“Why is he having the channel dredged?” Zoe asked.
Jeff looked smug and gave Mrs. Wyndham a little nudge with his elbow. “I bet your husband wants to buy a bigger boat.”
“That’s right” she said, rolling her eyes. “He said something about the draught not being deep enough for a fifty-eight foot Meridian. I’ll admit the pictures he showed me are pretty but personally I think the boat we have is plenty big enough.” She shrugged. “But then I’m not an Admiral who’s used to being on battleships.” She gave a resigned little chuckle. “At least we won’t have to deal with that till the day after the party.”
“Well, I think we have all the measurements we need for now, Mrs. Wyndham,” Amanda said. “We will be hiring someone to clear the undergrowth on either side of the lane that goes back to the old house up the road. A few days before the party we’ll spread a nice thick blanket of mulch there and use it to park your guests’ cars.”
“You won’t need access to inside for anything else, then? Because we’ll be going back to Annapolis the day after tomorrow and I wouldn’t be able to come back for several weeks.” Mrs. Wyndham glanced from one to the other of them for reassurance.
“No, I think we’ll be fine,” Amanda said. “I was hoping we could use the little house to store some things, though. The tables and chairs, some of the decorations and the carpeting will be delivered a week to ten days before the big event and that would be a perfect place to stash them till we start setting up. Would that be okay with you, Mrs. Wyndham?”
“I suppose so,” she said after a little hesitation. Then her doubts seemed to vanish and she said brightly, “There’s really nothing valuable in there. And it’s not like I’m worried you’ll make off with the family silver. Come inside, Amanda, and I’ll get you the key. You’re right about it being an excellent staging area.”
The other three waited on the porch as the afternoon shadows lengthened and the earlier warmth was dissipated by a brisk breeze off the bay.
Zoe shivered slightly. “Let’s get going, Lover Boy,” she said to Jeff. “I’ve a few things to do back at the gallery before dinner.”
Jeff slipped on his leather jacket and made a mock bow. “Your chariot awaits, my Lady.”
Zoe merely rolled her eyes.
“I’d be glad to drop you off if you’d be too cold on the bike,” Dev offered.
But Jeff was quick to put a proprietary arm around Zoe’s shoulders and walk her down the steps.
“No worries, mate. I like her to keep my back warm. We’ll catch up with you at Amanda’s later.” He handed Zoe his helmet and swung his leg over the big bike. She took her place behind him and wrapped an arm around his waist.
“See you later,” she said, the rest of her sentence drowned out by the noise as Jeff kicked the bike to life. She gave a little wave, then held on as they made a tight U-turn and sped off down the road.
“That girl has a lot more courage than I,” Amanda said from behind Dev as she watched the pair disappear around a bend.
She’d retrieved her pea coat and satchel and tucked the key to the older house inside it.
“Let’s hope there’s enough time for you to give my car a jump,” she said. “I want to get a new battery as quick as I can. Around here there isn’t any public transportation to fall back on, so being car-less will be a major inconvenience.”
He held her door as she got in, then went around to the driver’s side. As she watched him climb into the driver’s seat she realized she hadn’t thought about his injury all afternoon. Hadn’t even noticed it, really. She gave herself a mental pat on the back for not doing or saying anything that would bring attention to his injury.
“What are you smiling about?” He glanced over at her before he backed out of the driveway.
“Nothing.” She shrugged her shoulders. “Just happy I guess.”
“Happy? Even though your car’s dead?”
“Oh, right.” Her shoulders slumped a little. “But a new battery can’t be all that expensive, can it?”
“Seventy to a hundred bucks,” he replied.
“Oh.” That would put a dent in this month’s budget. So she’d better splurge on tonight’s dinner because she’d be eating Ramen noodles for the next couple of weeks.
Not for the first time, she wished she’d asked Mrs. Wyndham for a larger deposit.
CHAPTER 11
“Well, it’s not the battery,” Dev concluded. He stood next to her car and leaned down to talk to her through the open window.
“Are you sure?” Amanda still sat behind the wheel of her Civic, her expression forlorn. “I mean . . .”
Dev knew what she was thinking. After all, he’d been a musician, not a mechanic.
“You mean, maybe I don’t know how to jump-start a car.”
Amanda started to protest.
“No, no. Don’t apologize. I admit automobiles are not my strong suit, but I do know how to use a set of jumper cables. So it might be your starter that’s gone bad. But no matter what it is, you’re going to have to get it towed into town and have a mechanic check it out.”
He turned off the engine in the Land Rover and detached the cables. She still hadn’t budged. He opened the door and held out his good hand.
