“Positive.”
He shook his head as if to clear it, probably wondering what he’d gotten himself into. “I guess it’s a good thing a friend of mine happens to be a general contractor.”
She grinned. “When I’m through, you’re going to have the most amazing waiting room in the city. Now let’s go see about that large examination room behind that aquarium. It’s going to need some work as well.”
“Whoa—what?”
“Trust me, Kevin. Just trust me.”
There was something immensely satisfying about building a wall and changing a room. Kevin was hooked and suddenly found himself contemplating some changes he’d like to make to his own place, like changing the entrance into his closet from the bedroom to the bathroom or tearing out the closet in his office to make the space bigger. Maybe Emma would have some ideas on how to spruce his place up a bit. Maybe they could even work on it together. Friday had never flown by so fast.
Kevin sank another screw into the drywall and frowned. Unsatisfied, he flipped the switch on the drill to reverse and backed it out.
Emma poked her head around from the back side of the wall, holding drywall tape. “For the love of Pete! Will you stop that, already?”
“It was crooked,” he said.
She groaned. “How many times do I have to tell you it doesn’t matter? As long as it hits the two-by-four, we’re good. Everything else will be hidden behind mud and tape.”
“Hey, if I’m going to take some of the credit for building this wall—which I fully intend to do—it has to be done right. So if I want to fix a crooked screw, I’m going to fix it, okay?”
“No, not okay. We don’t have time to get every screw perfectly straight—especially when they don’t need to be straight. The girls will be coming home soon, and we still need to apply the first coat of mud if we want this to be done by Monday.”
Ignoring her, Kevin righted the screw and drilled it back in, more evenly this time. That’s more like it, he thought. Fishing another screw from his pocket, he set down the drill and picked up the tape measure, using it to mark off the spot where the next screw should go.
“Are you seriously measuring every screw?”
“You said they need to be sixteen inches apart.”
“I said about sixteen inches. Just eyeball it.”
Kevin shot her a look. “I don’t eyeball things. If they’re supposed to be sixteen inches apart, then that’s where I’m putting them. And straight, too.”
“That’s it. Hand it over.” A smile played on her lips as she moved toward him, holding out her hand. Dressed in overalls and a long-sleeved pink shirt, with her hair held back by a bandana, she looked cute enough to kiss. If only she wasn’t threatening to take away his drill.
“No way. We already agreed. You do the back side of the wall where people won’t be able to see your crooked screws, and I do the front. Sorry, but the drill stays with me.”
“Fine,” she said. “But can I at least have the tape measure?”
Kevin set it in her outstretched hand, then got bumped out of the way while she quickly measured off the holes, writing little X’s every sixteen inches down the lines she’d drawn earlier. “There,” she finally said, shoving the tape measure into one of her many pockets. “Drill away. But if you don’t let a few crooked ones slide, I swear I’m going to strangle you.”
“It’s a good thing you’re not a dentist,” he muttered, grabbing another screw from his pocket. “You’d be cracking kids’ teeth right and left.”
“And it’s a good thing you’re not a drywaller. The houses would never get done!”
Kevin lifted the drill and blew on the end of it, the way a gunfighter would a gun after a crack shot. “At least all my screws would be straight.”
Emma uttered another groan before disappearing behind the wall, muttering something about needing the patience of Job to work with him.
Kevin chuckled and resumed drilling while Emma taped. In what seemed like no time to him—and a century to Emma—they were finally ready to mud.
Emma ripped open the box and drove a wide metal trowel into the plastic bag, scooping out some of the mud. She immediately slapped it on the wall and began spreading it around in a haphazard way, making his nice clean wall look like a Venetian plaster job gone wrong.
He moved to intervene when his phone rang. He didn’t bother looking at the display. “Hello?”
“Kevin, it’s so good to hear your voice,” said his mother. “How are you?”
He groaned inwardly, wishing he’d let voicemail pick up the call. “Great. And you?”
“Wonderful, thank you. Your father just left for a meeting, and since I have a few minutes, I thought I’d call my favorite son to see how he is doing.”
Oh great. So it was one of those calls. The kind with no purpose other than to coerce personal information from him about his life—particularly his love life.
“So…” she continued. “How’s Nicole?”
“Fine, I think.”
“You think?”
Kevin watched Emma as she rose on her tiptoes to apply mud to an area above her head. But as she slapped it against the drywall, a large glob fell from the wall and landed squarely on her nose. A strangled squeak sounded as she quickly wiped it away with the sleeve of her shirt.
Kevin snickered, then covered his mouth to smother the laughter that followed. Served her right for ruining his wall.
“Are you laughing?” came his mother’s voice in his ear.
He attempted to stop, but couldn’t. “Sorry, it’s just that…” He had no idea how to describe how hilarious Emma looked with drywall mud smeared across her nose and cheek.
“Is something the matter, Kevin? You sound… different. Are you ill?”
“No, I’m good,” he said, then pointed at Emma and mouthed, “You have a little something on your face.”
“I did that on purpose,” she said.
