by Lyn Cote
“I’m washing.” He noticed for the first time her brown eyes were the color of dark toffee. Gazing into them, he took the dish cloth she handed him and sank his hands into the basin. “Yow!” He pulled his hands out of the water and reached over to turn on the cold water handle. “I know some like it hot, but not that hot!”
“Sorry.” She took a fresh cotton cloth embroidered with faded red-and-blue teapots out of the drawer and dried the first glass he handed her. He knew he had to broach the topic his parent had forced on him, but not yet.
Mesmerized by her tangible effect on him, he worked without words. He wanted nothing to interrupt this mood, this spell Cat wove around him. She hummed snatches of a hymn, “Bringing in the Sheaves,” then an old rock-and-roll hit, and more. They worked together in the near silence—just the swish of the dishrag, the trickle of the water and Cat’s soft soprano. The peace and the rhythm of the shared task soothed Gage’s frazzled nerves. The creamy nape of her neck, so close, intrigued him.
He watched her hands as they moved—completely efficient, no lost motion. Gage’s delicious consciousness of Cat spun a web around him, invisible but real. Drawing away from temptation, Gage straightened. Glancing around the kitchen, he recalled what Cat had said to Samantha about living with four generations of antiques. Beside them, a small black antique fan oscillated slowly back and forth keeping the warm air moving. Everything in the kitchen from the round oak pedestal table and ladder-backed chairs to the glass-covered cabinets was from years past—even the silverware and china he washed. The gleam of worn, scrolled silver plate and the gilded band around each ivory plate shone among the bubbles in the dishpan and deepened the mellow mood he was being drawn into.
Get your mind on business. You have business to discuss tonight.
“This is just my everyday stuff. I didn’t have time to bring out the good china and silver,” Cat apologized.
He looked at her. Did he look like he was thinking about utensils? “This was perfect.” It suited Cat. Everyday silver. Not stainless steel, silver plate. Bet had told him Cat lived with—and used—thousands of dollars worth of antiques daily. Maybe that was one reason why she’d showed this bond to her family.
Cat grinned suddenly. “Our good silver, the sterling, is stolen goods.”
“What?” She’d startled him.
She giggled. “My great-grandmother Catherine Hadley, the banker’s daughter, the one who lived in Hadley House, was unmarried and thirty. One day she drove her gig out here. This was about 1900 or so. My great-grandfather Joshua had lost his wife six months before. His mother was living with him and taking care of his two little boys.” She paused.
“So?” Her eyes had crinkled up with her amusement. Her lashes were thick and golden brown from the sun.
“Great-grandmother walked in and shocked Joshua’s mother by taking a tour of the whole house and grounds. Then she sat down to tea. When my grandfather came in, she asked to speak to him alone.”
“Go on.” The curling wisps of hair around her face fascinated him. They had been bleached white-blond from the sun.
“She proposed to Joshua.” She laughed. A sunny sound which wrapped around his heart.
“She what?” He halted with a dish in hand.
Cat nodded gleefully.
“What did your great-grandfather say?” Gage smoothed the dishrag over another ivory china plate. He handed it to her. She took it, but he held it a fraction longer than necessary, linking them for a second.
“Joshua said her father would disown her if she married a poor dirt farmer.”
“And?” he coaxed.
“Catherine said she didn’t care. She thought they would suit each other. So to avoid opposition, two days later, they eloped to Keokuk.”
“Let me guess, she brought the silver with her.” Gage handed her the dish. What an idea. Obviously, Cat had inherited her great-grandmother’s ability to take action. What had Joshua’s first reaction been to Catherine’s proposal? Shock? Or had he already been admiring Catherine Hadley from afar? Gage’s heart sped up a beat or two.
“Yes, she brought all the sterling and all her late mother’s jewelry. She claimed it as her inheritance. Her father was furious.” Cat dried the plate, then set it on the stack of plates in the cabinet to her right.
“Did he ever forgive her?”
