Assuming it ever showed a profit.
She shook her head. “You have to eat and pay for a place to live while you’re in town. Besides, how can you trust that I’ll ever get around to paying you if you let me decide when I can spare it?”
“I won’t starve or have to sleep in my truck if you wait to pay me. I know you’ll pay me eventually. I trust you.”
Sarah’s insides warmed at his claim. Bodie trusted her. Which fit with her feeling that they’d known each other much longer than a day. He had no more reason to trust her than she did him. But she wouldn’t let him work without pay.
She would pay him. Once a week, as they’d agreed to the day before when she’d hired him.
If she reached the point where she couldn’t pay him, she wouldn’t let him work. She didn’t and wouldn’t take handouts.
Her father and aunt raised her to be a giver, not a taker.
As much as Bodie made her feel as if they’d known each other much longer than a day, they hadn’t. This was the beginning a business relationship, nothing more, and she’d do well to remember that.
A week had passed. A week in which Bodie worked at Hamilton House every day. She’d tried to get him to take the weekend off, but he’d refused, stating that he didn’t have anything else to do and wanted to get the job done. He showed up early in the morning and left late each evening.
Sarah had gotten used to coming home from work to find him busily working. She’d gone with him to pick out tile and supplies for the showers. She’d selected toilets, mirrors, light fixtures, and vanities that had an antique look to them to fit with the rest of the house. Bodie had gone behind her, picking up needed supplies to install her choices, and had made suggestions—good suggestions—when she’d asked his advice.
His knowledge and insight impressed her as much as his efficiency and how much he had already accomplished. He’d installed the plumbing and insulation for sound reduction and hung sheetrock in the two bathrooms. He’d finished painting the bedroom walls, and they’d done Aunt Jean’s bedroom’s trim together the night before. Sarah had painted the baseboard trim and Bodie had painted the ceiling’s crown-molding, the doors and their trim, and around the fireplace, taking great care to protect the tile and fixtures.
Sarah liked Bodie’s attention to detail. A lot.
Harry met her at the door each day, probably because she continued to bring food home each night, now always including something for the dog. Not the juicy cheeseburgers Lou had sent that first day, though. Her cholesterol levels would’ve put up a protest.
She’d started stopping by the grocery store and picking up items to cook for them. She told herself it was good practice, since she needed to come up with a few staple recipes to use when the bed and breakfast opened. Bodie was fun to cook for, and she enjoyed watching him eat and listening to him give “reviews” of her meals. Tonight, she planned to keep their meal simple because she had other things on h
er agenda.
“I should have known the minute Harry disappeared that you were here.” Bodie walked into the kitchen. He must have been crouched down on the floor or in some awkward position because he moved a little stiffly.
Sarah laughed, bending to talk to the dog at her feet who had totally won her heart this past week. She’d grown fond of Harry’s welcome home.
“Harry is a good boy,” she said, more to the dog than to Bodie.
Bodie shook his head. “Sweet-talking my dog.”
“’Cause he’s so sweet.” Sarah grinned, straightened, then washed her hands.
“What’s that?” He glanced toward the box she’d put on the countertop along with the grocery bags she’d carried in on her first trip inside the house.
“The On-The-Square Christmas Festival is in barely over two weeks,” she reminded him—not that he could have forgotten, with the way she constantly talked about the event. Well, when she wasn’t going on and on about Hamilton House and how excited she was at their progress.
He didn’t say a lot, unless it was about the house. Come to think of it, she didn’t give him many openings. He probably thought she never shut up.
“Despite starting earlier this year,” she continued, “we still don’t have enough ornaments to sell. I’m going to take a night off from working on the house to cut more plastic canvas pieces so we can move faster at tomorrow’s session. With this weekend being Thanksgiving, tomorrow’s our last official meeting. We need to get lots of ornaments made.”
He eyed the box. “How many more do you need?”
“As many as we can muster. We have volunteers working on other ornaments, but the Butterflies and I usually make the snowflakes.” She began unpacking the bagged items for the soup she was going to throw together before settling in to cut canvas. “You want to help?”
“Make ornaments?” His expression suggested she might have sniffed too many paint fumes the night before.
She hadn’t expected him to say yes, but him looking like she’d asked him to do something impossible was too funny to let go. “What? Don’t tell me you aren’t as handy with a pair of scissors as you are with a hammer.”
He gave her a skeptical look. “You’ve never seen me use a hammer.”
“I’ve seen the changes taking place in my house, so you must be doing something right.”