by Jenny Jacobs
“I’m your client,” he tried. “You can tell me.”
“There’s nothing to tell. I have to work the details out and get Tess to do a basic design. I draw like a six-year-old, and I can’t deliver something like that to an iron monger and expect reasonable results.”
He drifted over to her side, hoping to catch a glimpse of those drawings she mentioned, but she clapped the notebook closed and put it away in the bag, too.
“I don’t need pictures, Greta,” he said. “Words will do.”
She rolled her eyes. “Words.”
He was standing very near her and suddenly he knew they were not talking about interior decorating anymore.
“If you don’t like words,” he said, bending to speak next to her ear, “then actions also work for me.”
“Then you don’t mind if I get to work,” she said. Her voice wasn’t all that steady and she seemed to leave the storage unit a lot faster than was strictly polite.
He smiled as he watched her go. Things were looking up.
• • •
“That is a monstrosity,” Michael agreed, setting the photo aside. Greta knew he only agreed with her because he found it expedient to do so whenever he had nothing at stake. For that reason, his words did not make her feel vindicated. She tucked the photo back into its folder. Michael was always very tactful when he humored her, so she didn’t call him on it. Tess would have, but then Tess and Michael enjoyed engaging in minor skirmishes followed by kissing and making up. “You want me to make benches to match the monstrosity?” he asked.
They were in his office at his carpentry shop, and he had already photocopied her notes and stacked them in a folder, which he had placed squarely in the middle of his desk to show that he would devote full attention to the project. He had his computer booted up, ready for inputting information when he had any. Michael’s efficiency was one of the things Greta admired most about him. She was pretty sure it wasn’t Tess’s favorite quality. Ian was also very efficient. He had written her a check on the spot. That was her favorite one of his qualities, that he was a paying client. Not that dimple in his cheek when he smiled. Not —
She shook herself. “Right,” she said. “And two stools for the ends — you know the kind, with the seat that curves up on the sides, to give them an Asian look. Only make the seats wide enough to accommodate American males.”
“Okay,” he said. She noticed the sidelong look he gave the folder and its unusual contents — had she ever hired an iron monger before? “I appreciate your doing this for Ian, Greta. No one else would how to handle his eclectic collection.”
Eclectic. That was one word for the monstrosity. Then the meaning of the word “collection” entered her consciousness.
“You mean there’s worse than this?” she asked, her voice rising in pitch.
“No, of course not,” he said too quickly, turning to the computer and opening up a spreadsheet program, as if that might deflect her from grilling him.
“You are such a bad liar,” she said to his back.
“I’m sure everything will be fine,” he insisted, leaning forward to stare intently at the computer screen.
“Spill it,” she demanded, getting to her feet. She thought better on her feet.
He took a deep breath and gave it up. “Have you seen the curios?” His expressive back said as much as his face would have. She stopped in midstride, halfway around the desk.
“Curios? What kind of curios?” Greta croaked, then cleared her throat. “No, don’t tell me. Dashboard hula girls and seashell picture frames. I don’t want to know.”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something to do with them.”
“Kindling.”
• • •
“Let me talk to him,” Greta said, setting aside her laptop and adjusting the pillow behind her back. She closed her eyes for a moment to center herself, remembering her yoga teacher’s admonitions to find her happy place. Just because he unsettled her, had her longing for something she’d never experienced, made her think about things — all right, made her think about kissing — there was no reason she couldn’t suck it up and deal with him. With a sigh, she held out her hand.
Tess surrendered the phone, mouthing a grateful “thank you” as she did. She’d been trying to explain Greta’s design plan to Ian, without much success.
“Mr. Blake — yes, fine, Ian — I will not allow that collection of curios to be displayed in the living room,” Greta said, without wasting any time on small talk. She gripped the receiver tighter. Really, the man made her forget the first thing about professionalism. It wasn’t that her clients necessarily thought of her as warm and nurturing, but she was always well-mannered and courteous.
“But I want to put them where I can see them,” he said.
“Why?” she demanded.
“I like them.”
She did not respond immediately. Let him deduce the message from the silence.
Apparently her silence was more persuasive than her speech, because after a long moment, he yielded, saying, “At least let me put them up in the bedroom.”
She closed her eyes again. After she had counted to ten, and then to twenty, she was able to speak. She said, “Ian.”
“How about — ”
“No.” He would suggest the kitchen next. She knew his type very well. There was no “no” he would not attempt to negotiate, no boundary he would not attempt to cross. “And not in the bathroom or the front hall, either. You may put them in the utility room.”
“But — ”
“That is my final offer.”
“It’s my house.”
Give me strength, she thought. “If you wanted a designer you could boss around, you should have hired Alison. In fact, you still may. I would encourage you to do so.”
This time he was silent. Probably he had noticed she hadn’t offered to return his retainer and was calculating the costs vis-à-vis his bank account balance.
There was a moment of fulminating silence, and then he said, “Yes, ma’am.”
“You’ll appreciate this later,” Greta said in her most reassuring way, relieved that he wasn’t being as stubborn as she knew he was fully capable of being. “You’ll see I’m right.”
