My earlier feelings of joy evaporated, and my tone was sharper than I’d intended. “We can do it another time, Marcus. You don’t have to put your life on hold to help me with my project, you know.”
He was silent and I wished I could take my words back.
“If you don’t want me to help you, then I understand.” He paused. “If you have . . . others . . . to help, just tell me.”
Heat flooded my face. He thought Cameron was going to help. What a joke. “I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I do need your help. I just . . . well, I guess I just don’t want you to feel obligated.”
“Lily, how many times do I have to go over this with you? I’m happy to help you. Really.”
I sighed. “If you need to postpone, I understand. It’s not a big deal.”
“No. I’ll be there, but I’ll just be a little late.” He seemed to hesitate. “You might want to have dinner without me tonight.”
“Oh. Okay.” So this did involve Chelsea. “I’ll see you when you get here.”
When he finally arrived, tools in hand, his mood seemed subdued and I wondered what had happened.
“Natalie’s already gone to bed,” I said as I followed him into the kitchen.
“We’ll try to keep the noise down then.” He set his tools on the kitchen floor and turned to me. “I’m sorry about our conversation earlier.”
I shook my head. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”
He clenched his jaw. “It was kind of stressful at work today.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s already forgotten.”
He smiled, and his mood seemed to improve. “Great. Let’s get started then.”
We spent the rest of the evening ripping up the vinyl in the kitchen.
“I think that’s enough work for one day,” he said as he swept up the last of the debris. “Tomorrow we can start on the cement board.”
I stared at the wood subfloor and frowned. “Now that we’ve started, I hope we can get it done soon. I hate to think of Natalie crawling on this.”
“It shouldn’t take too long.”
Friday evening Marcus came over and I wondered how Chelsea felt about him spending a Friday evening with me, but shrugged it off—I had enough problems of my own without worrying about hers.
“I made us dinner,” I said, setting out the casserole I’d baked.
“Smells great,” he said.
Natalie sat in her high chair and worked on a baby cracker while we ate.
“How many teeth does she have now?” Marcus asked, watching her.
“Just two.”
He smiled at her and she smiled back. “It sure is fun seeing her personality develop.”
“I know. It’s hard to remember what life was like before she was here.” My brow creased. “Or to imagine what life would be like without her.”
Marcus turned to me. “That won’t happen again. He’s gone now and no one can take her from you.”
I smiled. “I know. But I can’t help thinking about what happened. It was so terrifying.”
He nodded. “I can’t even imagine what you must have felt.”
I was quiet for a minute, then I shook my head. “Enough of that. I’d rather think about the present. When Mary called me to say I had to move, I felt panic, but look where I ended up.” I gestured to the space we sat in. “It all turned out great in the end.” I smiled at Marcus. “And thanks to you, it will be even better soon.”
“Are you ready to get started?”
“Yes.”
After cleaning up, Marcus began laying the cement board. I watched as he spread thin set on the sub floor.
“Do you want me to do that? I mean, it is my house.”
On his hands and knees, he looked up at me. “If you want to do it, then you can. But I’m fine with doing it.”
I held Natalie on my hip and smiled down at him. “Well, if you’re okay doing it, then I’m good with giving you moral support.”
He laughed and turned back to the task.
I continued to watch. “You make it look easy,” I finally said as he scooped out some thin set and dropped it on the floor, then began spreading it with the notched trowel.
“Thanks. It’s really not that hard.”
After I put Natalie to bed, I watched as he screwed the cement board to the subfloor, and I was glad he was fine with doing the hard labor.
When he finished, he turned to me with a smile. “Since tomorrow’s Saturday, we’ll have lots of time to put in all the tile. I’m borrowing a tile saw from a buddy, so we should be able to get the whole thing done.”
I laughed. “I like how you say ‘we’, but really, it’s ‘you’.”
He grinned. “It makes me happy to do this for you.”
Love towards him rushed through me, and I smiled, but deep inside I felt an ache in my heart that he would never be more than a friend.
“I’ll come over first thing and we’ll get started on the tile,” he said.
Pushing aside my melancholy, I nodded. “I’m excited to see what it looks like with the tile in.”
“Once it’s in, we’ll let it set for a day, and then on Monday night we can grout it.”
“Okay.”
By the time he arrived the next morning, I’d already fed Natalie and we were ready to get started.
“I’ll set the tile saw up on the back patio,” he said.
Before long we were laying tile on the kitchen floor, and I was able to see it taking shape. “I really like this,” I said as I handed a tile to Marcus.
“Yeah, I think you made a good choice.”
We worked for several hours, then when it was time to mix up a new batch of thin set, we stopped to take a break. I’d put Natalie down for a nap, and Greta was locked outside, so it was just the two of us. I spread a blanket out on the carpet in the family room, then set out the sandwiches I’d made.
I’d been thinking about what Marcus had said about how helping me made him feel happy. It was one thing to help me out a little, but he was going above and beyond. Why? Was it possible his feelings ran deeper than friendship? The mere possibility filled me with hope and I considered asking him, but fear that he’d shoot me down again made me hesitate.
