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And then, as if by magic, the woman herself stood at the top of the staircase. Sully sucked in a breath. Waves of heat pulsed through him, settling in a very specific part of his body. Alanna might as well be a princess about to descend into some grand ball. She wasn’t wearing a ballgown or glass slippers—in fact, dirt coated the knees of her jeans—but it didn’t matter. She was a princess all right… no, a queen. The way she tilted her chin, the set of her shoulders, the confidence in her gaze. She was royalty… at least to him.
Their eyes locked from across the staircase.
“Oh,” she said. A tinge of color appeared in her cheeks. “I didn’t know you were here,” She carefully descended the stairs. The wide neck of her pale pink sweater slipped, revealing a slim, tantalizing shoulder. Sully never knew shoulders could be tantalizing, but everything about Alanna drove him crazy.
“Sorry if you heard any of that,” she continued. “My cat and I are having some communication issues.” Her blush deepened. “She’s unbelievably stubborn.”
“Takes one to know one,” Dede muttered.
Sully bit back a laugh. “It’s fine.” Strange. He didn’t see Alanna as a cat person, but, then again, she’d gone to Tess’s cat meeting the other night. In fact, if it wasn’t for this mysterious cat, he and Alanna would have never crossed paths again.
“So, what do you think?” Alanna stepped off the last stair and folded her arms in front of her chest, causing her sweater to rise just far enough to reveal a sliver of pale skin above the waistline of her jeans.
With difficulty, Sully refocused on the banister. He grabbed it and shook. Yep, this thing was down for the count. The end brackets were clearly loose and several of the pegs were no longer anchored either. Sully slowly walked up the stairs, shaking the banister every few steps and prodding the pegs.
He returned to the first floor and met two identical pairs of blue eyes.
“Well, I can tighten up the brackets and use some wood glue to keep the pegs in place, but those are just Band-Aids,” he admitted. “In all honesty, even if I tightened everything up today, eventually it’d come loose again. Those brackets aren’t going to hold up much longer.”
“So, what do you suggest?” Alanna asked. A fringe of blonde hair loosened from behind her ear and fell across her forehead. Oh, how he longed to sweep that lock of hair from her face. Too bad that move only worked on the big screen. In real life, touching a woman’s hair without permission was an immediate invitation to a restraining order.
“I’d replace the whole thing if I were you,” he said. “Drill new brackets, bring in a whole new banister.” He glanced up at the second story. “Probably new railing on the second story as well if it’s anywhere near the same shape as the banister.”
Replacing the banister was the right call, of course. No way he’d try to bilk sweet Dede for unneeded work. But the recommendation also happened to require him to spend more time at the house. Maybe he could figure out whether Alanna meant to stay or head back to Los Angeles.
“Could you do all of that?” Alanna asked.
Sully resisted the temptation to puff out his chest. “It’s not too difficult. I actually did something similar at Tess’s house.”
Alanna nodded. “Great. Let’s do it. Money is no object.”
“Oh honey, don’t you dare pay for this,” Dede said. She gave Sully a stern look. “I’ll pay you. Don’t let her give you a dime.”
Alanna rolled her eyes and mouthed the wordVenmoto him. Sully couldn’t help but smile at the bickering women. Should he mention that he didn’t plan to charge them anything? Maybe it’d be better to just politely refuse payment once the job was done.
“I’ll order the pieces I need for the new banister today,” he said instead. “It may take a few days to ship in, so I’ll tighten all the brackets today. The banister should hold until I can replace it.”
Alanna nodded and tucked her short hair behind her ear.
“It’s nice to know someone who’s so handy,” Dede said.
“That’s me.” He gave a little bow. “Sully the handyman at your service.”
*
It should have taken Sully roughly 15 minutes to tighten the wall brackets of the banister and dab a little wood glue on the loose pegs, but that calculation didn’t account for Dede Sandoval. Not that Sully minded the tour of her impressive rose garden or viewing her collection of colorful bird feeders.
Dede was a veritable scholar of gardening and landscaping, subjects Sully needed to brush up on if he was ever going to get the Ugly Duckling’s yard into some semblance of acceptability.
As Dede pointed to a small rose bush and excitedly explained her latest grafting experiments, Alanna lingered in the background, watching them and occasionally typing out messages on her phone.
“Mom, Sully has a life. Let him finish working on the banister,” she called.
“I don’t mind,” Sully told her. “I’ve got time.”
Alanna’s eyebrow rose at that, but she didn’t say anything.
And so, it took an hour for Sully to patch up the existing banister and take the measurements he needed for the new pieces. He could feel Alanna’s eyes on him as he worked and longed to know what was going on behind her gorgeous poker face.
