"That's not the right way to do it," he said.
"Certainly not," I replied. "Not when there's an excessively helpful neighbor man here to do it for me." He gestured for me to step aside. I didn't. "You've mistaken me for someone who requires assistance. You've also mistaken me for someone who can put up with even a minute of nonsense after the week I've had. Here's what you need to understand. I don't care whether I do this wrong so long as I do it."
"The side door is boarded up."
That easy, jocular tone cut through the last of my patience. Maybe it wasn't patience or people skills or any of the other things that usually held me together like a corset of strings. Maybe it was the recognition that I couldn't get where I needed to go by mowing this man down and I'd have to go around him instead.
"I noticed that." Since I wasn't about to beg him to return my crowbar, I tried the key again. It slid into the lock easily enough and turned without too much trouble but the deadbolt caught and the door wouldn't budge. "Let's save that issue for another day, shall we? As I'm sure you would agree, we've covered a good deal of ground today."
He bobbed his head while he turned the bar over in his hands. I didn't want to care about his hands but I couldn't help but notice they were huge. With paws like that, he could rip my door clear off its hinges.
Honestly, I could live with that approach. I needed to be alone with my toast, and I didn't care how I got there at this point.
"I mention the side door because it needs to be replaced before it's operational. If you continue with this"—he tossed the bar up in the air, catching it as it flipped end over end—"you'll bust the lock and damage the frame. That will leave you with two doors you can't use and several thousand dollars in repairs." He tossed the bar again, catching it by the opposite end this time. "But you don't care if you do it the wrong way, right?"
On any other day, I would've dismantled that little analysis of his. I would've countered a circle around him and done it with so much southern-girl sweetness, he wouldn't realize he'd been bested until long after he'd left me blissfully alone. Any other day. I was all out of sweet and fight, and the only card up my sleeve was the belief that I had this under control. I always had it under control. Even in chaos and calamity, I always knew what I was doing. I couldn't lose that right now and I could not fall apart in front of this guy.
I'd shed enough tears over men who didn't deserve them from me.
"Old doors stick when it's muggy like this." He waved like he could gather up the late summer humidity and hand it to me. "I have the same problem. Sometimes it just needs one helluva shove."
"Mmhmm. Yes." I tapped my finger against my chin. "Pushing did come to mind. I tried that before you rushed over here with your alarm for women using tools."
"I have no problem with women using tools. I do have a problem with anyone using them incorrectly, Jasper-Anne."
"Jasper will do, thank you," I replied. "And it is possible your definition of correct is too limited in its scope."
"That might be, but Midge would haunt my ass if I minded my own business while someone broke into her house."
"Your knee-jerk assumption about me being a burglar lacks both imagination and reasoning. Kindly stop suggesting it."
"If the crowbar fits." He shrugged. "Let me take a look at that key."
"Are you still under the assumption I'm some sort of criminal? Because it's getting old."
"And so is your attempt at breaking into this house. Let me see." He beckoned for the key. Since I was making no progress, I handed it over. "Sometimes they need to be polished off. Warmed up, you know? Like dollar bills in a vending machine. You have to smooth them out a few times, breathe on the corners. Or video games from those old-school consoles where you had to blow on the prongs."
He buffed the key on the hem of his heather gray t-shirt, pulling the fabric up just enough for me to catch a glance at the dark, fuzzy trail of hair running down his belly. His jeans hung low on his hips, revealing a glimpse at the hunter green waistband of his boxers. As he rubbed his shirt against the key's every edge and notch, it occurred to me Linden was as thick as a redwood and nearly as tall. His sun-kissed skin only made his deep brown hair and beard shine darker.
I'd noticed he was a big, burly guy when he'd stalked across the yard but I hadn't put all the pieces together until right now. Hell, I'd barely noticed my surroundings in this white-knuckled sprint to get away, to disappear.
I'd left at two in the morning and driven through the night to keep a low profile, and it'd worked beautifully until the hot neighbor insisted on helping me open my door.
In truth, it was rude. It was downright disrespectful for all those brutish good looks to be wasted on this know-it-all, mansplain-my-life-to-me, uninvited knight in ripped denim. Where were the drop-dead sexy guys who didn't appear out of nowhere to announce a woman shouldn't use a crowbar to open a door? Where were the ones who asked if they could assist, and when refused, offered to simply hang out and serve as eye candy? What about the ones who didn't automatically assume I was a criminal? Why couldn't they be my neighbors?
Not that I had the room in my life for anyone but me and my steamship of homemade problems. There wasn't a human being alive who wanted a piece of my mess.
"All right. Give it a try."
Linden shifted, his arm extended in my direction and a fierce smile stretching his lips. His shoulders spanned the width of the door and I had to talk myself into glancing away rather than eye-fondling him.
Taking the key from him, I dropped my gaze to the lock. Broad shoulders didn't matter. Wolfish grins didn't matter. Insanely meddlesome neighbors didn't matter. Nothing mattered but the next move.
I gave the lock a few tries, twisted the knob several times, and thumped my shoulder against the door as hard as I could but nothing happened. I was ready to call this experiment off and return to my method of beating and bashing until I got my way when Linden said, "Stop eyeing the crowbar. That's not going to help."
"Then propose an alternative solution," I replied, now fully exasperated at this man and his presence. "Otherwise, I'll take care of this on my own, thank you."
"Go another round," he said, tipping his chin up toward the door. "You work the knob, I'll add leverage on the door."
"That sounds—" I really wanted to argue with him. I wanted it so much and not even because I disagreed with him on this issue but because my frustration and anger needed a place to go right now. It was supremely unfair to unload any of it on this guy and I knew that. I knew better. "Okay. Fine. I'll try it your way this time."
He ran his hands along the panel of the door, thumping with his fist every few inches. "This is the spot," he murmured like some kind of deranged door whisperer. "Come on. Let's do this."
I hooked a glance over my shoulder at him as I closed my hand around the knob. He was right there, his body crowded up against mine. We were close enough that I could pick up the scent of coffee lingering around him. Under normal circumstances, I would've preferred some polite distance from the rude dude I'd just met but I'd been awake and wearing the same clothes for a day and a half, my life was stuffed into the back of a station wagon, and my career died in a grease fire. There were no normal circumstances and there was no other way to do it.