The Unexpected Landlord

by Leigh Michaels

  She straightened her shoulders and started work in earnest. She had loads of fashion dolls on hand, and boxes of clothes for them; she could take a twenty-percent markdown on those, and advertise the sale. A few big, well-placed ads should bring in lots of people who would want other things as well...

  She was so involved that when the telephone rang she scarcely heard it.

  “I thought you’d have called me back by now,” Hank said, sounding a little irritable, when she finally answered.

  Clancey crossed her fingers. “I just got your message.” It wasn’t such a very big fib, after all, and the way Eileen had been acting lately, she deserved to have her reputation maligned. “You’ve had a chance to look at the lease, then?”

  “Yes. It’s only an ordinary lease. I can’t find any reason for you not to sign it.”

  “Thanks, Hank.”

  He hadn’t even paused. “The problem is, if it’s so ordinary, why does he need it? You already had a perfectly good lease.”

  My very thought, Clancey told herself. There was something wrong somewhere. But she said reasonably, “The old one was for three years, that’s why. He wants out of it lots sooner than that.”

  “He could have just amended it. There’s something distinctly odd about this, I’m convinced of it. Are you certain McKenna wants to live there? It’s not his kind of neighborhood. He might just be going into the slum landlord business, you know.”

  “Then why would he want to get rid of me?”

  “Because you’re the kind of tenant who will make a fuss if things aren’t right. Most businesses are. People who rent ordinary apartments in that sort of location, on the other hand, don’t—”

  Clancey interrupted. “Slum lords don’t paint the place and put a new roof on it.”

  She could almost hear Hank chewing on that one. “Not usually,” he admitted. “Look, I’ve got to run. My client’s waiting. We’ll talk about this Saturday night at the civic center dinner.”

  Clancey groaned a little.

  “You hadn’t forgotten, had you? The tickets cost the earth. We’ve got to go.”

  I wish I could just forget, she thought.

  The frantic pace of the three-day grand opening had given way to a more settled, flexible routine, but the idea of a formal dinner on one of her rare nights off was less than exciting. Still, it was for a good cause, she reminded herself. The town desperately needed that new civic center, and if a few fund-raisers could convince the city fathers to move the project along, Clancey could bear to put on a formal dress and smile at all of Hank’s friends for an evening. There might be somebody interesting in the crowd.

  It reminded her of her mostly tongue-in-cheek advice to Eileen. A woman didn’t meet eligible men by staying at home. Perhaps that’s what was wrong with her; she’d been keeping too busy lately. No wonder Rowan McKenna seemed so appealing. It wasn’t anything personal. She’d probably have had much the same reaction to any man in similar circumstances.

  And the very next time she saw him, Clancey decided, she would make that perfectly clear to him, too. There was no sense in letting him go around thinking she found him irresistible, or something.

  *****

  But in fact, Clancey didn’t see him for days. At first it was a relief to be able to get on with life without Rowan’s interference, but when the third full day went by without him popping in, his absence began to annoy her just as much as his presence had. Did he seriously think she was so infatuated with him that he had to keep his distance?

  Or was there something else going on? Despite Clancey’s best intentions, Hank’s words had taken root in her mind. She studied every line of that simple little lease, backward and forward, feeling like an idiot all the while. If Hank had been unable to find anything less than straightforward, how could she expect to unravel it? Still, she couldn’t shake the conviction that there was something wrong with the lease.

  And then as the days dragged by and the weather turned chilly and the roofers didn’t show up, she began to wonder if Hank’s wildest suspicions might be right after all — that Rowan just wanted her to move so he could rent the apartments to less-discerning tenants.

  Had Rowan ever actually said he wanted to live in the house? Or had he simply allowed Clancey to infer it, based on her own love of the place? She honestly couldn’t remember. In any case, could she put faith in whatever he might have said? He wasn’t exactly accountable to her.

  A slum lord wouldn’t paint the house and put a new roof on it, she’d told Hank rather loftily.

  But, on the other hand, what had actually been done to the house since Rowan had become its owner?

  She ticked the items off on her fingers. Most of the old siding had a fresh coat of paint, a few shingles had been stripped off the porch roof, one of the ceilings was gone and the front window in her bedroom now closed nice and tight. That was about the size of the changes— it made no sense to call them improvements.

  And Rowan’s investment had been minimal. She wasn’t sure how much the back taxes had amounted to, but certainly less than the cost of a house on the open market. And the paint job had cost no more than the price of supplies and food for his volunteer labor. As for the roof repair — well, so far it seemed to be imaginary. And for all she knew, by now the locksmith had turned his bill over to a collection agency for lack of payment....

