Читать книгу Taking a Chance - Janice Johnson Kay - Страница 8

“UH-OH,” JO WAS the first to say.

She knelt with one strip of the ancient, cracked linoleum in her gloved hands. Beside her, Kathleen gaped in horror at the rotting floorboards beneath where the toilet had been pulled up.

“What’s ‘uh-oh’?” Helen asked from the hall behind them. Ginny peered around her.

Hovering outside the bathroom door, Emma asked eagerly, “Did you do something bad?”

“Great. Wonderful,” Kathleen muttered.

“It’s okay.” Jo was already envisioning the work to be done. Way more than she’d signed up for, considering this wasn’t her house, but she wasn’t the quitting type. Besides, she wanted to take a shower again someday. With false confidence, she said, “We’ll tear the boards up and lay down plywood.”

“What if the beams underneath are rotting?”

Brutality was sometimes necessary. “We call your brother.”

Kathleen’s jaw hardened. “Then let’s pray,” she said, and began yanking up the linoleum again.

Jo couldn’t quite figure out why Kathleen was so determined not to accept Ryan’s help. Pride—sure. She’d been a dependent wife, now she wanted to show the world she could manage very nicely on her own, thank you. But her determination also struck Jo as a sort of competition—I can do it better than you can. A childish game. When you got right down to it, wasn’t it a little silly that three women who knew nothing about construction were refusing to let a willing contractor help gut the bathroom, just so they could prove…what? That they could do it, too? Could do it better?

Yeah, right, Jo thought with humorous derision. Do it? Maybe. Make a dozen mistakes? That, too.

“Well,” she decided, while Helen was carrying the tattered roll of linoleum out, “we’ll definitely need the circular saw. But let’s pry a few boards up and see how bad it is.”

The first board splintered—well, disintegrated was probably closer to the truth. Squished into pieces. But under it, the thick, rough-hewn beam looked solid. Jo pulled out nails and moved on to the next board. Somehow, as the only one with any know-how whatsoever, she was ending up doing most of the work. But she’d always enjoyed doing simple projects like building a floor-to-ceiling bookcase in her last condo. She’d been proud of the results. This was more than she’d bargained for when she had shrugged and said, “Sure, I don’t mind helping,” during that interview/visit this summer. But, heck, it wasn’t as if she had any friends with whom to spend a sunny Saturday, and she liked a challenge.

“It looks okay,” she announced, after the second board shattered with a soggy sound. “These boards weren’t rotted quite through.”

Kathleen sank back on her heels and sighed. “Thank God for small favors. Okay. Tell me what to buy, and I’ll go back to the lumberyard while you and Helen pull up the floor.”

Jo measured the dimensions of the bathroom floor. “Ask somebody what kind of plywood you should buy. Tell them we’re tiling on top of it. Oh, and what kind of nails. Get a circular saw…”

“But we already bought a saw,” Helen protested.

“That was a jigsaw. We can’t cut big pieces of plywood with it, not and make straight lines.”

“Oh.”

Kathleen was busy writing notes. “We’ll probably need the tools when we work on other projects anyway. We should have bought one in the first place.”

“The thing is,” Jo paused, the hammer suspended in her hand, “we really need to get a plumber.”

Kathleen looked dismayed. “A plumber? Why?”

Jo put it in simple language. “Something was leaking. I don’t know what.”

“But you know we’ll never get anyone out here on Saturday or Sunday. And that’ll leave us without a bathtub or shower, never mind a toilet upstairs, until next weekend at least, when we have time to tile.”

“Uncle Ryan could fix it,” Emma said. “If you’d let him.”

“He’ll promise to come and then not show up until tomorrow evening.” Kathleen sounded waspish.

Jo raised a brow, but didn’t comment on this assessment of Ryan Grant. Instead she pointed out, “Tomorrow evening would be better than Monday, when one of us would have to be home to let a plumber in.”

“That’s not true, anyway!” Emma’s face flushed red. “He always comes when he says he will!”

