by Sally Felt
“Maybe I shouldn’t go,” Kim said, uneasy all over again.
“Isabelle might call?”
Kim nodded.
Damon threw a kitchen sponge at him, damp and soapy.
“You’re right,” Kim said, “I’m an idiot.”
“Yeah, but at least this time, you’re an idiot in love.”
Chapter Ten
Isabelle didn’t want to move. She didn’t want to do anything, let alone try to figure out how she was going to handle Mrs. Avery’s closet installation by herself, which was the closest thing to motivation she had for getting out of bed this morning.
She might have had Charlie’s help if she could stand to even look at him. She’d almost thrown him out of the house—let him find a fellow frat rat bastard to help him out—but rat bastard or no, he was her brother. She’d said he could stay and that’s all there was to it. Didn’t mean she wanted to spend the morning with him. Besides, he was off to more job interviews.
She also couldn’t call Kim, though her reasons why were almost more complicated than she could stand. To make it worse, none of her very good reasons stopped her from wanting to call him, and not just because she wanted him in her bed. Rather, she wanted him for the way he told her stupid jokes and understood why she’d screamed about her violated house. And for his kisses.
And because she wanted him in her bed.
Isabelle punched her pillow and headed for the shower. Even the bathroom was no refuge, not anymore, not with Kim’s toolbox still sitting there on the floor between the toilet and the tub to remind her of what she’d done. Kim might have “fling” written all over him, but she didn’t. It hadn’t taken much more than a meal and Charlie’s disgusting revelation to crash her mood. Then there was her own disgusting revelation, one she hadn’t shared with anyone. She’d used Kim. She hadn’t intended to, hadn’t realized that’s what she was doing, but it didn’t change the facts. She’d been mad about the braless gym babe and the blonde and, hell, the waitress from the other night. Now she was mad that being mad hadn’t made her stop wanting him, and that she’d used him.
Worse yet, she had a feeling he knew it. He’d tried to slow her down the first time she jumped him in the bathroom. And after the second time—after the lovemaking that had surely ruined her chances of being satisfied with any other man—even then, he’d tried to do the right thing, tried to explain away the gym.
Tried to make it a relationship.
Maybe he wasn’t fling material at that.
She didn’t dare call him. Either he’d be interested in sleeping with her or he wouldn’t. If he was, she’d have been right about him all along and so wouldn’t want him. If he wasn’t, she’d have been wrong and he’d be hurt by the whole thing, and he was too nice a guy—
Crap.
And here was his toolbox, evidence of how he’d come to her rescue in spite of the way she’d treated him. Sooner or later, he was going to want the toolbox back. She should take it through the house to the mudroom, out of her way, where she at least wouldn’t have to look at it. It was too heavy to carry. Kim had acted as if it weighed nothing. He sure packed a lot of power in his slight build.
She set the toolbox on a bath towel and dragged it to the mudroom, realizing Kim had never said whether he’d successfully vacuumed the ring—not that she’d given him the chance. She popped open the latches on the toolbox to see if he might have put the ring in there. His coveralls were the first thing she found. She lifted them out and set them aside. A ripstop nylon bag seemed to have his heavy-duty gloves inside and she elected not to open it, prompting second thoughts about touching much of anything else. She got on hands and knees instead, looking inside the toolbox from every angle and hoping to catch a glimmer of gemstone or at least something ring-like in shape. Nada. She gingerly lifted the glove bag and put it back in the toolbox. With the coveralls in hand, though, she hesitated. Offering to pay Kim for his plumbing services seemed to offend him and after last night, it might be even more insulting. She could at least wash his coveralls. She stuffed them into the washer, hit them with a shot of detergent and started the machine.
While that was going, she made herself call the number he’d given her and was relieved to get his voice mail right away.
She said hi. She asked if he’d found the ring. She said she needed to get it appraised before Steven could come looking for it again. She asked him to call her as soon as he could.
Should she have been warmer? More personal? She didn’t know. She wasn’t even sure she’d told him about Steven looking for the ring. She didn’t think she had.
