Handyman Special

by Pamela Browning

  In the midst of all this sat a round table covered in pristine white linen and laid with silver flatware and gold-rimmed china so translucent that the light of the candles in their silver candlesticks shone through it. The table was centered with a low alabaster bowl of pink carnations garnished with fern and wisps of baby's breath.

  "Adam!" Sage finally managed to say. "Why did you—how did you—but it's lovely!" She stared up at him, lost for words.

  "You said to surprise you."

  And then she heard the romantic strains of a stringed instrument, and out of the shadows strolled a short, thin man playing a mandolin. He wore a white open-necked shirt with balloon sleeves, and Sage thought she must be seeing things.

  "Adam?" she whispered.

  He was enjoying her amazement. She reminded him of a little kid experiencing wonder and delight. "Sage, this is Vito. He's not only a crackerjack mechanic, but he's also a pretty good mandolin player. Would you like to sit down?"

  Vito smiled and bowed and discreetly returned to the corner of the room before he resumed playing. Adam swept her chair out from under the table, and Sage fairly swooned into it.

  Adam sat down across from her. "I'd like you to meet Luigi, too, but he's working in the kitchen." His eyes glinted with humor.

  Sage stared at him.

  "He's cooking."

  "Cooking."

  "It so happens that Luigi is one of the finest pasta cooks I've ever met. He's from Abruzzi." Adam acted as though this explained everything.

  "Abruzzi?"

  "The province in Italy where all the best pasta cooks learn their art. The best pasta in Italy is made in home kitchens, not in restaurants. Did you know that?"

  She didn't, but she refused to be distracted. "I thought Luigi was a mechanic."

  "Oh, he's a fine technician, all right. One of the best. But everyone should have a hobby, don't you think?" Adam smiled at her; he had surprised her. And he was loving every minute of it—loving the expressions of astonishment, amazement and wonder as they swept across Sage's expressive face one after the other, loving the way she looked in her exquisite mauve dress, which complemented her unusual coloring so well—loving, loving, in spite of himself.

  Sage managed, very slowly, to recover her poise. "Of course, everyone should have a hobby. What's yours, Adam?"

  "Surprising you. Have I succeeded?"

  "Yes," she said, and she laughed, her eyes crinkling at the corners. He wondered how long it had been since anyone had done something special just for her. She seemed to be enjoying this so much. He was glad that he could provide this pleasure for her. Sage worked so hard, took her responsibilities so seriously. She needed a diversion, and Adam wanted this evening to be exceptional for her.

  "Ah, here comes our wine," Adam said. Sage looked around to see a heavyset man bearing a bottle of wine to the table.

  "Sage, this is Luigi."

  "Good evening," Luigi said very distinctly.

  Sage greeted him and told him, "Your English is excellent."

  Luigi turned to Adam quizzically.

  "He's been practicing those two words all afternoon," Adam explained hastily. "They're the only ones he knows." He spoke a few Italian words to Luigi, who then poured the wine with great ceremony.

  Sage sat back in her chair and allowed herself a sip of wine. She was still overwhelmed at all of it. Adam—and Luigi and Vito, of course—had gone to a lot of trouble. The decoration of the room alone must have taken most of the day. She smiled at Adam over the rim of her wineglass, reveling in the enchantment of the moment.

  When he saw her eyes glistening, Adam reached over and covered her hand with his. Sage gazed at him with unrestrained adoration, and like a lightning bolt it struck him.

  Sage was in love with him, whether she knew it or not. He might love her—in fact, he probably did love her. But he had no intention of letting her know, and he didn't want her to love him. In that flash of stunning perception, he decided that she had mistaken his desire to please her for something far more serious than he'd intended.

  Sage shouldn't love him, because at the end of the year, he'd move on. If she loved him, she'd be hurt. He couldn't allow himself to trifle with her affections because it would only mean heartbreak for her in the end. And there was no such thing as just a touch of a broken heart. For Sage, he knew the heartbreak would be agonizing.

  She needed to know what to expect from him, but how would he ever tell her that he wasn't going to let her fall in love with him? Should he be forthright? Blurt it out? Work the after-dinner conversation around to it?

