Her Man Upstairs by Dixie Browning Read Free Book Online

boat at the moment.”
    Right. Bob Ed and Faylene had sent him, after all. There’d been a few distractions yesterday, including the man himself.
    â€œIsn’t it cold?”
    â€œYep.”
    And that was the end of that…unless she wanted to invite him to move into her warm, insulated house, which wasn’t even a distant possibility.
    Back to business. “How long do you think it will take to tear out what needs tearing out and turn my upstairs hall into a kitchen?” She placed three strips of bacon in a frying pan and turned on the burner. At the first whiff of smoke she remembered to turn on the fan. The cover and batteries for her smoke detector were still on the counter where she’d left them.
    Spotting them, Cole replaced the batteries and clicked the cover in place.
    Marty smiled her thanks. “I was just getting ready to do that,” she lied.
    â€œAs to the tear-down, it shouldn’t take more than a day or two.”
    Was that a yes, he’d do it, or an answer to a rhetorical question? Forcing herself not to sound too eager, she said, “That sounds great.”
    He stood beside the table staring out the window, his hands tucked halfway into the hip pockets of his jeans as the tantalizing aroma of frying bacon filled the room.
    â€œForecast is calling for more rain,” he said.
    Marty glanced over her shoulder. Oh my, honey, I hate to tell you this, but those jeans are a little overcrowded. “It’ll be February in a few more days, and after that, March—that’s when spring starts for real. Of course, we get those Hatteras Lows that can hang around for days, beating the devil out of any blossom that dares show its face.”
    â€œMmm-hmm,” he murmured.
    Mr. Enigma. The fact that Marty tried not to look at him again didn’t mean she wasn’t aware of him with every cell in her undernourished body.
    She took up the bacon and placed the strips on a folded paper towel. Whipping a dab of salsa con queso into the eggs, she tried to focus her mind on the estimate and not on the man. The fact that he’d showed up meant he was ready to talk business. Whether or not she could afford him without taking out a loan remained to be seen.
    â€œHave a seat. D’you need to wash up first? The bathroom’s upstairs—but you know that, of course. Or you can use the sink down here if you’d rather. The hand towel’s clean—or there’s paper.”
    Excuse me and my big, blathering mouth, I always talk like this when I’m on the verge of losing my mind.
    A few minutes later, Marty popped two slices of bread in the toaster and filled two plates. Cole had excused himself and gone upstairs, either to wash up or to take another look at the job before committing himself. Thank goodness she’d made her bed as soon as she’d crawled out of it. Was her gown hanging behind the bathroom door? Had she put the cap back on the toothpaste?
    Well, shoot, did it matter? At least she was wearingshoes and socks today. He had no way of knowing she just happened to be wearing the only pair of jeans she’d ever owned that cost more than a hundred bucks. She’d bought them on sale two years ago, just to prove something or other to Sasha—she’d forgotten now what it was.
    â€œI’ve got strawberry jam, marmalade and homemade fig preserves,” she told her guest when he came back downstairs. “Help yourself.”
    Hope for the best, prepare for the worst, that was her motto. He would hardly eat her food if he intended to turn down the job, now would he? Or price himself out of the market. Unless he was broke and hungry or totally lacking in ethics.
    He might be broke, and he was certainly hungry, judging by the way he was packing away his breakfast—but she’d be willing to bet on his ethics. Something about the way he looked her square in the eye told her that much.
    Right. And Beau hadn’t looked