by Lynn Rae
Oh. Emily had a feeling she knew where this was going. Mitchell Walton looked like the sort of man who wanted to wake up on Sunday mornings and make pancakes for his family, someone who wouldn’t lose his temper over having to clear toys off the sidewalk as he came home after a long day of work. Even though that life wasn’t for her, a week ago she might have been slightly intrigued, enough to give a favorable response to Angie’s very subtle nudge. She could be wrong about his ambitions after all. But something—no, someone—was intruding on her thoughts, distracting her.
“He’s very nice.” There, that was suitably complimentary and vague to neither encourage nor dismiss.
“He is. I’ll tell him you said so.” Angie’s eyes lit up with pleasure. “You have no idea how important nice is in a man.”
“Oh, I think I do.” Emily tightened her lips and swallowed when she thought of how not nice some men could be.
“So, what are you doing next?” Shelly asked as she toddled behind the grocery cart, her knee brace stiffening her gait like a peg-leg pirate’s. She’d called Paul an hour before, declared she’d go insane if she had to stare at the walls of her living room any longer, and would he please come over to take her shopping before she did damage to her house or herself. Her husband was safely isolated at work, and her daughter had the perfect excuse to stay home with her new baby, so it was up to Paul to rescue her. “Are Dave and Roger doing anything useful? What about Emily?”
What indeed about Emily?
Shelly didn’t wait for an answer as she limped down the cereal-and-breakfast-food aisle. She grabbed a couple of boxes of shredded wheat and tossed them willy-nilly into the cart, leaving Paul to carry his own box of granola as he followed her.
Despite his admonishments to himself, Emily was on his mind, especially after yesterday. He’d experienced such highs and lows: his concern for her when he’d spotted her stranded at the base of the statue with traffic whizzing by, the calm pleasure he’d felt when she’d slept next to him, their shared fear of coming so close to hitting a deer, and finally, his discomfort at the sheriff’s deputy’s attempts to impress her. He didn’t know what to think any more, other than she was too intriguing to ignore.
“Well? What about the committee? I’m feeling better, up and around a little more. As you can see.” Shelly tried a little dance move in the aisle and winced. “Maybe I can come next week, let you off the hook.” His sister had that decisive tone in her voice she’d used ever since she was a toddler, deciding which of his toys she was going to commandeer.
“No, I’ll go next week. You elevate that knee.”
“Speaking of, it’s aching. Let’s go.” His sister leaned on the cart for support as she pushed her way to the checkout counter. Palmer’s grocery only had two lanes, and Paul couldn’t recall he’d ever seen both of them open at the same time. The cashier listlessly scanned the items as Shelly flung them on the belt. She paid and grimaced as the cashier dropped her bagged items in the cart. By the time Paul had completed his purchase of granola, spaghetti sauce, pasta, and some bananas, she was already out in the parking lot and struggling with the gate of his truck.
“You don’t have a key, remember?”
Shelly turned and gave him a withering stare. She must be in pain considering how snappish she was getting.
He opened up the truck and tried to help load her purchases, but she grumbled and started to rearrange the contents of the bags to her satisfaction. He tossed his things in the back, past her scattered groceries, and turned when he heard someone call his name.
It was Emily, toting a big basket of laundry and giving him a shy smile. She was dressed for the day in khakis and a dark brown sweater that seemed to bring out the pale freckles on the bridge of her nose.
“Hi! What are you doing here?” Paul realized how stupid he sounded as she shrugged her shoulder toward the Laundromat next to the grocery. He reached out and plucked the basket from her, and she sighed with relief as she readjusted the bag and clutched at her keys.
“My dryer’s on strike, and I haven’t had a chance to call for a repair.”
Shelly, evidently finished with redoing the cashiers subpar bagging, leaned her hip against the truck as she gave Emily an appraising look. She gave his sister a tentative smile in return.
