Built to Last (Harlequin Heartwarming) (3 page)

She felt an absurd glow of pleasure at the compliment. Some women wanted to be told that they were beautiful. She apparently reveled in being praised for competence.

Perhaps, she thought ruefully, because she wasn’t beautiful. Not like he was, or his sister. Pretty, maybe, if the beholder was generous. But she had not spent her life fighting off suitors.

At the sound of a car engine, she smiled as if he hadn’t both pleased her and stung her feminine vanity all at the same time.

“I do believe Kathleen’s home,” Jo said. “The two of you can go at it to your heart’s content.”

A
LTHOUGH HE’D HAVE RATHER
stayed and worked beside Jo Dubray, who was far too petite to be wielding a hammer so ably, Ryan went outside, argued briefly with his sister and headed home to get the supplies he needed to work on the bathroom.

He hated doing plumbing. Wood was his passion. He liked building and restoring equally. Rebuilding a curving banister in an old house, recreating the molding that would have framed tall windows in the 1890s, baring and polishing and laying hardwood floors, those he enjoyed.

But for his sister and Emma, he’d do anything. And why not? Now that his kids had moved a couple thousand miles away with their mother and her new husband, his weekends and evenings would be empty if it weren’t for Kathleen and Emma. What they hadn’t realized was that he needed them more than they needed him.

By the time he got back Jo had managed to remove the entire subfloor and replace parts of it with thick plywood. She’d left the plumbing and glimpses of the downstairs ceilings exposed. As he dropped his first load, he heard the distant sound of a saw, but didn’t see her.

Heading back downstairs for another load of PVC pipes, he grimaced. He’d had better things in mind for this weekend. Indian summer, the end of September, the day glowed with golden warmth that had chased away the night’s chill. He’d intended to start with a run around Green Lake, then pick up the apples rotting on his lawn and finally mow it, he hoped for the last time this fall.

Well, maybe plumbing didn’t sound so bad after all. Especially not with an interesting woman popping into the bathroom to check on him. Maybe bringing him a can of soda, commiserating if he scraped a knuckle, admiring his muscles—he thought he’d caught her doing that already.

He’d wondered about his sister’s taste in roommates after meeting Helen Schaefer and her sad little girl. Pity and kindness had a place, but he figured Kathleen had enough to handle with Emma. Did she have to take on a befuddled, grieving woman and her painfully insecure child, too?

“Wait until you meet Jo,” Kathleen kept saying. “You’ll like her.”

Jo. The name sounded masculine enough that he’d pictured a man/woman, like the high school vice-principal who’d scared every kid
who’d ever considered pulling a prank, if not worse. Jo, he now realized, must be short for something feminine and French, like Josephine.

Five foot four or so, she wasn’t unusually short, but her bone structure was delicate. Yet she crackled with energy and intelligence, making him wonder if she ever completely relaxed. Her big brown eyes, assessing and judging, were the furthest thing from pansy soft. Her hair, a deep, mahogany brown, was thick and straight and shiny, cut in a bob below her jawline. She had a habit he guessed was unconscious of shoving it back with impatience that seemed characteristic.

He didn’t mind that about her. In fact, Ryan preferred smart, strong women. Funny, considering how his sister irritated him. Nonetheless, when married he’d have rather his wife had yelled at him than wept.

So how had he ended up married to a woman who seeped tears more easily than he adjusted the angle of a saw cut?

Old news. Old failure. Mouth set, he dumped a load of pipes and fittings and started back for more. Why thinking about Jo Dubray and the sharp, interested way she looked at him had evolved into self
recrimination about an ended marriage, Ryan didn’t know. Couldn’t he imagine kissing a woman without relating it to his marriage?

He worked all day, taking a brief break for a sandwich. He had to cut a hole in the wall in the downstairs bathroom, which had Kathleen shrugging.

“We have to wallboard anyway.”

“This floor is probably rotting, too,” he said.

She stared at the toilet with the expression of someone who’d just seen a tarantula scuttling out of sight. Or someone who’d imagined herself sitting on a toilet when it plummeted through the rotten floor.

“I guess we could go ahead with this room, too,” she decided, deep reluctance in her voice. “Next weekend. If, um…” The words stuck in her throat. “If you can help.”

He grinned and slapped her on the back. “Didn’t think you could spit it out.”

