Meant To Be Mine

“Well, you’re not exactly ‘losing’ me, Ms. Sommers,” Eddie told her almost shyly, exposing a side to her that most people didn’t see. “I still do have those student loans to pay back so I’ll need to pick up those extra jobs on weekends—as long as your clients won’t mind having me around then, working. I’ll do my best not to get underfoot,” he promised earnestly.

Maizie laughed. It was obvious that the young man before her didn’t realize just how rare a competent worker was. “Eddie, considering the prices you charge and the work you do, I’m fairly certain they would be willing to put up with all sorts of crazy hours on your part.”

She sat back, thoughtfully regarding him for a moment. “So, just to be sure, I can tell Ms. Lee that you’ll be at her house tomorrow morning?”

His grin lit up the office. Maizie saw that her assistant looked utterly entranced as she glanced in their direction. “Absolutely,” Eddie said.

Maizie clapped her hands together and declared, “Wonderful!”

* * *

Eddie looked at the address on the piece of paper again. Specifically, at the name that appeared right over the address and beneath the phone number he’d been given in case he needed to cancel the appointment or to change the time he’d be arriving.

With everything that had been happening these last couple days, the name, when he’d heard it, hadn’t fully registered. It did now.

Tiffany Lee.

Could it actually be her?

No, Eddie told himself, he was letting his imagination get carried away. Neither Tiffany nor Lee was an uncommon name, and he was fairly certain that even if he Googled them together, or searched through Facebook, he would find more than a handful of “Tiffany Lees.” And none would be the Tiffany Lee he remembered from college who was, hands down, the most argumentative woman on the face of the earth.

Or more importantly, the same Tiffany Lee he had had a crush on—when she was four and he was five—before she had become such a competitive pain.

Damn silly thing to remember now, Eddie thought, pulling his car up in front of the modest looking two-story house. What his mind should be on now was doing a good job for this woman, getting paid and focusing any spare time he might have tonight and tomorrow night on getting fully prepared to take over Chelsea Jamison’s third-grade class.

He’d already done his due diligence as far as that was concerned. The moment he’d learned from the principal that he would be taking over the woman’s class, he’d requested a list of the students’ names and any sort of notes Chelsea might have made regarding the individual students.

Eddie prided himself on never going in cold or unprepared. This way, there would be no awkward period of adjustment. He wanted the students to respond to him immediately. To feel as if he was their mentor, or at least someone who was willing to listen to what they had to say—both in the class and privately, if they needed help with something of a more personal nature, like being bullied.

He loved teaching, and wanted to leave a memorable impression on the students he encountered. More than that, he wanted to, by his own example, encourage the kids he’d be dealing with to make the most of their potential. Had his fifth-grade teacher, Miss Nocton, not done that for him, not seen past his cocky bravado, he might be languishing in a prison somewhere right now, like some of the guys from his old neighborhood. But Miss Nocton, a dour-faced, straitlaced woman, had awakened a thirst for knowledge within him by challenging him. Every time he felt that he had done his best, she had told him he could do better.

And damned if he couldn’t, Eddie thought now with a smile. Granted, he had a great family and he loved his mother and his sisters, but it was that little, no-nonsense woman in the sensible shoes who was responsible for the fact that he was who he was today. He intended to make her proud, even if she was no longer around to see it.

Eddie took a deep breath. Time to get to work, he told himself.

Shelving his thoughts, he reached over and rang the doorbell.

Chapter Two

Tiffany Lee was not fully awake as she stumbled down the stairs and toward the annoying noise. Her eyes were still in the process of trying to focus. It was the sound of the doorbell that had disrupted her sleep and eventually forced her out of bed to answer it—because it just wouldn’t stop ringing.

She had never been accused of being a morning person. She was especially not a weekend morning person. Five days a week, she resigned herself to the fact that she had to be up and smiling at an ungodly hour—and any hour before 9:00 a.m. was ungodly in her book. But her job called for her to be up and at ’em early.

Someday, when she became queen of the world, school wouldn’t begin until noon, she promised herself. But until that glorious day arrived, Tiffany knew she had to make every effort to turn up in her classroom before eight in the morning. That way, when her students marched in shortly after eight, everything would be ready and waiting for them—including her. Because she really loved teaching and loved her students, she went along with this soul-crushing arrangement.