  Stop being crazy, she told herself. The man had six crushed fingers; she could hardly blame him for not climbing around on ladders and scaffolds to finish up the painting. And since she’d been the cause of the crushed fingers, she couldn’t really blame him for avoiding her, at least till he healed. Or perhaps things weren’t healing right. Perhaps he wasn’t able to do anything at all. Perhaps he’d gotten an infection and they might have to amputate—

  She thought that one over for half of Friday morning, and left quite a lot of tooth marks in a perfectly good pencil. She hadn’t even sent him a get-well card, she reflected.

  She reached out to finger the flowers he’d sent her last week. The petals were still soft and supple, the colors bright. The helium balloons had lost their oomph, however, and were drooping sadly.

  She hadn’t thought of sending him a gift, assuming that he’d be back long before now.

  “To follow up on that kiss, no doubt,” she muttered. “What an idiot you are, Clancey Kincade.”

  The receptionist at the accounting firm put her call through without hesitation. It was a good omen, that he was at the office, Clancey told herself. Or was it a bad one, because he obviously wasn’t busy?

  She didn’t have time to think about it before Rowan murmured, “Well, hello, there. Anymore hapless men get caught in your windows lately?”

  She ignored that, but it took an effort. “I called to see if you’re feeling better.”

  “Somewhat. I still have trouble holding things, but I’ve discovered that I can punch the keys of the calculator with the eraser end of a pencil, so at least I’m back to work. I’m not up to speed, however. Tax season will be here before I get this fall’s work done.”

  She gulped a little. “I’m so sorry, Rowan.”

  She heard a crackling sound, like papers shuffling on his desk. “And of course I’ve been told not to expect to play the violin again.”

  There was a brief silence in which the world seemed to stagger to a halt. Clancey closed her eyes in pain.

  “I had no idea,” she whispered. “When... who...?”

  “It was my mother who told me to give it up, actually. I was eleven at the time, and the cat kept running away from home whenever I’d practice.”

  Clancey shrieked, “You rotten, miserable— You were going to let me believe I’d ruined your hands?”

  “Please,” Rowan protested. “I didn’t ask for my eardrum to be pierced.”

  “You’re asking to be boiled in oil. I thought you were serious — that you were planning to turn professional or something.”

  “That’s what my mother thought, too
. At first. It took quite a bit to convince her otherwise. Do you know how long it takes to train a cat to do a trick like that? Especially when the cat doesn’t want to learn.”

  “Rowan, I do not want to hear it.” She took a deep breath and said firmly, “I actually had two reasons for calling.”

  “Oh? Let me guess.”

  She wasn’t about to cooperate with that sort of nonsense. “About the ceiling in my bedroom,” she went on, before his speculations could get out of hand. “I wanted to know if you were planning to repair it.”

  “Of course not,” he said easily. It was obvious that he didn’t even pause to think it over.

  She was almost stunned. He couldn’t be planning to leave it that way. He’d said himself that those support beams were never meant to be looked at. But a slum lord just might, she found herself thinking.

  “That’s an inside job,” Rowan went on. “Which makes it strictly your territory.”

  “So was taking down the old one,” she pointed out. “An inside job, I mean.”

  “Oh, but that was different. It was dangerous then, and if it had fallen and hurt you, you could have sued me.”

  “Not exactly,” she muttered. “You made me promise not to sue, remember?”

  “Well, yes, I did, but you know how nit-picking juries can be about that sort of agreement. Now it’s safe, so the rest is up to you. Was there anything else you wanted to chat about?”

  She had to bite her tongue long and hard, but she managed to say civilly, “You know, I was really only asking if I should expect you to leave another mess for me to clean up.”

  “Not me,” he was saying cheerfully as she hung up on him.

  She found herself wondering if it would have changed his attitude any if she’d volunteered to sign that bland little lease.

  Then she decided that she’d just as soon not know. In a couple of months it wouldn’t be her business what he did.

  *****

  On Saturday the weather was gray and gloomy and damp. It was the kind of day that made it painfully clear the last gasp of summer had gone and winter was hovering nearby.

  Clancey could feel the cold humidity in her bones. Apparently her customers could, too, for the store was nearly deserted. Only a few diehard shoppers came in, and they bought little.

  As the front door closed behind each one, Clancey shivered in the cutting cold of the draft and told herself stoutly that next week, when her new advertising campaign began in earnest, things would get better.

  She was taking advantage of the slow traffic to catch up on some bookkeeping chores when the door opened again, the little warning bell she’d hung above it chiming cheerfully. She looked up with a smile that quickly died as Rowan came in.

  He leaned over the counter and put his index finger under her chin. “You look as if you’ve lost your last teddy bear,” he mused.

  “I see you’re using your fingers again.”

