Clenching her jaw, she forced her emotions back down and slammed the hammer into the tile wall. Again. And yet again. Chunk after chunk dropped into the tub as she imagined the tile as her stupidity and tried to smash the sucker away with her hammer.
“You’re not going to hit your thumb again, are you?”
Gasping at the sound of Leo’s sexy tone behind her, Kaydee fumbled with her hold on the hammer, barely managing not to drop it as she twisted around to face him. “Holy… You scared the devil out of me.”
“That’s a shame.” A crooked smile tugged his lips. “I like a woman with a devilish streak.”
He was here, setting a bucket on her bathroom floor…and he was flirting with her. The invisible vise squeezing her chest disappeared. And just like that, all was right with her world again.
Adopting his grin, she placed a hand on her hip and tipped her head. “Good to know.”
They smiled at each other for a few beats, and the temperature in the room rose several more degrees.
Probably, she should follow those words with action. A devilish woman would, but since Kaydee had no clue what constituted devilish, she stuck to something familiar. Manners. “Did you eat yet? Are you hungry? Thirsty?”
“I’m good,” he said. “I ate before I left the ranch.”
She nodded. “I…uh, didn’t think you were going to make it tonight.”
His playful expression turned serious. “I told you I’d help you with this, and I’m going to keep my word.”
“But I feel bad,” she said. “You look like you could use a break.”
He shook his head. “Nah. It was just a long day at work. Long week, actually.”
That last part didn’t sound good. She frowned. “But it’s only half over.”
“Tell me about it.” He scoffed.
Yep. Something was definitely wrong. “Want to talk about it?”
“Nothing to talk about, really.” He bent down to retrieve a hammer and safety glasses from the bucket. “I screwed things up on Monday. And because I wasn’t clear enough, my crew took down the wrong wall.”
Monday?
Kaydee couldn’t help but feel it was somehow her fault. “I’m sorry.”
If he hadn’t met her for lunch…
“Don’t be.” He straightened and put on the glasses. “I came up with an alternate plan that the homeowners loved, and when I told Stone about it, he told me to shake it off. He had a few issues like that when he first started, too.”
He mentioned his former Ranger buddies from time to time. This Stone, and another one named Vince, came up more often. She could only imagine the bonds they formed in and out of battle. Her father and grandfather still kept in contact with their war buddies.
“He sounds like a good guy.”
“He is.” Some of the tightness disappeared from around Leo’s mouth.
“And he’s right, you know,” she said. “Everyone makes mistakes. It’s part of life. You’ll no doubt make more. But that’s okay. Nobody’s perfect.”
His chin lifted. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience.”
“Man.” She snickered. “The things I did when I first started out? This one time, I dyed a lady’s hair pink…but she asked for green. The darn containers were next to each other, and I was in a hurry and grabbed the wrong one. Then this other time, I shaved a strip up the back of a baseball player’s head when he sneezed.”
Leo laughed. “I would’ve loved to have seen that.”
“It’s funny now, but at the time I was more horrified than he was.” She shook her head as the memory came flooding back. “But with his permission, I turned it into his jersey number, and his teammates liked it so much, they had me shave their numbers on their heads, too. So don’t be too hard on yourself. Like I said, nobody’s perfect.”
“I’m not so sure about that.” He stared at her with admiration warming his gaze.
