“I never really thought about it, I guess. Is that why you’re hovering around looking menacing?”
“Oh, no. The dangerous look is my disguise, since I didn’t have any other costume.”
Ask a stupid question, Clancey thought. So much for the idea of his protective instincts kicking in where she was concerned.
“I didn’t think of it in time,” Rowan went on, “or I’d have dressed up as a murder victim and posed out front in a lawn chair.”
Clancey turned off the porch lights. “Why?”
He went on happily, “So I could wait, very quiet and still, until the kids decided I was only a mannequin, before I’d move or groan or something.”
“And scare them to death? Shame, Rowan.”
“Not the really tiny ones,” he said hastily. “But it would be fun to watch the big ones react. I’ll bet that last ghost wouldn’t have stopped running till he hit the end of the block.”
“You won’t give out much candy that way.”
He grinned. “In that case, you should definitely approve of the plan. How about some dinner, Clancey? I still owe you a meal, and my table manners are once again adequate for public display.”
It was not a good idea, she thought, to let herself get in even deeper. It would be far more sensible to decline gracefully, tell him he didn’t owe her anything at all, and go back to the stockroom to price the new shipment that had just come in that morning. Stuffed clowns couldn’t be sold until they were on display, that was certain—
“I’d like that,” she heard herself saying, and hoped he couldn’t hear the eagerness that lay beneath the easy words.
He took her to a steak house on the edge of town. “It’s not exactly Pompagno’s,” he admitted as he hung up her coat, “but then we’re not exactly dressed to their standards, either. At least, I’m not.”
He was two steps behind her as they reached their table, and when Clancey turned to look at him, a bit surprised he wasn’t right there to hold her chair, she discovered he was studying her clothes. She wasn’t quite sure, though, if he was appraising the style of her coffee-brown trousers and bitter-chocolate silk blouse, or the way they fit her figure.
“So do you think they’d let me in?” she asked when he finally remembered to seat her.
“Who?” He sounded absentminded.
“The sniffy management at Pompagno’s.”
“Oh, them. If they didn’t, it would be their loss. What sounds good, Clancey?”
It was the way the trousers fit, she concluded with a twinge of satisfaction. He might not even have noticed the style.
They ordered steaks — both medium rare — and baked potatoes and salads, and settled back over a glass of perfect red wine to wait. The steak house was busy, but Clancey was feeling no impatience.
Here and there was a family with children in costumes. “Half these people have probably just come from a party,” Clancey speculated.
“Or are on their way to one. See the lady over there in pink plastic hair rollers? That’s the scariest costume I’ve seen all night.”
“I hate to break this to you, Rowan, but—”
“All right, I admit it would be worse if she’d add a facial mask and a nightgown. But not much worse.”
Clancey sipped her wine and told herself it wasn’t a good time to open her mouth; she was likely to put her foot firmly into it. But she couldn’t resist. “Does that mean you have a lot of experience with facial masks and nightgowns and hair rollers?”
Her attempt to sound casual had been wasted effort, she decided as Rowan grinned at her. Clancey’s insides began to tingle. There really was an unholy attractiveness to the man’s smile.
“This would be the perfect time to regale you with horror stories about my three ex-wives, wouldn’t it?” he said. “There was the one who used cod-liver oil on her face at bedtime, there was the one who munched a half-dozen raw onions every day because they have so many vitamins, and there was the one who died mysteriously after—”
“In that case, she’s not an ex-wife, she’s a late wife.”
“She generally was that, too,” Rowan agreed. “Anywhere from thirty minutes to three hours late.”
“I don’t believe a word of this.”
“Pity. I was just getting a good start.”
“No ex-wives, then?”
“Sorry. None. No late wives, either. Just a mother so absentminded she used to get involved in constructing a new poem and forget all about her oatmeal mask till it was like concrete. And a sister who swiped our favorite shirts to sleep in, and spent so much time in the bathroom that my brothers and I threatened to move her mattress in there. And now, through no fault of my own, I’m acquiring a collection of sisters-in-law, too.”
Clancey smiled at the note of self-pity in his voice. “Somehow, I don’t think you’re entirely unhappy about that.”
“There are a few advantages,” he admitted. “The good things are a little difficult to see on holidays, though, when the crowd is so thick that you can’t get through the house.”
Clancey said, with just a trace of yearning in her voice, “Is everyone together for holidays, then?”
He nodded. “Usually we all go home to Wisconsin. Not this year, though. Everybody’s coming here next month. In theory it’s to celebrate Thanksgiving Day, but that’s only an excuse. Actually, it’s to spoil the new baby.” He refilled her wineglass from the bottle at his elbow. “How about your family? You sounded a bit — I don’t know — envious, perhaps.”
