Deck the Halls

“Hire a decorator,” she told him. Obviously he could afford professional help.

He wrinkled his nose at that. “I don’t know. I’m not much for trends and themes. It’s not a showroom, after all, it’s a home.”

“But the right decorator could do wonders in here,” she insisted.

“Yeah, but who is the right decorator?” he asked rhetorically. He then effectively closed the subject by lifting a hand and saying, “Laundry room’s this way.”

He led her through the kitchen and into the hallway. After pointing out that the garage lay to the left, he turned right. The second door opened into a laundry room large enough to sport not only a top-of-the-line, front-loading washer-and-dryer set but also a pair of roll-away racks for hanging clothes, a work table for folding and an ironing board, plus a sink and various cabinets.

Dead center on the tiled floor lay a heap of clothing big enough to easily hide a full-grown man. Sitting up. Jolie’s jaw dropped.

“How long have you been accumulating that?” she asked, pointing at the pile.

“Week, week and a half,” he said mournfully. “By Friday there’ll be about half that much again.”

“Good grief!” she exclaimed, mentally rolling up her sleeves. “Looks like I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

He lifted his hands. “So do I load it up or not?”

“In what?” she asked dryly. “You got a dump truck around here?”

He chuckled. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

“Well, then,” she said with a sigh, “I guess we’ll do it your way.”

He just grinned, blast his good-looking hide, and well he might. In his place she’d be grinning, too. She was smiling on the inside as it was. Working in a place like this was going to be an out-and-out pleasure, even if it was only temporary. If he tried anything funny with her, she’d just walk out and leave him and his laundry high and dry without the least qualm.

Looking at it that way, she couldn’t lose, because whatever happened, her car would be fixed. She almost hoped he did try to take advantage of the situation, but not until her debt was paid off because she didn’t like owing anybody anything.

Yes, sir, smiling on the inside.

For once, things were going to go her way.

“This one?” Jolie slowed the car as they drew near the corner. Vince shook his head.

“No, the next.”

She sped up again, laughing when the little car responded with more pep than usual. “I can’t get over how much better it runs.”

“It’ll drive even smoother with the tires rotated and balanced,” he told her. “You might notice a little improvement when we get all the hoses replaced, too, but probably not. You won’t have to worry about another breakdown anytime soon, though.”

“Music to my ears,” she said, and he couldn’t help smiling.

She drove as she seemed to do everything else, he noted, with an innate wariness. It certainly kept her on her toes and gave him some confidence in her safety on the road, but it also made him a little sad because she seemed to be constantly expecting trouble and catastrophe.

Over all, Jolie Wheeler struck him as a woman who’d had a lot of hard knocks in life, which was, he supposed, nothing new. The odd thing was that he didn’t much like thinking of it.

The way she’d taken in his place had told him that she was unfamiliar with some of the more recent building trends. Later, she’d seemed to be mentally furnishing and decorating the space, and yet she’d remained oddly detached, admiring but certainly not gushing with compliments. He had sensed a kind of assumption on her part that she was out of her element in his house, and that had irritated him a little. Okay, a lot.

He was proud of his home. It was no mansion, but it was comfortable and spacious and extremely well-built. For the life of him, he didn’t see why she shouldn’t feel perfectly at ease in such surroundings, especially as he’d been particularly struck by how right the place felt for her. Maybe that accounted for the new idea noodling around in the back of his mind.

What he’d told her about needing help with furnishing and decorating the place was true. In fact it had begun to take on a certain urgency as his mother and sisters had started pressing him to let them have a go at it. He shuddered mentally, imagining what that might mean. If he wasn’t very careful he’d walk into his own house one day soon and find it outfitted in chintz and lace and filled up with kitschy knickknacks.

He liked what Jolie had done with the apartment much more than what his mother and sisters had done with their respective homes. Could she be talked into giving him a hand with his place? He was trying to think how to broach the subject when his stomach gurgled and growled—more like roared, actually. It was so loud that Jolie burst out laughing.

Mildly embarrassed, he clapped a hand over his belly.

“Feeding time at the zoo, I take it,” she teased.

“Hey, I’m a hardworking man, and it’s dinnertime, okay?”

“Okay by me,” she grinned.

Suddenly his heart was beating a little too pronouncedly as he made a spur-of-the-moment decision. He shifted in his seat, wondering if it was wise but knowing that he was going to do it. Fearing she could get the wrong idea, though, he made the suggestion as casually as he could manage.

“Listen, there’s a pretty good restaurant up here on the right. Why don’t we stop off and grab a bite?”

For a second, he got no reaction. Then she made a face, and he was sure that she was going to tell him to go soak his head. To his surprise, though, her answer was fairly ambiguous.

“I’m not really fit for going out after a day at the cleaners. It’s dirty, smelly work, and—”

“You look good to me,” he blurted and then could’ve bitten his tongue off—until she slipped him an almost hopeful glance out of the corner of her eye. “It’s a casual sort of place,” he added quickly. “I’m, uh, not exactly dressed for anything fancy, either.” He indicated his uniform with a wave of one hand.