by Liz Flaherty
“You wouldn’t happen to have any coffee?”
“I’ll make some.” She nodded jerkily toward the chair that had stopped her ignominious descent toward the hardwood floor. “Have a seat. Do you want decaffeinated or real?”
“Real.” He sat in the proffered chair and flinched when the kitten scaled the hair on his leg to gain a seat on his knee. “What’s her name?” he asked, doing some serious chin-tickling.
“Rosamunde. This is Louisa May.” She used a foot to rub the other cat’s back. “I’ve read your books,” she admitted.
He met her gaze with those midnight eyes. Her knees got wobbly immediately. Stop it!
“What did you think?” he asked.
“The last one wasn’t as good as the others.” She reached into a cupboard for two mugs. “It was like you didn’t really want to write it.”
Dillon eyes widened. “I didn’t know it showed. It got good reviews and sold as many as the previous books.”
“There was nothing wrong with it.” She set the coffee down in front of him and took the chair directly across the table. “Oh, do you need cream or anything?”
“This is fine.” He lifted the cup to his lips. “If there was nothing wrong with it—” he mimicked her tone “—why wasn’t it as good as the others?”
“There was no passion.” She sipped her coffee and wished she hadn’t mentioned his damned books. Or met his damned eyes. “The guy was going through the motions.”
“Isn’t that what we all do?”
“Maybe,” she conceded, “but we expect more from people we read about.”
He frowned at her. “Is that fair?”
“What’s fair got to do with it?” she challenged, stroking Louisa May when the cat leaped into her lap. “Why are you here, anyway, Dillon? The prom ended, oh, hours ago.”
“I need a place to stay.”
The answer was quick and prompt, as though it had been rehearsed. She stared at him, rubbing Louisa May hard enough that the cat meowed in protest. “What do you expect me to do about it? This isn’t a hotel. There are motels aplenty out on the highway. You should have stopped at one of them before you came down into town.”
“I don’t want a motel and I don’t want to stay on the highway. I want to spend the summer in Peacock, maybe find that passion you claim I’ve lost. I’d also like peace and quiet. I remembered your guesthouse and thought maybe you’d rent it to me. For old times’ sake.” He held up his hands as though to stop whatever she said next. “I’m willing to pay. I’m not asking for favors here.”
She eyed him. No one appeared at your back door and offered to rent a ramshackle guesthouse. Not even someone who had a guilty conscience over a fifteen-year-old transgression. At least, she hoped he did, considering how long it had taken her to alter her sister’s old prom gown. Plus she’d worn high heels and some of every bit of Faith’s makeup, two things she’d managed to do only a handful of times in all the years since, thereby proving there was indeed a God. “How much?”
He told her.
The blood drained from her face. Geezy Pete, she could do Mrs. Rountree’s and Mrs. Willard’s laundry till she died and not make that kind of money.
“It’s a mess.” She tried to see beyond the dollar signs that careened through her brain. “It needs to be cleaned out and painted before anyone can live in it. When do you want it?”
“Now.”
She scowled at him. “I just told you—”
“Then rent me Steven’s room until the guesthouse is ready.”
“Do you have references?” she demanded. “I’m a single woman. I can’t have just anyone moving in here. For all I know, you watch pornographic movies and do perverted things.” She’d been reading too many books with century-old settings—she was starting to talk like some of her favorite protagonists.
“If I do, I’ll do them behind closed doors.”
Grace had never seen anyone actually hiss through their teeth before. She looked admiringly at his tight mouth, wondering how he did it. “You can’t blame me for being careful,” she said reasonably. “Well, do you?”
“Do I what?”
“Do you have references?”
“I can get them. Would your brother’s word suffice?”
“No. Steven’s far too sneaky to be trusted.”
“Fine. I’ll have the references express mailed from Boston. Unless you have a fax machine?” he queried, a nasty smile curving his mouth.
“As a matter of fact, I do. Steven gave it to me and used to send me lectures on it every week or two.”
“Which I’m sure you use for kindling.”
