doesn’t bother me, and dating is a good word.” He had dated no one since he was in college. Most of his adult relationships had been about mutual gratification and getting to know each other wasn’t on the menu. Hell, he’d give dating another shot. What could it hurt?
Chapter 10
“Son of a bitch!” He jerked at the bite of pain and dropped his drill before he grabbed his hand. The board had splintered when he drove the wood screw into a hard knot of the treated board. A four-inch shard embedded itself in the side of his hand. About a half-inch of the wood was under his skin.
He dropped to his ass from his hands and knees where he’d been screwing down the last of Eden’s landing. He had four to go and he’d be damned if a splinter was going to stop him. He carefully worked the big piece of wood out and wrapped his bandana around his hand. He’d clean out the entry point and fish out any shards left after he finished. Muttering curse words, he retracted the screw and moved over an inch, driving the four-inch wood screw through the plank he was installing, deep into the platform’s supporting beams. With the last board in place, he stood up and let out a low groan as he straightened his back. His spine popped several times. It took another hour to affix the hand railing and wooden lattice work around the landing. The one he replaced didn’t have the lattice, but he thought it finished off the space. Eden could put out a small table and chairs on the landing and enjoy the garden warmth of the sun without nosey neighbors having an all-access pass to what she was doing.
His t-shirt was drenched in sweat as the afternoon sun baked down on his back, but the feeling of accomplishment was extraordinary. He’d just finished putting away his tools in the heavy box he’d found at Gen’s when the back door opened. Eden gasped. “Oh, my goodness, look at this! Thank you so much!” She stepped out onto the landing with him and jumped up and down on her toes. “This is so much better. I never realized how bad these stairs were until you said something.” She reached out and touched the railing. “Oh, my. I’m going to paint this white and maybe put some plants out here. And a couple chairs. This is perfect. Thank you so much.”
He chuckled and caught her when, in her exuberance, she hopped on her toes over to him. “You’re welcome, but don’t go down those stairs yet. I’ll get the risers tomorrow and it will be a couple days before they’ll be completely replaced.” He lifted his hand and she caught it.
“What happened?”
He glanced at the bandana and shook his head. “Splinter. I pulled most of it out. I’ll get the rest after I shower.”
“I can do that for you. I’m a master splinter-remover.” She nodded at the apartment. “That way you can go down the inside stairs.” She glanced at the box holding his equipment. “Your weight and that box full of stuff, I’m not sure why they didn’t collapse under you.”
“Easy.” He bent down and lifted a rope out of the box. “I tied it up, and after I made it to the top, I pulled the boards and the box up. I had to risk my life two more times to retrieve the handrails and lattice, but they weren’t as heavy.”
“Well, come in and we’ll get that sliver taken care of.”
He grimaced and shook his head. “I smell. Let me go take a shower. When I come back you can look at it.”
She took a tentative step closer. “Thank you.” She stood on her tiptoes and he leaned down for a kiss.
“It was my pleasure.” He kept the kiss soft and intimate. The racing need he felt this morning wasn’t gone. God, no. He wanted this woman, but he wasn’t going to lose his self-control twice in one day.
Eden lowered from her tiptoes and broke the kiss. “Go so you can come back.” The sexy-as-fuck look on her face would tempt him to walk over shards of glass with bare feet. He’d go—and he’d definitely be back.
Jeremiah knocked on the clinic door at six-thirty. The sleepy little town had rolled up its sidewalks for the night. Well, if Hollister had sidewalks, they’d be tucked away. The wood porches on the buildings constituted the majority of the walkways