by Mara Purl
Miranda studied him. “You go after what you want, don’t you?” Why did I say that? That’s something Meredith would say. Her sister was the assertive one. Miranda’s brash comment felt good for the first instant, but then she chafed in the aftermath, feeling out of character.
He flashed a smile. “Yeah, that’s what they tell me.”
Zack Calvin heard his own words and nearly barked out a laugh. Great. Impress her by being a pompous ass. Though he managed to suppress the self-criticism, he felt gripped by the odd sensation that something had gone missing. What did I come here looking for? He glanced around the room again, as though he might find it. Am I looking for the painting? But it’s back at the gallery. Then he brought his gaze back to stare again at Miranda, aware he was making her uncomfortable.
She’s gonna think I’m a nut case. But there’s something about her. She looks familiar, though I’m sure we’ve never met before. I knew from her photo that she was great looking, but she… she evanesces—even in overalls.
Miranda fidgeted, flung her hair over her shoulder.
Long, silky hair. Oh man, don’t look at that. You did not come up the coast to involve yourself with another woman.
He tugged up on his waistband. I came here to find out about her painting. I felt some pull of recognition the moment I saw it. “Listen, do you have time to knock off work for a while?”
“Knock off?” she looked astonished.
“We could go to the gallery and complete the sale.”
“Complete the sale? But I just explained—” She paused. “Thanks, but… Listen, I’m sorry, I’ve got a lot to do.” She stepped around him and put her hand on the knob—the one that wasn’t holding the paintbrush—of her front door.
She’s showing me the door, but I can’t leave town without that painting. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll pay any price you’re asking … you know, for the painting.”
She seemed to consider this, and he watched, intrigued, as her expression transformed reluctantly from the solitary focus of the artist, to the practical openness of the business person. “That’s a very attractive offer. But, you see, that painting is already contracted as a loaner to the gallery through the end of the year. There’s nothing I can do about it until the contract expires.”
He felt himself triggered into negotiation-mode. Is it her resistance? Or the fact that she’s using business language? Either way, a fresh idea sprang into his head. “How about this. Would you accept a commission from me—a work of the same size so you still get your price—to do another painting, say of a slightly different view of that same location? It is a real place, right?”
“It is. A commission… well, yes, I do commissioned pieces. I’m actually doing one right now. I’m not sure how quickly I could get to yours. I’ll need to put you in touch with my representative, and—”
“—We can figure out the details later,” he interrupted. “For today, how about if we go look at that spot? The cove, I mean. Frankly there’s something about that place that just fascinates me.” Maybe that’s it… the thing I feel I’ve been looking for. “Is it around here?”
“It’s not too far.” She looked down at the paintbrush she was still holding. “I have brushes to put away, paint tubes to close. Can you give me a few min—”
“—Of course,” he interrupted her again. “I’ll wait right here.”
“Okay! I’ll be as quick as I can. If we don’t hurry, we’ll lose the light.” She looked down at his highly polished loafers. “I hope you brought something else to wear on your feet?”
“Oh.” He looked surprised, but recovered quickly. “I did. I mean, they’re not exactly hiking boots, but they’ll work fine.”
“Okay, good, My hiking boots are in my garage and I’ll grab them as we leave.” She turned, then stopped to offer, “Um… have a seat.”
“Okay.”
“Would you like some water before we walk?”
“I’m fine.” Zack assured her. “Take your time!”
He watched as she darted across the large, open room into what must be her studio, heard soft thuds and lightly swishing water. He stepped into her livingroom area and glanced around.
Pleasant enough. Looks like a comfortable sofa. Nice woodsy colors. Some kind of quilt thrown over the end. He moved to the sliding glass doors that showed a balcony, then looked beyond. Not a panorama, but a nice view—ocean in the distance through this stand of tall trees.
He turned and took a step back into the room where he now could see a huge canvas mounted on the perpendicular interior wall. Wow, is that. …? He looked sideways at the window view again, then back at the painting. It’s like a mirror … pulling in the very view she sees out her glass doors. He bent to read the title of the piece: “Home In the Trees.” The window or the canvas… not sure which I like better!