“Ryan!” she warned.

Laughing, he said, “Yeah. I’ll be here Saturday morning.”

He didn’t see Jo again until he was ready for the new toilet upstairs. She’d already cut out the piece of plywood it would sit on, and he helped cut the hole around the flange. To
gether, they nailed it down, the rhythmic beat of their hammers somehow companionable.

“Are you planning to lay vinyl yourself?” he asked.

“Tile,” she told him. “It’s downstairs.”

“So I can’t install the toilet.”

“I guess not.”

“You know this job is going to take you days,” he said, frowning.

Jo nodded. “But we can take a bath—carefully—if you get the plumbing done.”

He grimaced. “Yeah. Okay.”

Crazy women, thinking they could gut a bathroom on Saturday and be washing and primping in it by Monday morning. Had any of them ever tiled before? Did they understand the necessity of letting the grout dry and then sealing it?

Jo did reappear a time or two during the afternoon, although her visits were strictly practical. Maybe he’d imagined any spark of interest.

Maybe he should ask her to dinner and find out.

He’d have to think about that some, he decided. He’d dated a few times since his divorce, and hadn’t enjoyed any of the experiences.

When he was ready, they laid more plywood and then nailed up wallboard. Miraculously, by early evening he pronounced the bathroom ready for tiling and fixtures.

Admiring his work, Kathleen asked with unusual meekness, “Could you possibly help carry the tub upstairs before you go?”

He stared incredulously. “What, the three of you were planning to do it if I hadn’t happened to be around?”

She stiffened. “I thought we could bribe the teenage boy next door to help.”

“Is it cast iron? Do you know what the thing must weigh?”

She flushed. “We’re stronger than we look.”

“Are you?” He scowled at her. “And where is Emma? I haven’t seen her all day.”

His sister looked behind her and saw that they were alone. With a sigh, she admitted, “We had a fight. No, not a fight. She got mad. I can’t seem to do anything right.”

As irked as he was with her, Ryan wasn’t going to judge her parenting. He took the chance of laying an arm over her shoulders and giving his too-proud sister a quick hug. “You did one thing right. You left Ian.”

A stunning expression of sadness crossed her face. “Was it right?” she asked quietly.
“Or am I kidding myself that he was the problem? It would appear that Emma doesn’t think so.”

“You and Emma have things to work out,” he said, feeling awkward. “But you have a chance now.”

“I don’t know where she is,” she said starkly. “It’s seven o’clock, and she’s been gone all day.”

“Have you called her friends?”

“Does she have any anymore?”

He didn’t know. He tried to be here, but knew it wasn’t enough. Emma chattered to him as if to fill Hummingbird’s silence, but what did she really say? Nothing of any substance. She never said,
I understand why I’m starving myself to death.

He settled for, “She’ll be home.”

“Yes.” Kathleen gave a tiny, twisted smile. “Mostly she’s…civil. And almost a home-body. But this terrible anger flares sometimes, most of it directed at me.”

“You know,” he reminded her, “don’t forget that she’s a teenager. Sure she has an eating disorder, but that isn’t
her.
Seems to me fifteen-year-olds are famous for yelling at their parents.”

She half laughed. “That’s true, I’m afraid.
And
stalking out. It’s what she said….” She stopped abruptly.

Ryan stowed his hammer in his toolbox. “What was that?”

“Oh…nothing.” She shook her head and backed toward the door. “Just implying the usual. That I never think she’s good enough. Pretty funny, isn’t it, when she never thinks anything
I
do is adequate, either.”

He sensed that she was being evasive, but he never had gotten anywhere either cajoling his sister or battering down her defenses. Born two years after her, he was at a disadvantage. She’d forever be his tough, know-it-all big sister.

“All right, let’s get the tub,” he said instead.

Maneuvering the thing, still in its box, up those steep stairs and around the sharp corner at the top was a lousy finish to the day. The only payoff, as far as Ryan was concerned, was catching glimpses of Jo.

Everyone’s patience was eroding by the time they made it through the bathroom door and eased the tub to the raw plywood floor.

“I’m glad you were here.” Jo rubbed her shoulder. “We’d never have made it.”

“Tubs are heavy. I assumed you were having it delivered and carried up.”

“No, we’re the original do-it-yourselfers,” she said lightly.

