She turned on her heels and marched to the door, blowing away the long bangs that had fallen into her eyes after his mussing. He was seriously not going to get away with having the last word. Not this time. Or for that matter, ever again, she vowed.
“All right, Fitzgerald—” She held out a wavering finger to make a point only to realize that the takeout bag was looped around her arm. That accounted for the salty smell of the udon-seaweed salad, which meant that his body scent was simply refined, perfume-grade musk. “—You want to know why I didn’t want to take you on as a housemate? This. Here. Right now. This is why — why I — why we can’t—”
“C’mon. You can spit it out.” Gage crossed his arms across his chest and waited, still wearing the same shit-eating grin.
“Converse,” Sabrina spat before she stormed inside.
Once in her room, she sat in the middle of the bed with her chopsticks chewing on cold nori. The alert screen on her cell phone told her that Molly had called repeatedly while she was at the gym — likely attempts to persuade her into joining Molly and the Cole brigade the next day for turkey and tension. There was no way Sabrina was going to spend an entire holiday with Gage Fitzgerald. Zero. None.
The dynamic between them would have been different had she not let him kiss her. Repeatedly. Incessantly. Urgently. He probably thought she was nothing more than an arrogant tease. One of those frivolous, self-centered women she’d always despised who sautéed the steak to an exact medium rare without actually putting the meat on the table.
Standing under the tingling spray of the shower was not helpful either. While the water pounded her breasts and belly, she closed her eyes and thought of the freckles on his shoulders, grouped together in clusters like hundreds of galaxies. And his large hands, constructed in capable squares and rectangles, prominently knuckled like a professional boxer’s.
Sabrina put the soap down.
She had to shut off the mental imagery before audacious, auburn-haired men with linebacker shoulders infected the feral parts of her imagination like a pestilence. It would be easy to do, really; all she had to do was disregard all of their polite pleasantries and recall his more egregious put-downs and parting shots, which were now legion.
She heard the squeal of the distant pipes, and then the fluctuation upset the warm-but-not-scalding temperature she worked tenuously to obtain as the hot water was re-routed to the guest room shower.
“Damn it, Fitzgerald!” she wailed as the cold spray beat down on her soapy head. She quickly rinsed out the rest of the shampoo and jumped out of the tub, shivering.
Gage had managed to get the final word yet again without even saying a thing.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Maid March had some of the earmarks of a typical female, Gage thought as he carried two bags of garbage to the curb. She wasn’t above letting him know that she depended on him to pick up chores around the house that were quick and dirty.
Like this one.
He sorted out their communal debris, dropping glass and plastic containers into their respective recycling bins. The lion’s share of the trash consisted of takeout containers and spent coffee filters — yet more testaments to Sabrina’s frenetic lifestyle. The woman needed to go somewhere other than the office and the gym and put that busy brain of hers into park. She’d zoned out so much that she had driven her car into his woodworking materials totally unawares, for god’s sake. She could cross her fingers, screw her eyes shut tight and wish that Mr. All Three Criteria would appear, but it wasn’t going to happen.
Because Sabrina March, with her pointless, steadfast devotion to a charlatan politician who won re-elections with bumper sticker campaigns, had no real personal life to speak of.
No hobbies. No passions. No dates.
That meant no sex.
No wonder she was so perpetually wound, Gage thought. The expectant look on her face when he’d pretended to seduce her in the garage had indeed been priceless. He didn’t regret getting her all hot and bothered. Somebody needed to remind her what she was missing.
There was one thing that he had come to understand about Sabrina. He understood why she wanted to stay put in Cadence Corners. It wasn’t the average Austin neighborhood. Gage turned his gaze to the eastern skyline, where tall buildings scraped up against ether, glass and metal gleaming bronze under the cast of the morning sun. In contrast to the flagrant modernity of the busy city center, the old neighborhood seemed to have been tucked away in a quiet, somnolent place where time stood still. The people there were friendly but not nosy. Neighbors greeted each other by name at the neighborhood’s mom ’n’ pop shops. Women chatted over white picket fences, and children walked home together from the nearby elementary school. The turn-of-the-century homes and decades-old family-owned businesses added to the neighborhood’s air of permanence.
