Janice Johnson - The Hero's Redemption

“How far did you get with the weeding?” she asked eventually.

“About halfway around.” Did she realize it might take a couple of weeks to do the job she’d talked about, rather than the two or three days he’d originally expected?

“Any surprises?”

“Some siding that’ll need to be replaced.” He’d used the screwdriver to check for rot as he went.

She scrunched up her nose. “Figures.”

Two pieces later, he said, “The gutters are in bad shape.”

“I noticed rain was running right over them.”

Without a ladder, he hadn’t been able to look closely, but they were obviously packed full of leaves, fir needles and debris. They’d also torn away from the eaves in places. She might decide to hire a company that specialized in gutters to replace them instead of keeping him on.

He stopped eating sooner than he would have liked, and began unloading the Jeep. Erin came to help him. The lumber went in the garage. He propped the new ladder against the house, figuring they’d need it today. When she put on gloves and started scraping, he went back to taming the wild growth.

By now, there was some burn in his muscles as he swung the machete. Lifting weights built muscle, but this required a different kind of motion. To block out the discomfort, he turned his thoughts in another direction.

He hadn’t let himself speculate about another person in a long time, but as the next couple of hours passed, Cole did a lot of thinking about Erin Parrish. How could he help it?

Despite his wariness, he spent some time savoring the pleasure of watching her. Whenever he passed behind her, his gaze lingered on the long, slim line of her back, the subtle curve of her waist and hips, her ass and astonishing legs. He had a feeling he’d have no trouble picturing her face tonight when he should be trying to sleep. Her eyes were beautiful, the gold bright in sunlight, the green predominant in the dimmer lighting of the garage. The delicacy of her jaw, cheekbones and nose turned him on as much as her body did. He hadn’t seen anything this pretty in ten long years.

But mostly he tried to understand what she’d been thinking.

Why would a lone woman hire someone like him, no questions asked? He could be a rapist, a murderer; how would she know? She might have assumed she was safe, midday in a residential neighborhood, but he could have pushed her into the house more quickly than she realized. Or yanked the garage door down while they were piling lumber in there. Done whatever he chose, then walked away.

He wanted to ask why she’d hired him, but he wanted the job more. Encouraging her to have second thoughts wasn’t in his best interests.

Yeah, but this could be a setup. What if she got what labor she could out of him, then refused to pay him? He’d have no recourse. Although, considering what she knew about him, it seemed unlikely she’d take the risk of pissing him off.

A darker scenario occurred to him. He could get some of the hard work done, and then she could cry rape or assault. Whether there was any physical evidence or not, her word would be taken over his.

Hell, he thought. Accepting this job hadn’t been smart. But he circled back to hard reality—he was desperate. No one else would hire him. He’d already run out of the limited amount of money he’d been given on leaving the joint. And he was flirting with trouble, anyway, because one of the conditions of parole was having a place to live and a job. His sister had agreed he could say he’d be able to stay with her, but that had never been an option. Her husband wanted nothing to do with her ex-con brother, refused to let Cole near their kids.

He had to contact his parole officer soon and have an acceptable alternative, or he’d find himself back in his cell.

Whatever Erin Parrish was thinking, she was a hard worker who made good progress scraping the siding while he continued beating back the jungle. When he finished, he returned to find her standing high on the ladder, stretching as far as she could to reach a spot beneath the eaves.

“What should I do with the piles of stuff I cut?” he asked.

Turning too quickly, she lurched. He lunged forward and grabbed the ladder to steady it.

Gripping the ladder herself, she blew out a breath. “Sorry. I didn’t hear you coming.”

Despite a temperature that was likely in the midsixties, he’d worked up a sweat, and saw that she had, too. Damp strands of hair clung to her cheeks, and she wiped her forehead with her forearm. Flakes of white paint looked like confetti in her hair and on her shoulders.

“I have no idea,” she admitted after a minute. “I noticed when I put out my garbage can that a couple of neighbors had big green ones, too. I wonder if they’re for yard waste? I’ll call the company and find out. Otherwise, I might need to get a Dumpster of some kind. I think it’s possible to rent one.”

“You might need both. There’ll be nails in what I tear off the house. Some of that wood’s been treated or painted, too. It can’t go in yard waste.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Why don’t you come down? I’ll deal with what’s up there, above your reach.”

She looked mulish. “I’m doing okay.”

“I’m taller and I have longer arms.” And if she fell and was injured, he’d be up shit creek. How could he ask for his pay while she was being loaded in the ambulance?

“Oh, fine.” She climbed down with extra care.

Cole saw that she was trembling, and it couldn’t be from cold. Suddenly angry, he said, “You’re exhausted.”

She glared at him. “I can keep working.”

He plucked the scraper out of her hand. “You’ve done enough for one day.”

“It’s none of your business if I want—”

Something froze inside him. He set the scraper down on a ladder rung and stepped back. “You’re right.”

He’d started to walk away when she said, “I’m sorry. I’m being stupid.”

Stupid? Cole turned around. He thought it was shame that colored her cheeks.

“I don’t have much upper body strength,” she admitted. “It’s been a while since—” She broke off. “I don’t like feeling useless, but you’re right. I’ve reached my limit.”

He didn’t dare say anything.

Her eyes shied away from his. “I’ll go in and call the garbage company. And look at the paint samples. Um, if you’d like to stay for dinner—”

He shook his head.

“Well, then...”

“I can get a couple more hours in.”

She backed away. “Okay. Thank you. Don’t take off without knocking. I’ll pay you as we go. Cash for now, unless you’d rather have a check—”

“I don’t have a bank account yet.”

She nodded and disappeared around the corner of the house. A minute later, he heard the front door close.

Cole shifted the ladder and started in where she’d left off.

* * *

ERIN DIDN’T SLEEP any better than she had the night before, or any other night in months. This was different only because she had something new to think about.

Someone.

Cole Meacham disturbed her.

The irony was, she could hardly bear being around people who wanted any kind of normal interaction with her. Whether it was chatting about nothing or an exchange of deeply personal information, either had her longing for escape. Cole asked for neither. He seemed to have no more interest in chatting than she did. Less. He answered questions as briefly as possible, and sometimes she sensed him struggling to pull a response from somewhere deep inside him, as if he’d forgotten how to make conversation.

That was fine with her. He was a day laborer, that was all. She hoped she was helping him out, as he was helping her. And maybe her self-consciousness around him, her constant awareness of him, was only because of his history. As far as she knew, she’d never met anyone who had served a term in prison, or if she had, they hadn’t looked the part as completely as he did.