“I have no doubt you’re right,” he admitted. “I just don’t have to like it.”
She hung up and turned to Tess with a smug, superior smile. “And that, kid, is how it’s done.”
“Uh huh,” Tess said. “How what’s done?”
That, Greta reflected, her pleasure at winning dimming a little, is a very good question.
Chapter Four
“What’s wrong with displaying my carefully gathered collection of tchochkes?” Ian asked. He had a root beer in one hand and a slice of pizza in the other and ordinarily he would not be thinking about interior decoration under the circumstances. But he had become a bit obsessed.
He and Michael were watching Monday Night Football in Tess’s crowded living room, which no decorator had ever touched, not withstanding the fact that she was Greta’s business partner. Unlike Greta, apparently Tess did not think her entire life should revolve around her work.
Right now, she was on the sofa, snuggled against Michael, a magazine open in her lap, but she seemed more interested in giving her husband-to-be adoring looks than in reading the articles. Watching Tess, he tried to imagine Greta giving a man adoring looks. His imagination failed. No, not just failed but was defeated utterly. Crushed. Pulverized.
Yet once the idea entered his mind, he couldn’t shake it loose. What would it be like to see affection in Greta’s eyes? To change that frosty disapproval into warm acceptance? To convince her to trust him, to settle down, to build a life together. It would take a very special man to manage that, a man impervious to danger and fear
—
He ran a hand through his short hair. Build a life together? He was nuts. It came from hanging around Michael and his family-to-be. Tess, it turned out, came equipped with a daughter. Ian had met Belinda before Tess had scooted the little girl off to get ready for bed, and she had been curious about him, asking question after question until Tess laughed and hugged her and said it was time for a bath. Michael mentioned that he’d already started the adoption paperwork, which meant he’d thought it through — schoolwork, braces, puberty — and hadn’t reconsidered. Plus he’d already set a wedding date, at least according to the invitation Ian had gotten in the mail. Michael seemed perfectly willing to embrace his fate. Seemed rather happy about it, in fact.
Ian narrowed his eyes at Tess. Of course, if your fate included a cuddly gorgeous creature who adored you, well, he’d heard of worse tortures. Experienced some himself.
Still, he’d reached the age of — well, never mind — footloose and fancy free and he intended to stay that way. Yup. No dark eyed charmer would ensnare him. He did not need cuddles or looks of adoration. The very thought made him squeamish. Not that he blamed Michael for succumbing. Any man might: women did not fight fair. But Ian was an Army man, and he wasn’t about to surrender, no matter how cuddly the reward. A vision of a perfectly coiffed blonde raising an immaculately groomed eyebrow at him flitted through his mind. There was nothing in the slightest cuddly about her. That was the danger. That was the exact appeal. She didn’t smile at just anyone the way she had smiled at him in the storage unit, when she had understood about the table.
Nonsense. That was a deadly line of thinking, that they could make something special. That was exactly how Michael had come to find himself hog-tied and thrown.
“Greta dislikes them.”
Ian started, disturbed from his ruminations, frowned and took a bite of his pizza. What had they been talking about? Ah, his collection.
“Why does she dislike them?”
“She thinks only a person who lacks imagination uses them as decorating accents,” Tess explained.
“Lacks imagination?” Ian asked, a sharp tone in his voice. Lacks imagination? Why did the accusation outrage him so? Army men weren’t exactly encouraged to develop their imaginations. That was why he’d hired a decorator in the first place. Still, lacks imagination rankled. He’d show Greta he had an imagination. He would —
He would not. He controlled himself and gulped more root beer.
“Sure,” Tess was saying. She’d stopped adoring Michael and was now leaning forward to talk to Ian, her voice and face earnest as she articulated Greta’s position on the use of tchochkes in interior decorating. “It’s the easy way out. Slap a curio shelf on the wall, instant personality. Greta hates that. Real design requires real thought, she says.” Tess gave him a challenging look, as if he would rise to the bait and argue that real design did not require real thought. But Ian was not an idiot.
“This is a great collection,” he insisted. Instant personality! He was not the kind of man who went around looking for the easy way to do something. If he had wanted the easy way, he wouldn’t have hired Greta in the first place.
“I’m sure it is,” Tess said in a way that made Ian grind his teeth.
“It’s not like I picked them up at Pier 1,” he said. He detected the defensive note in his voice and he was suddenly less sure of himself, which was not a feeling he enjoyed experiencing. He always knew what he was doing and when he didn’t, he was confident that whatever he did would be the right thing to do because, well, it was him doing it. He disliked circumstances under which he questioned his own judgment.
“How’s the new job working out?” Michael asked, changing the subject without giving any indication that he’d even been paying attention to it in the first place, showing the kind of instinct about dangerous waters that he obviously hadn’t demonstrated when Tess had wandered into his life or he wouldn’t be in his current predicament. Not that he seemed worried about his predicament, or even considered it to be one. It occurred to Ian that Michael had been fully capable of avoiding his fate if he had wanted to. Apparently he hadn’t wanted to.
