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“Did I interrupt something?”
Daisy laughs softly. “Just Tom trying to lure me into doing more work around his shop with the promise of orange soda and cheese puffs. It almost worked, too.”
Tom grins. “What can I say? I know how to tempt a lady. I will raid the store, lay a trail of sweets from your door to mine and trap the wild carpenter in my lair, where she’ll work off her sugar high fixing my workbench.”
“Wait,” Daisy says. “Your workbench is broken, too? Is anything there in good shape?”
He flexes a bicep, and she rolls her eyes at me. Either I misread Tom’s signals, or he was just idly flirting, more reflex than intent, and she understands that.
Daisy picks up a decrepit bicycle leaning against the house.
“Dear Lord, is that a banana seat?” I ask.
“It is. Tom rescued it from the iron grip of those vines.”
He flexes again with a cartoon-bodybuilder grunt. She shakes her head and starts wheeling the bike toward the back of the house.
“I’ll take this to your truck,” she says. “Fix it for me, and we’ll talk about your workbench.”
“And that shelf?” he calls. “Before it collapses?”
“Lay a trail of candy bars, and we’ll discuss it.”
“I will,” he calls as she disappears. “Believe me, I will.”
He turns back to me, his grin fading into a crooked smile. “I know it looks like I’m stealing your handywoman, but I promise I won’t interfere with her work for you. I just...” He makes sure she’s gone and then steps toward me, voice lowering. “I want her to have the bike for mobility.” He pauses. “If that’s all right with you.”
“It is.”
“I won’t take up too much for her time. I just know she won’t let me fix the bike for free.”
“You’re good to her.”
He makes a face. “She’s not a charity case. I just...” He shrugs. “I like to help people. It feels right, you know?”
I don’t, and regret stabs me at that. I always want to seem like a good person, a caring person. That’s useful. But for once, I feel genuine regret that I can’t experience whatever pleasure comes from helping another person. I’ve lived a life where that isn’t an option. Pause to help someone who’s fallen by the roadside, and I’ll be mowed down by the life choices I’m trying so hard to outrun.
I open my mouth to agree with him, but instead find myself saying, “I wish I could do more of that.”
“You are, by giving her a place to stay.”
Real guilt heats my cheeks then... until I remind myself that Daisy is no innocent victim. I’m no longer preying on a young woman backpacking through Florida. I’m getting in the first strike in a fair fight.
Tom steps closer and touches my arm and says, “You’re helping her a lot. Thank you.”
I look up. Earlier, I’d mentally remarked on Daisy being caught in the tractor beam of his charm. It’s not Daisy who’s in danger. I’m trapped in a web he wove without meaning to, and I’m not sure why I’m so ensnared. I’d thought it was the bad-boy vibe, but the more time I spend with Tom, the more obvious it becomes that there’s no “bad boy” here. Mistaking those prison tats for a sign of edgy criminality is like my old teenage friends expecting a pot-smoking dad to know how to hire a hit man.
No, what Tom has is a quality that I never thought I’d find attractive in a man. A quality I’ve taken advantage of many times. Kindness.
“I should probably go,” he murmurs, still touching my arm, and there’s a reluctance in his voice that makes my knees weak.
“You don’t have—” I begin, my voice a little breathy before I clear my throat and say, lightly, “If you do, you’ll miss out on some very fine scotch. That’s what I came out here for—to ask if you’d like to share a glass of eighteen-year single malt with me.”
“Eighteen years old? Ah, so you’re in a hurry to get rid of it, before it goes bad.”
I hesitate.
He laughs. “Joking. I know that means it’s very fine scotch, but it would be wasted on me. I thought I caught a whiff of...” He lifts his nose. “Is that popcorn?”
