by Nora Roberts
He was looking at her now, only at her. “You standing in it enhances the charm.”
She made a mock curtsy. “Aren’t you gallant?”
“If I were, I’d have come up with something romantic about blooms or blossoms.”
“You did fine. As to Ava?”
“Yeah, Ava, and the place. I don’t think I’m going to have time to fiddle so much with that project, and I didn’t really want the team sensibility. I wanted a woman’s, a woman who understands a house like that one, an area like that one, and knows how to, well, lay the landscape, to put in the flourishes and the color so people walking or driving by will say, ‘That’s Savannah right there.’ I like what she’s done with the house on Jones.”
He pushed through an ornate iron gate. Phoebe saw instantly what he’d meant about secrets. It was a little island on the island, one of tranquillity and whispers, with its little pool with floating lilies, its fanciful statue of a winged fairy.
She walked over to a small curved bench of white marble, sat. “Not just a good deed?”
“I don’t mind good deeds or suspicious minds, as yours tends to be. But I don’t mind profiting by being a good judge and picking people for projects they’re suited for.”
“Ever pick the wrong person?”
“A few times. I don’t think Ava’s one of them.”
“She won’t be. She had this house in West Chatham when she was married, and she created the most amazing gardens. She even got written up inSouthern Homes …You knew that, didn’t you?”
His dimple flicked on. “I might’ve come across something.”
“Smarter than you look, and that’s a pure compliment.”
“You, too.” He leaned over, kissed her breezily. “Want to walk around a bit, maybe down to the pier?”
“Yes, I’d like that.”
Bricked paths, arbors and trellises, copper urns going soft and green, and pretty music as the evening breeze stirred hanging glass and wind chimes.
The sun was sinking, turning the marsh into shimmering colors. From the pier she could see other homes, other gardens, and what she thought was a young boy sitting on the edge of a pier with his line in the water.
“Do you ever do that? Fish off here?”
“I’m a crappy fisherman. Rather just sit here with a beer and let someone else drown the worms.”
She turned around, noted how far they’d walked. “The grounds are more extensive than I realized.” And there, she noted, were the sparkling waters of a swimming pool. “A lot to maintain. I’m still having a hard time seeing you as the country gentleman. How about that long story on how you ended up here?”
“It’s not all that interesting.”
“Not all that interesting to you, or potentially to me?”
“Probably either.”
“Now, of course, my curiosity is piqued and, unquenched, will depend on imagination to satisfy. Such as you built it for a woman—unrequited love, heartbreak—who left you for another man.”
“Not that far off.”
She sobered instantly. “I’m sorry, bad joke. We should start back to the house, don’t you think? I’d hate to miss the pizza boy. I’d love to eat on the veranda, or in the garden,” she continued as they walked up the pier. “Wouldn’t—”
“I built it for my mother.”
“Oh.” She heard the echoes of deep unhappiness in his voice, but said nothing else.
“I guess that’s not the beginning of the story. My mother was seventeen when she had me. What we could call a very big oops. My father was barely older. For whatever reason they—or she—decided to go through with the pregnancy, get married. I’m grateful, obviously, about the first part of that decision, but the married part probably wasn’t the smartest move on either of their parts. They fought all the time—the time they were together. He was lazy, she was a bitch, he drank too much, she kept a crappy house. Fun and games at the Swifts’.”
“It’s difficult for a child to grow up with that kind of friction.”
“Yeah, well, the thing is they were both right. He was lazy and drank too much. She was a bitch and kept a crappy house. I was ten when he took off. He’d taken off a few times before—so had she. But this time he didn’t come back.”
“Are you saying you never saw him again?”
“Not for a lot of years. Man, she was pissed. Paid him back by going out a lot, doing what she wanted for a change. More than half the time I wondered if she even knew I was there. So to remind her I was, I got into as much trouble as possible. Fighting mostly. I was the neighborhood badass for five years running.”
Saying nothing, she lifted her hand, traced a fingertip down the scar through his eyebrow.
“Yeah, battle scar. No big.”
“It intrigued me when I first saw you. Scar here, little dimple right here.” She tapped the corner of his mouth. “Opposite ends. You’ve got some opposite ends in you, Duncan. What happened in year six? How did you lose your title as neighborhood badass?”
“You’re a smart one. I targeted this kid who was a lot tougher than he looked. He didn’t kick my ass, but boy, did we kick each other’s.”
“And ended up the best of friends,” Phoebe concluded. “Isn’t that the manly cliché?”
“I hate being predictable, but close enough. While we’re pounding each other bloody, and I’m wondering if my badass title is about to be stripped away, the kid’s father comes along. Big guy, yanked us apart. We’re going to do that shit, we’re going to put the gloves on and do it like men. Kid’s father used to box for a living. No wonder Jake almost kicked my ass.”
“And who won the title in the ring?”
“Neither. We never got around to the gloves. Jake’s father dragged me to their place, cleaned us both up at the kitchen sink while his wife fixed me an ice bag and a glass of lemonade. Bored yet? I told you it was long.”
“Not even close to bored.”