“Downright jealous,” she admitted. “My parents gave up the fast lane a few years ago and moved to Florida to manage an apartment complex near where my brother lives.”
He nodded. “So when the holidays come, they’re busy getting snowbirds settled for the winter.”
“Exactly. And I can’t leave here at holidays, because it’s my busiest season, too. So we celebrate by mail and telephone, and I always go visit for a week or two in February, when things quiet down after inventory. This year—” She stopped abruptly. If there was one thing she didn’t want to talk about tonight it was moving Small World. She certainly didn’t want Rowan to think she was hinting, or begging, or even feeling sorry for herself. So she grasped for another subject. “I thought the roofers were supposed to start soon.”
Rowan grimaced. “Don’t remind me. The sort of excuses these people make, it’s a wonder they can stay in business. For all I know it will be next spring now by the time they get around to it, and in the meantime the whole house is going to keep getting soggier.”
“I see,” Clancey said thoughtfully. “You aren’t going to put up the new ceiling until you know it’s going to stay dry. Well, that makes sense, I suppose.”
“I know it’s a mess, Clancey.”
“Oh, I wasn’t complaining. I just think it’s a shame, because when spring comes and the roof gets done, I suppose you’ll be busy with everyone’s income tax and won’t have time to do anything.”
He released a long sigh. “It is my busy time of year.”
Clancey leaned back in her chair for the waiter to place her salad plate, and admitted, “I can’t help but think about what could be done with that house. Every time I walk through it something else occurs to me.” That was the understatement of the year, she reflected. She still remodeled the house every night as she drifted off to sleep.
“Like what?”
She paused with a forkful of spinach halfway to her mouth. “You’re serious?”
“Of course. Not only are two heads better than one, but if there are things glaringly wrong with the place, you probably know what they are, since you’ve had to live with them.”
She looked doubtful. “I don’t know about that. I certainly didn’t anticipate the problem with the wiring.” She looked thoughtfully down at her salad, and then at him. “It’s to be just a house, right? Or are you planning to put your offices downstairs?”
It might have been her imagination, but she thought he shudd
ered a little at the idea. “No,” he said. It was firm.
“It’s difficult to call in sick when you live above the shop,” Clancey agreed. “Particularly if you aren’t really sick. Well, with that in mind, I’d make the upstairs kitchen into a laundry room. Then I’d gut the downstairs kitchen and start from the bare walls, so I’d end up with a work space any gourmet would love to use.”
He looked doubtful.
For a moment Clancey had been caught up in her own fantasy, picturing herself in that brand-new kitchen, stirring and chopping and singing in pure pleasure. “Well, you did ask me what I would do,” she pointed out stiffly. “I suppose you eat out of brown paper bags all the time?”
“Mostly. But go on.”
She hesitated. Her eyes were stinging a little, as if the onions she’d been dicing in that daydream had been real ones. This was only going to cause pain. It would have been better to pretend that she hadn’t given it a thought. She shook her head a fraction.
“What about the two little rooms at the back of the second floor?” he prompted.
“The servants’ rooms? Sorry. Never thought about them.”
The waiter brought their steaks. Rowan cut the first slice, chewed it thoughtfully and said, “Storage, I suppose. They’re too small for anything else.”
Clancey almost dropped her fork. “Storage? How much stuff have you got, anyway — more than will fit in the attic? Don’t you have the slightest spark of imagination, Rowan McKenna?”
His eyes widened. “Now what does that mean?”
“Knock the wall out between them and turn the space into a giant master bathroom.”
He blinked. “Clear at the back of the house?”
“Why not? It’s next to the nicest bedroom.”
“Not the biggest.”
“But it has a fireplace. You wouldn’t exactly want that in the nursery, would you?” She felt herself start to color a little, and plunged on before that merciless teasing light could come alive in his eyes. “Besides, you could put walk-in closets in the new space and have a dressing room — make it a real master suite. That way, the bedroom doesn’t have to be so huge.”
“With a whirlpool tub, I suppose?”
“Of course. And an exotic shower, and lots of cabinets.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “And put the nursery where the bedroom is now.”
This time there was no doubt about the flush rising in her cheeks, but she couldn’t simply ignore the question, so she said coolly, “I suppose that would be the best choice. The other big rooms upstairs all have balconies. The master bedroom could be furnished with—” Then she broke off, remembering that it might not be quite safe to share her image of the perfect bedroom with him, because her vision of that room was imagined not for a single man, but for a couple.
A couple who would nestle together beside the snapping fire on cold winter evenings, and sit in the overstuffed chintz chairs by the bay window to have coffee in the mornings, and share the king-size tester bed....
A very specific couple. A strawberry blond woman and a man with very dark hair and eyes that were a strange shade of blue-green, eyes that could light with mischief in the fraction of an instant.
