Blueprints

by Barbara Delinsky

  “I do.”

  Jamie caught her breath. “You do?”

  “I played hockey at Harvard with Alex, son of Ralph. He was two years ahead of me, but the team was pretty tight. His dad used to fly in for games all the time. He was every coach’s worst nightmare.”

  That didn’t bode well for Jamie. “In what sense?”

  “Egotistical. Larger than life—a big man with a big voice and big expectations. You won’t need details with him. All he’ll want to see is the big picture.”

  “Luxury?”

  “I’d say so. As over-the-top as your dreams go.”

  “Ralph is one of three. Will the other brothers want that, too?”

  “Not necessarily, but it’ll stroke their egos to see something grand. I haven’t seen Alex since I left Cambridge. I could call. If his dad thinks I’m a loser, the contact might backfire. Should I try anyway?”

  “Not yet. And not because of that,” she added quickly lest he worry. “You’re no loser. You made the pros, Chip. That’s phenomenal. It’s just…” She tried to express it. “Old habits die hard, I guess. I really wanted to do this myself. The problem is that when I feel so scattered, I can’t concentrate, and when I can’t concentrate, self-doubt moves in. Maybe my vision isn’t grand enough. Maybe they’ll think I’m too young for the job.”

  “Age is just a number, honey. We’ve talked about that. Look at your portfolio. It’s top-notch. Besides, if there’s a meeting, Caroline will be there. And Theo and Dean. They’ll add the element of age.”

  “But I’m the designer.”

  “With impressive designs.”

  She wanted to believe him, wanted it badly. “You think? I’ve only shown you dreams.”

  “Impressive dreams.”

  “You’re biased.”

  “Absolutely,” he said with a smile in his voice. “So here’s an idea. Your condo is quiet. Could you work there?”

  She could. The room where Tad had slept was a home office. When she thought of the place, though, she felt cold and alone.

  Seeming attuned to her thoughts, Chip said, “How about I get someone to take lunch duty for me here. Meet me at the condo now, and we’ll move your office to the house. My old bedroom already has a desk and Internet hookup.”

  “You need to work there. Student evaluations, all the paperwork for camp—”

  “If I push my stuff to one end, there’s still room for yours. We can pick up another table tomorrow at Home Depot and in the meanwhile put the printers on nightstands. The room’ll be thrilled. It’s getting bored with my work.”

  She laughed. “Like the room has a mind? You sound like my mother. Her house is always telling her not to renovate. She claims it wants its history intact.”

  “Wise woman,” he said, but he didn’t ask that she call Caroline again, for which she was grateful. More than any other distraction, her mother hovered in the periphery of her consciousness, a little ache that wasn’t debilitating, just always there.

  “I mean it,” Chip insisted. “We talked about you working in that room until we could build on. It won’t take us more than an hour to get the basics moved from your place and hooked up in mine if we do it together.” He was a whiz at technology, from what she had seen of his Wi-Fi setup, which included not only Internet but music, television, and wireless heat control.

  Feeling a glimmer of excitement that came as much from the idea of seeing him as from being able to work in a place that was emotionally warm, Jamie glanced at her watch and calculated the amount of time it would take her to collect what she needed and drive to the condo. “Ten minutes?”

  She heard another smile. “Ten minutes.”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes later, he said in a voice that rumbled, as intimate as nakedness, body heat barely cooled, and the mess of sheets on Jamie’s bed, “We need to keep this place. It sure beats a motel for a tryst.”

  Jamie was logy in the wake of two mind-blowing orgasms, and if those hadn’t done it, breathing him in would have. He had a unique scent, very male, now tinged with sex. “Tryst?” she managed to tease.

  “That one word is the grand total of what I got from the literature course I took at Harvard during my abbreviated tenure there,” he drawled in self-deprecation, but his eyes were on her mouth. Rolling on top again, he wound his fingers through hers, anchoring them on the pillow on either side of her head, and gave her a lingering kiss that ended with one to her freckles, which he claimed to love. “But you have to work.”

