FLASHBACK

by Nancy Warren

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  FLASHBACK

  Nancy Warren

  ~Harlequin Temptation #838~

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  Contents:

  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

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  Chapter 1

  ^»

  "You have a problem with intimacy, Laura."

  Laura Kinkaide rolled her gaze to the stained ceiling. "Stan, I need furniture wax, not a lecture on my defective psyche." As if Stan Stukowsky with his thirty-year marriage had any idea what it was like to be single these days.

  Stan shook his bald head, clinking through cans and tubes on cluttered, grimy shelves. "How long did – what was his name – this one last?"

  "I dated Peter for about three months." Laura tapped her fingers on the goo-covered worktable. "Look, I just ran in to get the wax. I do not have time for this conversation. I'm trying to get the Gibsons' apartment finished today."

  "My gosh, three whole months." Stan's voice sounded like a piece of steel going through a cheese grater. Giving up on that shelf, he bent to riffle through the lower shelves.

  She took a slow, deep breath, refusing to rise to Stan's pop-psychology bait. The smells of paint, wax and ancient wood were as thick as the dust.

  His muffled voice floated up to her. "How long did you go out with the guy before him?"

  She knew where this was going. "Twelve weeks."

  "And the one before that?"

  Laura glared at Stan's back. If he wasn't the best supplier she knew, she really wouldn't put up with him. She enunciated each word slowly: "A quarter of a year."

  "No matter how you say it, darlin', it's still three months. Walnut or pine?"

  "What?"

  "The furniture polish. What's it for?" Stan asked, rising with a squat can in each hand.

  "Oh." Laura had to think. "I've done a pale-green crackle finish on the armoire in the bedroom. I want to give it an antique patina."

  He nodded, handing her the walnut. "What's up after the Gibson place?"

  She rolled aching shoulders. "A vacation."

  "So, why'd you dump him?"

  Oh, God. He was back to that again, was he? "How do you know I dumped him? Maybe he dumped me."

  Stan just gazed at her with his I've - known - you - for - ten - years - don't - give - me - that look.

  Laura sighed noisily, trying not to look defensive. "He bites his nails."

  Stan nodded, as though she'd said just what he expected. "You dump a perfectly good guy with a thriving law practice because he bites his nails. And you don't think you have an intimacy problem?"

  "I hardly think you're qualified to judge, Stan. The last time you had a date, the Beatles were together. Chocolate bars cost a nickel. And—" she gestured to the damaged treasures that littered his workroom like an upmarket garage sale "—most of this stuff was brand-new. Believe me, times have changed."

  "So now you're taking another vacation alone?"

  Sounds drifted back from the front shop of Vintage Restorations, where Stan's wife sold stencils, specialty paints and books for do-it-yourself decorators. Laura heard the hum of voices, along with the odd burst of laughter and the regular ringing of the till.

  "What kind of vacation would I have with a guy chomping his nails in my ear? Women are independent these days. We do things for ourselves and by ourselves."

  "Laura, I've had hangovers that lasted longer than some of your relationships. The way you're going you'll run through every unattached male in Seattle before Christmas."

  She narrowed her eyes. "Are you calling me a slut?"

  Stan's guffaw puffed a dust cloud off his worktable. "If you had sex with these guys more often, you might not notice that they bite their nails, or watch the wrong movies or make corny jokes." He leaned forward and patted her hand. "You'll never find a perfect man. You're just making excuses to avoid intimacy."

  "I get plenty of sex, thank you," Laura retorted, her voice raised in annoyance.

  "Lucky you," a rich baritone drawled behind her right shoulder.

  She saw her own horror reflected in Stan's eyes, felt the blood rising, flushing up her neck, hitting her face like a volcanic eruption. She and Stan had been alone. How had a strange man sneaked up on them?

  A man with that voice.

  A deep, sexy voice that set off an answering quiver somewhere inside her chest. There was only one person who'd ever been able to do that to her.

