In a Moon Smile (18 page)

“Do you like the counters?” Dalton asked as he entered the kitchen and turned to face his employer.

“Wow,” Chesney smiled broadly. “I love them.” She ran her hand along the shiny newness and fell in love all over again with the picture in her mind of a sunny, warm kitchen. Her dreams for Chesney Ridge were slowly coming true.

“You're very pretty when you smile,” Dalton said. Then he turned and walked out the back door to his truck.

Nearly breathless from the compliment, Chesney peeked out the window. “Who's Rose?” she whispered. “And why do I care?”

By the third week of August, Chesney’s hands were calloused and her back was constantly sore. But every single day, Grace's forgotten house looked more like a well-loved home. Since the granite counter tops and a kitchen island were installed, her kitchen was a breezy, yellow hug. She added a hint of red accents by placing her grandmother’s red canisters on the counter top and a couple of braided rugs on the floor, with red threaded into the fabric. Every morning she looked forward to filling the room with the cozy aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. During the long summer, her sleeping schedule had drastically changed. She wasn’t only sipping coffee, she was watching the sunrise. She wanted to completely celebrate that sweet something that welled in her chest. It felt like a nice lazy mix of hope and contentment. It was all she really needed. Or at least that’s what she frequently told herself, anyway. “I can do this,” she often whispered. “I can really do this. Look at what I have already done.”

Sure, she was still stripping several layers of wallpaper from the parlor walls and the upstairs bedrooms. Yes, the muscles in her arms ached. By the time she crawled into that trusty sleeping bag every night, her body was exhausted. But she greeted every new day with a plan in her head and new energy pumping through her veins. It was a necessity now, to get the major renovations completed before winter. It was a labor of love that Chesney could not describe. Something from her soul got left on every newly completed project. Though she was still infatuated with Dalton Moore, she didn’t worry anymore about how frizzed her hair might be. Much of the time it was stuffed under a ball cap or bandana. With every new day, the house seemed happier. And her heart felt light and cheerful. Many times her aching body begged her to at least spread the sleeping bag on top of that bare mattress in her old bedroom. But Chesney couldn’t move upstairs. Not yet. “It just doesn't feel right,” she said to Becca on the phone. “I feel far away from the world when I think about sleeping upstairs alone.”

“Maybe you just need more time,” Becca said. “Or maybe you should turn the downstairs study into a bedroom.”

“I'll think about it.” She was more bothered than usual by the fact that she was only comfortable sleeping on the floor downstairs. “More time,” Chesney whispered after she and Becca said good-bye. “You just need more time. Something about the broken engagement has thrown you off kilter. Something about the family thinking you’re a total nut cake has thrown you off kilter. Something about that very hot handyman has also got your head messed up. But don’t convert the study into a bedroom. That's the childish way out. You’ve got to overcome this fear of sleeping alone upstairs.”

Chesney would never admit to another human being that she happily waited for Dalton to arrive every morning. While he worked, she took any opportunity to look at his gorgeous butt. She had even stopped beating herself up about it. Admiring a beautiful male body didn’t mean she loved the guy. It didn’t mean she was interested in trying her hand at another relationship, either. When Chesney longingly admired Dalton Moore’s physique, it only meant she wasn’t dead yet. And that’s all she was willing to think about it.

A few weeks ago, Dalton stopped banging his knuckles on the back door; maybe because Chesney made it a point to unlock the door long before he arrived. He just walked right in like he lived there with her. And there was something delicious about that fantasy. She often peeked out the window in the parlor just to watch Dalton hop happily from the truck cab. By the time he burst through the back door, she had sprinted into the kitchen and pretended to casually notice his presence. “You're certainly the morning person,” Chesney muttered as Dalton whistled his way into the kitchen. While she pretended that she couldn’t care less if he was in the house, Dalton offered a quiet grin as he headed toward the back of the house carrying two saw horses. Chesney sat on a stool, admiring how the sun danced through the kitchen windows. With a tiny paintbrush dipped in green, she spent last evening painting an ivy pattern across the doorways and above the cabinets. She was in love with how the birds chirped in the trees as she padded barefoot through the house, opening all the windows so she could hear the world.

