by Susan Kirby
He snorted. “Trying out for the talent show?”
“Sure. I thought we’d be a team. What’re you reading?” she asked.
“None of your beeswax,” he said.
Thomasina flipped back the corner of the robe and squinted. “‘Hymns of Praise.’ Are we singing a duet?”
“Who’s we, rose lips? You got a frog in your pocket?”
“Let’s see the book,” said Thomasina.
“I haven’t swiped one of your kissy-face books, if that’s what’s worrying you.”
Overlooking his jab at the paperback poking out of her shoulder bag, she said, “Did I ever mention a boy I once knew who liked to carve the center out of books? I admired his ingenuity, but it made the story lines a little hard to follow.”
“What’re you getting at?”
Thomasina held out her hand in silent entreaty.
Milt coughed and blustered in a half-strangled voice, “How’d a gal with such a suspicious bent get in the nursing business, anyway?”
“The same way an ornery critter like you got a sweet wife like Mary—I bamboozled my way into it,” countered Thomasina.
“Mary’s like God. She looks on the heart.”
“Yes, and she’s going to be disappointed to hear you’re chasing after that old mistress of yours again,” said Thomasina.
“All right, all right!” Milt slapped the book into her outstretched hand. “You’ve got a snakish way of putting things, Tommy Rose. I’ll bet you get put out on your fanny job after job.”
“Au contraire! My last case proposed. He was the one with the triple bypass. A real sweetheart of a guy. No complaints from the gent before him, either.” Thomasina slipped the pack of cigarettes from the hollow book into her pocket. “But you’re still my all-time favorite.”
“You’re pulling my leg, right?”
Thomasina smiled. “That’s what I like—your crusty charm.”
“You and Mary.”
“Yep, you and Mary,” chimed Thomasina. “Still on speaking terms after all these years. That’s what makes you my favorite case.”
“Careful, you’re losing your snakish edge,” said Milt, grinning.
“Save your sweet talk. I’m busting you, mister, on your cigarette charades.”
Milt gave a bark of laughter.
Pleased she’d defused the situation without making him mad, Thomasina swung around to go, then pulled up short. Trace Austin stood in the door, two cups of steaming coffee in one hand. She surmised a gleam of admiration in his eye, and she flushed. So did he.
Trace moved to let her pass through the door, and sloshed his coffee doing so. But it wasn’t the brew dripping over his well-shaped hand she noticed so much as his eyes. They were startling blue. Her gaze dropped to his left hand—ringless.
Whatever had made her look for a ring? Thomasina chalked it up to sleep deprivation, returned his nod and called a farewell to Milt on her way out.
Chapter Three
“Mornin’, Trace. You’re out bright and early,” Milt said, after Thomasina had left the room. “Got a cigarette?”
“Like I’d give it to you if I did!”
“It’s not bad enough I’m trembling over my grave. Now you and Tommy Rose are conspiring against me.”
“Tommy Rose now, is it?”
“It suits her, don’t you think? Or didn’t you notice?”
“I was busy burning my hand on your coffee.”
“Just as well,” said Milt, reaching for the cup. “Tommy isn’t the kind you can woo with your callow charm.”
“Says the guy who set me up. Tommy this, and Tommy that!” Trace grinned. “I should have known a male nurse wasn’t your style.”
“Why, thank you, Trace. You make me feel seventeen again. Which reminds me, I hear your old flame Deidre’s coming home on furlough.”
“Deidre O’Conley? I thought she was teaching school on the reservation.”
“It’s a mission school. Missionaries get furloughs now and then,” said Milt. “The church is having a Sunday night soup-supper fund-raiser for her while she’s here. Mary’s selling tickets. Can she put you down for one?”
“Make it two,” countered Trace.
“Taking a date?”
“Nope. Just being a nice guy.”
“You’re not going?” Milt’s crafty grin faded. “Trace, my boy, you ought to let go of your grudge. Why, there’s no shame in losing to your betters. Or was it someone besides God who came between you two?”
“You’re going to have to get out more, Milt. You’re turning into a professional meddler,” groused Trace.
Milt lost his breath cackling, and reached for his oxygen. Alarmed, Trace set his coffee aside, and came to his feet. “You need some help?”
Milt shook his head and motioned him down again. “Kind of early for a social call,” he said, when he’d caught his breath. “What’s on your mind?”
Trace explained about the tree, and waiting on Will.
“I’d call Will, but the phone and the alarm clock are all the same ring to him. He’s good at ignoring both,” said Milt. “Speaking of ring-a-dings—how are you and your renter getting along?”
“Which one?” asked Trace.
“Antoinette Penn.”
Trace stretched his legs and crossed his ankles. “If I had it to do over, I’d stick to my no-kids, no-pets and mow-your-own-grass rules. But her kids needed a roof over their head, and she caught me in a weak moment.”
“Watch your weak moments, or it’ll be your roof over her head, the same one you’re under.”
“That’s the least of my worries,” said Trace.
“Prickly, isn’t she?” drawled Milt with a knowing grin. “Rough, losing her husband that way. Of course, she’d take your hide off if she thought you were feeling sorry for her.”
