you?”
He smiled reassurance. “I can’t think of any reason why I should.”
Relief replaced the panic on her face. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
Instead of going away, she trailed her gaze around the room. “Are you going to do this whole thing by yourself?”
“As much as I can.”
“Why?”
“We have a small crew, and the rest of the guys are busy with other projects.”
“Maybe I could help.”
He wiped his forehead with his sleeve and looked at her. “I can’t let you help. There are all sorts of rules and regulations, and liability, and insurance. Besides, wouldn’t you rather paint your nails or talk on the phone or something?”
“Why? Because I’m a girl?”
Well…yes. But he was smart enough to keep that faux pas to himself. “No. I just thought—” He tried to find a way out of the hole he’d dug for himself. When he couldn’t, he decided to put an abrupt end to the conversation. “You’d better get back to your laundry before your mother comes looking for you.”
She looked so disappointed, his conscience jabbed him. He took in her frayed pants and bulky sweater, her short-cropped hair and wide brown eyes, and tried to soften the sting of his rejection with a smile. “Have you had any luck finding your mom a boyfriend?”
“No.” Her face puckered with worry. “I introduced her to a friend’s dad today, but she didn’t like him.”
“She didn’t?” He pulled a handful of nails from his pocket. “What was wrong with him?”
“Too boring.”
Gabe’s lips twitched, but he didn’t let himself smile. “Maybe you should let your mom find her own boyfriend.”
“She won’t,” Christa predicted sadly. “It’s not that she doesn’t like men. She doesn’t think men like her.”
“I can’t imagine why they wouldn’t.”
Too late, Gabe realized his mistake. Christa’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “Really? Are you married?”
“No, but—”
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
“Not at the moment, but I’m not looking for one, either.”
“Why not?”
“Too much work to do.” That sounded good. He’d stick with that. “I wouldn’t have time to give to a relationship.”
Christa nodded slowly. “Mom says guys can only concentrate on one thing at a time.”
Gabe turned to face her. “Does she?” That wasn’t the most flattering evaluation of his mental abilities he’d ever heard.
“Don’t take it personally. She’s kind of…” She paused and searched for the right word. “Well, she’s…”
A man-hater? One of those women who’d let one bad experience warp her perception? Gabe had met more than enough of them. He shoved aside the uncomfortable thought that he’d done the same thing with women, and told himself that if Sharon thought all men were Neanderthals, it was no wonder she didn’t have a man in her life.
But, then, it didn’t matter what she thought of him—or of any man, for that matter—he was here to do a job, nothing more. And he’d do a good job, too, even if he was a mental midget who couldn’t form more than one coherent thought at a time.
He picked up his level from the floor and checked the board. And he somehow managed to contain his urge to grunt like a caveman. “I hate to break it to you, but guys are perfectly capable of thinking of two things at the same time.”
Christa smiled uneasily. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You didn’t.”
She looked slightly relieved. “So, do you like doing this kind of work?”
Ugh, he thought. Man like boards. Aloud, he said, “Yes, I do. I’ve always liked working with my hands.”
“Is it easy?”
Ugh. Man need easy work. “Not really. If I want to do it right, I need to concentrate.”
“Oh.” She glanced at the laundry basket and grimaced. “I’d better let you work or Mom will kill me. Besides, I have to do the laundry. I hate doing laundry.”
On that score, she could be Tracy’s clone. Once more putting Tracy out of his mind, Gabe turned back to his boards and nails. He reminded himself that he was here to work. Not to get involved with the family. Not to cross the professional boundary between himself and his clients. Not to make friends with the kids. Not to get caught up in some harebrained matchmaking scheme.
Work.
Ugh.
He worked steadily for what felt like forever, trying not to let all the homey sounds distract him. He ignored the laughter, the constant ringing of the telephone, Sharon’s voice calling for Emilee or Christa, and the noise of the vacuum cleaner. And he steadfastly refused to let himself draw comparisons between this and his silent apartment.
By the time he had one wall completely framed, his stomach began to rumble. He glanced at his watch and noted with surprise that two hours had practically flown by. He should have packed a lunch before he left home. Leaving now would break the rhythm he’d established, but hard work always gave him an appetite, and he couldn’t ignore his hunger much longer.
He didn’t bother tidying up. He’d just hit a drive-through and come straight back. He flipped off the radio and started toward the stairs, but before he could reach them the cell phone in his pocket rang.
Hoping it wasn’t his dad calling with yet another job, he pulled the phone from his pocket. “Gabe Malone.”
“Gabe?”
Helene. His spirits took a nosedive. “I mailed you the alimony and child support on the twenty-seventh. If you haven’t received them yet—”
“I got the money,” she interrupted. “That’s not why I’m calling.”
“Oh? Then what is it?”
“I have a problem.”
Gabe’s spirits plummeted even further. Divorced two years, and she still expected him to fix everything for her. “I’m busy, Helene. Can I get back to you later?”
“No.” Her voice took on that sharp edge that always made him wary. “This is important.”
