of the testosterone cloud as she led Noah through the maze of crumbling boxes, bulging black bags and mountains of ancient Good Housekeeping s and Family Circle s sardined into the already overdecorated living room.
âUmâ¦cleaning?â she heard behind her.
âAunt Maeâsâ¦things,â she said over the pang, now understanding why it had taken her uncle more than a year to deal with her auntâs vast collections. Even so, Roxie found the sorting and tossing and head shakingâi.e., a box marked âPieces of string too small to use.â Really, Aunt Mae?âhugely cathartic, a way to hang on to what little mind she had left after this latest series of implosions.
Except divesting the garageâand attic, and spare room, and shedâof forty yearsâ worth of accumulatedâ¦stuffâ¦also revealed the woebegone state of the house itself. Not to mention her uncle, nearly as forlorn as the threadbare, olive-green damask drapes weighing down the dining room windows. So Roxie suggested he spruce up the place before, you know, it collapsed around their heads. Amazingly, heâd agreedâ¦to think about it.
Think about it, go for itâ¦close enough.
However, while Roxie could wield a mean paint roller and was totally up for taking a sledgehammer to the kitchen cabinetsâespecially when she envisioned her ex-fiancéâs face in the light-sucking varnish, thus revealing a facet toher nature she found both disturbing and exhilaratingâthatâs as far as her refurbishing skills went. Hence, her giving Gene Garrett a jingle.
And hence, apparently, his sending the one person guaranteed to remind Roxie of her penchant for making Really Bad Decisions. Especially when she was vulnerable. And susceptible toâ¦whatever it was Noah exuded. Which at the moment was a heady cocktail of old leather and raw wood and pine needles. And chocolate, God help her.
âWhoa,â Noah said, at his first glimpse of the kaleidoscope of burnt orange and lime green and cobalt blue, all suffused with the lingering, if imagined, scents of a thousand meatloafs and tuna casseroles and roast chickens. She adored her aunt and uncle, and Maeâs absence had gouged yet another hole in her heart; but to tell the truth the houseâs décor was intertwined with way too many sketchy memories of other sad times, of other wounds. Far as Roxie was concerned, it couldnât be banished fast enough.
âYeah,â she said. ââSomeâ work might be an under statement.â
Just as this estimate couldnât be done fast enough, and Charley would sign off on it, and Noah or Gene or whoever would send over their worker bees to make magic happen, and Roxie would get back to what passed for her life these daysâand far away from all this glittery, wood-scented temptationâand all would be well.
Or at least bearable.
The Tootsie Roll popâand Roxieâapparently forgotten, Noah gawked at the seventies-gone-very-wrong scene in front of him, clearly focused on the job at hand. And not even remotely on her.
Wellâ¦good.
âAnd this is just for starters,â Roxie said, and he positively glowed, and she thought, Eyes on the prize, cupcake.
And Noah Garrett was definitely not it.
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Despite the stern talking-to Noahâd given himself as he hiked up all those steps about how Roxie was no different from any other female, that heâd never not been in total control of his feelings and no way in hell was he going to start nowâ The second she opened the door, all dusty and smudgy and glowering and hot, all he knew was if the Tootsie Roll pop hadnât been attached to a stick he wouldâve choked on the blasted thing.
Noahâd stopped questioning a long time ago whatever it was that seemed to draw females to him like ants to sugar, it being much easier to simply accept the blessing. So if he was smart, he mused as he pretended to