Page 38 of The Fixer

“Y-you’re going to clean up my trash?”Who does that?

“Someone has to.” He donned his gloves and started shoving trash into the bag with an abundance of energy and a whole hell of a lot of whistling.

She set her load down on a shelf beside the door. “I’ll help.”

He divided the bags and handed her a wad. Then he grinned, damn him. “Let’s see what you got.”

She snapped a bag open and gingerly picked up a soggy, half-eaten box of cornflakes before moving to a destroyed package of spaghetti. Keeping her gag reflex in check, she pinched the pasta between her thumb and finger, trying not to picture a moose gnawing on it.

Charlie yanked off his gloves and tossed them to her. Without another word, he bent back to work.

“Um, thank you,” she squeaked.

He answered with a grunt. Ten minutes later, she’d barely filled a corner of her bag, and he had tied off his first one and was halfway through his second. She watched him covertly, noting his swift, graceful movements. In vain, she tried not to admire the long line of his back or how well his butt filled out his jeans or how the smooth muscles across his broad shoulders bunched and flexed beneath his body-hugging long-sleeved T-shirt. Or the way his golden strands glinted with the sunlight. Or how his bracelets accentuated the tanned skin on his manly wrists. She’d never been into machismo, but she could hear Estelle yapping in her head that she needed to reconsider—not that Charlie had shown much in the way of macho tendencies, but he wasbuiltas though he could walk straight into a Clint Eastwood movie and hang with the boys—or look really, really good in a tool belt and nothing else.

She gave herself a hard mental slap.

Another ten minutes passed, and he had nearly single-handedly cleaned up the yard. Taking her bag from her hands, he dropped it and his into the receptacles inside the garbage shed, informing her, “Garbage pickup was yesterday, so you’ll want to conserve what little space is left for the next two weeks.”

She blinked. “There’s garbage service in this town?”

Tilting his head, he shot back, “Of course there is. We’re not a backwater stuck in the nineteenth century, even thoughsomepeople think so.” He seemed truly offended.

“I just meant … I mean, this seems so far from … Is there a landfill nearby?”Oh, witty stab at conversation, Joy.She was so out of her element here.

Confusion furrowed his brows—or maybe it was irritation. “We have a transfer station just north of town.”

“Oh.” Whateverthatwas. In Chicago, she merely put her garbage in the chute in the hallway. Rather, the house cleaner did.

His features softened. “I’ll be headed there in a day or two for a drop. If you want, I’ll add your trash to my load.”

His generosity—and her clumsiness—flushed her cheeks with embarrassment, and she crossed her arms over her stomach. “That’s really nice of you.”

“Isn’t it, though?” He flashed her his pearly whites. “C’mon. Your coffee’s getting cold. I also brought you some of those almond things you like. You eat, and I’ll go through the bids.”

“Any chocolate ones in the goodie bag? Cully beat me to it yesterday.”

“I saw that, and I apologize. But don’t worry, I got the last one for you.”

The man was observant, and he seemed to be bend over backward for her. Though she hated to admit it, he was thoughtful and kinda sweet—even if he did have ulterior motives.

He opened the back door for her, and as they stepped inside, his eyes took a tour around the kitchen and landed on her sorted piles. “Whoa. When did you do all of this?”

“Last night, after I left the bar. Told you I was up late.”

“Guess there were two of us burning the midnight oil.”

“What wereyoudoing in the middle of the night?”Burning up the sheets there, Mr. Hottie?Why had she asked? She really didn’t want to know.

He snatched the folder off the shelf and waved it in the air. “Working up your estimates.”

Oh.Why that gave her a rush of relief was beyond her. Really, being around this guy was muddling her mind.

As they sat across from each other at the kitchen table, she ripped into the bag and ogled the pastries for a beat before choosing one and biting into it. She let out an errant moan that drew his interest.

He cleared his throat. “This place is looking much homier. You planning to move in?”

“I already did.”

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