“I’ve already taken care of that.”
“Excuse me?”
“I called the agency. They said it was fine with them if you and I wanted to work out our own personal relationship, now that I’ll be living here full-time.”
Our own personal relationship. Cat didn’t think she liked the sound of that at all.
“I’ll pay well.” He named an hourly figure. It was twice what she would have asked for most of the work he’d described.
Cat thought of her mortgage. She thought of the improvements she wanted to make to her house next summer: new insulation and double-paned windows that would significantly reduce her firewood consumption. Cat’s house wasn’t like Dillon’s. For her, there was no central propane heat to keep the place toasty. She counted on firewood to provide basic heating.
“Do you want to think about it for a day or two, and give me a call back?” He sounded completely relaxed about the whole thing.
And Cat decided she was being ridiculous. Nothing had happened between herself and Dillon McKenna. And nothing would happen. He was still recovering from major injuries and needed someone to help him get settled in. And she needed the money.
“No, there’s no need for me to think about it,” she said. “It sounds fine to me. When do I start?”
There was a millisecond of a pause. She was absolutely positive he was going to say, Right now.
But he didn’t. “A lot of the equipment is coming in Monday morning. Could you be here by ten or so?”
She agreed that she could.
An hour later Adora called. Her soft voice vibrated with excitement. “I saw him. He seemed really glad I dropped in. And guess what else?”
“What?”
“He needs help with some projects around the house. And I know how much you need any work you can get. So I told him about all the things you can do. He said he was going to call you this morning. Has he?”
“Yes.”
“I knew it. Aren’t you going to thank me?”
“Thanks,” Cat muttered with heavy irony.
As usual, the irony was wasted on Adora. “Anything for my big sis.”
Cat hung up the phone knowing exactly what Adora was up to: creating connections. If Cat worked for Dillon, then Adora had another reason to drop in at his house now and then.
It would never have occurred to Adora that throwing Dillon and Cat together could create any problems at all. Adora was ten times prettier than Cat. And besides, Adora knew very well that her big sister simply wasn’t interested in men.
* * *
The delivery van with the television, VCR and stereo arrived at Dillon’s at nine-fifteen Monday morning. Dillon had them bring it all into the house. He showed them where he wanted the huge TV, and then had them leave the rest of the equipment in the middle of the room. When they were gone, he set about ripping into the boxes, strewing packing material all over the place. He wanted it to look as if he’d really tried to make some progress at getting it all set up on his own, but he just didn’t know what he was doing.
He hoped Cat wouldn’t think too deeply about this. Because if she did, she just might begin to wonder why a man who could redesign a motorcycle couldn’t figure out how to hook up his VCR to his big-screen TV.
* * *
When Cat arrived, she found Dillon sitting on the floor in the huge main room. He was surrounded by torn-open boxes and slabs of polystyrene and packing plastic and he was reading what looked like some sort of instruction booklet. Behind him loomed a brand-new television with a gigantic screen.
Dillon looked up. “Thank God you’re here.”
Cat’s stomach felt agitated. Fluttery and strange. She silently ordered the bizarre sensation to go away as she slipped out of her jacket and hung it by the front door.
“What’s up?” She schooled her voice to be calm and professional.
Dillon squinted at the booklet he was holding, turning it this way and then that. “Help.”
Cat approached warily and peered over his shoulder. The booklet was the instruction manual for hooking up a VCR. In a dry tone, she suggested, “You might try turning that right-side up.”
He gave her a mock-threatening scowl. “Don’t get smart. Are you here to work or make fun of me?”
Some little devil inside prompted her to deliver a snappy comeback. She quelled the devil. She remained businesslike and distant, as she’d promised herself she would be. “What can I do?”
“Sit down.” He patted the space right beside him.
She hesitated, thinking it wouldn’t be wise to sit too close to him. And then she decided that if she didn’t sit close to him, he would think she was nervous around him. And she wasn’t nervous around him. Not in the least.
He held out the booklet. “Come on. Take this. Do something about it.”
She took the booklet and dropped next to him. Then she did her best to concentrate on the diagram he’d been looking at.
“God,” he said.
She shot him a suspicious glance. “What?”
“Oh, nothing. Just wishing.”
She knew she shouldn’t ask, but she did anyway. “Wishing what?”
He snorted. “That I could get up from here with one-tenth the ease that you got down.”
“Do you want to get up? I’ll be glad to help you.”
He shook his head. “Not yet. I’m working up to it gradually.”
This close, she could see that there were little gold flecks in the velvet brown of his eyes. His chin had a cleft in it. Cat seemed to remember that his blade of a nose had once been straighter. He’d probably broken it jumping out of a building for a movie or riding a bucking bronc in a rodeo.
She couldn’t stop herself from asking, “Why did you get down, if you knew it was going to be a problem getting up?”
“Hey, I have to do the tough things, if I ever want them to be anything like easy again.”
“Will they ever be easy again?”
“It’s relative. I’ll never run a marathon, if that’s what you mean.”
They were smiling at each other.
Cat reminded herself once more that she was here to work, not hear all about how Dillon McKenna was dealing with the changes his accident had made in his life. She looked at the booklet again. The page showed the terminals on the back of the VCR. It was a very clear and simple diagram. She glanced up at Dillon, to tell him this little task should be a piece of cake.
But something else entirely popped out of her mouth. “Has it been hard for you?”
He answered frankly. “Yeah. On a lot of levels. But it was time for a change anyway, you know?”
“How so?”
“Well, sometimes, in the past few years, I’ve found myself wondering exactly what it was I had to prove. Risking my life to jump a pyramid of sixty Buicks on a souped-up Harley started to seem more stupid than heroic to me. And the accident at the Mirage was bad. I’ve been broken up a lot in my time, but this was the worst. I was on my back or in a wheelchair for six and a half months.”
Cat thought of her own good, strong body. She depended on it to perform for her. How would she deal with it if she couldn’t walk for six months? Not well,