House of Strangers (Harlequin Super Romance)

by McSparren, Carolyn

  “No, thanks.” He really should get up, thank her for dinner and leave. “Do the Delaneys always give the oldest son the first name of Paul?”

  “Actually, since the first Paul, the one that built the house, there’s only been one son per generation, and he’s always Paul the-next-letter-of-the-alphabet.” She placed the dishes into the dishwasher, then leaned on the counter. “Suppose they’d called them the way the English did? Adam the Inheritor, Barrett the Forecloser, Conrad the Roarer…”

  “What would my…Trey’s father be known as?”

  She thought a moment. “David the Artist? David the Drunk? Not quite right. I think he’d be David the Sad.”

  Paul caught his breath. So maybe his father hadn’t quite gotten away with what he’d done. Maybe he had had a conscience. If so, it apparently hadn’t stung him hard enough to make him confess.

  Ann began to knead her left shoulder. Despite his resolution, he’d taken advantage of her. She had worked long and hard today even if he hadn’t. He didn’t want to leave the comfort of this room, the pleasure of her company. When he wasn’t forcing himself to probe for facts, he found he was enjoying himself in a way he hadn’t since long before the accident.

  In the end, she solved his problem. “Go home,” she said, but with a smile. “You’re tired, I’m tired, and we both need to get to bed.”

  “You’re right,” he said, and stood. She followed him to the back door and flicked a switch that turned on a light above the outside landing. “Wait a minute. You’ll need a flashlight or you’ll break your neck on the garbage cans.”

  He stood with one hand on the doorknob. “The dinner was wonderful. Good night.” He started to leave, then turned back to her. “Will I screw up the employer-employee relationship if I kiss you?”

  Her eyes widened. “Uh—”

  “Damned if I care.” He slid his good arm around her waist and pulled her toward him.

  She came readily into his arms, dropped the flashlight onto the floor with a clatter they both ignored and wrapped her arms around him.

  God, she felt so soft. Her mouth, still sweet from the wine, opened to him. He pressed her hips against him, knew that he was already too aroused for a single kiss and didn’t let her go.

  She shoved him away. “I don’t think this is such a good idea.”

  “I think it’s a great idea.”

  “Go home. Please. Just go home.” She turned away.

  He caught Dante’s curious eye, but the big dog made no move toward him.

  “All right.” He wrapped his fingers gently around her ponytail. “I still think it’s a great idea. Thanks again for dinner. I owe you one.”

  He shut the door quietly behind him.

  Halfway down the stairs to the alley he stopped. A great idea? It had been a great kiss, but a lousy idea. Hadn’t he been telling himself that over and over again? Somehow whenever Ann was close to him, all his good intentions evaporated, and pure animal lust—or something—took over.

  ANN HEARD his footsteps on the stairs. She wrapped her arms around herself. “No, no, no. This will not happen. He’s everything I do not want in a man ever again. You hear that, Dante? No more good-looking, sweet-talking, mystery men. No more risky relationships. No more getting myself in over my head because of my heart, not to mention other parts of my body.” She turned to the kitchen and began to polish the slate countertops viciously. “It’s been so damn long since I went to bed with anybody, Dante. I thought maybe I was past all the sex stuff. Hah! He even asked if he could kiss me. Is that a ploy or what?” She scrubbed and dried the frying pan and hung it back on the pot rack.

  Then she picked up the telephone and dialed a New York number.

  “Hey, Marti, it’s me.”

  “Good evening, Ann. If I sound cool, it’s because I am. I have not had so much as an e-mail from you for a month. Where are you? Still in Buffalo?”

  “Sorry,” Ann said softly. “I’m back home doing the Delaney job I told you about. I truly have been busy. And I haven’t had one interesting thing to say. Boring, boring, boring.”

  “So now you do have something to say?”

  “I need some advice. Who else would I call except my dearest girlfriend?”

  “Oh, God, can it. I would like to make you grovel some more, but I’d prefer to hear about the advice thing. Advice graciously given 24/7. What have you done now?”