“Well, you’re going to need another glass of wine for the rest.” He took her glass. Phoebe leaned back against the rail and waited until he came back with refills.
“Where was I?”
“At Jake’s kitchen table drinking lemonade.”
“And getting a whale of a talking-to. First time anybody—not including teachers, who didn’t count in those days for me—ever gave me one. It occurred to me at this time that being the neighborhood badass was getting me punched in the face on a regular basis. And what was the point? She never said a damn thing about it when I came home bloody anyway. So I gave up the belt of my championship reign.”
“You were what, about fifteen?”
“Thereabouts.”
“Young for an epiphany, but I understand youthful epiphanies.”
He shifted to look into her eyes. “Guess you would.”
“So we have the common ground of that. I moved into Mac Namara House after mine, which is another story for another day. What did you do after you retired from badassing?”
“I got a job, thinking that might be the way to please her—my mother—and it would be less painful than bare knuckles.”
“A wise choice.” But he’d never pleased her, Phoebe thought, she could hear it in his voice. “What kind of job?”
“I bused tables, gave her half of what I made every week. That was fine. Didn’t change anything between us, but it was fine. I started to think that’s just the way things were for people like us. Single parent, scraping by. She just didn’t have time to pay attention.”
He was quiet for a few moments while a whip-poor-will began its twilight call. “Of course, being a single parent, you know that’s not the case.”
“I know it shouldn’t be.”
“When I was eighteen she told me I had to get my own place, so I did. Time passed, and one day I picked up a fare whose wallet was empty. One thing led to another and I met his family. No father—he died when Phin was a kid—but the result was the same. There was no father there, but the mother, oh, you best bel
ieve she paid attention.”
Phoebe thought of Ma Bee—big hands, steady eyes. “Even when you wished she didn’t.”
“Even. She had a brood of kids, but she paid attention. To me, too. So I saw it wasn’t just the way it is. It was easier to believe that, or want to. But it was not the way it is.
“That’d be the pizza.” He pushed off the rail. “I’ll be a minute. If it’s Teto, he likes to talk.”
“All right.”
She sipped her wine, looked out at the gardens now that the first stars were popping out. He’d thought the house, the gardens, the beauty here would make his mother, at last, pay attention. Phoebe already saw that, and that it hadn’t worked.
Why did he stay? she wondered. Wasn’t it painful?
He came back with a pizza box, a pair of plates riding the top, napkins tucked between.
“I’ll set it up. Will you finish telling me?”
“I guess we can fast-forward to hitting the jackpot.”
He lit candles as she set the plates and napkins on a wicker table. “Local boy makes way good, just because he bought a six-pack and a lottery ticket. Had a hell of a celebration. I think I was solid drunk for two days. First sober thing I did was go over to Ma Bee’s. I bought this funny little brass bottle, like a genie bottle. I told her to rub it, to make three wishes. I was going to grant all three.”
“Aren’t you the cutest thing?” Phoebe said softly, then sat at the table.
“I thought I was pretty damn clever. She said that was all right, she’d make three wishes. The first was that I wouldn’t piss this money away being an idiot and forgetting I had some brains. The second was that I take this opportunity, this gift, and make something of myself. I guess I looked like a balloon that had its air pricked out, because she laughed and laughed, and she gave me a slap on the arm. She told me if I needed to give her something, if I needed to do that to be happy, she’d like a pair of red shoes with heels and open toes. Size nine. Wouldn’t she be some sight going to church Sundays in those red shoes?”
“You must love her beyond measure.”
“I do. And mostly I tried to keep my word, too, all the wishes. The red shoes were easy. Not being an idiot’s more problematic. People come out of the woodwork. That’s the way it is, and passing out money, it can make you feel important. Until—like getting fists punched into your face—you start to realize it’s just fucking stupid.”
“And you’re not. You’re not the least bit stupid.”
“I had my moments.” He slid pizza onto her plate, then onto his. “I bought this land for my mother, had the house built. I used to hear her say, if she could just get out of the goddamn city. I could do that for her, and wouldn’t that make me important to her? I gave her money in the meantime, of course. Got her out of that apartment and into a pretty little house while this one was being built. My old man turned up, as bad pennies do. I wasn’t quite as gullible there. I gave him twenty-five thousand, all he was smart enough to ask for. But I had Phin draw up an agreement. He couldn’t come at me for more. He wouldn’t get it, and if he tried I could sue him for harassment, and other legal mumbo. It probably wouldn’t hold up, but my father wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, so he took the twenty-five and went away again.”
“It must have hurt you.”
“Should have,” Duncan said after a moment. “It really didn’t.” He ate pizza, drank wine. “I brought my mother out here when the house was nearly finished, when it was easy to see what it was going to be. I told her it was for her. I’d furnish it any way she liked. She’d never have to work again.
“She walked around the empty rooms. She asked me why the hell I thought she’d ever live out here, in a house big as a barn. I said she just didn’t see how it would be yet. I was going to get her a housekeeper, a cook, whatever she wanted. She turned around, looked at me. ‘You want to give me what I want? Buy me a house in Vegas, and give me a stake of fifty thousand. That’s what I want.’