  Work? What was work? She hadn’t been thinking sex when she drove over—well, maybe a kiss or two—but one look at Chip in gym shorts that hung from lean hips, with his dark hair spiked over his brow and his blue eyes hungry, and she was lost. Easy to subdue the attraction when they were preoccupied with getting the boys to dinner or bed or daycare, but the chemistry between them remained potent. Tryst? He might be onto something. Thank you, Harvard.

  But yes, she had to work. The sudden twist in the pit of her stomach had nothing to do with arousal. Reluctant, she checked her watch. “So do you. Do we still have time to move the office? I should probably work here today.”

  “Are you okay with that?”

  “No. But I’ll suffer.”

  Grinning, he stretched over her again, moving a certain part of him against a certain part of her to remind her exactly why they hadn’t had time to move her office. She arched up to catch his mouth a final time before giving in to that other shrieking need.

  * * *

  Several consecutive hours of quiet helped. Shifting between an old Williston News photo, Google Earth, and her memory, she made a computer rendering of the main house, which, in its heyday, had been a grand French country estate built of stucco and brick, with tall windows that rose from the second floor into the eaves, drawing attention to three high, steep hip roofs, each with a large chimney. Time had taken its toll on the real thing, but her drawings depicted a restored glory, which was how her mind’s eye had always seen the place. Refining the image that had taken shape on her screen, she cleaned up the stucco and repointed the stone, pruned back ivy and overhanging trees, replaced rotted wood framing the windows, and added gables to lift the entire facade.

  Lost in the work, she didn’t notice the passage of time until she reached for her liter of Poland Spring and found it empty. Grasping the bottle, still in the kind of semitrance that came when she worked on something she loved, she stood back from her desk and studied the screen. She did adore this house. It had always seemed lonely to her, perhaps because for as long as she could remember Mildred Weymouth had lived by herself, perhaps because it had been so sadly neglected. Working on these designs reminded Jamie why she had dreamed for so long of this project and why she had to do it right.

  When she went down to the kitchen for more water and glanced at her watch, though, she realized it was almost pickup time at First Unity. Chip would get the boys. But what would Tad be thinking when she didn’t show? He knew Chip, but she was the one who had seen him in the hospital within minutes of his birth and been a fixture in his life since. If she wasn’t at pickup, he might fear that she was gone, like his mommy and daddy. He seemed like such an easy kid, taking to Chip and to Buddy, adapting to two new homes in quick succession. She wasn’t sure, though, if he was happy or simply on change overload—whether he was so lost without his parents that, other than the occasional crying jag, he just went along.

  She needed him to see her. And she needed to see him. As priorities went, Tad came first.

  That was why, when Chip pulled up in the silver Honda, wanting to see how she was doing before he went for the boys, she said, “I’m coming.”

  * * *

  “You owe me for this,” Herschel Oakes announced straight out when Caroline picked up her phone. “Wednesday at one. We’ll videoconference from my office. John will be here in the flesh, Ralph and Grant on the screen.”

  Yessss. With the passing of the afternoon, she had grown doubtful. But he
had come through! “Wednesday.”

  “At one,” he repeated. “Will you be prepared? I’m going out on a limb here. I don’t want to waste anyone’s time.”

  Of course he didn’t, but Caroline forgave him that. The timing was perfect, or as perfect as it could be given the meeting Thursday morning with Brian and Claire. If they had even a preliminary deal with the Weymouths before then, they would neutralize the Barths.

  Tomorrow would be hectic. She wouldn’t get much carpentry done, what with meeting with Theo and the MacAfee finance people. While Linda compiled a comp study, Caroline had to bring Dana Langham into the loop. She also had to talk with Brad, which might be fine, since he was likely as shocked by Jamie’s marriage as Caroline was. Well, maybe. Actually, probably not quite. But Brad was still on payroll. Marketing presented a problem, since they hadn’t hired a replacement for Roy. Well, between Theo, Dean, and her, they would come up with something. She would drive Theo into Boston herself.

  “We’ll be there,” she promised. “And yes, I owe you. Anything, Hersch. This is a huge help to me. It’s the act of a loyal friend. Thank you.”