Kevin covered the bottom of his phone with his hand and whispered, “You should do it again, especially if it keeps you from wrecking my wall.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I’ll definitely do it again.” She reached into the box with her hand and scooped out some mud, walking purposefully toward him. “Let’s see if you think this is funny.”
“Kevin, is someone with you?” said his mother. “I hear a woman’s voice.”
“No, it’s the, uh, TV.” He took a couple steps back, bumped into the couch, and fell, landing with a thud on the cold leather.
Emma grinned and lunged at him, trying to smear the mud in his face. He grabbed her arm with his free hand and said into the phone, “Sorry, but I’ll have to call you later.” He pressed what he hoped was the end call button and tossed the phone aside. Then he grabbed Emma’s other arm, pulled her down beside him, and moved to hover over her.
“I don’t think so,” he said, grinning down at her.
“Oh, c’mon, it’s great for your complexion.” Even with the mud smeared across her face, Emma still looked so kissable. Kevin couldn’t resist. He leaned down and pecked her on the lips.
“I think this is better for my complexion,” he murmured against her mouth.
Her lips smiled against his, so he kissed her again. And again. And again. Until he forgot all about his mother, the unfinished wall, or the mud in her hand.
Something cold and gooey hit his cheek, bringing him back to his senses. Emma smeared it down to his chin and laughed. “Gotcha.”
“You are so dead.” Still pinning her beneath him, he leaned down and rubbed his freshly mudded cheek against the clean side of her face while she giggled, squealed, and squirmed.
“Stop!” she laughed. “We really have to finish the wall!”
“Okay, okay.” Kevin kissed her one last time and helped her up. Then he picked up his phone, checked the display to make sure the call had ended, and shoved it into his pocket.
“Sorry I made you shorten your call,” Emma said. “If you need to call so
meone back, feel free.”
“And leave you to make a mess of my new wall? I don’t think so.”
Emma paused, looking over the area she’d been working on. “This is how you apply drywall mud. Ask anyone.”
“Whatever you say.” Kevin nudged her to the side. “But I know you’re in a hurry, so why don’t you take the back side and leave this one to me?”
“Unbelievable,” Emma muttered. “You give a man a trowel, and he suddenly thinks he’s Michelangelo.”
“Hey, I’m only thinking of you. Just trying to give you a nice, clean palette to work with.”
“Somehow, I’m not feeling the love,” came her reply.
He chuckled, and they continued to work—him, with nice, even strokes, and her, with rapid, almost stuttered strokes. Kevin tried not to think about how much sanding would have to be done on the other side of the wall or the inches of dust that would come from it.
“Hey, can I get your opinion on something,” he said.
“Sure.”
“There’s a machine I’ve been looking at purchasing for a while. It’s crazy expensive, and I don’t really need it, but it would give me the ability to make crowns in less than an hour, and for a kid who needs one—or needs to be put under—it could be really beneficial. Do you think something like that would be worth adding a few years of debt to the practice?”
The rapid, stuttering scraping noises stopped, and Emma’s head appeared around the side of the wall. “I hate debt.”
“I know.”
“But, if one of the girls needed a crown and I had to put them under more than once, I’d hate that even more.”
“Which is why I refer those patients to a friend of mine who has that machine.”
Her eyes softened, and a smile touched her lips. “I like that you do that.”
He returned her smile. “So? What do you think I should do?”
She disappeared behind the wall, and the light scraping noises sounded. “It’s like my dad always says,” she said. “The minute someone starts caring about money more than people is the minute they have a serious problem.”
It was Kevin’s turn to peek around the wall, though he wished he hadn’t when he saw the unevenness of her mud. “So you’re saying I should get the machine.”
“No. I’m saying that you already know what’s most important, and because of that, whatever you decide to do will be the right thing.”
“Gee, thanks,” he said dryly, returning to his side. “That was about as helpful as… well, your mudding job.”
“Watch it,” she said. “Or I’ll come after you again. I know your weakness, so it’ll be easy.”
Kevin smiled, but he couldn’t help but wonder if she was right. Was Emma his weakness? Sometimes, she sure felt like one. He slapped some more mud on the drywall and methodically pushed it down. “Would you get the machine, Emma?”
Her head appeared again. “Tell me this: Does it bother you to refer patients to another dentist?”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe that’s your answer.”
Maybe it was. Maybe he should get the machine, and maybe his practice would be better for it.
As the uncomfortable weight of indecision lifted from his shoulders, Kevin had another thought. Maybe Emma wasn’t his weakness after all. Maybe she was his strength.
“What in the world happened to the waiting room?” was the question that greeted Kevin when he walked into his office Monday morning.
“Good morning to you, too, Janice,” he said.
Her footsteps quickened to catch up. “You didn’t answer my question. The waiting room is a mess!”
As he passed the reception desk, Kevin glanced through to the room. A mess? Hardly. When he and Emma had left Saturday night, they’d cleaned up everything. They’d even cordoned off the new wall with some heavy duty plastic to keep little fingers away. It didn’t look great, but it was clean.
“Give it a couple of weeks, and you’ll change your mind.” He entered his office and flipped on the light before dropping his briefcase on the desk.