  He'd spoken only two words. It couldn't be Jack. Please, let it be a stranger who'd overheard them talking about her pitiful sex life. Let it be anyone but Jack. She turned slowly…

  "Hello, Laura."

  "Jack…"

  For just a second she was a lovesick teenager again, looking up into the face of her hero. Then she saw the changes time had wrought.

  Years and experience had added hard edges to the boy she'd once loved. His eyes were just as blue, but now they had a few crinkly lines around their corners, while that wavy blond hair had darkened to a rich ash. He had the same tall athlete's body, but his chest seemed wider, his shoulders broader, and he held himself with a new assurance. Everything about him had matured and filled out except his lips, which looked a little thinner, as though he didn't laugh as much as he used to.

  She realized she was staring, and glanced away. "What are you doing here?" Her voice sounded raspy. Her heart was jumping all around her rib cage like a flipped-out canary.

  "Your grandmother asked me to drop this off. She said you get mail at this store." He held out a large brown envelope. "The lady out front sent me back here."

  He was looking down at her in a way that made Laura wish she'd consulted a mirror recently. She was pretty sure she had pale-green paint spattered all over her – it was certainly splotched all over the hand that moved reluctantly forward to take the package. She probably looked in need of major restoration – right at home with all the other disasters in Stan's workshop.

  "Why didn't she just mail it?" Or at least warn Laura he was coming.

  He shrugged, his denim shirt moving up and down over sturdy shoulders. "She wanted you to get it fast, I guess. I happened to be coming to Seattle." His eyes crinkled. "And you know how she likes to save a penny."

  Laura felt herself smiling back. They had so much history together. Jack knew Gran almost as well as she did, knew she hated waste of any kind – wasted money most of all.

  Laura took the package from Jack's outstretched hand, trying not to notice how strong and capable that hand looked. The nails, she noted, were short and neatly trimmed, not bitten. Quickly, she shifted her attention to the envelope. "Thanks for bringing it."

  Laura felt Stan's inquisitive little eyes darting back and forth between her and Jack, sensed him sniffing the atmosphere like a French sow nosing the dirt for truffles. Really, if she didn't love him like a second father, the man would drive her crazy. She introduced them. "Stan Stukowsky, Jack Thomas."

  The men shook hands, sizing each other up. Jack was a head taller than the older man. He stood confidently at ease, weight evenly distributed on long legs. Energy seemed to radiate from him.

  "Laura and I grew up together on Whidbey Island," Jack said.

  "Well, any friend of—"

  She interrupted, "We're not…"

  "We haven't seen each other in a while," Jack finished. "Laura doesn't get back to Laroche much." He glanced at her then. Could she be reading recrimination in his gaze? When he was the reason she'd left home in the first place?

  "Must be important if your grandmother wanted it delivered personally." Stan nodded his head at the envelope. Did he think he was being subtle? Well, he could die of old age waiting for her to open the package. Knowing Gran, she'd probably signed Laura up with one of tho
se dating services.

  She shrugged. "It's probably stock tips. Gran has a lot of time to read, so she keeps me up to date on the markets."

  "Your gran tells me you're pretty successful." Jack leaned against the workbench at Laura's side, close enough that she felt his warmth. His chest was at eye level and a swirl of coppery hair in the vee of his open shirt snagged her attention. She quickly forced her gaze to the floor.

  "I do okay."

  "Laura's the best designer and restorer of Victorian interiors in the business," Stan announced with avuncular pride.

  "I keep telling her to hire staff, but she says she can only keep her quality top-notch if she does the work herself."

  She'd never noticed how much wax and oil there was caked on the floor. The place was an absolute fire hazard. She scraped at an amber glob with her toe.

  "Isn't that mirror a Chippendale?" Jack asked.

  Laura glanced up. Football, Jack Thomas knew about, but furniture styles? She'd have guessed he would define Chippendale as a male stripper. Or a couple of Disney characters. Not that he could have unerringly spotted the masterpiece in Stan's current collection.

