Free It's In His Smile (A Red River Valley Novel Book 3) by Shelly Alexander Page B

the ladder. “He whined and yelped all night.” The tone of his voice raised a notch like he was kind of desperate.
    Involuntarily, her gaze flitted to Lloyd. “Where’d he sleep?” She tried not to look at Talmadge. Tried to focus on the task of stripping an already well-stripped section of the beam. She scraped some more, the speed of her strokes increasing.
    “In the laundry room. It was too cold to put him outside. Plus I didn’t see a doghouse in Bea’s backyard.”
    Miranda blew out an exasperated breath. Men could be so dense.
    “He’s not an outside dog.” As if the bows and nail polish didn’t give that away. “He’s not used to sleeping alone. Let him in your bed.” She swallowed at her own statement.
    Talmadge stared at the dog, horror etched across his face. “Beg your pardon?”
    “He’s used to sleeping with Bea. So, let him sleep with you now.”
    “This dog is not sleeping in my bed. No one sleeps in my bed.”
    The tool slipped from Miranda’s hand. She grabbed for it, caught it, and steadied herself on the swaying ladder. Right. Not a lot of sleeping went on in Talmadge Oaks’s bed when someone besides him was in it. She knew that all too well.
    Her insides coiled so tight she thought she might spontaneously combust.
    Talmadge set Lloyd down and went to stand at the foot of the ladder. “You’re going to kill yourself on this sorry excuse for a ladder.” With his good hand, he gave it a small shake. It nearly toppled with her on it.
    “Hey!” She grabbed onto a rung. His steadying hand on the small of her back sent heat racing through her.
    At least it wasn’t on her ass this time.
    “I’m not going to let you fall. I just wanted to prove a point.” His warm palm molded against her back.
    “By killing me?”
    “Sorry, but what the hell are you doing on this shoddy old thing with tools in your hand? If you don’t kill yourself, you could easily lose some fingers, or a limb, or an eye.”
    She pulled off the safety goggles and propped them on top of her head. “That’s what these are for.”
    His gaze studied her eyes. Looked deep, then dropped to her lips.
    The tip of her tongue slipped out to wet them.
    “Plastic goggles aren’t going to do much good if you fall on top of an electric sander that’s going full speed.” He took the sander from the top shelf of the ladder and set it aside.
    “The remodel is behind schedule. I can do some of the projects myself. I’m not afraid of hard work.”
    “Shouldn’t your contractor be doing the heavy lifting? And if he’s a professional, he should have better equipment than this.” Talmadge gave the ladder a dismissive wave. “Where is he?”
    She hesitated. Good question. Not that it was any of Talmadge’s business, but a good question nonetheless. So good, in fact, that she’d been wondering that very thing ever since she handed Ben Smith several thousand dollars for roofing supplies. The next day he’d texted that he was sick with the flu and hadn’t shown up for work since.
    That was several days ago, and he’d stopped answering his cell. So, where was Mr. Smith?
    None. Of. Talmadge’s. Business. All he needed to know was that she was handing him her payments at the end of each month.
    Or not.
    So why did she feel it necessary to defend her choice to hire Ben Smith? Lots of people in town had used him. All of Red River’s silver-haired widows were happy with him. Couldn’t stop singing his praises, in fact. So Talmadge’s suspicious tone irked Miranda because maybe he was insinuating that she’d made a poor business decision. “Ben needed money to buy roofing materials, and then he got sick.” She hoped. She prayed that was true. “When he comes back, he’ll bring his equipment. In the meantime, I found these tools in the storage closet.”
    “In the meantime, get down off that death trap.” Talmadge’s statement was a demand.
    Or rather a command. He was commanding her!
    She wielded the paint scraper