Desire by Design

by Paula Altenburg

  “Sort of. But with fewer rules,” Eve said. She reached over and patted his knee. “But don’t worry. I’ll take good care of you.”

  “Thanks,” Matt said.

  It was early evening before they took the turn-off for the small village on the shore of the Bay of Fundy. The closer they got, however, the edgier she became. He worried that when they finally arrived he might have to pry her fingers off the steering wheel, which was ridiculous. She was lucky to have so much family to love her.

  The temperature dropped several degrees as they left the highway. A few miles farther on, forests along the sides of the steadily climbing road gave way to giant rock slabs and scattered strands of scrubby, gnarled spruce trees stunted by the damp, salty air. Seagulls sailed high overhead.

  They drove through a tiny village hugging the waterfront, then past a number of cottages sprinkled along the rock-ribbed cliffs. The gleaming blue waters of the Bay, peppered with whitecaps, dashed against the breakwater protecting the road.

  Eve turned down a dirt lane. “This is it,” she said, coasting the car through a deep rut and into a potholed driveway. “Home sweet home.”

  Home was a square, two-story house with a double-sloped, mansard-style roof and an attached garage. Matt bet the house, with its whitewashed, shingled siding and green trim, was around two-hundred years old, although the garage was probably only about fifty. There were one or two outbuildings, an ancient apple orchard, and a recently mowed hayfield behind the house.

  She parked at the back and turned off the ignition, her fingers still on the key. “It’s not too late to make a run for it.” Then her parents stepped onto the sagging veranda, and a screen door flapped shut behind them. “Wait. Sorry. Yes, it is.”

  “I’m not running, Eve.” Matt reached for the car door handle. He was no quitter. No matter what, he and Eve were going to have a good time this weekend. “I’m going to be right beside you.”

  “Come inside,” Therese urged them once she’d hugged her daughter. “I have supper waiting for you.”

  They ate in the kitchen, seated at a sturdy table wrapped in a checkered vinyl tablecloth. Therese puttered between the table and the stove, chattering happily about the anniversary plans for the next day.

  “We aren’t going to need the tent,” she said. “The weather’s supposed to be lovely.”

  Partway through the meal, an ancient Great Dane plodded into the kitchen and settled beside Matt. The dog looked him straight in the eye, its graying, slobbery jowls quivering. Matt had read somewhere that dogs didn’t like to make eye contact because it threatened them. He could only assume that either this dog hadn’t read that particular book, or it was doing some serious threatening of its own.

  “Riel likes you,” Giles spoke up, mopping up the last of the gravy on his plate with a piece of bread.

  Matt wished Riel liked him a little less. He was a big dog, and he made Matt feel like a great big doggie biscuit. Riel inched his nose closer, and Matt reached out to scratch his ears.

  “Don’t touch him,” Therese warned, opening the back door. “He’s arthritic. Touching him makes him cranky.”

  Matt yanked his fingers back. The dog bunched his creaky hips beneath himself and lumbered toward the open door when Therese called him, his toenails clicking against the chipped linoleum flooring.

  Matt had to ask. “Why is the dog named Riel?”

  “Eve named him after Louis Riel because he fights for what he believes in. Mind you, what he believes in is his squeaky toy. Don’t touch that, either.” Giles set his fork on his plate with a satisfied sigh. “That was a good meal.”

  Matt looked at Eve. It made perfect sense to him that she would name her dog after the leader of a rebellion. “Your dog has a social conscience?”

  Eve pushed her plate away, her own food scarcely touched. “Of course.”

  So far, those two words were the most she’d contributed to the dinner conversation.

  He couldn’t understand this attitude she had toward her family. When he was growing up, he’d been totally envious of friends with families like this. If she would only try a little harder, they’d meet her halfway. He was sure of it.

  Maybe he could get the ball rolling.

  “Eve’s doing a great job on this new project,” he said. “She’s good with numbers, and the budget is a big responsibility.”

  “Thank you. Does this mean you’ll rethink the marble inlay in the foyer?” Eve asked him.

