****
“They’re here, honey.” Ella nodded to the giant white truck that dominated my driveway.
I nodded. Thank God for Ella. I couldn’t have done this on my own. At all.
She wrangled our offspring. I hadn’t heard a peep from the backroom in the past hour. Hopefully, she’d also hog-tied them. At least then we’d have a chance at getting through this all unharmed.
The knock at the door sent my neurotic dog spazzing. She jumped at the door, ran to the window, jumped back at the door.
“Yes, I know, Thumper. There is someone at the door.” Her ninety-pound frame and fierce bark belied her gentle nature.
I shoved her aside and opened the door, sliding a knee through and then the rest of me, so the dog wouldn’t make a run for it.
“Ah. I can smell that you tried to fix it yourself, ma’am. You alright?”
I faced forward into the chest of a pair of dirty blue overalls. I followed the centerline of his body, up a flat plane to his rather muscular throat; then to a broad jaw, up a slender but curved and previously-broken nose, to settle my gaze on his dark brown eyes.
Oh my.
He smiled and spoke in a deep genuine voice I swore belonged to an angel above, “We’d all hate to have ya hurt, ma’am.”
His dark brown hair hadn’t been brushed in a while and he had a beard growing. I couldn’t tell if that was intentional or merely a result of a day’s work.
I loved a man with facial hair.
“Hi.”
“Uh, hi. Ma’am.”
I smiled, feeling relaxed in his presence. “I’m Zel. Rapunzel, but you can call me Zel.”
“Well, Miss Zel, how about we go inside and check out that plumbing issue of yours?”
I nodded. Of course. Plumbing. Pluuuumbing. Pllluuummbbinngg. The word meant nothing to me. The very heart-stopping man in front of me meant everything for a split second.
Then Ella called me and I woke up from my trance. “Yes?”
“Are you gonna show that fine young man in or are you gonna make him wait outside and simply guess the problem?”
“Lord above, Ella, give me a single cotton-picking moment, wouldja?”
Ella snorted and turned away from the door.
“Uh, I guess. Yeah. We’ll. Go inside.”
He nodded. “Great idea, ma’am.”
Ella gestured for him to follow her and I quite contentedly followed him. He had a broad waist, large shoulders, and great posture.
The moment I stepped through the door, I realized our reign of peace had come to an end. Six wild monkeys jumped on my couch, hung from doorknobs, scrummaged in my kitchen, and yelled at each other in loud hoots.
“I’m sorry, Mr….” Oh Goodness. What was his name?”
“Greg Charmant, ma’am.” He spun around and shook my hand. The moment our skin made contact, I was hyper-aware of his presence. His warm fingers enclosed my cold little hand. I was over-aware enough that the contact of our palms sent jolts through my body.
Well, hell’s bells. I knew this feeling.
I was attracted to my plumber.
Oh God. The cliché. I already saw the headlines, in my head: Widowed backwoods Southern mama of four hoodlums has affair with her plumber.
Ha.
A million reasons to drop his hand and run away screaming danced through my head. Instead, I stood there, smiling and shaking his palm, for lack of any other sensible response.
As usual, Ella came to my aid.
“So…Greg…” Ella even winked at him. I loved her bravado. I also hated it, as jealousy heated my face. Ella had no qualms about having a good time.
I didn’t either. I just didn’t think it was acceptable. I’m sure there’s a difference.
“Ma’am?”
“What do you need us to do?” I doubt even my youngest child would have missed the implication.
Greg offered both of us a charming crooked smile but said nothing as he head into the bathroom.
“Good Lord, ladies!” Gregory called out a moment later, obviously having found our little problem. “Are you on septic or city sewage, darlin’?”
“City.”
He nodded. I thanked my stars. This far outta town, I should have been on septic. My poor John had gotten it all fixed up so we’d have city.
I thanked him, as I ended up doing every day.
“Ma’am, you’ll want to go shower up and then keep the kids out of here for a while. This might take some time; perhaps ya’ll have a place to stay?”
I sighed but nodded. The kids did not do well with a change in routine.
“You might want to go ahead and call your husband, ma’am.”
I flushed. “Oh, well, my husband has passed on.”
Why am I blushing?
“Oh, I do apologize.” He turned to face me with a somber expression I was painfully familiar with.
Regardless, his deep voice tickled inside my chest.
“Very good,” I mumbled, rubbing where his vibrato touched. And wishing it was elsewhere. Stop this!
“For…apologizing?” His perplexed expression brought me back to the conversation.
Oh. Ow. Faux-pas, anyone?
“No! No. Sorry. I’m…” what am I? “Overwhelmed. Having some difficulty thinking. I’m sure a shower and some iced tea will help. Would you like some?”
“The shower or the iced tea?” A single bushy dark brown eyebrow lifted, wrinkling the skin of his smooth forehead.
“Er. Uh. The iced tea, to be sure.”
I heard Ella snicker in the background.
“Very thoughtful of you, but perhaps a bit later. Again, thank you, ma’am.” He nodded at the front door. “I’ll be laying down some adhesive carpet-protector so that we can traipse back and forth.”
I offered my gratitude at his forethought. Ella and I headed for the living room.
“You shower first,” Ella whispered into my ear with a meaningful wink at the firm male backside that peeped into the hallway from the bathroom.
“Ella!” My voiceless holler graced her with a little spittle. She wiped it off without a thought.
“Go. On.”