“Come on. Let’s go inside and we’ll call one of the service stations. Maybe they can come get it now and work on it first thing in the morning.”
She sighed heavily and regarded him with those big soulful eyes.
“Come on,” he coaxed, and she put her hand in his so he could help her out. The urge to pull her into his arms was so strong he almost succumbed, but managed to step back at the last second.
The afternoon breeze had picked up and the sun was setting behind a bank of dark red and purple clouds. He could feel the temperature dropping as the wind made little whorls in the sandy soil of the parking area. He shut the car door and followed her into the house.
It was almost as chilly inside as it was outdoors. Amanda turned on the two lamps in the living room then went to the kitchen and turned on the oven.
“I’m sorry about the temperature in here. This place has very poor insulation and the windows leak like sieves. The baseboard heaters are having a real struggle trying to keep up with the drafts, especially on a day like this when it’s so windy.”
“You’ve been living here all winter like this?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I planned on caulking around the windows and maybe buying another baseboard heater, but I . . .” She bit her lip.
“Don’t know how to caulk windows or install baseboard heaters?”
“Well, that too, of course, but . . .” She paused again.
He silently kicked himself. No money. That was her problem. And she wasn’t about to tell him her situation.
“It’s not all that bad really. I layer up and wear a couple of pairs of socks to bed. If it gets too cold I turn on the oven and leave the door open for a little while. That usually helps a lot.”
“And jacks up your electric bill.” He unconsciously rubbed his hands together.
A tiny line appeared between her brows as she worried her bottom lip. “I’m so sorry. I was hoping it wouldn’t be so cold tonight, but I do understand if you don’t want to stay for dinner and risk frostbite.” She tried to smile but still seemed miserable.
“Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t get rid of me that easily. I was promised a delicious dinner and I intend to collect.” He followed her over to the kitchen area. “I’ve spent nights in a tent in the desert that were much colder than this.”
Shit. He clamped his mouth shut and cursed silently. He definitely did not want the conversation to go there.
The silence seemed to solidify into a wall between them and he was helpless to stop it.
Am
anda turned from washing her hands at the sink and picked up a towel to dry them.
“It’s okay. We don’t have to talk about that. Believe me, I understand. My fiancé was over there. In Iraq.” Her voice hitched ever so slightly. “There were lots of things he didn’t want to talk about either. I imagine it’s hard to find anything about war that’s easy to talk about to a civilian.”
Worse and worse. Nerves chilled his blood and his shiver had nothing to do with the room’s temperature. He didn’t want to talk about Danny, but how could he ignore a reference to a fiancé without at least making some comment?
“Your fiancé is in the Army?”
Jesus, he hated this. Lying to her was almost as bad as telling her the truth would be.
“Was in the Army. Danny was killed in Iraq last year.”
Amanda went to the refrigerator and got out the chicken tenders for dinner. She kept her back toward him while she delivered this news as matter-of-factly as possible. He winced at the sadness in her voice.
“I’m so sorry.”
The understatement of the century. Could he really have said something so mundane considering the guilt that was eating him alive? He wanted to tell her how truly terrible it was—the loss of his best friend, who also happened to be her fiancé— but couldn’t even imagine the words that could accurately express the depth of his despair, let alone work up the courage it would take to say them out loud.
Amanda glanced over as she took a frying pan from the drawer below the oven. “Thank you. Danny was a wonderful man. I wish you could have met him. You would have liked him, I’m sure.”
He had absolutely nothing to say to that.
She put a frying pan on the stove and drizzled some olive oil in the bottom then crushed a few cloves of garlic into the pan and turned on the burner. While it was heating, she sprinkled the chicken tenders with salt and pepper.
He could only watch her, afraid to say anything as the silence lengthened in this conversation filled with potential land mines.
She dragged a stool over to the counter that separated the kitchen from the rest of the room.
“You’re welcome to sit here or”—she gave him a brief smile—“you can help, if you want.”
“I’ll help,” he said, grateful she was not going to make a big deal out of his protracted silence. He went to the sink and washed his hands, then used the same damp towel to dry them.
“What can I do?”
“How about opening some wine? There are two bottles of Cabernet in the fridge. They both need to come out and breathe, so that would be a big help.” She searched in a drawer till she found the cork pull and handed it to him.
He retrieved the bottles from the refrigerator and used his pocket knife to peel the lead foil from the top of the first one.
“What did you think of Mrs. Wyndham?” Amanda asked, obviously wanting to get their conversation back to lighter ground.
“She seems like a nice enough lady,” he answered. “Younger than I expected, considering it’s a seventy-fifth birthday party for her husband.”
“Yeah, that surprised me too at first. She’s very, um, polished.”
