“All right.” He gave in gracefully and cupped his hand around her elbow to guide her up the stairs. She shrugged off his hand. “But next time you won’t get off so easy.”
“Yeah, well, next time I won’t fall for the ‘why don’t you sit down in front of the nice warm fire and curl up in this blanket while I read you really boring legal documents’ trick.” She made sure not to stomp up the stairs, so he would know she was kidding.
“Hey, some tricks only work once.” She whipped her head around to find him grinning at her, and then stumbled up the next step and cursed. “I’m kidding. It’s called humor. When jokes are exchanged between two friends.”
“Don’t push it, Reed.” She stopped at the top of the stairs and stared down at him. “Let’s see how friendly you think I am when I come banging on your door at five in the morning, wanting you to help me shovel a path to the street.”
“That’s what friends are for, right?”
“I’d bet most of your friends just pick up the phone and call for their drivers to pull the limo around.”
“Don’t be petty. It doesn’t suit you.” He brushed his hands against her hips to move her out of his way. She felt each fingertip like a small electric shock and then her stomach slid into that slow, rolling loop that she was coming to expect whenever he touched her. “Follow me. I’ll make this quick.”
“You don’t know what suits me,” she muttered, keeping her voice low enough to avoid the inevitable comeback if he heard her. Spencer was striding down the hall in front of her, pointing right and left like an air traffic controller and calling out information.
There were six rooms on the second floor. Two bedrooms, each with its own bath, thanks to someone in her family tree who’d had a fondness for extensive indoor plumbing, and two suites at diagonally opposite ends of the floor. Each suite had a master-size bedroom and bathroom and another attached room, which in one suite had been made into an office and in the other, an artist’s studio.
“I don’t know who the artist was, but it’s a good space,” Spencer said, walking her through the bedroom of that suite and into the connecting room. “Lots of light. Plenty of room if someone wanted to set up a drafting table for construction plans, say.” He knew better than to look at her with that leading statement.
“Shut up, Reed,” she answered, no real malice in her voice. She stood in the middle of the open room—no curtains on these windows to block the southern light—and knew that she wanted this house. She thought of her cozy but cramped one-bedroom apartment, a place that she didn’t own and that could be taken from her in a month if her building went condo, and then craved this house.
She’d been here for six hours, had hated the very thought of the place and the woman who had lived here, and yet she felt the timbers of the floors and the plaster of the walls settling into her bones with a rightness that scared her.
It was all impossible.
“Very nice,” she said, forcing her voice to be steady, pretending all was normal. “I’m sure the charity Great-Aunt Adeline named will be thrilled to receive it when I don’t meet the terms.”
“Don’t make up your mind yet, Addy.”
He was watching her, she knew, and when she turned to him, she also knew he would read the unhappiness in her eyes. He stood with his hands in his pockets, sleeves unrolled but unbuttoned, cuffs hanging open around his wrists. Her sadness made her honest.
“It’s not a matter of deciding anything and you know it. The fact is, I’m not married, and don’t see myself strolling down the aisle anytime soon.”
His words were measured. “You have some time to fulfill the requirements of the will.”
“One year.” She walked back into the bedroom and dropped onto the edge of the bed. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m sure the average guy would just as soon marry me as watch the Bears play Monday Night Football, but I just don’t see this happening.”
He’d followed her into the bedroom and now moved as if to sit down on the bed. Her look stopped him while he was still a yard away. He was frowning at her.
Great, now she felt guilty. Years on construction sites might have made her a little rough around the edges, but she didn’t usually go around trying to make people feel bad.
“Don’t worry about it, Reed. Two days ago, I didn’t know this place existed. So it’s not like I’m really losing anything. I never had it to begin with.” Time to change the subject. “Which room is yours?”
“At the other end of the hall. The one with the office.”
She’d peeked in the door to each room, something she could now kick herself for as the image snaked its way into her mind of Reed’s naked torso wrapped in navy sheets, one tanned arm curled beneath his head, eyes closed in deep slumber. She shook her head, hoping the rattling of her brains would dispel the picture, and stood up.
“Then this room is perfect for me.” She held out a hand to him. “Thanks for the hospitality. See you in the morning.”
Deep-ocean glints in his eyes kept thoughts of navy blue sheets front and center in her imagination as he took her hand and shook it solemnly before leaving the room.
At the threshold he paused, one hand on the doorknob, and knocked her back onto the edge of the bed with a look.
“I may be at the other end of the hall, Addy, but the doors don’t lock.”
The last thing she saw before he tugged the door shut behind him was his wink.
She opened her mouth and then snapped it shut. Trying for the last word in this situation was not a good idea. After all, she was about to slide between the sheets of a bed in a house shared only by a man who’d already kissed her senses into oblivion once this evening.
Provoking him into trying again was not the sane choice.
But part of her wanted to.
After washing up, Addy snapped off all the lights in the room except for the warming, colorful glow of the stained-glass lamp on the night table, and climbed into bed, enjoying the feel of the soft, worn cotton sheets on her bare skin. Tugging on the lamp’s chain, she plunged the room into darkness and wrapped the down quilt around her shoulders, listening to the quiet sounds of an old house settling into sleep. She would be happy to do the same.
