The two entered the small room that housed her washer, dryer, a few cabinets, and a sink.
“What’s going on with work?” Logan asked as he covered the distance to the dryer.
While he worked to find the problem—and hopefully a solution—Natalie filled him in on her meeting with Anthony Schwartz, the owner of her accounting firm. She also shared the unfortunate story of her co-worker who’d been killed in a recent crash.
“So that was my day. How was yours? Any exciting construction news to share?”
“Exciting?” Logan pulled a connector free from its place in the machine’s motherboard. Bringing it closer to his lips, he blew on it a few times to clear away any dust that may have been collected inside its little crevices. “Not really. More like…unexpected.”
“Ooh…that sounds interesting.” Natalie pushed herself up so she was sitting on top of the washer beside him. “Do tell.”
His lips curved with small chuckle. “It’s not that interesting, trust me.” He pushed the connector back in place before removing a second one. “Remember that guy Ronnie I told you about?”
“He the little guy with a big mouth?”
“That’s Ronnie.” Logan nodded with a smirk.
As he continued giving each of the remaining connectors the same treatment as the first, he went through the whole ridiculous scene with his co-worker. Or rather, his former co-worker.
“Hehityou?” She leaned closer, her brown gaze assessing his face for possible injuries.
“If you can even call it that.” He snorted. “Guy hits like a gir—”
Logan stopped himself short, but the damage was already done.
Natalie’s eyes were already forming a set of sharp, narrowed slits. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. The guy hits like a what, now?”
Talked yourself right into this one, dumbass.
“Uh…I was gonna say the guy hits like a…gir…rilla?”
Natalie stared at him a beat longer, and then…she threw her head back and laughed.
“A Gorilla?” She laughed again. “You realize if an actual gorilla punched you in the head you’d die, right? I mean…props for trying, but as far as substitutions go, I think you missed the mark on that one.”
“Yeah, well. In my defense…” His mind raced, but all he could come up with was, “I spend my days surrounded by a bunch of guys.”
Humor lit her stunning gaze. “That’syou’re defense? I don’t know.” A quick shake of her head. “That’s pretty weak.”
Logan’s mouth parted with another attempt to fix the foot-in-the-mouth moment. At the same time, a loud, incessant beeping came from the adjoining kitchen, effectively cutting the conversation short.
“Lucky you.” Natalie slid back down to the floor. “Saved by the bell.”
Lasagna for the win!
“This is the last one.” He pressed the final connector securely in place. “Okay, so the hope is the board just needed a good cleaning to ensure an uninterrupted connection. If that’s all it was…”
Logan let his voice trail as he plugged the dryer back into the socket. Pushing the digital power button, he shut the door and…
“It worked!” The woman beside him beamed. “Oh my gosh. You are seriously a life saver.”
Her choice of words threatened to fill his heart with another dose of grief and regret, but he refused to acknowledge it in her presence. Especially when she was throwing herself into his arms to give him a giant bear hug.
“Thank you so much!”
A half-a-second later, Logan was wrapping his arms around her petite form and hugging her back. “You’re welcome.”
He gave her a gentle squeeze, his lids falling closed as he reveled in the feel of her body pressed against his. Without being obvious, he drew in as much of the lavender-vanilla scent as he could, praying it would never leave.