“Hello, Shelly. I’m glad to see you up and around.” Emily glanced over at him, and Paul realized she was likely wondering about their relationship.
“Shelly’s my sister. I’m on call to drive her around today.”
Emily nodded politely. Shelly remained silent, her mouth tight with incoming pain or irritation. He’d sensed his sister didn’t particularly like Emily for whatever reason and he cast around for a way to ease the situation.
“How about we grab a coffee somewhere? We could talk about the statue. A sort of informal Spanish-American War Monument Restoration Committee meeting.” Paul assured himself the offer sounded reasonable, and with Shelly along, he wouldn’t be focused too much on Emily. Maybe if Emily and his sister had some time to socialize outside of the town hall, they’d come to like each other more.
Emily nodded. “Sure, I’d like that. Putting some notes together is on my agenda for later today anyway. Along with learning more about sugar beets. Do you know as much about those as you do garden plants?”
“If sugar beets are the topic, I won’t be able to restrain myself.” Paul’s feeble joke resulted in a grin from Emily and a frown from Shelly.
“I don’t care about sugar beets and you don’t either, Paul. I’ve got to sit down now. And not at the diner.” His sister shook her head.
Emily tilted her head back a little at the rebuff and then glanced at him. Shelly abruptly slammed the truck gate closed and limped around to the passenger side, leaving him alone with Emily.
“Her pain meds are wearing off.”
“I can hear you, and I’m ready to leave!” Shelly yelled from the other side of his Scout.
Emily’s green eyes flickered as she glanced in the direction of the shout and then back to him. She sighed and tried to smile.
“You said your dryer wasn’t working?”
“Right, the drum won’t rotate. That’s the right term, isn’t it? Drum?”
Paul wasn’t sure but he nodded anyway, anxious to make up for some of his sister’s rudeness.
“Would you like me to take a look? It might save you the cost of a repair.” Damn, where had that offer come from? Probably from the same place his sudden desire for coffee and conversation had come from.
Emily shifted from foot to foot and pushed back a curl of auburn hair from her shoulder. Her keys tangled in it, and she flinched. He dropped the basket of laundry on the pavement and reached to help her extricate herself. Her hair was smooth and soft, and as he gently pulled at the strands she took a step his way and chuckled. One of her customer loyalty cards had somehow gotten caught on the emerald stud in her ear and since her fingers were threaded through the jump rings, she couldn’t reach to free herself. With a few adjustments, and as few touches to her earlobe as possible, the keys were untangled.
“Pretty earring.” He offered up the feeble compliment to save himself from what he’d really noticed. He was sure telling a woman her neck was beautiful wasn’t acceptable behavior for a parking lot at midday. A blush crept up her cheeks, and she reached up to touch her lobe with a fingertip.
“Thanks, they were a gift. From my mother.”
His immediate concern they were from a boyfriend, fiancé, or husband allayed, Paul wondered if she had any of those relationships with someone. He hadn’t spotted a ring, but that didn’t mean much.
“Come on, Paul! My ice cream’s melting!” Shelly called out as Emily whispered her thanks.
Emily stopped looking at him and glanced at the truck again as she tightened her full lips.
“I…” She began, and Paul sensed she was going to say no in the nicest possible way. Something determined stirred in him, and he decided he’d try again. Maybe
one more refusal from her would be what it took for him to stop thinking about her.
“I can be there in an hour.” He didn’t wait for her to shake her head, but instead leaned down to pick up the basket. By the time he’d stood up, Emily was nodding.
“Sure. That’s fine.” Her cheeks curved with another smile, and warm satisfaction flowed through his body. Now, that was a better outcome than he’d hoped for.
Her eyes left his to inspect her basket, and she said a little “oh” of surprise. Paul glanced down and saw the towel she’d draped over the top of her laundry had slipped during its recent movements, and there was a bright red bra now in plain view. She twitched the towel back into place.
“Where are you parked?”
