as soon as she gave the all-clear. Bree strode through the living room, not bothering to tiptoe or avoid creaking floorboards. She disarmed the security system, then started at the top door lock and worked her way down, undoing the chain and turning the two deadbolts. She turned the lock on the handle and then twisted it open, ready to be met with nothing but the black, quiet evening.
What Bree did not expect was the black figure hovering six inches from her nose, a weapon over his shoulder.
“Whaaaa—” She yelped and in one motion raised the bat and swung.
The figure hollered and stumbled backward. He went down on the porch step, and after a couple attempts to catch himself, tumbled on his backside and knocked a pot sideways with his head.
The shovel clattered beside him.
Bree lifted her hand to her lips, trying to suppress the twitch as the shock, then realization, relief, and finally hysterical chuckles gave way. “I’m sorry. I just—”
Chip looked up at her and shook the dirt off his hair.
She watched the particles drift from his head, then laughed again.
“Like the view?”
“You know, I’ll admit. It’s pretty funny from this angle.”
His frown deepened. His voice held little humor. “Line’s moved. Now tell me your secret.”
She extended a hand to help him up, but he ignored the gesture and pulled himself to standing.
She glanced in the direction of the median between their cars, where the streetlamp showed the line of freshly turned dirt and, of course, the dog.
By the stroke of midnight, she had said after all. A deal was a deal.
“Fine. Here it is. Mr. Richardson won’t hire any contractor who can’t demonstrate he’s as talented with a paintbrush as he is a hammer. If you want that Barter job, you’d better brush up on your art skills.” She raised a brow toward the job that should’ve taken far less time. “And maybe line-moving skills.”
“He wants a contractor who is also an artist?” he repeated, rubbing his head thoughtfully as he took in this new information.
She turned on her heels.
“Good night, Chip.”
Bree smiled to herself as she shut the door, turned the three hundred locks, got Evie her warm milk—like the toddler she was—and coerced her back into bed.
It was only as she was settling into her own bed, blinking wearily as she checked the clock, that she saw the time: 3:13 a.m.
Chapter 8
Chip
It wasn’t supposed to be this fun. But honestly, the woman asked for it.
“Midnight. Not one millisecond past.”
He could still hear her condescending tone as she whipped her braid over her shoulder and slammed the screen door. As if he were that desperate for whatever she had to say. As if all of his career hopes and dreams rested in her slender hands. As if the sprightly little Barter fairy could have anything that valuable to tell him.
Fact was, he woke up, got out of bed, and snatched up his shovel at three in the morning for the pure joy of ruffling her feathers.
Over an hour he wasted pulling out that old phone line and dragging it through the yard as if the fence were moved. Sure, the second she was out of the driveway he dropped his shovel to do actual work—the demolished upstairs bathroom being proof, along with the Pepto Bismol–pink tub in the bed of his truck weighing down old plumbing lines, crushed Sheetrock, and shattered tile.
The reality was, he could already tell annoying her was going to become one of his fondest hobbies. He was starting to love it with every fiber of his being.
The way those pink circles rose in her cheeks. The way her nose scrunched up in disgust.
It was flippin’ fantastic.
He had been annoyed, however, when he hadn’t received so much as a “thank you” for spending hundreds of dollars on the electric fence. The water line was mandatory reparation, but the fence wasn’t, and he had tried to make things right. Why? Because he was a good neighbor. To quote Mrs. Lewis herself, he was “a nice chap.”
But did Bree seem to care? No.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me! It’s three o’clock in the morning!” Bree’s roar had traveled loud and clear through her wall, past the easement between their houses, and right into his bedroom. He chuckled to himself a few times in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, his hands resting behind his head.
She’d swung at him with a bat, but this reaction was so worth it.
He had to be up in three hours, and