“You haven’t known him as long as I have,” her mother said crisply. “If he were more ambitious, he wouldn’t still be working with his own hands. He’d be running the business instead of driving nails.”

“He likes working on houses!” the teenager cried.

“If he wanted to be successful…”

Apparently he didn’t, at least to his sister’s standards. Maybe he didn’t like wearing a white shirt and tie and spending his day sending faxes and talking on a cell phone.

On the other hand, Jo amended, maybe he was one of those irresponsible jerks who’d rather go fishing on a nice day than show up to do the work he’d promised to. Just this summer, when she put her condo up for sale and needed to lay a new vinyl floor in the kitchen, the first two days she’d stayed home from work to let workmen in, they had neither come nor called.

Her interest in Kathleen’s brother waned. Not much for lazing around herself, she liked workaholics, not playboys.

Still…

“You’d better call him,” she advised.

Kathleen made a face. “Oh, all right.” As she backed into the hall, she explained, “Emma, it’s not that I don’t like Ryan…”

“You don’t!” the teenager cried. The venom in her voice startled Jo into swiveling in time to see bitterness transform the fifteen-year-old’s expression as she finished, “Maybe he has dirt under his fingernails sometimes, or he smells sweaty, or he doesn’t know what to wear to one of your parties, but he’s nice!”

Kathleen seemed frozen in shock. “I’ve never said…”

“You have!” her daughter flung at her. “I heard you and Dad! You were embarrassed by Uncle Ryan! Just like you’re embarrassed by me!”

With that, she turned and ran. Jo heard the uneven thud of her feet on the stairs, and then the slam of the front door.

None of the women moved for what seemed an eternity. Ginny had her face pressed into her mother’s side.

Kathleen finally gave an unconvincing laugh. “Teenagers!”

Helen smoothed her daughter’s hair. “I was awful when I was thirteen.”

“Me, too,” Jo admitted. “And when I was fourteen, and fifteen, and sixteen…” Actually, she hadn’t quit rebelling until at eighteen she’d realized that her father didn’t even notice her snotty comebacks or sulky moods. She wasn’t upsetting him, she wasn’t even making a blip on his radar screen. That’s when she left home and never went back.

Looking unhappy, Kathleen left the room. A minute later, her voice floated up the stairs. “I left a message on Ryan’s voice mail.”

“Okay,” Jo called back.

Helen and Ginny made repeated trips up and down the stairs, carrying boards from which Jo was careful to remove all the nails. In her quiet way, the six-year-old seemed to be enjoying herself. She’d hold out her arms and wait for Jo to pile on a child-size load, then carefully turn and make her way out of the gutted bathroom. Sometimes she even went ahead of her mother, or reappeared before her.

Kathleen had been right, Jo had discovered: Ginny wasn’t any bother. Living with her was more like having a mouse in the house than a child. Tiny rustles marked her presence.

Once, when Ginny reappeared ahead of her mother and stood waiting patiently while Jo pried at a stubborn board, she felt compelled to make conversation.

“Your mom says you’re in first grade. How do you like it?”

“I like to read.”

“Really? Better than recess?” The hammer slipped and banged her knee. “Ow!”

“Did you hurt yourself?”

“Yes!” Jo moderated her voice. “Not permanently. I just…whacked myself.”

“Oh.” Ginny cocked her head at the sound of her mother’s footsteps on the stairs.

“So, what do you do at recess?”

The solemn gaze returned to her. “I stay in if Teacher lets me.”

Jo sank back on her heels. “You stay in?” she asked incredulously. She could remember how much she’d longed to be outside, pumping herself so high on the swing that she momentarily became weightless, or skipping rope with friends to nonsensical songs that still had to be sung perfectly.

Ginny’s face showed no expression. “Kids make fun of me.”

Jo frowned. “Have you told the teacher? Or your mom?”

She shook her head.

“Why not?”

