Blueprints

by Barbara Delinsky

“And you didn’t deny it,” she countered. Facing this man who, regardless of its cause, wasn’t quite the demon she remembered him to be, she felt surprisingly strong. It struck her that she was almost enjoying herself. “You just told me about your place in West Palm. Given the weather up here, the Weymouth house has to cost far more than that one to heat. Throw in electricity, the cost of a live-in caretaker, the standard lawn cutting and snow plowing, homeowners insurance, alarm company fees, and property taxes—should I go on?—and it adds up.”

  He whistled softly. “You’re good.”

  Studying him, she sat back. “Are you mocking me?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m thinking that I may have missed something in you.”

  It was high flattery, she supposed, though she couldn’t return the compliment. Even mellowed, the man held less personal appeal for her now than he had then. Zero chemistry was an understatement, now that she knew what real chemistry was. Dean was such a total man compared to Herschel Oakes.

  But that counted for nothing when it came to the land she wanted. Herschel was the man here, and she couldn’t offend. Laughing softly, she raised a hand. “Oh, I am not touching that, but trust me, when it comes to the company that will do the best job in developing the Weymouth acreage, I’m right. The Barths don’t have a feel for this land or this town, and as for your clients not being ready, Ralph hasn’t gotten his act together enough to send a crew out to even look at the property in the year since his mother died, John may want the house for himself but will never be able to pay the trust as much as we can, and Grant is so desperate for money that he’ll take any sale.”

  She wouldn’t have dared be this blunt with a nonfriend, but her knowing all this told Herschel Oakes that she hadn’t come on a whim.

  “Here’s the thing, though,” she went on, striking while the iron was hot. “We want to act quickly. Arrange a meeting, and we’ll talk money and designs and whether the brothers want the land featured on our show, but now’s the time, Hersch.”

  “You want a preemptive deal.”

  She nodded. “We do.”

  “Why right now? Is this a play to show the world that the company can survive without Roy?”

  “No. We know others are interested in it. We want that land before someone else gets it, because we know we’re the best ones to develop it.”

  “Why are you here? Last I heard, you were a carpenter. Isn’t that what you are on the show?”

  Ignoring the put-down, she smiled. “Ever watch it?”

  “Reality TV? I think not.”

  “You should watch ours. It’s good.”

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Herschel countered smoothly. “Why you? Is it because we have a little, uh, itty-bitty little bit of history together, so Theo felt you could sway me for old times’ sake?”

  She actually laughed. “You and I both know that would never have worked, though I have to say I like the new you better than the old one, cancer and all.”

  “Cancer is no laughing matter.”

  Studying his earnestness, thinking about his reformed manner, and having the sudden thought that other things in his life might have changed as well, she glanced at one of the photos on the credenza. No family shot, this one showed a woman who was dark-haired, middle-aged, and seemingly down to earth. She wasn’t his ex-wife or either of his daughters. Her face was kind.

  Caroline hitched her chin toward the photo. “Is that someone special?”

  “She’s my therapist.”

  She might have laughed at the idea of one’s therapist holding a prime spot among family photos, if he hadn’t remained so serious. “Literally?”

  “Yes. She helped me when I was first diagnosed. Not my usual type. She works.”

  “Works, present tense—as in continues to treat you?”

  “Works as in goes to work every day. I always liked my women to be available. That was one of the problems I had with you. You kept me waiting an hour for our date while you finished a job.”

  Caroline smiled. “And here I thought you were going to say I had dirt under my nails.”

  “I could never see that,” he mused with a glance at her hands. “You kept them polished, even back then.”

  “There’s no dirt.”

  “And Alice isn’t my therapist anymore, at least, not in any official capacity.”

  “Ahh.” A romantic link, hence her presence on the credenza. “That’s nice, Hersch. I’m glad for you.” And she meant it.

  “So, I ask again, why you?”

