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she needed at the warehouse-like home improvement center a few miles closer to the house, but she preferred the sounds, scents, and service she experienced here.
    She grabbed the last two one-gallon cans of the gel-style solvent she liked best for removing old paint and moved down the aisle to the display of all the caulks, glues, and epoxies. The few products that she needed to look at were, naturally, on the bottom shelf. She set the heavy basket on the floor and crouched down to read the labels.
    In the stillness, the front-door bell chimed faintly, followed by Rob’s echoing voice calling out that the store would be closing for lunch in twenty minutes. Meredith turned her attention back to the product labels, not wanting to leave her leather seats at the mercy of the puppy any longer than necessary.
    The light above her dimmed. She glanced up—and nearly lost her balance.
    “Do you need help finding something, miss?” The man who asked towered over her.
    She jumped to her feet, balancing the can, bottle, and tube of epoxy in her hands. “No, thank you. I’m just reading to try to see which one I want to buy.” The can shifted and her fingers spasmed and cramped trying to keep hold of it—to no avail.
    Before it could fall, the giant with curly dark hair caught it. “Whoops. Don’t want that falling and popping open. We might be stuck here forever.” He had a jaw like a sledge hammer and a grin like a teen idol.
    She shook her head. So he was good-looking—so what? “Thanks.”
    “You’re buying wood epoxy?” His gray eyes twinkled.
    “Yes.” She shifted the tube and bottle into her left hand and reached for the can.
    He didn’t immediately let go, a crease forming between his thick brows. “Are you sure this is what you’re looking for?”
    Annoyance prickled up Meredith’s spine. “Unless you know of something else I can use to fill in years’ worth of wear and tear in my woodwork.”
    “If it’s molding or baseboards, you’d be better off just replacing the piece of trim completely.”
    She pulled a little harder and finally succeeded in getting him to let go of the can. “If they weren’t period and prohibitively expensive to replace, I might consider it. But I can’t replace all of the moldings, baseboards, and cabinets in a craftsman house.”
    His brows elevated in tandem with his low whistle. “A craftsman—not the cedar-sided one over on Destrehan Place?”
    She stepped back, hugging the epoxies to her. “Yes.”
    “Whaddya know? A buddy of mine owned it—bought it to flip right before the market crashed. I helped him as much as I could with the exterior. We’d just started on the interior when he ran out of money.”
    “As in, y’all ripped the kitchen out completely without any means of putting another one in?” The corners of Meredith’s mouth twitched.
    The six-and-a-half-foot-tall giant rubbed his hand over his short curls. “Yeah,” he drawled. “I told him not to do that until he knew for sure he could get another line of credit. You—” He regarded her curiously. “You aren’t actually living in that house with no kitchen, are you?”
    Meredith smiled at him for the first time since the conversation began. “No. I’m not currently living in the house. But at the rate I’m making progress, it’s not going to be in much better shape when I do need to move in a few months from now.”
    “Lease on your current place ending?” He motioned for the bottle and tube she held, took them at her nod, and set them back on the shelf.
    “Sort of.” More like Anne and George would be returning from their honeymoon to England and wanting to get started on restoring the Victorian.
    “So are you thinking about hiring a contractor?” He rested his elbow against the second shelf as if settling in for a long chat.
    Who was this guy? “Yeah, I’m thinking about it. Why—do you know one?”
    His full lips split into a smile, revealing too-white-to-be-natural teeth. He