Page 19 of Falling for the Carpenter

“Ça va pas? There is something wrong?” His accent was melodious, his voice concerned.

She shook the thought out of her head, berating herself inwardly for her bourgeoisie. She shrugged it away. “It’s fine.”

He nodded, although she suspected he didn’t quite believe her. He led her just a few more yards, closer to the side of the house, and said “Bon. Now, you close your eyes and hold your breath.”

“Why?” she began to say—and then a powerful stream of cold water cut her off. She sputtered, blinking rapidly and gasping as the water hit her head-on. “What! What are you—”

The dogs were dancing around her, darting through the water spouting from the hose, convinced that it was play time at last, but Melanie was outraged. He was hosing her down! “I’m not a horse!” she yelled.

“No,” he responded unperturbed, “but you are a very muddy human being. At the moment, if I pressed mustard seeds into your arms, they would grow. Before we go inside and shower, we should at least remove what we can.”

Mustard seeds?

Another thought came to her. “The cameras!” She’d already screwed up once today. What if she’d ruined Queenie’s expensive, state of the art equipment with her nose-dive into a morass of mud?

“Waterproof,” he dismissed. “It’s fine; don’t worry about it.” And to prove it, he aimed the stream of water straight at the small bodycam still pinned to her chest. She could only imagine what the view would like for all the gawkers out there in Queenieland with their noses currently pressed to the screen.

Not having a choice, she grimaced under the deluge, glad it was a warm summer afternoon, so at least she wasn’t at risk for pneumonia. But still… the indignity!

“Done,” he said finally.

She looked down at the rivulets of brown muck flowing away from her feet along his patterned concrete tiles and had to admit to herself that her condition really had warranted a proper hosing off, but still she growled, “You enjoyed that a little too much.”

He shrugged, but she was sure he was laughing at her. “Maybe oui, maybe non.” Then he turned the handle of the hose towards her. “Now, it’s your turn.”

Really? She got to hose him down? She snatched the hose with too much alacrity and pointed it at him, wishing as she did so that it was as powerful as a fire hose. Like a kid with a water gun blaster, she soaked him down, taking delight in the spray shooting off his body, and tossing in an insincere “I’m sorry” every time she “accidentally” caught him in the face.

Hugo, Camus, and Simone were having the time of their lives, prancing around their master and leaping into the air trying to snatch mouthfuls of water clear out of it. Melanie hardly noticed that Corbin was now relatively clean; she was having so much fun with the hose.

“I would prefer not to drown today,” he protested, but to her surprise he was laughing.

His wide mouth and guttural laughter were infectious, and she discovered that she was laughing too. Loud, gasping guffaws of sheer delight, the kind that hadn’t erupted from her in ages. He grabbed the hose and pointed it back at her, hitting her dead center of the chest. A clean kill.

“Not fair!” she yelled.

“There is no fairness in war, madame,” he retorted. “I suggest you run.”

He chased her around to the front, and she darted back and forth among his tall shrubbery. Simone seemed to be on her side; although she was just a dog, she clearly subscribed to the philosophy of uteruses before duderuses. Let’s gang up on the fellas, her eyes seemed to say. Melanie was all for that. The wily German Shepherd led her along a hedge where, mercifully, the hose was too short to reach, and that was when the assault ended.

Corbin shook his head in disgust at being thwarted, but gave up gracefully, heading back to turn off the water before coming to face her again. “We shall call it a ceasefire, yes?”

“Yes,” she agreed, wiping water out of her eyes with the back of the hand. She was still smiling and wondered how long it had been since she’d done something so silly. How long it had been since she’d laughed for no reason at all.

“And you are okay?” he asked more concernedly. “The trauma, it is passed?”

She thought about it and realized that it had. She nodded vehemently. The threat of being swallowed up in a mud-pit had somehow receded to the back of her mind. What had replaced it, though, was the sight of this man, soaked from head to foot in jeans and a t-shirt, barefoot now that he had removed his boots. The soaked t-shirt clung to his skin, made transparent by the water, and she could see the dark outline of nipples and the curl of chest hair under the fabric. The short sleeves hugged his biceps, and his corded forearms glistened, tanned and healthy.

And don’t get her started on the way his jeans now fit. She wondered about the public decency laws in France, because certainly it was a crime to look like that in any country. Her imagination was not unduly stretched to note that he was as impressive physically from the waist down as he was from the waist up….

It suddenly struck her that the same way she was ogling him, he was staring at her, and that she was just as soaked as he was, just as revealed. Unconsciously, her hand came up in front of her belly. No way was she as fetching a sight as he. She felt naked, revealed, chunky and unappealing.

She tore her eyes from him, not wanting hers to become ensnared in his gaze again.

“Let’s go inside,” he said kindly. “We can clean up properly.”

She said nothing but nodded.

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