Twenty minutes later, she gave up and turned the light back on. She’d left the pile of legal documents on the night table and grabbed them now, hoping to bore herself into falling asleep.
Or at least to distract herself from the idea of the two unlocked doors between her and the sleeping Spencer Reed of the surprisingly muscular frame.
If sleep was what she’d hoped for, she’d made the wrong choice in reading her great-aunt’s will, she thought with frustration a wakeful hour later. Going over the specific details of Adeline’s bequest did nothing but make her angry. Make her wish she had her great-aunt standing in front of her so she could shake some sense into the crazy woman.
“This is ridiculous!” Pages flew across the room and scattered in swirls like gusts of giant snowflakes. “Does she think I’m living in a damn gothic romance novel? Crazy witch!”
She’d read the will for the first time and told herself that it was sheer curiosity that kept her going past the first page. But at two in the morning, the only soul awake in a quiet house, Addy admitted to herself that she’d hoped…hoped to come across some loophole, some way out that would let her keep this house. Because she wanted it. Wanted it with a passion that she knew came from years of feeling the monetary tightrope wobble beneath her feet as a child.
When she was eleven years old, she knew how to balance a checkbook. How to deposit her mother’s meager paychecks and write out payments for the monthly bills, leaving them waiting on the kitchen table for her mother’s signature when she came home from another late shift at the hospital. She knew each month how close to the edge her family came, how each time one of her siblings outgrew a pair of gym shoes, paying the rent became a juggling act.
When her high school friends had spun fantasies about winning
the lottery and going on shopping sprees, she’d always said the same thing: “I’d buy a house.” So no one could take it away, were the unspoken words that echoed in her mind each time.
And now here she was, her childhood fantasy dropped into her lap as if a fairy godmother had waved her wand and granted her fondest wish.
And she couldn’t keep it.
Loopholes. She should have known better. Should have known that an attorney like Reed wouldn’t allow any such laxity in a document he’d drafted. Even knowing he’d been obligated to do so, that he hadn’t even known who she was at the time, Addy couldn’t help resenting him just a little bit.
What kind of lawyer let his client write up something as ridiculous as this antiquated blackmail trap of a will?
The light didn’t get any brighter outside of her windows. The sun wouldn’t creep over the winter horizon until after she’d arrived at her office. But by four in the morning, having counted the number of rose clusters on the floral wallpaper on the facing wall—three hundred and twenty-six, thank you very much—she had to get out of that house.
She dressed without making a sound. Crept down the stairs and stopped for a moment to rip a sheet of paper out of her site notebook and scribble a note, which she left on the marble-topped table by the front door.
She heard the whuff of rough breathing and the creak of the floorboards at the same moment.
“Jesus, Elwood,” she gusted, and the dog shoved a cold nose into her palm. “I thought you were a cat burglar.” She scratched the dog roughly behind the ears as he leaned heavily against her leg. “You be quiet now.”
She patted him one last time and then let herself silently out the front door. Trudging a path through the newly pristine snow, she ignored the cold and refused to look back at the house she felt looming behind her.
It was a dream of a house, meant for a dreamlike fantasy life. But that wasn’t her life. And it was time to head into work.
Spencer stood at the window, watching Addy’s bundled form stride determinedly through the drifts and out the front gate. At least she wouldn’t have to battle ice and snow before hitting the road. He’d gone outside nearly an hour before and cleaned off her truck, clearing enough snow to make sure she could get going this morning with ease.
He’d known, somehow, that she wouldn’t come and ask him to help her, no matter what she’d threatened. If there was one thing he’d figured out about this woman, it was that she’d as soon chew her own hand off before sticking it out to ask for help.
He wasn’t surprised either that she’d left without waiting for morning or breakfast or to say goodbye. The naked look of desire in her eyes as she’d wandered from room to room hadn’t been as successfully shuttered as the rest of her emotions. It would hurt her to stay and wish for something she couldn’t have.
A woman like Addy Tyler would rather walk out into the cold of a freezing morning and face her reality than sit in a cozy bed dreaming.
Spencer jogged down the staircase and headed to the kitchen. He was up; might as well get the coffee brewing.
A flutter of white caught his eye. He hadn’t expected a note.
You can’t always get what you want. Isn’t that what the Stones sang? You’re a good host, Reed. Tell the charity I wish them well with the house.
Addy
He blinked and found the note crumpled in his fist. The desire to go back in time to his conversations with Adeline and voice some of the doubts he’d felt but kept silent about came near to overwhelming him.
She might drive him crazy with her stubbornness and her never-ending rudeness and baiting of him, but he knew one thing: Addy Tyler deserved this house. If only so she could exorcise her own ghosts.
Not one to dwell in anger, Spencer headed back toward the kitchen. By the time his steps had planted him in front of the coffeemaker, he had his cell phone in hand.
In the end, he decided that four in the morning was a little too early to be making the phone call he’d planned and settled down at the kitchen table with some contracts in need of line edits.
When the clock over the stove ticked onto seven o’clock, however, he punched in the number he’d pulled from his handheld organizer.
