TRICK OR TREAT
Josh waved to her as he slowed to a stop on Suzanne's driveway. She was expecting him, his company Templeton Homecare always dealing with routine electrical, plumbing services, and even some cosmetic construction work for customers, and that she had asked him to quote for and to then undertake.
"You're right on time, Josh!" she called out, feeling uncommonly pleased to see him. He had given his apologies when he had telephoned two nights ago to rearrange his day with her. "You kept your word!"
The young man whom she gazed at, dressed as he was in light brown dungarees and with a cream T-shirt underneath, was an attentive man and good company, always chattering to her in response to what she had to say, whenever he allowed her to engage him in conversation as he worked. At other times she would be in another part of the house but would come along into the room and seek his company.
He waved a hand in greeting before he took his iPad from the passenger seat of his newly acquired van. The business was on the up and he, a sole trader, could be choosy about whom he worked for.
The woman that he gazed at through the windscreen was one of them, and there was no sense in denying the fact that his mother's friend was getting to him. Contacts were everything in business, he was learning that only too quickly, but Suzanne Baker was someone he thought of as an only too desirable woman first, then as a customer.
It sure helped that they got along and that the formalities of a customer and tradesman relationship could be dispensed with. They chatted easily enough; she sometimes kept him talking for longer than his day's programme allowed but he wasn't about to deny that she got to him in ways that even his long-time girlfriend, Donna, live in and clever, could not do.
Inexplicably, given their age difference, Suzanne made him feel horny and he sensed that he got under her skin too; that he had a place in her thoughts when they talked, and she would look back at him with those wonderful blue-grey eyes. Now, he saw her in a jersey dress with a floaty hem and billowy sleeves, her slender legs lightly tanned and the green pattern of her dress rebellious but suiting her, nonetheless.
Suzanne waited for him and watched as he carried a heavy toolbox up the path and then the three steps that led up to the terrace that the front door opened onto.
"Here, let me take that from you, at least," she said, reaching for his iPad that he clutched clumsily under one arm.
"Okay, thanks."
She followed him into the echoing living room that was swept clean. What would be concealed downlighters hung from the freshly painted ceiling, the coving lending the room an expensive look and every joint neatly filled and sanded smooth. Josh had done it all and when he had stayed late, one afternoon, to finish things off.
"The dirty work is out of the way so it's final fix time and testing. I won't be calling in for much longer."
"That's a shame, I like having our chats...and knowing you're around." She watched him set out the tools needed for the remaining jobs before he erected the short stepladder that had been left behind days before.
"You shouldn't let it mean so much," he said in reply to that confession and after a moment's pause. Despite what he had just told her, he was in no rush, and seeing how she was dressed, he wanted something special to be a reminder of his times with her.
"Well, it does!"
He heard the brittleness in her voice and smiled to reassure her that he wasn't bothered by how she had spoken. A few items of equipment were taken from a heavy box that he had put down on the bare concrete floor of her newly created open-plan living room and kitchen area. The layout of her house had been changed and the work had tested him; it had drawn upon all of his skills but it was a success and he had kept within budget.
"Okay," he said easily, "I'll miss being her too. Now, I've got some work to do..."
"And I'll clean up after you, wipe down the kitchen surfaces while I'm about it, and get ready to move in properly." She brushed back her hair and saw that he was following her every move. "Work, you said?"
She had given him a coquettish smile before he turned away and began to work quickly, the step ladder scraping over the floor, the sound making her cover her ears.
"Sorry I did that," he said, giving her a moment's lingering look. The hem of Suzanne's dress had lifted as she put her hands to her ears. He saw that Suzanne's thighs had no real muscle tone but he liked their smoothness and the soft glow of health.
"No checking out the boss. Yet." She said it on a broad grin and Josh raised his hands in mock apology before resuming his work.
He didn't miss the opportunity to glance her way, shifting the step ladder soundlessly so that she didn't notice his behaviour. The work was coming to an end. If he worked on, uninterrupted and not glancing her way, he'd be done in an hour or so. But, he wanted some 'downtime' with the woman who stood almost up to his shoulder. Suzanne's decision to wear a dress, and not the slacks and blouses, or T-shirts, he often saw her wearing, only engaged him further.
She'd been divorced for some time and his mother had once said about her that
'once burned so never again'.
In slacks and blouse, she'd revealed a shapely hourglass figure, full-breasted and slender-legged. Donna brought enough to his touch, but he could not deny that Suzanne's breasts were full and rounded and gravity had defied the passing years. She couldn't be thought of as
'hot'
, but she sure was desirable.
But it was her thoughtful, even wondering gaze on him and when they stopped to talk over a soft drink, or a coffee, that had taken a hold in him. She was no raving beauty. Not anymore, but her bubbly personality was also a cover for the undoubted loneliness that she felt and that his mother's words made him acutely aware of.
"How are you getting on, Suzi?" he called out to her and she turned to look his way.