“No, unfortunately not.” Cat fell silent.
So Gage wasn’t the only one who was a disappointment to a parent. “Do you think they were happy?” He watched her closely. Cat would tell him. She never withheld the truth. Had the banker’s daughter and the poor dirt farmer found happiness?
“Yes, they had five children together and both of them were highly thought of in Eden. Catherine was a suffragist and marched in front of the state capitol.”
“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.” Gage went on, washing and handing dishes to Cat. This evening was nearly over and he still needed to discuss Plan B with her. Though he should have thought of a smooth way to bring up the subject, nothing had come to mind. Cat, the lady herself, had kept intruding, lifting his thoughts away from business. As a salesman, he knew better than to just drop an idea on someone, but time was slipping away in the quiet kitchen. He might just as well go ahead. “I have a favor to ask you.”
She looked up into Farrell’s face. Did he realize his scar’s redness had faded since April? Everyone only seemed to see his handsome features. Didn’t they see the man whose green eyes revealed so much more? Now he looked like he was in pain. Was his leg hurting him? Or what could be so difficult to ask her? “Yes?”
Farrell’s troubled expression deepened. “I know you are not going to like it, but I need to ask you.”
“What?” His somber mood drew her sympathy. She took a step closer. They almost touched. His nearness had been playing havoc with her insides all evening.
He inhaled deeply, and his hands rested on the side of the plastic basin. “My brother needs a job. He just hasn’t been able to settle down in one place after college.”
Cat tried to read between the lines. “Is that why your parents came for a visit?” She’d sensed something was wrong.
“Partly. They’re not happy with my decision to leave the Chicago area. You probably understood my mother is disappointed about the ending of my engagement to Daria, too.”
She touched his wrist lightly, wordlessly asking for another item to rinse and dry. The feel of his warm skin under her fingertips made it hard to pull away.
With his chin tucked low, he began intently washing a handful of silverware, but his concentration on the chore couldn’t mask his gloom.
Why had he mentioned Daria, the woman who had broken their engagement, Cat wondered? Was he regretting their breakup? Whatever kind of woman Daria might be, she had been foolish to push Farrell away over something like a scar. Did she think men like Gage grew on trees? Cat wanted to touch his shoulder, tell him how sorry she was he’d been hurt. She couldn’t. They were only business partners, and this intimacy she was feeling had nothing to do with business.
“My brother and parents don’t get along.” His voice was moody, a tone she’d never heard from him before. “They wanted him to get a degree in banking—”
Cat couldn’t stop herself. The idea of Harry with his ponytail and earring as a banker forced her to laugh. “I don’t see Harry as a banker!”
“No.” Gage half smiled at her. “He has two fine arts degrees.”
Cat shook her head. “He’s your renegade. He probably would have gotten along well with my great-grandmother.”
“Probably.” He handed her the silverware, and his voice deepened. “I was thinking he might be the answer to our problem of extra help for the Hadley bid.”
His low voice had activated little jumps and skips in her stomach. Cat looked into his pine-green eyes, then looked down at the dark-red paint on the wood floor. She stopped rinsing the silverware and turned this idea about his brother over her mind. “Is your brother a ha
rd worker?”
“If he’s doing something he likes.” Gage appeared relieved at this question. “He likes landscaping, and he also knows how to garden and how to research on the Internet. You would still design the garden for Hadley, oversee the project, but he could do the other work.”
“I see.” She began drying the silverware, working the soft cloth with her thumbs over the bowl of each spoon, the blade of each knife. “But how can we afford another full-time worker?” She knew to a penny what she needed to meet their obligations, especially making payments to Gage according to the terms of the partnership. She stood so close, his breath feathered the short hair above her ear, tickling her. She ignored a shiver up her spine.
“Harry would work for minimum wage, and he won’t be full-time. He’s already worked out a deal with Fanny. He gets free room and breakfast in return for doing some maintenance work. And she has an old bike he can use to get around town.”