She didn’t, actually. She punched holes in the sides of them and kept them in a loose-leaf binder. But that wasn’t any of Dillon Campbell’s business.
“You can’t make a bunch of noise. There are older people who live in the house,” she warned.
Dillon got up. He went to the coffeepot and brought back the carafe to refill their cups. “I don’t make noise,” he said. “Like I said, one of the reasons I came here for the summer was for quiet. What older people?”
“Jonah was a carpenter. He lost all his retirement money in one of those scams you hear about on television. He stays here and helps out where he can. Maxie’s Mama’s cousin—you probably remember her—whose children wanted to put her in a home because her mind floats a little sometimes. She’s not ready for that, so when she came to Papa’s funeral, she stayed. She writes confession stories and sells them for poker money.” She stared at him, her chin lifted. Say something about it, Campbell, and you’re out of here.
He hiked an eyebrow. “I thought you said this wasn’t a hotel. So, can I stay?”
“And there’ll be another guest as of this weekend. Promise is spending the summer here.”
His smile reached right up to light his eyes. “I’ll be glad to see her. She still got that gorgeous red hair curling down her back?”
Grace nodded because she couldn’t bear talking about Promise’s hair. “You can move in then, if you’re sure you want to. I’m not waiting on you,” she added. “Your laundry and food are up to you.”
“Can I eat here if I bring in food and prepare it myself?”
“If you don’t make a mess,” she allowed grudgingly. “Oh, and there’s no furniture in the guesthouse. I can probably drag stuff out there from the house, but it won’t be very good. Is that a problem?”
“I’ll just get some.” His smile became a wicked grin. “You’d probably give me your father’s bed, and I don’t think I could sleep nights.”
She shrugged. “Up to you.” Without further comment, she got up, heading toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To get Mrs. Willard’s linens off the line. She likes them with the scent of the night air in them, but if I leave them out too long, they get damp again. You can take your stuff up to Steven’s room.”
They met again when Dillon returned to the kitchen after taking a shower and an unintended nap. He was hungry, but it was going on ten—unless it had recently come into the twenty-first century, Peacock had rolled up its sidewalks nearly an hour ago.
Grace was snapping sheets into neat rectangles and talking to an older man and woman who were seated at the table. She introduced Dillon to Maxie and Jonah.
“He’s a looker, Gracie,” Maxie said, with a sweep of heavily mascaraed lashes. “I like those bedroom eyes.”
“Looks can be deceiving, Maxie,” Grace replied shortly.
Dillon grinned at the old lady. “She’s just a sourpuss. You go right ahead and talk about me that way. I want to read those stories of yours too.”
“Nice to meet you.” Jonah shook his hand, eyeing him speculatively. “You’re big enough to help me with them screens on the porch and the gazebo. Gracie don’t have time. Money, neither.”
“I can probably do that. If we just attach new screening, it won’t cost much,” Dillon said. “All right, Grace?”
She shrugged. Agai
n. Dillon would have been irritated if he hadn’t liked the way her tank top strap slid down her arm every time she lifted the opposite shoulder. If it had been someone besides Grace Elliot the gesture would have been downright sexy. Since it was Grace, he felt slightly incestuous even noticing.
“You do what you want.” Good God, her voice even sounded like a shrug. “You’re the one paying rent.”
She carried the basket of linens into the laundry room. Dillon watched her go, noting the rounding of her shoulders and wondering why the weight of dry linens caused that. When she returned to the kitchen, she was level as a roof rafter again, but dark smudges under her eyes gave away her exhaustion.
“She’s just turned thirty-three and looks forty,” Steven had said grimly. “She’ll work herself to death and never leave that goddamn house.”
Steven had been wrong about the age thing. Her straight-up-and-down body exuded youth and strength, and her tan face wasn’t wrinkled at all. It was as though the grimness of her life had even precluded laugh lines.