  He tipped his head to one side appraisingly. “Are you avoiding the subject?” But he didn’t pursue it. Instead, he flexed his hands carefully, as if he was still trying out an unfamiliar gadget. “Well, they’re all working again, but not consistently. And a couple are still sort of numb. Have you happened to see my paintbrushes?”

  She stopped feeling sorry for him; he couldn’t be in such awful shape, after all. “In a box on the back porch where you left them. Isn’t it a rotten day to paint?”

  “One does it when one is able,” he pointed out. “And since all week I haven’t been able...”

  Clancey lost her temper. “Look, Rowan, it was an accident, all right? I didn’t hold your hands down and slam the window on purpose, you know. So would you stop trying to make me feel guilty?”

  He looked astounded. “Me?” he protested. “I wouldn’t dream of such a thing. I was just stating facts.”

  That was enough to make her feel really silly. She wasn’t entirely convinced his comment had been innocent. Still, if he was the sort who held grudges, he had much bigger things to resent than a set of smashed fingers, didn’t he?

  She looked up at him through her lashes. His eyes were dark and sincere, with not a single glint of mischievous green. Clancey’s gaze dropped to her checkbook, lying open on the counter next to the cash register. “Sorry,” she said stiffly. “I guess I just feel so bad about it that I expect you to be angry.”

  Rowan closed his hand into a fist. “Would you feel better if I beat you up?”

  Clancey smiled ruefully. “Almost,” she admitted.

  “All right. I’d say a punch in the jaw equals six bruised fingers.” His knuckles tapped her chin softly. “There. Now we’re even.”

  His fingertips slid across her cheek, a gentle caress that almost brought tears to her eyes. She blinked a couple of times, hoping he hadn’t seen, and said, “Good. Now I can stop worrying about that and get all my attention back on this blasted checkbook.”

  Rowan smiled. “What’s the matter? It won’t balance?”

  She gestured at the long strand of paper tape that coiled out of the calculator at her elbow and trailed across the floor. “No, it won’t. And I’ve been working at it for an hour.” She bent her head over the book with a frown. Her hair swung forward, blocking her face from view. But that meant she couldn’t see him, either, so it was intuition that warned her when he moved around the end of the counter to stand beside her stool.

  “Let me see.” He gathered up a handful of her hair that was in his way and tucked it behind her ear. His hand came to zest on the nape of her neck, almost absentmindedly.

  Clancey tried to stop breathing, because any motion at all, no matter how tiny, turned that simple contact into a warm and sensual massage. At least, it felt that way to her. She was relatively certain that for Rowan it was simply a convenient place to lean, and perhaps a bit of soothing body warmth for his still-sore knuckles. But it wasn’t possible to sit there forever without taking in oxygen, and the longer he looked at her neat row of entries the more agitated she became.

  What was he doing, anyway, she wondered. He was just looking at the checkbook, not touching the calculator or glancing at the tape she’d run. He didn’t even have a pencil in his hand.

  He was standing so close to her that his shoulder was brushing hers, and the scent of him tingled in her nose. She was trying to figure out what elements of it were soap, which were aftershave, and which were purely Rowan, when he tapped a line in the checkbook. “There it is.”

  Clancey’s jaw dropped. “Oh, come on. You can’t have done that in your head.”

  He shrugged. “Give me a half-dozen dollar bills and I’ll add up the serial numbers faster than you can run the calculator. I used to win a lot of barroom bets that way.”

  “I thought you didn’t gamble.”

  “That’s not gambling, Clancey. It’s a sure thing.” He seemed to realize his hand was still nestled against her hair, and slowly removed it.

  The sudden chill against the nape of her neck made Clancey want to shiver.

  Rowan looked around, seeming to notice the uncharacteristic quiet for the first time. “No Eileen today?”

  “She’s got a head cold.”

  “No wonder, with this weather. It’s chilly in here. I thought you said the boiler was in great shape.”

  “The problem is right here — every time the front door opens, half the warm air in the house rushes out. Not that I’m complaining,” she added hastily.

  “That’s good. I think you’re right about the paint. Maybe I’ll just prune some of the bushes and then go home and watch the football game.”

  “Sometimes I envy people who have weekends off.”

  “I noticed you seem to work all the time.”

  She shrugged. “Usually Eileen and I split it up so we get at least one free day a week. And I’d planned to hire another clerk for the Christmas rush, but with the uncertain state of affairs here, I decided it would be better not to spend the money on an employee.”

  “You’d rather
end up exhausted?”

  “I’ll have plenty of time to rest after Christmas.”

  If she expected an outpouring of sympathy, or an offer to let her stay a little longer if it would help, Clancey was doomed to disappointment.

  Rowan merely said, “That’s true,” and went off to search for a pair of pruning shears he swore had been in the garage last time he’d looked.