He found her still in Maureen’s bathroom. Angry mother sounds came from behind a closed door, and he guessed that the twins had had something to do with the overflow. Two large laundry baskets of wet towels were in the bathtub. The floor was damp, but Bonnie, in a blouse and slacks, was on her knees with a strange device that had a handle she rotated.
“Any luck?” He sat on the edge of the tub, thinking that a large percentage of their conversations took place with a toilet between them.
“Not yet. Super Slide Kelly is stuck down there.”
“Who?”
“The twins’ toy. I’m trying to pull it back through rather than force it into the pipes.”
“What’s that thing?”
“A closet auger. There’s a coiled wire out the other end that I’m trying to work around the doll.”
Good Lord, he was carrying on a conversation about plumbing. “I brought you a couple of scones.”
She gave him a quick glance. “I’m kind of in the middle of things here.”
Jaron held out the napkin and fanned the aroma toward her.
“Hmm. Are those warm?”
“You bet.”
She sat back on her heels. “Maybe just break off a little bit.”
He did so and offered it to her. Their eyes met. Desire shot through him, unexpected and fierce. When Bonnie leaned forward and took the piece of scone, he felt her lips against his fingers. She began to chew, and all Jaron could do was stare at her mouth, mesmerized. It was time he acknowledged that he was more than a little attracted to Bonnie Cooper. He was surprised the room wasn’t steaming.
She swallowed.
“More?” His voice was a whispered croak.
“I’d better not.”
Then she went on doing plumbery things—perfectly unaware that she’d knocked Jaron for a loop—until she pulled a doll with platinum-blond hair from the toilet.
“Should I applaud?” Jaron asked, trying to regain some equilibrium.
Bonnie tossed the doll in the sink. “If you wish.” She flushed the toilet and watched the water move through the bowl.
Watching water spin around a toilet bowl with a woman he ached to touch was one of the more surreal experiences of his life. There was definitely something going on between them. Couldn’t she sense it? Did she see the swirling water as a metaphor for their emotions?
Apparently not. “Turn on both tub faucets full blast for me, okay?”
“What about the towels?”
Bonnie shrugged and turned on the sink faucets. “They’re already wet.”
With everything going full blast—not as blasting as Jaron preferred, but he hadn’t complained—Bonnie flushed the toilet again. The water noticeably slowed.
“Hmm. I don’t like that.” She indicated that he should turn off the water. “It looks like Kelly wasn’t the first explorer in these pipes. Come on up to the attic. I want to test the pressure from up there and I need your help.”
“Does that make me a plumber’s helper?”
“Very funny.”
Desire will make a man do strange things, Jaron thought as he followed an oblivious Bonnie upstairs.
He was not accustomed to being in a position where he couldn’t communicate his desire or ascertain whether it was returned. Clearly now was not the time, but though his mind got the message, his body didn’t.
And so after a while, his mind surrendered.
Bonnie was tapping and twisting and doing more plumber things. Jaron was just along for the ride and the opportunity to watch her silky, light purple blouse slide over her skin.
“Okay. I want to listen to the pipes because I think the main line might be partially obstructed, and if I don’t get it fixed now, I’m going to have trouble later.”
“Can you tell just by listening?”
“I know every inch of the plumbing in this place and I know how it should sound.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“If you can help, it’ll be faster. See the water shutoff valves where the sink will be?” She pointed.
Jaron nodded.
“I’m going to open the main valve here, and when I tell you, you’re going to open those. I’ll listen, then I’m going to want everything shut off real fast, ’cause if you don’t, water is going to come shooting out. Those end caps are only temporary.”
“Gotcha.”
“It’s not going to be for very long,” she warned.
“Understood.” It was hardly brain surgery.
“Ready?”
At his nod, Bonnie pressed her ear to the pipe and struggled to open the main cutoff valve.
“Here, let me.” Jaron walked over to help her.
“Stay there. I can get it.” Bonnie reached into her toolbox.
But Jaron figured a good twist would open it. Bracing himself, he grabbed the valve and sharply turned it. He felt a fleeting satisfaction when he felt it move. He was man. He was strong.
Too strong. The valve head twisted off and ended up in his hand.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
JARON STARED AT the silver knob.
“What have you done?”
A rumble sounded below them.
“I—”
“Get out of the way.” Bonnie frantically grabbed a wrench of some sort and began twisting the stub of the valve.
She wasn’t fast enough. Brackish water spurted through the pipes and popped off the end cap of the toilet water line, gushing all over them. Jaron pressed his hands over the open pipes, but only managed to spray the water everywhere. Bonnie kept working with the valve, and in seconds the water was a trickle, then stopped.
There was silence, except for drips splatting on the floor.
Soaked, Bonnie drew a deep breath and turned to him. Just then, the two end caps for the sink shot off, and residual spurts of water christened the pile of nearby Sheetrock.
With a furious look at Jaron, Bonnie grabbed one of the garbage bags by the door and dragged it over. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“I’m sorry.” What more could he say?