“You can save your breath. I learned my lesson,” said Trace. After Antoinette’s husband died in an icy pile-up on I-55, he’d felt sorry enough to rent the little yellow house to her. Her kids spent more time in his yard than they did in their own, which generated the usual amount of smalltown gossip.
“That-a-boy,” said Milt. “Hold out for a girl like my Mary.”
Trace nursed his coffee and chatted with Milt awhile before giving up on Will.
Once home, he showered and fell into bed and slept hard until dreams edged him toward wakefulness.
“Do you take Deidre O’Conley to be your…”
Trace awoke before the preacher in his dream got the words out. Half a lifetime ago he would have taken Deidre to be his anything. She was a do-gooder and spiritually needy and all he needed was her. He had told her so at the drive-in theater.
“You’ve got less plot than the movie,” Deidre had told him. “And what there is of it, God didn’t put there.”
It had seemed to Trace at the time that there ought to be some middle ground. But Deidre disagreed. So he walked the straight and narrow, sure he’d win her heart in the end.
But he lost on that count, too, to the courage of her convictions. To his betters, as Milt put it. It was a gradual loss—first she left for Bible college, then four years later, for the mission field. The letters and phone calls had stopped by then. She met someone out in Arizona. He had since died. Trace bought a sympathy card, a religious one. But he never could bring himself to send it. Partly because the words seemed hypocritical, coming from a guy who hadn’t been in church since she left town. Partly for fear she’d read something other than sympathy in the gesture.
Trace kicked back the sheets, thinking of subsequent relationships and how they died on the vine with mild regret and none of the pain of Deidre. He had her to thank for that. She’d taught him to put his armor on and keep his heart well guarded.
Trace showered and shaved and ate cold leftovers, then started the needed painting. After a year and a half, cosmetic improvements were all that remained of turning the dilapidated eyesore he’d picked up for a song into a grand old lady of a house. He l
ived in one half. The other half he hoped to rent just as he had the other fixer-uppers he’d acquired over the past fourteen years.
Between good wages and rental properties, he was building a tidy nest egg while he waited for the place of his dreams to come on the market. A place with a fishing hole and woodland trails and a nice creek for canoeing. When he found it, he planned to build vacation cabins. He would call it Wildwood. It would be his ticket out of the car plant and off the treadmill of predictability.
Beyond that, the dream got hazy. But even as a kid with building blocks, Trace never quite knew how to enjoy himself playing with what he’d built. It didn’t worry him. There was a lot of hard work between here and there. It was the work he relished. Building something from scratch, driving every nail. A world away from attaching identical pieces of trim, identical wires, on identical cars at sixty-second intervals.
It was hot in Thomasina’s third-floor apartment. She slept poorly and awoke with circles under her eyes. A cool shower helped some. So did liquid foundation, though a sheen of perspiration made wet work of it.
Thomasina tilted her damp face to the fan and coiled her long dark hair in one hand as she waited for her makeup to dry. Using a butterfly clip to secure her gathered tresses at the back of her head, she applied eye makeup, then blush, then peach-colored lipstick before reaching for the lash curler. It was old and sticky with the heat and wouldn’t let go. Thomasina winced and batted a watering eye. A tissue did more harm than good, smudging shadow and mascara and removing smearing blush from her left cheek all in one swipe. Out of patience, she flung the whole works into her cosmetic bag and picked up the classified ads, doubts mounting.
She was a city girl. Why had she ever agreed to look at rent property in Liberty Flats? It was a one-school, onechurch town with a post office and a grocery store. Quaint and charming, granted. But it was fifteen miles from all the amenities to which she was accustomed.
Regretting yesterday’s impulse that had led to today’s appointment with the landlord of the property, a man whose name now escaped her, Thomasina scanned the ad again. No name, just a number. Thomasina donned a shortsleeved, trim-fitting uniform and dialed the number. She would just have to tell the guy she’d changed her mind about seeing the Rush Street property. But there was no answer. It seemed rude to be a no-show. Thomasina sighed and relented. Peeking at the place didn’t obligate her. She was passing through anyway on her way to Milt and Mary’s.
Trace’s two-story house sat at a right angle to the street on a shady double lot. The foyer beyond the main entrance took a bite out of the corner of the house. The veranda, which gave access to the entrance, wrapped the corner. The west side of the porch was Trace’s. The south side went with the tenant apartment.
Trace tucked his burgundy shirt into his dark gray work trousers. He crouched on the entrance threshold, leaned past the step and stretched down a hand to see if the porch floor had dried. His finger came away forest green. The paint was as wet as when he’d put it down.
He retraced his steps to the back utility room where he’d stored the paint can. Twenty-four hours to dry. Now how had he overlooked that earlier? He had, with his slick efficiency, painted himself in and his prospective renter out.
Leaving his door standing open, Trace climbed out a window, backed his truck up to the porch and let the tailgate down. He was looking for a board in the carriage house when he heard a car pull up out front. Hastily he grabbed a long two-by-four and crossed beneath the widespread blue ash. He spanned the wet porch with the two-by-four, one end supported by the tailgate, the other thrust through the front door into the parquet floor of the foyer.