He must have sensed that I had something on my mind, because as we sat quietly together eating, he said, “What are you thinking about, Lily?”
My eyes met his, and I paused, then decided I’d had enough of guessing. “I was just thinking about what you said last night. About how helping me made you happy.”
He smiled and his green eyes sparkled. “Yeah?”
Now what? I thought. “What else makes you happy?” I finally said.
He was quiet for a minute. “Really, it’s spending time with those I care about.”
Chelsea’s face flashed into my mind, and I stared at the floor before meeting Marcus’s gaze. My heart pounded as I opened my mouth, and after a moment I gathered the courage to speak. “Like Chelsea?” I watched his face, waiting for confirmation that we had no future together.
He looked confused. “What?”
Painful as it was, evidently he needed me to spell it out. “I know you’ve been dating a woman named Chelsea. Does she make you happy?” As I looked at his face, I realized that if I truly loved him, if she was the one who made him happy, I would need to step aside. And I would do it. For him.
His brow creased and he shook his head. “What makes you think I’m dating Chelsea?”
“Aren’t you?”
He shook his head.
My eyebrows rose as the truth dawned on me. He wasn’t dating Chelsea. Trish had lied to me. But why? Regardless, I didn’t want to be responsible for putting a wedge between him and his mother. “I guess I assumed that. I know she helped your mother plan your party.” That was partly true, and I hated not telling him everything, but I didn’t feel comfortable calling his mother a liar.
He laughed and shook his head. “I did go on a few dates with her.”
“And my mom did get her involved in planning my party, but I think my mom likes her a lot more than I do.”
“Oh.”
“So to answer your question, no, I’m not dating her.”
A feeling of lightness swept over me, and I smiled.
“What about you?” he asked. “What makes you happy?”
You do, I wanted to say. “Natalie makes me happy. And this house makes me happy.” My smile brightened. “And having you help me makes me happy.”
His smile dimmed. “What about your friend? Cameron?”
I laughed softly, ready to tell him we’d broken up, then I remembered the promise I’d made to Trish. But now that I knew he wasn’t dating Chelsea, why would it matter if he knew Cameron and I were no longer seeing each other? Then, in shattering clarity, it all came together. Trish doesn’t want her son to get involved with me. I felt my heart drop. What did she find so abhorrent about me and Natalie that she would lie to me, and then manipulate me to mislead her son about Cameron?
I felt my face redden, and suddenly I felt inadequate, like damaged goods, even though I knew I’d done nothing wrong.
Marcus obviously saw my discomfort, although he misread the reason behind it. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me about him.”
Mixed feelings, raw and bright, pulsed through me. Shame for lying to Marcus, Trish, and Jeff when I’d first met them, setting the stage for her to distrust me. Guilt for making a bad choice in Trevor that led me to this place in my life. Joy that I had Natalie, despite all that had happened. Gratitude that Marcus was in my life, even if we were only going to ever be friends. And finally, despair that I would never find lasting happiness.
Hot tears pushed at the backs of my eyes, and I stood, not about to sob in front of Marcus again. “I need to check on Natalie,” I said, using my go-to excuse.
“Okay.”
I could feel his eyes on me as I went down the hall and into the master bathroom. I locked the door behind me and pressed my palms flat against the counter as I gazed at myself in the mirror. Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, I chanted to myself, not wanting to end up with the tell-tale red eyes that would give away my emotion. I blinked several times and swallowed around the lump that had formed in my throat, then splashed cool water onto my warm cheeks.
I breathed in and out slowly, getting myself under control, then finally left the room, stopping to check on Natalie on my way back to the kitchen. She was still asleep. When I reached the kitchen, I saw Marcus on the patio, cutting a piece of tile, and I sighed, relieved to be able to focus on the task at hand.
He came inside, gave me a quick smile, then spread thin set on the back of the tile and put it in place, adding spacers near the corners. “Looks like we should get this done before the day’s over,” he said.
I nodded. “That’s great.”
“Can you hand me a full-size tile?”
“Sure.” I picked one up and held it toward him, and as he took it from me, his hand brushed mine. A current of energy surged between us, and he paused and looked at me, an unreadable expression on his face.
“Thanks,” he said, a smile lifting his lips, then he spread thin set on the tile and placed it in position.
I stared at the back of his head, an overpowering feeling of love sweeping over me. I love you, I thought fervently. Then in barely a whisper I said, “I love you.”
His head whipped in my direction. “What? What did you say?”
My eyes wide, I shook my head. “Nothing.”
He stared at me a moment, then pushed the tile into place, moving it back and forth to seat it in the thin set.
I pressed my hand to my mouth, mortified that he’d heard me, and shocked at myself that I’d uttered the phrase out loud. Then my gaze went to his face. I could only see his profile, but it looked like he was smiling.
Chapter Thirty
Natalie cried out from her bedroom, and I walked away from the kitchen and toward her room, my face crimson.
He heard you, I thought. He knows what you said.
And he seems happy about it.
