The Bachelor's Sweetheart (10 page)

Chapter Eight

“H
i. I've been stood up.”

“What?” Tessa said into her cell phone. Josh had had a date at seven-thirty in the morning on a Wednesday? She took a gulp of coffee to clear her mind. She shouldn't have stayed up so late finishing that suspense novel. But if she hadn't finished, she might not have gotten any sleep at all.

“I'm at the Majestic. We were going to remove the seats in the area where you want to put the tables. But Myles is a no-show. There was some problem with the science rooms at the community college yesterday, and his lab was rescheduled to this morning.”

“Wait. Shouldn't you be at work?” She knew Josh was hoarding his vacation time at GreenSpaces so that he could take off to move when the project manager promotion he wanted came along.

The phone crackled and went silent for so long, Tessa thought she'd lost service. She checked the left corner of her phone. No, she had four out of five dots.

“You there?” she asked.

“Yeah. Connor told me our father is coming in to GreenSpaces today to do an estimate for painting the interior walls. I thought it best if I wasn't there.”

“What if he gets the job? Do you have enough vacation time to take off however many days the painting takes?” She hated the strident note in her voice, but Josh's hiding from his father was getting on her nerves.

“He'll be working evenings. I'll come in early, rather than work late. It'll give me more time to work on the theater. Speaking of which, are you free to come over and help me today?”

She wanted to say she'd love to as long as his father wasn't there in spirit, coming between them. “Let me finish my coffee. Need me to bring anything?”

“Just yourself.”

Tessa didn't even attempt to figure out why Josh's statement made her pulse quicken. She didn't want anything today to alter the friend status she felt she'd regained Saturday.

“I'll buy you lunch,” Josh said.

“You don't have to do that. I already said I'm coming.”

“Lunch is a lot cheaper than what I'd be paying Myles for the morning.”

“So, you only need my help this morning?” She wanted the work done as soon as possible and didn't mind spending the whole day.

“Whatever you want. Myles and I'll be working through the afternoon.”

“Okay. See you in about fifteen.” Tessa finished her coffee and entertained a fleeting thought about running upstairs to put on makeup. She shook her head. All she was doing was going over to help Josh with the theater construction.

“Hey,” she called after she pushed open the interior theater door. “Assistant Hamilton reporting for duty.”

Josh rose from the squat position he'd been in to look under the front row seats. “Come on down and I'll show you what we're doing.” He picked up a paper from one of the seats.

She walked down the right-side aisle and grasped the edge of the architect's plans closest to her to get a better view.

He dropped his hold on that side of the plans and pointed at the front seating diagram, a faint hint of his woodsy cologne or, more likely, soap, teasing her nose.

“According to the plans, you want to come back at least thirty feet for tables. With the aisle-buffer between the dinner-theater area and the regular movie seating, we need to remove five rows of chairs.”

Tessa looked back at the seating rows and swallowed. “That many?” She wanted the dinner theater conversion to add to her revenues, not limit her regular weekend movie income.

He flipped another smaller paper on top of the plans and she leaned in for a closer look.

“Your twelve-month spreadsheet of average theater attendance shows that even your top five showing nights for the period, adjusted up five percent, would fill only a few seats more than seventy-five percent of the post-renovation theater seating.”

The numbers blurred. Was this all a crazy pipe dream? Should she call a halt to it before Josh invested his time and she invested Jared's money and her remaining money from her grandfather? Her lip trembled and she sensed Josh's gaze on her. She turned from the spreadsheet toward him and he lowered his head closer to the sheet, closer to her. She parted her lips and a soft but intense look burned in his eyes. Did he feel that bad for her? Was he going to kiss her to make it better? That would be in character for Josh.

Except it wouldn't make anything better. It would change their relationship too much—at least on her part. Ruin the comfortable friendship she wanted back. Only she couldn't lie to herself that she didn't want him to kiss her. Just this once to get it out of her system. It wouldn't mean anything. She closed her eyes and waited.