She showered, turning her attention to business, which was not as great a balm as it should have been. All the materials for Ms. Avery’s closet were cut to fit and ready to go, and Isabelle knew her tools well enough, but some aspects of an installation really required two people. She’d expected to have Charlie for this job and now it was too late to call anyone else. She’d just do the best she could and if she had to return later for finishing touches, so be it. It was arguably better than rescheduling a second time. She could at least dress as if she belonged in Mrs. Avery’s chic closet. She chose a Hepburnesque pants suit. Its tailored lines would keep her looking good without getting in her way during the installation. She paired it with a straw hat at least thirty years younger than the suit. Something about the ribs of patent leather circling its wide band gave the hat a tailored feel, and the whimsy of the tiny, upside-down patent bow at the back made her laugh, something she definitely needed this morning.
Charlie had left enough hot coffee to fill her favorite cup, which meant he maybe wasn’t a rat bastard beyond redemption, though that was up to Gina to decide.
It all complicated her Thursday, for sure. She usually issued her invites for the next Monday-night dinner party, usually made a list of things she’d need, usually went to the grocery store.
Dammit, she was predictable.
Except for last night. Well, except for pretty much any time she spent with Kim. He seemed to draw out her sense of adventure—appeal to her more reckless impulses. Make her a lioness. That might be a nice change for her, in moderation. But there was nothing moderate about grabbing a man out of the shower and throwing him on the bed, at least not when it was a man she barely knew, a man she didn’t entirely trust, a man who probably categorized her in the ceiling-fan-swinger compartment of his brain. It hadn’t seemed a bad thing at the time, but she didn’t want to be in that compartment in any man’s brain, much less Kim Martin’s.
Kim, who wanted to clean up for her. Kim, who wanted to take his time.
Crap.
She could stand here second-guessing herself all day, but Mrs. Avery had been waiting long enough for her pastel-tinted shoe bins. It was time for Space Craft to get rolling.
* * * * *
Kim elected not to drive to Austin. Too much time to think. He flew. The realtor, Crystal, met him at the airport to show him around in her brand-new, top-of-the-line minivan. She was pushing forty or maybe past it, bottle-blonde and she wore her fingernails long and loud. She belonged in suburban Dallas, not Austin, especially when, three times in the first hour, she’d managed to work her recent divorce into the conversation.
He’d liked her a lot better on the phone.
Still, he had to say she knew her way around the city. Kim tended to head straight for his favorite climbing haunts. He was in her hands, here. She took him to a slick downtown loft first, which told him she had talked to his Dallas realtor about his current address. When he reminded her he’d asked for something quite different, they wasted the rest of the morning on a tract house with a swimming pool that consumed the entire microscopic backyard. Yes, it was homier, but it had no personality, no interesting woodwork, no roots.
Roots. A new concept for him, one that stirred up images of vintage clothing and porches built for goodnight kisses.
Maybe he should just take an apartment until he’d gotten the lioness out of his system.
>
Oblivious, Crystal whisked him off for lunch, and on the way, she chattered on about how sublime the restaurant was, how she knew all the best spots in Austin and did he like music, because, of course, Austin had the best scene. Her run-on sentences became a kind of white noise in his head. She switched over to pets. She loved golden labs, did Kim like dogs, because of course, they were great to go running with and Kim seemed an outdoorsy sort. Had he ever been out to Enchanted Rock?
The white noise became more of an insect drone as they walked through the lobby of the grand old Driskill Hotel and into the cherry wood surroundings of its 1886 Café and Bakery, where the subject became antiques. She knew the most wonderful places in Gruene, she said, a teensy bit of a drive, but so worth it.
Crystal pushed him to try the meatloaf. He ordered the turkey BLT.
All he could think through the woman’s chatter—maybe Round Rock wasn’t for him, maybe he’d like to see something in funky South Austin?—was that Isabelle would have loved the place. Etched glass, gorgeous hexagonal tile floor, star-shaped light fixtures that except for their size would not have been out of place in a certain Dallas bungalow.