  He wiped his mouth on a paper napkin. “No.”

  “Eve’s always been good with math,” her mother said. “Too bad she failed English.”

  “I did not fail English,” Eve said, tapping the end of her fork on the table. “I got a C for my final term mark in Grade Twelve.”

  “It kept her off the Honor Roll. Her brothers all made the Honor Roll.”

  This wasn’t going as Matt intended. Time for a change in tactic. “I bet she was a cute baby.”

  Therese and Giles both laughed.

  “You’d lose,” Eve said.

  “She had this funny head of hair that stood straight up on end no matter what I did to it. And she was all bones.” Therese shook her head. “She looked like a skinned rabbit. I’d never seen such an ugly baby before. We were embarrassed to have her baptized. Would you like to see some pictures?”

  “No,” Eve said. “He wouldn’t.”

  Actually, he was dying to see them, but he didn’t dare say so. Not with Eve glaring at him that way. He gave up.

  Therese began to clear off the table. “Why don’t the pair of you take your tea out on the veranda?”

  Matt tried not to cringe. He had his doubts about that tea. It had been steeping for a suspicious amount of time in a cast-iron kettle on the back burner of the stove.

  Eve kicked him under the table and gathered up her plate. “We’ll help with the dishes first.”

  “Right.” He picked up his own plate and looked around for the dishwasher. There wasn’t one. “Where do we put them?”

  Therese took the plate from his hand and gave her daughter one of those long looks mothers give their children when they’re displeased. “I’ll wash the dishes. Matt’s a guest.”

  “Matt doesn’t mind.” Eve turned to him, her chocolate eyes daring him to contradict her. “Do you, Matt?”

  The last thing he wanted was to find himself in the middle of a mother-daughter dispute, especially between this particular pair. He looked to Giles for manly guidance. His desperation must have conveyed itself.

  “Take the tea,” Giles advised him, pushing away from the table and leaving his own dishes behind. He picked up the crossword puzzle and his reading glasses, and moved to a chair in a corner of the large room.

  Matt took a deep breath, praying Giles had made the right call. “I’d love a cup of tea.”

  Eve filled two mugs with a wicked-looking brew, added a generous dose of canned milk to each, then handed one mug to Matt. She led the way onto the veranda, nudging him with a slender shoulder as the screen door swung shut with a bang behind them. “Wuss.”

  He took a tentative sip of his tea. It was strong, thick, and guaranteed to keep him awake all night. But not bad. He settled beside her on a patio swing at the far end of the veranda, rocking it gently with one foot. Fireflies flickered in the velvety darkness that blanketed the yard, and an owl hooted somewhere off in the distance.

  “Mind telling me what I’ve done wrong?” he asked.

  The soft scent of her hair tangled with the aroma of the tea. Matt loved her hair. His fingers always itched to touch it. He edged closer to her, and the swing squealed a protest. Even the furniture was against him tonight.

  She gripped her mug in both hands and jerked her feet up, bringing her knees to chin level, forming a barrier between herself and the world. “I hate the way my mother always acts like a servant. You shouldn’t encourage her.”

  That was it? He’d let her mother do as she pleased? And here he thought he’d done som
ething terrible.

  “Your mother doesn’t act like any servant I’ve ever seen. She didn’t want our help. She wanted us out of her kitchen.”

  “I know.” Eve rolled her eyes. “She’s such a housewife.”

  She said that like it was a bad thing. Matt didn’t see what the problem was. As long as Therese enjoyed it, why should Eve complain?

  “What’s wrong with being a housewife?” he asked. “It’s a job like any other, and your mother seems to take a great deal of pride in doing it well.”

  “Let her, then.” Eve rested her chin on her knees. “But it’s not for me. And that drives her crazy.”

  Matt took another sip of his tea and thought about that. “You’re right. It’s not for you,” he said slowly. “And that drives you crazy, too, doesn’t it?”

  Eve tipped her head sideways, and his thoughts drifted to other, more pleasant things—like how the soft, exposed curve of her neck might taste by starlight. “You sound disappointed.”

