Mr. Fix-It (11 page)

“I appreciate the invite, but I can’t,” he said, directing his response over his shoulder.

“Oh, come on,” the woman playfully purred, resting her chin on his shoulder and wrapping her arms around his middle. “If you show me your muscles, I’ll show you mine.”

Slowly standing, Carter extricated himself from the woman’s grasp. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, calling on the power of his accent to make his refusal more palatable. “You’re as pretty as a summer sky, but I’m afraid I can’t go anywhere with you today.”

She perched prettily on the weight bench. “What about tomorrow?”

Shaking his head, Carter grabbed his towel and his paperback and headed for the locker room.

“Howdy, cowboy!” called a slender girl who looked no older than eighteen. “Where’ve you been keeping yourself?”

In the span of time it took the young lady to disengage herself from the headphones connected to the CD player built into her elliptical trainer, Carter tried to peck her name from his brain. By the time she’d stopped the machine and hopped into his path, he was at least certain that her name ended in ‘ie’.”

“Hey, Carter!” she greeted shrilly, tugging at his sweat-dampened T-shirt. “I was hoping to run into you.”

Clinging to his arm, she leaned close to him and spoke directly into his ear. “I’ve been coming here every day for the past three weeks, hoping to catch you here. I can’t stop thinking about our night on your roof.”

She took his hand and squeezed his fingers until his knuckles cracked. “You made me see stars with that telescope of yours.” She grazed his groin with her knee, causing him to jump.

“Hey, now, uh…you,” he stammered, “let’s try to control ourselves here.”

“I’m free tonight—if you want to stargaze some more.”

Carter’s blood chilled a degree or two. There were details, other than her name, he hadn’t remembered about this woman. Had her smile always been so wide, so hungry and so full of teeth? Had the shine in her eyes always been this bright and feral?

Everything about her seemed exaggerated and unpleasant. He didn’t even like her smell, and there was nothing wrong with her floral scent other than it lacked the spice and individuality of Khela’s.

Carter shook his head slightly, more aware than ever of how flat and unappealing every woman looked to him now. “I’ve got plans tonight, honey,” Carter said, inching away from the overeager woman. “Sorry.”

“Another time, then?” she asked hopefully, backing toward her vacated machine.

Before turning the corner leading to the locker room, Carter looked back and saw the toothy woman turning her high-wattage grin on fresh prey. He was tall and stacked with muscle. She thrust out her chest and touched the man’s shoulders and arms.

For a second, Carter thought the twinge of emotion he felt in his gut was jealousy. But then he quickly realized that he was completely wrong, and that the truth was more troubling. He wasn’t jealous. He was interchangeable. The women in the gym treated him the way most women did, as though he were a piece of meat of no use other than satisfying their most indelicate appetites.

A pretty Asian exiting the women’s locker room almost bumped into Carter, and the appraising look she gave him as he apologized made him open his sweat towel and drape it self-consciously over his chest as he ducked out of sight into the men’s locker room.

Chapter 7

“Her gaze copied their bodies, fusing with his to lock them in that place in the heart and head where love, lust, passion and romance intersect.”

—from
Sybarite Seeks Same
by Khela Halliday

Khela used the back of her wrist to swipe sweat from her forehead. After leaning her mop against the wall, she emptied the bucket of dingy water into the Toto toilet, which she’d already scrubbed until it sparkled, and inhaled deeply. Murphy’s Oil Soap was one of her favorite scents, and it was perfect for Carter’s visit.

Along with her cake, he’d purchased an evening with her, presumably to share her creation. Although she’d begrudged being bought through Carter’s five thousand-dollar donation to the Literacy Fund, her efforts to make the night perfect surprised her.

“Not perfect,” she corrected, giving the almond-colored marble counter one last polish with a cleaning cloth. “Just good enough.”

