“Oh.” He had no other words for the irony of her situation.
“So, anyway, you’re forgiven,” she said, waving her hand in dismissal.
Her words were a sham. She hadn’t forgiven him. She just wanted to move the conversation on to a safe topic. And suddenly, he truly wanted to earn her forgiveness. Even if he hadn’t started a rumor. There were things he could have done differently. He could have stopped the locker room talk. He could have refused to repeat the things people had said about her.
So he was surely guilty of something, just maybe not what she’d accused him of.
“How can I help?” he asked, the question double-edged. He’d gladly help her with her plumbing, but he wanted to help her with so much more.
She picked up a big pair of plumber’s pliers that were a few sizes too big for her hands. “I’ve got this wrench, but I—”
“It’s not a wrench,” he said.
She frowned and stared daggers at him. Whoa, maybe he should avoid mansplaining stuff to her. “Well, whatever it is, I can’t get the nut off with it.”
Because she could never grip the nut well enough with tiny hands like that.
“You have a toolbox?” he asked, bracing to have her take his head off for asking.
She nodded toward an old-fashioned metal box beside the sink. He squatted down, a motion that caused excruciating pain in his knee. He rooted around for a moment and came up with a sizable plumber’s wrench. “Try this,” he said, using the edge of the kitchen counter to pull himself back upright.
She took the tool, her slender wrist almost buckling under the heavy weight. She gave him a sober look as she turned the small wheel, opening its jaws.
She poked her head under the cabinet again and snugged the wrench around the nut. And then, with an adorable grunt, she applied pressure.
Lo and behold, the nut loosened.
“Hooray,” she said in a rising voice that somehow brought joy to Topher’s heart. “I got it free.”
“Glad I could be of assistance,” he said. Maybe this was a good time to escape. Tomorrow he’d call her and make an appointment, the way he should have done from the start. “Sorry I came to the wrong address. I’ll give you a call tomorrow.” He headed toward the door.
“Wait,” she said to his back.
He turned as she popped up from under the sink, her cheeks flushed. She was so cute he wanted to stay awhile and bask in the glow of her beauty.
“Thank you,” she said.
“You’re welcome.”
“Why don’t you come by the office tomorrow, and we can get back on track with the house. I think I have a better idea of what you want now.”
Well, that was reassuring because he still wasn’t entirely sure. But he loved the idea of spending time with her. “Okay. I just need to know where the office is located.”
Her cheeks got a little redder as she crossed the room to an old-fashioned table below an even older wall phone. She pulled a pen out of a cup and found a piece of notepaper.
“I’m sorry I don’t have up-to-date cards. I’ve been so busy obsessing about one of my projects that I’ve let a lot of basic marketing stuff slide.”
When she finished writing, she crossed the kitchen and handed him the scrap of paper, their fingers brushing in the exchange. That tiny touch set off a cascade of reaction that left him gut punched.
“Um…” She hesitated, her gaze drifting down to his Vans and then back up, locking with his one eye. “Be sure to bring your cane because it’s a second-story office, above Daffy Down Dilly. So there’s a pretty steep staircase.”
And right then he saw his opening. But did he dare take it? He’d have to get way out of his comfort zone.
Yes, he would. Because he needed to undo the damage his thoughtless remarks had caused. Hell, he was such a liar. He’d do anything to win her approval. To become her friend. To get into her good graces.
“Um. I have a suggestion. Maybe instead of a meeting at your office, we could have dinner.”
“Well…” She probably didn’t want to dine with him for so many reasons.
“If we dined at Rafferty’s, I could avoid the stairs,” he said, working the pity angle even though he hated every minute of it.
She hesitated for a long, uncertain moment before she finally nodded. “Okay, I guess that’s reasonable. Let’s say six o’clock?”
“I’ll see you then.” But only after he’d left her house did he fully realize the magnitude of what he’d done. He’d just agreed to have dinner at a public restaurant where he’d be stared at.
Chapter Ten
Ashley sat at the weekly meeting of the Jonquil Island Heritage Day Committee drumming her fingers on the tabletop, her mind consumed with Topher and his plans for Lookout Island, and not the upcoming annual commemoration of the hurricane of 1713.
Her attempt to dissuade Jessica Blackwood from continuing with the project had failed. Appealing to the woman’s better angles had been a long shot. After all, Topher could afford to pay her a sizable fee. Unfortunately, Topher had enough money to buy just about anything he wanted. Including a loyal architect.
But not everyone was for sale. She just needed to find the right person to stand in his way. But who that person or entity might be was a mystery.
She stared down at the legal pad sitting in front of Reverend St. Pierre, who sat beside her at the table in the large conference room at City Hall. He didn’t seem to be paying much attention, either, as Councilmember Bauman droned on about the Heritage Day celebration coming up in mid-September. The preacher was doodling, and she found herself studying his strong, competent left hand as it created intricate Irish designs.
Awareness of Micah St. Pierre as a man, not a minister, suddenly seized her. The thought was inappropriate in the extreme and probably would never have happened if she’d been focused on the meeting and not her current problems.
But then again, she was also not entirely dead. So this fluttery feeling in her chest had to be a sign of something. Maybe, after three years of grieving, she was starting to come out of her funk. It would be easy to believe that, except that just the other day she’d been sorting stuff up in the attic and she’d come across the box filled with Adam’s dress uniforms. She’d spent the rest of the day in tears.
“Okay, so everyone knows what they’re responsible for in the next week?” Harry said, jolting Ashley back to the meeting’s proceedings. Everyone around the table looked up and nodded.
“Okay. See everyone next Wednesday.”
People jumped out of their chairs and made separate beelines to the door of the main meeting room at City Hall.
Okay, here it was, her chance to gain a little information. She pushed up from the table and headed right toward Harry.
“Hey,” she said, coming up to him as he was stuffing papers into a battered briefcase. “You got a minute?”
Harry, who was probably pushing eighty, had a head of white hair and a bushy mustache that had been all the style in the 1970s. He looked down at her from behind his wire-rimmed bifocals. “I’ve got just a minute. The Braves are playing the Nationals, and I want to catch the end of the game.”