by Daphne Clair
'Uh-huh. I've contacted a scaffolder,' Gabriel told her. 'When you need it you can come along and make sure it's what you want.'
The scaffolding was erected on a Friday after the build ing had closed.
Gabriel watched closely as the team worked to Rhiannon's direction, and inspected the result after wards, testing various joints and bits of piping to ensure they were secure.
'I'm sure it's all right,' Rhiannon assured him.
'You're not nervous about working up there?'
'Not specially.' A tumble down the stairs could be disastrous, but the sturdy safety rail he'd insisted on should save her from that. 'I'll be fine.'
'This light isn't great,' Gabriel remarked critically, looking up at the contemporary chandelier hanging over head. 'If you plan to work at night you'll need some spotlights or something. I'll see what I can do.'
'Thank you.' Taking a large sheet of paper from the cylinder tucked under her arm, she rolled the design back the other way to straighten it, then opened it out, study ing the gridlines she'd drawn.
'Is that to scale?' Gabriel asked.
'Yes—I don't want to make any mistakes on some thing this size. I'll draw a grid on the wall first.'
'Can I be of any help?'
She'd been going to ask Peri, offering to pay him, but felt guilty about taking him away from his own art. His time was already severely limited by his job at the gal lery.
When she hesitated Gabriel added, 'I said I wouldn't hurry you, but there are safety issues as long as the scaf folding is in place. If there's an emergency and we can't use the elevators we'd have major problems with an ob structed stairway.'
That was a point. There was still room for a person to pass the scaffolding, but it had certainly limited the space. 'I'll complete the top half first, and then the scaf folding can come down.'
'When do you plan to start?'
'Tomorrow after the gallery closes I have a few hours.'
'I'll be here. But this is your key card for future use.' He dug in his pocket and handed her an envelope. 'I'll show you how to use it.'
As they descended the stairs a burly middle-aged man in uniform appeared in the lobby, and Gabriel introduced him as the custodian.
Mick Dysart shook Rhiannon's hand with a large paw and assured her he'd be available whenever she wanted him. 'If I'm not in my office downstairs,' he said, 'there's a buzzer on the wall near the lifts, and another one at the staff door. Just use that and I'll be with you in a jiff.'
Escorting her to her car, Gabriel said, 'If you're leaving after dark anytime I'm not around, Mick or one of security guards that cover his time off will make sure you get safely to your car, or call a taxi for you.'
When she arrived on Saturday afternoon he was already on the landing, looking up at the wall. Two large floodlights on tall stands stood there, too, electric cables snak ing around them and disappearing up the stairwell.
'Have you had something to eat?' he asked her.
'Yes.' She'd snacked on sandwiches and coffee before leaving the gallery.
They worked out a system for drawing the grid, and between the two of them finished it by the time darkness began to fall outside. 'Thank you,' she said, easing her back against her hands after descending from the scaf folding. 'I didn't expect to get it all done today.'
'What's next?'
'I'll transfer the drawing to the wall.'
'I suppose that's something you'll need to do on your own.'
'Yes. But I appreciate this.'
'Can I offer you a meal?'
'I'm having dinner with friends tonight.' She was glad of a valid excuse, suppressing a pang of regret. 'And you don't need to feed me.'
'As long as someone does.'
On Sunday she'd been working for half an hour, sketch ing the first outlines on the wall, when she heard foot steps on the marble floor. Pausing, she looked down from her perch on the scaffolding, expecting to see the custodian. Instead Gabriel stood at the bottom of the stairs, one hand on the baluster.
He said, 'I thought you might be here.'
'I didn't think you would be.' Their voices sounded eerily hushed in the empty building. It was quieter than yesterday, when the demolition team had been working next door, and the muffled sounds of jackhammers and machines had penetrated the walls.
'I have some paperwork to catch up on. I hope you don't mean to stick at that all day. Six days in the gallery and spending the rest of the weekend working for me is slave labour and I won't have it.'
