Life Reconstructed: Chapter Fifteen

“Did you find the paint?”

Fighting back a quick grin, Cat turned slowly in Matt’s direction. She couldn’t deny the thrill that fought at the edges of her stomach at the question. When she’d sailed into the building some ten minutes ago, he was the first thing her anxious eyes had latched on to—only, he’d been standing beside an elderly man, apparently deep in conversation about carpentry. She doubted he’d even heard the quiet jingle of the door-chimes announcing her presence.

Well, no matter.

Ducking quickly down the first aisle, lest he should think that she was in want of his attention—she wasn’t! She hadn’t come here to see him, no matter the swarm of disappointment which had settled in the pit of her chest at his distraction person.

Besides, if nothing else, he’d know she was there when she checked-out. He’d have to ring up her purchases, after all. Smiling almost clandestinely, she’d traversed down the long aisle—that would almost be an edge. The element of surprise. The delayed pleasure principle. Besides, it might come as a bit of a difference—her not searching him out.

And maybe she’d been hoping for this very moment: when he sought her out.

Looking up at his half-smiling face now, Cat clenched down on the satisfaction of realizing that not only had he noticed her presence, but he’d come to find her—showing an inordinate interest in her being at the store.

“’Fraid not,” she replied, twisting her lips playfully. Then she shrugged, turning back to the paint samples.

“Yeah,” he sighed, sticking his hands in his pants pockets. He angled his body toward the samples she was staring at. “I suppose that would’ve been too easy.”

Cat laughed softly. “My thoughts exactly.”

He nodded. “Well, I did look at the paint on the doors and I think I can come up with something close.”

She nodded absently, her eyes scanning the zone of white paints. “I don’t know.”

“Excuse me?”

At the slightly defensive tone, she turned back toward him with an apologetic gaze. “I don’t mean…” she shrugged, taking a breath to find her words. “You’ve worked so hard and I just don’t think close is going to cut it.”

His eyes gleamed in abject amusement. “I see.”

“No, probably not.”

“Yeah. Probably.” His eyes skipped over to hers. “Nothing unusual there.”

Cat laughed. It held a throaty quality that she hadn’t meant to achieve, but then, neither was she upset with the sound.

Rounding her shoulders, she looked at the paint samples in front of her. “Do you ever do something and it has a ripple effect, but instead of ripples they turn out to be mammoth waves?”

Matt compressed his lips in amusement. His brown eyes stared back at her. “Uh…”

“I know, I know,” Cat said, holding up a hand and beating him to the punch. “I’m probably being dramatic. But…”

In the background, she could hear the sound of the front door opening and closing. Through her peripheral vision, she could see a man walking in the door, could see Matt turn in automatic response toward the customer.

Pivoting his gaze back to Cat, he didn’t let the distraction keep him from the conversation at hand. Leaning his elbow against the paints on display, Matt grinned knowingly. “But?”

“I’m going to have to start from scratch.”

“Huh?”

“The whole shebang.”

Rocking back on his heels, Matt waited.

“I’m going to repaint the entire kitchen.”

He whistled. It wasn’t exactly encouraging.

Turning toward him, pleading now, Cat held out her hands. “What else could I do? After everything—all that time and work, to throw it away at the last minute?”

Matt lifted his eyebrows. “And this is somehow supposed to pass by your landlord unnoticed, too?” He pursed his lips. “Must be a hell of a landlord.”

“Oh, he is,” Cat assured him dryly. “But no—I, uh, I called him.”

“You confessed all?”

“Hardly.”

Matt waited again. He was good at that.

“Umm…” biting her lip, Cat stalled out. Waving forward, she hesitated. “If you need to help that customer, go ahead…” She would almost rather be alone with her remorse.

“Nah,” Matt said. “It’s just Jim.”

“Oh.” Like that was supposed to mean something to her.

“Jim!” Matt yelled then, startling Cat. “I’m by the paints if you need me.” Then he turned back to Cat. “You were saying? Something about ripples?”

