Switched, Bothered and Bewildered (5 page)

"Hi, is this Dean Wakefield?" she asked. He said yes, so she launched into it. "This is urn . . . Mrs. Stivers. I think you did some work here once? Well, I sort of disassembled my washing machine. Can you put it back together? It's kind of an emergency."

The guy started making excuses but said he did remember her. Oh, and how brilliant was she to pick a guy that knew her sister? Wow, she really was bad at this whole thing.

"Oh
please,
I'm begging you. There's a teenager here who hasn't washed clothes for six months and she'll have to wear a flour sack to school if I don't get this thing running." She meant all that, too. What she didn't say was that she had no idea about anybody else in town, and at least her sister had taken the time to write his name in her phone book, so he couldn't be completely stupid, could he?

He surrendered and said he'd be right out. Sure.

It was almost noon. He'd come rolling in here about two—or three—or four, or never. Dean Wakefield. He was probably available because everyone in town knew better than to hire him except her sister.

Her jeans slipped down below her hips. She yanked them up again and went to find her three-ring binder organizer thingies to keep herself from becoming ... off track.

Fifteen minutes later Dean Wakefield's white truck pulled up in Jana Lee's driveway while Jil-lian watched through the kitchen window. She knew because it had Dean's name written on the truck door and a cartoon handyman painted next to it. Great, she'd hired a cartoon repairman.

As he came around his truck she noticed he sure didn't look much like a repairman. He was lean and mighty good-looking. She stretched further sideways to see him through the window as he climbed up the cement stairs to the front door. Let's just hope Dean had a sense of humor as well as good looks.

"What the? ..." Dean closed his mouth and kept his opinion to himself. What had this crazy broad done, gone wrench happy? He wasn't sure which was more shocking, the completely disassembled washer, or the extreme changes in the lady who had disassembled it. Mrs. Stivers sure looked different. But then he hadn't seen her in quite a while.

"I was trying to fix it," she said.

"I see that." He bent down on his knees and sorted through some of the parts.

She got down beside him and pointed. "I thought maybe the agitator had seized up from all the gunk."

"Might have, but we won't know till it's back together."

"I suppose."

He looked over at her and smiled. She was sitting cross-legged on the floor against the dryer, watching him. He could hardly believe this was the same Mrs. Stivers he'd seen the last time he'd been out here. He'd been genuinely sad for her, losing her husband like that, so young. And he knew what that pain was like firsthand.

Her hair was different. Everything about her was different. Sort of. She had a beautiful smile, and wild, dancing blue eyes. He hadn't noticed that at all when he'd come and replaced the sink faucet. He felt himself attracted to her, which put him off-kilter. He picked up the injector nozzle and reconnected it with the correct valve.

"Are you going to watch me the whole time?" He didn't look at her while he asked that; he just kept putting parts together.

"I have a curious nature. If I watch you, I might learn how to fix it, then I won't have to call you again."

"What fun would that be?" He shot her a quick glance.

"How much am I paying you an hour?"

"Oh, forty bucks or so."

"Are you pretty busy? You didn't seem to be."

"It's a slow day. But I only take calls two days a week." He wondered at her questions. Was she adding his fee base up in her head? Two days times eight hours times forty bucks? It didn't add up to a living, for sure.

Of course he didn't often put on his handyman hat. He'd given up his big contracting business to pursue his other hobby and only occasionally lent his services to people in need in the community. Most Mondays were spent working for his senior friends, fixing whatever needed fixing in their older houses, which was usually quite a few things.

But she didn't need to know that he'd said yes to her out of pity.

"Why not all the time?" she asked.

"I have other interests. Hand me that plastic pipe by your feet—the big white one, please."

"What kind of interests?" She handed him the pipe by doing a very yogalike move.

He raised his eyes from his work to look at her. "I'm a sculptor. I make metal art, or work in stone sometimes."

"That's cool. Are you famous?"

