Cynthia Reese - What the Heart Wants

“Ahh.” Allison smiled in appreciation. “That’s a brilliant tweak to my plan. I was worried about scarring the floor. I have no idea what sort of shape it’s in, but I didn’t want to add work. However...”

“You see a problem?”

“I’m all for free labor, but you didn’t sign on to help me rip out carpet.”

“Hey, I’m curious. I want to see what that atrocious carpet is hiding. Unless...are you too tired? You’ve been moving all this furniture this morning. Maybe you want a break?”

Allison chuckled. “We Shepherd women never tire. We have Davinia’s blood in us. If you’re game, I’m game. It’s not often I get a sucker to help me out.”

Soon after cutting, yanking and tugging, they both oohed and ahhed as Allison rolled back a swath of the Mamie pink to reveal the heart pine floor.

“A good cleaning and a coat of wax, and this will be good as new,” Kyle said, clearly admiring the dusty but still intact planks.

“And nothing for Gran to trip over.” Allison knelt beside him and skimmed the satin smooth surface of the wood with her index finger. “It’s definitely pretty. The upstairs floors aren’t nearly in this good a shape.”

“This is the original? From when the house was built?” After her nod, he said in a low voice, “Almost a crime to have covered this up in the first place.”

She frowned and sat back. “I don’t think it’s so bad to make a house your own. I mean, like you said, in 1954 it was every woman’s dream color. Gran didn’t have her own house, and this was her way of making it hers and new and modern.”

“If you’d seen some of the hideous updates I’ve witnessed, you’d understand what I meant,” Kyle said. “At least this was carpet and not permanent. The worst I saw was when someone decided they didn’t like their oak because it wasn’t ‘uniform’ in color, so they poured concrete over it to transform it into a really bad do-it-yourself terrazzo. Didn’t even try to salvage the old floor. Awful.”

Irritation pulled at Allison. She tried to smother it, tried to attribute it to the fact that she’d been working like a dog almost the entire morning and was tired, hungry and dirty. Kyle was helping her. She shouldn’t be annoyed with him.

But then he added, “Yeah, people don’t know what they have with these old homes. They just don’t appreciate them properly.”

“Oh, really,” she snapped. “I know what I’ve got on my hands—a huge old place that’s two times the size Gran needs, filled with plumbing and wiring that are obsolete and that I can’t get anyone to work on.”

He held up both hands. “Easy, easy. I live in an old house myself—a Sears kit home built in 1926. So I know how aggravating living in an old house can be.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ha. You’ve got a house fifty years younger than this one...and think what technological innovations came in that half century. Electricity. Plumbing. Real, modern plumbing. And drywall. An amazing invention, drywall.”

“Okay. Truce. I can see you love the old place,” he said. “Now how about we finish this job?”

“Sorry. I get so frustrated with this house. I want it safe and nice for Gran. That’s all. And here I am, chewing on the nice guy who got roped into more than he offered.” She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Gran would not have approved of how rude Allison had been. Even when her grandmother was telling someone off, she did it with impeccable manners.

Kyle laid a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. People are allowed one meltdown per afternoon when they’re renovating a house over a century old. And I’ll spot you a bonus daily mini-tantrum, since Belle Paix was built before the turn of the century.”

Allison smiled, warmed by his good nature, and patted his hand.

An hour later they returned from dumping the last section of carpet by the side street bin. Allison stood beside Kyle as they stared at the big china cabinet, still in its original place.

“Are you sure,” she asked, “you don’t have a bunch of historical committee buddies just like you? You know, with strong backs and accommodating ways regarding free labor?”

The corners of his mouth quirked. “Sorry, no. Looks like it’s just you and me.”

“Good thing we’ve got a great team approach going, then. Let’s do this.”

Allison watched, her breath catching, as the ropy muscles in Kyle’s arms flexed when he used the hand truck to lever up his end of the cabinet. Would they be able to move it?

“How am I doing?” he asked.

She pressed her hands against her side. “Good—careful! Careful! It’s wobbling—not so high!”

Kyle didn’t argue, but lowered it. “Better?”

“Yep! Thanks for not arguing—most guys would.”

His breath came in a grunt of effort as he walked the end of cabinet the few inches to the carpet strip. “No point. Saving. My. Breath.”

Finally, after a few more near misses, the cabinet was on the scrap of carpet. Allison knelt in the close confines between it and the wall to start the task of ripping up the last section. She jumped when Kyle squeezed by her.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Here, let me give you a hand.”

His nearness seemed to cause her fingers to slip. All she could focus on was his scent, clean and crisp and slightly citrusy. She stared down at the carpet and tried to smother a helpless little laugh at how such a small thing rattled her.

“Having trouble?” he asked. Without another word, he leaned over her to tackle the carpet edge. Of course, it came loose without any hesitation, and she felt her cheeks flare doubly hot. “I think I got lucky,” Kyle told her.

He was close enough that she could see a nick where he’d cut himself shaving that morning. Close enough to allow her to drink in that divine clean scent of his. Her pulse hammered in her throat.

“I’ll take this piece out,” she mumbled, and managed to move away to give him—and her stupidly sensitive nose—space.

A few minutes later, the carpet was cleared, and they tackled the china cabinet once more. It landed with a solid thunk where it belonged.

Her heart racing from exertion and stress, Allison wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. “That thing can stay there for another hundred years as far as I’m concerned,” she commented.

“I’ll second that.” Kyle had collapsed on the floor, his formerly pristine T-shirt now as grimy as hers. “How they cleaned under that thing, I don’t know.”

“Oh! I forgot to wax the floor under it!”

Kyle lay back on the oak planks, his eyes closed. “I promise, if the floor police come put you in jail, I’ll bail you out. That thing is not moving. At least, not by my hands.”

“Well, it’s not like anybody will see under it. Okay.” She joined him lying on the floor, staring up at the coffered ceiling. “Thank you.”

They lay there, exhausted, quiet. Every muscle of Allison’s body was quivering with fatigue. She wondered if Kyle felt as weary as she did. Probably. He’d had the heavy end.

The clock in the hall let loose a mellifluous series of chimes. “Look at the time. I’ve got to get cleaned up to visit Gran.” Allison scrambled up, adrenaline coursing through her. “If I don’t hurry, she’ll be in physical therapy, and after that she’s too tired for a good visit.”

“Let me get out of your hair, then. That is, if I can manage to find as much pep as you have,” Kyle told her. “You’ve worn me out.”

She extended a hand down to him. “Least I can do is help you up,” she said.

His hand in hers felt strong and capable, but she knew that already from their work together. He certainly wasn’t the stuffed shirt she’d thought him, when he’d been on her sidewalk a million years ago this morning. Maybe she should offer him supper one night in appreciation.