“Oh, shut up!” Cat said, slapping at his arm playfully. “Look, there was no leftover paint at the apartment. Zippo, zilch.”

“Got it.”

Cat shrugged, dropping her gaze. Now that she’d made her decision, now that she’d already called Grant and settled her future, she felt rather foolish about it all. “Even if by some miracle, we found the perfect match, you were right earlier. The other doors, they’re faded, chipped. The new paint would be glaringly obvious.”

Matt inclined his head in quiet agreement.

“So—well, it’s probably for the best this way.”

“Got any of those LUX lights?” This came from the man who’d entered the shop moments ago. Standing at one end of the aisle, (Cat hadn’t even heard him come up to them) he looked over at Matt expectantly.

Matt shook his head. “Not in the store. But I can order some for you.”

The man nodded. He held out a slip of paper. “Mary wrote down the kind. It’s special, apparently,” he said with a long-suffering sigh.

Matt smiled. “Yeah. No problem. Can you leave that for me at the front counter? I’ll get ‘em ordered for you tonight. Should be in by Tuesday,” he said in consideration.

The man nodded. “Sounds good.” Then his gaze switched back to Cat. He tipped his ballcap her in direction. “Sorry to interrupt. Ma’am.”

When he’d walked away, Matt turned back to Cat. “Sorry about that.”

She waved his words away. “Not at all. So, um, do you have any recommendations?

“You’re sure about this? Repainting your entire kitchen?”

“Well, not the walls.”

“Right. Because that would be weird.”

She blushed. “Shut up.”

“Doesn’t that seem a bit extreme?”

She shrugged. “Sort of the story of my life when it concerns home improvement.”

He chuckled. “What did you tell your landlord?”

Cat shook her head. “God, whatever I needed to say.”

“Are you being elusive deliberately?”

She picked up a paint sample card at random. “No, I just feel kind of rotten about it all now.”

Matt took the card out of her hand. “While I like the color yellow. I’m not sure about a cabinet door.”

Cat sighed. “When it was a lie by omission—just hoping that he’d never notice the new door, that was different. But today I actually lied.”

“What’d you say?”

“You’re laughing at me,” Cat accused, nabbing the sample card back out of his hands. She tried not to notice the slight feel of his skin against her own.

“Only a little.”

“I convinced that I wanted to repaint the kitchen. You know, brighten it up or something.”

“Or something.”

“Yeah.”

“And he didn’t think that was strange?”

“Honestly,” Cat blew out a breath. Then she smiled up at Matt. “I don’t think strange entered into it. Money did.”

“Ah.”

“I think most of what he heard was ‘free labor.” Cat made face. “I don’t even remember the last time I saw Grand in the building, come to think of it. He isn’t what you’d call a very hands-on manager.”

“Sounds pretty ideal.”

“Can be.”

Actually, at that point, Grant had closed the argument for her. She could practically picture him—a fat man with shirts that frequently didn’t completely cover his belly, a scrabble of facial hair on his red cheeks. Spittle would foam at the edges of his mouth. “It’s all the best for me. If you decide to move out, I won’t have to touch up the kitchen at all. And you’re paying for this?”

“Anyway, he agreed so fast I’m not sure I got all the way through the sentence before he rang off the phone.”

“Fair enough.”

Cat wasn’t sure if it was just her imagination, but she thought perhaps she detected that tell-tale note of approaching indifference entering at the edges of his words.

“So, I’m here. I told him I’d pick out a neutral color and…” she waved pointedly at the display ahead of her.

Turning at her pointed suggestion, Matt considered the paint sample cards. “Sticking with white, then?”

“Yup.”

“Okay.”

A slight silence descended while Matt looked at the options and Cat pretended not to look at him. Though she told herself he probably did this for every customer that walked through the door, she couldn’t help but feel special as he carefully ran through the list possibilities.

“Do you get a lot of natural light in the kitchen?”