'This is different from the gallery.'
'A labour of love?' His mouth curved.
'I know I'm getting paid for it, but it's what I love to do, yes.'
'Well, don't stay too long. Do you need anything?'
Rhiannon shook her head. 'No. Thanks,' she added.
He stood there a moment longer. 'Okay. See you, then.'
Listening to him walk away, she remained as she was for several seconds, the carpenter's pencil held in her slack hand. He'd gone, just like that.
Returning to the drawing, she made a mistake and swore under her breath.
The custodian checked on her a couple of times, watching for a while, then wandered off again. At one o'clock Gabriel reappeared. 'Have you had lunch?' he demanded from the bottom of the stairs. 'A break?'
'Yes I have.' She'd brought sandwiches and fruit and eaten them sitting on the stairs. 'I told you not to worry about me.'
'This is a big job for one person.'
'I can do it.'
'I wasn't implying you can't. But I don't want to see you work yourself into the ground.'
'You won't. I can look after myself.' She'd been do ing it for long enough.
He looked at his watch. 'I have to go. Mick will be around if you need anything.'
On Monday Gabriel stopped by for a little longer before leaving the building. She had to force herself to concentrate while he watched, and only relaxed again when he said goodnight.
At eight o'clock Mick offered her a coffee, and brought it to her, then sat alongside her on the stairs and chatted while she drank it.
He told her he was widowed and had two daughters about her age, one married. 'These are my grandkids,' he said, showing her a photograph of three smiling children with their mother. 'Pity the wife didn't live to see them.'
'They're lovely,' Rhiannon said. She liked children— they were unthreatening and fun, although of course they also entailed pretty heavy responsibilities for parents, as she'd realised from being around her friends' families. In a vague way she'd hoped one day she'd have some of her own. But she'd blocked from her mind all con sideration of the necessary preliminaries.
Each evening Rhiannon drove her car close to the Angelair Building, taking advantage of the emptying spaces during the homeward rush hour. On Friday, she buzzed at the staff door on leaving, and a few minutes later, instead of Mick, Gabriel himself came down the stairs, looking more handsome than ever in an open- collared white shirt, the sleeves carelessly rolled, and dark pants.
'You're working late,' she said.
'Ditto,' he replied, opening the door. 'How's it going? It looked this morning as if you were close to finishing the drawing.'
'I have now. Tomorrow I'll start painting in the col ours.' They began walking towards her car.
'You'll want some help lugging paint cans. I'll come in.'
'You said Mick would help.'
'Mick's having the weekend off to see his family.'
'Don't you ever have time off?'
'I'm the boss. I take it when I can.'
Not when he might have liked to, Rhiannon noted. When he could. Working long hours was probably a habit he'd developed young, one that had helped to make his business what it was today.
'What time do you plan to arrive?' he asked.
'About two thirty, after I've finished at the gallery.'
'I'll be here.'
When they reached the car and she took out the
key he leaned against the rear side window, arms folded, while she inserted the key in the lock.
'You told me once,' he said, 'that you liked me. Has that changed?'
'No,' she said, before remembering the context— when he kissed her in his office. Of course she didn't dislike him. She was just distrustful of the effect he had on her.
Next day, Gabriel met her dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, helped her put down a heavy drop sheet, and carried paint cans up from the basement.
As she began brushing on the first strokes of blue background he said, 'It's a bit light, isn't it?'
'These colours are only approximate,' she assured him, 'watered down. Just a guide for the tesserae.'
'Uh-huh. So...could I do some of that?'
It would be less nerve-racking than having him stand and watch, as he was now, his arms folded, legs apart as if studying her technique. 'I suppose so,' she said after a moment's thought. 'If you start on the high point at the other end we could meet in the middle.'
He slanted a grin at her. 'Sounds like a good idea.'
When they did, she stepped back along the trestle they stood on and let him finish the last bit of blue.
