by Nora Roberts
“Thats good.” Dana let out a breath. “Its starting to feel good again.”
“Its going to be great.”Zoe slid an arm around Danas waist. “You could have those tins and stuff of fancy teas and coffees on the counter.”
“Maybe we could put in a table,” Dana considered. “One of those little round ones, with a couple of chairs. Okay. Lets write down the paints weve got so far, see if we can decide on any others. Ill head out toHomeMakers and pick it all up.”
“I think paints going on sale next week,”Zoe put in.
“Oh, yeah?” Danas dimples flashed. “Well, I happen to have an in atHomeMakers . Ill call Brad and get us a discount today.”
* * *
IT helped to have a focus, a goal. Even if it was only several gallons of paint.
If, Dana thought, the library and her life there were now her past, werent Indulgence and the building of it her present? As far as the future went, how the hell was she sup-posed to know? But she intended to think about it and try to find a connection to the location of the key.
It hadnt been difficult to wheedle a thirty percent discount out of Brad. As Dana wandered the wide aisles of the cavernousHomeMakers , she considered what else she might be able to pick up while she had her old friends go-ahead.
Paintbrushes, of course, and rollers. Or maybe they should try out one of those paint sprayers. She studied one, crouching down to ponder the workings of it.
How hard could it be? And it would certainly be faster and less labor-intensive than slopping it on the old-fashioned way.
“Unless youre thinking about becoming a house painter, that ones a little much for you.”
Jordan Hawke, she thought as a muscle in her jaw twitched. And shed thought the day couldnt get any crap-pier. “So, Brad took pity on you and gave you a job?” she said without looking up. “Are you going to get to wear one of the blue denim shirts with the little house on the breast pocket?”
“I was in his office when you called kissing up to him for a price break. He asked me to come down and give you a hand because he got caught by a phone call before he could come himself.”
Her hackles rose. “I dont need help to buy paint.”
“You do if youre seriously considering buying that sprayer.”
“I was just looking.” Her mouth moved into a pout as she poked a finger at the machine. “Besides, what do you know about it?”
“Enough to know if I say too much more about it, youll buy it just to spite me.”
“Thats tempting, but Ill resist,” she shot back.
He reached down, cupped a hand under her elbow to lift her to her feet. “Seems like youve had enough to deal with for one day. Heard you quit your job.”
There was sympathy in his eyes. Not the smug and sticky kind, but a quiet understanding that soothed. “What, does Sandi report to you too?”
“Sorry, that names not on my list.” He gave her arm a careless little rub, an old gesture that both of them remembered as soon as he did it. And both of them took a half-step back. “Word travels, Stretch. You know how it is in the Valley.”
“Yeah, I know how it is. Im surprised you remember.”
“I remember a lot of things. One of them is how much you loved working there.”
“I dont want you to be nice to me.” She turned away to stare hard at the paint sprayer. “Its screwing up my mood.”
Because he knew she would work through it better if she was angry or occupied, he nodded. “Okay. Why dont I help you take advantage of your friend-of-the-owner discount? Its always fun to scalp Brad. Then you can verbally abuse me. That always cheers you up.”
“Yeah, it does.” She frowned a little, bumped the sprayer with the toe of her shoe. “This thing doesnt look so tough.”
“Let me show you some of your other options.”
“Why arent you back at Flynns hacking out a stale plot with cardboard characters?”
“There, see, youre feeling better already.“
“Have to admit.” “What we have here is an automatic paint roller system,” he began, steering her toward the machine Brad had recommended to him. “Its small, user-friendly, and efficient.”
“How do you know?”
“Because when Brad told me to show you this one he used those specific adjectives. Personally, Ive only painted a room the old-fashioned way, and thats been…” He trailed off. “A long time ago.”
She remembered. Hed painted his mothers bedroom when she was in the hospital the first time. Dana had helped him, cutting around the trim, keeping his spirits up.
Theyd painted the walls a soft, warm blue so that the room would be fresh and peaceful.
And less than three months later she was dead.
“She loved it,” Dana said gently. “She loved that you did that for her.”
“Yeah.” As the memory was painful on too many levels, he flipped the topic back. “Well, Brads got a list here of handy products and tools to make your home improvement project more enjoyable.”
“Okay, lets clean him out.”
She had to admit that it added to the fun and interest of the expedition to have him along. And it was easy, a little too easy, to remember why theyd once been friends, once been lovers.
They had a way of slipping into a rhythm, of understanding short-speak and expressions that came from a lifetime of knowing each other every bit as much as from the two years of physical intimacy theyd shared.
“This is the color?” Jordan rubbed his chin as he studied her list. “Island? What kind of color is Island?”
“Greenyblue. Sort of.” She handed over the paint chip. “See? Whats wrong with it?”
“I didnt say anything was wrong with it. Its just not something that makes me think bookstore.”
“Its not just a bookstore, its… Damn it.” She held the sample up, she held it down. She crossed her eyes and still couldnt envision it on the walls of her space. “Malory picked it out. I was going to go with this off-white, and she andZoe jumped all over me.”
