It isn’t until later that night, when I’m lying in my bed and trying to fall asleep, that I think about the fact that it felt like I was in another place and another time for a brief second, my heart frantically beating in my chest. I spend the rest of the night checking my pulse over and over again until I finally fall asleep.
Whatever it was, I don’t want it to ever happen again.
This week I’ve been assigned to painting the freshly hung drywall. A task that I’ve never really done before, but I’m feeling up for the challenge. I crack open the five-gallon paint bucket and drop the top onto the concrete floor. Then I stand back up and assess my situation.
How am I supposed to get the paint into the tray without spilling it? Maybe I’m doing this wrong because if I lift that thing up and just pour it straight into the tray, I’m going to have paint everywhere.
Just as I squat down to pick it up, I hear a light chuckle coming from the doorway. I look up to find Rowan Pierce watching me casually as I struggle to pick up the dang bucket. He quickly pushes off the doorframe he was leaning on and comes to my rescue.
“What was the plan here, Daredevil?”he asks as he takes the paint bucket from my straining arms.
“I don’t know. I was winging it,”I answer as I watch him put the lid back on the paint bucket. My eyebrows pull together as I watch him unscrew a smaller lid on the top of the big one. Then he leans over and grabs a contraption that looks an awful lot like a pouring mechanism and screws that on top of the small hole that’s now there.
“Hmm, that’s what that thing was for,”I say in fascination as he picks up the five-gallon bucket like it weighs less than a loaf of bread and pours the paint into the empty tray without spilling a lick of paint.
He stands up and his hands go out to the side, waving back and forth as he says,“Ta-da!”like he just performed a magic trick.
I laugh, internally grateful that he got here in time to save me from making a fool of myself and spilling paint all over the place.“Thank you for that. If you couldn’t tell, I don’t have the slightest clue what I’m doing here.”
“You’ve never painted before?”he asks, surprised.
I guess it is rather odd that someone my age has never painted anything in her life, but I haven’t had a normal life so far. It’s not like Rowan knows that though.“Nope. This is my first time.”
His right eyebrow jumps up in astonishment as a slow, sexy smirk takes over his handsome face.Man, he’s pretty.Something looks different.“Did you cut your hair?”
He stands up and self-consciously runs his hands through his brown hair, which is substantially shorter than it was the last time I saw him.“Yeah. I needed a change.”
His eyes look sad but determined. A look I unfortunately know all too well.“I like it.”
“You do?”he asks, surprised, like he’s still adjusting to the change.
“Yeah, I think it looks good on you. Don’t get me wrong, I liked your hair before too, but this seems—”I search for the right word,“—more grown up.”
He chuckles,“Great, I’m looking more and more like a Mr. Pierce. Mrs. Chambers is going to have a field day with this one the next time I see her.”
I laugh because I’ve heard Mrs. Chambers is quite the jokester.“What did she give you a hard time about?”
“Said I had gray hairs in my beard!”He actually looks affronted, which only tickles me more.
I walk right up to him to get a closer inspection. I need to see this for myself. He has a light sprinkling of hair all across the bottom half. My right hand goes up to rest on my hip.
As I tilt my head one way then the other.“Yep! Right there!”My right index finger goes up to point toward a cluster of hair on his chin.
His breathy chuckle causes a light flutter in my belly.“I’m not falling for it again. That woman gets too much enjoyment out of making people almost crap their pants.”
I throw my head back, practically howling.“You did not almost shit your pants because of some gray hairs.”
“Yes, ma’am, I did! You can’t play with a man’s virtue like that. It’s sacred.”
I snicker as I turn around to pick up a paint roller.“Well, your virtue is safe for at least a few more years.”
“Thank goodness. Next thing you know, I’ll be in a suit and tie, slaving away behind a desk for the rest of my life. Covered in gray hairs, flabby chest, and balding.”He shivers from the mental image he just created for himself.“Just like my dad.”
“You can always dye it or get a toupee.”
His head whips around so fast I’m worried he might get dizzy.“I willneverdye my hair or get a toupee.”
He says it so seriously I can’t help but laugh. Then I shrug my shoulders.“Just a suggestion.”
