His surly attitude should be all she needed to tell her that he was dealing with something. She’d thought it stemmed from the accident, but now she wondered if the accident was just the tip of the iceberg. She told herself she wanted to help Conrad because he was tied to Gilbert Corners and the alleged curse.
But she knew that was a lie. She wanted to help him because she liked him. As surly as he could be, there was a decent man underneath. And he was hot, which shouldn’t have anything to do with it, but there it was.
The first man she’d noticed as a woman in five yearswouldbe Conrad, wouldn’t it? He was difficult but also complex. There was so much more to him that his domineering chef persona. Instead of deterring her, that made her keener to get to know him. He came back with a watering can, and she realized she’d been watching him the entire time.
“Why didn’t you dig the hole for the plant?”
“Ah, you kind of sounded like you knew what you were doing,” she said.
“Here, hold this,” he said, handing her the watering can.
He dug a hole and then tossed the shovel down. “Put some water in. But not too much. We don’t want to drown the roots.”
“You actually did more than watch your groundskeeper, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. The staff were nice to me when I came to live with the old bastard.”
“You shouldn’t call him that.”
“Why not? That’s what he was,” he said.
She carefully poured in the water and he gestured for her stop. Then he took the rose plant and set it into the hole he’d made.
“Can you hold it upright while I cover the roots?” Conrad asked.
“Yes. Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
He didn’t say anything in response, just covered over the roots and then took the watering can and put more water on top of the soil. They planted the other three rose bushes in silence, working together as a team.
She wished she could unsay that thing about his grandfather. That was the problem with being her. She was impulsive all the time. She never thought things through, just blurted them out.
“I was trying—”
“I know you were trying to be nice because that’s who you are. But I’m just as much of a bastard as he was. I can’t help myself.”
He leaned on the shovel and stared at her. “Sorry.”
She had a feeling he didn’t often apologize and didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. “How about I make you some lunch as sort pax?”
“You mean before I take you away for the weekend I won,” he reminded her drily.
“Yes. Want to meet me at my place? I walked over,” she said.
“Sure, I’ll take my bike over after I return the watering can and shovel,” he said.
“I’m number 8 Maple Street.”
“I’ll see you there,” he said.
Yikes!
Her house was still not finished; inviting Conrad over had seemed like the right thing to do, but now she was mentally going through it trying to remember if she had any unfinished projects lying around.
She pushed that to the back of her mind. She’d done some good work with the house, uncovering the herringbone wood floors which she’d sanded and then sealed. She was nervous for him to see all the work she’d put into it. For her, this house would be like letting him see her naked...more intimate than he even knew.
She went over to help Nola clean up and then thanked everyone for helping out, deliberately stalling before she walked to her house. When she got there Conrad’s bike was in her driveway, but he wasn’t. As she got closer, she noticed he was sitting on the Hammonds’s front porch talking to Miss Martha and Miss Jean-Marie. He waved at her as she approached and said goodbye to the elderly ladies.
She fumbled with her old skeleton key to open her door and finally got it to work. She opened the door, which she had repaired when she first moved in. The foyer had terrazzo tiles on the floor and the twelve-foot ceilings created an open and cool space. She had a table next to the door where she tossed her keys into a bowl. She toed off her tennis shoes and then turned as Conrad closed the door behind himself.