A few minutes later, she rushed out of the studio, flashed him a smile and ran down the set of stairs located along the far wall. Maybe her bedroom is on the lower level, he thought I wonder if it’s a feminine boudoir or whether it looks rustic like the rest of her house. Nope, nope, don’t go there.
Miranda Jones brushed her hair smooth, clipped it into a barrette and glanced at her face in the mirror. Who is this guy waiting for me upstairs? Why did I agree to accept yet another commissioned work when I have so many deadlines? Well, at least Zelda will be proud of me for taking on a new client. In any case, it’ll be fun to paint another view of the Cove. I can do a preliminary watercolor in my new journal. Oh, and that means I’ll need my camera today. Glad I just put in new film.
Her phone rang. She grabbed the receiver automatically before the answering machine did. “Hello?”
“Darling, I’ve found you in again!”
Zelda has uncanny timing. “Oh, hi. Listen, I only have a second. Someone’s waiting for me.”
“Darling, you sound so excited. Who is this person? He—it is a he, I trust—must be quite interesting to take you away from your work.”
“Yes, Zelda, it’s a he.”
“Oh my! Miranda gets a social life.” Zelda teased like a Portuguese Man-of-War, floating innocently on the surface, stingers ready just below the water line.
“He’s interested in my work, Zelda, and I left him standing in my foyer. I have to go.”
“You’ve let him into your house? A man you don’t know? My, he must have made quite an impression. Where’s he from?”
That’s one question I can answer. “Santa Barbara.”
“Well, if he’s anybody, I must know him.”
Maybe if I tell Zelda the vitals, I can get her off the phone. “His name’s Zack Calvin. He seems… substantial.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“He hasn’t mentioned that yet.”
“Hmph! Sounds secretive.”
“Zelda, we’ve hardly had a chance to talk! He says he wants to commission a painting.”
“Oh! Well, in that case, I’ll let you go, dear. I’ll call you back.”
“I know you will!” Miranda hung up, hurried through a quick change of clothes, then stood still for a moment to consider the stranger waiting in her living room.
Just then, the gray tabby slid through her legs, rubbing his body against her calf. She bent to pick him up, and as she held him against her chest, he squinted his eyes and began to purr.
“Well, Tab,” she whispered in the cat’s ear. “Just what am I getting myself into?”
Chapter 10
Jack Sawyer didn’t answer Kevin’s question right away. The schedule for the new house was already rattling through his own brain.
He’d been leaning one hand heavily on his desk; now he pushed himself upright while hoisting his mug of coffee. Staring into the cup left over from morning, he saw a waxy residue had formed on its surface. With a shrug, he took a sip anyway, and a drop of cold coffee rolled down his mustache, dripping onto the change orders for the Cla
rke House. Swearing, Jack mopped up the spill with a crumpled paper napkin, then blotted his mustache.
“Look, Kevin, I said I want that pillar removed. That’s what the client wants, and that’s what I want.” He stared purposefully at Kevin, his gaze boring into the young man.
“Okay, B-boss,” Kevin stammered, “but before we’ve always followed these guidelines … you know the ones, where it says ‘the grade of steel to be used for—’”
Jack’s brittle patience snapping, he stood up so abruptly he knocked over his cup, the remaining coffee sloshing out and splattering onto the already-stained hardwood floor.
Kevin bent to pick up the cup.
“Leave that!” Jack shouted. “I don’t care what it says in some ignorant rulebook! The pillar we’re removing was never weight-bearing in any case, so its removal can’t jeopardize the structure!” Jack took a breath. “I’ve been a successful builder for thirty-two years, and I know what I’m doing.” I’m talking fast again. And Kevin shuts down when I talk too fast. Jack slowed his speech to a deliberate pace, as though trying to instruct a teenager. “Are you going to trust some book or are you going to do what your employer tells you to do?”