“White always works.” She hissed out a breath. “See, they said I was thinking like a man. Men wont pick color. Theyre scared of color.”
“We are not.”
“What colors your living room in New York?”
He shot her a bland look. “Thats entirely beside the point.”
“I dont think so. I dont know why, but I dont think so. Im going with this sort ofgreeny blue. Its just paint. Its not a lifetime commitment. And she said I should think Bryce Canyon and Spaghetti for accents.”
“Brown and yellow? Honey, thats gottol )e ugly.”
“No, the canyon deals sort of deep rose. A kind of pinky,browny red—”
“Pinky,browny red,” he repeated, grinning. “Very descriptive.”
“Shut up. And the others sort of cream.” She fanned out the samplesZoe and Malory had marked. “Hell, I dont know. I think Im a little scared of color myself.”
“Youre sure as hell not a man.”
“Thank God for that.Mals going with this deal called Honeycomb.Zoes is called Begonia, which I dont get because begonias are pink or white, and this is more like purple.”
She pressed her fingers just over her right eye. “I think all this colors making my head hurt. Anyway,Zoes already figured the square footage and the gallons per. Wheres my list?”
He handed it back to her. “Brad was wondering whyZoe didnt come with you.”
“Hmm? Oh, she had to get home to Simon.” She studied the list, began to calculate, then glanced up. “Why?”
“What?”
“Why was he wondering?”
“Why do you think?” He looked over her shoulder at the list, surprised when she turned it over and he saw that it continued on the back of the sheet.
“Jesus, youre going to need a flatbed. Then Brad took a trip back to high school and asked me to ask you ifZoe had said anything about him.”
“No, she didnt, but Id be happy to pass her a note for him in study hall
tomorrow.” “Ill let him know.”
They loaded up the paint, the supplies, the equipment. Dana blessed Brad at checkout when even with the discount the total made her gulp. But it wasnt until she was outside that she realized the real dilemma.
“How the hell am I going to fit all this in my car?”
“Youre not. Were going to fit it into your car and mine.”
“Why didnt you say something about me buying more than I could handle when I was loading up in there?”
“Because you were having fun. Where do you want to store all this stuff?”
“Jeez.” Baffled with herself, she scooped a hand through her hair. “I didnt think about it. I got caught up.”
And, he thought, it had been a pleasure to watch her get caught up—and forget she hated him.
“I cant store all this at my place, and I didnt think to see if we could keep the keys and store it at the building. What the hell am I going to do with it?”
“Flynns got plenty of room at his place.”
“Yeah.” She sighed. “Yeah, he does. I guess thats the way itll have to be. He cant get pissed, because Malory will just bat her eyelashes and turn him into putty.”
They divvied up, loaded up. The drive back to Flynns gave her time to wonder how theyd managed to be in each others company for the best part of an hour without a fight.
He hadnt been a jerk, which, she decided, was a rare thing.
And, she was forced to admit, she hadnt been one either. Equally rare when Jordan was involved.
Maybe, just maybe, they could manage to coexist, even cooperate, for the short term. If, as everyone else insisted, he was part of the quest, she needed him around.
Added to that, he had a good brain and a fluid imagination. He could be more than an annoyance through this. He could be an actual asset.
When they arrived at Flynns, she had to concede that it helped to have a man around who was willing to play pack mule with a dozen gallons of paint and the supplies that went with it. “Dining room,” she said, straining a little under the load she carried. “He never uses it.”
“Hes going to.” Jordan wound his way through the house, veered off into the dining room. “Malory has major plans.”
“She always does. She makes him happy.“
“No question about that.” He headed back out for the next load. “Lily put some serious holes in his ego,” he added, referring to Flynns ex-fiancee.
“It wasnt just his ego.” She pulled out a bag loaded with extra paint rollers, brushes, shiny metal pans. “She hurt him. When somebody dumps you and runs off, it hurts.”
“Best thing that couldve happened to him.”
“That isnt the issue.” She could feel the resentment, the hurt, the anger starting to brew in her belly. Struggling to ignore it, she hauled out more cans. “The issue is pain, betrayal, and loss.”
He said nothing as they carried the rest of the supplies to the dining room. Nothing until they set them down, and he turned to face her. “I didnt dump you.”
She could actually feel the hair on the back of her neck rise. “Not every statement I make involves you.”
“I had to go,” he continued. “You had to stay. You were still in college, for Christs sake.”
“That didnt stop you from getting me into bed.”
“No, it didnt. Nothing could have. I had a hunger for you, Dana. There were times I felt like Id starve to death if I couldnt get a bite of you.”
She stepped back, gave him an up-and-down study. “Looks like youve been eating well enough the last few years.”
“Doesnt mean I stopped thinking about you. You meant something to me.”
“Oh, go to hell.” It didnt explode out of her, but was said flatly, which gave it more power. “Meant something to you? A goddamn pair of shoes can mean something to you. I loved you.”