“Why not what?” Helen asked from the doorway, her voice dull, as if she had to force herself to ask. She often sounded that way. Jo wanted to shake her sometimes and say, Wake up! But what did she know about grief?

Knowing Helen wouldn’t care enough to be suspicious, Jo improvised quickly. “I asked why she isn’t wearing overalls and leather gloves and a tool belt, since she’s a carpenter now.”

A tiny smile flickered on the pale face, whether at Jo’s attempt at humor or because she’d kept Ginny’s confession confidential, Jo didn’t know.

“Heck, maybe we should get her one.” Helen gave a rare smile, too, her hand resting lightly on her daughter’s head. “She’ll grow up an expert on how to do all this stuff.” Her voice became heavier. “I don’t want Ginny ever to feel helpless, about anything.”

“Well, she’ll learn right along with us,” Jo said heartily. “Right, kid?”

Very still under her mother’s hand, Ginny said nothing.

Jo took a deep breath and pried again at the board. It groaned and squealed in protest. She braced her feet and used her full weight to wrench upward. It snapped free and she landed on her butt just as the doorbell rang.

“Jo! Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She picked herself up. “You’d better go get that. It might be Kathleen with her hands full.”

She flipped the board over and hammered. The nail popped out, and she started on the next.

Should she tell Helen what Ginny had said about recess and the other kids taunting her? Or was that betraying a confidence?

Oh, damn! Why had the little mouse confided in her?

“You look like you’re pounding meat,” an amused male voice commented. “I think it’s already tender.”

Ryan. Of course.

Jo focused on the board, where a deep indentation showed that the hammer had more than pushed the nail out. “I was brooding,” she said, before oh-so-casually glancing up.

Damn, she thought again. He was gorgeous, even if he was a slacker.

A smile deepened creases in his cheeks and crinkled the skin beside his eyes. Today he wore jeans again and a gray T-shirt that bared nicely developed muscles in his upper arms.

He must have a girlfriend.

“About what?”

“Oh…” She thought fast. “Just about school. Nothing earth-shattering.”

“Speaking of which…” Ryan crouched beside her. “You must have a real problem for Kathleen to relent and call me.”

“I insisted.” Jo gestured with the hammer. “Behold the rot.”

He did, and grunted. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I can cut up sheets of plywood and replace the subfloor, but real plumbing is beyond me.”

He smelled good, she was disconcerted to realize. Or maybe she was disconcerted to have noticed. She caught a hint of sweat, aftershave and something else warm and male.

Jo scowled, but he didn’t notice. He was frowning, too, as he studied the exposed pipes.

“Can you tell what’s wrong?” she asked.

He grunted again. “What isn’t? I’ve been telling Kathleen the pipes all need replacing. Look at the corrosion.”

Every pipe she could see was rusty and wet. “Can you replace them?”

The frown still furrowing his brows, he looked at her. “I can, but it’s going to be a big job.”

Her hand felt slick where it gripped the hammer. She had to tear her gaze from his thighs, as well-muscled as his arms, the denim tight over them.

Jo took a deep breath. “We don’t have a shower until we get this bathroom done.”

Oh, lord. Did she smell?

If so, he didn’t seem to mind. Forehead still creased, his expression no longer looked like a frown. He was studying her with disconcerting intentness, his eyes smoky, darkening…

A bumping sound gave away the presence of someone else. Ryan jerked and swung around. “Hummingbird!” he said, voice gentle and friendly, his smile so easy, Jo was sure she’d imagined the moment of peculiar tension. “You’re helping?”

“Yes, I am,” the little girl said solemnly, her big eyes taking in the two adults, her thoughts inscrutable.

Ryan rose with an athletic ease that Jo envied. She was beginning to feel as if her knees would creak and crack when she stood.

“Oh, dear.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’ve been sitting here like a slug, not getting anything done. I don’t have another load for you yet.”

Helen stuck her head in. “Has Ryan figured out our problem yet?”

“Ryan figured it out before his sister made an offer on this house,” he said dryly. “She just didn’t want to hear it.”