  As soon as she ended the call, she texted Jamie.

  * * *

  Jamie might have ignored the phone if she hadn’t suddenly realized it was still on vibrate, which was the only way she had been able to get any work done. When she saw Caroline’s name, she sorted through a score of messages to this one.

  Just got call. Meeting with Weymouths 1 PM Wednesday. Work for you?

  No, it did not work for her. She needed twice as much time, four times as much time, to get the designs right. But if she wanted to show Caroline that she could do it all—marriage, motherhood, work—she would manage it somehow.

  No problem, she texted back and broke out in a cold sweat.

  “Everything okay?” Chip asked, darting her little looks as he pulled into the First Unity lot.

  “Yup, yup, everything’s fine,” she said in a high voice and pushed it out of her mind. She was going to be with her boys. Her eye was already scanning the playground.

  When Chip stayed behind to talk with one of the teachers, Buddy spotted her and came on the run. Bending over him, she slipped an arm around his shoulders. “How was your day?”

  “Good.” He pointed. “Taddy’s there. He was crying during rest.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “I think his stomach hurt him.” He looked past her. “Where’s Daddy?” When he spotted Chip, he broke free and ran.

  Jamie turned her attention to Tad, who was standing off to the side, watching three kids on the seesaw. His aloneness broke her heart.

  She was on her way to rescue him when she was waylaid by one of the teachers. “Don’t let this fool you. It took him a while to settle down during quiet hour, but he’s had a good day.”

  Watching him now, though, Jamie worried. “Is he afraid of the seesaw?”

  “A little. He climbed on earlier and fell off. He didn’t hurt anything but his pride. But this is how they learn. He’ll get the knack.”

  He spotted Jamie then. Face lighting in recognition—breath-stopping, that was—he forgot the seesaw and ran to meet her, little legs churning so fast that he tripped, sprawled on his belly on the dirt, and began to cry, breaking her heart for a second time in as many minutes. Rushing to him, she scooped him up and buried his face in her neck, finally holding him back to wipe the streaks from his face. “Hey, monkey,” she crooned, as she brushed at his clothes, “you run so well.” It was true. He was fast like Roy, maybe prone to tripping like she was but the way he had lit up when he saw her made her day.

  When he babbled something or other, the teacher interpreted. One of the children had a birthday, and the mother brought cupcakes.

  “Rainbow sprinkles?” Jamie asked, brushing a crumb of one from the corner of his mouth.

  “Wainbow,” he cried with a big smile, tears lingering on his lashes but forgotten. He was that easily distracted.

  As was she, she realized. She loved being with these guys. Oh yes, work lurked in the background. When she let her mind go there even for a second, her stomach clenched. But she wanted to be here with Tad, needed to be here. Determinedly, she stashed that other part of her life in its own little box as they started back to her condo for her office equipment.

  Two minutes into the drive, Tad fell asleep with his chin on his shoulder, his cheeks pink, chocolate curls sweaty. The heart-melting sight of him was further distraction, along with the finger painting Buddy pulled from his backpack. When they turned into her condo complex, whose entry bore a Family Built by MacAfee Homes sign in blatant reminder, she felt a twinge of guilt. In the next breath, she banished it. Relocating her office to help her work was a form of work, wasn’t it? Soon enough, her office equipment was packed, half in her car, half in Chip’s, and they were on the road again.

  This time, passing a MacAfee truck brought back the guilt.

  Again she pushed it away. But it made her think. Compartmentalization was apparently a learned art. Like a backhand slice on the tennis court, like Tad on the seesaw, it would take practice.

  “Like deking,” Chip added as they talked on the phone, car to car.

  “What’s deking?”

  “Short for decoy. It’s when a player handles the puck in a way that misleads his opponent—you know, feints left, moves right, that kind of thing. The opponent gets out of position. The player moves past.”

  “Clever. How long did it take you to learn?”

  “Years.” He turned the corner onto his street.

  Putting her blinker on, she followed. “I don’t have years. I’ve never had to wear so many different hats.”