"I made a gate that looks like a windblown tree for Earl Johnson's north cow pasture. Does that count?" He pulled his toolbox over and got his sealing tape and D wrench. She seemed disappointed at his answer.

"This art; is it a Calder kind of thing, or a Bruce Gray kind of thing, or maybe a Horiuchi style?"

Dean looked up at his inquisitive client. "Where'd you learn so much about sculpture?" He didn't really answer her question. It was more of a Dean Wakefield thing, anyhow.

"Oh, I'm a modern art buff. Do you have a website?"

"No, now excuse me, I'm going to need to concentrate on your washer so I don't run up an exorbitant bill for you. Do you have any coffee?"

"Sure."

She gathered herself off the floor, and he watched her grab at her loose waistband. Those jeans of hers were a mite big. She must have lost weight.

"Exorbitant. There's a three-dollar word for ya," she called from the kitchen. "In excess of normal. I had to look it up once."

Dean laughed. "Make that coffee black, please. How's your daughter? She must be pretty big now."

Jillian's coffeepot froze in midair, splashing one sploosh on the countertop. She'd figured out Dean Wakefield had met her sister Jana Lee, but she hadn't thought it would actually come up. She

was thinking it would have been sort of insignificant to him and he wouldn't have really paid attention to Jana Lee. Why the hell did she get herself into this by calling a repairman her sister had hired before? She tipped the pot back to pouring and finished up his cup of coffee. Now what?

"Carly is very fifteen these days/' she answered brightly. "I've been out of town. I went to a spa this weekend." Now what sense did that make? She shut her mouth and brought Dean his coffee.

Dean was staring at her, probably wondering where her whole spa comment had come from. He was sitting on his heels, looking up at her. "Well, you look great," he said.

He had an extremely sexy smile and intense brown eyes. She noticed the muscles, lots of muscles: leg muscles, arm muscles, chest muscles. Sculptors must have to heave things around quite a lot. When her eyes came back up to his face, she noticed he was looking back at her. She scooted back to the kitchen and grabbed her own coffee, slightly embarrassed at herself for checking out the repair guy. The repair guy-dash-sculptor.

She parked herself in a wedged corner of the kitchen and gathered her wits. She sipped her coffee and shuddered at the lack of creamer in it. Yuk.

Here was a really good-looking guy, down to earth, artsy, able to fix a washer; Jana Lee would love that artsy part. And he could fix stuff around the house. If she did this right, not too much, just

enough, she could leave a little surprise for her sister to return to.

She'd have to make up some rules. Like no kissing him. That would be really tacky. So she'd have to entice him in a really Jana Lee kind of way and just leave it sort of open for business. She grinned at her own thoughts. She really was the naughty sister.

As if he knew, Monty Python slumped off the sofa and wagged on over to Dean the repair guy. He got right in his way, in his face, and gave him a big dog smooch.

"Monty, cut that out!" Jillian plunked her coffee down and ran to drag the damn dog off the cute repair guy. She tugged at his collar, but he seemed quite dog-mule-ish about the whole thing and stood his ground.
"Come on,
dog!" she pulled at him, digging her heels in. My God, this dog was heavy!

"It's okay, he's ..." Dean the repair guy was laughing at Monty. Then, because the floor was still wet and despite her mopping up water with at least ten towels, she slipped and landed on her ass. "Oh, geez, are you okay?" He stood up and reached down to her, still laughing.

"So
very
funny," Jillian said. She was miffed at herself, and her butt hurt. She ignored his hand and moved to her knees, then pulled herself up using the side cupboard, her back to him. Unfortu-

nately, her sister's jeans didn't get up with her. They just slid right down to her knees.

"Ah . . . er . .. the pants." Dean was laughing harder now. He was having trouble getting the words out.

She frantically yanked the jeans up. Now why the hell had she picked the red thong today? Her only clean leftover spa break undies, unfortunately.

"Good grief, I'm such a klutz," she said. She tried to regain some dignity. Monty Python barked one dumb huge bark at her, then walked off, disinterested at the chaos he'd created. "I'll get you later, muttley," she yelled. "Look, Dean, I know this is really odd timing, but would you like to go out for a drink later tonight?"

