Chapter 5

Lisa enjoyed the touch of Cal’s fingers on her foot. Who knew the foot had so many nerve endings? Lisa didn’t—unless the way her heels made her feet ache counted. Which it probably did.

“I think that’s it,” he said, his voice as low and powerful as it had been when he’d been panicked and talking to his daughter during the tsunami.

That silly tsunami.

Hope had closed Your Tidal Forever for the time being, but Lisa would honestly rather go to work. She couldn’t rip up flooring and tear down wet sheetrock by herself. Since everyone around her had the same problems, and their own houses to fix, she hadn’t been able to find much help.

Until now.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Your HOA hired my crew to get everyone back up and running.” He cocked a grin at her. “And I’m starting with your place.”

An electric charge filled Lisa’s whole body, and she had the strangest desire to duck her head and tuck her hair. Again.

So she refrained from doing that. The man had asked for her number, and she wasn’t letting him leave here without it. In fact, if she could help it, she’d be leaving here with him.

“You’re still at the hotel, right?” she asked.

“Actually, no,” he said. “Sierra and I went home yesterday. She’s finishing the painting today.”

“Wow.” Lisa glanced around, as her house still looked like a war zone. Fine, maybe not a war zone. She put dishes away, and she’d managed to pull up some of the flooring. It had been really hard though, and her shoulder still ached from where she’d ripped up the panel near the front door.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll get your house back to normal in no time.” He stood up, taking his beautiful presence with him. “So today, I’m going to do all the demo. It’ll look worse when the day ends, but seriously, don’t worry. It has to be torn apart in order to put it back together.”

“I can help,” Lisa said, and she would’ve called in “sick” to work had she been required to go into the office.

“All right,” he said in that easy way of his. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t gotten his number days ago, when they’d checked into the Sweet Breeze together. But the line had been an hour long by the time they’d checked his house, collected his daughter and Travis’s family, and she’d honestly collapsed onto the hotel bed when she’d reached the eleventh floor.

She loved the hotel, and they’d gotten everything on floors three and above up and running the very next day. Their room service wasn’t operational yet, as the kitchen was on the first floor, and they were having some electrical problems down there.

But there were three restaurants on the fourth floor, and everyone seemed to be getting fed. The most important part of the hotel, in Lisa’s opinion, was the coffee shop on the fifth floor—and she wasn’t the only one lining up at all hours of the day.

But she’d gotten her car from the parking lot at Your Tidal Forever, and thankfully, there had been no water damage to it. It had been banged around with a few other cars in the lot, but it still ran, and she’d been able to drive from her house to the hotel and back.

Technically, she could sleep at her house, but all citizens had been warned about mold spores, so she’d opted to stay at the resort with her French bulldog until everything was deemed safe.

“Do you have a fan?” Cal asked, bringing her back to her kitchen.

“Yes,” she said. “Two, actually.”

“I have one industrial one,” he said. “We’ll find the wettest spot and put that one there. We’ll use yours in other key spots.”

“Okay,” she said, standing up and testing her weight on her injured foot. “Not bad, Doctor Lewiston.”

That got him to laugh, and Lisa sure liked the sound of it.

“I’ll go get my tools and everything. Be right back.”

“I’ll make more coffee.”

“Ah, you know my love language.” And with that, he walked away, deftly avoiding the exposed nails in the hallway that led to the front door.

“Love language,” she repeated to herself. The man probably had no idea what he did to her pulse. The lingering scent of his cologne entered her nose as she hobbled over to the counter and poured the old coffee down the sink.

She knew the moment he re-entered the house, and not only because of the clomping of his work boots. He had a presence and a charisma that vibrated in her chest, and she wanted to be near him a lot more.

“Okay, how are you with a hammer?” he asked.

“Uh.” She turned around, a bit of trepidation filtering through her. “I’m more of an online calendar type of woman.”

“It’s not too hard,” he said. “I’m going to use my moisture detector to find the line where your sheetrock moves from dry to wet, and I’ll cut a line in the wall. You pound out everything below it.”

“Pound out?” she asked, taking the hammer from him. The smooth, black handle indicated that this tool was well-used, and Lisa felt like she’d knock herself unconscious before lunchtime.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “Pound it all out. Rip it down. Throw it in the bin.” He indicated the big blue bin behind him. “Do you have gloves?”

“Gardening gloves,” she said. “Do those count?”

“No,” he said with a smile. “I’ve got a spare pair.” He took them from his back pocket and extended them toward her.

Lisa took them, looking down at the masculine, leather gloves that would drown her fingers.

“Pound it out,” he said, turning in a full circle. “I’ll start by the front door. You can follow me around after that.”

“Okay.” She put the gloves on the counter and finished making the coffee before joining him in the hallway again. “I should put shoes on.”

“Good idea,” he said, and she retreated to her bedroom to put on the proper footwear. Back in the hallway, she found him almost to the corner. “It’s about a foot up now. Water seeps.” He didn’t look at her but continued looking at his meter and cutting a line in the wall with a utility knife.