“Over that way.” Emily gestured toward the farther reaches of the parking lot. “I can carry it back. The ice cream’s melting, after all.”
Her washer and dryer lived in a narrow hallway by the back door of her apartment. There was hardly room for her and a pile of dirty clothes in there, so she leaned on the door frame and watched as Paul took the guts out of her dryer. His lanky body was folded up on the floor she belatedly hoped she’d swept recently, and he was up to one shoulder in the interior of the appliance. He’d arrived at her door a few minutes before, toting a soft-sided tool case, exactly one hour after she’d left him in the grocery parking lot.
She’d expected to feel awkward having a near stranger in her home so unexpectedly, but as soon as he entered and gave her that shy smile of his, her tension drained away to be replaced with increasing curiosity.
“What do you do, besides fix random dryers and war monuments?”
“I haven’t accomplished either yet.”
“Okay, what do you normally do?”
“Now you’re implying I’m normal.”
“You aren’t? Should I be worried?” Emily tried for a fearful tone, but she knew she was smiling. Paul’s dark eyes glinted as he shook his head. A metallic clang echoed from the innards of the dryer, and he turned to peer inside the machine.
“I’m normal,” he assured her.
“Should I leave you alone to concentrate?”
“No, it’s not a complicated repair. Just need to…” Paul’s brow creased as he concentrated on the drama inside the dryer. “It’s just tricky. Whoever designed that belt assembly must have had small fingers.”
Emily watched his hands move as he picked up tools.
“To answer your question, I worked at Kettering Labs as an electrical engineer and then went into consulting.”
Smart man. Emily knew the reputation of Kettering Labs as a think tank that worked on special research projects for all sorts of government agencies. He’d probably helped create laser guns for trained sharks and designed impregnable jails for evil supervillains.
“Are you still consulting?”
“Intermittently.”
“So, I have a brilliant scientist fixing my old dryer. I don’t think I can afford you. Even brand new, this dryer is worth less than an hour of your time.”
“I’m not sure I would go so far as to say brilliant, especially since I haven’t fixed it yet.” He reached for a small wrench just out of range, and she knelt down next to him to hand it over. “I might end up having to buy you a replacement.”
“Should I call for backup?” Emily pulled out her phone and brandished it. She’d had an hour after the uncomfortable encounter in the parking lot to assimilate the fact that kind, soft-spoken Paul Ellison was demanding Shelly Laskey’s brother. It was a small town, and with their similar coloring and features, she should have put it together sooner. This also made her presence on the committee even more perilous; her boss was also a descendant of statue’s model and would likely take every development or delay very personally.
“Not yet.”
She rolled off her knees and settled her back against the wall, liking that she was close to him. It reminded her of riding in his quiet truck. He stopped looking at the mechanical workings and glanced at her as she adjusted her legs and feet in the cramped space. Was she crowding him?
“Are you claustrophobic?”
“No. Please stay there and hand me tools.” He still had one hand inside the dryer while his other rested on the floor near her own. With a lurch in her belly, she remembered how he’d flung up his arm to hold her back when he’d braked the truck so suddenly that night. Today, he was wearing a chambray shirt with the sleeves rolled up enough that she could see the hairs curling across his arms. She wondered what it would feel like to have that much of his bare skin pressed to hers. She swallowed, her throat dry.
“So, Emily. Are you, ah…?” He gave her a quick glance before turning his head to look inside the machine.
“Am I what?”
“Are you enjoying living in Palmer? I know small towns can be hard to fit into. There aren’t a lot of opportunities to go out, meet people, and have fun.”
She shrugged and realized he couldn’t see her. “I’m doing okay. My idea of fun is reading a book or watching a movie at home, which very conveniently fits my budget.”
He returned his gaze to her, and her lungs stopped working for a second. He looked like he wanted to say more, but something rattled inside the dryer, and he frowned and then gestured for a small screwdriver. She handed it over and decided refreshments were in order. Getting into the kitchen and doing something productive, besides staring at Paul Ellison, was probably a good idea.