  Chip didn’t respond at first. Then came a low “Oh shit” and an aggrieved sigh. “Brace yourself. You’re about to try on another.”

  twenty-seven

  Jamie was about to ask what he meant when he pulled into his driveway beside a black BMW. A woman was leaning against it, hands flanking her hips, eagle eyes tracking the Honda. Jamie’s first thought was that it was Buddy’s mother. As she got closer, though, she realized the woman looked exactly like Chip.

  Jamie barely breathed. “Which sister?”

  “Samantha,” he murmured and, ending the phone connection, called out his window, “Hey, Sam.”

  Samantha Kobik was the sister who lived in Manhattan. Black leggings covered slim legs, and though her tunic top was stylishly voluminous, her arms and face were lean. Her hair was long and caught in a high ponytail, but it was as dark and thick as Chip’s, her eyes as blue, her jaw as square.

  Jamie knew other things about her from stories Chip had told her, but could she remember them now? No! All she could think, with an edge of hysteria, was that she had promised Caroline a presentation on Wednesday—No problem!—and that being with Chip and the boys alone would eat up more time than she had. She couldn’t be meeting a sister-in-law right now, much less a hostile one, to judge from the sharpness of those eyes.

  But what choice did she have?

  Parking behind him, she climbed out in time to hear Chip say a facetious “That was fast.”

  Samantha had straightened. “Look who’s talking.”

  He kissed her cheek and gave her shoulder what Jamie thought to be a conciliatory squeeze. “If you’re here to do Mom’s bidding, save your breath.”

  “Do I ever do Mom’s bidding?”

  “Always.”

  “I do not. I do my own thing.”

  “Which is always on Mom’s approved activities list,” Chip said. “You’re her first child. You don’t break rules, and you strive to succeed. You’re her dream child.”

  “Who isn’t married.”

  “Who has two graduate degrees and a choice job, who travels all over and earns a ton of money.”

  “Who isn’t married,” Samantha repeated, only then shifting her gaze.

  Opening an arm, Chip drew Jamie close. “Wife, meet sister Samantha. Sister, meet wife Jamie.”


  Samantha held out a hand—no hug offered, for which Jamie was grateful. “Sister-in-law” was a technical term. A hug would have suggested a relationship, which they didn’t yet have. No, a handshake was fine, and Samantha’s was firm. Jamie returned it in kind. If her father had taught her anything, it was that.

  “I’d say I’m pleased to meet you,” Samantha said, “but right now we’re all stunned.”

  Jamie said the first thing that came to mind. “You should talk to my mom.”

  “She should talk to my mom, or maybe not. Mine was pretty steamed, and not only at Chip.”

  “If she’s angry at Jamie,” Chip said, “she’s totally off base. Jamie’s my other half.”

  “A little advance warning would have been nice.”

  “We didn’t have advance warning.”

  “Exactly. That reassured her. Did you not upset her enough back when you were boozing it up?”

  “Sam—”

  “Or when you kicked them out of this house?”

  “I did not kick them out.”

  “You said you could raise your child alone. You said you didn’t need them.”

  To Jamie, Chip muttered a tight-jawed “That’s not what I said. I’m getting the boys.” He strode off.

  Jamie wasn’t sure she wanted to be left alone with Samantha. Little things were coming back, like the fact that this oldest sister was a perfectionist, which would be a disaster for Jamie, who wasn’t sure she was doing anything right just then. But she couldn’t move. Piercing blue eyes were pinning her in place.

  “You’re an architect.”

  With a serious deadline. “I am.”

  “Dressed like that?”

  “I was working at my condo.”

  “No wonder. In a town like Williston, no good deed goes unnoticed.”

  Jamie laughed. She couldn’t help herself. Broken engagement plus sudden wedding equals town gossip. The woman did know her Williston.

  “I’m sorry about your father,” Samantha said in a way that wasn’t soft or sympathetic, just fact. “I read about it on the company website. MacAfee Homes was an institution when I was here. If half of what’s on the website is true, it still is. I haven’t watched your TV show. Is it any good?”