I have a toolbox in my truck.” His drawl seemed to have deepened. “Ma’am,” he added after a moment.
Her lips tightened.
Smart-aleck repairmen she didn’t need. What she did need was heat. Or she was afraid she was going to have to give up the idea of staying in the cabin on her own.
She might as well have a tail that she could tuck between her legs if she had to admit, already, that she couldn’t hack it by herself in Weaver.
The idea tasted bitter. As bitter as the fear that ran deep and strong inside her that she wouldn’t be able to hack it.
And then where would she be?
Back in Georgia? Lolling away her time and inheritance in a place where nobody really cared about her—or heaven forbid—felt sorry for her?
No, thanks.
“If you wouldn’t mind getting to it, then,” she prompted flatly when the guy just kept watching her. She was used to men watching her, but seriously, he wasn’t at all her type. She didn’t go for unshaven, unkempt laborers even if he did come with a pair of emerald eyes. For all she knew he had a wife and a half-dozen kids waiting for him back at his single-wide trailer.
But even her judgmental thoughts shamed her. She hugged her arms around her waist.
Weaver was supposed to be a chance for her new life.
A better life.
That was the whole point of this. A better life.
More importantly a better Sydney now that it wasn’t only herself she had to think about.
This man, emerald eyes and all, was entirely incidental.
She cleared her throat and made herself walk a few steps closer. “I’m not used to this type of furnace,” she admitted. Back home, the climate controls were the very best that money could buy. If she had to push a button, that was doing a lot. “I know it runs on gas and I already had that checked. Yesterday. The guy from the gas company said there weren’t any leaks.”
“Yesterday.” His eyebrows—several shades darker than his blondish-brown hair—shot up a little. “You haven’t had heat since then? You know it’s barely thirty degrees out there. Why didn’t you call before now?”
“I do know. And I did.” Her voice was bordering on withering and she tried not to cringe. “I found a listing for handyman services and called this morning,” she added, determined to sound friendlier. The guy was here. Finally. She needed him to fix the darn thing, not leave because she was acting like a witch.
He looked back at the furnace and shook his head. “Warned Jake that furnace was on its last legs.”
She frowned a little at his easy mention of her brother, but told herself that was all probably part and parcel of living in a small town.
Everyone knew everyone.
The repairman shifted and leaned down closer to the furnace. “At least you had the sense to check for a gas leak.”
It didn’t sound like praise to her. “I’m not an idiot.” Not about everything, at least.
He gave her a glance again with that amused glint in his eyes that put her teeth on edge. “Didn’t say otherwise. Ma’am,” he said mildly. Then he pulled off a panel and set it on the floor beside him, studying the inside of the furnace for a moment before reaching in and fiddling with something, then pushing to his feet. He turned to her. “I’ll be back.”
He walked past her and went out the door, closing it behind him.
She shivered again and stared at the guts of the furnace, visible behind the missing panel. It might as well have been a nuclear reactor for all of the sense it made to her.
Through the wide window next to the door she could see him stomping across the snowy ground to a big pickup truck. It was so filthy she couldn’t even tell what color it was, unless mud had a place now on the spectrum. He pulled open the door and climbed up inside.
Then he just sat there with the door open, despite how cold she knew it was outside, his sunglasses back in place while he looked at the cabin.
Even from her distance she could see him shake his head.
Her lips tightened again.
She deliberately turned away and picked up the large, square painting and fit it over the sturdy nail, nudging up one corner until she was satisfied. Then she stepped back to survey her work.
But even her satisfaction at having her favorite paintings hanging in her new home didn’t help her forget the man in his truck outside.
She could practically feel his gaze burning through the window.
She picked up her hammer again and set the next nail where she’d already measured off the spot and in just a few minutes, she had the third and last painting hanging in place.
She looked out the window again. Now the man—still sitting in his truck—was talking on a cell phone.
She exhaled noisily and went into the kitchen. It didn’t possess a microwave. Nor a dishwasher. And the pot filled with water that she put on the stove was hardly the latest in design when it came to making coffee.
But then coffee wasn’t on her list of allowable drinks any longer.
She turned on the flame beneath the pot and emptied a packet of hot chocolate mix into a thick, white mug. If her furnace wasn’t working by that evening, she might have to go stay at her brother’s new house.
It was what he’d wanted her to do in the first place. The cabin was barely habitable, he’d said. Sydney figured what he really meant was that it would be barely habitable for her, given her usual taste for luxury with a capital L. He and his wife had left for California the day after she’d arrived four days ago, taking their aunt and her new husband with them. They’d already planned to spend a month visiting Jake’s twin sons, who spent part of the year there with their mother. But no. Sydney had insisted that she was determined to do this on her own. That she loved the quaint little place where she could have all the privacy that she desired.
Jake had just shrugged and told her she’d always been stubborn about getting her own way. What he hadn’t added, but had probably thought was, even when it was a mistake.
Mistake or not, she’d set a course, and she was determined to stick to it. Her brother didn’t know the entire reason she’d sought refuge in Weaver. She’d tell him when she was ready. But right now, she couldn’t bear to admit failure already, and that’s how it felt if she had to give up and go stay at his place.
A failure.
She leaned against the knotty pine cupboards that formed the small L-shaped kitchen and waited for the water to heat. Small bubbles were just beginning to form in the base of the pot when she heard the door open again and she peered around the short wall into the main room of the cabin.
The sunglasses were gone. But the repairman still wasn’t carrying any tools.
“How