He brushed her cheek with his forefinger so softly she wasn't sure she hadn't imagined it. “I meant that as a good thing.”

She blinked her eyes open.

“You have seating capacity for increased movie patronage spillover from dinner theater patrons,” he said.

“Yeah, right. I lost my confidence for a minute.” Disappointment slowed her heartbeat to normal. “I've planned this, prayed on it. I know it'll work.”

“It sure will, as long as we get the work done by the start of tourist season.”

“So let's get going. What do you need me to do?” She folded the plans and spreadsheet over into Josh's hands.

He carried them to the near wall where he had his tools and came back holding a power drill like a gun and revving the motor.

Tessa held her hands up in surrender, glad for his comic relief. “I didn't do it, Sheriff. I didn't do it.”

“I know, but you're going to.” Josh made a diabolical face and revved the tool again. “Over to the wall, woman.” He squatted in front of the first seat by the wall and motioned her to join him. “I need you to remove the bolts from the seats and I'll carry them out the side door and put them in the truck to be carted away.”

Tessa assessed the five rows of seats. “How many do you think will fit?”

Confusion spread across his face, followed by the glint of understanding. “Not my truck. I made a deal with Your Trash, Someone's Treasure to haul away the seats and sell them on consignment. The box truck is in the alley by the door.”

“Your Trash, Someone's Treasure?”

“It's a new business. Reputable. I checked. Don't worry, the sales proceeds will come to you.”

“Sounds good, but I wish you'd cleared it with me beforehand.” On the one hand, she appreciated Josh's initiative. He had a way of turning anything and everything into money. But the theater was her business.

He revved the tool again. “I was going to this morning. It was spur of the moment. GreenSpaces hired him to clear out an old warehouse Anne recently bought as-is. The owner was waiting to see my boss and I got to talking with him. It's the perfect solution. Better than trashing the seats.”

“True.” Tessa joined him on the floor. “So, how do I do this?”

Josh showed her the bolts and how the ratchet bit fit on them, and they got to work. After removing the bolts from the last seat in the last row, Tessa surveyed the cleared floor space visualizing a flat floor space filled with multicolored bistro tables and chairs. She heard Josh come in through the side door and turned, excitement bubbling. “I...we're really going to do it.”

“You had a doubt?”

She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “How could I with you behind me?”

“Exactly.”

Tessa brushed her hands on the sides of her denim capris. “I'm starved. Let's get cleaned up for lunch. Where are we going?”

“We could walk to the pizza-sub shop.”

“Works for me.” She started up the aisle to the lobby and restrooms to clean up.

Josh stepped in line with her. “Food reminds me. Are you going to the singles group's barbecue tomorrow evening?”

“No, a friend is going to be in Elizabethtown and I'm getting together with her.”

Tessa pushed open the ladies' room door and walked in. She stood in the dark for a moment. The friend was her sponsor, and the plans were dinner, a tour of Maura's home since she hadn't gone to the open house and a discussion of how to tell Josh. Tessa turned on the light and the sink faucets. She shouldn't put off telling him any longer but wanted to talk with Maura to get her words right so she wouldn't totally alienate him. Tessa ripped a towel from the dispenser. If that was even a possibility. She tossed the towel in the trash and pushed tomorrow and telling Josh from her head, not wanting to ruin the time she had with him today.

Josh was waiting for her in the lobby. “It'll be shorter if we go out the side door and down the alley,” he said. “I have the key you gave me, if you don't have yours with you.”

As they approached the side door, it cracked open. Josh stepped in front of her, not that she sensed any danger. This was the middle of the day in Schroon Lake. Her breath caught when his father stuck his head in and peered around.

“What are you doing here?” Josh demanded.

“Looking for Tessa,” his father answered in a conversational tone. “Betty, her grandmother, hired me to do some painting and house maintenance. She suggested I stop by here and see if you need any painting done on the theater. The front door was locked, so I tried this one.”