  “Kissed a client.”

  “God forbid. Twenty lashes. Wait a minute. This calls for a glass of wine and a cigarette.”

  “Marti! I thought you’d quit.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m down to six a day. This will be the seventh, but what the hey, it’s a special occasion. So what’s wrong with kissing a client?”

  “He is gorgeous, well-off, smart and funny, and he’s restoring my favorite house in the world.”

  “So that’s bad? What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s gorgeous, well-off, smart and funny, and he’s restoring my favorite house in the world.”

  “This does not compute.”

  “Damn right it doesn’t. I keep asking myself why, why, why? What’s his agenda?”

  “Why does he have to have an agenda?”

  “Because men do, as you very well know.”

  “I know that the agenda of most of the men I meet is simply to get into my knickers,” Marti responded. “Then to get out of my knickers and walk away. Do you think that’s your client’s agenda?”

  “His ex-fiancée was a flight attendant, for God’s sake! Somebody asked one of those big rock stars—I can’t remember which one—why he only dated beautiful women. Know what he said? ‘Because I can.’ Trust me, this guy can, too. I’m not about to be a stopgap because Rossiter is a small town with a limited pool of available flight attendants and models. I’m available, he’s horny and too lazy to go cruising for somebody better.”

  “Who said there was anybody better?”

  “Want a list? Starting with Travis?”

  “Your ex-husband never believed there was anybody better. He just wanted more women, not better ones. You were the one who wanted the divorce.”

  “He wanted me as a meal ticket while he pursued his career. The point is, I never figured it out. I thought we were totally in sync, saw the world the same way, saw our whole lives together the same way, were there for each other. It took me forever to get it through my head we weren’t.”

  “Yeah. You were there, and he was in somebody else’s bed.”

  “It hurt, dammit, Marti! Every time I caught him in another affair and bought into his promises that it would be the last time, a little bit more of my self-esteem vanished, along with a little bit more of my love for him. Finally there wasn’t much left of either. I’m just starting to feel that I’m not such a loser, but I’m not ready to put my ego to another test. Certainly not against flight attendants and models.”

  “So, if he’s Mr. Wrong, who’s Mr. Right?” Marti coughed. “That’s it. I quit smoking completely as of right this minute. Better I should breathe.”

  “Good thinking. Mr. Right is some nice, middle-aged farmer or an accountant or somebody safe with a nine-to-five job, decent prospects and the desire to settle down and raise a family.”

  “With a wife like you who spends nine months of the year restoring stuff all over the country?”

  “I’d cut back on my job for a husband and babies, but I want somebody who would be there for me for a change. Somebody who was content with me and only me.”

  “This guy isn’t?”

  “How could he be? Except as an interim measure? I don’t want to find out I’m being used again.”

  “When was the last time you went to bed with somebody?”

  “You don’t even want to know.”

  “That long? Okay, here’s the deal. You don’t have to be head over heels in love with a guy to have great sex with him. If it gets that far and you want to try it, then try it. If it’s great, then enjoy it without getting e
motionally involved.”

  “Oh, sure, like that’s going to happen.”

  “If it’s lousy, kiss him goodbye and go find your farmer. Lust in the dust. God, I love it.”

  “Marti, I wish I’d never called you.”

  “Other than taking another job out of town and dropping this one, I don’t have any other suggestions. Unless, of course, you want to fall in love and take your chances.”

  “No way! For once in my life, I intend to listen to my head and not my heart.” Ann hit the counter with the flat of her hand. “Ow, that hurt.”

  “An affair isn’t so bad,” Marti said. “I prefer affairs. They leave me more closet space.”

  “I don’t think I can do affairs.”

  “Big surprise. I would never have guessed. Then start hunting for your farmer or your accountant and drop your— What did he retire from?”

  “He was a transport pilot. He’s going to be a crop duster down here.”

  “A pilot?” Marti groaned. “You can definitely pick ’em. Good luck, sweetie, and keep me posted. By the way, have you heard from Travis lately?”