“It sounds like he wants to stay in Eden.” She didn’t blame him. Working for minimum wage in Eden would be preferable to living with his mother, who couldn’t see Harry would never fit the life she wanted for him.
“He said something about the art department at Eden College….”
“It’s the college’s pride and joy.” Cat put each piece of silver where it belonged in the drawer beside her. Metal on metal sounded a steady chink-chink. Concentrating on the task lessened Gage’s sway over her. Well, at least, it might.
“I hadn’t realized the college’s art department had such a good reputation.”
Cat nodded. “That’s one of the reasons the college cooperated with the town to get the Hadley House on the National Register. The college’s yearly art show wanted a more distinctive setting.”
“Really?” He handed her another handful of silverware. “What do you think?”
She thought they’d been alone together too long tonight. She painstakingly began drying the last of the flatware one by one. She felt Gage’s attention on her. This only rattled her more. Keep your mind on the subject, Cat. But in the end, only one answer could be given. This wasn’t just business. This was family. She couldn’t say no to Gage’s only brother. They’d scrape by somehow. “All right. I think we will go ahead and take this as a step of faith.”
“Step of faith?” He looked directly into her eyes.
She returned his gaze, standing straight in spite of her fatigue and his sway over her. “I’ve been praying that something would happen to make it possible to make a bid on the Hadley House and your brother’s arrival has done that. We may not make a profit, but the money earned will cover our expenses. We’ll let Phil work with Harry, too, so your brother won’t have to do it all alone.”
“Great! Thank you.” He reached for her hand to shake it, but instead he caught her free left hand with its palm up. Cat’s hand wasn’t soft and pampered like Daria’s had been. Cat’s palm bore the marks of the hard work she did each day. His thumb moved over it in an unplanned caress. The desire to press his lips down onto her palm rippled through him. He glanced to her face mere inches away.
The space between them became charged with awareness. He took a step closer. Her head tilted invitingly. He bent forward to claim her soft mouth.
The phone rang.
Gage jerked upright.
Cat spun away and reached for the black wall phone. Then she handed it to him. “It’s your brother.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes, and he didn’t blame her.
Two busy days had passed since Gage and Cat had agreed to go ahead with the Hadley estate bid. The first day, Harry had camped out all day and night in Gage’s office in Chuck’s basement. Even while Gage slept with a pillow over his eyes, Harry, online, had harvested information on Victorian garden design and on nurseries that stocked some of the rare vintage shrubs and flowers. The second day, Gage and Cat had taken turns helping measure the site itself, which included a tour inside and outside the Hadley estate. The grounds covered a full city block just down from the town square.
Now Gage, Cat and Harry sat around Cat’s round, old oak kitchen table, hovering over the computer. Cat and Harry worked together planning the design. Gage, beside him with a calculator and price sheets, which Harry had printed out earlier, kept the running tally on costs. As the three of them worked together, a way to make this project easier on Hope’s Garden’s finances had occurred to Gage. But could he get Cat to agree?
Once more in Cat’s cozy kitchen, he recalled vividly what happened two nights ago. Cat and he had washed dishes together in this kitchen, and he had nearly kissed her. That near kiss had been a close call. It would have been out of line to kiss Cat when he had no intention of pursuing a relationship with her. After Daria, he had no thought of taking another chance on love anytime soon—especially not with his business partner.
Frankly, he couldn’t even remember why he’d become engaged to Daria. But they’d been thrown together in their careers and socially until they’d become a couple. He and Daria had grown up in the same neighborhood, gone to the same schools. She’d understood his life. What she hadn’t understood was Gage hadn’t settled on their shared life-style for good. The accident had ripped away the smooth husk of his life, and he came away changed. He and Daria had no longer been a match.
“Harry, I can’t believe you got this all together in just one day.” Cat lifted the stack of pages beside the laptop.