Dean looked shocked. He was wiping his hands on a purple rag and his laughter-watered eyes on his flannel sleeve, but he stopped dead in his tracks when she finished talking. An awkward time gap appeared between them, and Jillian could actually hear the kitchen clock click seconds off. Tick, tick tick. Loud.

"I'd love to have a drink with you," he finally replied.

"This isn't just all about the red thong, is it?" Jillian laughed at herself.

"No, but it's a nice addition. I just haven't enjoyed a woman's company this much in a while, and I'd like to extend that longer."

She dusted the dirt off the rear end of her jeans. No, Jana Lee's jeans. Longer, huh. She wasn't going to be around here very long, but he didn't need to know that. "Let me check my calendar and see if I'm free, now that I blurted that invitation out. And while I'm at it, I'll hunt up a belt while you earn your forty dollars an hour, mister."

Jillian made a dash for the stairs. She had to smile on the way up. Guys out here were so easy. Drop your pants, and you've got a date. She'd chased Jackson Hawks for months and hadn't gotten anywhere with him except a stolen kiss under the mistletoe.

Dean watched Mrs. Stivers dash out of the room holding her pants up and realized he didn't even know her first name. Wait, it was on the callback order that Marcy at the phone answering service had written out from a year ago. He picked up his clipboard and read off the top paper. Jana Lee Stivers,
512 Hollyridge Road
,
Seabridge,
Washington
.

She didn't look like a Jana Lee, but there you go. She looked like a woman who'd been out of circulation a long time and still had a fire inside her waiting to ignite. Hence the red silk thong underwear. He smiled to himself and got back into reassembling the washer Ms. Jana Lee Stivers had taken apart. Who would have figured she'd ask him out?

She was quite beautiful, red undies aside. He thought about doing a smooth marble piece of her. The curve of her hip was round and angular all at the same time. He imagined running his hand over that curve. He hadn't worked in stone in a long time. But Ms. Jana Lee wouldn't translate well in metal, unless it was a bronze cast.

He flashed on the last time he'd done stone and got the old, sad pain back. He'd done a piece for Trina's gravesite. Maybe dating someone who had lost a husband wasn't the best idea. Or maybe it was. Trina hadn't been his wife, but being a live-in lover for over six years had almost been the same. He was grateful he'd gotten to share that short time with her and help her through her illness to the very end.

Maybe being with someone who had experienced that kind of loss herself would make things easier. They'd understand each other.

Maybe he should snap out of the deep thinking and just go for a drink with the pretty lady with the red underwear.

Jillian belted up and checked Jana Lee's notes for the day. Rugrats arrived 3:30, stay till 5:30. Nothing after that. No PTA, no quilting bee. Just Dean the repair guy over a glass of Pinot Noir. Did they have good wine in this town?

Last time she was here there had been a mediocre

Mexican restaurant, a Dairy Queen, KFC, and Mitzel's. Don't leave food to people who think lute-fisk is an actual edible thing. Norwegians.

Well, if it were Jana Lee on this date, she'd leave it to Dean. Jana Lee was a whole lot more passive about such things. Come to think of it, Jana Lee probably wouldn't have asked Dean out. But it had to start somewhere.

She donned her best submissive air and wandered back down the stairs as if she hadn't just bared her thonged ass to the cute repair guy. Sculptor. Repair guy.

He'd done a damn good job with the washer. It was even looking like a washer now. So when the kids tumbled in they wouldn't think washer parts were the new Legos. Oh my God, the kids.

"Dean, I've got to dash to the market before the afterschool gang gets here. I don't know you, but I don't think there's anything valuable to steal in the house, and you just agreed to go out with me anyhow, so pick the place and pick me up at seven-thirty. I'll be ready." She grabbed her purse and her sister's white hoody sweatshirt off a peg and ran out the back door. "I'll pay you later!" she hollered back at him.