Chez Stinky (27 page)

Joel pulled her back down to him and started nuzzling her neck. He pulled his head away to look at her and raised one eyebrow. “You don’t see me complaining.”

Kat laughed. “You can do Spock eyebrow! Maria would swoon.”

“I’m not thinking about her right now. I’m thinking that the image I had in my mind of what you might look like naked doesn’t even come close to reality. And I have a pretty good imagination.”

“Yes, I’ve noticed you’re very creative.”

Kat’s body was on fire, and it was obvious where this was going. Her one remaining brain cell fired and she stopped, pushing Joel away. “Uh, this is awkward, but do you have…something?” She rolled over and rummaged around in the nightstand beside the bed. “Hmm. I’m not sure about this. It looks like Abigail had more fun than I thought. That’s a big box. But I’m not sure how old these are. Is there an expiration date? Do they still work?”

Joel looked confused for a second, then seeing the box in the nightstand, clued into what Kat was talking about. He rolled onto his side, resting his head on his hand and looked into her eyes. “I stopped by the drugstore on the way over here. You implied I might be sleeping upstairs.”

Kat giggled. “Yes, I did. I think my harlot status is confirmed now. Way to plan ahead.”

“I’m an engineer. We’re all about logical conclusions. If [this], then [that]. But then you distracted me and I never grabbed my stuff out of the truck.”

“Now I guess all of Alpine Grove knows that you didn’t die a fiery death, after all.”

He chuckled, kissed her quickly, then rolled over and leaped out of the bed. “Nope. I’m very much alive,” he said as he yanked on his jeans. “Be right back.”

Kat wrapped herself in the tangle of sheets and looked around the room. Where had Murphee gone? It probably wasn’t good that the cat was MIA. That thought disappeared as soon as Joel returned. He collected her back into his arms and kissed her slowly. She was consumed with heat and warmth and any lingering thoughts she had left, evaporated in the fire.

Much later, Kat was dozing, cradled in the crook below Joel’s collarbone, her head on his chest. She was listening to his heart beat and idly stroking his arm when Murphee jumped up on the bed. The cat walked over Kat’s body, stomping on her hip and settling in by her side. “Hi, Murph.”

Joel caressed the leg Kat had thrown over him. With the other hand he reached up and rubbed his eyes. Noticing the movement, Kat mumbled, “Are you okay?”

“I’m way better than okay. But I was wondering. Where does Murphee sleep?”

“Usually next to my head. On the pillow.”

“I was afraid of that.”

Kat propped herself up on her elbow and looked down at Joel face. His eyes were watering and they looked angry and pink. “You look like a diseased albino rabbit.”

“Thanks. It’s the cat. It might be good to change the pillowcases before we return here.”

“So I guess that means you like sleeping upstairs?”

He grinned. “Yes. Although I don’t know how much sleeping we’ll do.”

Chapter 9

L
ater in the day, after multiple distractions in the shower and miscellaneous diversions in other rooms throughout the house, Kat went out to walk the dogs while Joel went up on the roof to determine the extent of the repairs. After spending most of the day exploring his body, Kat wasn’t sure she could stand to witness it crashing down off the roof. It was a long way down.

He had assured her that he had spent a lot of time up on top of houses, but she still couldn’t watch. If something horrible happened, she’d be close enough to hear, anyway. As she strolled through the forest with Chelsey trotting alongside her, she opted to think positive and assume Joel would escape bodily harm since she’d seen for herself that he was in extremely good shape. Instead, she considered the various other problems that needed to be addressed. The biggest one was money.

Until she got her inheritance (
if
she got it), the whole boarding kennel idea was out. She needed money for a computer so she could start sending article query letters to magazines for freelance writing work. And she needed money for the roof. Given what Larry had told her about how oddly the roof was constructed, that was looking like an expensive proposition. She sighed and wished her credit card had a higher limit.

When she returned from the walk, she was relieved to find Joel standing in the driveway still in one piece. He had his hands in his pockets and was glaring at the house.

“I’m guessing by the look on your face that there was no happy news up on the roof.”

“No.”

“Care to elaborate?”

He took a deep breath and sighed. “The roof was not constructed well. Like you said, there’s no plywood sheeting and not enough stringers, but there’s another problem. The metal needs to be replaced.”

“Really? It looks okay from here.”

“You probably noticed that the metal roofing has ridges. So there are hills and valleys. Normally you attach the metal using screws in the valleys. For some reason, on this roof, the screws have been put on the hills. Over the years, snow and weather has pulled out a lot of the screws because they are sitting up on the ribs. That’s part of the reason the roof leaks. The other reason it’s leaking is because of condensation. The plastic under the metal is virtually gone.”

“So that means new metal?”

“Yes.”

Kat dropped her head and covered her face with her hands. “That’s going to be expensive. The roof is huge.”

Joel looked up at the house thoughtfully and put his arm around her. “Yes, it is.”

Kat opened her eyes and peeked through her fingers down at the ground. “Look, it’s a piece of plastic.”

“If you look around, you’ll see little pieces of black plastic are everywhere. The little screws with red grommets on them are from the roof, too.”

“Perfect. Half of my roof is strewn around the yard.”

“Pretty much. I took some basic measurements while I was up there. I’m going to start doing some calculations.”

“Yuck. That gives me a headache. I hope you’re good at math.”

Joel smiled. “Engineer. Remember?”

