Meant To Be Mine. Marie Ferrarella

she told him.

      Heading back toward the stairs, she heard him declare, “Well, that’s a start.”

      Feeling she needed to acknowledge his response, she nodded. “Yes, it is.” Then, just to keep things civilized, she added, “If you want coffee, help yourself. There’s a coffee machine in the kitchen. It’s on a timer.”

      Having reached the banister, she ran her hand along the sleek light wood as she made her way down the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she quickly hurried to the back bedroom, flipped the lock on the door—just in case—and arrived at her real destination: the guest room bed.

      A sigh of relief escaped her lips as she collapsed on the mattress.

      The last thought that floated through her mind was that there was something vaguely familiar about the man who had come to remodel her bathroom.

      The next moment, it was gone.

      * * *

      Tiffany felt like she had been lying down for only a few minutes when the noise suddenly started.

      It was loud enough to have her bolting upright, abruptly terminating what was beginning to be a pleasant semisleep.

      Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, she saw that she’d actually been asleep for half an hour, but that was far from enough. Especially since the noise turned out to be steady enough to keep her from putting her head back on the pillow. And it was definitely irritating enough to keep her from falling asleep again.

      “He’s actually working,” she muttered incredulously. “Who does that as soon as they arrive?”

      The noise gave no sign of abating. For the second time that day Tiffany got out of bed. But this time, rather than heading for the door and the annoying doorbell, she went in search of the source of the teeth-jarring noise.

      Hanging on to the banister, she half walked, half dragged herself up the stairs, all the while struggling to finally wake up—permanently. There was no point in even thinking that she could go back to sleep again. That ship had definitely sailed.

      Once on the landing, Tiffany made her way toward the source of the noise, which was growing louder with every step she took. It was emanating from just beyond her bedroom, she discovered. Specifically, from her master bathroom.

      The noise seemed to vibrate right through her chest.

      Standing in the doorway, Tiffany looked accusingly at the culprit behind her shattered morning’s sleep. “Why are you destroying my bathroom?” she asked.

      Covered in dust and wearing a mask over his face to keep from breathing it in, Eddie looked for a moment at the woman whose bathroom he was remodeling, before setting down the sledgehammer he’d been wielding. He pushed the mask to the top of his head and answered her question.

      “Well, for one thing, I can’t put the new fixtures in without getting the old ones out,” he told her. He gestured around the bathroom. “That includes your bathroom tub, sink, medicine cabinet and commode.”

      Commode? That certainly was a delicate way to talk about the toilet, she thought, somewhat surprised.

      Tiffany blinked, and for the first time since she had let the man into her house, she actually looked at him. Not through him, around him or over him, but at him. And now that she did, even though her brain was still just a wee bit foggy and out of sync, she realized that there really was something vaguely familiar about the man standing in her bathroom, effectively making rubble out of it.

      Where did she know him from? Nothing specific came to mind, though a memory seemed to play hide-and-seek with her brain, vanishing before she could get hold of it.

      The next moment, she let it go, focusing on the more important question for the time being. “You do know what you’re doing, don’t you?”

      Amusement curved the corners of his mouth as Eddie watched her for an incredibly long minute. “It’s a little late to be asking that, isn’t it?” He looked around at the rubble he’d created. “You didn’t ask to see any letters of reference, or photographs of my previous work.”

      “I assumed my mother had you vetted,” she replied. “Which is good enough for me. She’s like a little barracuda. Nothing gets past her.”

      He understood what she was telling him, but it hadn’t been like that. The woman who’d called him, saying she’d gotten his number from Ms. Sommers, had just said that her daughter’s bathroom needed remodeling and to use his better judgment. He’d found that rather unusual. He found Tiffany being so lax about it even more unusual.

      Maybe she had become less intense over the years. After all, it had been five years since he’d last seen her. The Tiffany he remembered from their classes together in college had been extremely competitive and had had to verify everything for herself. She’d also given him one hell of a run for his money. Maybe it was a good thing that she didn’t recognize him just yet. He did need the money this job would yield. For now, he decided to play this by ear.

      “I just thought you’d want to ask some questions yourself,” he told her.

      “Okay,” she said. “How long is this going to take?” When he made no attempt to answer, Tiffany gestured at her disintegrated bathroom. “This,” she emphasized, moving her hand to encompass the entire spacious room. “All this. Rebuilding it. How long is this going to take?” she repeated, enunciating every word.

      Leaning the sledgehammer against a wall, Eddie dusted himself off. “‘This’ is turning out to be a bigger job than I thought it was going to be.”

      She gave her own interpretation to his words. “Is that your clever way of asking for more money? Because I already told you that my mother—”

      “No,” Eddie said, cutting her off before she could get wound up. The Tiffany he remembered could get really wound up. “I’m asking for more time. I thought your bathroom could be remodeled in a weekend, but now that I see it, I realize it’s going to take at least two.”

      She still didn’t understand why this contractor could work on the bathroom only on weekends. It didn’t make any sense to her. “Why not just come back Monday morning and keep at it until it’s finished?” she demanded.

      Eddie inclined his head, as if conceding the point—sort of. “A week ago, I would have agreed—”

      “Fine,” she declared, satisfied that she’d won this argument. “Then it’s settled—”

      Eddie talked right over her. As he recalled from past encounters with Tiffany, it was the only way to get his point across. “But that was before I took a day job.”

      She assumed he was talking about another construction job. “Put it off until you’re finished.”

      He shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

      “Anything is possible,” Tiffany insisted. “I know that you construction people take on multiple jobs.” Her best friend had dated a man who had his own construction company, and she’d complained about taking second place to his work schedule. “That way, if one falls through, there’s still enough work to keep you going.”

      “This isn’t another construction job,” Eddie informed her. “It’s a different job entirely, in a different field.”

      He resisted the urge to explain just what that other job was. He wasn’t superstitious by nature, but in this instance he was afraid that if he talked too much about the job that was waiting for him come Monday morning, somehow or other he’d wind up jinxing it. He loved working with his hands, loved creating something out of nothing, but construction work didn’t begin to hold a candle to being a teacher. The one allowed him to create functional things; the other was instrumental in awakening sleeping minds, brains that were thirsting for knowledge. And amid those budding minds one could very well belong to someone who might do great things not just for one or two people,