  With his heart on guard, Adam worried the thought until the pasta arrived, despairing at the way Sage's light, luminous eyes glowed in excitement. How could he feel this way, liking the way she responded to him, yet not wanting it? He was torn by ambivalence. He'd never felt like this before.

  "Are you having a good time?" he asked.

  "Of course I am," she said, her gaze holding his for a long moment. "This–and you–are amazing, Adam."

  The meal continued, with Sage oblivious to Adam's inner conflict. He liked to watch her having a good time. It meant the world to him that he'd managed to please her, and she was so beautiful in the candlelight that she fairly took his breath away. He steeled himself against her beauty, warning himself not to be carried away by it.

  After a dessert of Luigi's superb ganache cake, after which Sage declared that she would never be able to eat another bite, Adam stood and held out his arm to her, and she took it. Her touch was feather light on his arm, and the pulse in his wrist leaped. Their chemistry sparked magic, but he knew he must not fall under its spell.

  He suggested that they adjourn to the living room and the fire in the fireplace. "Which," he said, purposely keeping his tone light, "I assure you I never leave burning when I'm going out, really going out."

  "How was I to know that you had all this planned? All I could think of was Kalmia Hill's burning down if you persisted in going out and leaving fires untended." She sparkled up at him as they walked across the long foyer.

  "Sage, I appreciate your concern about your investment in Kalmia Hill going up in smoke. But rest assured that I don't leave fires lighted."

  "Don't you?" she said playfully, slanting a challenging look up at him.

  They stopped before the fireplace, and Adam stared down at her for a moment, deciding in an instant to seize this opening.

  He said, more seriously than she'd expected, "Have I lighted any fires that I don't know about?"

  At Adam's words, Sage couldn't help the blush that rose to stain her cheeks. She smiled, bit her lip and resolutely stared into the flickering flames with a shyness she couldn't explain. Since she had initiated it, the double meaning of this conversation didn't escape her, but Adam's purpose in pursuing it did.

  When Adam spoke, his words surprised her. They were as blunt as he could make them. "Sage, I don't want to play games with you," he said abruptly.

  "Games?" Something had changed in him. She stared up at him, wide-eyed. Her eyebrows feathered across her brow like the delicate antennae of moths, and she looked startled. Adam could tell that his sudden frankness had taken Sage by surprise, and he hated it.

  "I'm saying that I could play games with you if I wanted to," he said. "I don't want to. I want honesty between us and—well, no games."

  "I've been honest with you, Adam," she said slowly.

  He took her hand and sat down on one of the settees, pulling her down beside him. He decided to be as straightforward as possible.

  "Sage, you know what kind of unsettled life I lead. I'll be here in Willoree for a year. After that, I'll move on. I don't want you to get your heart set on my staying, because it's unlikely to happen."

  "I didn't think it was," she replied evenly, but inside she realized with dismay, he's telling me it's over and it never really began. He's telling me that he doesn't want me to care about him, because he'll be leaving.

  "I don't want you to get h
urt, Sage," he said soberly. "We can be friends and perhaps lovers, but it can't be permanent."

  What he was really saying was that he didn't want her to love him. He didn't want to hurt her, he said. Yet with his last few sentences he had already hurt her more than he'd ever know. Because she did love him, she realized in that instant. She loved Adam Hracek for his thoughtfulness and his kindness and his eagerness to please and for the way he made her feel. But she knew now in stunned bewilderment that she couldn't let Adam know.

  She lifted her chin. "I have no designs on you, Adam."

  "You may not, Sage," he said slowly. "But I don't think you're the kind of woman who could take an involvement with a man lightly. Am I right?"

  She tried to appear emotionally removed from what they were saying to each other. She didn't know if she succeeded or not. How ironic that he wanted honesty—and that she must hide her love from him!

  "I'm not sure what you mean by involvement," she countered. "If you're talking about going to bed, then you're right. I need my self-respect. So, for me caring must accompany sex."

  Caring, not loving. Well, there was a difference; Adam knew that. He cared for her, and God help him, he loved her.