  “What makes you think I might have?”

  “He called and tried to find out where you were working.”

  “Did you tell him?” Ann yelled into the phone so loudly that Dante jumped up in alarm.

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, somehow he got my number in Buffalo and called me. Would you believe he wanted me to send him some money so he could get the brakes fixed on his car? ‘You can’t live in Los Angeles without a car, babe.’”

  “I can just hear him. You sent it, didn’t you, you idiot.”

  “Yes, all right. I sent it, but it’s supposed to be a loan, not a gift.”

  “You should have told him to get it from whatever woman he’s sleeping with at the moment.”

  “Marti, it’s only money. That’s the one thing I’ve got enough of at the moment.”

  “Well, did the bells still ring when you heard his voice?”

  “I didn’t even recognize his voice. I used to think I couldn’t live if I weren’t married to him. Now I just wish he could get a decent job.”

  “I wish he’d get boiled in oil.”

  “At least I’ve got a grip on reality finally. I don’t want to lose it.”

  “Good luck with your gorgeous guy. Better check him out before you fall too far and too hard.”

  They talked for twenty minutes longer, but only in generalities. Finally Ann hung up, flung herself down on her bed, laid her head on Dante’s dark flank and decided to stop worrying about the state of her heart. She’d concentrate, instead, on her libido. At least that she could control.

  As she slipped into sleep, she thought, I wonder what we’ll find when we open Uncle David’s studio?

  CHAPTER SIX

  “ONLY A MAN would have bought a house without looking into this old place,” Ann said. She peered at the padlock on the old summerhouse in Paul’s backyard, then offered him the bolt cutters. Behind them, Dante was investigating some newly turned earth that was probably a molehill.

  Paul reached for the cutters, then dropped his arm. This was one of the things he most despised about his injury. “Better get one of the workmen. I doubt if I can put enough pressure on them.”

  “It’s okay. I can do it.” She slipped the hasp of the lock into the jaws of the cutter, gave a couple of grunts and bore down. Paul stood by helplessly.

  “There,” she said as the hasp gave a satisfying snap. “Want to do the honors?”

  But he was in no mood to accept her salve to his ego. “You broke it, you get to take it off.”

  She slipped the padlock off the hasp. “First time anybody’s been in here since Uncle David died, I guess. He always kept it locked when he wasn’t working and sometimes when he was. Gram said Maribelle pocketed his key to the padlock at the funeral home when they brought his body in. Watch out for snakes.”

  “Snakes?”

  “Sure. Bound to be holes in the floor and cabinets. Toasty place for a snake to spend the winter. They haven’t warmed up enough yet to run away from you. At least you should open the door. It’s your building.”

  Suddenly Paul felt nauseated. He did not want to touch that knob. “You do it.”

  “Okay.” No hesitation there. Ann was unlikely to hesitate. And if there were ghosts or snakes, he couldn’t think of anyone he’d rather have with him when he encountered them. The door creaked on its hinges like a bad melodrama and scraped along the floorboards as it opened. “Shove, for Pete’s sake,” she said. “It’s stuck.”

  Paul braced himself against the door and pushed. It squealed, but gave. A breath of stale air slipped past him.

  Ann found the light switch beside the door and flipped it on. Nothing happened. “Not surprising the light’s blown after all these years.” She picked up her flashlight from the doorstep and shone the beam around the space. A single bulb hung down on a black cord above their heads.

  “Yuck. Watch out for black widows and brown recluse spiders. Talk about spiderwebs! Dracula’s castle had nothing on this.” She used the light to brush away the cobwebs in front of them.

  Paul heard the scuttling. Mice.

  Dante let out a healthy bark.

  “Hush, you can’t get to them, Dante,” Ann said, then turned to Paul. “If you’d had a lick of sense, you’d have had Daddy break that padlock, then fumigate and bait this place when he did the rest of the house.”

  “I didn’t think of it, and he didn’t mention it.”

