Meant To Be Mine

Amusement curved the corners of his mouth as Eddie watched her for an incredibly long minute. “It’s a little late to be asking that, isn’t it?” He looked around at the rubble he’d created. “You didn’t ask to see any letters of reference, or photographs of my previous work.”

“I assumed my mother had you vetted,” she replied. “Which is good enough for me. She’s like a little barracuda. Nothing gets past her.”

He understood what she was telling him, but it hadn’t been like that. The woman who’d called him, saying she’d gotten his number from Ms. Sommers, had just said that her daughter’s bathroom needed remodeling and to use his better judgment. He’d found that rather unusual. He found Tiffany being so lax about it even more unusual.

Maybe she had become less intense over the years. After all, it had been five years since he’d last seen her. The Tiffany he remembered from their classes together in college had been extremely competitive and had had to verify everything for herself. She’d also given him one hell of a run for his money. Maybe it was a good thing that she didn’t recognize him just yet. He did need the money this job would yield. For now, he decided to play this by ear.

“I just thought you’d want to ask some questions yourself,” he told her.

“Okay,” she said. “How long is this going to take?” When he made no attempt to answer, Tiffany gestured at her disintegrated bathroom. “This,” she emphasized, moving her hand to encompass the entire spacious room. “All this. Rebuilding it. How long is this going to take?” she repeated, enunciating every word.

Leaning the sledgehammer against a wall, Eddie dusted himself off. “‘This’ is turning out to be a bigger job than I thought it was going to be.”

She gave her own interpretation to his words. “Is that your clever way of asking for more money? Because I already told you that my mother—”

“No,” Eddie said, cutting her off before she could get wound up. The Tiffany he remembered could get really wound up. “I’m asking for more time. I thought your bathroom could be remodeled in a weekend, but now that I see it, I realize it’s going to take at least two.”

She still didn’t understand why this contractor could work on the bathroom only on weekends. It didn’t make any sense to her. “Why not just come back Monday morning and keep at it until it’s finished?” she demanded.

Eddie inclined his head, as if conceding the point—sort of. “A week ago, I would have agreed—”

“Fine,” she declared, satisfied that she’d won this argument. “Then it’s settled—”

Eddie talked right over her. As he recalled from past encounters with Tiffany, it was the only way to get his point across. “But that was before I took a day job.”

She assumed he was talking about another construction job. “Put it off until you’re finished.”

He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

“Anything is possible,” Tiffany insisted. “I know that you construction people take on multiple jobs.” Her best friend had dated a man who had his own construction company, and she’d complained about taking second place to his work schedule. “That way, if one falls through, there’s still enough work to keep you going.”

“This isn’t another construction job,” Eddie informed her. “It’s a different job entirely, in a different field.”

He resisted the urge to explain just what that other job was. He wasn’t superstitious by nature, but in this instance he was afraid that if he talked too much about the job that was waiting for him come Monday morning, somehow or other he’d wind up jinxing it. He loved working with his hands, loved creating something out of nothing, but construction work didn’t begin to hold a candle to being a teacher. The one allowed him to create functional things; the other was instrumental in awakening sleeping minds, brains that were thirsting for knowledge. And amid those budding minds one could very well belong to someone who might do great things not just for one or two people, but for a multitude.

But Tiffany wasn’t about to let this drop. He began to think that she hadn’t changed, after all. “What kind of field?”

“A field that might eventually produce someone who could do something to effect the masses,” he told her, leaving it at that.

“The masses?” she questioned, eyeing him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. “You make it sound as if you were part of the CIA.”

“No, not that organization,” he replied.

“But you won’t talk about it?” she asked, really curious now.

“I’m not being paid to talk, I’m being paid to work,” he reminded her, picking up the sledgehammer again. But Tiffany made no move to leave the area. She was obviously waiting for him to tell her what he was referring to. “I’d rather not jinx it,” he finally told her, being quite honest.