  Matt gave the swing another push with his foot. His ideal woman had always been one who could make him a home, but not necessarily from scratch. Eve didn’t possess any of the qualities he’d always thought he wanted in a life partner, except for the one thing that mattered to him the most.

  She was Eve.

  He admired her lovely face in the glow of the rising moon, debating whether or not to kiss her, but he’d already told her that she’d get to set the pace. If they sat here long enough, there was a good chance she might kiss him instead.

  “You’re a lot of things, but disappointing isn’t one of them,” he said. Come on. There’s moonlight, fresh salty air, and a cozy swing. Romantic enough. Kiss me.

  A large specter loomed from out of the shadows, then suddenly, Riel dropped his head on Matt’s lap. Eve tried to shoo him away, but Riel refused to budge, and Matt reconciled himself to missing out on a kiss.

  From Eve. Riel, on the other hand, was looking at him with adoration in those soulful, canine eyes.

  “Okay, maybe I’m a little disappointed,” Matt conceded. “But it’s not because of you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Eve rolled over in the single, wrought-iron bed, the creaking of its springs and the sagging mattress tickling her awake. She could hear her mother downstairs in the kitchen.

  Time to get up or she’d be late for school.

  No, wait. Wrong decade.

  She pried her lids all the way open and was greeted by the glassy stares of dozens of pairs of unblinking eyes. The bedroom walls were lined with shelves full of the many dolls her mother had given her over the years. Eve had always hated those dolls—along with all the frilly little dresses her mother used to make her wear. The harder her mother had tried to turn Eve into a girl, the more Eve wanted to be a boy.

  Being a girl didn’t seem so bad these days. She concentrated on the way Matt looked at her sometimes when he thought she wasn’t watching—and even sometimes when he knew she was—and smiled. He made it plain he liked what he saw, and never gave the impression he thought there was room for improvement. And he’d seen her at her worst. Eve no longer thought Matt would turn out to be another Claude. If anything, he was the anti-Claude.

  And that made him pretty close to perfect.

  Eve wasn’t sure she could deal with all that perfection. Getting more deeply involved with Matt wouldn’t be any better for her self-esteem than Claude had been, because now she really was the one who had room for improvement.

  And this time she cared. Which only meant one thing—he could hurt her an awful lot.

  Plus, we work together, she reminded herself. She took a deep breath as she stared at a long crack in the ceiling. And once the job was over, their lives would go back to being incredibly different. She tried to imagine sitting down to Christmas dinner with Bob Anderson. Even better, she tried to imagine Bob sitting down to Christmas dinner with her brothers.

  Then, she hoped that Matt lived through the day.

  She’d better get up. There was a lot of work involved in entertaining the entire Doucette clan for a whole day of activities, and it was the best distraction she could ask for.

  She dressed quickly and tried to be quiet on the stairs so as not to disturb Matt. She halted in surprise when she entered the kitchen.

  “Hi.” A warm smile lit his face when he greeted her. He had flour on his forehead and looked so adorable Eve’s bare toes curled. He held up a mound of dough for her inspection. “Your mother is giving me a bread-making lesson. She says men make better bread than women because we’re stronger.”

  He slapped the dough on the floured countertop and kneaded it with all the finesse of an expert.

  Eve took a quick glance around the room to make sure they were alone, then dropped her voice to a whisper. “Only my mother would make bread on the morning she’s hosting a huge anniversary party. She thinks she’s Superwoman.”

  Matt paused in mid-motion. “I’ll have you know that I’m making the bread. Does that make me Superman?”

  “I don’t know about Superman.” Eve gave him a slow, playful inspection from his head to his toes. “But I do think a man in an apron is incredibly sexy.”

  Sunshine broke through the thick morning mist, streaming across the red-and-gray-tiled linoleum floor, and Matt’s fingers stilled. “I guess we’re both in luck, then. I think a woman in an apron happens to be sexy, too.”

  “That means I’m out. The only apron I own is for when I have a hammer and a bucket of nails.”

