Every Yesterday (Boot Creek) (13 page)

Two hours later they had the main portions of the mural filled in. All that was left was for Megan to finish some of the shading and details.

He stepped back, still watching her work. “This blows my mind. I can’t believe how fast you are.”

The easy feeling had returned. Was it that just enough time had finally passed? Or was there something about
this
project, maybe the purpose behind it, that made her feel one with the paints again? The edges of her mouth tickled, as she realized she was smiling. “It turned out exactly how I wanted it to. You can clean up the tarp and all of that stuff. I’ll just use my tray for the rest of the colors. I won’t make a mess. There’s only a little fine-tuning left to do.”

He stepped in closer, resting his hand on her shoulder. “I can’t thank you enough for agreeing to do this.” He leaned into her space. Speaking quietly. “Running into you at the hardware store was a really good thing. This is ten times better than I’d hoped.”

“I’m glad you let me be part of it.”
Was he going to kiss her?
She resisted pulling away.

The front door slammed open and the guys came in, hooting and hollering. “Dude. Where are you?”

He pulled back, and she turned back to the mural.

“I didn’t tell them you were coming. It’s going to be a surprise,” he said, racing to the hallway.

She wiped her sweating palms on her shorts, catching her breath from the almost-kiss just as Jackson and Ford herded Noah back into the room and crammed into the doorway.

Jackson pushed Ford out of the way. “Oh my gosh. No way.”

Megan smiled. Their reaction was all she needed.

“Amazing.”

“Did you do this? I know Noah didn’t do it.”

“I helped,” he said, looking to her for confirmation. “Didn’t I?”

“He was an excellent helper. He takes direction well.”

“That’s a first,” Ford said. “Trust me. Noah has never taken direction from anyone. Much less from a woman. You must have superpowers.”

“It’s true. He’s untrainable,” Jackson said. “This looks professional. I thought you made candles.”

“I do. I used to paint a little too.”

Noah grinned. “You should see the paintings in her house.”

Ford swung around and stared at Noah. “In her house?”

“Long story.” Noah’s face reddened.

“Oh I bet it is, Hot Rod,” Ford said.

“Hot Rod?” Megan looked to Noah for an explanation.

“Another long story. Shut up, Ford.” Noah’s face pinkened.

Megan enjoyed seeing him squirm, a little embarrassed, and her mind raced with possibilities of what that old nickname may have grown from. The dimple on his cheek deepened, and that was kind of cute. Cute? No. Sexy. Way sexy.

“Come on, you guys. Let’s load the bed in the room. I want to see this thing put together.”

“I’ll just finish up in here,” Megan continued to work on the mural as the guys bickered and joked around, making long work out of the short task of moving the bed into the room.

The bed looked great alongside the mural.

She stood between the painting and the bed, detailing the lines of the garage and shadowing the images. Billy would never notice the difference, but she’d know. It was her commitment to finish anything she started that wouldn’t allow her to stop at
good enough
.

Jackson left to get the box spring.

“We’re going to go with Jackson over to Criss Cross Farm for a cookout. You coming with us to his old stomping ground?” Ford asked Noah.

“Think I’ll pass. I’ll work on the room some more. You don’t mind giving me a ride back to the inn, do you, Megan?”

“Not at all.” Only she caught the glance between Ford and Noah when she answered. What was it between those two?

Noah grabbed Ford by the arm. “Come help me bring the dresser in. I’m going to paint it in the room so we don’t have to move it later.”

“Okay, man. Hey that hurts.”

She could hear Noah as they went down the hall saying,
Hot Rod? You really had to call me Hot Rod in front of her? What the heck? Want me to tell her
your
nickname? Yeah. I didn’t think so.

She couldn’t help but smile. Boys were always boys. They just turned into boys in men’s bodies at some point.

Chapter Ten

Noah came back into the room with a stack of newspaper and a bag of supplies.

Megan didn’t even acknowledge him as she made tiny, wispy lines on the detailed mural.

He watched her graceful hand sweep across the page. Gentle strokes that created an image with just a few well-placed lines.

