The Makeover Prescription

by Christy Jeffries

  He took a step back, bumping into a stack of fleece blankets. He needed to lighten this discussion up, fast, before he did something stupid. “Forget the details. So you make the ideal-man list. And then what? You go out shopping for a guy like you would a refrigerator?”

  Julia inhaled deeply, then tested the satiny softness of a down-filled pillow above her head. The motion caused her shirt to pull against her chest again, and he saw the faint outline of her lace bra underneath. Maybe they should make their way to the bath department to look at something less inviting. Like toilet plungers.

  “Wouldn’t that be nice and simple?” she said, a dreamy look on her face. “I could just bring in my notepad and show it to Paulie, the salesman, and poof!” She snapped her fingers. “He could fix everything for me. No more being the wallflower and not fitting in at parties.”

  Kane would’ve been saddened by her words if his blood wasn’t pumping in disgust over the thought of someone fake and phony like Paulie Loudmouth seeing to her needs. Which led to him thinking about the slimy salesman or some another jerk sharing that pillow with her. Taking advantage of her natural innocence. Her naïveté with people could really get her into trouble in a dating situation...

  The runaway train of thought made his chest constrict with concern—and his lungs fill with jealousy. And before he could consider what he was saying, Kane heard himself suggest, “You know, I could help you find a guy.”

  Chapter Seven

  Thankfully, Julia’s cell phone rang and she’d been called in to assist with a complicated emergency surgery seconds after he’d made the impulsive offer. Well, not thankfully for Corporal Rosenthal, who had been touch and go for a while after the removal of the blood clot in his brain. But at least she’d been saved the embarrassment of taking Kane up on his offer to find her a plus-one for the hospital gala.

  Especially after she’d caught him staring at her lips in the bedding aisle and had held her breath, hoping he would volunteer to go as her date. Oh, who was she kidding? Standing so close to him, she’d been hoping he’d offer a lot more than that.

  But he hadn’t even touched her, let alone kissed her, and the hollowness of disappointment was just as fresh several hours later.

  Julia stood in the middle of the officers’ locker room, stretching out the muscles in her lower back. When she got the call earlier today...wait. She looked at the clock on the wall. It was after oh four hundred. Make that yesterday. When she’d gotten the emergency call yesterday, Kane had abandoned the loaded shopping cart in an empty aisle and had driven her straight to the hospital. He didn’t say a word—not that he could’ve spoken much since she’d been on the phone getting briefed by the head ER doctor—and she hadn’t allowed herself to think about anything beyond what awaited her in the operating room.

  In fact, Julia wasn’t even sure what had happened to her car until she’d gotten out of surgery and saw his text message, before she’d accidentally deleted it. Apparently he’d parked it in long-term parking and called for a ride home. The fact that he’d volunteered to help her “find a guy” made it pretty clear that he was of the same mindset she was when it came to dating. Or at least, when it came to dating her. Still, after with the deal he’d gotten on her appliances yesterday, as well as the extra time he’d had to put in, she found herself in Kane’s debt once again.

  Julia wondered who he possibly could’ve called to pick him up at the base hospital. Sure, he probably had a family or maybe even friends nearby. But he seemed like even more of a loner than she was. Which made it all the more odd that he thought he could help her find a suitable date. Actually, he’d never said suitable. Her mind flashed back to the angry old cowboy he’d been arguing with in the Cowgirl Up Café that morning he’d acted like he was being poisoned by vegetables. She could only imagine what kind of guy Kane would come up with on his own.

  And that brought her back to her original thought. Her emergency call had saved her from having to decline his offer. Although she would decline it, eventually. If she could figure out a way to do it without making her sink into a hole with shame. She was already having difficulty explaining to her Aunt Freckles about boundaries and registering an online dating profile in Julia’s name. Misreading Kane’s intentions and crossing the line of professionalism was too big of a risk for her to take.

  She took a quick shower before heading out to the parking lot, where she’d found the key fob under the front passenger-side tire, right where Kane’s text said it would be.