“Kevin, there’s a large wall in the middle of our waiting room. Are you going to explain why it’s there and where it came from?”
Kevin sat down at his desk and sighed. He should have told her before now, but he knew exactly what Janice’s reaction would be when she found out that Emma was behind the “mess.” Ever since Emma had stopped coming in, things had been going so much better and smoother, and he hadn’t wanted to ruin it.
“The waiting room is being redesigned, that’s all. I’m having some murals painted, and that wall is part of the design,” he said, purposefully keeping Emma’s name out of it.
Janice lowered herself to the seat across from him and rested her hands stiffly in her lap. “How long has this been in the works, and why didn’t you bother telling me about it? As your office manager, it would be nice to know things like this. After the whole Emma debacle, I thought this wouldn’t happen again.”
“But that’s just it. This isn’t something you have to worry about. All you have to do is sit back and let it happen.”
“Yes, this is something I have to worry about. Who’s going to make sure no kids are going to crawl under the plastic or tear it down or suffocate themselves?”
“Hopefully the parents,” he said wryly. But when that didn’t seem to pacify her, Kevin leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “Listen, I didn’t set out to keep you in the dark. This was all thrown together pretty quickly. I saw this particular painter’s work and knew it would look really good in our office, so I hired her.”
“Her?”
And here we go again, he thought. Kevin really didn’t want to have this conversation right now, but she was bound to figure it out sooner or later. “It’s Emma.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Emma?”
Kevin suddenly felt like he’d just been caught with his hand in the cookie jar before supper. Which was ridiculous. He was an adult. He could eat a cookie before dinner if he wanted. Just like he could hire Emma to paint his walls if he wanted. “Turns out she really is an artist. You should see the room she made for her nieces.”
“So, when you told me that the problem with Emma had been solved, what you really meant was that you switched her responsibilities from filing and data entry to painting?”
When she put it that way, it sounded like one of those rash decisions Kevin might come to regret later. “It’s going to be amazing. Just wait.”
Shaking her head slowly, Janice stood. “Seems to me like you’ve traded in one problem for an even bigger one. What if you don’t like the end result? What then?”
For a moment, Kevin worried about the possibility of that happening. But then he pictured that fairy room and shook his head. “Even you’ll like the end result. Trust me. And if not, we’ll repaint it with the ugly tan that’s in there now.”
Janice opened her mouth to say something more, but was cut off by the ringing of Kevin’s cell phone. His mother. Not the interruption he would have chosen, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, and he was definitely a beggar.
“I need to take this,” he said to Janice.
She nodded and left the room, closing his door with a bit more force than necessary. “Hey, Mom, what’s up?” He cringed the moment the words slipped out.
“Kevin, you get more colloquial every time I speak with you. What happened to the son I raised?”
“I blame my patients. They don’t understand big words.” Nothing like letting innocent children take the fall, Kevin thought wryly. “What can I do for you?”
“I haven’t talked to you in a while, so I thought I’d call to see how you are.”
“We talked Saturday.”
“No, I called Saturday, but you were too busy flirting with some woman to talk. And since you decided to avoid my calls yesterday, here I am again.”
“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that.” Kevin mentally kicked himself for answering the pho
ne on Saturday. Now, she’d want to know all about the mysterious woman he’d flirted with.
“So tell me,” she said. “Were you with Nicole? Was that her I heard you kissing in the background?”
Kevin felt like cursing. So he hadn’t disconnected the line after all. Not good. “I’m not seeing Nicole, Mom.”
A pause. “Then who was she?”
This was the second time today—and at only seven thirty in the morning—that Kevin had been reluctant to give out Emma’s name. But, like with Janice, his mother would find out sooner or later. “Her name is Emma.”
“And does this Emma have a last name?”
“Mackie.”
“How did you meet her?”
“She lives next door.”
A lengthy pause. “You aren’t referring to the woman you told me about before, are you? The single mother whose lawn you mowed?”
Kevin groaned inwardly. He’d forgotten all about their earlier conversation and the less than flattering way he’d talked about Emma back then. His shrewd mother, on the other hand, never forgot anything. It was one of the things that made her a wonderful politician’s wife. “That would be her.”
“I see.” More silence, though her disapproval was coming through the line loud and clear.
“For the record, she’s not a single mother. The two girls she’s looking after are her nieces.”
“Why is she looking after them?”
“It’s a temporary thing. Just until her brother gets back on his feet. His wife passed away.”
“Oh.” She didn’t sound too sympathetic. “Where is Emma from, and who are her parents?”
Kevin glanced at his watch. His first patient would be arriving soon, and he needed to get going. “She’s the daughter of Gerald and LuAnn Mackie. They work for a humanitarian organization and currently live in Guatemala. They’re wonderful people.” Not that Kevin knew from firsthand experience, but Emma seemed to love them.
For a moment, Kevin thought his mother had hung up, but then she said, “That may be true, Kevin, and this Emma might be wonderful as well. But is she really right for you?”
[Meet Your Match 01.0] Prejudice Meets Pride Page 17