Janey grinned at Shannon’s blunt statement. “I like being Handy Gal. It’s never boring, I usually enjoy the job, and I get to make something shiny out of a mess.”
“Screw the negative comments. You’re good at what you do.” Shannon motioned toward the door. “If you really are feeling fine after last night’s adventure, you want to come have a bite to eat with me? I just got off shift, and I need to crash in a couple of hours. But if you want to join me for a break, I’m game.”
It was tempting, but her deadlines were real. Especially with the other twist in her life. “I shouldn’t take off. There’s a lot to do, and I have a date tonight.”
Her friend smiled. “Getting tossed to the side for a guy. Story of my life. Who’s the lucky stiff?”
Janey paused for theatrical effect. “Len.”
Shannon’s jaw dropped. When she finally snapped her mouth closed, she’d switched her amusement for a frown. “What the hell did you do to him?”
Janey laughed. “Well, that’s nice. I tell you I’ve finally got a date with the guy I’ve been chasing for years, and you think I did something evil to him?”
“Yes.” Shannon dodged under Janey’s halfhearted swing. “Come on, admit it. This is the last thing I expect to hear from you after…”
“After you foisted my spaced-out carcass on him last night?” Janey shook a hand before Shannon could protest. “And I’m kidding. I know you had to work, and once I fully woke up this morning, I remembered Liz is off on holidays. I’m very grateful nothing bad happened last night.” A shiver hit involuntarily, and Shannon laid a hand on her arm. Janey took a deep breath to get her head back into the right place. “Seriously, it’s okay, and while I’m not sure exactly what went on, Len insists I didn’t blackmail him or anything.”
Shannon considered. “It’s not that I don’t think you’d make a cute couple. It’s just you’ve been interested in him for so long.”
For the first time Janey felt a flush of embarrassment. “God, we’re only going to hear that comment a million more times.”
Her friend nodded. “Unfortunately, yes.” She paused. “I was going to tease you about watching out for old girlfriends who might spit in your eye, but I don’t remember Len going with anyone steady-like.”
Janey shook her head. “Never has. Or at least not that I noticed.”
“Which means it never happened, because, hon?” Shannon winked. “If you don’t know all the details of an event in the man’s life, then it never happened.”
Shannon left, and Janey settled in to finish fixing the subfloor. The entire time she worked, her brain swirled between images of her perfect brother and sister with their perfect high-paying jobs, and their well-meant but interfering offers. Add in the strange attention from Mr. Jons, and all the unanswered questions she had.
The biggest of which were questions about the man she was officially seeing for the first time tonight.
The idea of calling Katy hit—did she need to warn her best friend? Or would she think the date was some kind of post-drug hallucination? Oh God, what if it was? What if the entire thing had only been in Janey’s imagination?
She laughed at herself, and went back to work. One way or another, tonight was going to be an experience.
Len pulled up to the curb outside her house, putting the truck in park before taking a deep breath to steady his nerves.
Nerves. What the hell. She’d been around forever, and they knew each too well from all the years of Janey and his sister being constantly underfoot.
But the world had changed last night, and Len had to admit it made the coming evening different. The remembered softness to her skin changed things in other ways he wasn’t ready to dwell on too hard. Not if he wanted to make it through the date without turning into an absolute fool. Still, his heart was working a whole lot harder than it should have.
He was reaching for his door when a familiar truck approached from the opposite direction. He rolled down his window, coming face-to-face with his oldest brother, Clay. With Janey’s house on the shortest route between the shop and Clay’s place, it was a natural shortcut home for all of them.
Timing still sucked as far as Len was concerned, although him being outside Janey’s wasn’t as unusual as it could have been.
Clay frowned. “Did Katy need you to pick something up?” he asked.
Ha. His brother had jumped to the most obvious conclusion. It was only that morning he’d made the date with Janey, and people in his world were about to discover things had changed. There was no use in pretending or trying to keep it a secret. The instant he and Janey walked in the door of the café, news would spread like wildfire.
But then again, Clay was family. They were the ones you were supposed to jerk around.
“I’m picking something up,” he admitted.
It was rather amusing when his clue was totally missed. “Are you going back to the garage tonight?” his brother asked.
“No.”
Clay made a face. “Damn. We need to switch up the propane cylinders.”
“Do it first thing in the morning.” Just because Clay had no plans for the evening, didn’t mean the rest of them wanted to go back to work. Even if Len didn’t have a date, he didn’t want to be working all the time, not like Clay seemed determined to do.
Clay paused for a beat. “Fine. But don’t let me forget.”
“Right.”
Len’s tone must have given him away, because Clay’s expression changed to a full-out glare. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Of all the things he didn’t want to start then and there was a conversation about how anal Clay could be about upkeep and safety around the garage. Instead of getting into a drawn-out debate, Len went for his typical peacemaker approach. “You won’t forget. You never forget anything important.”
The reassurance didn’t seem to sink in all the way, but Clay nodded. “Say hi to Katy and Gage when you see them.”
They’d both said goodbye to Gage not even an hour ago before he’d left the shop, but Len kept his mouth zipped. “Later.”
Clay took off, and Len headed toward the house, considering perhaps this was another good reason for making changes in his life. Since his mom had died, he and his family had grown close. Maybe too close. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to spend time with them, but living in each other’s pockets got stupid occasionally.
Combine a close-knit family with small-town social habits, and Len was on the verge of becoming a hermit in self-defense.
There were things he didn’t want in his life, but being absolutely alone was no longer what he aspired to. He was very determined the people in his life would be the people he chose, no matter how much willpower that took.
And it seemed Janey was at least temporarily on his chosen list. Finally.
He closed the distance to her front door with a lot more enthusiasm than even five minutes ago, eager to get things rolling.
A small yellow sticky note was taped to the inside of the window.
Renovations underway. Please use back entrance.
Len caught himself smiling as he walked to the back door. He hadn’t spent a lot of time at the Watsons’ house, but the place was familiar enough from the times he’d come to grab Katy to bring her home.
Mr. and Mrs. Watson had always come and spoken with him, politely inquiring about his parents, and later, once his mom had passed away, asking about his father and his brothers. He didn’t remember much about Janey’s siblings. They were a fair bit older and had gone away to university as soon as they finished high school.
He’d met the Watsons dozens of times, and to this day he still wasn’t sure if they had come to the door to make him feel comfortable, or to do the exact opposite. It wasn’t so much what they said, but how they said it. Always so formal. He certainly hadn’t been in any rush to get close with the family.
Len stepped up on the porch and pushed the bell. Inside the house a musical doorbell played a fancy tune that echoed through the open screen door.
“Hang on, I’m almost ready.”
Something in the distance fell with a rolling crash, and Len shuffled his feet, his amusement rising. Janey, in contrast to her parents, had never been anywhere near what he’d call formal. Maybe he wasn’t the only one feeling the tension.
He stared through the glass, hauling in every bit of patience he had as a momentary glimpse of leg flashed past at the end of the hall. His body reacted far too eagerly, and Len deliberately looked toward the ground, steadying his breathing.
“You don’t have to stand outside,” Janey called. “The door is unlocked. Come in and grab a drink, if you want.”
He took the bull by the horns and stepped through the entrance. That was about as far as he’d ever gotten before, so he slipped off his shoes and moved cautiously into the kitchen.
The walls were patched in places, small scraps of old tile and wallpaper visible in the bin by the door. Janey was going to town on her renovations, and he liked what he saw. She wasn’t only changing paint colour and surface trim. She was fixing things from the inside out, and he wasn’t at all surprised.