  The leather interior smelled of his spicy, masculine scent, and when she started the engine, the satellite radio shot to life, the volume at a much higher decibel level than any audiologist would recommend. The display screen told her that Louis Jordan was playing on the jazz station. Not that Julia was one to categorize people or rely on stereotypes, but this was the second time she’d found herself surprised at the musical choice of a simple contractor from a simple town. But she tapped her fingers against the gearshift and let the piano and trombone melodies carry her up the mountain toward Sugar Falls.

  Kane was proving to be quite a contradiction of what she’d first expected and she made a mental note to find out more about him. After all, the last time she’d allowed herself to be so naive about a man she’d been dating, Julia had been devastated by the truth.

  Wait. She and Kane weren’t dating. They weren’t even friends. She forced her fingers to relax on the steering wheel as she chastised herself for comparing her contractor—who didn’t owe her any explanations because she was not in a relationship with him—to Stewart Morsely, who’d purposely kept her in the dark about his real life.

  Ella Fitzgerald was fittingly crooning when Julia was at last turning off Snowflake Boulevard. The sun had barely crested the twin pine trees behind her house, and though she was relieved finally to be home, Julia sighed at the realization that she still needed to go back to the store and finish shopping today.

  When she pulled into her driveway, she saw several cardboard boxes broken down and stacked next to her recycling bin. Upon closer inspection, she recognized the box from the knife set she’d wanted yesterday, as well as several others that had once contained measuring cups, dishes and even a KitchenAid stand mixer in pale blue.

  Her cell phone rang, and she headed toward the front door, answering her aunt’s call as she fumbled with her house keys. “Morning, Aunt Freckles.”

  “Morning, Sug. Did you get the introductory email from the An Apple a Day website?”

  “Actually, I got it but I barely had time to glance at it.”

  “The ad said it’s the premier dating service for singles in the medical profession. They even have a little apple-shaped app icon. We can download the app to your phone, and you can get suggested matches no matter where you are.”

  Julia didn’t have the heart to point out her concerns with the marketing strategy behind naming a company after an old adage that promised to keep the doctor away. “I’ll try to check it out when I get a moment.”

  “You don’t have a lot of free moments, Sug. The gala is only a few weeks away. That’s why I’m taking the liberty of speeding up this date-finding business for you.” Oh great. It was a business now? “Anyway, I got your text yesterday about getting called into surgery and not being able to finish your shopping trip. You want me to come by this afternoon after the breakfast rush and we can have a second go-round?”

  “Uh...hold that thought.” Julia walked into her kitchen, the temporary sawhorse table cleaned off and the overhead cabinets snugly installed. She opened a cupboard door to find it filled with glasses. If Freckles hadn’t gone back to the store to buy the stuff Julia had picked out, then who had?

  She made her way into the butler’s pantry and saw the top-of-the-line knife set sitting on a shelf, along with several other small appliances. There was a note next to the expensive-looking toaster that said
“Put stuff in here till I get countertops installed. Maybe Monday.” It wasn’t signed, but she recognized Kane’s scratchy handwriting.

  “Sug? You still there?”

  “Oh, yes. Sorry, Freckles. No, I don’t need to go shopping today. It looks like Kane took care of it.”

  “You’re kidding,” her aunt said, and hearing the cackling laughter, Julia could almost picture the woman slapping her jeans-clad thigh. “I guess there’s a lot more to that boy than a good throwing arm. No, Monica, those are the bowls for the fruit cups, not the oatmeal.”

  “Listen,” Julia said, before her aunt became too engrossed in training the new waitress while she waited on the other end of the line. “I’m going to catch a little bit of sleep. Maybe you can tell me what you mean by ‘good throwing arm’ when we get together for dinner tonight?”

  “Uh, tonight won’t work for me,” Freckles said, her voice pitched lower than normal. “I have, uh, plans.”