But weekends were supposed to be her own. And in a perfect world, they would be. But in a perfect world, bathroom sinks and bathtub faucets didn’t suddenly give up the ghost and gurgle instead of producing water—and toilets would flush with breathtaking regularity rather than just 50 percent of the time. None of that was presently happening in the master bath adjacent to her bedroom, and she knew she needed help—desperately. It was either that or start sleeping downstairs near the other bathroom, something she had begun to seriously consider.

Her mother, for once, hadn’t somehow turned her current dilemma into yet another excuse to go on and on about how this just showed why Tiffany needed a husband in her life. A husband who would take care of all these annoying nuisances whenever they cropped up.

Instead of bending her ear, her mother, bless her, had not only volunteered to find someone to put an end to her master bathroom woes, she had even said she would pay for it.

The only catch was that the contractor had to come do the work on the weekend because he had a day job the rest of the week.

She hadn’t realized when she’d agreed to her mother’s generous offer that “weekend” meant the very start of the weekend—and that it apparently started before daylight made its appearance.

So okay, Tiffany thought, dragging her hand through her hair—as if that motion would somehow cause adrenaline to go shooting through the rest of her very sleepy body—technically “weekend” meant any time after midnight, Friday, but she’d figured she would have some leeway.

Obviously not, she thought with a deep sigh.

The ringing sounded even more shrill as she got closer. It felt as if it was jarring everything within her that was jarrable.

“I’m coming, I’m coming,” she cried irritably, raising her voice so it could be heard through the door. “Hold your horses. The bathroom’s not going anywhere.”

Glancing through the peephole, she made out what looked to be some sort of a truck parked at her curb. There was someone in dark blue coveralls standing on her front step.

The contractor her mother sent—she hoped.

The plot thickens, Tiffany whimsically thought. feeling slightly giddy.

“Good to know,” Eddie said the moment she unlocked the door and pulled it partially open.

Her brain still foggy, Tiffany blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

He grinned at her. She caught herself thinking that it was way too early for a smile that cheerful. Was there something wrong with the man her mother had sent?

There was something oddly familiar about that smile—but the thought was gone before she could catch it and she was way too tired to make the effort to try to place it.

“You said that the bathroom wasn’t going anywhere and I responded, ‘Good to know,’ since I’m going to be working on remodeling it,” Eddie told her, patiently explaining his comment. Teaching younger students had taught him to have infinite patience.

“Oh.” She supposed that made sense.

Functioning on a five-second delay, Tiffany opened the door wider, allowing the good-looking contractor to come inside. The rather large toolbox in his hand convinced her that he was on the level. Who carried around something that big at this hour of the morning if they didn’t have to?

“Sorry,” she apologized. “My brain doesn’t usually kick in this early in the morning.”

“Early?” he echoed in amusement. “You think this is early?”

“I don’t think,” she said, followed by a yawn she couldn’t stifle. “I know.” She started for the stairs. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw that the man with the toolbox wasn’t following her. “The bathroom’s upstairs.” She pointed for emphasis.

“Wait,” he called out, bringing her to a halt. The woman was either way too trusting or simply naive—and he had to admit that she didn’t look to be either. Especially if she turned out to be who he thought she was. “Don’t you want to see my credentials?”

Tiffany yawned again, not at his question, but because her body desperately yearned to go back to bed and she couldn’t.

“You’re driving what looks like a service truck, you’ve got on coveralls and you’re carrying around the biggest toolbox I’ve ever seen. Those are credentials enough for me.”

Besides, she added mentally, knowing my mother, you probably already got the third degree before she hired you.

“What about my estimate?” he asked. They hadn’t talked about what he was going to charge her for the work. He didn’t plan to overcharge her, but she didn’t know that. “I haven’t given you one because I need to see the bathroom first.”

Tiffany waved away his words. “I don’t need to hear it,” she told him as she began to walk up the stairs. “My mother insisted on paying for this remodel, and after arguing with that woman about everything else under the sun ever since I could talk, I thought that this one time I’d just give in and say yes.

“Your bill,” she told him as he followed behind her, “will go to her, and trust me, if you try to fleece her, you will live to regret it—immensely. My mother’s a little woman, but she’s definitely a force to be reckoned with. None of my brothers-in-law will go up against her. They’ve learned that if they want to keep living, they need to stay on her good side,” she concluded as they reached the bathroom he was going to be remodeling.

The door was standing open and she gestured toward the interior. “Here it is,” she said needlessly. “Knock yourself out.”

And with that, she turned on her bare heel and walked away.

This had to be the most unorthodox job he’d ever been called to. “Wait, don’t you want to tell me what you want?” Eddie asked, calling after her retreating back.

