Maxwell's Smile

“Oh.” The man—Sam—raked his fingers through his sandy brown hair, which Rachel noticed looked even better when tousled, save for the flakes of what she now figured was sawdust that sprinkled the air. He was covered with the stuff. “Sorry. I didn’t know that.”

“I imagine not.” She shot Maxwell the evil eye, but wisely, he avoided looking at her. “So, Mr. Jones, do you often enter children’s rooms and entice them with movies when they should be doing their homework?”

“No, I… Don’t make it sound like that. Maxwell is a good kid. I just wanted to see him smile. Which he did.”

Sam twisted to high-five Maxwell, and her son moved to meet the man’s palm with his, but stopped when he caught Rachel’s condemning glare. Sam slid the offending palm down his sweatshirt, which was splashed with unidentifiable stuff she assumed must be related to the sawdust.

A carpenter? If she wasn’t so angry, she’d consider her luck at meeting the one person she could really use right now.

“Anyway,” Sam said, “the toaster saved the day, and the blanket got back home, along with the vacuum and the radio.”

“I…” Rachel didn’t have a clue what to say. While the man was disturbingly sexy, and certain parts of her were softening and wanting to stand there and take him in, the dedicated mother who protected her son at all costs was outraged. “I think you should leave, Mr. Jones, or I’ll have to report you to Security.”

“Right. Sorry. I didn’t mean any harm.”

“Well, it’s too late for that, isn’t it?”

Sam glanced at Maxwell, and Rachel caught her son’s fading smile. The man had just wanted to see him smile?

“He’s okay, Mom,” Maxwell finally said. “Even if he does have a bad case of dandruff.”

Sam brushed off his shoulders. “It’s sawdust, buddy. Hazard of the trade. I’m a carpenter.”

“You are?” Her son’s own shoulders lifted. “But we need—“

“For you to get some rest,” Rachel interrupted, before Maxwell could explain the disaster in their garage that was in desperate need of elbow grease and new lumber. “I’m sure Mr. Jones has work to get back to.”

“Right. I do have a job this afternoon. Handyman stuff, mostly.”

“Oh.” Now that he’d said the word handyman, she remembered hearing about him. At least, she’d heard about the sexy guy who wielded a hammer and an easy smile. Seemed the entire female population in the neighborhood absolutely hummed when he was anywhere in the vicinity. “You’re Handy Sam? I’ve heard of you,” Rachel said, before she could tamp down her growing interest.

“Really?” He hooked his thumbs in his jeans pockets and straightened proudly. “Good, bad or otherwise?”

She shrugged and made a show of considering the options. “Otherwise. I know some of the neighborhood mothers break things on purpose so they can call you over.”

And she completely understood that wacky compulsion now that her anger had subsided a bit and she could look at the man with a woman’s eye.

“No way. They break stuff?”

“Mrs. McTavish told me she shoved a Reader’s Digest down her toilet just last week, and blamed it on her three-year-old.”

Sam winced. “I thought it seemed a little suspicious when she greeted me at the door with martinis.”

“Yes, well, you said you had work to do,” Rachel insisted.

Sam got the hint. Grabbing the box of DVDs from the end of the bed, he strode to the door. “Nice to meet you, Maxwell. We had a good time with the toaster. And again, I’m sorry, Mrs. McHenry.”

Rachel was about to correct him that it was Miss—always had been—but instead she nodded stiffly and moved to close the door behind him. Sam Jones smelled like sawdust and looked like a man she would love to tuck in her purse and take home with her, just to watch the neighborhood ladies’ tongues wag.

She did have a legitimate reason to invite him over, so why hadn’t she?

“He was nice,” Maxwell commented, his attention focused on his homework.

Rachel made a dismissive, yet slightly positive response.

“You were rude to him, Mom. Do you know he was here to donate movies so kids would have something to do while stuck in these hard, uncomfortable hospital beds?”

“That was very kind, but he shouldn’t have assumed it was okay to invite himself in without first asking my permission. You understand I only want to keep you safe, sweetie?”

Maxwell sighed. “I understand. I should have told him I wasn’t allowed to watch movies. But you know, I was watching him more than the movie. His expressions made me laugh. But watching a DVD once in a while wouldn’t be so awful, would it? It made me forget about this IV I have in my arm. It’s starting to itch.”

“I’ll get the nurse. You shouldn’t have to have that anymore. Oh, Maxwell, how are you?” She kissed him on the eyelid, which always made him grimace comically. “I tried to make the closing quick but the clients wanted to take their time and read everything twice.”

“I’m fine. Got a lot of work done before Sam walked in. But now I think I have some new ideas, after watching the movie. Must have stirred my imagination, just like Sam said it would.”

She closed her eyes and nodded in agreement. Watching a movie once in a while wouldn’t be such a bad thing. She’d made the rule a few years ago, after he’d wanted to see a horror flick that was advertised on television. It was her responsibility to screen what her child watched, and it had been easier at the time to cut out everything.

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