'How did I do?' he asked her.
'Not bad.' He looked rather pleased with himself, and she laughed. 'You can do some more if you like.' She'd almost begun to get used to his presence, silently work ing under her instructions, filling in the larger blocks of colour while she dealt with the fiddly bits.
At five he said, 'You're not planning to work much longer, I hope?'
Rhiannon shook her head. 'I'm having a meal with some friends tonight.'
'I've been invited to check out a new night club next Saturday. Would you like to come with me?'
The few times she'd visited clubs with a group of women friends it had been more of an ordeal than a pleasurable experience. 'I don't dance,' she told him. 'And we agreed that it's better to keep things on a busi ness footing.'
'Actually, I don't remember agreeing to anything.'
Rhiannon shot him a startled glance.
'Why don't you dance?'
'I'm not very good at it.'
'Practice helps...as in most things.'
'I'm really not very interested.'
His look was penetrating, then he gave a short, harsh laugh. 'You don't know what you're missing.'
The following morning he was waiting for her again, the paint and brushes standing ready while he surveyed what they'd done the night before.
She paused at the foot of the stairs before slowly as cending when he turned to her and said, 'Good morn ing.'
He didn't remove his gaze from her, seeming to take note of every movement as she came towards him, his expression unreadable but disturbing all the same. His eyes were half closed and glittery.
Rhiannon tried to quell the tug of sexual awareness she'd come to recognise. Awareness so powerful that even though she stood a deliberate few feet away when she reached the landing she could feel her skin tingling, a liquid warmth running along her bones.
He didn't move, standing before the paint pots, and she realised she would have to approach him to reach them.
Her step faltered as she brushed by him, her bare arm coming in contact with the rolled sleeve of the open- necked shirt he wore with his jeans. He still didn't move, and she felt the fine hairs at her nape rise with tension as she knelt to open a paint pot. Her hand was unsteady on the screwdriver she slid under the edge of the lid to lever it up.
Then he was beside her, very close. She felt his body warmth at her shoulder, and his breath stirred a tendril of hair at her temple.
The screwdriver slipped from her hand, landing with a soft clatter on the drip sheet.
Gabriel picked it up, closing his strong fingers around the yellow plastic handle. He took over the task and gave the screwdriver a quick twist, flipping open the lid and catching it before laying it carefully down.
'Thank you,' she said almost inaudibly.
'No problem. Tell me what you want me to do.'
They worked largely in silence, but gradually Rhiannon felt the tension leach away. By the time Mick stopped by and offered to fetch them coffee she was almost back to normal. As normal as she ever was around Gabriel.
At midday Gabriel suggested, 'There's a good restau rant practically next door.'
Rhiannon shook her head. 'I've brought my lunch. You please yourself.'
He left for a while and came back with a pie and a doughnut , and two coffees.
'Thanks,' Rhiannon said when he handed her one of the cups. She sat on the top step, her shoulder wedged j against the stair rail while she ate her sandwiches.
Gabriel gave her a thoughtful look and followed suit at the other side of the wide stair, half turned to face her as they sipped the drinks.
'Are you happy,' he asked her, 'with the way things are going?'
Deciding not to read any hidden meaning into that, ' Rhiannon looked over her shoulder at the cartoon. 'It's coming along faster than I expected, thanks to your help.'
'I'm glad to do it. You know you can call on me any time. For anything.'
She cast him a covert glance, her eyelashes flickering. Temptation beckoned, and she struggled with it before pushing it away. 'I suppose the mosaic will mean all the more to you since you've had a hand in creating it.'
He looked at what they'd done, then back at her. 'This is certainly something to remember.'
By five o'clock a good part of the top half was done, and Rhiannon climbed down to inspect their handiwork from the ground, easing her back against her hands.
Gabriel followed, standing behind her. 'Enough for today,' he suggested. 'Should we put away the paint and brushes?'