If shed delivered a bare-knuckled punch to his face, hed have been no less shocked. “You… you never said that. You never once said the L word to me.”
“Because you were supposed to say it first. The guys supposed to say it first.”
“Hold on just a minute. Is that a rule?” Panic was trickling down the back of his throat like acid. “Wheres it written down?”
“It just is, you stupid jerk. I loved you, and Id have waited, orIdve gone with you. But you just said, Listen, Stretch, Im pulling up stakes and going to New York. Its been fun, see you around.”
“Thats not true, Dana. It wasnt like that.”
“Close enough. Nobodys ever hurt me like that. Youll never get the chance to do it again—and you know what, Hawke?Idve made a man out of you.”
She turned on her heel and walked out.
Chapter Four
BEING alone was something Jordan did very well, under most circumstances. When he was working, thinking about working, thinking about not working, he liked to fold himself into the isolation of hisSoHo loft:
Then, the life, the noise, the movement and color on the street outside his windows were a kind of film he could watch or ignore depending on his mood.
He liked seeing it all through the glass, more, very often more, than he liked being a part of it.
New York had saved him, in a very real way. It had forced him to survive, to become, to live like a man—not someones son, someones friend, another student, but a man who had only himself to rely on. It had pushed and prodded him with its impatient and sharp fingers, reminding him on a daily basis during that jittery first year that it didnt really give a goddamn whether he sank or swam.
Hed learned to swim.
Hed learned to appreciate the noise, the action, the press of humanity.
He liked its selfishness and its generosity and its propensity for flipping the bird to the rest of the world.
And the more hed learned, the more hed observed and adjusted, the more hed realized that at the core he was just a small-town boy.
He would forever be grateful to New York.
When work was upon him, he could drop into that world. Not the one outside his window, but the one inside his own head. Then it wasnt like a film at all, but more like life than life itself for however many hours it gripped him.
Hed learned the difference between those worlds, had come to appreciate the subtleties and scopes of them in a way he knew he might never have done if he hadnt stripped away the safety nets of the .old and thrown himself headlong into the new.
Writing had never become routine for him, but remained a constant surprise. He was always surprised at how much fun it was, once it all got moving. And never failed to be surprised at how bloody hard it was. It was tike having an intense, frustrating love affair with a capricious, gorgeous, and often mean-spirited woman.
He loved every moment of it.
Writing had carried him through the worst of his grief when hed lost his mother. It had given him direction, purpose, and enough aggravation to pull himself out of the mire.
It had given him joy and bitterness, and great personal satisfaction. Beyond that, it had provided him with a kind of financial security hed never known or really expected to know.
Anyone who said money didnt matter had never had to count the coins that fell between the cushions of the couch.
He was alone now, with theafterburn of Danas words still singeing the air. He couldnt enjoy the solitude, couldnt fold himself into it or into his work.
A man was never so lonely, he thought, as when he was surrounded by the past.
There was no point in going out for a walk. Too many people who knew him would stop and speak, have questions, make comments. He couldnt lose himself in the Valley as he could in New York.
Which was one of the reasons hed bolted when and how he had. And one of the reasons hed come back.
So, he would go for a drive, get awayfrom,the echoes still bouncing off the walls.
I loved you.
Jesus! Jesus, how could he not have known? Had he been that clueless—or had she been that self-contained?
He punched in the CD player, cranked it up. He didnt care what pumped out, as long as it was loud. Claptons blistering guitar rode with him out of town.
He had known hed hurt Dana all those years ago. But hed assumed the nip had been to her ego, exactly where he thought hed aimed; Hed known he pissed her off—she made that crystalclear—but he assumed that was pride. If he had known she loved him, hed have found a way to break things off more gently.
Wouldnt he?
Christ, he hoped so. Theyd been friends. Even when they had been consumed with and by each other, theyd been friends. He would never deliberately wound a friend. Hed been no good for her, thats what it came down to. Hed been no good for anybody at that time in his life. She was better off that he had ended it.
He headed for the mountains and began the steep, twisty climb.
But shed loved him. There was little to nothing he could do about that now. He wasnt at all sure there was anything he could have done at the time. He wasnt ready for the Big Love then. He wouldnt have known how to define it, what to think about it.
Hell, he hadnt been able to think at all when it came to Dana. After one look at her when hed come home from college, every single thought of her had shot straight to his glands.
It had terrified him.
He could smile over that now. His initial shock at his own reaction to her, his overwhelming guilt that he was fantasizing about the sister of his closest friend.
Hed been horrified, and fascinated, and ultimately obsessed.
Tall, curvy, sharp-tongued Dana Steele, with her big, full bodied laugh, her questing mind, her punch-first temper.
Everything about her had pulled at him.
Damn if it still didnt.
When hed seen her again on this trip back, when she yanked open the door of Flynns house and stood there snarling at him, the sheer want for her had blown straight through him.
Just as her sheer dislike for him had all but taken off his head.
If they could work their way around to being friends again, to finding that connection, that affection that had always been between them, maybe they could work their way forward to something more.