No surprise there. Helene had always considered her problems—whatever they were—more important than anyone else’s. “So is my job,” he reminded her. “These people aren’t paying me for taking personal phone calls.”
“Oh. Well. We certainly don’t want to upset anyone.”
Wonderful. Just what he wanted. Sarcasm. “No, we don’t. Not if you want to keep getting the checks I send.”
She let out a heavy sigh. “There are problems other than money, you know.”
He ignored the bait. If he took it, they’d end up in an argument. “Look, Helene. It’s been wonderful chatting with you, but I need to get back to work.”
“Is your job more important than your daughter?”
That caught his attention. “You know it’s not. What’s wrong with Tracy?”
“Don’t worry. She hasn’t been hurt or anything.”
Relief almost made him dizzy. But it was short lived.
“She’s failing in school.”
“Failing, Helene? That’s impossible.” Tracy had always been a good student. Helene must be overreacting, as usual. “What did she do, bring home a few C’s on her report card?”
“C’s?” Helene let out a brittle laugh. “I wish her grades were that high. No, Gabe, the highest grade she’s getting this term is a D.”
Gabe couldn’t believe that. Not from Tracy. He scowled at the concrete floor. “Have you asked her about it?”
“I’ve tried. She won’t discuss anything with me.”
That didn’t surprise him. Helene didn’t discuss. She attacked.
She took a drink of something and insis
ted, “You’ve got to do it.”
He smiled slowly. Maybe this was his chance to get involved in Tracy’s life again. “All right. Put her on.”
“She’s not here. I waited to call until she’d left for the library—if that’s where she went. I don’t know where she goes anymore. I don’t even think she goes to school half the time.”
“She’s been skipping school?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Probably.” Helene’s voice grew shrill, the way it always did when something upset her. “Why else would her grades drop so suddenly?”
He could think of several reasons. “Is she feeling all right? I mean, she’s not sick or anything, is she?”
“No, she’s not sick. She’s just…” She broke off and floundered for the right word. “She’s just being obnoxious. I’m telling you, Gabe, I’m at my wit’s end with her.”
“I’ll talk to her,” he promised, wishing that Helene had spoken to him sooner. “You’ll talk to her.” The sarcasm came back.
“What else can I do from a distance of thirteen hundred miles?”
“You could try being her father.”
“I am her father, Helene. As good a father as I can be under the circumstances.”
“Oh, please. Except for the checks you send once a month, you’ve practically forgotten she even exists.”
The accusation stung. He paced away from the door, but when static cut into their connection he stepped back again. “That’s not true, and you know it.”
“Do I?”
“What do you expect me to do?” he demanded. “I can’t be there for her. You took care of that by moving half a country away.”
“You could try calling her once in a while. Obviously, you have access to a telephone—”
He tried to head her off before she could gather steam. “Helene, I don’t have time for this. I have work to do.”
“Well, I have an unhappy teenager who’s failing in school.”
“She wasn’t an unhappy teenager when she lived here,” he snapped, even though he knew that wasn’t entirely true. Their constant arguing had been affecting Tracy for a long time. He paced as far as the static would let him, then pivoted toward the stairs again. “Maybe you should stop blaming me for this and start trying to figure out what’s really going on. Is there a boy involved?”
Helene made a noise of disgust. “Of course you would think that.”
“She’s a teenage girl. It’s a decent theory.”
“If she were dating, I would know about it.”
“How? You just said you don’t know where she goes anymore. Do you know anything about her?” He regretted it as soon as he said it.
The ice in her glass clinked as he heard her lift it. A second later, she let out a soft, satisfied sigh. “I know she needs her father to call her once in a while. Or are you too busy dating to be bothered?”
“Yeah, ’cause that’s what I do, hop from woman to woman.” He could tell the moment the words left his mouth that his voice had come out too loud. To make matters worse, he heard someone behind him.
He wheeled around to find Sharon standing inside the open doorway.
The heat of embarrassment crept up Gabe’s neck into his face. He tried to smile, but his lips froze in something closer to a grimace. Way to go, Malone. This ought to really impress her.
He didn’t waste time analyzing why he cared. Before he could say or do anything, she pivoted and started back up the stairs.
That finally galvanized him to action. He trailed her to the bottom of the stairs and called after her. “Sharon? Wait. I’m almost through here. What did you need?”
She turned back to face him, and he imagined the red in her face matched the color in his own. “It can wait.”
“No.” He shook his head quickly and tried to get the urgency out of his voice. “No, just give me half a minute and I’ll be with you.”
She ignored him and hurried up the stairs.
Sighing in frustration, he turned his attention back to the phone. “I need to go, Helene. I’ll call Tracy this evening.” Without giving her a chance to argue, he disconnected and stuffed the phone into his pocket. And he made a valiant attempt as he climbed the stairs to look serious and professional—not at all like the player Sharon must think he was.
SHARON STIFFENED when she heard Gabe coming up the stairs. She adjusted the hem of her sweater and tried to look natural, but his words echoed through her mind relentlessly.
