by Lee McKenzie
She smiled and her eyelids slid shut again.
“You’re exhausted,” he said. “You should get some sleep. The bed in the spare room is already made up.”
She opened her eyes and yawned. “Thanks. I didn’t get much sleep last night and it’s been a long day.”
Even from his perspective, calling this a long day was an understatement. She seemed to be handling everything remarkably well, even for her. Maybe too well? But then, theatrics had never been her style.
He watched her ease Max’s head off her leg and stand up.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
She shook her head. “I’ll just brush my teeth and go to bed.” At the archway that led to the hall, she stopped and turned around. “Thanks for everything you’ve done for me. I really appreciate it.” She covered another yawn with her hand before she disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door.
Brent went back into the kitchen and opened the French doors for Max. “Out you go.” While he waited, he picked up the phone and punched in the code to retrieve his messages.
There were two, both from his friends Cathy and Dave.
“Hey, Brent. Have you heard the news? Leslie Durrance left Gerald Bedford standing at the altar this morning. Haven’t heard what happened but I take it she’s back on the market. Give us a call when you get a chance.”
Brent rolled his eyes at the ceiling.
He heard Leslie come out of the bedroom and go into the bathroom. Leslie Durrance was in his bathroom, brushing her teeth with a toothbrush he’d bought for her. He didn’t know about her being back on the market, but Gerald Bedford was history, and Leslie suddenly didn’t seem to mind Brent’s company. Still, he did not need any interference.
He listened to the second message.
“Hey, it’s Cathy again. Dave and I were wondering if you’d like to come over for a barbecue tonight. Thought we’d give Nick and his new girlfriend a call, too. See if we can get the lowdown on Leslie. Let us know if you’re free.”
Luckily she hadn’t called while he was here. Leslie would have thought it strange if he didn’t answer, but Cathy’s voice could fill a room, even through the telephone, and Leslie would not react well to the idea of “being back on the market.”
He picked up her chopsticks in one hand and his in the other, and tapped them together. Who knew? Maybe the old Brent had a shot with the new Leslie.
Yeah, right. The earring he’d fished out of the plumbing had to have cost a small fortune, and yet she hadn’t seemed concerned about losing it. If he had told her it was gone for good, he didn’t think she would have cared.
He had a comfortable life but even if he cleaned out his savings account and maxed out his credit cards, he couldn’t afford to buy things like that for her. Never mind the engagement ring she’d been wearing. Which she no longer had on, he’d noticed. It must be in the bedroom with her other things. At least she was in no danger of losing that.
The water stopped running in the bathroom. Several minutes later, he heard the bathroom door open and the bedroom door close.
He went over to the French doors and whistled for Max, who bounded inside and immediately went in search of Leslie. Brent locked the door and followed.
Max sat outside her bedroom, nose pressed against the narrow space between the door and the floor. “Are you keeping an eye on her?” Brent asked quietly from the doorway to his own bedroom.
Max looked back at him and then flopped onto the floor against the door as though trying to tell him that no one, not even him, was getting to Leslie.
“Like I’d even try,” he whispered. He glanced at his watch. Not yet ten o’clock. He didn’t want to turn on the television in case it kept her awake. Maybe he’d read for a while, but first he needed a shower. He should have done that after he’d unloaded the lumber, but he’d been distracted by taking apart the plumbing and learning how to use chopsticks.
He went into the bathroom, closed the door and stripped off his clothes. The room held a faint scent of woman, and he reacted to it immediately. Damn it.
He drew the curtain around the tub and turned on the water. A few minutes alone in the shower was no substitute for a night in bed with the one woman he’d always wanted and had never been able to have, but it wasn’t like that was going to happen, anyway. Not this night, and certainly not with that woman. On the bright side, the woman of his dreams was in his spare bedroom and that was something he’d never thought possible. Maybe if he played his cards right…
Leslie wasn’t like most other women, though. Hell, she wasn’t like any other woman, and he didn’t just want to sleep with her. He wanted it all. Making love to her now would only make getting over her a hundred times harder than it had been ten years ago.
Speaking of hard…he stepped into the tub and stood under the warm spray for a few seconds. Think about something else, he told himself. Anything but Leslie.
He reached for the soap and ran the bar across his chest. Something sharp grazed his skin, then clanged to the bottom of the tub. He caught a flash of light as the object skittered toward the drain. He jabbed one foot over the opening, a split second after the damn thing disappeared. He hadn’t actually seen it but he knew exactly what it was. Leslie’s engagement ring.
“You have got to be freaking kidding me,” he said. He cranked off the taps and stared down the drain.
Damn it. This could not be happening.
Maybe it hadn’t been the ring. Surely to God she wouldn’t leave something that valuable in the soap dish.
Yes, she would.
His irritation dampened the enthusiasm he’d been feeling a minute ago. He stepped out of the tub, wrapped a towel around his waist and flung the door open.
Max, in his newly self-appointed role as guard dog, raised his head.