Kat turned around, wrapped her arms around his waist, and smiled up at him. “Oh yeah, I keep forgetting that since I’ve discovered some of your other skills.”

“If you distract me again, you’re never going to get a new roof. I’m going to go to the library now and look through some construction magazines. And computer magazines. I need to get a computer and research roof-metal suppliers. I’m not sure how much I’ll find, but I know that for electronics, there are a lot of listings of the big catalogs in the back of trade magazines. Maybe the library has a list in the reference section, too.”

Kat looked dubious. “I’ve seen the library. I wouldn’t bet on that.”

“True. But the lumberyard here has a monopoly. It would be good to know if there are less-expensive options for the metal.”

“Thank you for doing all this. I was just thinking that at some point, I’m going to need to go home and pick up my bills, so I can find out how broke I actually am. In my excitement about quitting my job, I forgot to have my mail forwarded here. And I guess I need to get a post office box here, too.” She sighed heavily at the prospect.

Joel furrowed his brow. “Are you having second thoughts about moving here?”

Kat looked up into his eyes with a steady gaze. “No. I’m not leaving. After talking to Louise yesterday, I realized how much I want to stay. It feels right. But at this point, everything is kind of complicated.”

With a wry smile, Joel bent down to kiss her. “Big life changes usually are,” he murmured before their lips met.

Leaving Joel contentedly tapping numbers into his ultra nerdy-looking engineering calculator, Kat went off to the Alpine Grove Post Office. Larry had told her that the postmistress was getting on in years and everyone in town knew to allow a lot of time to take care of postal procedures like shipping or picking up packages. Kat was afraid getting a P.O. Box might take most of the day.

When she arrived, the line was out the door and snaking into the area where the mail boxes were located. People were passing the time chatting amongst themselves as the line slowly inched forward. Periodically, someone would burst out laughing. It was quite a social scene, and everyone seemed to know each other. Maybe she should bring Maria to the Post Office to find a date.

Kat dutifully positioned herself at the end of the line and spent some quality time studying the postal rate posters on the wall, since she didn’t know anyone. Cindy Ross walked through the door and scuttled over to Kat, securing her place at the end of the line.

“Oooh, I’ve been hoping I’d run into you!”

Kat smiled politely at her. “Really?”

“I was talking to Joel the other day and he drives me nuts. He’s the most tight-lipped guy in the world. Is he living at your house or what? I couldn’t get anything out of him. What’s going on?”

“His house smells like smoke and I have room, so yes, he’s staying at my place. It’s a three-bedroom house and I had just cleared out the downstairs bedrooms, so it’s much better than the last time you saw it. After the repairs he’s done for me, it was the least I could do.”

Cindy smirked. “I’ll bet. You expect me to believe that he’s sleeping in one of those downstairs bedrooms and you’re not?” Narrowing her gaze, she eyed Kat circumspectly. “Well, that is, unless he makes you crazy too with his annoying habit of clamming up. I don’t know how anyone stands him.”

“Actually, he’s been nice. He even went up and looked at the roof this morning.”

“He did work construction for a while. As I understand it, he was good at it, too. He’s good at everything, once he sets his mind to it. The trick is getting him to want to do something. He’s incredibly stubborn. I can’t get him to do anything.”

“Didn’t he help you with your car the other day?”

“Well, yeah, but he just drove me around. He didn’t fix it. He said he’s tired of fixing my car. Then said a lot of other nasty things about Myrtle.”

“Myrtle?”

“My car. She’s wonderful. But a little temperamental sometimes.”

“Can’t you take it…or her…to a mechanic?”

“I can’t afford that. Joel knows that. He was going to lend me money, but then Allison burned up his house. That seemed to put him in a bad mood.”

Kat nodded. “I can see why.”

“Did he tell you about the fire?”

“A little.”

Cindy leaned in closer as the line inched forward. “Well, the way I hear it, she threw a pan at him that was on fire.”

“Good thing she missed. Do you know why she threw it?”

Cindy raised her eyebrows. “Did you ever meet Allison?”

“No.”

“She is a model. She goes by Alli professionally.”

Kat raised her eyebrows. “Alli? You mean she’s
that
Alli?”

“The one and only. She’s used to getting her own way. And having people fawn all over her because, of course, she’s gorgeous.”

“Uh, yeah.”

“Apparently Joel wasn’t particularly happy to see her. That didn’t go over well with Allison.”

“I see.”

“Joel is a loner. He goes off and reads and spends a lot of time by himself doing who-knows-what weirdo geeky things. He’s such a nerd. Allison likes attention. Which she usually gets.”

“I can imagine.”

“So anyway, I guess he wasn’t paying attention to her. He was doing something on his computer. So she threw it out the window. Then things went downhill from there. He wouldn’t tell me and I haven’t seen the place, but it sounds like it was trashed. Then after torching his house, she left in a huff.”

“Wow.”

“I know! But Joel is so stupid. He had the perfect relationship for a guy. He had one of the most beautiful women in the world who only wants him for sex every once in a while. That, and she wanted him to take her to parties with models. What a hardship. Talk about no strings. She didn’t even care that he was unemployed. I mean jeez, he’s cute, but he’s not
that
cute.”

Kat started to feel sick to her stomach. Joel had dated Alli? How on earth could she ever compare to that? She smiled weakly at Cindy. “I think the line has moved about ten inches since I got here. Is there a better time of day when this place isn’t so busy? I need to get a post office box and it looks like it could take forever. Maybe I should try again another time.”