Gage kept his face toward the calculator to hide his smile. He wanted to say, “I told you so.” Cat had done a complete one-eighty about computers and the Internet. He had known she could do it. Satisfaction expanded inside him. He also wanted to say, “I’m proud of you,” but he couldn’t say that, either.
Harry kept his eye on the screen and his hand on the mouse. “I could have gotten more. There are tons of gardening and Victoriana sites on the Web. Now, Gage, we need you to run the figures for the rose garden that’s just off the side veranda.”
“Okay.” Gage flipped through his stack of pages. “How many did you need?”
Harry looked up, his face serious. “Two dozen. Various colors. Make sure they’re marked vintage. No new hybrids.”
Gage nodded. He was glad his brother was here. He enjoyed the way Harry had taken on the project wholeheartedly. But he didn’t like Cat sitting so close to his brother. Harry liked to flirt with pretty women.
In an unusual, clipped businesslike tone, Harry asked, “Now, Cat, for the herbaceous border, do you have enough ageratum, alyssum, begonias, coleus, scented geraniums, petunias and zinnias in stock?”
“Everything, but the scented geraniums,” Cat murmured.
She hovered around Harry. Gage clenched his jaw. She didn’t have to hang over the computer and Harry like that.
Harry pointed at his brother.
“Right.” Gage nodded belatedly. “Vintage scented geraniums. How many?”
“Three dozen.” Harry turned the screen, so Cat could see the design better. “How’s that?”
Cat’s answer was drowned out by the ringing of the phone. She answered it, “Hello, Mrs. High. How can I help you?”
A pause.
“Yes, we are making a bid on the Hadley estate. But we might not get the project. It all depends on which bid and design the commission prefers.” After a few more pleasantries, Cat hung up.
Gage gave her a questioning look.
Cat propped her hand on the back of Gage’s chair and leaned toward him. “Phil told his mother he might be helping out on the Hadley estate.”
“Didn’t she want him to?” Gage asked. Reveling in her nearness, he studied her freckles, tiny dots of gold, on her arm.
“No, she was thrilled.”
“Phil’s a good kid,” Harry said from behind the laptop. “Said he’d work extra for free. Seemed to think the Hadley estate was a big deal.”
“Really?” Gage turned off the calculator. The overhead lamp highlighted the natural blond in Cat’s hair making it appear interlaced with spun twenty-four-carat gold.<
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Cat let go of Gage’s chair and resting her forearms on the ladder-backed chair, leaned farther forward. The curve of her neck drew his attention to her soft, rounded earlobe. “This project has turned into something good for Eden. I mean, more than we first thought,” Cat said seriously. “This is a way for the three different groups in town to work on something together for the good of the whole community.”
“How do you mean?” Gage asked, very aware of the light fragrance coming from Cat’s hair. He didn’t think she wore cologne, but her shampoo must have been some enticing blend of herbs and flowers. These flashes of attraction to her came with more frequency each day. Stick to business, he told himself.
Cat bit her bottom lip as she frowned. “I’ll try to explain. Before the new people came—”
“You mean the new people attracted by the Venture Corporation software firm?” Gage asked.
From pressure, her lower lip flushed rosy. She nodded. “Before, there were just two groups; the townies like me and the college people like Hetty.”
“And never the twain shall meet?” Gage grinned approving the change in Cat toward the newcomers. He’d seen firsthand how customers like Samantha and Dex no longer intimidated her.
“Something like that.” She smiled back at him. “But the new group moving in kind of shook things loose. Now the townies want to spruce things up in the older part of town—”
“To look better in comparison to the yuppie Paradise Hills?” With raised eyebrows, Harry glanced at them over the laptop screen.
Scraping it on the hardwood floor, Cat pulled a chair out and sat down within inches of Gage—suddenly much too close for his comfort. He drew in a ragged breath and studied the row of numbers in front of him.
She answered, “That may be part of it. Anyway, Eden is taking new pride in itself and really wants to be in that state guide next year.”