Brent was relieved to see a band of light still shining from under the door. “Leslie?” He hoped it didn’t sound as though he was shouting.
The rustle of sheets was followed by a faint, “Yes?”
“Where’s your engagement ring?” he asked, knowing his voice transmitted his annoyance.
He heard her footsteps cross the floor, then the door opened a crack. “I left it…” She paused, as though trying to remember where she’d put it. “Oh, it’s in the soap dish in the bathtub.”
“No, it isn’t.”
The door opened wider. The nightgown he’d brought for her was a little shorter and a lot more transparent than it needed to be. Her long, slender legs might have been distracting if her nipples weren’t nudging at the fabric.
Here we go again, he thought. He hoped she wouldn’t notice the movement under his towel. But her eyes widened and her color heightened, indicating she had.
He thought about how much it would cost to replace the ring if the thing had already made its way to the sewer. Ah yes, that did the trick.
“What happened to it?” she asked. Then her eyes lit up with amusement. “No! You didn’t!”
“Yes, I did. How is that funny?”
“It isn’t.”
But obviously she thought it was. “Come on, Leslie—”
“It’s kind of symbolic,” she said, still smiling.
He couldn’t stop himself from rolling his eyes. Symbolic or not, thousands of dollars’ worth of diamonds down the drain—his drain, dropped down there by him—was no laughing matter.
She sobered slightly. “You didn’t have any trouble finding my earring.”
“It helped that the trap was right there under the sink.”
“Where’s the trap for the bathtub?”
“In the crawl space under the house.”
“Oh.”
He could see that she had no idea what that meant. “You’d better get dressed. I’m going to need help.”
“Can’t it wait till tomorrow?”
“Not if I’m going to get any sleep tonight.”
LESLIE STRIPPED off the nightgown and dragged Brent’s shirt over her head. A craw
l space didn’t sound like the kind of place she wanted to wear her new jeans, and her just-washed underwear was hanging in the closet, so she had no choice but to pull on Brent’s sweat pants over bare skin.
Her head was starting to hurt and all she wanted to do was sleep. Between the exhaustion and too much wine, she could hardly think straight. Brent’s wet body, scantily clad in a towel, had her feeling even more muddled. She slipped her feet into the sandals he’d given her and opened the bedroom door.
Brent was waiting. He hadn’t dried off before getting dressed and his T-shirt clung damply to his chest. He seemed to be completely unaware of the effect his body had on her, otherwise she might think he’d done it on purpose.
Now that they were dressed, she felt a little more composed. She had been unprepared for his naked torso, still shimmering wet from the shower. Not that there was any way to prepare for something like that. Physical labor did amazing things for a man’s body and the more she saw, the more she liked.
“Ready?” he asked.
She nodded. The sooner this was over, the sooner she could crawl back into bed and get some sleep. And clear the images of Brent in a towel out of her mind, she thought as she followed him through the kitchen and out the French doors onto the porch. He grabbed the bucket and the tools he’d left there earlier and pulled two ball caps off a hook and a flashlight from the shelf above. Then he flipped a light switch, dimly illuminating a small semicircle of the backyard. “Watch your step.”
She had stopped watching her step the moment she’d climbed into his truck that morning. It seemed a little late to start now.
He shone the flashlight at the back of the house at ground level. She had no idea what he was looking for until he reached down and unlatched a small panel. It was actually a door, maybe three feet high, and it swung open on creaky hinges. He crouched near the opening and shone the light under the house.
She knelt beside him and looked inside. “You have to go in there?” she asked.
“We have to. I’ll need you to hold the flashlight for me.”
The thought of crawling into that dark space made her skin itch. “You don’t think there are spiders in there, do you?”
He hesitated, as if trying to figure out what his answer should be. “No,” he said. “Probably not.”
“Liar.” The place was probably teeming with all kinds of creepy crawlies.
He placed the cap he was carrying on her head, backwards.
“What’s that for?”
“To keep the cobwebs out of your hair.”
“You just said there wouldn’t be spiders.”
“You won’t see them if there are. Too dark.”
“That’s no consolation.”
“I didn’t imagine it would be.”
“But you’re still making me go in.”
“It’ll be just as dark and spooky under there in the morning as it is now. And I don’t think I should have to do this alone. You’re the one who left the ring lying around.”
All valid points. “So if I say you shouldn’t worry about the ring—”
“Don’t even think about it.”
“I’m too busy thinking about spiders.”
“Try not to.”
Oh, sure. Like that was going to happen.
He handed the flashlight to her and got down on his hands and knees. “Ready?”
No, but she nodded anyway.
He crawled through the opening, pushing the bucketful of tools ahead of himself. After his butt disappeared into the darkness, she held her breath and followed.
Chapter Five
Now she knew why it was called a crawl space. The air had an earthy smell but in spite of all the rain that morning, this place was bone-dry. And even with the narrow cone of light coming from the flashlight, it was too dark to see the spiders, though she knew they were there.
Please don’t let one of those things walk on me.
“Can you shine that over here?” Brent asked.