What if something like that happened to Ian?
Now there was a disturbing thought. Ian immediately squashed it, the way he did anything remotely disturbing.
“The job is going well,” he said to Michael, glad to have the change of subject and thankful that he didn’t have to continue arguing his case with Tess. He’d already lost to Greta. Why did he think it would be easier to persuade her sister? “I’m actually enjoying it more than I thought I would,” he admitted. He’d thought that a life where he wasn’t getting shot at might prove a little dull but so far it wasn’t as bad as he’d feared. Greta was making up for all the bullets that weren’t being propelled in his direction.
“What exactly do you do?” Tess asked. She’d settled back on the sofa, Michael’s arm around her shoulders.
Ian didn’t think she was all that interested in hearing about his job. Probably she just wanted to get off the subject of interior design. Well, so did he. “I train business executives in understanding cultural differences,” he said. “Actually, it’s not just business people. We’re developing programs for anyone doing any kind of work or business overseas, even just studying in other countries. My area includes most of Asia.” Now he was starting to sound like a brochure. He cleared his throat. “You know, so they don’t derail a deal or get fired from a job because they inadvertently insult their host.”
“Sounds interesting,” she said, clearly trying not to yawn. “You must have to be pretty knowledgeable and diplomatic to be successful at it.”
“I’m pretty good at judging situations and not acting precipitously,” he said modestly.
Tess gave a sudden wide smile that counteracted the yawn and made Ian forgive her for it. “I would be a dead loss at that,” she admitted.
Michael hugged her closer to him. “I’m glad you’re just the way you are,” he said with such a look of affection in his eyes that Ian’s jaw dropped. Quickly averting his eyes, Ian focused on the football game. He heard the distinct sounds of kissing and leaned closer to the television.
“I think we’re embarrassing Ian,” Tess said breathlessly when Michael let her up for air.
“I can’t hear you,” Ian said. “I’m not noticing anything. How ’bout them Chiefs?”
• • •
Tess swung the bedroom door open and charged into the room, making enough commotion to rattle the lamps. “He’s camping out,” she said. The drama in her voice made Greta, well accustomed to Tess’s exuberances, look up from her laptop.
“He who?”
“Ian, of course.”
Of course. Did she care about anything Ian was doing? She did not. She turned her attention back to the laptop.
“He’s got a sleeping bag on the floor of his bedroom,” Tess said, as if an Army man hadn’t experienced far worse privations in the course of his training and his deployments. “I went to double-check the dimensions of that bay window, like you asked me to, and I saw it.” She sounded like she’d spotted him sleeping on the sidewalk under the bridge.
As she spoke, she marched over to the drapes and pulled them open as if to emphasize the contrast between Greta’s surroundings and Ian’s. The autumn Kansas sun poured into the room, mellower than the summer sunlight but still bright enough to make Greta blink. Occasionally she had to think hard about why she’d invited Tess to be her business partner. Her days would be significantly quieter — not to mention dimmer — if she hadn’t.
“I thought he was living in an extended stay hotel until the house was ready,” Greta said, shifting position on her lavishly furnished king-sized bed and not for a moment considering the difference between her comfy pillow-top mattress and a sleeping bag on the floor.
“He clai
ms he’d rather be uncomfortable at home than uncomfortable in a hotel.”
“Hmm,” Greta said. That sounded precisely like Ian. It was also exactly how she, in the same situation, would feel. But she wouldn’t under any circumstances stoop to using a sleeping bag. He was doing that just to goad her. She gave an elaborate shrug of unconcern. “Not my problem,” she said. If he thought the fact that he was sleeping on the floor would stir her to quick action, he was gravely mistaken. She had other clients and took care of them all equally. Some more equally than others, she admitted, but who could blame her?
“But he’s coming over all the time,” Tess said, flopping onto the bed. She hadn’t brought the morning coffee. She was probably too annoyed over Ian to want to waste time standing quietly in line when she could be complaining to Greta. Yet Greta would find dealing with said complaint far easier if she had a cup of coffee in her hand. Tess couldn’t be expected to think of everything.
“He’s over there all the time,” Tess emphasized. “And I hate to ask Michael to tell him to stop … ”
Ah. Greta peered over the tops of her glasses at her sister. Now the reason for the drama — and the foregone coffee — became clear.
She marveled at Ian’s plan. It was the perfect way to pressure her into moving faster on the job. She admitted that she hadn’t precisely made his project a priority, and it did keep slipping to the bottom of her to-do list somehow. But still. He was good at finding a person’s weaknesses, she had to give him credit for that.
No, she didn’t have to do any such thing. There was nothing to admire in a manipulative man, unmindful of other people’s feelings. There was nothing likeable in that, or in him. Right? She did not like him at all. Not the devilish gleam in those gray eyes, not the appraising look he got in them when he thought she wasn’t watching, not the easy chuckle when she did or said something that surprised or amused him, not the decisiveness with which he made his choices and the confidence with which he stood by them. Even when he was absolutely wrong, as with the curios.