  Julia would’ve pressed her aunt for more details on what those plans might be—and whom they might involve—but she was still trying to figure out when Kane had time to play the home-goods fairy and install half of her kitchen cupboards.

  So instead, she said goodbye, then fired off a quick text to the mysterious man. Did you buy all this?

  She didn’t get a response. It was then that she noticed someone had also made a run to Duncan’s Market—the only grocery store in town—because one of the pantry shelves was stocked with cereal, crackers, granola bars, pasta and jars of gourmet vegetarian sauces.

  Julia’s sigh was almost as loud as the rumbling coming from her stomach. She would have to pay him back, of course, or maybe he’d bill her in a future invoice. Either way, she hadn’t eaten since that meal at the Bacon Palace. She was excited just to have a bowl to pour some cereal into. Until she realized she still wouldn’t have her refrigerator until it was delivered tomorrow. Which meant no milk.

  Just then, she spied the cooler at the opposite end of the kitchen. Unless...nah...he wouldn’t have taken the time to—yep. There was a quart of milk nestled on some fresh ice, along with a six-pack of her favorite soda.

  Bless Kane Chatterson. Julia found a spoon in a silverware tray near the sink in the mudroom, which was the only functioning source of water downstairs. The man had even washed everything before putting it away. She was going to have to pay him a bonus.

  She carried the bowl of raisin bran upstairs, trying not to wonder how he knew her preference for raisins, but stopped in her tracks when she saw a new down comforter spread out over her air mattress in the center of the bedroom. She knew she hadn’t even made her bed before leaving the house yesterday. Mostly because it had been the first morning she’d woken up without a maid to do it for her or without a higher-ranking naval official directing her to do it.

  But also because she was positive that she hadn’t actually selected a comforter yesterday at the store. In fact, if she remembered correctly, she was still looking at sheets, thinking about kissing him, when Kane had made his impractical offer—which, suddenly, after Freckles’s An Apple a Day suggestion, didn’t seem so silly.

  She looked at the crisp Egyptian cotton pillowcases covering what she suspected were brand-new fluffy pillows. Yet before she could think of the intimate implications of Kane Chatterson selecting her bedding, her cell phone rang again. She sat down at the edge of the air mattress as she spoke with the on-call neurologist who was following up on Corporal Rosenthal’s care. After being reassured of her patient’s condition, she didn’t give her pillows or her inappropriate attraction to her handsome contractor another thought as she sank onto her freshly made bed and promptly fell asleep.

  * * *

  Kane saw Julia’s text message when he woke up late Sunday morning. But he had a feeling she’d stayed up much later than he had, and he didn’t want to disturb her with what was an obvious answer. Who else would have gone back to buy the stuff in her Bed Bath & Beyond cart and then spend all evening installing her overhead cupboards?

  Not that he had anything better to do on a Saturday night. Two years ago around this time of day, he would’ve just been rolling in from a night of drinking and celebrating, catching a couple of hours of sleep before being expected to pitch the opening of a Sunday afternoon game. Once he committed to something, Kane didn’t believe in doing anything half-assed. And partying had been no exception.

  Not that he missed that particular aspect of his former life. In fact, toward the end of his career, he’d been spiraling more and more out of control. Like a foul ball spinning its way into the cheap seats. And he’d always known baseball wouldn’t be forever. His body currently appreciated the slower pace of small-town life, but his restless mind sometimes needed more stimulation than what Sugar Falls had to offer.

  He was itching to finish the lower kitchen cabinets at the Pinecone Court house, but he didn’t want to disturb Julia if she was sleeping in. Plus, after that near kiss and his unexpected reaction to the thought of her dating, he didn’t think it was a good idea to be too close to her right now. Knowing in his head that there was no way he’d actually act on his attraction was one thing. Communicating that rational thought to his nerve endings was another matter.

  Just thinking about the way her lace bra had cupped the perfect shape of her breasts had Kane’s palms sweating. Today it’d be much safer for him to get out of his house and do something that would get him refocused.