That in itself made her realize how slowly and completely Rowan had crept into her heart. The fact that she’d imagined him there beside her for all time — and didn’t even realize she was doing it because it felt so natural — was almost terrifying.
“What were you saying?” Rowan asked politely.
“Nothing much.” Clancey dug her fork into her baked potato as if it was an enemy. “Whatever it was seems to have escaped me at the moment. Now about that little room downstairs, right by the front door...”
*****
It was almost the middle of November, and autumn had come with a vengeance. On some days the wind howled around the house, tugging at the few brown leaves that still clung stubbornly to the trees, an unpleasant reminder of the arctic air that was on its way. And yet other days were soft and mild, and Clancey thought longingly of picnics, and swinging in the park, and digging in the flower beds by the front porch.
It was an almost physical pain to realize she’d never know what sort of flowers might come up there in the spring, what bulbs had been planted there long ago by some unrecorded hand. She would never add her own favorites — red tulips and yellow daffodils and blue balloon flowers.
Somewhere else, she told herself, there’d be a place where she could do that. A little house, not nearly so big as this, that she could take care of by herself, with a flower bed and a patch of lawn.
But it was no comfort to think of things like that. For it wasn’t houses or flower beds or lawns that made her ache with longing. It was Rowan. And after she and Small World moved, she’d never see him again. He would have no reason to contact her, and she’d have no excuse to seek him out...
Taxes, she thought. She’d always managed to do the bookkeeping and paperwork herself, but it honestly was getting beyond her. She could hire him to take care of it for her.
“Don’t be foolish,” she muttered. “What good do you think that would do?” There wouldn’t be much comfort in sitting across a desk from him and watching while he calculated how much money she owed the federal government. Merely seeing his face would be a poor substitute for all she wanted. In the long run it would only increase her pain.
And so she shivered on the cold days when winter’s approach was threateningly near, and rejoiced on the warm ones, when she could pretend that moving day was a long way off. And whenever she saw Rowan, each time he touched her, whether it was a casual finger brushing against her hair or cheek, or the occasional kiss — more casual and careless than passionate, to her regret — she could feel herself sinking a little deeper into the quicksand.
Still, she treasured each encounter, and stored away every smile and touch against a time when there would be no more.
*****
In the middle of one of those bright and beautiful afternoons Kaye stopped by to look at toys and to invite Clancey to join in the celebration she was planning for Thanksgiving Day. “It occurred to me you might be alone,” she said. “And we’d really love to have you complete our circle.”
The request sent Clancey’s heart tripping double-time. Was this really Rowan’s idea, disguised as Kaye’s, asking her to join what was very plainly a family holiday? And even if it had been Kaye’s own idea, surely she would have checked it out with him before inviting Clancey, and so he must have approved. Did this mean that Kaye — and others, too — actually thought of them as a couple, somehow?
Good manners forced her to say, “Oh, Kaye, that’s lovely. But you’ll have a houseful of family.”
“Family and friends. There’s plenty of room for one more. Honestly, Clancey, what on earth would you do instead?”
“Get some extra sleep. Catch up on my laundry...”
Kaye began shaking her head. “No. I won’t hear of it. Holidays shouldn’t be wasted on ordinary chores, and you can’t spend Thanksgiving Day alone, Clancey. You must come and join us. Besides, the rest of the family can’t wait to meet the only person who’s ever been able to keep Rowan from getting what he wanted.” She picked up a bright picture book and flipped the pages.
“Not for long,” Clancey said, almost under her breath.
“Oh, that doesn’t matter. It’s still quite an accomplishment. Are you looking for a new place for your store yet?”
“I haven’t had much time. So far it doesn’t seem promising.”
“It would be interesting to see what would happen if you just staged a sit-down strike and refused to move,” Kaye speculated.
“I couldn’t do that to Rowan.” Clancey’s voice was deeper than usual, steeped with sincerity, and only when she finished straightening the racks of compact discs did she see the unmistakable curiosity in Kaye’s eyes. “I mean,” she added hastily, “he’s already put himself to far more aggravation than most people would, for a stranger. I wo
uldn’t dare cause him more trouble.”
“I see,” Kaye said mildly.
Clancey had the uncomfortable feeling she wasn’t deceiving anyone.
Kaye put the book back on the shelf and turned to the teddy-bear tree. “How are the petitions being received?”
“Very well, I think. No one has taken offense, and most of my customers seem to like the idea of enlarging the historic district. Do you really think you can pull it off?”
Kaye smiled. “Of course. I did it a few years ago, to get our house in. But this time it’s a little more urgent, I’m afraid. You know the city council is thinking of building the new civic center on this side of town?”
“Here? Why?”
The Unexpected Landlord Page 13