“You didn’t think she should buy it?” Jo asked in surprise. “It’s a great house.”

“Yeah, it is,” he agreed. “Given real estate prices in Seattle, what she paid was fair, too. She just didn’t want to recognize that the place was a bargain because it needed so much work. She figured she could get by with cosmetic fix-ups. A little paint, maybe eventually a new roof…” He shrugged. “It was built in 1922. The wiring hasn’t been updated since about 1950, and the plumbing needs to be completely replaced.”

He looked and sounded exasperated.

“If she can’t afford it…” Jo said tentatively.

Through gritted teeth, he answered, “She should let me do it.”

It was hard to engage in any kind of meaningful debate when you were squatting at a man’s feet, but Jo didn’t let that stop her. “Don’t you admire her independence?”

“Sure I do.” His mouth twisted. “But I’m not Ian. Her ex,” he added as an aside. “Why can’t her pride handle a little help from her brother?”

Helen’s face showed the same struggle Jo felt—sympathy for both points of view.

“How would you feel if Kathleen was trying to help you out financially?” Jo asked.

“I’d take the damn check, if my kids depended on it,” he said brusquely. Then he gave a faint laugh. “Sorry. It’s not your fault that Kathleen and I butt heads. I’m just glad that you apparently do have some construction skills.”

She felt an absurd glow of pleasure at the compliment. Some women wanted to be told that they were beautiful. She apparently reveled in being praised for competence.

Perhaps, she thought ruefully, because she wasn’t beautiful. Not like he was, or his sister. Pretty, maybe, if the beholder was generous. But she had not spent her life fighting off suitors.

At the sound of a car engine, she smiled as if he hadn’t both pleased her and stung her feminine vanity all at the same time.

“I do believe Kathleen’s home,” Jo said. “The two of you can go at it to your heart’s content.”

ALTHOUGH HE’D HAVE RATHER stayed and worked beside Jo Dubray, who was far too petite to be wielding a hammer so ably, Ryan went outside, argued briefly with his sister and headed home to get the supplies he needed to work on the bathroom.

He hated doing plumbing. Wood was his passion. He liked building and restoring equally. Rebuilding a curving banister in an old house, recreating the molding that would have framed tall windows in the 1890s, baring and polishing and laying hardwood floors, those he enjoyed.

But for his sister and Emma, he’d do anything. And why not? Now that his kids had moved a couple thousand miles away with their mother and her new husband, his weekends and evenings would be damn empty if it weren’t for Kathleen and Emma. What they hadn’t realized was that he needed them more than they needed him.

By the time he got back Jo had managed to remove the entire subfloor and replace parts of it with thick plywood. She’d left the plumbing and glimpses of the downstairs ceilings exposed. As he dropped his first load, he heard the distant sound of a saw, but didn’t see her.

Heading back downstairs for another load of PVC pipes, he grimaced. Damn it, he’d had better things in mind for this weekend. Indian summer, the end of September, the day glowed with golden warmth that had chased away the night’s chill. He’d intended to start with a run around Green Lake, then pick up the damn apples rotting on his lawn and finally mow it, he hoped for the last time this fall.

Well, hell. Maybe plumbing didn’t sound so bad after all. Especially not with an interesting woman popping into the bathroom to check on him. Maybe bringing him a can of soda, commiserating if he scraped a knuckle, admiring his muscles—he thought he’d caught her doing that already.

He’d wondered about his sister’s taste in roommates after meeting Helen Schaefer and her sad little girl. Pity and kindness had a place, but he figured Kathleen had enough to handle with Emma. Did she have to take on a befuddled, grieving woman and her painfully insecure child, too?

“Wait until you meet Jo,” Kathleen kept saying. “You’ll like her.”

Jo. The name sounded masculine enough that he’d pictured a man/woman, like the high school vice-principal who’d scared the crap out of every kid who’d ever considered pulling a prank, if not worse. Jo, he now realized, must be short for something feminine and French, like Josephine.