He wouldn’t mind having this same scene on a wall in his workshop. Something like that would probably cost a fortune, but it would be cool. Maybe he could talk her into coming out for a visit and doing some painting for him.

He tucked newspaper under the dresser and spread the tarp around it. Pulling a screwdriver from his back pocket, he popped the lid on the paint and stirred.

“Wow, that has a strong smell,” she commented.

“I guess I should crack a window.” He turned on the ceiling fan, and then walked over and opened a window. The heat rushed in.

“Not sure if being high or hot is worse,” she said.

“I hear ya. We’ll see how hot it gets. It won’t take long to paint this.” He went to work on the dresser, and it didn’t take long to get the first coat on.

“You know,” she said. “I think if you give it one more coat, and then we distress it a little, it’ll really look better than all shiny and new.”

“Scuff up the edges a little?”

“Yeah. We could even water down some brown paint and use it as a glaze. I mean, if you want. I don’t mean to be telling you how to do your project.”

“No. It’s a good idea. I like it.”

She smiled, making a quick movement with her shoulders. “Good.” She put her brushes in the cup of water and started closing lids and stacking things back into her box.

“You’re done?”

“I think so. Did I miss something?”

Not a thing.
“No. It’s great.” But he wasn’t really ready for her to leave
.
“Help me with something else?”

“Sure. What ya got?”

Noah pointed to the roll of bubble wrap on top of his things. “Take a look in that for me. See what you think.”

She picked it up and reached her hand inside, looking serious. Pulling out the stack of chrome badges, her expression lightened. “Neat.” She shuffled through them. “They’re all different.”

“Yeah. I’m thinking now it may have been easier if they’d been all the same, but that’s what I had laying around. In my mind I was trying not to persuade Billy to my favorite cars, exposing him to an assortment.”

“Or a diverse addiction,” she said, joking.

“True,” he laughed. “Hadn’t considered that.” He stepped back and dabbed paint on a spot he’d missed. “Thought we might be able to use them somehow on the dresser. What do you think?”

“It goes with the theme.” She held one up and squinted, as if trying to imagine what it’d look like on the dresser.

“Think we can come up with something that doesn’t look tacky?”

“It’ll be cute. Plus they are shiny. Boys love shiny stuff. Especially chrome.”

“You trying to tell me that girls don’
t?
”

“I do. But I’m not most girls. Most girls are going to prefer diamonds to chrome.”

“Point taken. Different shiny. Kind of like that whole
Women are from Mars; Men are from Venus
thing.”

“I think you have that backwards,” she said with a grin.

“How about
men are for chrome; women are for diamonds
? Now that would have been a title people wouldn’t mix up. It’s way more clear.”

“Maybe you can write that book.”

“In my spare time.” He filled in another block and squatted to start another area.

“Right. We all have so much of that,” Megan said. “Although I’ll admit, a chrome ring might be kind of cool.”

“See. There’s hope. Maybe chrome is the new middle ground. Maybe I should start making some calls and start my own line of wedding rings.”
Did I just use the word
wedding
in front of a woman? What the heck am I thinking? She’ll be humming “Wedding March” if I’m not careful.

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Hard not to. You know women are a big mystery to us.”
That’s right. Make it general. Not about her. Safer.

“Trust me, it goes both ways. We don’t understand y’all any better than y’all get us. We just don’t make it public knowledge. We’re better at keeping secrets.”

“Hey.”

“Hey, I wasn’t the one who told the secret about this room.”

“You tricked me into that.”

“Tricked you? Oh no. I don’t think there was anything tricky about it.” She sat cross-legged on the bed, watching him paint.

“Fine. I see how you are.”

“What are we going to do about the dresser?” She held up the VW and Mercedes badges. “With all of these?”

“Finish painting it and then I think we use the badges right down the center of each drawer. Smallest to biggest. That work?”

“Works for me.” She started organizing them in a pile by size. “Tell me, what exactly do you do at California Dreaming Restoration? Do you just gallivant around the country looking for cars to fix up?”