She didn’t like jumping to conclusions, but his conversation seemed to bear out what Pauline had told her. At least she wouldn’t have to worry about finding him attractive anymore. If that didn’t turn her off, nothing would.
He stopped in front of her and propped his hands on his tool belt. Her gaze settled on the muscles in his arms. She looked away quickly, only to find herself staring at the tuft of dark hair revealed by the open buttons on his plaid shirt.
Obviously, she couldn’t look there. She glanced at the light fixture overhead, decided she must look ridiculous and settled her gaze on her hands.
“Sorry about what you heard down there,” he said. “I—”
“Don’t be.” She forced herself to look at him and felt her cheeks grow warm. “I’m sorry I walked in on your conversation.”
His lips curved gently. “You don’t need to apologize to me. It’s your house. I was talking to my—”
“You don’t have to explain to me,” she said firmly. “I just wanted to let you know my schedule in case you want to work on the basement sometime other than evenings and weekends.”
“Great.” Something she couldn’t identify flickered through his deep brown eyes. He pulled a notebook and pen from his shirt pocket. “I can use every extra hour I can work into my schedule.”
She breathed a sigh of relief. If she could stay focused on business, she’d be fine. “This semester, I’m off all day Wednesday and every other Friday afternoon. And I’m usually through with classes and home by six on the other nights.”
He scribbled a note and glanced at her again. “If it’s all right, then, I’ll plan to be here early on Wednesday and stay all day.”
“That’s fine.” She casually brushed a lock of hair over her shoulder and forced herself to meet his gaze again. Her mouth dried and her breath caught in her throat. She decided to end the conversation before he tried to explain his phone call again.
Half hoping Gabe would take the hint and go back to work, she reached for the heavy bag of sugar she’d left on the counter.
Before she could lift it, he stepped in front of her and plucked it out of her reach. “Let me get that for you. Where to?”
She blinked in surprise. “I have a plastic container for it in the garage.”
“Okay. Show me where.”
“You really don’t have to. I’m used to doing it myself.”
“No problem. My mother would have my hide if I let you carry something this heavy.” His eyes met hers again and the kindness she saw there surprised her.
She felt herself relax slightly. “And how would your mother know?”
He laughed, a warm, easy laugh that unlocked something else inside her. “Oh, she’d know. Believe me. She’s got radar for that sort of thing.”
Her earlier uneasiness all but vanished. She stepped past him to open the garage door. “I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble with your mother.”
He stepped through and waited for her to direct him. She motioned toward the row of plastic containers lining the front of the garage. “Over there. I use those to store flour and sugar—all the things I can buy in bulk. It’s cheaper that way.”
He raised an eyebrow, but she couldn’t tell whether he thought she sounded miserly or frugal. She flushed again, embarrassed at the way she was rambling, and bit her tongue to stop herself.
He emptied the sugar into the container and settled the lid in place again. To her surprise, he let his gaze travel over her little stash of food. “Rice, macaroni, egg noodles. You
know, that’s a really good idea—if you have the room to store everything. My apartment’s too small.” He stopped, laughed softly and turned a self-mocking gaze on her. “Who am I kidding? I never cook, anyway. Other than dinner at my mother’s once a month, I can’t remember the last time I had a home-cooked meal.”
Sharon didn’t know how to respond to what he’d said. If Nick had said something like that, he’d have been trying to wrangle an invitation, but she saw no guile in Gabe’s eyes. What she did see moved her. He looked almost wistful.
He laughed again and turned away from the bins. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to take up so much of your time.”
“You didn’t,” she assured him. “I appreciate the help.”
“Yeah…well.” He averted his gaze again. “I’d better get going.”
“Of course.” She watched him hurry across the garage as if he couldn’t put distance between them fast enough. Leaning against the wall, she listened to him start his truck.
If Gabe Malone had the heart of a playboy, she thought with a smile, she’d eat her hat.
THAT EVENING, Gabe tossed his jacket over the back of the couch and left the bag holding the burger and fries he’d bought for dinner on the coffee table. After over twelve hours on the job, he was more tired than hungry, but he knew better than to skip a meal. He’d only regret it in the morning.
He grimaced at the bag of fast food. Whatever Sharon had been cooking for dinner had smelled a lot better than this. He’d definitely had his fill of fast food, but he hated sitting alone in restaurants, and he was too tired to cook for himself.
Stretching to work the knots out of his back, he found the remote control and turned on the television. He’d never liked silence and had long ago gotten into the habit of letting the television or radio play when he was alone. It didn’t matter what filled the silence—just as long as something did. When the local news filled the screen, he glanced at his watch and groaned. How had it gotten so late?
Luckily, Oregon was one hour behind Colorado. He might still reach Tracy tonight. He hoped he could. He didn’t want to miss this chance to close the rift between them. He hurried to the bedroom and changed into sweatpants and a sweatshirt. Back in the living room, he picked up the cordless phone, sat down on the couch and started to dial.