Kevin seemed to consider this during a long pause. “I guess I’ll do what you tell me to do. After all, you’re the boss and everything.”
“And everything.” Jack added emphasis, then watched Kevin’s face with interest while he apparently processed the comment. Kevin can sometimes make complicated things simple, but he also has a maddening way of making simple things complicated…. “What’s the date the inspector said he’d be taking another look at the property?”
Kevin rustled through the closest stack of papers and seemed elated at coming up with the right one. “Here it is … uh … the eleventh of next month.”
Jack did a quick calculation of the number of days required before the center pillar would be out. Had to cut corners somewhere to keep to Clarke’s budget. I’ve used a lower grade of steel for years, and I know it’s good. Used it for the foundation pilings. Saw no reason not to also use it for the larger central archway Clarke wanted. Those two pillars on either side bear the weight. The plans gave us a range of what steel to use. The inspector will see that when he comes, and he won’t even be able to cite us on any technicality. Jack suppressed a smile.
“So, Boss, we’ll have to let the inspector review the change orders for the central archway before—”
The phone rang, interrupting Kevin—and obviating Jack’s need to make up some excuse about the inspection.
Kevin started moving toward the outer office. “I’ll get it out there, Boss,” and hurried away.
Jack shouted after him. “You get on with your work. I’ll catch the phone.” He cleared his throat, then picked up. “Sawyer Construction.”
“Mr. Sawyer? This is Russell Clarke.”
“Oh, hello, Mr. Clarke.” Jack glanced at his watch. Almost four here in California. If he’s calling from his headquarters in Philadelphia, it’s after hours. Or maybe he’s already started traveling west. “I’ve been looking forward to hearing from you.”
We’ll meet this week … assuming we come to agreement on the change fees. Modifications to any original home design—and the fact that they always increased the cost—were invariably the most enervating part of the construction business. But Jack knew better than to alienate an important client. He tried to sound reassuring and pleasant, a technique he’d all but lost over the years. “So, what have you decided?”
“Let me ask you this—Oh, hold on.”
There was a murmuring as Clarke covered the receiver to speak with someone else who must’ve interrupted. Jack, wrestling his growing impatience, waited until Clarke finally returned his attention to the call.
“Sawyer, do we have an agreement that you’ll complete all the changes I requested and commit to doing it for the figure you quoted me?”
“Yes,” Jack answered quickly. “I’ll stand by my revised estimate.”
“In that case,” Clarke said without hesitation, “I’ll sign the agreement when we meet.”
“Excellent. Then we’ll proceed with those changes. And I look forward to meeting with you when you come up from … Santa Barbara, did you say?”
“Yes, I’ll be there briefly on business and then will drive directly to Milford-Haven.”
“Very good. When you know what time you’ll be arriving, call me and we’ll meet at my office to sign the document. Then we can tour your house.”
“Fine.” Clarke hung up.
Jack replaced his handset, the exuberance of closing a deal beginning to surge. Great I’ve hooked such a major client this year. Yet there’s something about Clarke—something unpredictable—that makes me uneasy.
Kevin came back into Jack’s office. “Was that the inspector?”
“No, no, that was Clarke, and he says he wants to go ahead with the changes to his house.” Jack paused, an image of the unfinished structure flashing in his mind. “I don’t know why he calls it a house. The place is a mansion. And it has the price tag to go with it.”
Kevin Ransom knew Clarke’s agreeing to the new estimate should be good news. After all, such a big job had already meant improved wages, more men on the payroll, and better cash flow for the company. But he also recalled comments his boss had made when Mr. Clarke first presented those change orders—comments that indicated such a house might need still more variances and special permissions from the Coastal Commission, the Environmental Planning Commission and from neighbors.
Jack again interrupted his train of thought, and Kevin fastened eagerly on his employer’s sudden question, relieved to get out from under Jack’s intense gaze. He stares like that when he gets into his “I’m the boss and don’t forget it” mood.