His sister had fetched a knife to slice open the cardboard and cut off the wrappings. With some maneuvering, they heaved the white porcelain tub into place.

“Fixtures?” Ryan asked.

Kathleen produced the faucet, shower head and drain. “You could come back tomorrow,” she said tentatively.

“Nah, I’d rather finish.”

“Do you mind if I watch?” Jo asked.

“Not at all.” He gestured to the floor. “Have a seat.”

She grinned at him and settled herself comfortably.

Downstairs, Ryan heard the front door open and close. He cocked his head, but caught no more than the murmur of voices.

“I hope that’s Emma.”

“She scares me,” Jo said unexpectedly. “I keep waiting for her to…”

He glanced at her. “Collapse?”

“Something like that. She’s so…frail.”

“Starving yourself can damage your heart and other internal organs. Her head knows that, but then she tries to eat, and that’s what scares her.”

A job as easy as installing a faucet required no thought. Wrench in hand, he automatically juggled tiny seals and baskets and sleeves.

Jo was watching him, but who knew how much she was taking in. Her forehead was creased. “It scares her more than the idea of dying?”

“Apparently.” He applied a bead of sealant.

“Does it have to do with the divorce?” Jo still sounded unusually hesitant.

He guessed she was used to forging ahead and found it unnatural to tiptoe. But she had the sense to know an issue like this was a minefield, waiting to blow up around her.

“The divorce had to do with Emma’s problems,” he corrected, looking for a wrench that he’d set down. It was just out of his reach, but Jo picked it up and laid it in his hand. Ryan continued, “Ian didn’t think she looked that bad. He didn’t want to be bothered with counseling. All she had to do was eat, he declared. He lost his temper one night and started shoving food down her throat. She was screaming and sobbing and almost choked to death. I guess Kathleen was beating at him, trying to get him off Emma.” He clenched his jaw. “Bad scene.”

“Poor Emma,” Jo said somberly.

“Kathleen said counseling or else. He chose ‘or else.’”

Her big brown eyes were pretty. They were a deep, near-black color, like espresso, surrounded by long, thick lashes.

“Thank you for telling me all this,” she said carefully. “I didn’t like to ask.”

“I figured.” He would have felt the same.

“She loves you.”

“She likes me.” He rotated his shoulders as he worked. “There’s nothing emotionally loaded about our relationship. I pretend she doesn’t have any problems. She thinks I’m fun.”

A smile flickered at the corners of Jo’s mouth. “Are you?”

Was he imagining things, or was she flirting with him? “You bet.” He grinned at her. “That’s me. A laugh a minute.”

Her smile went solemn again. “Your hummingbird seems to think so.”

“I like kids.” And missed his own with an ache that went bone-deep. Calls were no substitute for hugs and laughs and the chance to toss a football or lounge on the living room floor watching the expressions on his kids’ faces as much as the movies playing. Before he and Wendy had had children, he’d never
imagined loving someone so much that he could do nothing for hours but drink in the sight of her face—his face, when Tyler came along after Melissa.

Jo shoved back her hair and said, “I’ve never been around them much.”

“Yeah? Well, here’s your big chance. Although Hummingbird is not standard issue.”

“I assumed that.”

Ryan groaned and got to his feet. “What say we turn on the water and see if it flows?”

“But what about…” She gestured at the pipes protruding from the wall where the vanity and sink would go.

“I’ve installed shutoffs for the toilet and sink.”

“Oh.” Her expression was longing. “You mean, I could take a bath tonight?”

“I don’t see why not.”

“You’re a miracle worker!”

He basked in the radiance of her smile. Who wouldn’t enjoy a moment of pretending he was a hero?

Outside the bathroom, he discovered that Emma was indeed home, although closeted in her bedroom. He knocked and invited her to the ceremonial turning-on-of-the-water.

She climbed from the bed with the care of
a brittle seventy-year-old. “Cool!” Her tone turned scathing. “And Mom said…” She stopped, bit her lip.

“Mom said what?”

Her face turned mulish. “Nothing.”

Mom had insulted him, he diagnosed, and Emma had realized belatedly that she might hurt him if she echoed Kathleen’s remarks. Appreciating his niece’s sensitivity, he didn’t push.

Water ran into the tub on command, a cascade that began dirty but turned clear quickly. He flipped the lever to test the shower, but ran it for only an instant so as not to get the wallboard wet.