  She could have said that Theo wasn’t as mobile as he used to be, or that they hadn’t yet picked a replacement for Roy. She could have even admitted that yes, it was because she and Hersch sort of had a past. The truth held bits of all these things. It held other things as well, like Theo wanting her in management and Dean wanting her in bed and the money behind Gut It! wanting her fifty-six-year-old face out of the limelight, meaning that she had something to prove by orchestrating this deal, but Herschel Oakes didn’t need to know those things.

  For now, she simply said, “Because I care about that land.”

  * * *

  “If you care so much about a piece of land,” Dean responded the instant Caroline finished her blow-by-blow over a late lunch at Fiona’s, “then you need to care more about Jamie.”

  Startled, Caroline held her chicken-breast-on-focaccia midair. “Whoa. Where did that come from?” She had been feeling good. Suddenly, she wasn’t. The little nagging that had been hovering just beyond the periphery of her consciousness sprang forward and squeezed her heart.

  “Have you called her?”

  Carefully, she replaced the sandwich in its wicker basket. She looked at her watch, then across the booth at Dean. She had been expecting praise for having held her own with the lawyer. Feeling defensive now, she said, “It’s barely one o’clock. My morning was busy.”

  “You said you’d call her. Things weren’t left well, and if you’ve taught me anything about handling my son, if you’ve learned anything since the last fight with Jamie, it’s not to let moss grow on a festering stone.”

  A festering stone? “Did I ever use those words?”

  “Fine. Not those, exactly,” he conceded without backing down, “but you get my drift. You said you’d made a mess of things with Jamie. You said you were going to call her while you were driving to Boston.”

  Sitting back in the booth, she kept her eyes steady on his. “I thought I would, but then I wanted to stay focused on my meeting.” She was challenging him straight on, having found that when she did, he was slower with barbed replies. She wanted him to think before he said more. Jamie was her point of greatest vulnerability.

  Lifting the last of his ham-and-cheddar-on-focaccia, he studied it before dropping it again. Pushing the basket away, he wiped his mouth with a napkin, set it down, and met her gaze. “You could have called her on the way home. It’s important, Caroline.”

  He wasn’t letting it go. Frustrated, she shot back, “You think I don’t know that?” Planting her elbows solidly on whatever newspaper article was under the glass that covered the table, she said, “Please don’t lecture me, Dean.” She lowered her voice. “Just because we’re sleeping together doesn’t give you the right to tell me what to do.” She had been a free agent too long for that. “I’ll call Jamie when I get my thoughts together enough to do it. Besides, she hasn’t called me. And don’t make a comparison between your son and Jamie. He’s fourteen. She’s twenty-nine. If she’s old enough to decide to get married one day and do it the next, she’s old enough to know that she hurt her mother and needs to make amends—and that she has no right to judge me for what I do in bed.” She knew she was getting wound up, but couldn’t stop. He had hit a nerve. “Did I cheat on her father? No. Did I have men in the house after my divorce? No. But all these years later, she wants me to stay chaste?”

  His hazel eyes chided. “That’s not what she meant, Caro. As I understand it, the argument was about yo
ur not telling her.”

  “I don’t need to tell her.”

  “And she doesn’t need to tell you. So you’re even.”

  “Which is why she can call me,” Caroline said, sitting back. “I have a lot on my plate right now.”

  “So does she,” he said so reasonably that, perversely, she had to keep up the fight.

  “Of her own choosing.”

  “Not all. You were the one who asked her to have preliminary Weymouth drawings done for tomorrow. And you’re right, she’s older than Renny, but you’re older than she is.”

  “I’m older than you, too,” Caroline said. Her anger was starting to fade—it had been stupid all along—leaving her embarrassed and, to cover that, hurt. “How about a little respect?”

  He took a drink of his Coke and set the glass down, then, coming forward, put ropey forearms on the table. His brow was furrowed, his eyes puzzled. “You express your opinion of things that I do or don’t do. Can’t I do the same?”

  “I don’t attack you,” she said quietly.