  She spoke. "You're not the first man I've been attracted to since my divorce, you know." Her pride made her say this. She didn't want him to think she was ready to tumble into his arms because he was the only man to present the opportunity since Gary left.

  "Oh?" He lifted his eyebrows and studied her face. He read suffering there and an unexpected remoteness.

  "I dated a man seriously for the better part of a year. It didn't work out. He married someone else." She shrugged.

  "And what did that do to you? Or am I overstepping my bounds by asking?"

  "It made me sad for a while. I didn't want him, though, by that time. If he couldn't accept Joy—"

  "Is that why you broke it off?"

  "He broke it off." Her eyes met his with the slightest bit of pain unwittingly exposed in their depths. She looked achingly vulnerable in that moment. Did Sage's pain center on the broken romance or on the man's inability to accept her child?

  It was then that he realized that despite his statement that he wanted honesty, he was the one who was not being honest. If he were honest, he would tell her that he loved her. He would tell her now.

  In the fireplace a log crumbled and snapped in a shower of flame. Watching the firelight model Adam's splendid features into a montage of substance and shadow, Sage felt a deep sorrow. Love was so rare—the real thing, anyway. It seemed almost a sacrilege to deny it. But deny it she must. Deny it, or lose him altogether.

  He kissed her because it was the easiest thing to do, because then she would close her eyes and he could escape from their gentle vulnerability and the hurt he didn't want to see. He inclined his head forward and kissed her tenderly, thinking that Sage had the softest lips of any woman, the softest lips he'd ever kissed. It was a vulnerability that made him shudder deep inside, and he wanted to go on kissing her over and over again.

  He cupped her shoulders in his palms and drew her toward him with a sure, steady pressure, but there was no answering touch from her. Her hands lay loosely in her lap, palms up, the fingers gently curved. When his lips left hers, he let his hands slide halfway down her back until his fingers rested on either side of her backbone and his thumbs pressed against her ribs, timing the steady thrum of her heartbeat. He held her for a long moment, conscious of her smooth flesh and delicate bones beneath the thin material of her dress. He wished that her hands would move from her lap and touch him somewhere, anywhere. But they did not.

  She was the one who broke away. "I need to go home, Adam," she said. "I'm teaching an early Sunday-school class tomorrow." It was a bold-faced lie, and she expected him to see right through it.

  "I was hoping you'd stay," he said gravely.

  "No. No, I don't think so." Her voice was firm. He detected no passion in it and no entreaty, and certainly no hint of tears. From the way she was acting, he would never guess that an hour ago he'd thought she was madly in love with him. He was thunderstruck at the idea that he might have been mistaken. Had he misinterpreted her pleasure in the evening as love? Had the light in her eyes only been her expression of delight in the setting and the food?

  "I believe my coat is in the hall closet next to the sun porch," she prompted, her voice mild and devoid of emotion. He started as though jolted out of a trance. She noticed, and he felt like a fool.

  "Right. I'll get it." Adam stood and strode away, leaving her blessedly alone. He didn't know it, but she had to struggle to hold back the tears that would betray her true emotions.

  As he slid her coat from its hanger, Adam wished he'd handled this more skillfully. He'd bungled it, he thought unhappily. Of course, he could have been more adroit if his own emotions had not been balanced on such a fine edge. Had he been wrong to be so abrupt in stating his position? Or perhaps he had been premature, mistaken about her. She'd fielded his discussion of their relationship so coolly that he doubted she cared about him as much as he'd thought she did. It staggered him to think that he had misjudged her. He almost never misjudged people.

  Still, he'd needed to say what he'd said in order to clear the air. He'd wanted her to know from the very beginning that nothing permanent could come of their relationship. And now that she seemed to accept this and agree with it, now that they could pick up from here and go on with a mutually pleasurable friendship, he should feel relieved—shouldn't he?

  He drove her home, watching her surreptitiously. Sage remained calm, quiet, and unflappably low-key. She commented briefly on the weather and ventured an opinion about the possibility of rain on Thanksgiving. It was general chitchat, nothing exciting, nothing out of the ordinary. It was as though he had not said anything serious and their dinner together had been a pleasant evening out and nothing more.

