Labor of Love Read online

  “Are you sleeping with the light on?”

  I hated to admit it, but—

  “Yeah, we probably will. Jenna wants to.” When in doubt, blame it on your friend. I figured we’d at least keep on the light in the bathroom with the door partially opened.

  “About the necklace,” I said.

  “Yeah?” I heard the impatience in his voice, maybe even a little bit of anger. I couldn’t imagine Brady being angry.

  “Thank you. I really wanted one for myself, and this one will always be special. Remind me of my time here. My time with you.”

  “Good.”

  “But, you were very sneaky having me pick it out.”

  “I thought it was clever. If I’d known you longer, I might have known what to get, but we’re on the short-term plan here. Right?”

  “Yeah. Short term.”

  “End of summer.”

  “End of New Orleans.” And that made me sad.

  “Okay, then. See you tomorrow.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “I figure the least you can do is my laundry.”

  “What?”

  He laughed. “No go, huh? I don’t know what we’ll do, but it’ll be sometime in the afternoon. I do have to get my clothes washed. Maybe we’ll just hang out by the pool.”

  “I like that idea. I could use a day of not doing anything.”

  “Okay. Then. Tomorrow.”

  “Yeah. Night.”

  I closed my phone, set it aside, sat up, and looked at the necklace. I could feel myself smiling. It was the smile of someone who was totally and completely happy. It was the smile of someone who wasn’t worried about getting hurt.

  I put the necklace on. It felt right. Suddenly everything did. I wasn’t even worried about Saraphina’s prediction.

  But maybe I should have continued to worry about being careful.

  Chapter 18

  Things were coming along nicely on the house. We were getting to the details. Jenna and I were hammering the trim around the windows that had been replaced.

  The four of us had spent last Sunday at a lake near where we were staying, just relaxing. Sometimes we got together after we were finished building for the day. Sometimes it was just Brady and me. It seemed like we could always find something to talk about. And when we weren’t talking, we were kissing.

  “Hey, catch!” Brady yelled.

  I looked over, dropped the hammer, and caught the bottle of water he tossed my way. He’d set his watch to go off every hour and he brought me a bottle when he grabbed one for himself. I sat down on the edge of the porch, removed my safety goggles and hard hat, and set them aside. I twisted the cap and took a long swallow of the cold water. It tasted so good.

  Brady leaned against the beam. I watched a droplet trail down his bare chest. A silly thing to be fascinated watching, but fascinated I was. Just about everything about him fascinated me.

  “Do you have a sec?” he asked.

  I felt my cheeks warm as I lifted my gaze to his, certain my brow was furrowed and a question was in my eyes. We’d been really good about not sneaking off for stolen kisses. I wasn’t sure Jenna could say the same. From time to time, she disappeared. Tank was usually AWOL at the same time.

  Brady jerked his head to the side. “I want to show you something.”

  “What?”

  He grinned. “If I could tell you, I wouldn’t have to show you. Come on.”

  I got up and walked beside him as he headed toward the street, then sauntered along the line of cars that was parked against the curb. He had a lazy stride—which was odd because I knew he wasn’t at all lazy. He was probably one of the hardest workers here. Me, I took a break every fifteen minutes just to catch my breath, dip a towel into ice water, and wrap it around my neck to cool down. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like around here come August. Next year, I thought, I’d do this volunteer work over spring break, when it wasn’t quite as hot yet.

  Yeah, I was already making plans to come back. I really liked New Orleans. It had so much to offer, and we hadn’t even explored everything yet.

  When we got to Tank’s car, Brady stopped, reached into his back pocket, pulled something out, and held it toward me. It looked like white cardboard, folded in half.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Open it.”

  I set my water bottle on the trunk of the car, took the cardboard, and unfolded it. It was a colorful butterfly. A temporary tattoo. I laughed.

  “I saw it at the convenience store where we stopped to get coffee this morning,” Brady said. “It reminded me of you.”

  I squinted up at him. I hadn’t put my sunglasses on. The sun was bright, but his smile was brighter.

  “I see.”

  “I could put it on you if you want.”

  “What? Right now?”

  His grin, if at all possible, grew wider. “Yeah. Why not? Lean on the trunk.”

  He took the towel from around my neck and poured some water from his water bottle on it. I glanced around. It seemed kind of wicked in a way, and sort of silly, too.

  “Why not?” I repeated, handed him the tattoo, and leaned against the car. I lifted my T-shirt slightly and pushed the waistband of my jeans down just a tad, near my left hip.

  I felt him lay the piece of paper against my skin, felt the damp towel against my back. “That’s cold!”

  “Bet it feels good, though,” he said.

  In no time at all he was peeling back the paper. “Perfect.”

  I moved around him and looked in the side-view mirror, twisting around slightly, so I could see my backside. All I could see was part of the wings peeking out above the waistband of my jeans.

  “Sexy,” Brady said.

  His voice dropped a notch or two, and it sent a shiver along my spine. I’d never had a guy tell me I was sexy before. I liked it. I liked it a lot.

  He put his hands on either side of my hips and drew me closer. “I had an ulterior motive in giving you the tattoo. Now I can say something innocent like, ‘I’d like to see the bottom half of that tattoo.’” He wiggled his eyebrows. “And it might not be innocent at all.”

  “Yeah, well, you should have taken a good look at it when you were applying it, because that was probably the last time you’ll see the bottom half.” I stood on tiptoes and nipped his chin. He had a really nice chin. Strong, sturdy. It matched his strong jaw.

  I’d always thought a guy’s eyes were his best feature, revealed the most about him. But the truth was, there wasn’t anything about Brady that I didn’t think was darn near perfect.

  “We’ll see,” he said in a low voice, like a challenge. I knew he was still talking about the tattoo and wanting to see all of it again.

  Then he was kissing me, and I thought—Yeah, we’ll see.

  A week later, I moved from hammering outside to painting bedroom walls.

  I’d called Amber and given her the measurements for the windows and told her that I was going to paint the little girls’ rooms pink. Brady had borrowed Tank’s car to take me shopping for the paint. I’d bought it myself, because the builder who was donating the supplies had brought only cream-colored paint. And while cream is a nice neutral color, little girls should have something special.

  I dipped the roller into the pan, then began rolling it over the walls again. When we’d first started working on the house it smelled of mildew and rot. Now it smelled of paint, of new. It smelled wonderful.

  I’d never been involved in something that made me feel this good about myself.

  “Hey, guess who just got here?” Jenna asked from the doorway.

  I turned around, but before I could answer, she said, “It’s Amber. Come on.”

  I’d known that, of course. Just as Sara had predicted. Back from her doubts.

  I was so ready to see her again. I hurried through the house—in Jenna’s wake—and stepped out onto the porch. And there Amber was, running across the yard that when we’d first arrived had