“I’m sure she spends lots of money to keep that shine too,” he agreed. He glanced over and caught the twitch of Amanda’s mouth as she tried to smother her laugh.
“Between you and Jeff, I’m sure she had a hard time deciding which handsome hunk she should flirt with the most.” Amanda’s eyes were full of mischief. “Her eyelash flutters were on overdrive.”
“Yeah, Jeff can have all of her attention as far as I’m concerned. Maybe he can talk her into becoming his patron. You know, support him until his sculptures make it big?” He smiled as he extracted the cork from the first bottle with a pop.
“You can pour that into this,” she said as she reached up to get a carafe out of the cabinet by the sink.
“Here, I can get that,” he offered as the sight of her on tiptoes reaching for the top shelf gave him a distracting view of her slender torso, with her ample breasts outlined nicely in the black turtleneck.
As he reached over her to get the carafe, she turned to say something and wound up plastered against his chest, her lips inches from his and those perfect orbs crushed against him. In the two nano-seconds it took before she jerked back, his blood went from chilled to full boil.
“Sorry.”
“Sorry.”
The simultaneity of their apologies had Amanda calling, “Jinx! You owe me a Coke,” to cover the awkward moment.
Dev didn’t keep the heat out of his eyes when he replied, “Let me know when you want to collect.”
Her fair complexion couldn’t hide the flush that climbed her neck and stained her cheeks. She turned back to the stove more than a little flustered and added the chicken to the frying pan.
Dev decanted the wine and poured two glasses, bringing one over to her at the stove. “Here, the cook should always have a glass while she’s working. It’s only fair.”
“Oh, thanks, but I really shouldn’t. By the time I have one with dinner too, I’ll be too buzzed to be sensible.” She sat the glass on the counter.
“Well, you don’t have to drive.” He winked as she gave him a rueful glare. “And the day’s work is done, you’re safe at home, dinner’s well on its way”—he shrugged—“so you don’t have to be sensible.” He picked the glass up and handed it back to her.
She took it with a laugh. “Okay, but if I start acting silly, it will be your fault.”
“I take full responsibility.” He clinked their glasses together and held her gaze as they each sipped. The room had warmed considerably, and not from the heat the stove was giving off either.
Amanda handed him a large pot with instructions to fill it two-thirds full of water and put on the back burner. While he did that, she turned on the radio and the sound of The Beach Boys’ “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” filled the room. She added a little salt to the pot, covered it, and turned up the heat. When she turned from the stove to get the box of pasta on the counter, they collided again.
“This kitchen is not meant for two cooks,” she said with a laugh. “Why don’t you set the table while I finish getting this casserole into the oven.”
As he carried place mats and silverware to the small table, there was a knock on the front door followed by Zoe’s boisterous entrance.
“Hi, guys, we’re here,” she chirped. When she saw them, she grinned. “What a charmingly domestic scene. I see you’re training him already, Mandy. Good job!”
Jeff came in behind her and stashed his helmet, gloves, and jacket in the corner by the love seat. He regarded Dev and shook his head sadly.
“Don’t let her do it, man. Us guys have to stick together.” He nodded at the handful of knives and forks in Dev’s hand. “Zoe can do that. It’s woman’s work. Right, Sweet Cheeks?”
“In your dreams, Lover Boy,” Zoe scoffed. “I’d advise you to watch closely and take notes.”
“You wound me, Babe,” Jeff put both hands over his heart. “You know I’m always willing to help out at your place.”
“Yeah, as long as it involves a hammer or saw. Dishes are a whole different ballgame.” She softened her criticism with a brief kiss to Jeff’s cheek, then turned her attention to Dev, who had finished laying out the plates, glasses, and silver. “Could I trouble you for a glass of the red, my good man? Riding on the back of the death cycle has not only chilled me to the bone, it’s given me a powerful thirst.”
Dev complied, and Zoe accepted the glass, then took his hand and led him over to the love seat, tugging him down until he sat beside her.
“So, tell me, Dev, what’s it like to own a radio station?” She took a big swallow of the dark ruby liquid. “I bet it must be really cool. Do you get to pick what songs everyone plays, or
just the ones on your show? Do you like working the night shift? I would think that sucks because not that many people are listening to you in the middle of the night, right? Amanda really likes the music you play, but I have to admit I’m more of a country music fan, myself. You won’t hold that against me, will you?”
Her questions and comments followed one after the other without leaving him a second to reply, which was fine since he wasn’t prepared to answer most of them anyway. He managed to get in a, “No, of course not,” as she stopped for another swallow of wine and that appeared to satisfy her.
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