One side of his lips curved up in a halfhearted smile. “You know better than that, but you are a puzzle. Your apology, although sincere, was unsatisfying. I’ll let you off this once. Once. And I’ll take you wherever you want to go, but I’d rather not leave you to fend for yourself in the dark.”
“It’s a short walk from there.”
“Then you won’t mind if I take you straight to your house. On the way, I have another issue to talk to you about.”
“Heck, what now?”
* * * *
“I had to go and ask what he needed,” Bunny muttered the following Monday as she pulled up in front of Hazelle House in her work truck. Her pride and joy, bought at auction with the money she’d saved. So what if it had one hundred thousand miles on it.
Joseph had dropped her off in front of her house Saturday night, and she’d denied feeling embarrassed about the neighborhood. It wasn’t that bad, but compared to what he was used to, it’d probably looked like a shack. That wasn’t very nice, she knew. He’d never given her the impression he was a snob. It was her problem, not his.
She banged on the long toolbox with her gloved fist as she turned the key, and it popped open like a charm. The galvanized steel tower she’d be working on was situated near one corner of the mansion, where it was out of sight, and near the top of it was the Internet antenna for Hazelle House.
After getting into her climbing gear, she was halfway up the tower when she heard a male voice hollering at her.
“What in the hell are you doing up there?”
She looked down at Joseph, and the expression on his face was priceless. She giggled and shouted, “I should charge you extra for bothering me when I’m climbing! What do you need?”
Joseph’s eyes were big as saucers as he gaped at her, and then he hollered, “I need you to get your ass down here this minute!”
“No! I’m not done!” she shouted, projecting so he’d hear her over the wind shifting the structure so it swayed back and forth ever so slightly. “I’ll come find you when I’m done!”
“Get the fuck down here right now, Bunny!”
She shook her head at him, which whipped her long red braid around her shoulders, and went back to climbing. “You want Internet?” she yelled, not caring if he heard her. She already knew what he’d say when she got down there.
“Yes, but a woman has no business climbing that monstrosity!”
Holding on with one hand, and with her harness hooked safely onto the tower, she angled out at him to make sure he’d see, and then she shot him the finger. “That was a very sexist remark, Sir! See you in a bit—after this little girlie fixes your Internet,” she said as she went back to climbing. She had only another twenty feet to go to reach the antenna. “First, he wants his Internet fixed. Then he says I should get down. But he wants his Internet fixed. Make up your mind, jackass.”
“I heard that!”
She gave him a big grin and waved, and he looked as if he was about to have a heart attack. “Put your hand back on the rung! You and I are having a discussion when you come down!”
“I can’t wait! Now run along, big bad Dom, so I can get finished before overtime kicks in!”
He put his hand to his head as if he had a headache while he stomped away, and she felt a little guilty. Some people had a really hard time with heights, and lots of people didn’t understand how she could climb a tower without freaking out. Heights didn’t bother her. Now, spiders and snakes? Those were scary. Heights? No biggie. That didn’t mean she was stupid. She always climbed with safety gear and only under safe conditions. She didn’t have a death wish. She just appreciated the view…and the quiet.
Glancing back at him, she grimaced a little. It was obvious he hadn’t expected her to climb the tower herself. The bucket truck was good up to a certain point, and then she was better off climbing because the bucket swayed worse in the wind than a tower did. In this particular instance, though, it just wasn’t tall enough.
Reaching the antenna, she set about testing the connections. Once she was finished fixing the minor issue, she paused to enjoy the view while she drank from the water bottle clamped to her belt. Sweat soaked her tank top and the cotton shirt she had on over it, and she shrugged, stretching the muscles in her shoulders. Working with her arms over her head sometimes gave her a muscle cramp.
The terrain surrounding the mansion was a beautiful mix of oak-tree green and the gray and brown of the natural stone. It had rained the night before, and the sky was crystal clear with visibility for miles. The mansion wasn’t visible from any roads or nearby vantage points. The only way someone saw the place was either from the air, or if they got past the security gate at the entrance. She’d asked about it the first time she’d been sent out by Grogan Home Theater and Communications for a service call, and Joseph had explained that he’d situated the house that way intentionally, for maximum privacy. She’d discovered recently why he wanted to provide that much privacy when she’d come out on an emergency service call for his in-house sound system. She’d never seen that many naked people all in one place at one time, ever.