“I hope I’m not waking you, Mrs. Tyler. But I wanted to introduce myself to you as soon as possible and discuss a few matters important to us both.”
“My name is Spencer Reed, and I’m going to be getting married to your daughter Addy.”
Four
To say that her family didn’t take her news well would be putting it mildly.
And that was before she found out about the bombshell dropped on her mother by Mr. Take-Charge Attorney-at-Law.
Mr. Stick His Nose In Where It Wasn’t Wanted was more like it.
“I’m not marrying your buddy Spike!” she shouted at last and whipped a couch pillow at her brother’s big, fat, incredibly stupid head.
He ducked in his recliner and snagged the pillow in mid-flight, rescuing several framed pictures on the wall behind him. “Wait a second!” He made a T with his hands, the quarterback calling for a thirty-second time-out in the last minute of the big game. “Not for real. What do you think I am, crazy? Just one of those—what do they call ’em—marriage of convenience things.”
“First of all, you are crazy. That’s a given,” put in her sister Sarah, curled up at the far end of the couch with a book in her lap and her long, straight hair in a neat ponytail. When their brother launched the abused couch pillow at her, she grabbed it one-handed and tucked it under her knees, sticking out her tongue at him when he pouted at the end of the fun. “Weren’t you paying attention? Addy’s got to live with her husband in that house for six months. You want her to share rooms with Spike?”
“There is something about a man almost entirely covered with tattoos.” This, dreamily, from Maxie, sitting on the floor at Sarah’s side. Addy’s youngest sister was looking very Breakfast at Tiffany’s today, with her short, curly hair pinned ruthlessly into control, a tailored black-and-white dress and matching wide-brimmed hat. Oversize black sunglasses perched on the coffee table next to her.
“Yeah, something that says he’s lost his mind.” Addy looked for a pillow to throw. They were all under someone else’s control. She settled for sticking out her tongue at her baby sister. “That’s enough out of you, Audrey Hepburn.”
Maxie’s wide grin told her she’d guessed correctly at the day’s costume. And why was her brother still babbling on?
“…just saying, if you offered him five grand, he’d sleep in the garage for six months. No problem.”
Her brother’s hopeful, handsome grin almost made her smile, but she kept her face straight and her voice firm. “I’m not marrying Spike just so he can pay you back the money you loaned him to buy that Harley. That was your dumb decision, not mine.” At the sudden clamor of voices, she ducked her head and threw her hands in the air. “Tsst! Enough! I’m not going to scam my way into this thing. I’m not getting married and that’s that.”
She collapsed onto the couch and flung a bent arm over her face. Scenes with her family were always such a drama. Although each person was sane on his or her own, put them all in one room and they were certifiable.
“That’s not what I heard.” Her mother’s voice from the living room doorway drew all of their attention. She lifted a hot-pink apron over her head, revealing a trim black pantsuit. “Dinner in ten.” She left the room.
“What’s not what you heard?” Addy could hear the whine in her own voice. The chaos was getting out of hand when her mom joined in. The doorbell rang. “And who’s at the door? Mom?”
“I’ll get it,” Maxie said, bouncing up from her cross-legged seat as only a twenty-year-old girl could do and running to the foyer. They could hear her voice as she opened the door. “Hi! Who are you?”
“I’m your dinner guest. Nice hat.”
“Thanks! Come on in.”
But Addy had recognized that voice. She should. She heard it
every time her brain stopped racing around in circles of thought. Don’t make up your mind yet, Addy.
She leaped up off the couch and braced herself in the doorway to the front hall, hands clutching the door frame.
“What the hell are you doing here, Reed?” Before he could answer, she was shouting for her mother, feeling suddenly like a teenager again. Completely out of control.
Her mom, who disliked people who rang doorbells at the dinner hour, stepped calmly into the foyer, finished wiping her palms on a dish towel and then extended a hand in welcome to the man standing in the open front doorway with laughter in his eyes.
“Welcome to my home, Mr. Reed,” she said as they shook hands. “Maxie, sweetie, close the door. May I take your coat?”
“What!”
“Call me Spencer, Mrs. Tyler,” the traitorous man said, shrugging out of his coat and passing it to Sarah, who hung it in the hall closet. “Thank you for inviting me to dinner tonight.”
“What!”
“I like to have the whole family together at meals, Spencer. And, please, call me Susannah. Would you care for a glass of wine?”
Addy stared openmouthed as Spencer Reed followed her mother toward the back of the house, the two chatting pleasantly as if they’d had dinner together once a week for the last decade. Her siblings took one look at her, shrugged in unison and trooped off to find out who the stranger was and join the fun.
Left alone in the chilly foyer, feeling cold water seep into her socks from the puddle she’d stepped in—a puddle no doubt left by Reed’s snow-crusted shoes; the man was completely without consideration for others—Addy waited for the world to stop tilting underneath her.
“What the hell is going on here?”
The whole family together?
The moment she set foot in the dining room, the barrage of voices, some directed at her, some not, hit her like a blow to the solar plexus. Bracing herself, she ignored everyone and made a beeline for Reed, who was about to sit down.
Sleeping Arrangements (Silhouette Desire) Page 6