The Corners also had its share of resident “characters,” as his grandfather would have called them. Gage had discovered that much when he ventured out to purchase allergy pills at Newton’s Drugstore, where an aging hippie pharmacist wearing a T. Rex T-shirt nattered on to him about homeopathic remedies.
Gage was sure there was a story behind that one.
Most divorced women would have sold their homes and taken up apartment living, using “I don’t need all of that space for just myself” as a reason. Most women weren’t Sabrina March, though. She’d staked a claim to her turf, and she was going to fight to keep it. Sometimes he saw her sitting on the patio, hands wrapped around her teacup. The tension in her face was gone, and her body was relaxed. Her mouth curled into a breezy smile as she watched passersby stroll down the sidewalk. She looked totally at peace.
Happily married to her own solitude.
He went back inside and washed his hands in the kitchen sink, which immediately began to fill up ominously with dark brown water. He flipped the switch to the disposal, but the motor only made a muted gnawing sound. A small fountain of coffee grounds shot up from the drain. No surprise there. Sabrina guzzled enough of the brew to subsidize a small java republic.
Surely there were tools around the house. He opened a utility drawer and found only a bottle opener and a box of birthday candles. Another drawer was a repository for packaged plastic takeout utensils and packets of mustard, soy sauce and ketchup. It reminded him of any of the kitchen utility drawers of the many apartments he’d shared with grad school roommates. Gage hadn’t seen the practicality in owning wrenches, pliers and screwdrivers in a variety of sizes until he’d exited the gentle halls of academia and struck out on his own. Of course, he didn’t expect a woman like Maid March to own these things.
But what woman didn’t have a hammer, for god’s sake?
He retrieved his toolbox from the trunk of the GTO and searched around for a pair of pliers. He opened the cabinet, slid underneath the sink and began to loosen the bolts on the trap.
“A-hem!”
The sound of Sabrina clearing her throat startled him. His forehead made contact with the pipe with a resounding ping! Stifling a curse, he slid out of the alcove and peered through the cabinet opening to see the toe of one of her running shoes tapping impatiently. His eyes followed the shoes up a stretch of toned calves and thighs up to the point where her smooth skin met the soft material of her short gray gym shorts. The sight was almost worth it until he saw the look of pure distress on her face.
“Yes?” Gage asked cautiously.
“Don’t … do that,” she said plaintively.
“Do what?” He was nonplussed. What the hell had he managed to do to get on her bad side now?
“That.” She jerked her head at the wrench that he still clutched in his hand. “Don’t fix stuff.”
“You don’t have any problem putting me on garbage duty,” he pointed out.
“That’s totally different.”
“How?” Gage wanted to know.
“That’s a chore. Repairing things around the house that are broken is what a — a—” She bit her lip. Her eyes d
arted nervously. “—boyfriend would do. Or a fiancé. You are neither.”
“Of course not; I only live here,” Gage reminded her dryly. “I have a vested interest in making sure everything is in working order.”
“So do I. But you don’t see me crawling into small, dark spaces, do you?” She blew her bangs out of her eyes.
“The sink’s not going to unclog itself, darlin’.” He tried to reason with her. “What do you propose we do?”
“Let me take care of it after I get home.” She sounded self-assured as she peeled the wrapper from an energy bar. “You may find this impossible to believe, but I’m not completely domestically challenged. I know exactly what to do in these situations.”
“You.” He looked at her in disbelief.
“Mm-hmm,” Sabrina mumbled around a bite of the chewy bar. “I have the name of an excellent plumber. Theo uses him all the time.”
Gage stared at her to make sure she was serious. “You mean to tell me that you’re going to call in a professional who’ll probably charge per hour more than you and I make in one day to get coffee grounds out of the sink?”
Sabrina tapped the tip of her nose with a forefinger excitedly.
“During off-hours,” he went on. “On a holiday?”