“It feels great in here,” Dalton said that morning as he
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through the back door again, this time with a ladder. “It feels cozy.” Then he glanced around the room at the hand-painted strokes of ivy. “I like that. Looks really nice.”

Her smile was much broader than she wanted it to be. But it thrilled Chesney that Dalton noticed her artistic touch. It also thrilled her that Dalton actually spoke, since most of the time, he grunted a response or intently spent the day sawing or hammering in silence. But their moment lasted only seconds. He carried the ladder carefully past the arched doorway and disappeared.

“Ms. Blake, could you help me for a moment?” Dalton’s voice somewhere near the library startled her later in the afternoon as she tackled the now hated task of stripping wallpaper from the dining room and parlor walls.

She found him on top of a ladder with a sconce in his hand. “Isn’t this where you wanted the new light fixture?” he asked as Chesney walked into the room. When she nodded, Dalton handed the fixture to her. “Could you hold this until I get the wiring corrected?”

Again, Chesney only offered a nod. She pretended not to study the shade of the tan on his strong arms. She pretended not to notice the slight tinge of aftershave mixed with freshly mown grass, or maybe it was hay? Did Dalton Moore live on a farm? She knew little about the guy. Soon after he arrived here to work, they entered into this stand-off. And neither of them had made an effort to break the ice. For Chesney, it was certainly safer this way. She didn’t want to like this guy. She had made peace with the fact that yes, she secretly lusted after him. But she was also convinced that acting on that lust would do nothing more than complicate things. By the way Dalton behaved toward her, Chesney was certain that she had nothing to stress about. He seemed to work at tolerating her presence. “Looks nice,” she managed as he placed the sconce on the wall.

“Yeah,” he seemed pleased. “It really does look nice there.”

Chesney’s next sentence was lost under the loud roar of a motor or an engine. “What in the hell was that?” She looked at Dalton and he pointed out the naked window.

“Harley,” Dalton said. “Sounds like you have company.”

“I don’t know anyone around here who rides motorcycles,” Chesney said as her eyes followed his.

“It’s Deke,” Dalton said as he glanced out the window. “Deke…you know, from the hardware store.”

“What’s he doing out here?” Chesney asked as her cheeks reddened.

“Well you know him, don’t you?” Dalton said a bit sharply. “You like to visit with him when you go to town.”

“What makes you think that?” she asked.

“Luke told me,” Dalton said with a grin. “Don’t forget I waited for more than an hour last week, for you to return from town with more sandpaper. Remember? Luke told me later that you were in the back of store, flirting around with Deke.”

“That little ass,” Chesney grumbled. “Since when did making conversation with someone turn into flirting?”

Dalton turned back to preparing the wiring for the second sconce. He obviously dismissed her again, but not before she heard that little tone in his voice. Could that be jealousy? She was amused by that thought but quickly tossed it aside, recalling that Dalton had Rose at home. Why should he care who his employer spoke to at the hardware store? Outside, Deke Wooldridge was throwing gravel all the way up the winding lane toward the house. Deke looked pretty damn good, too, with his long hair flying in a tangled mass. With those dark sunglasses and a toothy smile, he looked more than good. He looked very much like a grungy, sexy guy from Roadhouse. One thing was for sure, Deke the hardware store owner paid a lot more attention to the new resident of Bean Blossom than the moody handyman ever did. Casually stepping outside, she waved as Deke rode close to the porch. “What in the world are you doing?” she laughed.

“Get on,” Deke motioned for her. “Come on, Chez. You need a break. I’m taking you out for lunch.”

“Are you kidding?” she laughed again and backed away.

“Not taking no for an answer,” Deke said. “Climb on here. We won’t be gone too long. I promise all that wallpaper will be here when you get back.”

