Airman To The Rescue. Heatherly Bell
goddess because life was short, dammit, and she was going to get some.
Yeah, right.
Her doorbell rang. Probably Emily again, who dropped by once a week, with or without Stone. She had to give it to her sister-in-law to be. Emily kept trying her best to make Sarah feel welcome. She’d reached out and made friends, which Sarah appreciated. It wasn’t like Stone had thrown out the welcome mat when she’d arrived in town.
But when Sarah opened her front door, it wasn’t Emily behind it. Matt stood there in all his male glory. The midday June sunshine pooled through the doorway all around his big body, practically illuminating him. It was as if God was showing off, saying Behold some of my best work. You are welcome.
He grinned and whipped off his aviator glasses. “Hey.”
Sarah’s knees took the hit first. Then her mind followed. Blank. Why, oh why, did she lose several IQ points around the man?
“Are you going to let me in?”
“Oh.” Good idea. She should let him in. Why not? How much harm could that do? She moved aside.
He was dressed casually today, in dark jeans and a Giants T-shirt. Mr. Cool.
“How’s it going?”
“Great! I just put in some of the flooring in the hallway. There’s a little section I might have to redo.”
He raised a brow. “You’re doing this all yourself?”
“Sure. I can’t lie, it’s a little challenging, but I figured I’d work with what I have.” She followed him into the kitchen, where his gaze studied the cabinets. The doors were all missing. She cleared her throat. “I hope he ordered those. Maybe I’ll get a call from the home improvement store that they’ve come in.”
“Yeah. Maybe,” he said without an ounce of confidence in his voice. His hand smoothed over the granite countertops. “These came out well.”
“Yeah. Well. Stone’s handiwork.”
“I remember.”
Right. Matt had dropped by a lot during the week Stone had been helping her work on the house.
She blew out a breath, and her overgrown bangs flipped out of her eyes. “Matt, what are you doing here?”
“Came to check things out.”
“I thought I told you to forget about this.”
His dark gaze did a slow slide down the length of her body, and back up to meet her eyes. “And I told you I wouldn’t.”
“Listen, I’m not being stubborn here.”
He snorted. “No, of course not.”
“The fact of the matter is I would let you finish the job if I had a prayer of compensating you for your work. Properly.” In other words, not in long deep kisses and showers in the new bathroom stall she still didn’t have, but in actual money.
“I get that.”
“I’m not sure you do.”
Ignoring her, he walked toward the hallway. Sarah would have followed him, but humiliation kept her seated at the kitchen table, hands folded in front of her. No point in arguing with the man. She’d let him inspect to his heart’s content. Maybe he had a little free time today. She heard him curse when he entered the hallway, and a few more times as he went into each bedroom. Sarah didn’t respond. It didn’t take an engineer to know her remodel was in trouble.
He walked into the living room and cursed again. Probably at the windows. They were half framed. All the blinds had been removed, and Sarah was currently using sheets for privacy. She stared at the ceiling, trying not to think about the Swiss cheese roof above her. The roof would come later, if at all. She’d planned on giving the new buyers a roof allowance, like the real estate agent had suggested. Roofs were expensive.
A few minutes and several loud curses later, Matt rejoined her in the kitchen. She glanced at him briefly, then looked away when he shoved a hand through his honey-colored hair. She expected him to say I told you so or any one of a number of phrases he could have let loose with to prove he’d been right and she’d been wrong.
Instead, he pulled out a chair and sat shoulder to shoulder next to her, stretching his long legs out in front of him. For several minutes he didn’t speak, his arms folded across his chest as he stared at the floor.
Finally, she couldn’t stand the silence any longer. “How bad?”
His answer was to curse again and shake his head.
That bad. Sarah buried her face in her hands. “I’m screwed.”
“No,” he said simply. “Not if you’re willing to listen to me.”
“I already said I’m not—”
“Would you shut up and listen?”
She pursed her lips together and made a show of locking them and throwing away the key. If he had an answer to her predicament, she could at least hear him out. As long as it didn’t involve him working for free, she could be flexible.
“I have a proposition for you.”
The way those sensual lips said proposition had her wishing he were about to say something quite different than what he was probably about to suggest. Definitely not that they should get naked and test out her new kitchen counters.
“Yes?” she squeaked out.
“I’ll do the work in exchange for being able to rent the spare bedroom from you. This way, I don’t have a landlord breathing down my back while I look for another place to live. A win-win for both of us. You’re helping me out.”
Sarah couldn’t speak for a few seconds. She’d never imagined he would suggest living here. With her. But of course, this was no big deal to him. He was not picturing accidentally running into her coming out of the bathroom with only a towel wrapped around her naked body the way she’d been imagining in the few seconds since he’d mentioned the idea.
“This house has one bathroom. One.”
He grinned. “I was taught to share.”
“And how long do you think it will take to finish?”
He glanced up at the ceiling, then met her eyes. “Depends on the roof. But I’m thinking a month or two.”
“That’s about all the time I have left. And I was thinking of skipping the roof anyway.”
“We’ll discuss it.” He studied her. “This could work.”
It might work, but she hated the fact Matt was rescuing her again. She’d been an independent woman her entire adult life, but since coming to California this might be the third time Matt had stepped in. Second if she didn’t count the coffee incident. When she’d first come out to California a few months ago, after getting the news her father had died, it was Matt who had understood her grief. Not Stone. Matt who had acted as peacemaker between her and Stone. Matt who had listened to her ramble on for hours. Matt who had been such a good friend to her. He was a great guy, and she wished she didn’t feel a magnetic attraction to him. Life would be simpler if they could be buddies, and if she would never want anything more than that from him.
Fat chance.
Seated next to her, far too close, he waited for her answer.
“But you’ll only get at most two months of free rent before we have to sell the house.”
“That’s probably all I’ll need.”
“That doesn’t sound like enough for all your efforts. And then there’s the materials. The cabinets.” She sighed, not wanting to go on with the rest of the list and hear him curse again.
“I’ve got connections, and I can find a lot of the materials I’ll