Help Wanted: Husband?

She nodded. “Plus room and board.”

“Seven dollars an hour?” He was incredulous. He didn’t think it was possible, but her mouth pinched even tighter. He was enjoying himself now.

“It’s a reasonable wage.”

He let out a laugh. “It’s an allowance, sister.”

She squared her shoulders. His gaze dropped as her nicely shaped breasts thrust up.

“I am not your—” Her lean, long frame weaved as if to fold up on itself once more.

“Whoa.” He caught her elbow, moved beside her and supported her lower back with his other hand. “No law says we can’t sit while we negotiate, is there now?”

Her body tensed beneath his touch. She shook him off, easing herself onto the steps without his help. He saw the fine flush of sweat across that high, proud brow. He patted his pants pocket, hoping for a tissue. One pocket was empty except for a worn wallet with no pictures and little money. In the other pocket, he found a cocktail napkin with a name and telephone number that he’d never call scrawled across it. He shoved the napkin at the woman.

She glanced down at the wrinkled square he thrust at her.

“The Fat Dog Grille” was imprinted in a curve across its top. Beneath it, the name and number were written in a feminine flourish. The woman looked up at Julius. “Lulu? You actually know someone named Lulu?”

He smiled slowly. “And she’s not even the first Lulu I’ve known…nor the last, God willing.”

She snatched the napkin from him, her gaze stern even as she tucked her lip as if biting back a smile. She paled and pressed the square to cheek. She flattened her hand against her stomach.

“You gonna be sick?” His alarm was real.

The woman took a deep breath and sat up yet straighter, which until then, Julius hadn’t thought possible. Her spine stiff and her expression inflexible, she handed him back the napkin. “There is no negotiation, Mr. Holt. The pay is, as stated, seven dollars an hour with room and board.”

Pursing his lips in imitation of the woman, he studied the acreage as if actually considering her offer.

“You put up those shutters?” He glanced away from the bright rectangles quickly, catching her off guard, her expression unschooled. He didn’t want to see what he saw. He knew she didn’t want him to see it either—the flash of desperation. His impulsive smile disappeared. Those gray-green eyes were going to be her undoing. His, too.

He was about to say goodbye when he saw a keen challenge in her gaze.

“Don’t change the subject, Mr. Holt.”

He sat on the steps, spread his knees so his body took up more space. He plucked a piece of grass. “Are you offering me the job, Mrs. O’Reilly?”

She inched to the opposite side of the steps. “No.”

“So, negotiations are still open?”

“No, Mr. Holt. There are no negotiations.” She stood too quickly, grasped the rail. He reached for her arm but she twisted away from him, steadied herself on the rail.

“Liver,” he said.

“I beg your pardon?” She swiveled her head toward him; her eyes gradually refocused to find him.

“Eat some liver. It’s full of iron.” He took in her slim frame. Her legs were long as a restless night. “You take a multivitamin?”

She folded her hands at her waist. “Thank you for your concern, Mr. Holt, but I’ll be fine. Thank you for coming by.”

He’d been dismissed, but only his gaze moved to his pickup on the shoulder of the dirt road, then back at the woman with her neon-green sweatshirt and her crazy yellow shutters and her colorless face. “Had a lot of others apply for the job?”

“You’re the first.”

He liked her for not lying. He smiled. She sank onto the steps as if even her slight weight was suddenly too much.

“Yes,” she said.

“Yes?”

“I painted those shutters.”

He kept smiling at her. “It’s a fine yellow.”

Her expression stayed tense except those betraying gray-green eyes softened. “Soon as I get a chance, the door’s going to be bright blue.”

He studied the weathered door, nodding as if he could already see it painted. “You like bright colors?”

“Never much thought about it until I wore chartreuse to my husband’s funeral last month.” She shrugged, looked tired. “Now I can’t seem to get enough of them.”

“I’m sorry.”

She looked at him as if she didn’t understand. “About your husband,” he clarified.

“Oh.” She looked out to the road.

Her reaction intrigued him. “You’re not?” Instinctively he knew she wouldn’t lie.

She looked at him. “I wasn’t happy about it, mind you.”

He was silent but not in judgment. He’d also known men who had deserved to die. He didn’t ask what happened. He had no right. Still, if she decided to tell him, he would listen. Everyone deserved that much. He plucked a piece of grass, traced its length and gave her silence should she want to speak.

She watched him from the corner of her eyes, liking the quiet, thoughtful way he touched the grass as if it were priceless.

“He was in bed with another man’s wife,” she said flatly. “The husband found them. They called it a crime of passion. Passion.” She repeated the word and shook her head.

He saw her eyes confused and vulnerable and, without a doubt, a man’s undoing.

He shifted on the step, his hand reaching to tug at the bill of his baseball cap before he remembered he’d taken it off in the truck. He liked to face a new situation bareheaded, barefaced, without his eyes shaded, signaling secrets. Not that he wasn’t like everyone else with one or two hidden truths. He couldn’t help wondering what mysteries the woman beside him concealed?

He shifted again. The woman stared at the dirt road as if waiting for an answer to come walking down its dusty length. The silence stretched out.

“The woman with your husband?” He broke the silence.

She turned to him, her expression sharp.

“Her name wasn’t Lulu, was it?”