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He chuckled. “Those are hit and miss. But I’ve found some good stuff once in a while. I’ll get that light bulb changed out, then I’ll take a look at the faucet.”
“Suit yourself,” Pops grumbled.
STEPH HAD EXACTLY TEN MINUTES to get in and out of the grocery store. Otherwise they’d be eating an hour late. She wouldn’t be surprised if Cal was already at her house—probably in an argument with Pops. He argued with everyone nowadays. It used to be he’d only exhibit grumpy behavior at home, but now he wasn’t selective at all.
Of course, being Saturday afternoon, everyone in town and their dog—literally—seemed to be out and about. She had to brush off three conversations just to make it to the checkout line under her deadline. Why hadn’t she shopped the night before and avoided all of this?
Oh yeah, because she was hanging out with her friends at dinner at the café, and they’d chatted until closing time. Then she’d gone home, turned off all the lights that Pops had left on, and settled into bed to read for a couple of hours. Bliss. But now she was paying for it because she’d ended up covering Eliza’s appointments today.
Normally, she would have just rescheduled them all, but she really needed the money to pay off the repair on her car.
When she pulled into the driveway, she wasn’t exactly surprised to see Cal’s car parked in front of her house. It was nearly six p.m., the time when dinner should have been ready. Steph climbed out of her car, grabbed the groceries from the back seat, then headed to the front door. She grappled to get the knob turned, and when she swung the door open, she saw two men sitting at the kitchen table, playing a card game.
It took Steph a moment to fully take in the image of her grandpa laughing, and the image of Cal sitting in her kitchen.
“Hello?” she said.
When Cal spotted her, he shot up from his chair. “Let me get those bags.”
She was still too stunned to do much else but hand them over. At the reunion, he’d been dressed in business attire, but now … he looked more like the guy she remembered from high school. Worn jeans, fitted gray T-shirt that showed he wasn’t a man of leisure, but one who worked out plenty. His dark eyes flitted over her, and she wondered what he saw—what he was thinking. But she didn’t have time to analyze the zooming butterflies in her stomach.
She shut the front door, then headed into the kitchen, where Cal was making himself quite at home by unloading the grocery bags.
If Steph wasn’t in such a hurry to get dinner started, she might have just stood in the middle of the kitchen and watched Cal at his domestic chore.
“Chicken fettucine and salad?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at her.
Oops. He’d caught her staring. Ogling, more like. “Yep, sorry I’m later than planned. The chicken is precooked, so it won’t take long.”
“No problem,” Cal said at the same time that Pops announced, “I’m about to wither away like one of those dead grapevines in the backyard.”
Steph smirked and crossed over to him. “Great to see you, too, Pops. Oh, how was my day? Long and tiring. How was your day? Full of fun and relaxation.” She kissed the top of his head, then looked up to see Cal grinning at her.
She allowed a small smile, but only because his own smile was doing jumpy things to her pulse.
“I’ll tell you what was fun,” Pops said. “Watching your friend Mr. Conner fix the back door so it doesn’t stick anymore, clean out the leaves from the rain gutters—although I thought he was going to topple over on that rusty ladder—replace the kitchen faucet, and get us a brand-new shiny light bulb for the front porch. Oh, and he put something on our lawn so that grass will start growing again.”
Steph’s gaze moved from Cal to the kitchen sink—the faucet was gleaming, definitely new—then back to him. “You replaced the faucet and …”
“I showed up a little early, and Pops put me to work.”
Steph spun toward her grandpa. “Pops!”
Her grandpa raised his hands as if he were innocent of any wrongdoing. “He started it—offered to treat the grass, then it went from there.”
Cal chuckled. “One thing led to another.”
“What, why?” She glared at Pops. “Cal’s not a repair guy—he’s our guest.” She looked at Cal. “How much do we owe you for all the supplies and labor?”
“Nothing,” both men said at once.
Steph felt like the air was being squeezed out of her body. “Cal. Can I talk to you for a second? Outside?”
His brows rose, and his mouth quirked. His look of amusement wasn’t doing her heart rate any favors.
“You’re in trouble now, kid,” Pops said with delight as Cal followed her out the back door that had truly been repaired. It didn’t stick, and there was no creaking or squeaking or whining as she pulled it shut.
They stood beneath the arbor that had once been intertwined with beautiful grapevines, but had morphed into coarse brown twigs. Steph folded her arms. “What’s going on? Why are you doing all this stuff? You don’t owe me anything. Just because you felt guilty about ghosting me in high school doesn’t mean you need to show up and fix a bunch of stuff. Besides, I was going to get around to all of it. The salon has been extra busy, with the fall festival coming up and the holidays around the corner.” She dragged in a breath, so she didn’t hyperventilate.