“No,” Josh said before she could open her mouth. “We have everything here covered.”

“Excuse me. Your father was talking to me.”

Josh pushed by them. “I'll wait for you outside.”

“Sorry about that,” Jerry said.

“I understand. You and Josh...”

“I suppose you do,” Jerry said.

Tessa tensed with the unsettling notion that he knew her secret. But he couldn't. Grandma wouldn't have told him. She shook off the thought, even more determined to come clean with Josh as soon as she talked with Maura.

“Josh was right, though,” Tessa said, seeing Josh's stubborn jaw and sharp cheekbones reflected in his father's face. “I don't need any painting done. If you want, you can go out the front door. It'll lock behind you.”

“I probably should. I've riled Josh enough. Your grandmother didn't say he was here.”

“Give him time to come around,” she said, hoping that was true. She waited until she heard the front door open and click closed before joining Josh.

“I can't take it,” he said when she stepped into the bright noon sun. “He turns up everywhere I go.”

She placed her hand on his forearm. He jerked as if he was going to shake her hand off, but stopped before he did and placed his hand over hers. The ping-pong game in her gut slowed.

“I've got to do something to get through until GreenSpaces hands me my ticket out of here. Maybe Al-Anon like you said before. Learn the rules of his game so he doesn't keep ambushing me.”

That wasn't even close to the reason she'd recommended Al-Anon, but that didn't matter if it got him to attend meetings. She allowed herself the hope he'd come to accept his father in his life and her admission—if not right away, later.

* * *

Josh walked up the garage stairs to his apartment. His new earlier work schedule hadn't seemed like such a great idea this morning when he'd dragged himself out at six-thirty, but getting home before five in the afternoon was all right. He'd have time to unwind before heading over to the Hazards' boat landing on Paradox Lake for the singles group's barbecue. He wished Tessa was going. He might need his wing woman to deflect Lexi's never-subtle hints.

He and Lexi had had some fun times together, but anything between them had been over for months. Why couldn't she just be his friend now, like Tessa? But none of the women he'd dated ever became plain friends after they'd parted. He put his key in the apartment door and paused. Good thing for him, he and Tessa had never dated. Even better that he hadn't given in to the insane urge he'd had in the theater yesterday to kiss her. Becoming romantically involved was the only thing he could think of that could ruin their friendship.

Despite it still being spring, hot humid air slapped Josh in the face when he opened the door. He walked across the room to the window AC unit and turned the dial to On. He needed to check with Tessa and her grandmother about him putting in a new window unit with a programmable thermostat. He could justify his cost by the electricity he could save over the summer, not to mention his comfort. Above the hum of the AC turning on, he heard a strange scraping sound coming from the back of the garage. He walked to the window, picturing the trees behind the building. None were close enough to scrape it, and there was no wind to speak of.

The scraping grew louder as he neared the window. Looking out he couldn't see anything to either side of the AC unit. Josh went back downstairs to see what was going on. As he rounded the back corner of the garage, he nearly walked into an older, but well-kept, black pickup truck. Past the vehicle, he spotted a man on a ladder, scraping the old paint off the garage wall below the AC unit. He grimaced. His father.

“Josh.” His father started down the ladder at a pace far slower than he'd expect from a man in his midfifties.

Josh stiffened, his heart thumping in fear and his stomach roiling with disgust as he waited for his father to miss a rung and stumble and fall.

“I expected to be finished and gone before you got home,” his father said. “Betty said you usually work late.”

“My schedule's changed. I get home by five now.”

Josh watched his father close the space between them in a perfectly straight line. As his father reached around for a mini-vac in the back of the truck, Josh braced himself for the all-too-familiar stink of booze to hit him. When it didn't, the force of his tension dissipating drained him.

His father lifted the vacuum. “I'll clean up and be out of your way. I've got a meeting to get to tonight.”

Josh stood tall. Was that supposed to mean something to him? “Take your time.” He turned to go back inside.