  Matt abandoned the bread dough, snagged her with floury fingers, and drew her to him, his hands large, warm, and steady. His eyes were bluer than the waters of the Bay, visible behind him through the tall kitchen window. “Those are the sexiest kind.”

  Whenever he smiled at her like that, her body went hot all over. He didn’t seem to care that she wasn’t domestic or that she hated frilly clothes. He liked her for who she was. She looped her arms around his neck and drew his head down for a kiss.

  Matt rested his forehead against hers, his hands on her backside. “What was that for?”

  She considered all the possible explanations. Because he looked so sexy all covered in flour. Because he’d told her she didn’t disappoint him. Because he made her feel good.

  But she couldn’t very well tell him that she wanted him. Not in her mother’s kitchen.

  “It’s an old Acadian custom to kiss the cook,” she said.

  “Then I’m all in favor of old Acadian customs.” His freshly shaven jaw nuzzled the sensitive skin beneath her ear.

  Footsteps sounded on the back porch, and they sprang away from each other. Rather, Eve sprang. Matt had to be pushed. He made a face at her before turning back to the neglected dough.

  “Aren’t you both the pair of early birds?” Her mother set the eggs she’d gathered into a basket beside the sink, then washed her hands.

  Eve’s face felt hot, like she’d been caught doing something naughty instead of just thinking about it.

  “Why don’t you let me finish the bread?” Eve suggested to Matt. “You’re a guest, remember?”

  She hoped he wouldn’t remember that she’d wanted him to help wash dishes just the night before, and he’d still been a guest then. But last night they weren’t expecting her brothers to arrive at any moment, and Matt didn’t need them to see him looking so domestic.

  “And let you get all the glory? Not a chance,” he said. He gave the dough another slap. “Back off.”

  “Leave him alone,” her mother said. “Men are good at bread-making.”

  Eve couldn’t recall any time she’d ever seen a man making bread in this house before. “If that’s true, how come none of the boys ever had to do it?”

  “When was the last time you made bread?” her mother countered. “As I recall, you were never any good at it.”

  Okay, that round went to her mother.

  Eve poured herself a cup of coffee from the pot on the stove and wandered over to the window while her mo
ther supervised getting the bread dough into the pans. Every once in a while, she would cast Eve an odd look.

  “Is it just me, or is my mother acting weird?” Eve asked Matt after her mother finally disappeared. “I mean, weirder than usual?”

  “I think she was curious.” His eyes danced. “You have two big, white handprints on the seat of your pants.”

  Again, her heart did that little pitter-pattery thing it always did when he smiled at her that way. She craned her neck, trying to see. “Lovely. I’d better change before people start to arrive.”

  Too late.

  Her oldest brother, Cyril, burst into the kitchen. He wasn’t anywhere near as tall as Matt, but he was rock solid—and all of it muscle. When he entered a room, people noticed. Right behind him were Marcel and Alain. Marcel wore his dark hair pulled back from his face and tied in a ponytail. Alain kept his hair short and neat, because he was slowly going bald. With their different styles, heavy shoulders, and thick necks, they looked like a professional tag team.

  Alain grabbed her first.

  “Eve!” he cried, swinging her off her feet before tossing her over his shoulder like he was planning to save her from a burning building. “We’ve missed you.”

  Eve winced, air hissing from her lungs. Her reflexes weren’t what they used to be. She should have been better prepared for this.

  Matt cleared his throat. Four heads, hers included, swiveled in his direction. Alain let Eve slide to her feet.

  Matt stuck out a hand still sticky with traces of bread dough. “Hi. I’m Matt Brison. Eve and I work together.”

  The men all shook hands, which Eve took as a promising sign.

  Then Marcel tipped his head sideways, eyeing the seat of Eve’s pants. “Looks like maybe you play together, too.”

  That wasn’t nearly as promising. Eve began babbling introductions to cover for it.

  “Matt, this is Cyril, Marcel, and Alain. My brothers. Cyril’s the self-defense instructor I told you about. Alain’s in the Navy. And Marcel—believe it or not—works for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.” So don’t mess with them.

  Matt didn’t seem impressed. Or as scared as he should be.