Five foot four or so, she wasn’t unusually short, but her bone structure was delicate. Ryan bet he could span her waist with his hands. Yet she crackled with energy and intelligence, making him wonder if she ever completely relaxed. Her big brown eyes, assessing and judging, were the farthest thing from pansy soft. Her hair, a deep, mahogany brown, was thick and straight and shiny, cut in a bob below her jawline. She had a habit he guessed was unconscious of shoving it back with impatience that seemed characteristic.

He didn’t mind that about her. In fact, Ryan preferred smart, strong women. Funny, considering his sister irritated the piss out of him. Nonetheless, when married he’d have rather his wife had slapped him than wept.

So how the hell had he ended up married to a woman who seeped tears more easily than he adjusted the angle of a saw cut?

Old news. Old failure. Mouth set, he dumped a load of pipes and fittings and started back for more. Why thinking about Jo Dubray and the sharp, interested way she looked at him had evolved into self-recrimination about an ended marriage, Ryan didn’t know. Couldn’t he imagine kissing a woman without relating it to his marriage? Damn it, maybe all he wanted was a lover!

He worked all day, taking a brief break for a sandwich. He had to cut a hole in the wall in the downstairs bathroom, which had Kathleen shrugging.

“We have to wallboard anyway.”

“This floor is probably rotting, too,” he said.

She stared at the toilet with the expression of someone who’d just seen a tarantula scuttling out of sight. Or someone who’d imagined herself sitting on a toilet when it plummeted through the rotten floor.

“I guess we could go ahead with this room, too,” she decided, deep reluctance in her voice. “Next weekend. If, um…” The words stuck in her throat. “If you can help.”

He grinned and slapped her on the back. “Didn’t think you could spit it out.”

“Ryan!” she warned.

Laughing, he said, “Yeah. I’ll be here Saturday morning.”

He didn’t see Jo again until he was ready for the new toilet upstairs. She’d already cut out the piece of plywood it would sit on, and he helped cut the hole around the flange. Together, they nailed it down, the rhythmic beat of their hammers somehow companionable.

“Are you planning to lay vinyl yourself?” he asked.

“Tile,” she told him. “It’s downstairs.”

“So I can’t install the toilet.”

“I guess not.”

“You know this job is going to take you days,” he said, frowning.

Jo nodded. “But we can take a bath—carefully—if you get the plumbing done.”

He grimaced. “Yeah. Okay.”

Crazy women, thinking they could gut a bathroom on Saturday and be washing and primping in it by Monday morning. Had any of them ever tiled before? Did they understand the necessity of letting the grout dry and then sealing it?

Jo did reappear a time or two during the afternoon, although her visits were strictly practical. He saw no sign she was lusting after his sweaty self. Maybe he’d imagined any spark of interest.

Maybe he should ask her to dinner and find out.

He’d have to think about that some, he decided. He’d dated a few times since his divorce, and hadn’t enjoyed any of the experiences.

When he was ready, they laid more plywood and then nailed up wallboard. Miraculously, by early evening he pronounced the bathroom ready for tiling and fixtures.

Admiring his work, Kathleen asked with unusual meekness, “Could you possibly help carry the tub upstairs before you go?”

He stared incredulously. “What, the three of you were planning to do it if I hadn’t happened to be around?”

She stiffened. “I thought we could bribe the teenage boy next door to help.”

“Is it cast iron? Do you know what the damn thing must weigh?”

She flushed. “We’re stronger than we look.”

“Are you?” He scowled at her. “And where is Emma? I haven’t seen her all day.”

His sister looked behind her and saw that they were alone. With a sigh, she admitted, “We had a fight. No, not a fight. She got mad. I can’t seem to do anything right.”

As irked as he was with her, Ryan wasn’t going to judge her parenting. He took the chance of laying an arm over her shoulders and giving his too-proud sister a quick hug. “You did one thing right. You left Ian.”

