“Because of my handsome face and charming personality, right?”He made sure to throw in the right amount of sass.Would he ever get up the nerve to tell her how he felt?Like that would go anywhere with a woman whose entire life revolved around books.
She laughed again and nodded.“Absolutely.It’s what every woman looks for in a boyfriend.”
He stood and picked up his plate.“Well, how about this boyfriend cleans up the dishes and you go rest on the couch with one of your books?”
“Sounds perfect.Thanks.”
She winced as she stood, and he hated to see her in pain.Not that he knew much about what she was going through, but Deanna and Carli had gone through it at times and mostly stayed in their room.
When the dishes were done, he joined her on the couch.HisLevel Twobook rested on the coffee table, so he picked it up and flipped to the page they’d finished with a few days ago.
Mercedes shifted closer to him.“Are you ready to start another chapter?You really seemed to get the one we were doing before.”
“You don’t have to work on this with me tonight if you don’t feel good.I’ll go through what I can and mark anything I don’t understand.You’ve given me a few tricks for figuring out some of the text.”
She snuggled up next to him, pressing right against his arm.“I don’t mind.I like helping you with this, and it’s cool how much I’m learning about construction.”
After searching her face to make sure she wasn’t uncomfortable, he said, “Okay, if you want to.”
They began with her reading the first paragraph, then she interpreted it to him.Typically, they’d found that he knew much of the information, he simply couldn’t understand some of the words or phrases.She’d sign the exact phrase or sentence, and then they’d work together to figure out the meaning of the sentence.
His confidence was coming back slowly as they went through the book.When she’d first suggested teaching him to read, he thought it would be awful.She’d see how stupid he was and how low his reading level was, and she’d be mortified.It hadn’t happened that way.Sure, his reading still wasn’t great.He’d never be a word nerd like she was, but she’d trained him to look around at the other words and phrases nearby and come to conclusions about what was being said.
The funny thing was that she seemed to be learning almost as much as he was.Maybe he’d get her to be a construction worker yet.
Flipping another page, she pointed to the image of an excavator, then fingerspelled it.“How do you sign this?”
He formed the letter E with his right hand and held out his left hand flat, like it was land.Then, he scraped the land with the E hand in a digging motion.
“Great,” she said and mimicked his motion.“That’s pretty easy.Now tell me what an excavator does, then we’ll dive into the text information.”
“It’s mostly for digging and lifting.Moving materials from one place to another.It can also be used for demolition if we need to tear up an old road or a building where we plan to make a new road.”
Evan actually enjoyed tonight’s session, partly because he was familiar with the machine they were learning about, but mostly because Mercedes sat so close to him.Occasionally, she sagged against his arm if they were only looking at the book.He missed her heat when she sat up to interpret for him.
As they continued through the book, he could almost imagine them doing this kind of thing on a daily basis.Sitting together, close as they were now, and having special time with each other.
Why had he ever thought this would be a bad thing?
Chapter Eighteen
Today was a scorcher, and Evan had to remind himself it was the first week in October.It wouldn’t stay this way.Most likely, he’d need his sweatshirt by the time he got home tonight.Once the sun went down, so did the temps.Maybe he could get Mercedes to snuggle up against him like she’d done a few nights ago.He’d been plenty warm then.
For now, he needed to clear a path and tamp it down for the backhoe to drop the drainage pipes into the ditch they’d dug yesterday.This was a routine he’d done a few thousand times, yet he made sure to keep his eyes open.No daydreaming about Mercedes when he was on the job.The last thing he needed was to make a mistake that could injure someone or himself.Though he wouldn’t mind tripping up Tyler enough to make him call out sick for a week.The kid was nothing but trouble with this cocky attitude.Mercedes had said Evan had one, but not when it came to his job.He took that very seriously.
Squinting through the bright sunshine, he spotted the kid.His job today was to help adjust the pipes once they got into the ditch.Hard, dirty work that required strength.Tyler had been bragging about his pumped-up muscles, so the boss had put him on pipe duty.A little bit of karma.
As Evan backed up, checking his rear view, then glancing over his shoulder, a flicker of something caught his eye.Swiveling the skid steer around, he studied the scene.Joe was operating the backhoe, lifting one of the pipes on a chain from the back of the truck to the ditch.Evan shifted forward again and skimmed the ground underneath him to ensure it was smooth and wouldn’t unbalance the backhoe when it came this way.The ground was packed firmly.Ahead of him, Joe drove the backhoe toward the ditch.
Oh, geesh!Of all the stupid crap.Tyler ambled toward the backhoe, unaware he was in a blind spot, and reached for the pipe.It wasn’t anywhere near where it needed to go yet.The kid was going to cause an accident for sure.
Evan pushed the skid steer as close as he could, then dropped it into neutral and lifted the safety bar.“Get back,” he yelled as he hopped out, hoping the surrounding noise didn’t drown out his voice.What was the kid doing?He was only supposed to guide the pipe once it was in the hole.
Tyler paused but didn’t stop his hand.He grabbed the end, and the pipe shifted slightly.To an outsider, it might not seem like much, but Evan knew that tiny imbalance could throw the whole thing into whack.
“Get back,” Evan yelled again as he ran toward them.Tyler glanced over, but it was too late.The small touch to the pipe had set it swinging on the chain, one side of the chain tightening, then the other.Joe must have seen the imbalance, because the backhoe stopped moving forward.He waved his hands from the cab, but Evan could get to Tyler faster.Pounding his boots into the dirt, Evan raced toward the kid, grabbed his vest, and yanked him out of the way as the pipe swung back in their direction.
They both fell to the ground, Tyler shaking his head, face angry.He said something that might have been, “What are you doing?”Evan didn’t have time to figure it out.The pipe was still out of control and headed their way again.
