She walked into her bedroom, and he prepared himself for some kind of assault, like her pushing him against the wall and rubbing her body all over him.
He was strong. He could withstand temptation. He’d just tell her no—politely but firmly, while reminding her about his friendship with Drake.
“Okay, so here’s the deal,” she said, pulling him from his righteous fantasy. “I bought these shutters for the bedroom windows, and I thought I could save on installation costs by doing it myself. The problem is, it’s kind of a two-person job because these things are heavy. I was wondering if you’d be willing to give me a hand.”
Okay, so no assault. Instead, a home improvement project. He hadn’t even been in the vicinity of guessing her motivations.
“Oh. Sure, I can do that.”
She grinned. “Awesome. Thanks.”
She hadn’t stripped down or pushed him against the wall or rubbed her body on his. Instead, she led him into her spare bedroom, where two boxes sat on the bed.
So maybe that seduction fantasy had been all in his head, not hers.
“These are the shutters?” he asked, focusing instead on the task at hand.
“Yes.”
He picked up the boxes—she was right, they were heavy. He carted them one by one into her bedroom and laid them on the floor.
In the meantime, she’d grabbed a cordless drill while he unpacked the boxes. Then she disappeared again, and he had no idea where she wanted these. He assumed the two windows on either side of the bed, since that’s where they’d seem to fit, but he didn’t want to make assumptions, so he started reading the instructions.
When she came back upstairs with a ladder in her hands, he got up and took it from her.
“Jesus, Harmony. I could have gotten that for you.”
She lifted her gaze to his. “I don’t have the expectation that you’re the man and I can’t do anything for myself. I planned to install these shutters myself. It’s just the windows are higher than I expected, the shutters are heavy and I was a couple hands short.”
“You know, I get that you’re all female empowered and all that shit, and I have no doubt you can move mountains on your own. But it’s still okay to ask for help if you need it.”
She arched a brow. “I just did, jackass.”
He wasn’t insulted. He liked when she got feisty and stood up for herself. It made him like her even more. He didn’t enjoy women who were doormats, who let a man walk all over them. Harmony obviously wasn’t that woman and he respected her for it.
So he laughed and took the ladder from her. “Okay, let’s take down these curtains.”
“They let too much light in,” she explained.
He set up the ladder against the first window, climbed up and pulled the curtains off the rod, then used the drill to remove the screws. He shoved the screws in his pants pockets and dropped the drapes onto the floor.
“And when I sleep, I want to sleep. Plus, the shutters are prettier.”
When he just stared down at her, she quirked a smile. “Okay, I can see you don’t care at all about the reasons for the change in window treatments.”
“Not so much.” He climbed down, kneeled on the floor and broke open the plastic package in the box. He took her hand, flipped it over so her palm was up, and dropped the screws in her hand. “Hold these and follow me.”
He picked up the first shutter frame and positioned it against the window.
“Screw.”
She handed him a screw and he drilled it in. It went that way for a while, until he had the frame mounted, and then the shutter.
“You make it look easy,” she said after he finished the first window.
He smiled at her as he picked up the ladder and moved over to the second window. “I’m a lot bigger than you, so for me it is easy. I can see how this would have been unwieldy for you.”
“I can handle most any project around the house. I’m handy with power tools. I hung the drapes myself.”
“You did a good job.” He took the curtain down and mounted the shutter on the second window. When he was done, he folded the ladder and took a step back so she could inspect his work.
“These shutters are beautiful, just as I envisioned. I don’t know what I was thinking putting drapes in here. It was a wrong decision. This is so much better.”
“Glad it worked for you.”
She closed the shutter louvers and darkened the room. “Perfect. I won’t have any trouble falling asleep now.”
“And I won’t have to worry about you tossing and turning at night.”
She laughed. “Yeah, I can imagine that’s going to occupy a large amount of mental space in your head.”
He carried the ladder and the tools back downstairs and put them in their places in her neat and orderly garage. She actually had a toolbox out here with more than enough tools to handle any task.
Good for her. He came back into the house.
“So was that another decorating project to deal with you being upset?”