“I didn’t do it, not then. I kept thinking she’d change her mind, once she saw the house finished. I brought her out here again when it was—badgered her into it. The gardens were in, and I’d furnished a few of the rooms, so she’d get a real sense of it.”
Gently, Phoebe touched his hand. “But it wasn’t what she wanted.”
“No, it wasn’t. She wanted the house in Vegas and fifty K. I bargained. Live here for six months, and if you don’t change your mind, I’ll buy you a house wherever you want and give you a hundred thousand. She took the deal, and six months later called me out here. She was already packed. She had the number of a realtor she’d been working with, and had the house already picked out. I could take care of buying the house, and send her a check at Caesars in the meantime. I decided it was time to stop, metaphorically, taking that fist in the face. I had Phin draw up another agreement, then I went out to Vegas, did the deal, gave her the papers, which she signed without a blink. She took the check, and that was that.”
“How long ago?”
“Going on five years now. She got a job serving drinks, ended up catching the eye of some high roller. He paid to track down the old man, get a legal divorce. They got married two years ago.”
“And you live here.”
“Seemed a shame to waste this place. Figured I’d sell it, but it kind of grew on me. And it was a point, too. Point being sometimes you don’t get what you want, and it doesn’t matter if it’s fair or not. So you better find something else.”
It was amazing, really, she realized. One evening had satisfied her sensible and her lustful parts. She’d not only had stupendous sex, not only gotten to know him better, but had come to understand him.
“I don’t have to tell you she didn’t deserve you.”
“No. She might’ve deserved the badass in training, but she didn’t deserve who I figured out to be—with a little help from my friends.”
“Did you buy that house for Ma Bee, the one where we were on Sunday?”
“All the kids—which includes me—went together on that three years ago. She’d take it, you see, from all of us, from the family, but she wouldn’t have taken it from any single one of us. If you see the difference.”
“Yes, I do. And what about Jake? What happened to him?”
“He does the contracting, when I pick up a place. His father went into construction after he got out of the ring, a few years before my own fateful day with them. Jake went into the business. He’s good at it.”
“I bet he is.” Obligingly, she plopped another slice of pizza on his plate. “You have a way of picking them.”
“I do.” He laid a hand over hers. “With a few disappointing exceptions, I have a hell of a way of picking them.”
16
The air was full of sounds, the peeps, the clicks, the whirls of night, when Duncan walked her to her car. “So…what do you think about taking a sail some evening?”
“I think that would be very nice—some evening. It’s a little hard for me to miss too many evenings at home. Added to that, you’ve been lucky so far that I haven’t gotten called in before or during one of the evenings.”
She turned, leaned back against the car. “You’re complicating things for yourself, dating not only a cop but a single parent.”
“Complications are interesting, especially when you figure out how to work them around the simple.” He leaned down to kiss her. “Some evening.”
“All right.” She reached for the car door, turned back to follow impulse. “Why don’t you come over for dinner this week? It wouldn’t be without its complications, but my mother’s already fallen for you.”
“Yeah? Well, if I didn’t get anywhere with you, I figured to hit on her next.” He tucked Phoebe’s hair behind her ear, gave the little gold hoop she wore a tap. “She makes a hell of a cookie.”
“She certainly does. Thursday work? It would give them enough time to fuss appropriately for company, and not give them quite enough time to drive me crazy w
ith the details of it.”
“I can do Thursday.”
She angled her head. “You don’t have a book to check? Appointments to consider?”
“I can do Thursday,” he repeated, and this time when he kissed her, he turned up the dial until heat balled in her belly.
“Well.” She rubbed her lips together. “Well, I’d better go before I decide staying’s an option. Because it isn’t,” she said, nudging him back when he started to speak. “Thursday. Six o’clock.” She laughed as she slid into the car. “It’s a school night.”
“As long as I don’t have to do any homework. You drive safe, Phoebe. And you should wait until you’re home before you think about me. Otherwise you’ll get all stirred up, maybe drive off the road.”
She drove away laughing—just, she imagined—as he’d intended. Still, she’d just have to risk getting herself stirred up, because he’d given her plenty to think about.
He was fun, interesting and easy on the eyes. He was good in bed—or against the door. It occurred to her that while she couldn’t claim a wide swath of sexual experience, hers wasn’t narrow either. And she’d been married for a few years in there.
But she’d never had an experience to match the one Duncan had greeted her with that night.
He had an easygoing way, but he wasn’t careless. Roy had been her experience with careless, and it was one she was determined never to repeat.
He hadn’t flipped off his friends when he made his fortune. Phin was his lawyer, Jake his contractor. He remembered his friends. Loyalty was a vital element to her.
Easygoing and loyal he might be, but he wasn’t what she thought of as a golden retriever kind of man. Too many layers, too much direction.
One of the layers was old hurts. How had he managed to bury that? She knew a lot about old hurts, and just how hard they were to keep down in the cellar of things. He didn’t wear his wounds as a point of pride, and many did. He might brood over them from time to time, and she appreciated a good brood herself. But he didn’t appear to let those old wounds, those old scars run his life.