Tiffany only half turned in his direction. She wanted nothing more than to get dressed and then collapse on the bed in the guest room for a few hours. She assumed that the man her mother had sent didn’t need any supervision. He appeared competent enough.

“I want a bathroom,” she told him. “One where everything works, 24/7. And it would be nice if everything matched.”

“Well, of course it’s going to work,” he told her. That’s why he was here, and he wasn’t about to do a shoddy job. But her answer didn’t begin to address his question. “What about the style? And the color?” he pressed.

There was something familiar about his voice, but like his smile, she couldn’t place it and she wasn’t up to thinking right now. Her brain was foggy. Maybe it was just her imagination.

“Style and color would be good,” she replied, nodding as she began to walk away again.

Eddie took a breath. He realized that the woman with the gorgeous legs and the football jersey wasn’t being flippant. She apparently still wasn’t fully awake.

She shouldn’t have answered the door half-asleep. He couldn’t help thinking that she really was in need of a keeper.

Eddie tilted his head a little, trying to get a better look at her face. Her shiny, long, blue-black hair kept falling into it. His curiosity was becoming more aroused, but he really didn’t need to have it satisfied in order to do a good job.

It would just be nice to know what his client actually looked like.

And then she turned slightly in his direction and it hit him like a ton of bricks. It was her, the Tiffany he knew in college. The Tiffany who was so different from the little girl whose sweater he’d buttoned all those years ago.

He wanted to tell her, then thought better of it. Now wasn’t the time. He’d tell her after the job was done.

Pushing back that thought, he tried to pin her down again—at least a little bit. “What do you like? Modern? Antique? Classic?”

The words he tossed her way seemed to circle around her head, even though she tried to visualize the styles. Tiffany had a feeling he wouldn’t give her any peace until she made some kind of a choice.

So she did.

“Modern,” 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, but for a multitude.

But Tiffany wasn’t about to let this drop. He began to think that she hadn’t changed, after all. “What kind of field?”

“A field that might eventually produce someone who could do something to effect the masses,” he told her, leaving it at that.

“The masses?” she questioned, eyeing him as if he’d taken leave of his senses. “You make it sound as if you were part of the CIA.”

“No, not that organization,” he replied.

“But you won’t talk about it?” she asked, really curious now.

“I’m not being paid to talk, I’m being paid to work,” he reminded her, picking up the sledgehammer again. But Tiffany made no move to leave the area. She was obviously waiting for him to tell her what he was referring to. “I’d rather not jinx it,” he finally told her, being quite honest.

She cocked her head, trying to reconcile a few things in her brain that just weren’t meshing. “You’re superstitious?”

“Just in this one respect.”

“Good,” she said, turning to leave as he began to work again. “Because superstitions are stupid.”

It was her. If he’d had the slightest doubt before, he didn’t anymore, Eddie decided. She was just as opinionated now as she had been then.

As she left the room, he slanted a long look in her direction. From there he couldn’t see her face, only the back of her head. But even the set of her shoulders looked familiar.

It was Tiffany Lee, all right. And right now, he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or not. The only thing he knew was that he wasn’t going say anything to her about their shared past. At least, not yet.

Chapter Three

Since Tiffany apparently didn’t recognize him, Eddie decided to keep the fact that they had a history to himself and not say anything to her until he felt the time was right—like after he finished the job. After all, he couldn’t have made that much of an impression on her if she didn’t remember him. He vividly remembered their interactions in college, but it was obvious that she didn’t. If he reminded her of it, she might just turn around and fire him.

It was best to leave well enough alone.

Working at a steady pace, he demolished the bathroom and then carted the debris out to his truck until it was filled, at which time he hauled it to the county dump. That involved a number of round trips. All in all, it took him practically the entire day.

He worked continuously, taking only one thirty-minute break to consume a fast-food lunch that was far from satisfying.

By four thirty, he was completely wiped out and decided to call it a day. But he didn’t want to just pack up and leave, the way he knew some people in his line of work would. He wanted Tiffany to be made aware that he was leaving for the day. Otherwise, she might wind up thinking she had to wait around for him to return.

When he didn’t see her during his multiple trips back and forth to his truck while he was packing up his tools and equipment, Eddie resigned himself to the fact that he was going to have to go looking for her. Since she hadn’t said anything about leaving the house, he assumed she had to be on the premises somewhere.

As unobtrusively as possible, he went through both floors of the house, going from room to room.