The Handyman's Dream Read Online Free PDF Page B

Hank’s taking off like that flattened her. I think she’d been through so much already, she just . . . oh, she didn’t fall apart, but she was really having a hard time adjusting to being a single parent. We were talking on the phone one night, and she kinda jokingly said she was going to see if they had any openings at the Porterfield post office. At first I thought she was crazy, but then the more I thought about it, the more the idea appealed to me. My nieces and nephew are great kids, and it began to seem like a good idea, me moving up here to help out, as opposed to Mom getting her way and uprooting the bunch of them. Plus, I had my own reasons for thinking a change of scenery wouldn’t be such a bad thing.
    “Anyway,” Rick said, grinning, “to try to make this long story a little shorter, I moved up here in July, got a job at the post office, and began delivering mail on your street about a month ago. Claire’s life has suddenly gotten a lot easier, and the kids are thrilled to have Uncle Rick around full-time. It seems to be helping everyone, except my mom, who’s now added me to her worry list. But that’s nothing new.”
    “Wow," Ed said softly. "That’s quite a story. I mean, that you’d be willing to do that for your sister and her kids. My sister is the greatest, and her kids are okay, but I don’t know if I could do that. But then again, her husband’s a pretty cool guy.”
    “There was nothing cool about Hank Romanowski,” Rick said flatly. “Look up asshole in the dictionary, and there he’ll be! Oh, it may seem like some great noble sacrifice I’m making, but for the kids’ sake, I’m glad to do it. Besides, you do what you gotta do for the people you love.”
    Ed’s admiration of Rick grew. Nope, the guy was no creep.
    “Man,” Rick said, looking embarrassed again. “Here I am, hogging the conversation! What about you? I don’t know anything about you except your name is Ed Stephens, you live on Coleman Street, and”—Rick dropped his eyes to the table, then raised them to Ed’s—“you’re awfully cute. By the way, my name’s Rick Benton. I just realized I never introduced myself. Hell, I feel like I already know you!”
    Ed was blushing from Rick’s observation, not to mention the fact he already knew Rick’s name, or at least his first one. My God! He thinks I’m cute. The Dream Man thinks I’m cute. Somehow Ed managed to get past that to say, rather casually, that Ralph Graham had told him Rick’s name in passing.
    “I guess I felt like I knew you already, too,” he said, looking again into those beautiful, dark brown eyes.
    Rick looked steadily back. Ed knew he was not fooling himself. Something was definitely growing between them, not unlike the something currently growing in his jeans.
    “I’m a handyman,” he finally managed to say. “I used to work for Marsden Electric, but I’m self-employed now. Like it a lot better, too.”
    “A handyman,” Rick said, admiration in his eyes. “Wow! You mean you really go around, toolbox in hand, fixing things for people?”
    Ed nodded, a fresh blush on his face.
    “How ’bout that? A gay man who can fix things. That is so cool. Well, I know I already kinda said this, but I’ll say it again. You have got to be the cutest handyman in Porterfield, Indiana.”
    Ed’s blush deepened, reddening his fair-skinned cheeks. He bolstered his shaky self-confidence and was able to reply, “I know you are absolutely the cutest guy who ever delivered mail in Porterfield.”
    Rick lowered his eyes and smiled. “Thanks.”
    “How’d you find this place?” Ed asked, to change the subject.
    “Oh, Claire told me about it,” Rick replied, his gaze once again upon Ed. “Just like my folks, she’s cool with the gay thing. I think she’s worried about me, since I haven’t had much social life outside of her and the kids since I moved here. She all but pushed me out of the house tonight, telling me to have some fun if it