He went to bed still hungry in the extra twin bed in Steven’s room he’d always used. When he woke at midnight, a light from outside caught his eye. He peered into the darkness, wondering who would be in the Elliot backyard at this time of night. As he watched, the light went out and Grace came up the path from the guesthouse, her way lit by a flashlight. She’d been cleaning the cottage, he realized and wanted to go downstairs and shake the bejesus out of her. She’d been bone tired by ten o’clock, for God’s sake.
She stopped suddenly, leaning back with her hands braced on her hips and gazing toward the sky. Good Lord, the woman actually had breasts. The flashlight went out and her face was illuminated only by the eerie blue-white cast of moonlight.
From his vantage point at the upstairs window, Dillon saw the stubborn line of her jaw, the slenderness of her neck, even imagined the delicacy of her ears that was at such odds with the sturdy plainness of the rest of her. Those cheekbones, though, softened by the moon’s glow, weren’t plain at all. Nor was the mouth that was fuller than he remembered.
Suddenly her posture changed, sagged almost, and she lifted her hands to her face. A moment later, they dropped. She hugged herself as if against a chill. Her head, usually so erect it seemed like she should be carrying a book on it, bowed.
Had it been another woman, Dillon would have suspected she wept. He reached out, almost unconsciously, to offer comfort, then let his hand drop. When she resumed her trek to the house, he went back to bed. If she caught sight of him at the window, she’d declare him a voyeur and toss him out. The thought made him chuckle, but he didn’t sleep until her heard her door click closed down the hall from his.
“Promise Delaney! Are you still the love of my life?” Dillon swept her into his arms and kissed her soundly, then leaned her back. “More beautiful than ever, I swear.”
“Good to see you still have eyes in your head, Dillon Campbell.” She reached up to ruffle his hair. “You look pretty wonderful yourself. Grace says you’re here for the summer. Slumming with the country folk?”
He widened his eyes in feigned innocence. “Why, I only came back to see you.”
“You’re Scottish, not Irish, Campbell, so leave off the blarney,” she said, laughing. “I’m moving in for the summer too. Want to help me carry stuff in?”
“You bet.” He followed her to her car. “Grace is already working on the cottage. She can’t wait to get me out of the house.” The idea bothered him some, though he wasn’t going to admit it.
“She just has to use time wherever she finds it.” Carrying a suitcase, Promise looked up at the kitchen clock. “She has to be over at Mrs. Willard’s to clean in less than an hour, then she’ll read to kids down at the library. The yard needs mowing, so she’ll do that afterward, then work in her flowers till dusk. In between there, she makes sure Maxie and Jonah eat and take their medicine.” She gave him a sharp glance. “I intend to help her all I can.”
“You always did.” He followed her up the stairs and into Faith’s old room. “Not that she was ever grateful. As I remember it, her usual response to kindness or favors was a snarl.”
Promise frowned at him, her eyes still beautifully bright blue. “You don’t know her at all, do you?”
“Maybe not,” he admitted.
“Then don’t judge,” she advised sharply.
After helping Promise with the rest of her things, he left her washing the breakfast dishes and meandered down the path to the guesthouse and stepped inside.
“Good morning.”
“The stove works,” Grace said from behind the bar that separated the kitchenette from the living room area, “but the fridge is a dead loss and I can’t afford a new one. You’ll either have to rent one or use the one in the house or buy a cooler.”
“I’ll figure something out. Bathroom work?”
“Uh-huh. Needs a new shower head, though.” She paused. “I’ll pay for that. It’s a permanent part of the property.”
He envisioned the dollar signs clicking before her eyes. “No need.” He went into the minuscule bathroom, checked out the bedroom and mentally placed a queen-size bed under the window, then returned to the living area. “Grace, you’re busy. Why don’t I do the cleanup and painting? I’ll hire Jonah to help me and we can get it done in no time.”
Battle raged in her eyes, turning them dark and stormy. “It would be faster,” she admitted, “but I’d need to lower your rent.” That this was not a desirable option was obvious.
“That’s not necessary. I really want to be here this summer.” He realized, with some discomfiture, that it was true. When had that happened?
The struggle continued in her eyes, and he couldn’t tear his gaze away.
She shook her head. “It’s not fair for you to do it.”
