Love - From His Point Of View!: Meeting at Midnight

I must have answered, because she left the room. God only knows what I said. I don’t know how long I sat staring at the wall and seeing nothing, either.

Eventually sheer physical discomfort roused me. My shoulder this time. I mushed some pillows around to create more support for it, leaned back and waited for the fire to die down.

The blasted woman had a bad habit of saying outrageous things, then wandering off, leaving me no one to argue with but myself. That would stop, I promised myself. If she was going to drop bombshells, she could damned well hang around and deal with the debris.

But Seely wasn’t in the habit of hanging around.

Never mind. People could change, right? She was big on changing walls and furniture. She could just get used to the idea of changing a couple of habits, too.

It was a helluva thing, but somewhere between Chinesered walls and that irritating pat on my shoulder, my gut had made a decision without consulting the rest of me. For the next few days, I’d be such a good patient my family would worry about me.

Because I had to get well and fire Seely. Soon. I was going to have that woman out of my employ—and in my bed.

Six

The next day, Manny came over for lunch. He dropped off the paint we’d chosen and some painting equipment, then helped Seely move the furniture out of the living room.

I can’t explain how I came to agree to this. Slippery, that’s what she is. She started out by acting as if I’d already agreed. I recognized this trick, since Annie used to pull it. She’d get me to agree that music is important, mention that she wanted to spend the night with a friend, then pretend that meant I’d agreed to let her go to a concert in Denver with that friend.

When I explained Annie’s teenage tricks to Seely, she looked thoughtful and said she really needed to meet my sister. The next thing I knew we were discussing paint colors.

I did protest. She wasn’t being paid to paint my house, for God’s sake. And I couldn’t help her. She wouldn’t have let me, for one thing. I couldn’t pretend it would be unreasonable to forbid me to paint the living room, so I was bound by our agreement.

But that did not make it reasonable for her to do it, either. I asked if she’d ever done any painting.

“Not a lick,” she’d said cheerfully. “We’ll pull the couch into the middle of the room. You can lie there and supervise.”

Sage green. That’s the color we ended up with.

I sat on the couch with my bad leg stretched out, and scowled as Manny and Seely carried the last of the chairs into the dining room. Supervising didn’t suit me nearly as well as everyone seemed to think.

“You sure you don’t want me to help with the prep?” Manny was asking her as they rejoined me. “Or move the rest of the junk out?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder in my direction.

“I’m sure I can work around the couch.”

“Wasn’t talking about the couch.”

Seely’s lips twitched.

“Manny thinks he’s a wit,” I mentioned. “You might not be able to tell, since his face muscles atrophied years ago. That’s the only expression he’s got.”

Manny has an evil chuckle, like a machine gun misfiring. He employed it as he headed for the front door, advising Seely in between bursts not to let me give her a hard time. He paused in the arched entry. “Meant to tell you—that doctor called this morning.”

“What doctor?”

“The one that put you back together in the E.R.”

“Oh,” Gwen said. “The idiot.”

Manny fired another couple of bursts. “That’s the one. He seemed to think you’d hurt your shoulder a few days ago instead of when you drove off a mountain. Wanted me to confirm that.” He shook his head. “Weird guy.”

“Yeah.” I frowned as Seely walked Manny to the door. Harry Meckle was weird, but he wasn’t really an idiot. Just the opposite.

The doorbell rang. I heard them talking to someone else at the door and reached for my walking stick.

“Stay put,” Seely called. “It’s just a delivery.”

I sighed and put the stick down. A moment later I heard the door shut, then she came back into the room carrying a box. “I like Manny. I wish you’d told me, though. I’m afraid I stared at first.”

“What? Oh. That’s right—you hadn’t met him in person.” In addition to being a pain in the butt, a master electrician and the best foreman I’ve ever had, Manny is a dwarf. “I didn’t think about it. To me he’s just Manny.”

She handed me the box, treating me to that slow smile. “Not ‘Manny the dwarf.’ Just Manny.”

“Well, yeah.” The logo was printed in the corner, so I knew what it held. I didn’t want to open it now. “You know how it is. Once you know someone, you don’t see them the same way.” I decided to give her a hint. “There should be a screwdriver in the toolbox. You’ll want to remove the switch plates first.”

“I was hoping for a tool belt.” She bent and rummaged through the toolbox. “I’m sure I’d feel more competent with a tool belt.”

My lips twitched. Picturing a tool belt slung around those thoroughly female hips didn’t make me think of competence.

Seely ambled over to the entry and began unfastening the switch plate there. “You like to read, don’t you? I noticed that your bookshelves are heavy on history.”

It turned out that Seely enjoyed history, too, though she was a slow reader. A mild case of dyslexia, she said, made a book a major investment of time for her. She considered herself lucky, since she’d been diagnosed early, and talked about a teacher who’d helped her. When I asked, she claimed paramedic training hadn’t been too hard. It might take her a while to read something, but, as with many dyslexics, she had an excellent memory.

Though she usually leaned more toward historical fiction than the straight stuff, she asked if I could recommend something on American history “without too many battles,” since she was more interested in people than military action.

I did, of course, and invited her to borrow my copy. By then she’d finished taping off the woodwork and was prying open the paint. She poured it into the pan. “Oh, look! Isn’t that luscious?”

I looked. She’d taken the drapes down already, so light from the two tall windows flooded the room. The old pair of painter’s coveralls I’d found for her completely obscured that glorious figure; her exuberant hair was braided tightly away from her face.

Which glowed. Not in an unearthly way, though. With pure delight. “Luscious,” I agreed.

Maybe I did know how I’d ended up agreeing to let her paint the room, after all.

As she spread great, sweeping strokes of sage green across my walls, I found myself telling her how I’d come to enjoy reading so much. I didn’t miss the architectural career I might have had; the hands-on business of construction suited me. But abandoning college before I could get my degree had nagged at me, as if I’d drawn most of a circle and never finished that last arc. So I’d started reading the kinds of things I thought would complete my education. In the process, I discovered a taste for history.

“It’s full of great stories,” she agreed, stepping back to survey her work. The roller work was almost done; next came the nit-picky brush work. “Daisy says we have to know where we come from to understand where we are.”

“Your mother sounds like a bright woman. You missed a spot up by the ceiling in the west corner,” I pointed out politely.

She glanced at me over her shoulder. “You’re enjoying this.”

“Who’d have thought it?” I shook my head in amazement. “I never tried sitting around watching someone else work. I like it.” Especially when she bent over and the coveralls stretched tight across her round, lovely bottom.

She’d ordered me to stay on the couch. I doubt she was thinking about me making a quick tackle, then rolling her onto her back on the drop cloth. I was, though. Never mind that I’d probably have passed out if I’d tried. It was just as well that our agreement kept me from pitting common sense against the irrational optimism of lust.

Seely got the spot I’d pointed out, then stretched…an inspiring sight. “So what do you think? Will it need a second coat?”

I made myself take a good look at the walls. “Hey,” I said slowly. “This looks good. Really good.”