“First off all, I don’t gallivant. Ever. No gallivanting. No traipsing. Nothing so haphazard, I can assure you.”

“Pardon me. You know what I meant. Do you buy and fix up cars, kind of like a car flipper, or is this company just your way to write off a really expensive hobby?”

“Yes, and yes, and sometimes people gallivant over to me and ask for my services.”

“Best of both worlds, I guess. You must stay really busy.”

“I do.”
And when I get my hands on that Adventurer, it’ll probably fall into the really expensive hobby category, but worth every dollar.

“Do you have employees?”

“
Yes.
”

“How many?”

He did a quick count in his head. Administrative, mechanics, paint and body, the core team, not including the lawyer and accountant. “About eighty.”

“Eighty?” She fumbled the VW emblem, sending it rolling across the floor.

He put out his foot to stop it, then leaned over and tossed it back to her.

She caught it midair.

“Nice catch.”

“Thanks. That’s a big company. A lot of salaries. A lot of responsibility for people’s livelihood.”

“I’m a responsible guy. Did I not mention that?” As much as she loved that car, he’d have to build her trust so that she’d want to sell it to him. Although spending time with her wasn’t really that much of a chore.

“Maybe I thought you were kidding.” She scooted off the bed and walked over to the dresser. She held the Mercedes and VW badges up to the drawers. “What do you think?”

“That’ll look good,” he said, but when she tipped her face toward his with a smile, he stalled out.

“Yeah. I like it too.” She leaned casually against the closet door. “I thought you were a small business person like me.”

“I think we have a lot in common.” He took a piece of sandpaper out of his bag and ran it lightly along some of the edges, exposing some of the brown finish below. “I also think we make a good team.”

She looked uncomfortable. He’d said too much. Hell, he wasn’t even sure where half of that had come from, but it had been a good day. A really good day. He’d never met anyone quite like her before. But then hadn’t he thought that when he’d met Jenny, later proposed, and regretted it like hell? And then Diane too. Was he really going to fall for that again?

“I think I was wrong,” she said.

He sucked in a breath. “About?”

“I don’t think the dresser needs a glaze. I like it with a little distressing on it. I think you’re about done.”

“
Excellent.
” He turned and gave her a high five. “Could not have done this without you.”

“I wonder when Jackson and the guys will be back,” she said.

“Not sure. Why?”

“This room looks great. But if we have time, it would be great to get everything put together. Do you know where the sheets are? I can help you make up the bed. We can surprise Jackson with the finished room.”

“Yeah. He bought new sheets, pillows, and stuff. They were in the garage. He didn’t want Angie to see them. Let me go get them.”

Noah left and came back with three big shopping bags of stuff. “Don’t let it get around that I was ever seen with this many shopping bags. This size purchase should only be done online and arrive in boxes.”

“I’m on the same page with you on that one. Let’s see how he did.”

Noah unloaded the bags.

Megan looked impressed. “These are nice. Yeah. This will work. He got a comforter too. And this little truck pillow is cute.” She motored it across the air, making engine noises that made him laugh. “I think maybe Jackson might have wished for a bed like this of his own once. He seemed to know exactly what to buy.”

“You don’t know how close to the truth that is.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I had a car bed when we were kids. It was the envy of all my friends. He loved that thing. He wanted one exactly like the one my dad built me, except blue. Mine was red.”

“Which is why you picked blue for Billy’s bed, isn’t it?”

“Guilty.”

“So this isn’t an original idea? You had a pickup truck bed?”

“Oh, no. My dad wasn’t a car guy. He was a carpenter. He built me a race-car bed. MDF. Thing probably weighed like a ton. He’d routered out the grooves for the doors and wheels. My mom painted it. She did a great job, not as good as you would have, but all the guys envied that bed. It was very cool.”

“Sounds like you had a great childhood.”

“I did. But I was always closer with my granddad than with my parents. He was the one who got me into cars.”