Using a screwdriver, she stabbed the garbage bag, ripped it open and dumped the contents. A cloud of sawdust rose, then settled and absorbed the water on the floor. Bonnie, Jaron and the Sheetrock absorbed the rest.
“You’re sorry.” She pointed a trembling finger at the Sheetrock. “That’s ruined.”
“I’ll pay for new,” he offered, then had to add, “when I can access my bank account.”
“Look at this mess!” She ran a hand through her wet hair, leaving sprinkles of sawdust in it. “I gave you a simple job and you couldn’t even do that.”
He was not about to be scolded like a child. “Perhaps if you’d done a better job of installing the valve handle—”
“I told you it was temporary.”
“I’ve apologiz—”
“Oh, my gosh, the wiring! I suppose it got wet, too.” Bonnie rubbed her hands over her wet sleeves. “Congratulations. You’ve undone hours of work.”
That...was...it. Jaron’s tongue hadn’t been sharpened on the whetstone of his column lately, but Bonnie was nowhere in his league for cutting comments. He was preparing to deliver a scathing comment on uppity plumbers when he got a good look at the wet Bonnie.
Her clothes clung to her in a way that settled the question of her figure once and for all. The satin blouse stuck to her body like a second skin. He could see the outline of her bra. It had lace on it. He hadn’t figured Bonnie for a lacy underwear kind of woman.
She glared at him. “It’s freezing in here! You could at least get a towel instead of just standing there!”
He could see the outline of what was in her bra.
“I can’t believe
you did this,” she babbled as her anger grew. “I can’t believe I did this.”
Jaron closed the gap between them.
“Clint is going—”
She broke off when Jaron grasped her by the upper arms. He would never know what she thought Clint was going to do because he was far more interested in kissing her right then. And just before he took her mouth with his, the look in her eyes told him she was more interested in kissing him, too.
He should be furious with her for being furious with him. Instead, he was very, very glad that his arms were full of wet Bonnie and that her lower lip was once again under his dominion. Just to celebrate, he sucked it gently into his mouth.
She gave a little shuddery moan and wrapped her arms around him as though she never intended to let go, which was a-okay with Jaron. His entire body—well, not his entire body—relaxed and shaped itself to her curves.
She fit as though she was made only for him, and she was kissing him back for all she was worth.
Life was good.
She tasted of tea and his scones and Bonnie. Her arms warmed him against the chill of the unheated attic. He splayed his hands across her back to do the same for her. But mostly he just zeroed in on what it felt like to kiss her after trying not to think about kissing her for so long.
He recalled with clarity that she’d found his previous kisses substandard. As a matter of fact, now he did, as well. He knew her now, knew she wasn’t his type, and wanted her anyway. Maybe it was because he’d recently realized that his type was basically useless. Yes, the arts were important, but if he had to choose between one of the paintings in Sydney’s former gallery or indoor plumbing, he’d choose the plumbing. And if Bonnie installed it, he’d have art, as well. Maybe that was the key to her attraction—Bonnie was a practical artist.
She was also an enthusiastic kisser, and Jaron wasn’t about to do anything that might curb that enthusiasm. They explored each other, tasted each other, and breathed with each other. Jaron could feel heat rising from their damp clothes.
They should get out of their damp clothes. Without breaking the kiss, he brought his hand between them and unbuttoned the top button of her blouse. He was working on the second when he realized that the pounding he heard was not the blood in his head, but someone running up the stairs.
The door slammed open and Bonnie and Jaron broke apart. A breathless Keegan stood there, staring at them, obviously trying to decide if he should leave or not.
“What is it?” Bonnie asked in a near normal tone of voice.
Wait a minute. How could she sound so calm? Jaron wondered. He wasn’t calm. She shouldn’t be, either.
“Mom sent me up here to find out what happened.” He looked around. “Sh—”
“Keegan!”
He rolled his eyes. “Shoot. There. I said shoot, so you don’t have to go reporting to Dad.”
“Have I ever reported your language to your father?” Bonnie asked.
“Nah. You’re pretty cool. So what happened up here?” He nudged the sawdust pile with his foot.
Jaron was pretty sure he wasn’t referring to the kiss he’d interrupted.
Bonnie pushed her damp hair behind her ears. Jaron thought he saw her hand tremble. Maybe she wasn’t as calm as he thought. “I was testing the pipes and couldn’t get the valve closed in time.”
Jaron spoke up. “I broke off the valve.” It was his fault. She didn’t have to protect him.
“The result is the same. Could you get some more trash bags from Maureen for us?”
Keegan’s gaze shifted from one of them to the other. “Okay.” He turned and pounded down the stairs.
Jaron heard him yelling the gory details to Maureen and everyone within a four-state area.
“Well.” Bonnie looked everywhere but at him.
Jaron touched her chin until she looked up at him. “We’re past the awkward stage.”
“You may be, but I’m not. I mean, if Keegan hadn’t come up here...” She put both hands to her cheeks. “Or if he’d come about ten minutes later...” She groaned.
“I’d like a rain check on those ten minutes.”
He could see doubt setting in. “Jaron...”