  “I wasn’t attacking.”

  “It felt that way.”

  “Then I used the wrong words or the wrong tone or the wrong look. And don’t give me that bit about being older than me, because at our age months don’t matter.”’

  “It’s years,” she corrected sourly.

  “It’s twenty-nine months, and the only time I’m aware of that is when you remind me.” He sighed and said in a conciliatory way, “All I wanted to do was remind you that Jamie is a priority. The longer you wait to call, the harder the call will be.”

  Caroline said nothing, simply listened to the surrounding blur of voices, the tick of utensils on china, the calls from the kitchen. A woman she knew approached and introduced a star-struck friend from out of town to her and Dean. Too soon they moved off, and the flash of pride she felt broke apart.

  She looked at Dean. He was fingering the knife he hadn’t used, turning it this way and that. Seeming to feel her gaze, he raised his eyes, showing her the vulnerability that never failed to touch her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I overreacted.”

  He reached for her hand. Usually they were careful, but now he wove his fingers through hers in plain sight on the table. “I don’t want us fighting.”

  As uncaring as he was about who was watching—getting things right between them was suddenly more important—she squeezed his hand. “We’ve been fighting for years. It’s who we are.”

  “Bickering is different from this.” He seemed worried. “We were doing okay on the bigger things, weren’t we?”

  The bigger things. Like Champ. And the country house. And action movies that she couldn’t stand and for which he now wore headphones when he watched in bed late at night. And even her baths, which she preferred to his showers, but for which she still liked privacy.

  “Yes,” she acknowledged. “And we are. We’re doing good. It’s just…” She tried to figure out what had set her off and explain it to him. “I was feeling triumphant.”

  “And I burst your bubble.”

  “I will call Jamie.”

  “I’ll try not to attack.”

  “She really could call me, too, you know. She was pretty judgmental.”

  “You were judgmental on the bigger issue. Her husband is her life now. If you don’t accept that, your relationship with her is screwed.” He paused. “You’re the adult.”

  “Seems to me you said she was one. She certainly said it.”

  “So who’ll be more adult?” He stared at her and waited.

  Caroline let out a breath. “We’ll see.”

  “That’s the best you can do?”

  “Yes. This is still raw.”

  “Want to go back to your place for a little—”

  She cut him off with a sharp stare.

  “I can’t help it,” he said, eyes touching her torso. “You’re wearing my favorite outfit.”

  “The one I buried my ex in?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re bad.”

  “But you love me anyway.”

  She sighed. “I do.”

  “Enough to marry me?”

  “Please. That is one more thing I can’t deal with right now. Theo’s waiting. He wants to know about the meeting.”

  Relenting, Dean smiled. “You did good, sweetheart.”

  “Did I?” she asked. “For all my brilliant campaigning, Hersch wouldn’t commit.”

  twenty-six

  Encouraged by Theo’s blessing, Jamie might have made progress with the Weymouth plans if she’d had nothing else to do at the office, but first there was Brad. Less than a week before, she had been wearing his ring. Her grandfather might not have noticed this new one, but someone else at the office was sure to. She owed it to Brad to tell him herself.

  He was in his office when she arrived, and his anger when she told him about Chip shook her. She had hoped he would be as detached as when they last talked, but no such luck. Gray eyes cold, voice low in a way she had never heard it before, he accused her of cheating on him, didn’t want to hear her denials, and went on about it way too long, so that she grew angry herself.

  “You’re a lawyer,” she interrupted with enough force to make him listen. “There’s all kinds of evidence in phone and text records to show that I didn’t know Chip Kobik until he gave me advice on Tad, and there’s an e-mail trail a mile wide proving that I was never alone with him until after you and I broke up. But if it makes you feel less guilty—”

  “Guilty?” he cut in, pushing at his glasses with a slim finger. “Me?”