“Do you have kids?”
Kim blinked. He was already four bites into his sandwich, oozing chipotle mayo and avocado making it a messy affair. They’d been through his requirements on the phone. She knew he didn’t have kids. Any second she’d mention the divorce again.
“I have two—Casey and Karen,” she said.
Kim suddenly knew why he’d liked her on the phone and why her flirting made him so uncomfortable. He was lunching with his mother, twenty years younger.
He needed to slip away and call Damon. One quick call, and Damon could call him back with some tremendous emergency, some dire reason he needed to get out of Austin and get back to Dallas. He glanced at his phone, clipped to his jeans, and realized he’d forgotten to turn it back on after his flight.
He left it that way. If he let go, he’d prove himself the quitter Kerry had always thought he was. He could take Crystal in hand instead and get what he needed without hearing all this shrill desperation in her voice. Hell, he could flirt right back at her and maybe get the negotiator of a lifetime on his side.
Well, maybe once they left the restaurant he could. In here, in this sophisticated slice of history, flirting with Crystal even for purely businesslike reasons felt like cheating on Isabelle. Which was ridiculous.
Unless Damon was right about him. Unless this was love. Fear tickled the inside of his forehead and squeezed his eyeballs.
* * * * *
“So is it love or merely finding-a-man-gorgeous-enough-to-make-you-forget-whatshisname lust?”
“Stacey!” Isabelle owed her friend big-time for helping her with Mrs. Avery’s installation, but no way was she discussing her personal life while doing a job in a client’s home.
Luckily, they were almost done.
“Oooh,” said Stacey, laughing. “You owe me lunch and details.”
Stacey had called looking for a lunch date just as Isabelle was getting ready to leave her house for the installation. It was easy enough to persuade Stacey to help her hang closet rods in Highland Park first. Her friend had gone above and beyond, helping her assemble shoe shelves and lingerie dividers as well, not to mention providing cheery distraction from everything on her mind. It was good to have friends, even if she wasn’t a big fan of Stacey’s latest.
She dropped front-panel inserts of translucent lilac, mint and daffodil into Mrs. Avery’s new accessory boxes and placed them on their shelves. She hadn’t been sure about her client’s choice to combine plastic tints with wood, but it worked. The maple had a slight blush tint that made her pastel choices seem to glow.
“I’m so excited,” Mrs. Avery said, gasping and applauding like a game show contestant when she saw it. “I can’t wait to put my things away.” She dashed first to the island and opened all the drawers, inhaling deeply over those with cedar lining. She tipped open the hamper door. She pulled out the telescoping closet rod and pushed it back in. Isabelle felt warmth deep in her gut. Nothing was as satisfying as witnessing a client who clearly loved Space Craft’s work.
It was starting to rain as Isabelle and Stacey picked up all the cartons and packing materials and hauled them to the van. Mrs. Avery grabbed a designer umbrella and followed them out.
“Girls, you do beautiful work,” she said. “I’m going to tell all my friends about Space Craft.” Isabelle thanked her and made sure she had plenty of business cards to pass along.
“Now that,” Stacey declared as they pulled away, “was fun!” She all but bounced in the van’s passenger seat, eyes alight. “That woman had so much stuff that you’d think she’d need a second house just to hold it all. But Space Craft comes in and—bing-bang-boom—it comes together for a perfect fit. I’m telling you, it’s like a puzzle. I love solving puzzles.”
“You make it sound like I was doing you a favor!”
“Made my day off a lot more fun than cleaning the house, that’s for sure.”
“I’m glad you enjoyed it. You sure bailed me out. Where would you like to have lun—”
“Sammy’s.”
“You got it.” Dust turned to dirty water on the windshield as the rain settled in. Isabelle turned up the speed of her windshield wipers from intermittent to slow and steady. “One good thing about running so late is we’re sure to have missed the business lunch crowd.”
“No competition for the jukebox,” Stacey said. “Hope you’re flush—I’m really hungry. But I guess you’re always flush, now you’ve got a plumber on call.”