Footsteps sounded again. Keegan, with his usual impeccable timing, had arrived with a box of garbage bags. Until today, Jaron had had nothing against Keegan, but the kid was putting a serious cramp in his progress with Bonnie.
“I’m finished with my homework. You want some help cleaning up?”
That was suspiciously nice of him, Jaron thought.
Bonnie must not have thought so. “Sure.” She got the two push brooms that had been leaning against the wall by the day’s trash and handed one to Keegan, which left Jaron twiddling his thumbs.
He eyed the Sheetrock. It had acted like a sponge, which was bad for it, but good for stopping the water from doing further damage.
“Don’t go near any of the outlets,” Bonnie warned Keegan.
“Okay.”
“Shall I put the wet parts of the Sheetrock in bags?” Jaron asked. “Some of it’s salvageable.”
Bonnie leaned her broom against the wall and came over to the soggy pile. “Maybe Seth and Clint can use some smaller pieces.” She walked over to Seth’s worktable and picked up a small black-handled tool. “This is a drywall saw. Use it to cut away the wet parts.”
The saw didn’t look big enough to hurt him. Jaron got to work. The drywall was frighteningly easy to cut and the wet parts just disintegrated. And this was the stuff walls were made of?
“Can I ask you guys something?” Keegan had amassed an impressive pile of wet sawdust.
“Sure,” Bonnie answered.
“You’re engaged, right?”
Uh-oh.
“Right,” she confirmed.
“Well...how did you get together? I mean, how did you find each other and know you wanted to get married?”
“Whoa.” Bonnie puffed out her cheeks.
Jaron rescued her. “The short answer is that my mother and Bonnie’s aunt Cokie introduced us.”
“Why?”
“They thought we’d like each other.”
“And you did. Wow.” Keegan was silent, and neither Bonnie nor Jaron corrected him. “See, that’s what I want to do for my dad. He misses my mom.”
“I knew your mother,” Jaron said quietly.
Keegan’s eyes grew round.
“We met at a gallery.”
“Yeah, she liked paintings and stuff.”
“She was a vibrant woman.” When he saw Keegan hanging on his every word, Jaron told a couple of stories about Kristin Cooper.
Bonnie listened, quietly filling a garbage sack with some of the wet gypsum he’d sawed off.
Keegan questioned him until he was satisfied that he’d heard everything Jaron had to tell him. “I want to find a lady like my mom so my dad can marry her and be happy again.”
“Well, Keegan, it’s not that simple,” Bonnie told him.
“I know that. He never meets anybody but tourists, and they don’t stick around. There’s one lady who stays here sometimes. Dr. Dorn is her grandfather.”
“Oh, you mean Emma Hart.”
“The radio talk-show host?” Jaron raised his eyebrows. Emma Hart’s show was for adults only. Extreme Talk Radio, they called it.
“Yeah. She talks a lot like my mom and she’s pretty, so I asked her if she wanted to go out with my dad, but she already had a boyfriend.” Keegan slumped over the broom handle. “I’m having a hard time finding anybody for him, so when I do find somebody, I want to get it right.” He straightened. “So I want to know what you guys had to do to fall in love.”
* * *
BONNIE SMILED, but inside she was laughing hysterically. She hadn’t had to
do anything to fall in love. Love had come to her with all the finesse of a hit in the head. And she’d barely had time to deal with that before Jaron had kissed her.
No, that wasn’t kissing. That was fusing. They’d separated so abruptly, she felt as though part of her had been torn away. And now, Keegan was asking her about love because he thought she was in love, which she was, but Jaron thought she was pretending, which she wasn’t.
But Keegan was waiting for an answer, and Jaron, after kindly telling him stories about his mother, hadn’t given him one. It was up to Bonnie.
“I believe you have to get to know the person first. It helps if you don’t always see him on a date, where you’re using your date manners. You need to see him as he really is. How does he treat other people? How does he treat his family? What is important to him? Are those things important to you, and so on. And then, one day, you realize that you’re happier with that person than without him and...” She trailed off because she didn’t know what happened next. She knew it wasn’t to fake an engagement so it would be easier to hide from the mob.
“And you get married,” Keegan finished for her, which was good because Bonnie had grown a sudden lump in her throat.
Jaron wasn’t thinking in happily-ever-after terms. He was thinking in ten-minute terms. Bonnie didn’t want to be a ten-minute fling—and by golly, if she did have a fling, it had better be longer than ten minutes.
“You have to be ready to love,” Jaron said. “You have to know who you are first and be comfortable with that before you can love, because love changes you.”
“It does?”
“Hasn’t being without the woman he loves changed your father?”
Keegan nodded solemnly.
“When you’re in love, you see yourself and the world in a different way. Have you told your father that you’re okay with him dating someone?”
Keegan shook his head.
“Try that,” Jaron counseled.
So Jaron believed that love changed a person. It sounded as if he was speaking from experience, but Bonnie couldn’t tell if he thought changes were good or bad.
A little while later, they finished cleaning up the mess and Keegan left, taking one of the heavy trash bags with him.
After Darke Page 18