“You guessed it, Fitzgerald.”
She had to know her reasoning was absurd, Gage thought. But the look on her face told him that even if she did, she wasn’t kidding around. She took another bite of the energy bar and chewed and swallowed it earnestly.
“You playing handyman wasn’t part of our arrangement,” she went on. “If anything needs repair, we’ll have the work done by a third party and split the bill. That way everyone’s happy.”
Speak for yourself, Gage thought, contemplating the extra expenses that would be tacked onto his monthly rent. He didn’t need that. Especially now, when he was trying to sock away money. He slid back under the sink with the pliers.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll send you my bill.”
“Gage Fitzgerald, would you please stop—” Sabrina began to argue.
But after only a small struggle, the waste arm was free. He scooted back out of the alcove and tapped it against the garbage bin briskly until a dark sludge of coffee grounds came out.
“Done,” he said. “How simple was that?”
Sabrina looked at him for several seconds with an annoyed expression on her face. Then she announced, “I’m going to work out, and then I’m going to work.”
“It’s Thanksgiving Day,” Gage reminded her. “It’s not too late to change your mind about lunch at Molly and Sebastian’s house.”
“Pass,” Sabrina said immediately, scooping up a gym bag that sat beside the couch. “Don’t get me wrong; I love them both to bits. But holiday dinners with Cybil and Shuck are like a runaway train. First, Cybil makes small talk — usually about the food. Then she brings up one of Sebastian’s long-lost relatives who’s either expecting a baby or planning for one. Sebastian makes an ambiguous reply. Molly says nothing. Then Cybil needles some more. Shuck jumps into the fray sideways. Sebastian finally pulls the emergency brake, and everyone jumps the car before it collides. I frankly can’t bear to watch.”
“Sounds grim,” Gage said.
“Don’t worry,” she told him as she slung the bag her shoulder. “It’s usually all over in a couple of hours. My advice? To paraphrase Bette Davis, ‘Fasten your seatbelts, because you’re in for a bumpy ride’.”
**
Molly and Sebastian’s house was redolent with the smells of simmering fruit and roasting fowl. Gage already felt at home there. He especially liked that the place looked as though the couple had lived in it for longer than mere weeks. A coatrack was laden with sweaters, scarves and caps that Molly and Sebastian shared whenever they did yard work, and, inexplicably, a bright purple feather boa. Molly’s quilting magazines were comingled with Sebastian’s literary journals on a nearby coffee table. Even the dust bunnies that went tumbling across the hardwood floor whenever a door opened held a certain charm.
Unlike Sabrina’s Corners Keep, Molly and Sebastian’s house actually felt like it had been lived in for years.
Man the battle stations, Gage thought as he heard Shuck’s Lexus pull into the drive. Cybil Cole came through the front door looking a storm cloud in a charcoal dress that was far too formal for the occasion, her gunmetal gray hair teased into starchy whorls. Her husband was dressed more casually, in slacks and a tweed jacket. He handed Sebastian a bottle of Beaujolais nouveau.
“This might taste like vinegar for all I know,” Shuck said with a doubtful snort. Then, leveling a suspicious look at Gage, he made the point of adding, “I can’t seem to find those two bottles of Dow’s from your wedding reception, Sebastian.”
“Really, Shuck, you shouldn’t have,” Molly murmured as she escaped an air kiss from her mother-in-law. “Do have a seat, everyone. The food will be out in a jiff.”
As Gage pulled himself up to the table, he was reminded of the sounds and smells of his grandmother’s kitchen. He could hear Molly in the other room opening and shutting the oven door while she and Sebastian discussed whether to open the wine before lunch or during. Then the couple brought out the food, and soon the table was covered with platters steaming up a stomach-rumbling aroma of turkey, oyster dressing, scalloped sweet potatoes and cranberry sauce.
Molly had done her best to arrange full place settings in front of each seat, but the small maple table wasn’t large enough to accommodate five people plus all of the holiday fixin’s. Shuck and Cybil were seated across from Molly and Sebastian, leaving Gage at the head with all the elbow room and a referee’s view of whatever familial rumbles Sabrina predicted were to come.