'Mm, I guess.'
'I'll take care of it,' he said, 'after I've seen you out. You need to rest.'
Rhiannon got used to Gabriel's presence and his occa sional help. When he wasn't there Mick would stop by to bring her coffee, and see her off the premises at a reasonable hour.
The cartoon done, Rhiannon mixed her mortar with adhesive while Gabriel and Mick fetched and carried for her, hoisting the bucket of mortar and a plastic bin filled with ceramic pieces onto the scaffolding where she could easily reach them.
Mick left, and Rhiannon trowelled some mortar onto the wall, picked out a triangle of blue tile, and carefully placed it. Gabriel stood below her with his hands on his hips, his head tilted.
After adding several more tesserae and with the next in her hand, she looked down at the things she'd left on the drip sheet.
'What do you want?' gt;
She pointed. 'I forgot to bring my tile nippers up here.'
He handed the plier-like tool to her and watched her pull on the safety glasses slung about her neck before closing the tool over the shard of blue, cutting it to the shape she wanted. She pressed it onto the mortar, and then smoothed more of the muddy-looking stuff on a patch of the wall. 'If you have things to do,' she hinted to Gabriel, 'I don't need you now.'
'So you say.' He walked around to look up at her face. 'Am I bothering you?'
After all the helpful stuff he'd done it seemed rude to say so. Rhiannon shrugged. 'It's going to get pretty te dious.'
He folded his arms, standing feet-apart below her. 'I'm not bored yet.'
She turned to pick another fragment from the bin. 'Please yourself.'
'I am. Or at least you're pleasing me.'
Rhiannon couldn't stop her head whipping round, but he was staring with bland appraisal at the wall. 'Looking good.'
That was a bit close to the wind, Gabriel chided himself as Rhiannon returned her attention to her work. He had a lot of ground to make up since she'd backed off after that debacle with the address business. Not that he had any intention of going along forever with this farce of sticking to an impersonal relationship, but neither did he want to make her feel threatened in any way. That would be counter-productive.
'I'll be in my office,' he said, 'for a while.
And Mick's around if you need him.'
While he sat hunched over his computer, staring at meaningless figures, he kept thinking of Rhiannon's lithe grace as she bent to find another tessera to add to the design, unconsciously accentuating the curve of her waist and hip; the serene concentration on her face as she chose just the right shape and deftly fitted it into a space; the way she used her slender wrist to restrain an intrusive strand of her hair because her gloved hands were grimed with mortar.
He ached to slam out of the room, race down the stairs and pull her from her perch on the scaffolding, sweep her off to some private corner of the building—he looked at the two sofas in the corner of the room, too damnably small for what he had in mind—and make mad, passionate love to her for the rest of the night...maybe for the rest of their lives.
But she'd rebuffed his carefully casual invitation, and it was no use even thinking about a long-term relation ship with a woman who steadfastly, unequivocally refused to allow any romantic overtures.
Well, he wouldn't think about it yet. One step at a time, and who knew how far that might eventually take them?
Gabriel Hudson wasn't a man who easily admitted defeat.
Putting his latest plan into practice, he adopted a laid- back manner and took things slowly. Even when Rhiannon didn't need help he lingered sometimes to watch her work—at first briefly, and then for longer per iods as she seemed to accept his presence—and kept scrupulously to his resolution of not pressuring her in the slightest.
Sometimes he deliberately stayed away, hoping she might miss him a little. When he was with her he clamped his tongue, avoiding any provocative remarks, and tried to hide the desire in his eyes. He limited his touch to the occasional light guidance on her arm, and was rewarded by seeing her gradually relax with him.
Schooling his body to emulate the asexual being he'd been named for was torture, yet on some level he gained a novel pleasure from a deepening relationship unlike any he'd known.
It was like watching the unfurling of a tightly folded bud. Every time she smiled, even looked at him openly without veiling her expression or turning away, it con traded his heart.