  “Men.”

  Overhead he heard a rhythmic scratching sound. At some point the room might have had a ceiling, but it had been removed so that the rafters were exposed. A large skylight not visible from outside covered nearly the entire north slope of the roof. It was so dirty that it let in almost no light, but through the gloom, Paul could see the long fingers of branches scrabbling against it like talons.

  “Go away, snake!” Ann said, and stamped her feet.

  Paul caught his breath.

  “Just a precaution,” she said. “But don’t open any cabinets casually. Look, I’m going back to the house for a broom, some cleaning cloths and a couple of work lamps. You want to stay here or come with me?”

  “I’ll stay.”

  “Back in a minute.”

  As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw several ghostly shapes. Walking carefully in case the floorboards were rotten, he inched toward a tall, sheet-covered rectangle. An easel. With a canvas on it. He pulled out his handkerchief, wrapped it around his hand and lifted the edge of the sheet, then flipped it back so that it landed on the floor.

  The dust storm made him cough and started his eyes watering. “I should have waited for Ann,” he said, then looked up at the canvas.

  White. A big canvas with an initial coat of white sizing. His father had not began even to sketch out the picture he planned to paint.

  Paul felt a stir of disappointment. A second, smaller easel sat at right angles to the first. He covered his mouth and nose with his other hand and flicked off that sheet, as well. Another blank canvas. Had his father used this room, his painting, simply as a ruse to have a private place to get stinking drunk and sleep off his stupor in privacy? Across the far wall lay another sheet on what must be a sofa of some sort. It looked like a corpse laid out for burial.

  “Hey.”

  Paul started as Ann came in. He took the lamps from her.

  “There’s a plug in that overhead light fixture,” she said. “Can you reach it?”

  He stretched up and plugged the heavy orange cord into the plug on top of the naked bulb, then waited while Ann flipped the switch on the lamp.

  “Great,” she said. “Now all we have to do is to find someplace to hang it. I brought a new bulb.” She reached up and hooked the light over the top of the door.

  He unscrewed the broken bulb, taking care not to break it. He could see that it was rusted, but he managed to ease it out, then insert
the fresh bulb. Miraculously the fixture still worked. The light chased the shadows to the far side of the room. “He was a painter. Even with the light that should be coming through that skylight, he had to have needed more light than this.”

  Ann pointed the flashlight toward the roof beams. “There’s a couple of fluorescent lights up there. Unless they’ve gotten wet, they might still work. Now, how do you turn them on?”

  She began to amble around the room. He watched her. There was no reason she should feel anything about this room. To Ann it was simply an interesting curiosity to be explored.

  “Here we go,” she said, and flicked a switch on the side of one of the waist-high cabinets that were built against three of the walls. Three of the fluorescents flickered, then lit. For the first time Paul could take a good look at the room.

  He saw evidence that it had once done duty as a kitchen. In the corner by the door was a heavy double sink with old-fashioned brass faucets. Farther along the eastern wall a break in the cabinets indicated a stove must have stood there. An aged and possibly deadly portable electric heater now occupied the space. The stove pipe that would have vented the stove outside had been left attached to the wall with only a cap at the lower end to keep any vermin out.

  Ann walked over to the couch and tossed back the sheet that covered it.

  “Wow,” she said, and coughed, “Look at this.”

  It was a Victorian recamier elaborately carved to resemble a swan. The back of the recamier was a lifted wing, the couch itself nestled where the swan’s body would have been. Since his father’s death it had obviously become not only a home but a source of building materials for the mice that had moved in when the place was padlocked.

  “Real horsehair,” Ann said, “or what remains of it. Ever sit on horsehair? It’s slick as glass and not nearly as comfortable.” A couple of aged pillows and a filthy patchwork quilt were laid neatly on the end of the sofa. The down from the pillows lay around the floor by the sofa like snow. He thought he could see holes in the patchwork. “This is wonderful. You’ll have to have it reupholstered after I restore it—you do want it in the house, don’t you?”