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“Uh, you just seemed…” I stopped before I got my entire foot in my mouth. She’d been feeding him cookies, and they’d been laughing up a storm with what seemed to be a closeness.
“She lives in town, and that makes her a neighbor.” He adjusted his grip on the wrench. “Harlon Gunderson, our plumber, couldn’t make it for a few days, so here we are. You’re probably not used to this kind of thing, coming from the big city,” he continued. “She needed help, so I’m helping. It’s just the way we do things out in the sticks.”
I’d obviously poked a sore spot, so I nodded silently.
He wasn’t done. “We stand by each other in this town. It isn’t costing me anything but a little time out of my day to help a neighbor get her hot water back. If she was truly a friend of mine, I’d spend as much time as it took to do anything she needed… Anything. There’s a difference.”
“That’s nice of you.” It was hard to believe I was complimenting Boone Benson after all the pain he’d caused me, but here he was doing the right thing for this woman who was merely a neighbor of sorts. In Boston, a neighbor had been somebody I might lend a cup of sugar to if they knocked on my door.
“Now hand me that rag before I demand another cookie for this job.”
Marge’s words came back to haunt me—the ones I’d completely misunderstood at the time. “He’s just a man doing what men feel compelled to do.” She meant he felt compelled to help his neighbor in a time of need, and I’d twisted it into something shameful.
With a loud squeak, he won the battle with the fitting, and the wrench turned. “About fucking time,” he grunted. More squeaks, clunks, and swearing resulted in the fitting finally coming loose.
“You’ll want to grab a pair of gloves from the toolbox in the back of the truck,” he said. “When I get this tipped over, I’ll need your help getting it out.”
While I made my way to his truck, I wondered which Boone was the real one: the one I’d learned years ago to despise, or this evening’s considerate, helpful one?
He’d told me he intended to behave himself tonight and treat me nicely, almost as if it was a special occasion and abnormal behavior for him. That probably explained it.
When I returned with gloves, he’d climbed down from the short ladder. “Don’t take offense now, if I offer you the lighter end of this monster.” He chuckled.
I held my tongue for once. There was a time to demand equal treatment, and wrestling a heavy, rusted piece of junk out of the house was not that time.
Getting the new one inside, though, I turned the tables on him and insisted on taking the heavy end. The new Angela didn’t accept anything less than equality. That turned out to be a less-than-brilliant idea when my grip slipped and the stupid thing fell on my toe.
“Maybe I should—”
“Don’t you even think about it,” I snarled. Adjusting my grip, I lifted the damned thing again. “I got this.” I refused to be the weak woman. I’d limp it off later.
He smiled, like the ass he was. “You’re stronger than you think.”
That was not what I expected from him. It even sounded sincere.
My foot protested the rest of the way, but hell, it wasn’t anything a dozen aspirin wouldn’t solve when we got back to the house.
Less than an hour later, he yelled to Stacy, “Crack on the hot water at the sink.”
When she let us know she’d complied, Boone twisted the valve on the inlet, and the sound of rushing water came from inside the tank. Soon, the hissing and spitting noises from the kitchen were replaced by running water.
He let Stacy know to turn off the water and turned to me. “Since you’re the engineer, why don’t you get it going?” he said before picking up his tools and walking out.
Either this was a test, or the be-nice-to-Angela portion of the evening had ended.
I lifted a middle-finger salute to his back. While we were waiting for the tank to fill, I’d read the twelve numbered steps to lighting the heater that were printed on the side. With a checklist, I was back in my realm and soon heard the reassuring sound of the burner warming the water.
CHAPTER15
Boone
“Lisa’s been asking after you,”Stacy said as Angela rejoined us. “She’s due back in about a month.”
I shifted and didn’t have any smart words to reply with. “Uh-huh.” The last thing I needed was Lisa back in my life.
“I thought you guys made a cute couple,” Stacy added.
Angela perked up, and those light blue eyes trained themselves on me.