Hearing footsteps on the brick walk, he turned, an apology ready.
“The porch floor is wet If you can…” The rest of the explanation faded away, so unnerved was he at finding himself looking into the deep-set darkly fringed eyes of Milt’s nurse.
“Tommy Rose!” he blurted. “What are you doing here?”
Chapter Four
The disheveled man Thomasina had met at Milt and Mary’s early that morning was no longer so disheveled. Just surprised. And discomfited at having blurted out Milt’s pet name for her.
Thomasina buried her own discomfort in a smile. “Hello again, Mr. Austin. I’m here to see the apartment.”
“It was you I talked to on the phone? I didn’t take down a name.”
Thomasina nodded.
“I’ll be.” Trace shifted his feet.
“Small world, huh?”
The house, with its fresh coat of white paint, white carpenter’s lace and green porch begged to be seen.
Thomasina smiled and moved out of the sun, asking. “How did you get along with your tree cutting?”
“It went about like the rest of my day.” Trace gestured toward the board spanning the porch. “The paint’s wet. The only way in is over that board. Or have you lost interest?”
“I was having second thoughts. But,” she admitted. “I’m here. I may as well look.”
When she phrased it that way, Trace wanted to tell her not to put herself out, that he’d have no trouble renting the place. With the city limits near by, Liberty Flats had become a bedroom community. It was a seller’s market, and renters were even easier to find than buyers. But he didn’t want her mistaking his words for pressure. He said instead, “I’ll get a wider board.”
“This’ll do.”
“You’re sure?”
“Why not? If Nadia can trip the light fantastic on a balance beam, I can inch across a two-by-four.” Thomasina tossed her purse into the back of his truck. She slipped out of her shoes and set them on the tailgate beside her purse.
“Nadia?”
“You know. The gymnast?”
“Oh, her. Sure!” Trace grinned and vaulted onto the tailgate to offer her a hand up. “You’re dating yourself, though. That was a few Olympics ago.”
“Twenty-seven and holding,” she said with a puckish grin. “The cat’s out of the bag, now. How about you?”
“Thirty-four,” he said, surprised she would ask.
“I’ll go first, make sure it’ll hold.” He strode across the two-by-four, then turned to see her tip her face and start after him with no sign of hesitancy.
“And she nails the landing!” Thomasina quipped as she stepped into the entryway beside him.
Trace answered her with a grin and ushered her inside.
The living room was long and a little narrow. But the high ceiling and a bay window gave it a spacious feel. Thomasina circled the room and stopped to visualize filmy sheer curtains at the windows. The walls were freshly painted a warm eggshell shade, a nice backdrop for her floral sofa with its splash of Victorian colors. “This is lovely.”
Pleased, Trace led her toward the kitchen where plush carpet gave way to recently installed linoleum. High, old-fashioned built-in cupboards lined one wall. There was a recessed nook for dining, with a table and benches built in. A stove and refrigerator were in place.
“Appliances included, as long as they hold out. They were here when I bought the house. Or do you have your own?”
“No.” Thomasina saw that the wooden countertop matched the table. “Maple, isn’t it?”
Trace nodded as her hands trailed over the countertop. They were sensible hands—nails clipped short, lightly tinted. Slender and smooth and graceful to the eye. “Cut on Will’s sawmill. The finish is supposed to protect the wood against water. We’ll see if it lives up to expectations.”
“I like it,” said Thomasina, impressed with the craftsmanship.
He gave a modest shrug. “Thought I’d try something different. The laundry room is through here, with a back entry off the porch.”
“My own laundry room?”
“Shared, actually,” he said, and unlocked a second door.
Thomasina realized that the laundry room with its washer, dryer and utility sink connected the two apartments at the rear of the house. Another door lead out to a screened
-in porch. Her eye was drawn to the porch by bright-colored hanging plants that swayed in the breeze coming through the screened walls. A wicker love seat and an old-fashioned swing like the one on the front veranda just begged to be tried out. She pushed the door open.
“Careful,” Trace warned, and stretched an arm across the door, preventing her from stepping out on the porch. “The paint’s still wet.”
“Here, too?”
“I didn’t read the drying time until after the fact.” He turned back the way they had come. “The stairs are off the kitchen.”
Thomasina lingered a moment in the open door. She looked past the porch to freshly mown grass and ancient oak trees. “It’s a huge yard.”
“It looks even bigger when you’re mowing it, and the acorns are a real pain when they fall.” Trace flung words over his shoulder. “I’ll provide the mower, plus knock some off the rent if you want to mow the grass yourself.”
“Fair enough. Does your other tenant mow?” she asked.
“I live in the other half.”
For the second time that day, Thomasina’s gaze strayed to his ringless left hand. “With your family?”
“Just me,” he said, and turned away again.
Thomasina tracked with her glance a droplet of water dripping from a springy brown curl. It disappeared over the curve of his ear. It was a well-shaped ear, a little pink on the ridge where the skin had burned and peeled.
“Utilities are included in the rent.”
Thomasina followed as he moved toward the enclosed staircase leading to the second story. She tracked the water droplet as it fell from his earlobe and slid down his neck. He paused on the bottom step and turned.