“Gage,” Cybil acknowledged him. “How pleasant to see you again.”
“Likewise, Mrs. C.,” Gage lied back, matching her chilly smile with a bright one of his own.
“I trust you and Sabrina enjoyed my husband’s vintage port,” she added under her breath.
“They were both very good years,” Gage told her, broadening his grin. Cybil made a point to look unamused as she shook out her paper napkin and placed it in her lap.
“There’s not much room at the table. I must have accidentally donated the extra leaf to the Salvation Army when I did spring cleaning this year,” Molly said apologetically as she edged a casserole dish piled with broccoli casserole next to the platter of carved breast meat. “Everyone, please dig in.”
“Portion control,” Cybil said in a chiding voice as she took the dressing dish and serving spoon from her husband’s hand. Then she explained to Sebastian, “Your father is trying to avoid gaining his ‘holiday five’ this year.”
“All those fives just keep adding up to tens over the years, don’t they, Cybil?” Shuck asked with a jovial grin as he patted his round belly.
“Schulster Cole,” his wife reprimanded him.
The three men ate in silence while Molly and her mother-in-law engaged in nonthreatening banter about the merits of bread dressing over cornbread. Then the table went quiet as the pressure mounted to initiate a general topic of conversation. Gage suddenly felt as though he were inside a Tupperware container. Maybe Sabrina had the right idea, he thought as he watched Shuck pick dried cranberries from his teeth. She knew better than to play Pilgrims and Indians with the Coles. Watching Cybil mete out a second dollop of dressing the size of a golf ball on her husband’s plate, Gage couldn’t help but to think that they made marriage look as fun as doing tax returns.
“You remember Richard, your second cousin, don’t you?” Cybil addressed Sebastian. “He and his wife flew in from Greenwich for your wedding.”
“Yes, though I doubt he remembers me,” Sebastian replied as he reached for the gravy boat. “The first and only time we met, he was only two.”
“He and his wife are expecting their first in January,” Cybil went on smoothly but pointedly. “They’ve only been married for six months but didn’t see any rea
son to wait.”
“You don’t say,” Sebastian said distractedly.
Gage chewed his food slowly. Here we go …
“Do you want seconds, Gage?” Molly’s voice held a note of subtle desperation. “You’ve barely eaten a thing.”
This had to be hell on the poor girl, Gage thought sympathetically. “Load me up with some more of that homemade cranberry sauce, Molly,” he said. He didn’t want to tell her that his appetite was already starting to fizzle.
“Speaking of marriage, when do you plan on getting hitched, Fitzgerald?” Shuck asked.
“All in good time, sir,” Gage replied. “I prefer to know what I’m up against before I sign away the rest of my life.”
“Any particular lady nibbling on the line?”
“Actually, Shuck, I’m more of a horse and lasso man,” Gage said. “The answer to your question, however, is no. When I get married, I want to make sure I have a keeper.”
“You never know what life has in store,” Molly demurred. “Who knows? You and Miss Right may have already met, but the two of you don’t even know it. It would be so nice if Sebastian and I had more couples friends.”
The wistful look on her face was so transparent, Gage didn’t have the heart to tell her that the chances of him and Sabrina showing up at the Parker-Cole casa on Twister night as a couple were next to nil.
“I dunno about that, Molly,” he said, keeping his tone light. “It would take a helluva woman to put up with the likes of me.”
“Exactly, and I can only think of one helluva right off the top of my head.” Molly gave him the benefit of her knowing Mona Lisa smile.
“One thing’s for sure.” Shuck jumped back into the conversation. “You’re not getting any younger, Fitzgerald. My advice to you is to put the pedal to the metal, or you’ll be coaching Little League from a mobility scooter.”
“Good grief, Dad.” Sebastian shook his head as he buttered a dinner roll. “Talk about putting the carriage before the entire team.”
“One does get married to have children,” Cybil reminded her son. “Otherwise, what’s the point of it?”
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