A stunning expression of sadness crossed her face. “Was it right?” she asked quietly. “Or am I kidding myself that he was the problem? It would appear that Emma doesn’t think so.”

“You and Emma have things to work out,” he said, feeling awkward. “But you have a chance now.”

“I don’t know where she is,” she said starkly. “It’s seven o’clock, and she’s been gone all day.”

“Have you called her friends?”

“Does she have any anymore?”

He didn’t know. He tried to be here, but knew it wasn’t enough. Emma chattered to him as if to fill Hummingbird’s silence, but what did she really say? Nothing of any substance. She never said, I understand why I’m starving myself to death.

He settled for, “She’ll be home.”

“Yes.” Kathleen gave a tiny, twisted smile. “Mostly she’s…civil. And almost a homebody. But this terrible anger flares sometimes, most of it directed at me.”

“You know,” he reminded her, “don’t forget that she’s a teenager. Sure she has an eating disorder, but that isn’t her. Seems to me fifteen-year-olds are famous for yelling at their parents.”

She half laughed. “That’s true, I’m afraid. And stalking out. It’s what she said….” She stopped abruptly.

Ryan stowed his hammer in his toolbox. “What was that?”

“Oh…nothing.” She shook her head and backed toward the door. “Just implying the usual. That I never think she’s good enough. Pretty funny, isn’t it, when she never thinks anything I do is adequate, either.”

He sensed that she was being evasive, but he never had gotten anywhere either cajoling his sister or battering down her defenses. Born two years after her, he was at a disadvantage. She’d forever be his tough, know-it-all big sister.

“All right, let’s get the tub,” he said instead.

Maneuvering the damn thing, still in its box, up those steep stairs and around the sharp corner at the top was a hell of a finish to the day. The only payoff, as far as Ryan was concerned, was catching glimpses of Jo’s curvy but compact ass, squeezed in tight jeans.

Everyone’s patience was eroding by the time they made it through the bathroom door and eased the tub to the raw plywood floor.

“I’m glad you were here.” Jo rubbed her shoulder. “We’d never have made it.”

“Tubs are heavy. I assumed you were having it delivered and carried up.”

“No, we’re the original do-it-yourselfers,” she said lightly.

His sister had fetched a knife to slice open the cardboard and cut off the wrappings. With more swearing, they heaved the white porcelain tub into place.

“Fixtures?” Ryan asked.

Kathleen produced the faucet, shower head and drain. “You could come back tomorrow,” she said tentatively.

“Nah, I’d rather finish.”

“Do you mind if I watch?” Jo asked.

“Not at all.” He gestured to the floor “Have a seat.”

She grinned at him and settled herself comfortably.

Downstairs, Ryan heard the front door open and close. He cocked his head, but caught no more than the murmur of voices.

“I hope that’s Emma.”

“She scares me,” Jo said unexpectedly. “I keep waiting for her to…”

He glanced at her. “Collapse?”

“Something like that. She’s so…frail.”

“Starving yourself can damage your heart and other internal organs. Her head knows that, but then she tries to eat, and that’s what scares her.”

A job as easy as installing a faucet required no thought. Wrench in hand, he automatically juggled tiny seals and baskets and sleeves.

Jo was watching him, but who knew how much she was taking in. Her forehead was creased. “It scares her more than the idea of dying?”

“Apparently.” He applied a bead of sealant.

“Does it have to do with the divorce?” Jo still sounded unusually hesitant.

He guessed she was used to forging ahead and found it unnatural to tiptoe. But she had the sense to know an issue like this was a minefield, waiting to blow up around her.

“The divorce had to do with Emma’s problems,” he corrected, looking for a wrench that he’d set down. It was just out of his reach, but Jo picked it up and laid it in his hand. Ryan continued, “Ian didn’t think she looked that bad. He didn’t want to be bothered with counseling. All she had to do was eat, he declared. He lost his temper one night and started shoving food down her throat. She was screaming and sobbing and almost choked to death. I guess Kathleen was beating at him, trying to get him off Emma.” He clenched his jaw. “Hell of a scene.”

