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She shook her head. “There’s no reason for you to go to all that trouble. I’ll just call a repairman first thing in the morning.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. This is what I do, remember? I fix things like this all the time around the inn. This isn’t even a difficult repair. It’ll take me maybe twenty minutes. But you know how much you’d have to pay a repairman just for the service call, not to mention parts and labor?”
“If it’s that easy, maybe it’s something I can do myself?”
Logan pushed a hand through his hair, beginning to frown. “Is there some reason you don’t want me to fix your washing machine?”
She didn’t have an answer—even for herself. Why was she so uncomfortable at the thought of having Logan help her with a repair? It was no big deal, right? Friends did this sort of thing for each other. She would lend him a hand with a problem if she could, wouldn’t she? Had he not just happened to be here when she discovered the problem, she’d have handled it just fine on her own by calling a repairman, but of course Logan would offer to take care of it since, as he’d pointed out, this was what he did all the time.
“I just hate for you to go to all that trouble,” she said lamely.
“No trouble. I’ll write down the numbers from the machine, pick up the belt on the way over tomorrow and have you doing laundry half an hour after I get here.”
“I’ll reimburse you for the belt, of course.” She almost added that she would also pay him for his time, but something told her that would only annoy him. “And dinner’s on me tomorrow night.”
He nodded, seeming to accept her excuse that she hadn’t wanted to take advantage of him. “Let’s eat before the food gets cold. I’ll help you empty the washer afterward.”
Pushing her complicated concerns to the back of her mind, she smiled rather tensely and turned back to the kitchen.
“Did you get everything cleared away from Josie’s wedding?” she asked during the meal, retreating to the comfort of talking about their work.
“Yeah. There was a big retirement party in the dining room this afternoon and Kinley wanted all the decorations down beforehand so the party guests could walk through the gardens. We had all signs of the wedding gone last night.”
“I know I’ve already told you, but the grounds really did look exceptionally nice yesterday. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if we both get bookings as a result of that wedding.”
“Thanks. Wish they were all that easy,” he added pointedly.
She wrinkled her nose at him. “Let’s not start that again.”
Logan didn’t smile, but concentrated on stirring the remains of his food aimlessly with his chopsticks as he looked at her. She couldn’t read his expression, but found her gaze locked with his for several long moments. What was he thinking? It was so often hard to tell with him, but especially now.
He was the one who broke off the eye contact. He pushed his nearly empty plate away. “We need to unload that washer so I can get the model number.”
She’d finished her own dinner, so she stood and carried her plate to the sink, still feeling a little flustered by that tense moment between them. “I’ll get a bucket and some plastic tumblers for bailing.”
Fortunately, the washer held only three pairs of wet jeans, so she didn’t have to wring out soggy underwear with him. She threw the jeans into a plastic laundry basket to deal with later, and then she and Logan bailed the standing water from the machine into a bucket that she emptied several times into the backyard. After he’d gotten the information he needed to buy the necessary belt, she turned off the laundry room light and closed the door, following him back into the kitchen.
“Would you like some more wine?” she asked.
He shook his head. “What I would like—”
However he might have finished that sentence, and she thought she knew, he was interrupted by a chime from his phone announcing a text message. He glanced down at the screen, then grimaced. “I have to go.”
She tried to mask her disappointment behind concern. “Nothing serious, I hope?”
“One of the guests accidentally broke the bifold closet door in her room and now she can’t open it. Bonnie said Paul would have tried to fix it, but I’ve got my tools locked up. I’d better go take care of it.”
He gave her a firm kiss at the door that expressed his frustration at having to leave, and then he motioned Ninja to his side. Suddenly weary, Alexis sighed as she closed the door behind them. Her supposedly stress-free, no-strings affair with Logan seemed to be growing more complicated. Maybe she’d been naive to have thought it could stay easy and breezy. Logan was not an easy man.
* * *
Logan kept an eye on his watch Monday afternoon. He needed to leave early enough to stop by the appliance parts store on his way to Alexis’s house. He’d already called to order the belt, and had been promised it would be waiting for him.
He still didn’t quite understand why Alexis had been so hesitant for him to take care of this for her. It would have been ridiculous for her to pay a repair guy to make a twenty-minute house call to install a fifteen-buck part. He knew she was the stubbornly independent type—as she’d said herself, she liked to be in charge—but what was the harm in letting a friend lend a hand for something he knew how to do?
He had just put away his lawn-care tools for the day when Bonnie came outside. “Did you remember to order the new faucet for suite 3?”
/> He nodded. “It’ll be in tomorrow.”