  "We can't authenticate it," Stan said. He worked his way over to where the mirror lay atop a marble commode, and carried it back carefully. "I picked it up at auction to restore and sell, but…" He shrugged massive shoulders. "I think I'll keep it myself." He couldn't disguise the note of smug pride in his tone.

  Jack nodded, caressing the ancient frame. "It's a beauty." In the wavering reflection, she witnessed his intensity as he ran his long fingers over the scarred wood, as if it were a lover's face.

  She couldn't tear her gaze away. Their eyes locked for a moment in the speckled mirror. Their images seemed oddly distorted.

  Laura forgot to breathe. She'd outgrown her teenage infatuation with Jack along with her Barbie dolls and training bras. She just wished that, after all these years, she didn't feel such a sense of connection with him.

  "Are you in the business?" Stan's voice broke the spell and Laura breathed again. A sharp, jerky pant.

  "I'm a carpenter." Jack shrugged, his reflected gaze still on Laura. "I've picked up a little knowledge here and there." There was another pause, during which she waited for him to continue. But all he said was, "Well, good to see you again, Laura. Nice to meet you, Stan." Jack lifted his hand in a casual gesture and sauntered out.

  Unable to help herself, she watched his broad back as he walked away with an athlete's ease and confidence. And God, she loved men in well-worn blue jeans. She realized she was leaning heavily against the worktable, and had a feeling it was the only thing holding her up. Damn it, how could Jack still affect her?

  Stan hadn't missed her reaction. He was almost rubbing his hands with glee, planning Peter's replacement. "He seemed—"

  "You'll be pleased to know that he dumped me!"

  Stan's eyes widened. "I don't remember a Jack … should I?"

  Laura felt herself beginning to blush all over again. "It happened when I was sixteen." She shrugged. "We went out for a while and then he dumped me. It's no big deal."

  Stan lit up like Freud after a cigar-laden dream. "Ah-ha!" he cried, throwing both hands in the air.

  *

  Laura rubbed her cramped biceps with a groan. She lay collapsed on the couch in her apartment, too tired even to take a shower. The Gibsons' armoire now wore the patina of a Renaissance painting, but hard as she'd rubbed the dark polish into the crackled paint, she couldn't erase the humiliating scene in Stan's workshop from her memory.

  It was almost twelve years since she'd stood that close to Jack, since they'd exchanged more than the skimpiest casual greeting in passing. And he had to find her in stained overalls, her hair a mess, paint spattered God-knows-where, while Stan told her she wasn't getting enough sex.

  It wasn't one of her better days.

  Although the day had improved when she'd placed her elegant gilt-edged envelope on the Gibsons' gleaming dining table. It contained her final bill – an amount large enough to finance a decent holiday.

  There was nothing elegant about the thick brown envelope Jack had delivered from Gran. Since her grandmother's light reading had started to include the Financial Times and Barron's, she'd often sent Laura advice and snipped-out articles. And because Laura couldn't bear to think of all that work going to waste, she even followed Gran's advice occasionally, putting small sums of money into the stocks and other investments her grandmother recommended.

  It had started out as a kind of charity, but darn it, her white-haired gran had been right about a lot of things. Laura's profit on Microsoft alone had paid for her current computer.

  Wondering whether it was pork bellies or another impotency drug Gran was touting, Laura ripped open the envelope, which crackled loudly in the silence of her apartment. Out slid a paper-clipped bundle of papers topped by an 8-by-10 photograph.

  She raised the photo to study it more closely, and let out a soft sound of distress when she saw the run-down building.

  Not her dream house!

  Once a gracious Victorian home, the old house sagged with neglect. Most of the paint was cracked and peeling like decaying skin. The fine leaded windows were boarded up, the sparkling coquettish eyes rendered blind. Bits of gingerbread trim were missing; lengths of lacy wrought-iron railing had disappeared. Moss hung lank from the turreted roof. You could almost smell the musty air inside. The duchess had become a bag lady.