I sighed, accepting my defeat. Moments later, I stood in my bathroom, stark naked, admiring my less-than-perfect physique. I ran during my lunch breaks, which meant I had good muscle tone. My arms were a little floppy around the tricep area. Nothing too bad. Except that I had a ring around my lower abdomen that didn’t leave no matter how dedicated my diet was. Four children will do that to a woman.
With an aggravated huff, I turned on the shower, and let my waist-length hair down from its usual bun.
I stepped into the steaming heat, feeling liquid rivulets of warmth massaging my back, straightening my hair, loosening my muscles. A quick turn and I faced the showerhead, soaking my skin.
“…to stop!”
Startled, I jumped. Covered in soap, I then slipped and fell. The wall of my tin-can shower smacked my skull with vengeance. Worse, the stupid little seat-thing in the shower hit me right in my lower back.
I lay sprawled under the spray, gripping my skull, and reaching for my back.
The shower door sprang open.
Greg reached in and shut the water off. “Dear God, lady, are you all right?”
He knelt down and reached for me. Fingers touched my waist and then retracted in a blurred motion. “Oh. You’re…Uh.”
Deep brown eyes glazed over and his jaw dropped. He closed his mouth and his lips moved, but no sound came out. He also continued to stare at my nakedness, his gaze drifting from my breasts to my neat and trimmed nethers.
I could feel him trying to pull away; his head even jerked, but his eyes wouldn’t leave me.
I lay there, looking like an idiot– or at least an old arthritic granny–, my hair in tangled knots around my face. The steam had left the shower, so I also lay shivering.
I also felt more desirable than I could ever remember.
In the distance, El
la called my name. It echoed through the fog of sudden-onset hunk-lust.
Her voice helped the target of my lust regain his conscious hold over his body.
Damn it.
Greg stood up, shook his head, and averted his gaze. He reached an arm out to me, which I took to help me stand. I grumbled and moan about bruises, while he handed me a towel.
We both turned at the sound of footsteps.
“Oh. I see Greg has this in hand.” Ella winked at both of us, gave a saucy smile, and exited the room.
Greg turned to me, but didn’t meet my eyes. “Ma’am, I am–“
“No, it’s okay. Really.” I smiled, and chuckled, and all of those things we women do when we’re feeling embarrassed and cute at the same time. “Is…everything okay?”
His face perked up. I noted that he stared into my eyes with a firm determination that I figured meant he didn’t want to look south, again. “Oh. Yes. The water started flooding much worse once you turned the shower on.”
Yay.
“Thank goodness you stopped me!”
His lips pulled back to show beaming white teeth. “Yes…” He seemed about to say more, but shook his head and apparently thought better about it.
Disappointment sank into my bones.
We stood, a loud silence between us. I twiddled my thumbs, he chewed on his lips.
“Well!” Ella gushed, walking over to us. “I guess I’d better take my girl and her brood to my place. Greg, what time should Zel be here, tomorrow?”
I had two problems with Ella’s question. The first was that she made me out to be dependent on her to keep my life in order; mainly because I was acting the part of the ditz and she was the only one with the sense to get things done, at the moment. So I couldn’t really blame her for that part.
The other issue was that she knew what was going on and I was too overwhelmed to really keep things on track. I hated being dependent.
“You’re coming back, Greg?” I was determined to regain my authority over my own household.
“I am, indeed, ma’am. The shower shouldn’t have affected the toilet, which leads me to believe there is something at play, here, that’s going to take some time to work out.”
Thrill filled me at the thought of days staring at his form.
Nausea filled me at the thought of days of labor to be paid.
“Oh.” It was the best I could come up with between the two extremes.
He picked up on my concern, touching my forearm, “You’ll want to call your home insurance company. Call today ‘diagnostic’ and you definitely won’t be charged.”
The overwhelming gray of my workload was lit up by the brief beaming of his optimism.
“Tomorrow, then?” He tilted his head and smiled at me.
“Yes…I’ll be here…” My face dropped. “No. No, I won’t.”
Ella waved off my concern. “Oh Zel, relax. I’ll take the store. I’ve got more than enough time on my hands. ‘Sides, Gran’ll love having the kids over. And the kids will cower in terror at her. It will work out just fine. And we can always call Snow if all else fails.”
Wuh oh. Emotional overload. My synapses fired in multiple directions at once: anger, fear, worry, and astonished love. Damn I was lucky to have Ella.
And Granny. And, of course, Snow.
“Alright, well…I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then Greg.” I blushed. Again. I’m not a blusher, usually.
He nodded, dropped his face, glanced back at me, and then left.
Ella slammed me on the back. “Way to go, girl!”
I scrunched up my face, “Hon, if you think him shooting a plumbing snake down my toilet is a date then you’ve got serious problems.”
She rolled her eyes, “Sweetiepie, I have no doubt that if you keep things up, he’ll be shooting his snake down something else, all together.” She winked.
I gagged.
Sort of.
“And I do love your choice of wardrobe, honey. It suits our mission perfectly.”
Er?
I looked down. Oh.
I still wore the towel.
It was a little towel.
It was covered in Disney characters.
And it barely covered my body.
“I think I’ll dress a little more warmly tomorrow, if ya don’t mind.” I glared at her.
“Suit yourself, honey bee.” She sighed but her eyes twinkled. “I’ll go make the arrangements for the kids. You go find yourself something sassy to wear tomorrow.”
I nodded and we set off on our tasks.
I couldn’t help but feel like I already knew what I wanted to wear for Greg tomorrow.
Nothing.
Copyright 2013 Fiona Druce
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