“Poor Emma,” Jo said somberly.

“Kathleen said counseling or else. He chose ‘or else.’”

Her big brown eyes were pretty. They were a deep, near-black color, like espresso, surrounded by long, thick lashes.

“Thank you for telling me all this,” she said carefully. “I didn’t like to ask.”

“I figured.” He would have felt the same.

“She loves you.”

“She likes me.” He rotated his shoulders as he worked. “There’s nothing emotionally loaded about our relationship. I pretend she doesn’t have any problems. She thinks I’m fun.”

A smile flickered at the corners of Jo’s mouth. “Are you?”

Was he imagining things, or was she flirting with him? “Damn straight.” He grinned at her. “That’s me. A laugh a minute.”

Her smile went solemn again. “Your hummingbird seems to think so.”

“I like kids.” And missed his own with an ache that went bone-deep. Calls were no substitute for hugs and laughs and the chance to toss a football or lounge on the living room floor watching the expressions on his kids’ faces as much as the movies playing. Before he and Wendy had had children, he’d never imagined loving someone so much that he could do nothing for hours but drink in the sight of her face—his face, when Tyler came along after Melissa.

Jo shoved back her hair and said, “I’ve never been around them much.”

“Yeah? Well, here’s your big chance. Although Hummingbird is not standard issue.”

“I assumed that.”

Ryan groaned and got to his feet. “What say we turn on the water and see if it flows?”

“But what about…” She gestured at the pipes protruding from the wall where the vanity and sink would go.

“I’ve installed shutoffs for the toilet and sink.”

“Oh.” Her expression was longing. “You mean, I could take a bath tonight?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“You’re a miracle worker!”

He basked in the radiance of her smile. Who wouldn’t enjoy a moment of pretending he was a hero?

Outside the bathroom, he discovered that Emma was indeed home, although closeted in her bedroom. He knocked and invited her to the ceremonial turning-on-of-the-water.

She climbed from the bed with the care of a brittle seventy-year-old. “Cool!” Her tone turned scathing. “And Mom said…” She stopped, bit her lip.

“Mom said what?”

Her face turned mulish. “Nothing.”

Mom had insulted him, he diagnosed, and Emma had realized belatedly that she might hurt him if she echoed Kathleen’s remarks. Appreciating his niece’s sensitivity, he didn’t push.

Water ran into the tub on command, a cascade that began dirty but turned clear quickly. He flipped the lever to test the shower, but ran it for only an instant so as not to get the wallboard wet.

“Ladies,” he pronounced to a full house, with even Ginny looking with apparent awe around her mother’s hip, “you have the power to get clean.”

“Dinner’s ready,” Kathleen announced.

Ryan took a minute to organize the rest of his tools and sweep bits of piping up. He liked a neat work site.

Jo found the bar of soap and they took turns washing their hands in the tub. Presumably by chance, he and she were the last, Emma having headed down the stairs as he was drying his hands.

“You were great today,” she said, her glance unexpectedly shy.

“You were, too.” He barely hesitated. “Kathleen implied that you were single. Is there any chance I could take you out to dinner sometime?”

She looked surprised. “Me?” Then she flushed. “I mean, I didn’t realize…” Finally she took a deep breath. “I thought maybe… But I’m not that…”

“Yeah, you are.” He let her see his appreciation as he admired the effect of pink staining her cheeks. “And I am.”

“Oh.” She gnawed on her lip, without any apparent awareness of how tempting that was. “Then, um… Yes.” She squared her shoulders and gave a little nod. “Yes, I’d like to have dinner with you.”

His triumph was disproportionate to the occasion, but his tone was easy. “Good. How about Monday night?”

“I can’t be out late,” she warned, “but…sure.”

He handed her the towel. “Then, what say we go have dinner now, in the romantic setting of my sister’s kitchen?”