Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Caleb came trudging in through the front door with his gray company shirt all smudged with grass stains, dirt, sweat, and for some reason a weird brown smudge on the upper back area.
The chilly air had left him cold and damp feeling.
He could smell the brownies and their enticing fragrance hovering in the air, and he felt drawn to it like a cartoon character when a pie cooled in the windowsill.
Politely, he removed his work boots and placed them on the shoe mat next to the door and smiled down at the pink tennis shoes, the pink beach sandals, the pink fancy sandals, and for something extra different, pink tennis shoes with leopard spots.
He chuckled. Teddy came hurrying over and flopped on his feet.
As Caleb leaned over to pet him, it was a purring symphony, but it quickly turned into death play.
Caleb yanked back. “Ow! You little bastard!” He scooped the cat up into his arms and planted kisses all over his head.
“You think you can handle me, huh? You think you got it all figured out?” Then, Caleb wildly kissed the cat and began baby talking, “You’re such a fuzzy little bag of boo boos.
You’re momma’s favorite little wookie smookie. ”
Teddy responded favorably. But Evie was standing in the doorway that led to the dining room with a plate of brownies in her hand.
Caleb noticed her and immediately cleared his throat, put the cat down, and brushed the orange fur off his chest. “I uh, um,” he stuttered. “I know you like talking to him like that, so I was trying to bond with him.”
Evie smirked cutely with brows raised high. “Oh, is that what that was? For a second there, I thought I was seeing a different side of you.”
He leaned over and whispered harshly to Teddy, “You’re gonna get me in trouble!” The cat just looked up at him.
Caleb approached her and held her arms gently and planted a kiss on her forehead.
Evie welcomed its presence with her eyes softly closed.
He kept kissing her tenderly on the face but then started to glide his hands down her upper arms, rousing her goosebumps once more.
He had a delectable way of touching her.
Next, his hands curled around her elbows, making a subtle sensation to her forearms, down her wrists, her hands… to the brownie plate.
She started giggling with her eyes still closed, finally sensing what he really wanted. It was absolutely adorable to her.
He took the plate away. “Thank you!”
“Sir, you could take my paycheck straight from my hands if you did it like that.”
He smugly took a bite of one. “Lucky for you, I don’t need your paycheck.”
While he ate, holding the plate in one hand and a brownie in the other, Evie lifted up that dirty shirt and stroked his stomach. He stopped eating at once. Her hands possessed the finest texture of silk, delicate and gentle, but then the sturdiness of cotton, plush and warming.
Her hands trailed underneath his shirt up his sternum and trapped his lust within her fingers as she glided them outwards across his nipples.
They were hard and sensitive with little tuffs of hair around them, as well as other tinier little bumps of erotic nerves waking up.
She stroked back inward and felt a little bit on his chest closer to his sternum. Their gaze was locked and hot.
“You know what I want from you, Mr. Wright?”
He swallowed and spoke, “What’s that?”
Evie smiled and drew closer to him with her fingers now gliding down to his jeans. She stepped back and put her hair up in a ponytail. Caleb’s heart fucking roared when he saw those bedroom eyes siphoning his soul straight from his body.
Then she took the brownie plate from his hand and walked away. “I want a glass of milk to go with these brownies. Want one?”
He stared. Brownie still in one hand, smudges of chocolate on his lip and his cheeks puffed out in confusion. He glanced down at Teddy who was staring up at him, seemingly to mock him. “Your mom is terrible.”
But he had a better way to get back at her.
He hurried in through the living room, past the doorway to the dining room with its cozy four-seater white wooden table by the bay window and its cushioned seating, her grandmother’s china hutch that displayed all sorts of china from Japan and Sweden.
He tried to move cautiously so he didn’t topple the little pictures in their frames within the hutch, since he could be heavy-footed at times.
He entered the fragrant kitchen and saw her little Swedish kitchen towels all nicely hanging from the racks.
It was the first time he had seen her kitchen in its entirety, as when he ate the French toast, they dined in the dining room, and now he knew why.
At first, he was going to rush inside and pin her against the sink only to just wash his hands.
She seemed to respond favorably to being trapped by the car, so he was going to relive that moment.