“Will you…would you like some coffee or tea?”
“Sure.” His voice echoed inside the dryer.
“Which one?”
“Tea?”
“Mint, chamomile, Earl Grey, Darjeeling, Oolong, or Orange Pekoe?” She was showing off and judging by the glint in his eye, he knew it.
“You don’t even have any coffee, do you?”
Spluttering out a laugh, she looked away from his sparkling eyes and stared at her ironing board instead. He was right.
“I have an old jar of instant espresso I use when I make tiramisu.”
“Mmm, do you have any of that lying around?”
“No. I hardly ever make it. It’s not like I need the calories.” Her automatic deflection about her weight tumbled out. She’d fretted over her appearance throughout her teens and twenties but had come to peace with it in the last few years. She had a curvy build, and there was no way to change it, other than to wear well-tailored clothes and avoid unnecessary calories.
Paul set down the wrench and turned his head to look at her with a solemn expression. “What do you mean by that?”
“Come on, you know what I mean.” She knew she was blushing, and the absurdity of talking about something so personal with an electrical engineer while they were seated on the floor in her laundry nook made her self-conscious. She didn’t cross her arms over her chest like she wanted, and she refused to think about what her hips looked like with her legs folded up.
“I really don’t.” He asked her for pliers, and as she handed them over he caught her gaze. “I know weight is a sensitive topic. I think you look…nice.”
In another man, the hesitation might have been insulting, but Paul’s genuine expression and cautious smile warmed her heart instead. “Just nice?”
“That’s all I’m prepared to say at this time.”
Was he blushing? As Emily leaned forward to get a better look, he turned away and looked back into the depths of the dryer. “Almost there. Just another turn and…”
Paul stretched his legs under Emily’s small metal table and looked over her patio. She lived in a brick duplex on a quiet street and had a fenced backyard about the size of a parking space. It was paved with leftover bricks, but she’d brightened it up with lots of plants in worn, terra-cotta pots. She had cherry tomatoes falling over a sago palm and several containers crowded with the last exuberant blooms of begonias. The warm, fall-afternoon light filtered through yellowing maple leaves, and he exhaled a contented sigh.
She was busy rattling aro
und with her teapot while pouring him a cup, and he watched her frown with concentration. She’d put together a tray with a plate of cookies, sugar, milk, and plenty of china bits and pieces.
“This is too fussy,” she declared as she handed him a translucent cup filled with whatever tea she’d picked out. Paul figured he’d be able to tell if it was mint, but all the others she’d rattled off were a mystery.
“I like it.” In order to make good on his assertion, Paul took a hurried sip and jumped as the hot liquid seared his tongue and palate. As he flinched, Emily rose from her seat and handed him a napkin. She was still frowning as she leaned his way.
“Are you all right? I should have warned you it was hot.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” He felt like an idiot, both for gulping down hot tea like an uncouth dolt, and saying such trite things. Her green eyes met his, and he lost his breath a little. That was exactly what he didn’t want. He should be acting entirely normal and calm around Emily, not clumsy and inane. She shifted her gaze to his mouth.
“Are you burned?”
“No.” A lie. His tongue hurt, and his throat was tight.
“That’s a fine way to thank you for your help, scald your mouth. I can get an ice cube to cool it off.”
Her kind offer bloomed in his imagination with a vision of Emily’s soft fingertips trailing a melting piece of ice across his skin, and he shivered. It was an incredibly erotic and impossible thought, and he shook his head to erase the image. Better to examine the sprawling cherry-tomato plant filled with red fruits than stare at her. Better still to take a few more sips of incendiary tea and make his exit before any more random thoughts intruded.
Before she could fluster him anymore, the loud rumble of an unrestrained muffler broke the quiet peace of the afternoon. Emily drew back from regarding him and glanced at her privacy fence.