Not sure what this meant, and not daring to hope, I lifted Natalie from her crib and held her warm, sleepy body against me. After changing her diaper, I carried her to the family room and put her in the high chair.
Marcus was outside cutting tile again, and I smiled as I gazed at the way his body moved as he worked—so sure of what he was doing. I opened a fresh jar of baby food, and began spooning the food into Natalie’s mouth. When I heard the back door sliding open, I turned to see Marcus coming inside. He smiled at me, and I thought I saw a twinkle in his eyes.
Carrying the cut tile, he paused next to Natalie’s high chair and smiled down at her. “Is that good?” he asked her. She smiled back, her mouth moving as she ate, and he laughed. He glanced at me, went into the kitchen, buttered the tile, and placed in its proper place, then placed spacers around it.
My gaze kept wandering over to him as I fed Natalie, and when she was done, I set her on the carpet to crawl around. She wanted to crawl to Marcus, so I had to keep picking her up and moving her away from him. “She really likes you, Marcus,” I said as I picked her up for the fourth time.
“She does, huh?”
I noticed the subtle emphasis he put on the word ‘she’, and felt myself blush as he watched me. I nodded.
He set spacers in the corners of the tile he’d just placed, then looked at me, his expression becoming more serious. “When is Cameron going to come see your new place?”
“He’s not,” I said, before I had time to reconsider.
Marcus tilted his head to one side. “Oh?”
“We’re not seeing each other anymore.” There. I’d said it. And I only felt a little guilty for breaking my promise to Trish.
“Oh.” Marcus gazed at me a moment. “Can you hand me a tile?”
That’s it? Now I felt really foolish for the three words I’d uttered before Natalie woke up. I picked up a tile and held it out to him.
As he reached for it, his eyes met mine, and I felt immobilized by his magnetism. “Thank you, Lily.”
I let go of the tile and he turned his attention to the bucket of thin set, scooping some out and placing it on the back of the tile, then scraping the notched trowel across it, forming deep grooves. I stood there as he placed the tile in position and moved it back and forth to create adhesion, then placed the spacers at the corners.
He looked up at me and smiled. “I think it’s time for you to try this.”
“What about Natalie?” I pointed to her as she picked up one of her toys.
“She seems to be occupied.” He stood and motioned to the place he’d left off. “Come on, Lily. I’ll help you.”
I remembered the last time he’d helped me with a project—putting in the dog door at my last place—and felt my body burn with desire. “Okay,” I said, kneeling in the place where he’d been.
He knelt nearby and handed me a tile and the trowel. “You’ve been watching me all morning, so I think you know what to do.”
I nodded. “Okay.” I scooped out some thin set and dropped it onto the back of the tile, which I balanced on the palm of my left hand. It was heavy and I found it awkward to hold it steady with only one hand as I attempted to butter the back. “This is harder than it looks.”
He laughed. “You’ll get the hang of it.”
The grooves on the back of the tile looked nothing like the neat, even lines he always created. “Uh, I don’t think this is quite right.”
“Well, let me help you with that. If it’s too thick, the tile won’t be level with the ones next to it.”
“Oh. That would be bad.”
“Yes.” He knelt behind me and put his arms around me, helping me hold the tile in my left hand with his left hand, and then he
placed his right hand over mine on the trowel.
My heart rate skyrocketed and I closed my eyes, relishing his warm, muscular body pressed against mine.
“Are you paying attention, Lily?” he murmured in my ear.
My entire body was at attention, only not to what he was trying to teach me. “Yes.” My voice came out in a whisper and I opened my eyes as I tried to focus on his lesson.
“You need to use the trowel like this.” His voice was deep and soft next to my ear, and his breath was warm and smelled of mint. His hand guided mine until the grooves were right.
I turned my head toward his until our lips were nearly touching, but I could only see him with my peripheral vision. “Thank you,” I murmured. I saw his lips turn up into a smile and I longed for him to kiss me.
He pulled back slightly. “Now place the tile in the next open space.”
Trying to be a good student, I did as instructed, and wiggled the tile back and forth like I’d seen him do. “How’s that?” I asked, looking for praise.
“You did a good job.”
I smiled, proud of myself, but also wishing I needed his direct assistance again.
“Now, place the spacers around the edges, and make sure the tile is pressed up tight to the one next to it.”
I want to be pressed up tight to you. I felt myself heat at the thought, and was glad he couldn’t see my face. When I was done, I turned slightly to see his reaction.
He examined my work, then looked directly at me and smiled. “Good job. Now let’s see you do one all by yourself.”
Feeling more confident, I picked up a tile, then saw Natalie crawling toward us. “Uh oh. The little helper’s coming.” I looked at Marcus and he looked at his hands, which had thin set in places.
He laughed. “I’ll lure her away from you.”
“Okay.” I watched as he walked across the sheet we’d laid out earlier to keep thin set from getting on the new carpet, and knelt on the floor.
“Come here, Natalie.”
She gazed at him, then looked at me, then at him. Finally she turned in his direction and started crawling.
Love At Last (Lily's Story, Book 3) Page 23