Except, being a man, he noticed the stupid cupboard door she kept trying to fix and kept failing at.
He noticed the wallpaper of goofy chickens and cornstalks that had been attempted to be peeled off but only left in distressing strips.
She had tried to refinish the counter with one of those cheap Dollar Store stick-on graphics that could look great in pictures but looked trashy in person.
Her job wasn’t done too badly, but it still wasn’t even or flattened correctly, and some bubbled close to the wall and the sink.
Okay, it was done very badly.
Caleb stroked the horrible wallpaper. “This wallpaper is corny.”
Evie busted out laughing. “Oh my God, you are a dad!”
He flashed her a smile, brushed his fingers on the cabinets, and checked the cupboard door. It came off the hinge, and he grabbed it before it fell. “Good thing I brought those hinges for ya.”
Evie sat at the small kitchen table, only big enough for two. She pushed the toaster aside to make room for her milk and brownie plate. When she saw Caleb examining everything in her kitchen, all the way from bouncing on the floor to knocking on the walls, she sighed terribly.
She said, “I know. I’m sorry.”
“Baby,” he said, still in examination mode, “it’s no wonder why you’re overwhelmed.
There are things wrong with this house that you can’t fix alone.
You need to get an inspector out here. I’m worried there might be some structural issues with the floor joists, beams, possible foundation settling.
” Then he checked the water pressure of the sink.
“Who the hell sold you this house? Did you even get an inspection done on it?”
“I didn’t.”
“Why the hell wouldn’t you?” He checked to see if the window would open easily, and it wouldn’t. He had remembered their first morning together when she had to fight with the window to open it. And this one was no different. It was too tight.
“Covid made the housing market hell out here with everyone fleeing from Kansas City to the country. And there were so many offers on this house. I was told that if I waved the inspection, especially since one had been done a year ago, that it would make my offer more attractive to the seller.”
He put his hands on his hips, being pissed that this sweet woman was so na?ve to the world she didn’t realize she had been duped. “Let me guess, the seller’s agent told you that.”
“Well, yeah,” she responded meekly.
“Son of a bitch,” he huffed while looking around.
“What’s wrong with my house, darlin’?” She only called him by the name because he had started to call her “baby,” and it gave her a sense of familiarity, like she had known him her whole life. Like he wasn’t just her prospective lover but a dearly cherished friend, one she could trust.
He took his hat off to scratch his scalp and put it back on.
He examined every little corner and reached up by the back door frame to feel the little crack.
“Seller’s agents are supposed to act in the seller’s interest, not yours.
And while he wasn’t exactly wrong in telling you this, it seems you’ve got a lot of structural damage that needs to be fixed. ”
He turned and she saw the weird brown smudge on his shirt. She laughed. “What’s on the back of your shirt?”
He pulled the fabric on his shoulder hard, twisted, and looked at it.
“Oh, I accidentally ran through a wasp’s nest that was hanging on one of your lower branches, and so I fell when they came at me.
It was muddy in that area!” Then he looked back around and felt the counter.
“No doubt the reason for some of the structural damage.”
Evie sank in her emotions and stared off blankly while her hands cradled her milk mug. “And I worked so hard for this and was so proud of it.”
He came and sat across her, offering reassurance with a smile.
“Listen, you should be proud. I was here before it sold to you because the owners from about ten years ago wanted me to fix it up, but they didn’t give me a price I was happy with.
You should be proud. That living room was horrible when I walked in here ten years ago.
I just thought the owner you bought it from did some of the work you did. ”
“No,” she said dryly. “That was me. It was in worse shape than this.”
He held her hand, comforting her. “It’s gonna be okay. The crown molding is a little shoddy. But I can teach you how to do it right. And I know a great a guy who can work with you on getting this structural thing taken care of.”
“Isn’t that like thirty thousand dollars or something?”
“It can be. But I’m a contractor. I’ll do a thorough look around here and get you an inspection done. And I’ll pay for it.”
“But can’t that be expensive?”
“Possibly. But you’re worth it and need it. I won’t be able to sleep at night thinking you could be getting into a worse condition.”
“Can we do half? I know I don’t make much money, but I can’t possibly ask you to fork out a lot for me. You bought my lunch already.”