Page 95 of Save the Date
Her phone rang three more times over the next two hours, and she let it roll over to voicemail, all the while cursing her absent assistant, and also cursing herself for letting him get away with slacking off.
She was so lost in her work the first soft knock at the shop door barely registered. At the second knock, she frowned. “We’re closed!” she called out.
“Cara, it’s Jack.”
He had a huge brown paper bag with grease spots in one arm, and Shaz’s leash looped around his wrist.
“What’s this?” Cara asked, as he walked in and set the bag down on the worktable.
“Dinner. I’ve been calling and calling, but you didn’t answer. I rode by an hour ago to see if you were here, and I could see you working through the window, so I figured the only way I was going to see you tonight was if I brought dinner to you.”
She sniffed the bag. “Chinese?”
“I wasn’t sure what you liked, so I kinda got a variety. Moo shu pork, shrimp with lobster sauce, chicken with snow peas, beef and broccolis, egg drop soup…”
Cara’s stomach growled loudly, and she opened the bag and began parceling out the white boxes. “You are a lovely man, Jack Finnerty. I just now realized I haven’t eaten anything today since a banana at seven this morning.”
“Busy day?”
“Busy and horrible. I’d tell you about it, but it would just spoil your appetite. And I’m still not done. Will you hate me if we just eat down here?”
“I could never hate you,” he said.
“Hang on and I’ll go get some forks and paper plates.”
“Plates? I thought that’s what those little white boxes were for?”
“Only if you’re a lonely old maid,” Cara said, heading for the kitchenette. She glanced at the back door and saw a puddle.
“Oh, Poppy,” she said with a sigh.
The dog hung her head. Cara felt flooded with guilt. She hadn’t taken the dog for a walk, hadn’t paid her the least attention all day.
“Not your fault, girl,” she muttered, fetching paper towels and spray cleaner.
***
Cara had to force herself not to scarf down every morsel of fried rice and moo shu pork. He’d brought a six-pack of Tsingtao beer, and Jack sipped his beer and watched with obvious amusement as she made quick work of dinner.
Finally, she set her fork down with a sigh of happiness. “Thank you for that. I feel better already. But how was your day? How’s it going out at the Strayhorns’?”
“Good. We got the roof finished. Galvalume standing-seam tin, and it looks awesome. Once we finished that, Libba decided she wanted some windows to lighten the place up. We’ve ordered those. And we got the ductwork installed for the HVAC. We power-washed all the walls inside and out and now we’ve also got the floors down. Wait till you see them. We were gonna re-mill them, because of all the gouges and stains from oil and machinery, but once we took a look, we decided to leave them as is. Even Libba loved the character. We just gave the floor a light sanding, and it brought out the most amazing color, a soft gray-brown.…”
“Mouse ear,” Cara said.
“Huh?”
“Oh, it’s a paint color I saw once. I think it’s supposed to describe the color of the inside of a mouse’s ear, but I like to think of it as that soft gray-brown you just described.”
Jack leaned over and with the tip of his little finger removed a grain of rice from the corner of her mouth before kissing her lightly. “Mouse ear? As I remember, you’re not too fond of rodents.”
“No. Hate rats. And mice.” She kissed him back. “But you? I kinda like you.”
“Thanks. The feeling is mutual.”
Jack followed her into the kitchenette and they cleaned up the dinner dishes together.
“How much more work do you have to do on the barn?” Cara asked.
