Page 68 of Cold Case, Warm Hearts

“Your uncle the carpenter?”

“I know. Go figure.”

He held her eye contact, and she didn’t look away. Seemed like a good sign. “Just so you know, I didn’t go to lunch. I went back to my condo to pick up the rest of the supplies I’d need.”

“I see. If you’d warned me or something…”

“I texted you. You said you were going to town, so I figured you’d get it.”

“Oh.” She swiveled and headed for the breakfast room. When she stepped back in a second later, her focus was on her phone. “It was on silent.” She shoved it in her pocket and looked up at him. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He smiled to show he meant it. “We all have triggers that make us crazy.”

“I am not crazy.” All amusement drained from her face. She shoved her hands on her hips and scowled at him. “I am not crazy just because I like things to be in order. I’m not?—”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

She blinked, then turned and marched into the other room.

He needed a redo. Would that he could delete the last five minutes and start over.

Instead, he set to unloading his pickup and moving everything to where it needed to be. Aspen had already given him the go-ahead to set up shop in the basement, so he hauled many of the items downstairs. The other things he moved into the office. He was coming down the hall, maneuvering the empty hand truck he’d used to move the paint, when Aspen stepped through the door and saw him.

“So that’s the trick.”

“If I want to not end up in traction, yeah.”

“Smart.”

Rather than risk another spat, he rolled it into the living room and then carried it down to the basement. Heaven forbid he should leave anything in her way.

He stopped in the center of the dark space and inhaled a deep breath. He blew it out with a prayer.

Whatever was going on with Aspen, it had little to do with her house being in disarray. He wanted to be a friend to her, but he also had a job to do, and he needed to do it well. He needed wisdom. He needed to concentrate on the work and not be distracted by the woman upstairs.

He’d brought a sandwich in his backpack, so he dug it out and munched it while he decided on a plan. He had everything he needed for the downstairs bathroom, so he was going to start there. She’d told him she’d prefer he only work in one space at a time, and he wanted to honor that request as best he could.

Lunch wolfed down, he headed upstairs to the bathroom and got started.

He’d removed the old toilet and ripped up the cracked linoleum floor when Aspen knocked on the open door. “Hey.”

He looked up from where he was measuring to find she’d washed off the streaked makeup. She looked younger, more vulnerable somehow. “You okay?”

She leaned on the doorjamb. “I don’t deal well with chaos.”

“I’ll keep that in mind, but home improvement projects are chaotic,” he said. “They’re messy and unpredictable. There’s no way to avoid that.”

“I know.”

“I understand why you want to stay here, that you want to find out what happened to your mother, but if the work is going to be a problem?—”

“I don’t think I do.”

He wasn’t sure exactly what she meant, so he brushed off his hands and stood, waiting for her to continue.

“Want to find out what happened to my mother, that is. Maybe everybody’s right. Maybe I should just let it go.”

Maybe she should. Would that get people off her back? Would the burglar leave her be? Would his uncle no longer be curious about her activities?

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