  “For job-hunting months ago, for considering a huge move on the sly, for not being able to give of yourself to a child, Brad—that was the real eye-opener for me—then, fine. Believe what you will.” Shaken as she was, she forced calm into her voice. MacAfee Homes needed Brad for one last task. “Theo knows you’ll be leaving. All we ask is that you honor the two weeks’ notice your contract allows. There may be action on the Weymouth property this week. It would be much easier if you were to handle it for us. If you ever had any feeling for me, I’d appreciate your help there, and if you can’t do it for me, do it for Theo or for Roy. They treated you well.”

  To his credit, he remained silent. She wasn’t sure if he would do what she asked, but she didn’t have time to press him on it. Too much was weighing on her. Thinking about the work she had to do, she hurried upstairs to her office.

  She might have made progress on the Weymouth plans then, if the phone hadn’t started to ring. Each time it did, her pulse skittered on the hope that Caroline was calling. The morning’s argument was like a paper cut with a constant little sting. If being a daughter was the only role she had to play, she might have been better able to deal, but being a wife, a mother, and an architect who was falling further behind each minute, she was raw. Caroline could make it better if she called.

  But no. Not Caroline. Clients. They wanted progress reports, of course they did, and sending e-mail that Jamie might put off reading was too easy. How to tell them that their projects weren’t her first priority just then? She did her best to reference details of each, pulling up the applicable screens on her computer, trying to make it sound like she was on top of things, when all the while she was thinking that she was losing precious time.

  One call ended. She returned to the Weymouth project. Another call came in. Had Caroline been on the phone, Jamie would have happily talked, but designers and contractors, even a town official with setback concerns? Seeming of one mind, they had decided that she’d had enough time to mourn Roy and was now free to work.

  They had no clue.

  At the end of another nonproductive hour, she asked her assistant to hold her calls. That was when the woman noticed her ring. Jamie considered dodging the issue by saying it was her grandmother’s ring or even her mother’s, but a bigger part of her wanted the world to know about Chip. She was proud of him, proud that she had recognized how perfect he
was for her and had acted on it. Just picturing him now brought a soothing wave into her turmoil.

  But that was a lot of dirt for her assistant to handle, between a broken engagement and a wedding. The woman asked if she could tell people. Figuring that word had to get out sometime, Jamie didn’t say no.

  Big. Mistake. Her assistant told the receptionist—that was all, she swore afterward, but it was enough. Jamie was finally getting into the Weymouth plans when MacAfee people began texting her. Texts she could ignore; physical bodies, strolling into the design department and right up to her desk, wanting to see her ring? Most had no idea that she and Brad had even broken up.

  “Nightmare,” she told Chip when he called after his last morning class. “There are too many interruptions. I can’t focus.”

  “Did you make any progress at all?”

  “Not much,” she said, trying to stay calm. She didn’t want her new husband thinking she was prone to hysterics. And she wasn’t. Not normally, at least. Of course, she didn’t normally have as little time to prepare for something she wanted as much as she wanted the Weymouth job. “You saw my designs. They’re dreams, that’s all, dreams. My mother wants me to do something in two days that I would normally spend two weeks on, and it isn’t all CAD work, it’s imagination. You can’t force that.”

  “Call her. Discuss it with her.”

  But Jamie knew how things worked. “There isn’t much to discuss. We need the Weymouth project to undercut the Barths and be able to go into the Gut It! meeting Thursday from a position of strength. I just have to get going. Normally, I’d do a ton of site work beforehand, but it wasn’t like I could hire a surveyor or walk the property taking pictures and measurements when the land isn’t even formally for sale, and now, well, I just don’t have time. The town assessor’s office is faxing me a land plot, but it’ll be primitive.”

  “How much detail do you need?”

  He was right. She didn’t need much. But detail wasn’t the problem right now. “I need enough to convince them that we love the place and have a vision for it, and they’ll want that vision to be beautiful and innovative and still preserve some kind of old-world feel—at least, I’m guessing that’s what they want. I don’t know them.”