Jack demanded, “Where’s that standard agreement with the list of the changes Clarke wants? We’ll need him to sign it when he gets here.”
Kevin’s long fingers danced through the files on the edge of Jack’s desk until he found what he needed. “Right here. It says—”
“Oh, I know what it says. He wants the deck enlarged; he wants the clerestory windows—the ones I’d designed in the first place; and he wants the center of the house unencumbered by that damn pillar that blocked the view. Now we’re do the house the way it should be done.” Jack seemed to be looking past him, eyes fixing on some invisible spot on the opposite wall—another one of his weird habits.
“Uh, Boss, I thought you said you couldn’t build it to code with some of the changes he wanted.”
“That’s no longer a problem.”
Kevin’s instinct was to question Sawyer further—not to be argumentative, which wasn’t his nature, but from a deep desire to understand how something could be true one day, but not true the next. “It isn’t? Well, how come?”
Kevin watched Jack’s gaze swing back to him. “There’s more than one way to build a house, Kevin. The longer you work for me, the more you’ll realize that.”
Kevin retreated to the outer office, closing the door behind him. He stood for a moment, processing what his boss had said. Jack’s always pushed back on rules when he thinks they’re stupid. But I’ve never seen him take a chance on something he thinks might be dangerous.
Grabbing a Natural Sassafras Soda from the office fridge, Kevin plopped down in front of his desk, opened his large spiral-bound calendar and began jotting notes on the events of the day.
“CH: Installed hearthstone.” He used initials for each job—“CH” stood for Clarke House—and tracked the dates of the major installations. Though informal, his logs had often been used to provide client reports, or even to settle the occasional arguments that came up, both within the company and with suppliers.
Glad that piece of marble’s finally in place. No more gaping hole the crew has to watch out for. And we got it done even though we were still a man short. Burt did sound tired when he called in sick again.
What else happened today? Oh
yeah, photos. The visit from the Milford-Haven News photographer had been brief, which Kevin appreciated. Any visitor to a job tended to interrupt the flow of work.
What he couldn’t figure out was how come the newspaper thought people would be interested in pictures of some house that didn’t even have walls yet. Everyone was talking about this new house, saying it would be “spectacular.” I don’t care about that so much. I just want to make sure it’s safe and sound.
The sky would still be bright for a while, but for Sally, the end of the workday had arrived, and she was already looking forward to a quiet evening.
Shutters and bye-bye. Such childhood phrases surfaced unobstructed when she was tired … or when she spoke with Mama. Sally remembered every detail of life on the farm in Arkansas, and she could still see Mama closing the shutters at night. “Come on, Sally girl. Shutters and bye-bye,” Mama would say. “Time to go to sleep.”
A moment earlier, she’d checked the kitchen, where the coffee baskets were filled, all set for tomorrow morning. Sally’d already let the staff go home and knew they’d have left everything prepared for the next day. Still, she glanced back into the restaurant. The chairs are upended on the tables, the overhead lights are out, the salts-and-peppers refilled. But I forgot to ask Miranda about paintin’ that wall. I b’lieve I’ll give her a call.
Sally entered her office and banged the door shut. With the whole place empty, the sound wouldn’t disturb anyone else, and for her it resounded like the promise of privacy.
Before it slipped her mind, she dialed Miranda’s phone number, not surprised to hear the answering machine. “Uh, hey there, Girlfriend, this is Sally. I wanted to ask you about somethin’. I’d like to know if you could paint my wall. I mean … not just paint it like a house painter would do, but, you know, with a real pretty scene. In my magazines, they talk all about that trompy loil. Can you do that kinda thing? Anyway, let’s talk about it when you have time. Bye bye!”
Sally set down the receiver, mentally checking that call off her to-do list. Oo-ee! Now I can take off my shoes! At moments like this, Sally indulged the luxury of talking to herself. “Aahh, that feels good. My poor little toes all squished up in those shoes the whole day! Brother, has it been a long one.” She didn’t know exactly who she was talking to. Nor did she admit how much loneliness she was trying to keep at bay.