This isn’t a date any more than the convention weekend was a date
, she told herself. She crossed the room to get to the shower stall, where she started a powerful stream of hot water.
I’m gonna shower, I’m gonna dress and then I’m gonna slap some cake on a plate and call it a night.

She stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower. “May as well use the good stuff,” Khela said indifferently, reaching past the everyday deodorant soap to grab her eponymous body gel. She smoothed it over her legs and, noting their less-than-silky texture, she decided to use a depilatory cream rather than a razor. “Save me the trouble of shaving for awhile,” she reasoned.

Khela found perfectly innocuous reasons to take tweezers to her eyebrows, tidying their graceful arches, and to paint her finger- and toenails, a task she completed solely for herself, and not because Carter might come into contact with her hands or see her feet in the course of the evening.

By the time she had chosen a cotton halter dress with a floral print, selected for comfort, not because of how it prettily displayed her back and arms, she had managed to convince herself that the evening with Carter was a business meeting like any other.

Any other that would take place within twenty yards of her bedroom.

She gave her head a hard shake, clearing it of dangerous thoughts linking Carter with her bedroom. A quick glance at the big analog clock in the kitchen prompted her to give the dining area a quick once-over. Carter had never been late for any of his maintenance appointments; she doubted he’d show up tardy for a real date.

She slapped her forehead. “It’s not a date,” she said adamantly. “It’s just another business arrangement.”

Khela tended to this business arrangement with the same care she would have shown any other. Every detail was as perfect as she could make it—bone-white china, crystal glassware and silver cutlery sparkled on the dining room table, the cake was in her warming oven along with a shallow pan of water to keep it from drying out. An Israeli muscato chilled in the refrigerator, and India.arie’s rich, evocative voice complemented the orange glow of the sunset tinting Khela’s tall, wide windows.

At seven on the mark, the doorbell rang. An unpleasant jolt of anxiety shot through her, forcing her to take deep breaths as she slowly made her way to the door.
It’s just Carter
, she told herself as she turned locks and unlatched the security chain.
He’s been here a dozen times.
She worked her face into a wide, nervous smile and swung open the door.
This is no big deal. It’s just—

“Carter,” she sighed at the sight of him filling the doorway. “Hi.”

He was just Carter, but Carter elevated in the weeks since she’d last seen him.

He wore jeans, leather uppers and a blue-striped button-down. His right hand rested in one pocket, the left gripped his clean-shaven jaw. He was the very picture of casual indifference from the nose down, but his eyes told a very different story.

Unblinking, they raked over Khela, making her wish for the barest of moments that she’d done something more with her hair other than pull it into a ponytail.

His greeting surprised her. “You look stunning,” he said.

It was a simple statement of fact that temporarily robbed Khela of her ability to speak. “Thank you,” she responded, once she regained control of her tongue. “Come in.” She stepped aside to allow him to enter.

“The cake is in the kitchen,” she said. “Go ahead and seat yourself and I’ll—”

“Lookin’ to get rid of me quick, huh,” he said over his shoulder as she followed behind him.

“No, it’s just that I made the cake a few hours ago, and I’m worried about the quality of the product you’re getting.” She hurried ahead of him and turned into the kitchen.

“Need a hand?” He paused in the archway between the kitchen and the dining room area. “I’ve got two good ones, and they ain’t busy at the moment.”

“Please, just have a seat.” Khela shoved her hands into black oven mitts. “I can handle this.”

The instant Carter stepped away, Khela collapsed against the stainless-steel door of her refrigerator. She suddenly felt as though she’d had the oven on all day. Rushing to the kitchen window, she shoved it open and let the breeze cool her flushed face and soothe her nerves.

“I can’t handle this,” she whispered anxiously.

He had been to her place dozens of times to flirt with Daphne and handle some dubious repair. This time shouldn’t be any different, even if he had dropped heavy coin for the honor of spending time with her.