Isabelle dutifully groaned at the pun, but Kim wasn’t on call at all. He sure hadn’t called back about the ring’s whereabouts. Maybe he’d gotten insulted again at her asking about the outcome of his plumbing services. Maybe he’d gotten insulted that she was calling about the ring instead of about him. Or them. Or maybe…
Enough.
Interesting that her doubts about Kim were different kinds of doubts than before. She’d probably think about that at some inconvenient moment, like when she should be sleeping. Alone in her bed.
Enough already.
“I didn’t know you could get something back after you’d flushed it down the toilet, did you? Kim has a tool for everything.”
“I’ll bet he does, and I want to hear all about it.” Stacey’s laugh was positively lewd.
Isabelle was blushing as she parked in the tiny lot. She and Stacey raced the rain to Sammy’s covered back patio, wove their way between picnic tables and butane heaters, through the screen door and into the restaurant itself.
The place was far from empty, even midafternoon, but they walked right up to the head of Sammy’s cafeteria-style line, where Stacey threw a plastic tray on the brushed metal tracks and, without a glance at the giant chalkboard, ordered a rib platter with extra sauce. She wanted onion rings. She wanted spinach casserole. She wanted a Corona.
Isabelle went with the pork loin sandwich with sauce and slaw, and led astray by her friend’s example, traded up from a root beer to the real thing. She paid while Stacey carried her tray to the condiment bar to load up with pickles and peppers and an extra bottle of sauce.
“What’s the latest with Bob?” Isabelle asked after Stacey had made her first selections on the jukebox and a Willie Nelson song older than either of them began to play.
Stacey grinned. “The man’s stamina is unbelievable. He is an absolute bull in bed.”
“I’m happy for you.” Isabelle didn’t know that stamina was the most important attribute in a lover, but this relationship seemed to have staying power, at least by Stacey’s standards.
Isabelle realized with a start that her is-it-or-isn’t-it-a-relationship dithering with Kim had lasted exactly as long as Stacey’s he’s-the-one relationship with Bob. Since Monday night, to be precise.
“But you’re ducking me, girl,” Stacey said. “I’m still waiting for the skinny on your plumber ho
ney.”
Isabelle took a bite of her sandwich and took her time chewing.
“Come on,” Stacey said. “I’d be with Bob right now, but he had to make some business calls. He told me not to lose touch with my girlfriends. So I called you. So you owe me.”
Her logic defied the word.
Isabelle told her anyway. Once she started, she found she really wanted to tell the whole crazy story, about Kim rescuing her at the party and then agreeing to keep up appearances on a double date. About her finding and flushing Steven’s ring. About the break-in at her house. About Kim—maybe—finding the ring for her. About her dragging the man to her bed and keeping him there until she was sated.
“You’re kidding me,” Stacey said. “You only met him Monday?”
Isabelle nodded. “He came to fix the toilet.”
“And you had sex with him?”
“You and Bob,” Isabelle blurted, angry to feel herself blushing.
“Yeah,” said Stacey as if it only proved her point. “But this is you.”
Isabelle became very interested in her slaw.
“I knew something was up,” Stacey said. “When you introduced Kim, he said he’d fixed your toilet, but he made it sound like it was the first time he had—at your house, anyway. But then at Mirabelle, you said you’d met him when you called for a plumber. It was Bob who pointed it out. That you’d changed your story, I mean. He’s such a good listener.”
Isabelle realized she’d said too much, that everything she said to Stacey would get back to good-listener Bob and from there, to Steven. Of course, Steven already knew she’d found the ring. She just hated to let him know the rest, especially about her flaunting a relationship that didn’t exist. Or hadn’t existed at the time. Maybe still didn’t.
Crap.
“You and Kim. This is exciting, About time you started dating again!”
“I’m not. We’re not.” She pushed back from the table and made a trip to the condiment stand for pickles she had no intention of eating. With luck, Stacey would default to talking about bullish Bob by time she returned.