Page 3 of Once Upon a Winter
When she didn’t immediately speak, his intense eyes narrowed slightly with impatience. “I’m Cooper. You called me?” he said in a deep voice.
Laura swallowed. “Yes, Farley Cooper,” she managed to get out, feeling suddenly flustered. Stepping aside, she invited him in.
He gave a terse nod, his expression unreadable. “Everyone calls me Cooper.”
Unsettled, she stared and repeated, “Cooper.”
He peered at her with a hint of amusement in his eyes. “Are you okay? Have you injured your head?” He pointed toward her hair.
She reached up with both hands and grasped a chunk of drywall still dangling from the side of her head. “Yeah, I’m fine. But the ceiling… Well, see for yourself.” He brushed past her and walked across the room. As she followed, Laura asked, “How did you get here so quickly?”
“I live two blocks over.”
Without further pleasantries, he examined the damage. Meanwhile, she watched the play of muscles across his broad back as he reached up to the ceiling.
After a quick inspection upstairs, Cooper descended the stairs briskly and went outside without a word. Laura hesitated then grabbed her jacket and slipped it on while she followed. He had an air of no-nonsense efficiency about him that left her feeling wrong-footed. She wasn’t sure what to make of the enigmatic handyman, but one thing was certain: he was even better looking than the snow globe figurine that had first made her wish for him.
That’s odd. But I didn’t really wish, exactly. It was more of a comment. You have to rub things to make wishes come true. Except that’s more of a magic lamp thing. Snow globes must be different. Hello! Have you lost your mind? ’Cause you sound kind of crazy. And you’re talking to yourself!
While Cooper inspected the waterlogged ceiling, Laura forced her thoughts back to more pressing matters like her caving-in ceiling and Cooper. Who lived two blocks over. If that was an example of what she would find two blocks over, she needed to get out and explore her new neighborhood. But her new neighbor’s frown brought her back to the present predicament.
Cooper shook his head. “Hold on a sec.” He went upstairs, and Laura finished moving her boxes away from the water. After a brief upstairs inspection, Cooper came downstairs and went outside. Moments later, he returned and stuck his head in the door. “Can you come here and give me a hand?”
Pulling her hood up to shield her from the rain, she followed him to the side of the house. With a tarp slung over his shoulder, a nail gun in his hand, and a ladder under his arm, he lifted his eyes to the roof. “That’s where your leak is. Your home inspector should’ve caught that.”
When she stared blankly, he rolled his eyes. “You didn’t get a home inspection?”
All she could offer was a helpless shrug.
He winced. “Did you think your down payment and dreams were enough?”
“No! I just thought I’d make it through the night without the roof caving in. But thanks for the warm welcome and encouraging words.” Sure, he was hot, but that didn’t make up for his disposition, which was downright annoying and so disappointing.
He looked straight at her with those deep-blue eyes, and she almost forgot not to like him. She couldn’t read his expression but decided she didn’t care.
“Hold this,” he said. After repositioning her hands and cautioning her to keep the ladder steady, he climbed up onto the roof.
While Laura held the ladder, she couldn’t help but notice his physique as he climbed up, tarp in tow. Hmm. Still, having a hot body didn’t give him the license to be condescending. But he was up on her roof, fixing her leak in the rain. She couldn’t fault him for that. Once he’d secured the tarp, Cooper descended.
Having decided that the less said, the better, Laura waited while he pulled down the ladder.
“Let me put this away, and I’ll meet you inside.”
Laura stood at the door, and Cooper grabbed a wet vac from his truck. Once inside, he said, “It’s not looking good, but I’ve covered the leak. I’ll go clean upstairs.”
An hour later, he’d vacuumed up the standing water in her upstairs bathroom. “Your bathroom is a gut job, but the damage down here is minimal—just the ceiling, really. I’ll have to rent a couple of industrial fans and dehumidifiers to dry this out before I can begin the repairs. It’ll take about two weeks to dry and another couple of weeks to do the repairs.”
“But… Christmas is in three weeks.” Laura’s dreams of a picture-perfect Christmas appeared rather soggy.
“Do you want mold growing inside your walls?”
Laura frowned. “Well, no, but…”
He repeated. “Two weeks.”
The phrase echoed in Laura’s mind.
“I’ll bring the fans tomorrow,” Cooper promised.