And that’s the difference,
Khela silently admitted.
The only thing broken around here tonight is me, and he’s here because he
wants
to be.
After another moment of quiet contemplation, Khela was forced to admit a deeper truth.
And I’m glad.

With truth came a sense of ease that allowed her to focus her thoughts and get on with the evening. She carefully centered the cake on a black platter and set a silver cutter alongside it. Everything else she needed was already on the table—or sitting at the head of it.

Khela exited the kitchen carrying the cake before her. She made it all the way to the table and placed the platter in front of Carter before her palms began to sweat.

“Aren’t you joining me?” he asked, catching her wrist.

She expected the question, seeing as how there was only one table setting. Gently pulling her wrist from his grasp, she answered him. “This is your party. You paid for this cake, and I’m supposed to serve it to you. There’s nothing in the rules that says I have to join you.”

Carter held her gaze a little too long, certainly long enough for Khela to see the flash of disappointment in them. He issued a short, decisive sigh, and said, “Fair enough. Rules are rules. So is this a chocolate cake?” Leaning forward, he studied it a bit closer. “It looks kinda strange.”

“It’s not chocolate,” Khela said uncomfortably, picking up the cutter.

“Is it vanilla?” Carter sat up straight as she bent over the table to cut the cake, inhaling the vanilla nuances of her perfume.

“Nope.”

“Lemon?” he asked hopefully.

Khela made two cuts and lifted out a solid wedge of her cake. “Beef.” She eased it onto Carter’s plate.

He seemed to shudder, and Khela pinched back an impish smile.

“You made a beef cake?” he deadpanned.

Khela stood up straight, her right fist propped on her hip, the cutter protruding from her clenched hand. “The irony of you buying this cake is just too indescribably delicious.”

“Why is that?” His jaw tightened. “Because you think of me as beefcake?”

“No, I figured this cake would go to some stranger, not someone I know.”

“Oh,” he grunted, a faint blush rising in his cheeks. “Sorry.” He looked down at the pleasantly steaming cake on his plate and took a deep whiff of it. “Is this meatloaf?”

Khela toyed with the cutter, her eyes lowered. “It was supposed to be a joke. It’s a double-layer meatloaf made with lean ground chuck, pork sausage, green peppers, onions and mushrooms. The frosting is mashed potatoes. The roses are made of ribbons of red bell pepper, and I cut the leaves from green peppers.”

Carter stared at his cake, his brow slightly furrowed.

Khela shifted from foot to foot, yet again regretting her decision to make light of her auction contribution. “I thought it would be funny,” she explained, twirling the cutter just to give her hands something to do. “The Literacy Fund sent me that invitation right after the writer’s convention, and I just wasn’t in the mood to promote romance. It was just bad timing, and I wasn’t thinking about how the person who got the cake would feel about it. Now that I think about it, I’m glad that you bought it, because if someone else had I’d be even more embarrassed than I am now. So—”

Carter stopped her river of words by touching her hand. “It’s perfect.”

“It’s a joke,” she smiled wanly.

“It’s a good one.” He smoothly took the cutter from her and laid it on the table. Then he wrapped her hand in his.

“So you get it?”

“Coming from you, yes,” he chuckled. “A romance novelist who donates a comfort food cake. It’s brilliant.”

“Uh…yeah,” Khela hesitantly agreed. “Um…what’s so brilliant about it?”

“Who but a romance writer could so vividly illustrate that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach?”

“I didn’t…That wasn’t…” Khela struggled to confess that his deduction had never factored into her decision to make a meatloaf instead of a traditional cake. The fact that he’d provided a decent, heartwarming excuse for her cake sent a flood of affection through her. Acting on it before common sense stopped her, she leaned forward to brush his lips with a kiss.

But before she could make contact, Carter turned his head and leaned away from her. “What are you doing?”

Scorching heat raced into Khela’s face as she hastened away from him. “I was going to kiss you, to thank you, for…oh, my God, I’m so embarrassed.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “It’s okay. It’s just that I came here for cake, not…sugar.”

