“You just did what to my porch?!” I could feel my blood pressure edge toward redline. “Tell me you’re joking.”

His lips pursed, but he didn’t drag the toe of his workboot or look away in shame.

“It was an accident.”

I swallowed back an impressive string of four-letter words.

“I’m sure it was an accident. But did you or did you not just say my back porch is now sitting at the bottom of my swimming pool?”

He inhaled before answering as if begging the gods for strength, but his eyes remained fixed politely on mine. “Well, not quite the whole porch. Maybe half of it.”

“Half.” I crossed my arms across my chest. “So, where’s the other half?”

“Still attached to the building.” One finger touched his brow thoughtfully. “But it’s gonna have to come down, too. It’s not –” He searched for the right word. “It’s not hanging on too well.”

I tapped a toe in frustration, imagining the ever-shrinking bottom line in my checkbook. This backyard remodel was already way over budget. “And you’re going to fix the porch for free, I presume? Since it was your accident?”

He glanced over at the small backhoe in the middle of my back yard, a flurry of broken roof tiles still bedecking its extended bucket. “Of course I’ll fix it. It’ll only take another week or so. I’ll just start a little earlier.”

Which is how I became accustomed to a cheerful knock at my front door every morning at seven a.m. sharp. It was Peter, of course, being true to his word. “Hi, Miranda,” he’d say, because we were on a first-name basis now. Without waiting, he’d stride through the living room and push open the sliding glass door to where the porch used to be, strut out on whatever plank happened to be handy, and survey the evolving chaos in my backyard.

The porch was getting bigger; I could tell that much. And the swimming pool was clear of roof tiles and lengths of two-by-something. It almost looked inviting.

Except. . . the rest of the yard had turned into a mini-Home Depot. There were tools and power cords everywhere. Piles of materials. A crate of something I couldn’t identify. And a tool shed. Yes, really. Peter had brought his own tool shed, complete with padlock. “Just in case,” he’d said as he snapped the door closed with a grin. “You can never be too careful with tools.”

By the end of the second week, I’d given up worrying about how long it was taking. Something was happening out there; a few shrubs had already emerged from the chaos; and best of all, it wasn’t costing me anything.

Plus, there was Peter. He whistled while he worked, greeted me in the mornings with a cheerful smile, and never complained. Plus those flannel workshirts and flexing muscles made a darn nice sight out my window whenever I happened to look out. Which was oftener than I liked to admit.

By the third week I’d taken to handing him a steaming mug of coffee every morning as he blazed through the door with his signature grin. And by Week Number Four I was toting out sandwiches at lunch. It was only fair. He was working for free, right? And the back yard had never looked better.

The pool was sparkling, and he’d added some kind of twinkle-lights to the interior that made it resemble a Tahitian holiday promo. He’d trimmed up the messy willow so you could actually walk underneath, and added a smattering of flowers at the base. The cracked and broken walkway was gone (“Guess the backhoe was a little too heavy,” he’d shrugged with a rueful grin) and in its place was a delightfully wandering track of pavers, accented with artfully-placed tiles. The chaotic pile of materials was slowly shrinking, and new porch was taking shape.

And what a shape! Hand-crafted arches and glorious latticework. A pergola at the far end with a trailing rose beginning to climb. A barbecue nook and a circular stack of bricks that was starting to look suspiciously like a pizza oven.

So there was a certain lump in my throat when Peter approached, hat in hand, at the end of a Friday in Week Six.

“It’s been really nice working for you,” he said, extending a calloused hand flecked with paint. “Sorry about the porch.”

I glanced around at his newly-finished handiwork. ‘Eat your heart out, Martha Stewart’ came to mind.

“It really was an accident,” he added, for probably the thousandth time. “But kind of a lucky one.”

I cocked my head in question.

“Well, I got to know you.” His eyes lingered on mine a second longer than they needed to.

I found myself thinking how empty my mornings would be without Peter’s 7 a.m. knock. How boring to eat my lunch alone. How uninspiring the view out my window without those bright flannel shirts.

“You know,” I found myself saying, “I really could use a little help getting that pizza oven started the first time.”

His eyebrows lifted. “Be happy to stop by and fire it up for you. Maybe try it out together. This weekend, maybe?”

I found myself nodding. “And I was hoping. . . well, I’ve never done wallpaper before. But I was thinking. . .”

“The bathroom? I could show you how. In fact, I have a couple of color ideas . . .” His eyes held a new shine as he settled a warm arm around my shoulder, urging me gently toward the door. “Ever been to Home Depot?”

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