She cocked her head, trying to reconcile a few things in her brain that just weren’t meshing. “You’re superstitious?”

“Just in this one respect.”

“Good,” she said, turning to leave as he began to work again. “Because superstitions are stupid.”

It was her. If he’d had the slightest doubt before, he didn’t anymore, Eddie decided. She was just as opinionated now as she had been then.

As she left the room, he slanted a long look in her direction. From there he couldn’t see her face, only the back of her head. But even the set of her shoulders looked familiar.

It was Tiffany Lee, all right. And right now, he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. The only thing he knew was that he wasn’t going say anything to her about their shared past. At least, not yet.

Chapter Three (#ulink_d0357b3c-8340-5893-ae6e-6a8ccee43e7c)

Since Tiffany apparently didn’t recognize him, Eddie decided to keep the fact that they had a history to himself and not say anything to her until he felt the time was right—like after he finished the job. After all, he couldn’t have made that much of an impression on her if she didn’t remember him. He vividly remembered their interactions in college, but it was obvious that she didn’t. If he reminded her of it, she might just turn around and fire him.

It was best to leave well enough alone.

Working at a steady pace, he demolished the bathroom and then carted the debris out to his truck until it was filled, at which time he hauled it to the county dump. That involved a number of round trips. All in all, it took him practically the entire day.

He worked continuously, taking only one thirty-minute break to consume a fast-food lunch that was far from satisfying.

By four thirty, he was completely wiped out and decided to call it a day. But he didn’t want to just pack up and leave, the way he knew some people in his line of work would. He wanted Tiffany to be made aware that he was leaving for the day. Otherwise, she might wind up thinking she had to wait around for him to return.

When he didn’t see her during his multiple trips back and forth to his truck while he was packing up his tools and equipment, Eddie resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to go looking for her. Since she hadn’t said anything about leaving the house, he assumed she had to be on the premises somewhere.

As unobtrusively as possible, he went through both floors of the house, going from room to room.

Tiffany wasn’t anywhere to be found.

Would she just leave the house—and him—without saying anything? Granted, it wasn’t as if she had to check in with him, since technically, he was the one working for her. But just walking out without letting him know that she was going or when she’d be back didn’t seem quite right to him.

What if something came up and he wanted to go home while she was out? He couldn’t very well just leave her house standing wide open. That was tantamount to issuing an invitation to any burglar in the area. And despite the fact that if anything happened, it wouldn’t be his fault, he would still feel responsible if someone did break in and steal something.

With a sigh, Eddie resigned himself to waiting for her to come home. That was when he happened to glance out the rear bedroom window. It was facing the tidily trimmed backyard, which was where Tiffany had disappeared to.

She appeared to be completely engrossed in a book. She was sitting at a small oval table in the little gazebo that was off to one side of the yard.

He should have thought of looking there first! Eddie upbraided himself as he left the bedroom and hurried down the staircase. After all, it was a beautiful April day.

Since she had obviously taken it upon herself to stick around while he worked, he could understand Tiffany wanting to take advantage of the weather. Which explained why she was outside, reading a book.

After reaching the bottom of the stairs, Eddie went to the rear of the house and opened the sliding glass door. It groaned a little as he did so. He debated leaving the door open—after all, informing her that he was leaving for the day wasn’t going to take any time, he reasoned. But then he thought better of it—just in case—and pulled the door closed again.

Despite the groaning noise, Tiffany didn’t even look up.

She was totally engrossed in the book she was reading—a real book, he noted with a smile, not one of those electronic devices that held the entire contents of the Los Angeles Public Library within its slender, rectangular frame.

For a moment he said nothing. He almost hated to disturb her, but he really needed to get going.

His body ached from swinging his sledgehammer and hauling out the wreckage that had been her bathroom just eight hours ago. What he craved right now was a long, bracing shower with wave after wave of hot, pulsating water hitting every tight muscle and ache he had—and a few that he probably didn’t even know he had.