  Maybe he’d go over to his sister’s house, and offer to babysit his twin nieces. Or maybe he’d stop in at Russell’s Sports and he and his buddy Alex could take a couple of the guys from the support group and a raft down the Sugar River rapids. Hell, if he really wanted to live dangerously, he could call up the nine-year-old Gregson twins—who technically were Drew’s nephews, not his, but still called him Uncle Kane—and offer to take them on a mountain bike ride.

  Deciding he needed a healthy dose of adrenaline and fear, he called Drew and made arrangements to do all three.

  * * *

  When Kane showed up at Julia’s house on Monday morning, his injured shoulder should have been in a sling. But he’d swallowed down a few ibuprofens with his morning decaf and hauled his tool bag out of his backseat. Today, the kitchen would get done even if it killed him.

  He needed to finish working on Dr. Smarty-Pants’s house and move on to the next job. That way, he wouldn’t be distracted by thoughts of her waking up wrapped up in that stupid down comforter he shouldn’t have bought.

  The basset hound he’d noticed the day she moved in was sitting on her front porch, and he moved toward the dog slowly, not knowing how friendly Julia’s pet might be with strangers. He hadn’t seen it that night he’d installed the overhead cupboards, but he wasn’t paying attention to a lot of things lately. Or maybe Freckles took care of the animal when she was gone.

  It let out a low growl. Kane, knowing he needed an ally if he was expected to work alongside the animal, reached into the white bag he’d picked up at the bakery on his way over and tossed a doughnut to the dog. The yeasty treat was gone in a second, and the pooch was licking its sugar-covered snout when Julia opened the front door.

  “Oh, hi,” she said, shifting the strap of her black bag higher onto her shoulder. “I was just heading off to work. But I’m glad I got to see you before I left. I wanted to thank you for...” Just then the hound walked over to its owner and sniffed Julia’s hand.

  “I think he’s hoping for another treat,” Kane explained when Julia seemed puzzled by her pet’s response to her.

  “A treat?”

  “Yeah, Mr. Donut and I were just having a little manly breakfast out here before getting to work.”

  “Oh. Um, okay.” Julia scrunched her nose as the dog wiggled its butt and waddled inside the house. Maybe she was one of those people who didn’t give animals human food and didn’t appreciate stranger
s taking liberties with their pets.

  Kane wasn’t taking a chance on making his work environment any more awkward than he’d already made it when he’d brought up the subject of dating and almost kissed his client. “I hope you don’t mind.”

  “No. Of course not. You and Mr. Donut should eat whatever you like. But back to what I was saying. I wanted to thank you for returning to the store on Saturday and getting all that stuff for the house. I couldn’t find a receipt, but let me know how much it all cost and I’ll write you a check.”

  His throat constricted with annoyance at her money reference and he waved his hand. “We can settle up later.”

  She pursed her lips as if she was biting back an argument. Instead she said, “I’m so sorry I left you stranded at the hospital like that.”

  “No problem. Really. Don’t even give it another thought.” Please, Kane pleaded silently. Let’s not talk about that day anymore, or how I wanted to press you up against that display of seven-hundred-thread-count sheets and kiss you until you couldn’t think of a single quality on your damn man list.

  To distract them both, he outlined his plans for what he hoped to get accomplished by this afternoon, and she nodded, stepping closer to him as her eyes followed the dog, which would occasionally walk by the open front door as he sniffed his way from room to room. Kane heard the lurch of a loud engine, and his sore arm brushed against Julia’s soft sweater as they both turned to look at the delivery truck lumbering down the street.

  He had no idea she’d been standing that close, and despite the sturdiness of his flannel shirt, Kane could feel the hair rise on his chest. It was all he could do not to think about the tingling sensation or the fact that he’d now accidentally touched her like that twice. Even he had to wonder how much of an accident it could be.

  “I hate to run off like this, but do you think you can show them where to put everything?” Her breath was warm and tinged with the lemon-lime smell of her morning beverage of choice. He could only imagine how sweet she would taste.