“Nothing’s fair,” he reminded her.
“No, but I try to be.” Her lips lifted in a half-smile. “To make up for being crabby, maybe. How about, you do the work and I’ll go ahead and take care of your laundry and give you supper when you want it?”
“Works for me.” He extended a hand over the bar. “Deal?”
“Deal.”
He held her hand for a moment. The fingers felt rough and work-hardened, but the bones were tiny and fragile, like her ears. He felt that stirring in his chest again, and released her hand.
“So,” he said, “go on to the house and have coffee with Promise. I’ll try to stay out of your way. Do you mind me using your fax machine, though, till I get my own? I’d like to get cable and internet hooked up for while I’m here.”
“Go ahead.” She went toward the front door, then turned. “You’ll have to pay for it, though.”
The warning was so completely the Grace he remembered that it tickled his funny bone, but he waited till she was halfway up the path before he started laughing.
Chapter 4
“Stop by the paint store and choose colors for the paint, will you?” Dillon stood outside the cottage, shirtless, sweat rolling unheeded and most attractively through the whorls of light brown hair that dusted his chest. “I’d like to paint the inside tonight while it’s cool.”
Grace squinted at him from her seat on the lawn tractor. “You’re the one who has to live with them. I don’t care what colors you use.”
“But you’ll be renting the place out when I’ve gone.” He pulled the bandanna he was using for a sweatband from his head and wiped his face. “It may as well reflect your taste.”
“I don’t have any.” She watched, trying not to grin, as he looked heavenward and counted to ten. At least. Maybe twenty-five.
“Fine,” he said flatly. “I’ll do it, and the whole damn place will be white. And I’ll paint the floors gloss black while I’m at it, and maybe glue a nice piece of linoleum to the parquet in the kitchenette.”
“You’re a piece of work, Campbell, you know it?” Grace climbed off the tractor with jerky movements. How could one man be so frustrating? Stupid qu
estion. They all were. “I’ll go and I’ll choose your paint, and if so much as one drop of it touches those parquet or hardwood floors, your ass will be grass with me for the lawnmower. You got that?”
“Clear as a bell in hell,” he said cheerfully. “Have a nice trip.”
“Oh, you bet.” Leaving the tractor sit, she stomped toward the house. “Promise, you want to go to the paint store with me? Our star boarder insists he can’t pick out paint for three rooms and a bath.”
“Sure.” Promise got up from where she sat on the back porch hemming curtains. Curtains for the guesthouse. Good heavens, was Grace the only one not susceptible to Dillon Campbell’s dubious charm? “Whew, it’s hot. What’s it going to be like in July?”
“Hotter.”
“I’ll drive. My car’s behind yours.” Promise frowned at her. “Are you going to wash your face? You’re wearing half the lawn on your face.”
Grace sighed. “All right. I s’pose you want me to change clothes too.”
“It would be nice. I’ll buy you a sweet tea at the Cup and Cozy if you do.”
“You’re on.”
Grace returned to the porch fifteen minutes later wearing a short denim jumper over a tank top. “It’s cooler,” she said defensively when Promise’s eyebrows raised and Dillon stopped the lawn tractor to stare at her, “and it’s obvious I won’t have time to finish mowing after this little trip.”
“Did I say anything?” Promise raised a demure eyebrow. “Come on. I’m dyin’ to get into air conditioning.”
Grace chose soft peach for the living room and kitchenette, slate blue for the bedroom, and cream for the bathroom. “I think this border would work above the wainscoting in the living room, don’t you?” She stood at the clearance shelf. “There’s enough here, and I could paste it up real quick without getting in his way. And maybe these knobs on the kitchen cupboards? They’re older than God, but still in good shape.”
Promise nodded, and Grace thought she saw amusement in her blue eyes, but dismissed the notion. What could be funny about things in the bargain bin? It wasn’t like she was doing the extra work for Dillon. As he’d mentioned, she’d be renting the guesthouse after he’d left it. Probably. “Let’s go,” she said briskly, “before you forget you promised me sweet tea.”