She angled the light in his direction. He hadn’t gone very far, and he was looking up at some plumbing.
“I need you to hold it close to the pipe so I can see what I’m doing.”
That she could do. But as she moved closer, the invisible strands of a spiderweb stuck to her face. She dropped the flashlight with a thud and tried to wipe the revoltingly sticky strands off her skin.
Brent picked up the flashlight.
“Sorry,” she said. “I have a serious spider phobia.”
“Didn’t they make a movie about that?”
She shuddered. “If they did, I didn’t see it.”
He laughed softly and brushed her cheek with his thumb. “There. It’s gone. Ready to get to work?”
His touch took her by surprise, partly because that wasn’t where the spiderweb had stuck to her. She’d had no trouble fending him off in high school, and it might be easier now if she hadn’t had too much to drink. Back then she’d thought he was good-looking—she hadn’t been that different from the other girls—but until today she’d never actually felt attracted to him.
“What do you want me to do?” she asked.
“Hold the light?” He handed it back to her.
Of course. She directed the beam at the pipes but it illuminated his face, too. He was smiling, as if he’d suddenly come to the same realization she had.
Leslie Durrance has the hots for Brent Borden.
No, she doesn’t.
For heaven’s sake, what’s wrong with you? she asked herself.
Brent took a closer look at the plumbing and sighed.
“Something wrong?”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t look good. These old cast-iron pipes are pretty badly corroded.”
“So we’re done?”
“I’m persistent, remember?”
She swatted at something crawling on the back of her hand. “How long is this going to take?”
“If all goes well? Five or ten minutes.”
She didn’t ask how long it would take if things didn’t go well. She didn’t want to know.
Brent fitted a wrench to one of the pipes and heaved on it. Nothing happened, although the sound of metal on metal got Max’s attention. He ran through the house, barking, and the sound of his paws on bathroom floor could be heard directly overhead.
“Great,” Brent said. “I should have realized this would make him nuts. The neighbors will wonder what’s going on.” He braced one shoulder against the outside wall and had another go at the pipe. Judging by his groaning, this was not going to be easy.
“Feel free to swear at it if you want,” she said.
“If I thought it would help, I would.” He squirted some oily-smelling stuff around the places where the pipes were connected.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Lubricant. I’ll give it a minute or two and see if it does the trick.”
She watched him examine the pipes. He was a lot like her brother, which was probably why they’d stayed such good friends for so many years.
He glanced at her and smiled.
She smiled back, then quickly lowered the flashlight, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
He wrapped his hand gently around her wrist and redirected the light. She knew it was so he could see her, but the light also defined the angles of his face—the well-proportioned nose and a firm jaw that had gone a little too long without being shaved. She wondered how it felt.
“Are you and Nick still working on Maggie’s house?” she blurted out, thinking that inane conversation might help keep her mind, and her hands, off him.
“We finished yesterday. He was in a hurry to get things wrapped up so he could, ah, take her to your wedding.”
“I hope things work out for them. This morning she certainly helped me figure out what to do.”
“How?”
“I might have gone through with the wedding if I hadn’t run into her. She told me to listen to my heart.”
Brent didn’t say anyth
ing.
“Actually, I’ll never forget what she said. ‘Your head will always look for reasons to explain away the doubt, but it can never change what you know in your heart.’ And she was right. Running away from the church was only possible because I didn’t let myself think about the consequences.”
“Good for her,” Brent said, his voice barely audible.
Something tickled the back of Leslie’s neck. She swiped at it and knocked the ball cap askew.
Brent reached out and straightened it. Then he pulled on a pair of worn work gloves and raised the wrench to the pipe again. “Okay, time to get serious.”
The clatter set off Max’s barking again.
“Crazy mutt,” Brent muttered.
“He must be a good watch dog.”
“Yeah, till the burglar gets inside and Max tries to get the guy to play with him.”
Leslie laughed. “I can imagine that.”
Brent grunted and heaved on the wrench again, and something moved. “That’s more like it.” It took him a few minutes to loosen the two metal rings that held the pipes together, but finally the curved part that he called the trap came away. He held it over the bucket and looked into one end of it. “Hand me the light,” he said.
She did, and watched as he shone it into one end of the pipe. Max’s barking had turned to whimpering.
“There it is.” Brent turned the pipe upside down and banged it against the pail. Watery sludge dribbled out and the ring clanked into the bottom of the bucket. “Thank God.” He pulled it out and wiped it on his shirt before he handed it to her.
The ring that had once given her so much pleasure now sat in the palm of her hand, and she felt absolutely nothing. The stupid thing must be jinxed, she decided, and she could not wait to give it back to Gerald. He could do whatever he wanted with it. Give it to Candice and let it work its black magic on her.
At least Brent could stop worrying about it.
She searched the sides of the sweat pants but there were no pockets.
“You should put it on,” Brent said. “We don’t want to lose it down here.”
No way. She shook her head and handed it back to him. “I am never wearing that ring again. Put it in your pocket.”