Nancy Warren - Final Score

Those Saturday mornings were over.

Now when she opened her eyes on the first weekend in her new home, she didn’t see the familiar walls of her rental-apartment bedroom, with her art hanging and bookcases begging to be raided. Instead she saw ugly pink walls and packing boxes that she wouldn’t unpack until the room was painted. Her head vibrated with the mental to-do list that seemed longer than her future. And a lot more frightening.

But at least Adam’s friend Dylan was coming by today to take a look at the place and give her an estimate on what he could do for her and how much it would cost.

She really hoped that Adam was right and his buddy, the temporarily unemployed firefighter, would be both competent and reasonably priced.

And how did she feel about a man who was suspended from his regular job because he’d ignored his boss’s orders? She wondered as she brewed tea and made toast, trying to ignore the harvest-gold appliances and chipped mint-green countertops as she did so. What if he ignored her instructions?

Adam maintained that Dylan had put saving a life ahead of bureaucracy, but still, you had to wonder.

While she ate breakfast, she scanned this week’s flyers from local hardware stores and big-box DIY places and wondered, not for the first time, if she’d made a terrible mistake. When she’d found out her grandmother had left her a little money, her parents had both encouraged her to buy her own place. “You know renting is throwing money down the drain,” her mom had insisted.

“We’ve always made money on our houses,” her father, the accountant, had added.

But her father was handy. And lived far away in California. The two of them had bonded not over carpentry but over scuba diving, a passion that had led to her current career.

It wasn’t that she didn’t want a house. She did, of course, and she believed her parents and her financial advisor and the real-estate agent when they’d said that it was a good long-term investment. She imagined what her three-bedroom home could look like and knew it could be warm and beautiful. Even the neglected garden could shine with some love and attention.

If she knew the first thing about gardening.

When the doorbell rang later that day, she was almost ready to shove the For Sale sign back in front of the house.

She opened the door.

And the best-looking man she’d ever seen—who wasn’t staring back at her from a movie screen, TV set or a billboard—stood there. “Hi, I’m Dylan,” he said, all sexy and hot with his tousled hair that looked as though he’d only just gotten out of bed after leaving a woman or two very happy. His eyes were the kind of blue that reminded her of the seas she loved to dive in. His teeth were white and even and he was tall. His clothes might be scruffy but nothing could downplay the exquisite tone of his body.

She actually had to blink and give her overloaded senses a moment. When she opened her eyes he was still there and still as spectacular. Of course, she should have realized that he wasn’t your run-of-the-mill kind of man when Serena had mentioned he was Mr. June and fanned her face. Serena was engaged to Adam Shawnigan, who wasn’t exactly dogmeat to look at. If she was getting gooey over another guy’s appearance—well, he’d look like this man.

“Cassie,” she managed when she could form a word. “Come on in.” Then she saw the toolbox. “Oh, you brought tools.” She’d imagined this would be a preliminary session where he’d look around the house then go home and prepare a budget and maybe give her a supply list.

He shrugged. “Adam said you want to get started right away and personally, I hate wasting time.”

She had her first inkling that they were going to get on just fine.

“Unless you take one look at this place and run screaming out again.” She sighed. “There’s a lot of work here.”

Dylan stepped in around her and began to touch and poke at and inspect things. She’d planned to give him a tour and point out the areas she most wanted tackled, but he seemed to have his own agenda. Fascinated, she followed him. He didn’t take notes, merely nodded and muttered as he pulled on the banister (which was solid, that got a nod), opened a kitchen cabinet (headshake and muttering), then glanced around. “You’ll want a separate electric panel up here in the kitchen. For that you’ll need a licensed electrician. I can recommend one.”

“Thanks.”

“He can also change that fluorescent lighting to something from this century.”

Without missing a thing he was zeroing in on her list of absolute must-haves.

He dropped to his knees and pulled at a corner of the kitchen flooring. That got a groan.

But when they got to the living room and he pulled up a corner of the awful shag rug, he not only nodded, he traced the inlaid wood pattern with a finger. “You can’t buy this kind of workmanship anymore.”

Upstairs, he bounced on the floor, then walked into the bathroom and said, “Wow.” He continued through each of the three bedrooms, then took her all the way down to the basement and walked around. When they got back up to the main level he stood once more in the living room and turned slowly around.

“You know,” Dylan said, “this place has great potential.”

“Oh, how I am beginning to hate that word.”

When he grinned at her she almost forgot to breathe. “Don’t worry. We’ll get her so she’s better than new. First, I have to warn you, things will get worse. Messy and noisy and destructive. But then things will get a lot better, and fast.”

She nodded. “Define fast.”

He had a confidence about him that made her feel everything would be all right. “A month from now you won’t recognize the place. Two months from now, you’ll have forgotten it ever looked this bad.”

“I can’t imagine I’ll ever forget.” She’d better take lots of pictures along the way.

“Now, Adam says you’re on a budget, so here’s what I propose. We tackle the absolute worst things that you can’t live with and then go from there. Absolute worst for me would be bathroom, then kitchen. It’s easy and not very expensive to strip out all the carpets and refinish the hardwood floors. Big bang for your buck. If you want to save money, you have to help. What can you do?”

When he turned those gorgeous blue eyes on her, she tried to come up with something, some previously undiscovered handy-person trait. “I can choose the fixtures and colors and things.”

“Good. Can you paint?”

“Uh, I guess so. How hard can it be?”

“That’s the attitude. I’ll show you a few tricks. Paint makes a huge difference and it’s relatively cheap.”

“Have you done many renovations?”

“Sure. Didn’t Adam tell you? I buy and fix up houses and then sell them. It’s a hobby of mine. I also take on projects for other people when I’m off duty.” He frowned. “At the moment I have some extra time.” There was an awkward pause. “Adam probably told you.”

“Yeah.”

“My unexpected time off is bad news for me, but good news for you.”

She really hoped that was true.

Within half an hour of him walking in the door, not only had she hired him, but Cassie already had him working in her house.

And she knew within another half an hour that she hadn’t made a mistake. He’d gotten right on his cell phone and lined up a plumber and an electrician to give quotes on the job. Then he said, “I could have that carpet out of here today. What do you think?”

She was nodding crazily before she got to the word yes.

“It’s going to make a big difference right away.”

She began to feel less overwhelmed. It was as though she had a team now. Even if it was only her and one man. At least the one man seemed to have the energy of three.