“Right.” Khela swallowed hard, her cheeks still burning as she took a seat adjacent to him. “There’s, uh, gravy in the little boat there, and I’ve chilled a bottle of wine. Please, start before it gets cold.”

Carter focused on his meal to keep his mind off the kiss that almost was. It had taken every bit of willpower he possessed to refuse her kiss. But one thing he’d learned from her books was that a kiss was easy, and almost meaningless. Carter wanted more and he determined to hold out for it, just like Khela’s fictional heroes. In every one of her books, whether the hero was a myopic stringbean or a Tarzan-styled alpha male, the hero settled for nothing less than his ladylove’s whole heart.

“This really smells delicious,” he said, using his fork to cut a hearty bite.

Khela held her breath as he chewed, then swallowed. “Well?”

“Tastes better than what my mama used to make,” he said through another hearty bite. “It reminds me of the meatloaf she used to make on Saturday nights, only better.”

The compliment eased Khela’s mortification at having been rebuked and gave her a more pleasant reason to blush. “This is my Grandma Belle’s recipe. She was born and raised in Mississippi.”

Carter used his fork to emphasize his next point. “I knew you had a bit of the South in you. Not too many Yankees know about Chilton peaches, and every now and again I hear a trace of the Delta in your dialect.”

Resting her elbow on the table, Khela propped her fist under her chin. “What brought you all the way from Alabama to Massachusetts?”

“School.” He stopped eating long enough to touch a napkin to his mouth. “Could you pass the gravy, please?”

Khela did so, delighted by his enjoyment of her cooking. Carter cut himself a second slice of the meatloaf cake, and drizzled gravy over it. He moaned after his first bite. “Lord, woman,” he mumbled through a mouthful of meat and mashed potatoes. “You cook as good as you look.”

“Thanks,” Khela said. “What school did you go to up here?”

“Dearborn Academy,” he managed, chomping on a bell pepper rose.

Khela’s eyebrows shot up. “Wow. I spoke at Dearborn once, on writing. I’ve never seen so many Hummers, BMWs, Mercedes and Jaguars in a student parking lot.”

“It was the same way—minus the Hummers—fourteen years ago when I graduated,” he responded. “With honors, I should add.”

“Your parents sent you up here?”

Carter leaned back and unfastened the snap of his jeans to give his full stomach room for one more slice of meatloaf. “Naw, I was recruited. My friend Detrick and I, we both got the call to come up and play football our junior year. In exchange for our speed, size and superior athletic talent, we got a full ride.”

“And a diploma that would get you into any college you wanted.”

His mouth too full to speak, Carter nodded until he swallowed. “Yeah, Detrick ended up at Columbia. He majored in business and finance. He’s in real estate. Does all right for himself. He splits his time between Alabama and New England. He was in town last month working on a property deal for a strip mall in Woburn.”

“So you decided to drag him along to watch you spend an insane amount of money on my cake.”

“A ‘funny-looking’ cake, according to him.”

“What college did you go to?”

“Boston University. Go Terriers.”

“Hmm.”

Carter gave his mouth a final swipe with the cloth napkin before neatly placing it beside his plate. “What’s that mean?”

“There’s a lot about you that I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know or didn’t expect?”

Khela thought a moment. “Both, I guess.”

“A college boy can’t be a handyman, is that it?”

“No, a Dearborn boy can’t be a handyman,” Khela clarified. “Obviously, there’s much more to you than I realized.”

“You’ve been a writer too long, Khela.” Carter took a long sip of wine before explaining further. “You don’t see folks as folks any more. You see them as characters.”

Khela sat back in her chair, her jaw falling. “How…?”

Carter guiltily picked up his plate and cutlery. He couldn’t come out and admit that in reading her work he’d recognized tenants in the brownstone, and even her friend Daphne, in the pages of her books. He fled into the kitchen, Khela hot on his heels.