  Looking at the photo was like seeing a cherished friend seriously ill; it hurt Laura somewhere deep inside. She touched the picture fondly, outlining the shape of the house with a fingertip.

  In the three years since she'd last visited her hometown on Whidbey Island, the house had really deteriorated. She still thought of it as "her house," the old McNair place that was so much a part of all her childish dreams.

  She placed the photo on her lap and picked up the papers. The covering letter was written on the official stationery of the village of Laroche by the Sea.

  Dear Ms. Kinkaide:

  You have been recommended to the Save McNair House committee to help restore this historic landmark to its original condition. It is the wish of this committee to operate McNair House as a museum and tourist attraction commencing this upcoming summer season.

  We invite you to submit a proposal to decorate the interior of the home, including supervising its furnishing, authentic to the period in which it was built (circa 1886).

  Yours sincerely,

  Dolores Walters (Mrs.)

  Chairwoman, Save McNair House Committee

  A bubble of excitement rose from deep inside. Laura grabbed the bundle of papers, flipped on her computer and elbowed a pile of vacation brochures onto the floor. Within minutes she was on the phone.

  "Hi, Stan, it's Laura. Do you still have some of that vintage flocked wall covering, the maroon? Great, hold on to it for me. I'm going to fax you a tentative supply list on a fabulous project I'm quoting, so give me your absolute best price on everything."

  "I always do, darlin'," said the gravelly voice on the other end. "Ah, what about your vacation?"

  "This house is the project of a lifetime. It's going to be the best thing I've ever done. Besides, it's on beautiful Whidbey Island," she added breezily. "A perfect vacation spot."

  "Whidbey? Is that what the package was about?"

  "Yep."

  "So, does the Heartbreak Kid still live there?"

  "Don't even think about it, Stan. I'll be working on the house. I won't be seeing Jack Thomas."

  Her next call was to Laroche.

  "Why, Laura, what a nice surprise to hear from you," Gran's voice bellowed through the phone lines.

  With a grimace, Laura pulled the phone a foot away from her ear. Gran always pitched her voice according to how far away the other person was. Laura had yet to convince her that telephones had improved since her girlhood. Long distance calls with her grandmother were deafening.

  "That's a big fat
lie if I ever heard one," she said into the receiver, resisting the temptation to shout back. "You knew darn well I'd be calling. I saw your name on the Save the McNair committee list."

  The old woman chuckled into the phone. "I'll get your room ready, dear. When do you start work?"

  "I haven't been offered the contract yet."

  "You will. I haven't lived in this town for eighty-two years for nothing. Why, I pulled down the mayor's pants and spanked him right on Main Street

  when I caught him stealing Mrs. Allen's apples." The old lady chuckled richly in reminiscence. "’Course, he wasn't the mayor then…"

  "I'm sure he's reformed since he was seven years old, Gran," Laura teased. She was also sure he wouldn't ever go against her grandmother's wishes in case she told the story in public. "Do you know you can go to jail for blackmail?"

  "Hmm. Stealing apples is a crime, too, young lady. Maybe our politicians in Laroche aren't as bad as some, but they've all got their dirty secrets. And I know all of them."

  "I'll bet you do." Laura smiled, picturing that white-haired little old lady with the will of iron.

  "You come down on Sunday, Laura. I'll cook a pot roast. You can start work Monday." There was a short pause, then Gran's voice dropped a decibel or two. "It's time you came home. We miss you."

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  Chapter 2

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  Laura sat crossed-legged on the floor of the master bedroom in the McNair House, still amazed that her grandmother had pulled this off. Laura had received a contract – signed by the mayor – on her fax machine only a day after she'd faxed her proposal.

  A blank sketching pad on her knee, she contemplated the huge mahogany four-poster bed that sat like deposed royalty against one wall of the run-down room, its ragged canopy drooping.

  Morning sun streamed in through open windows, along with a cool spring breeze, but she was well bundled in a chunky sweater under her working overalls.