Megan pulled the sheets out of the package and carried them over to the bed. Noah got on the other side and they made quick work of making the bed, pulling the comforter on top. He slipped the pillowcases over the pillows and tossed them to her. She placed and pouffed them until it was perfect.

“I bet this bed is even cooler than the one you had,” she said.

“A whole lot cooler. And mine was never made. Boys aren’t that neat.”

She jumped onto the mattress and flung back onto the freshly made bed, looking sweet as all get out lounging there with her hair splayed across those perfectly placed pillows.

He swallowed. “Yeah, my bed never looked this good,” he said, hoping she didn’t hear his voice shake slightly. Because she looked damn good laying there.

“This is just like laying in the bed of a truck on a moonlit night.”

“That sounds romantic.” And he had the sudden ache to be in the middle of a dark field with this beautiful woman right now.

“Probably taboo for a man like you, huh?”

“No. I have my moments.” He climbed onto the bed and stretched out next to her. He pulled his hand up under his head, crossing his legs at his ankles. “Looks more like a sunny day,” he said, pointing to the overhead light. “At high noon.”

“You’re right. It does. You like surprises?” she asked.

He rolled over onto his side, facing her. “I do.”

“I have one for you.” She pointed to the overhead light. “Turn out the lights.”

He leapt from the bed. She was shy. No problem. He flipped the light switch and in one froggy leap was back on the bed next to her. He pulled her into his arms and ran his hand up her back. Nuzzling her neck, inhaling the sweet smell of her.

She pushed back. “Stop it, Romeo . . . or should I say Hot Rod?”

“What? You said—”

“I’m not the surprise. Nothing’s going to happen.”

He dropped a kiss on her nose. “Oh, come on. Stuff could happen. You might like it.”

“On your back, Hot Rod.”

He turned over. Maybe she wasn’t as shy as he’d thought. He was glad it was dark so she couldn’t see him grinning.

“Turn your attention to the ceiling,” she whispered into his ear.

Her breath warm on his neck, he looked up. “You are something else, Megan Howard.” He turned to try to give her a kiss but she met his face with her hand.

“Again. I’m not the surprise, Noah.” Her hand rested on the scruff on his chin, and she turned his face toward the ceiling. “Do you see it?”

“I—”

“On the ceiling.”

She wasn’t playing hard to get. And he liked that about her. “Hey, are those stars?”

“Yep.”

“Were they here before? Jackson has stars on his ceiling?”

“No silly. I did that while you were making time with Mr. Owen this afternoon.”

“Killing time, more like it. How’d you do that? Hey, is that the B
ig
Dipper?”

“Sure is.”

“That’s neat. This is almost as good as laying under the real stars.” He lifted up on an elbow. “I’m tempted as hell to steal a kiss from you right now.”

“You don’t have to steal them.”

“No?” He rolled over onto his stomach, his nose to hers. Wanting to kiss her so badly.

“Nope.” She reached up and kissed him.

He liked her confidence and the aggressive nature of her kiss. She knew what she wanted, but he had no intention of letting her set the pace. He took the reins, slowing her down. Deepening that kiss, teasing her. Raising the stakes.

A sweet sigh escaped from her as he pulled away, sucking on her lower lip.

He felt it too. “You’re hot.”

“That’s because you’re an excellent kisser. And it’s summer. Everyone is hot.”

She liked messing with him. That confidence turned him on. “Not that kind of hot. Hot like you’re beautiful. And you’re fun. And you wickedly keep me off balance all the time.” And this wasn’t part of the car plan either. She really was a different kind of gal. And she had his full attention.

“Wickedly, huh? I’ve never been called wicked, but I think I like the sound of that.” She kissed him on the cheek. “You are welcome. Now turn the light on before things get out of hand and we get caught by the guys. That’s not the honor I want to be maid of, thank you very much.”

“You sure? It might be worth it. I’m a gentleman. I won’t tell. It’ll be our little secret.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Let me show you.” His hand lightly grazed her bare arm. Goose bumps raced beneath his fingers.

She took a quick breath in. “No.”

He paused, but it wasn’t easy. “No? It feels right. No?”