“I’ll make you dinner.” Oh, bad idea. “If you’re going to fix my sink, the least I can do is feed you.”
“And we keep things even?” He laughed before she could take offense at his cynical view of the way she liked things.
“Just to be neighborly,” she told him.
“How’s five sound? I can fix the sink and then you can feed me.”
“Sounds great. Thank you.” Dozer was still on the phone, but she hated disappearing on him. “Will you tell Dozer I said thanks, but I’m all set?”
“Sure. See you at five.”
Five wasn’t that long from now, she thought as she stepped outside. Maybe she’d cheat and run back to the diner. She could get a couple orders of the special in to-go boxes and heat them up when the sink was done. And she needed to take a shower because…no special reason. She’d worked all day and, by the time Mitch left, she might be too tired to take one so close to bedtime.
It had nothing at all to do with being alone in her house with Mitch.
Chapter Ten
“That’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Women tend to have disgusting traps.” Mitch laughed as he finished forcing the nasty glop from the PVC pipe into the bucket Paige had found for him. “Let me rephrase that. If a woman uses a bathroom sink on a regular basis, bad things grow in the bendy parts of the drain.”
Paige snorted. “Bendy parts? Is that a technical term?”
“Absolutely.” He forced his body back into a pretzel shape, wishing her bathroom was bigger than his closet. It took him only a few minutes to put her plumbing back together and, even with his focus on the job, he was aware of her hovering over him.
He’d tried to tell her she could go do something else, but she wasn’t one to stand back and do nothing while somebody did her a favor. She wanted to help. Unfortunately, the only way they could work on the plumbing together would be for her to lie on top of him and…whoa, that was not something he should be thinking about while he was stuck in one position on her floor, with her staring down at him.
“Can I help you with that?”
As a matter of fact, you can, he thought before he realized she was referring to the small pile of tools he was trying to transfer from under the sink to the floor on the other side of him, which wasn’t easy from his awkward position. “Yeah, sure. Thanks.”
He handed the tools to her one at a time, listening as she put each one in its place in her battered metal toolbox. For some reason he liked that she had a toolbox and thought she was probably the first woman he’d known who had one. Or maybe most of the women he’d known had hidden theirs away so they could call on him for rescue. Which sounded a little jaded, even in his own head, but it was probably the truth.
“If you’re almost done, I’ll go heat up supper while you wash up,” Paige said.
“Sounds good. I just want to let this sit a few minutes and then run some water through it. Make sure there are no leaks.”
“If you need a hand with anything, just yell.”
He laughed. “We know you’ll be close enough to hear me.”
“Funny guy.”
A couple creaks of the floor told him she’d moved away, and he grinned when he heard the fridge open. It was a good thing Paige had a healthy sense of humor, since the first words he’d said once she’d let him through the door were “Guess you’re not claustrophobic.”
She’d just laughed and waved her hand in a semicircle in front of them. “There. You’ve had the grand tour without even moving.”
Except the bedroom. In a trailer the size of hers, open was definitely better, so the significance of her bedroom door being closed wasn’t lost on him. Paige didn’t want him in there and, since he’d promised to behave like a gentleman, there was no point in coming up with ways to change her mind.
After he’d finished with the sink, including washing up, Mitch stepped out of the bathroom and saw Paige putting a plate in the microwave. On the tiny piece of counter next to her were two to-go boxes, one open and one closed. “What’s the special tonight?”
“Baked stuffed chicken breasts with garlic mashed potatoes and creamed spinach. I skipped the spinach and got us both extra mashed.”
“You’re a good woman.”
“If that was true, I’d be offering you something home-cooked. Maybe an apple pie, too.”
He moved close enough to her to see over her shoulder as she put the second helping of chicken onto a plate. “Are you saying you cheated? Maybe took a little shortcut in our agreement?”
“You still have to behave like a gentleman.”
“That doesn’t seem fair.”
“I said I’d feed you.” The microwave dinged. “I’m feeding you.”