He reached the corner and straightened. “You could just watch.”

She jumped, because she’d just been caught staring at this fine, male specimen in her house. “I’m going to try to pound it out,” she said, smiling at him and heading into the kitchen for the hammer.

The weight of it in her hand felt a little foreign, as she usually didn’t lift more than a pen. Or a package of creamy, glossy stationery.

Swinging a hammer couldn’t be that much harder than laying out the perfect spread of wedding cakes for a bridezilla to taste. Could it?

She reached the front door and found the cut line in the wall. “Okay,” she muttered under her breath. “Here we go.” She swung the hammer, but it barely made a dent in the wall.

“Harder,” Cal said, and Lisa twisted to find him watching her this time. A sly smile touched those lips, and fire danced in those eyes, making them lighter than she’d seen them before.

Harder, she thought, cocking the hammer back and hitting the wall. A piece of it broke in, right where he’d cut the line in the wall. A squeal came out of her mouth as disbelief coursed through her. “I broke the wall.”

Cal chuckled and clunked his way toward her. “You sure did. And you’ll have to kind of tear it off the stud here.” He yanked on the edge of the sheetrock, and a huge chunk of it tore off. Lisa was pretty sure she wouldn’t be able to do that, but she wasn’t going to let him outshine her.

She reached for the other side of the sheetrock and pulled. A smaller piece came off, but she didn’t hit herself in the face, so she counted it as a win.

“Nice,” he said, taking the chunk from her. He tossed them in the blue bin and turned around to start marking the other wall.

After a minute, they settled into the work, the silence between them actually really nice. She pounded and ripped, and he cut and stepped.

“Did you grow up here?” he asked.

“I sure did,” she said. “My older sister is married and lives on Maui now. My dad left about five years ago and lives on the mainland now. And I have a younger sister on Oahu.”

“So you’re in Getaway Bay alone.”

“I have a cousin on the north side,” she said. “And my mother still lives here. Does real estate around the island, mostly for really rich people up on the bluff.”

“Mm.”

“What about you?” she asked.

“I grew up here as well,” he said. “I’m the oldest of four boys.”

“I’m surprised we didn’t know each other growing up,” she said, swinging the hammer. “How old are you?”

“Almost forty,” he said. “And I know better than to ask a woman how old she is.” He wore a smile in his voice, and Lisa giggled.

“Wise man,” she said. “But I’m thirty-six. That’s not that far apart.”

“I was raised up in the jungle-y part of the island,” he said. “My parents still live up there. They help a lot with Sierra.”

“Jungle-y part,” she said, fully flirting with him now. “Sounds intriguing.”

“Where’s your mom?”

“She’s just a mile or two away,” she said. “Around toward the volcano.”

“Okay, sure,” he said.

Another bang rang out in the house, startling her again. She turned to find him pounding out sections of the wall too. He definitely worked much faster than her, and with two of them swinging hammers, they didn’t talk over the noise.

Before she knew it, all the walls in the hall, living room, and kitchen were cleared of the wet sheetrock.

Her stomach growled and she put the hammer on the table. “I’ll make lunch.”

“I’ll get the bedroom walls cut,” he said.

Lisa wasn’t the greatest cook on the planet, but she could put together sandwiches and fruit. A dose of self-consciousness hit her, and she worried that maybe Cal didn’t like pineapple or mango.

Then she reminded herself they lived on a tropical island, filled with fruit. If he didn’t want to eat it, he didn’t have to.

“It’s ready,” she called over her shoulder, and he came down the hall.

“Thanks,” he said. “You don’t have to make me lunch. I brought something.”

“It’s fine,” she said, pulling out a chair at the table. “You’re here, working on my house.”

“You’re going to pay me,” he said, but he sat down and pulled the plate with the turkey sandwich on it toward him.

“Still,” she said, joining him at the table. She took a bite of her sandwich and decided to make sure he knew she was interested. At almost forty years old, though, he had to know already.

She reminded herself that he’d been married and had a fourteen-year-old. So he’d probably been married for a long time.

“How long were you married?” she asked.

He coughed and swallowed his bite of sandwich. “Uh, sixteen years.”

“Wow,” she said. “You must’ve gotten married quite young.”

“She was a year older than me,” he said. “I was twenty-one.”

Lisa swallowed, trying not to feel like a complete failure. He’d lived a completely different life than hers. A real life, with a wife and family. A company he owned and operated. If they ended up together, it would be as if he had a second life while she was still waiting for hers to begin.

He focused on his phone and sent several texts. “Just checking with my crew,” he said.

“It’s fine,” Lisa said. “But maybe you should send me a text, and then I’ll have your number.”

He lifted his eyes to hers, and the crackle between them practically had sound in her ears.

“Ready?” she asked, and he swiped and tapped.

“Ready.”