What's Life Without the Sprinkles - By Misty Simon Page 0,2

her about her love life, her child wasn’t giving her fits with pre-teen angst, and her sister wasn’t plaguing her with things she couldn’t have and didn’t want. Not much could go wrong right now.

And even though she was not looking forward to dinner with Edward tonight as much as she had before her talk with Zoe and her ridiculous cake references, she would get her enthusiasm back any minute now. In the meantime, she drove past the high school and then past the elementary school building where Justin was hopefully learning and not getting into any trouble.

“Eleven o’clock and all is well,” Claudia said to herself.

Seconds later, though, she almost ran the stop sign at the corner of Broad and Keller because of a guy out in the front yard of the house to her left. He was maybe ten yards back from the street, his booted feet planted next to a bucket of paint and a ladder to the second floor where apparently the window frames were being repainted. But the paint didn’t hold her attention for long, since the abs on the guy taking a break from the painting were about all she could truly focus on.

He had his shirt up from the hem, wiping his forehead with the tag end of the white fabric. His strong forearms moved and tensed with the swiping motion, making the saliva all but dry up in Claudia’s mouth. She would bet that last check for eight thou that Edward did not look like that under his neatly pressed button-down shirt. This man was toned and lightly golden even at the beginning of spring. His muscles contracted as he took one last swipe at his face, wiping right at his brow line. The sleeves of the white T-shirt hugged him like a second skin. His jeans rode low on his hips and were rimmed by a tool belt with a wrench and a drill. Was it dirty that she was drooling this hard over someone who was just doing his job?

Must be sweaty work, she thought as she continued to sit at the stop sign. Maybe she could offer him a drink of water, and perhaps she could fan him with the bank slip she’d just picked up. Lust came freight-training through her, and she let it because this was a random guy she might not see again. And even if she was looking for safe in dating, that didn’t mean she was dead.

In fact, she wouldn’t mind licking some icing off that flat stomach. Whew, boy!

A horn beeped behind her, and she realized two things at once. She was still sitting at a stop sign with three cars behind her, and when the shirt came down from the guy’s face, she saw it was Nate, waving at her.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, she was going to hell. And it was all Zoe’s fault.

****

“I have a schedule to keep today, Logan,” Nate West said as his younger brother walked up the sidewalk through the late morning sunshine. Claudia had just driven by, and he’d waved to her, but she had looked stressed. He made a mental note to give her a call later to see what was going on now in her often chaotic life. The phone call about the check had been brief, and then he’d had to leave for an appointment. He’d gotten some work done ahead of Logan’s arrival and planned on doing more after he left with the specs.

“Yeah, yeah, keep your shorts on. I’m only five minutes late, bro.”

“Well, that’s five minutes I could have been doing something else. And the sun is only getting higher.” Nate walked along the outside of the Victorian house. They needed to get the specs to make a bid for the rest of the job. Right now they were proving themselves to Old Mrs. Finkey by painting the windows, but she wanted the whole thing remodeled. Nate definitely wanted to be the one to have his hands on this old beauty. The architecture was awesome, and the job challenging enough to make his fingers itch to get at it.

“So what did the old man say about this job?”

“He’s going to give us the material costs when he gets back to the office, but for right now we just need to look around and see how much work the house is going to need.” This was one of the aspects of construction Nate loved. Taking something old and making it new.