“I haven’t been on a bike since high school,” Chesney giggled as she cupped his shoulder and straddled the strip of black leather behind him.

“Since high school? That’s too damn long, little Miss Chesney,” Deke said. “You need to have yourself some fun. All work and no play? That’s no way to live life.”

As she placed the extra helmet on her head, Chesney slyly peeked at the front porch. With no curtains over the windows, she saw Dalton, still on the ladder. But his face was turned, watching her. Chesney smiled to herself and pretended not to see Dalton. The moment she climbed on, Deke roared down the lane and out on the two-lane country road, whizzing past the tree line, the fields of corn and soybeans. Her hands circled Deke’s waist and she rested her cheek against his back. She hoped he wouldn’t get the wrong idea about her intentions, but she was so tired and the sun on her face made her unwind, calm down, rest. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the scents of the country, wild onions, fresh grass, that faint scent of hay.

When Deke pulled up in front of Cathy’s Café, Chesney caught her breath.

If we walk in there together, tongues will wag. Gossip will spin so quick, people won’t have any spit left from blabbing.

“Meatloaf today, for the lunch special,” Deke said as he opened the cafe door. “And I have something to tell you, Chesney.”

Aware of all the community eyes turned in their direction, Chesney was pissed by the nosiness. She considered blowing kisses at the crowd. But instead, she lagged a few steps behind Deke and tried to say, at least with body language, that she and the hardware store artist were only friends. Even though Deke was a great guy and even though he was quite attractive in a wild sort of way, he didn’t squeeze her heart like that beautiful, arrogant handy man. As she scooted into the cracked vinyl booth, Chesney worried that Deke had the wrong idea about her. Had she been guilty of flirting? Yes, actually she probably had. She hated to admit it but there were days when she craved some male attention. She couldn’t recall when she last felt pretty. She could, however, very quickly conjure up that old vision of Belinda Big Ass, screwing stupid Jack Ass.

“You want the meatloaf?” Deke asked Chesney as a woman named Carol Ann approached to take their orders.

Feeling famished, Chesney mentally rejected her first intention to order a salad. “I’ll have a burger,” she said, adding, “with fries and a chocolate shake. Oh, and a piece of chocolate pie, too.”

Deke grinned across the table. “You need to put some meat on those bones,” he smiled. “That’s for sure.”

While they waited for lunch to arrive, Chesney prompted Deke to share whatever it was that made his entire face light up. “I sold two of my paintings,” he said happily. “How about that, Chez? And better yet, an art gallery in Nashville wants to feature my work next month.”

“Are you kidding?” she squealed. “I’m so happy for you, Deke. See? I told you your work is beautiful, didn’t I? That three-dimensional technique you do with landscapes is amazing. And now you’ll finally have the chance to share it. More people can see your work. And they don’t have to wait until they need to shop at the hardware store.”

“This opportunity really means a lot to me,” Deke said as he rubbed his hand through his windblown hair. “I still can’t quite believe that it’s true.”

“When my friend Becca comes to town next month, she and I will definitely make the trip to Nashville,” Chesney smiled. “Maybe the three of us can go out for dinner.”

“Sounds great,” Deke smiled back.

During the lunch, Chesney learned a lot more about Deke. He grew up north of Bean Blossom. He wanted to study art after high school. But his family rejected that idea. So he got a degree in business instead. And when his father died suddenly from heart trouble, Deke was expected to step in and take over the family hardware business. As the only son, it was his responsibility to financially provide for his mother.

“To live with how my life turned out, I paint during the day when I’m not helping customers,” he said. “But I never thought I would have an opportunity like this. I really never believed it could happen.”

“I never thought I’d write for a living either,” Chesney said. “For years, I worked as a reporter for a notoriously understaffed newspaper. But then I finally sold one book. Thankfully, one book was all that was necessary for me to get my foot in the highly competitive world of literature. So yes, I do understand what this means to you, Deke. My writing is who I am. It’s what I am. And if I wasn’t able to write, I’d be lost.”