  Sage couldn't believe how smoothly she was carrying this off, talking about everyday topics as though her heart was not breaking. She was sitting in Adam's car, making small talk as though she felt absolutely normal, although what she really wanted to do was sob and sob until the tears would no longer flow.

  The Lamborghini pulled soundlessly into the driveway. It was early, and lights were still on here and there in the house. Sage detected lamp glow behind Irma and Ralph's window shade. Gregory's room was dark, and so was Hayley's.

  At the door, Adam kissed her chastely on the lips.

  Sage smiled slightly. "Thank you, Adam. I had a wonderful evening." She spaced the words carefully, so formally and politely. Not naturally or easily and not the way she really felt. She wanted to throw her arms around his neck and burrow her face into his shirtfront, to drink in his scent of cinnamon and cloves, to let him know she felt something special for him. But she knew that any expression of her feelings would drive him away. And she couldn't let herself be deprived of him. Not yet. Not for a year.

  "Good night, Adam," she said softly, and then she went inside and upstairs without waiting to hear his car pull away.

  She checked Joy quickly, pulling the blanket over Joy's tiny body and tucking it in so that Joy wouldn't kick it off again. At least, no matter what happened, she would always have Joy. Her eyes flooded with sudden thankful tears.

  And then she went into her own room and undressed quickly, abandoning the lovely mauve dress in a heap on the floor. She crept beneath the comforter and curled herself into a small round ball, pressing her clenched hands over the ache of misery between her breasts, where it felt as though a knife was twisting in her heart.

  Adam had said they could be friends and perhaps lovers. He didn't want a permanent commitment. There wasn't any doubt in Sage's mind that she would take whatever portion of himself he offered. She loved him so much that she would take whatever Adam Hracek would give and be glad to get it.

  Sage had once thought that she would never love any man again. How miraculous that she now loved—and how painfully ironic that she
couldn't let Adam know.

  Chapter 8

  "Is it serious?"

  This time it wasn't Ralph asking Sage this particular question. It was Irma, who stood at the kitchen sink with her arms up to the elbows in dishwater as she finished washing up after a particularly delicious multi-course Thanksgiving dinner.

  Ignoring the question for the moment, Sage impatiently twisted the volume knob on the radio until the voluble strains of "The Down Home Gospel Hour" subsided to the level of background music. After she'd entertained Luigi and Vito and Adam for dinner, and after she'd helped Irma in the kitchen all day, and with the prospect of further cleaning up to do, the Down Home Gospel Singers' energetic rendition of "Bringing in the Sheaves" was more than Sage could stand.

  "Music, Mommy!" demanded Joy, getting underfoot as she tugged at the apron Sage wore. "I want music." Joy began to dance, albeit clumsily, to the rhythm. "Bringing in the cheese, bringing in the cheese," Joy sang.

  Sage couldn't help bubbling with laughter. Their Thanksgiving feast had included one treat after another, borne proudly into the dining room by either Sage or Irma, so no wonder Joy was singing about bringing in the cheese.

  Sage lifted Joy in her arms and nuzzled her cheek. "Right now, sweetheart, Irma and I need quiet." This was stretching the truth a bit, she knew. Irma didn't need a respite from the Down Home Gospel Hour, but Sage certainly did. She set Joy down on the floor again and unplugged the radio. "Come into the dining room, Joy. You can play the radio louder in there."

  Joy followed after her, and Sage left her shuffling around the dining-room table in time to yet another gospel song. Snowball, sated on turkey scraps, settled under the table after a giant sigh. He rested his chin on his paws and watched Joy, flapping his tail from time to time.

  The raucous cheers and the overriding voice of the football game announcer drifted in from the den, where Poppy, Ralph, Gregory and Hayley sprawled on floor and furniture, watching television in well-fed languor.

  It was raining outside, and Adam had taken Luigi and Vito back to Kalmia Hill about an hour ago. The two Italian men were planning to get up early the next morning and, in their rental car, make the five-hour drive to the Great Smoky Mountains, part of their American sight-seeing plan. The weather report had said that the rain was expected to stop during the night after a storm that had wreaked havoc over half the state. Fortunately, the town of Willoree had escaped all but the monotonous, daylong downpour.