by Beth Andrews
Yeah, definite advantages to a work crew.
She had to admit, it was nice having conversation and laughter in the house. The students distracted her from her worries, and the dream that ran over and over like a skipping record in her head. That was something that, up till now, only a motorcycle ride had been able to do.
Tomorrow, they should be able to finish the demolition. If future days went like today, this student work crew could turn out to be a good thing.
She thought of her dad, teaching her on a job site, when she was in high school. How strange was it that she’d now be the one doing the teaching? Wow, Dad, who would have ever thought?
* * *
HAIR IN A TOWEL, Sam stood in her underwear before the closet beside the upstairs bathroom. Every item of clothing she owned fit in the standard coat closet, with room to spare. She shifted hangers. Mostly work clothes, with a few dressy shirts, a pair of dress slacks and a structured jacket for business meetings. And her leathers. Remembering the damage to her riding suit, she pulled it out. The hole wasn’t huge—maybe she could repair it. She hung them back in the closet. Reaching to the top shelf, pulling down a fresh pair of skinny-leg Levi’s from the pile next to a towering stack of T-shirts.
“Any color, as long as it’s blue.” She sighed. Had her closet always been so...bland?
She’d indulged in a half hour of worry after listening to Nick’s voice mail last night, then called him, suggesting a wine tasting today. She wanted to have a few bottles on hand when Jesse stopped by, and besides, she liked the clean orderliness of the wineries. The regimented vines marching over the hills soothed her.
She checked through her choices one more time. No business blouse on a date—even she knew that. Plaid flannel sure didn’t make the cut. Ditto the denim. Damn. Hangers slid faster. Sweatshirts, baggy sweaters and equally dismal choices flew by.
Wait. She stopped at a fitted white eyelet blouse with cap sleeves. “It’s April. You’ll freeze your nipples off.” Maybe, but nothing else in her closet was remotely appropriate. She squirmed, imagining Nick walking up, staring at her boobs. The eyelet would show her bra.
Well, she’d just wear a jean jacket over it. She snatched the blouse from the hanger and went on a hunt for a bra without a safety pin holding it together. She blow-dried her hair, dressed and ran a wand of mascara over her lashes. She checked the bathroom mirror. Blah. She needed some color. Inspiration hit. She tore back to the closet, dropped to her hands and knees, digging for her box of gift wrappings.
“Aha!” She pulled a silky pastel strip of cloth ribbon from the tangle.
The doorbell rang. Bugs barked.
She stood, stepped into loafers and shrugged into her fitted jean jacket. Jogging to the bathroom, she tied the ribbon as a headband and checked it in the mirror. Better. Marginally.
Her loafers clattered on the wood of the hall, echoing as she ran. Out of breath, she opened the door, stooping to grab the dog’s collar when he tried to muscle himself past her.
Nick stood at the far edge of the covered porch, leaning against the railing. His hands in his front pockets, he telegraphed nonthreatening.
God, he was gorgeous. Cowboy boots, jeans and a white button-down shirt, the high rolled sleeves displaying tanned biceps. He didn’t move, but his eyes crinkled and the corner of his mouth lifted in that smoking bad-boy grin.
She stood, snared by the clean heat in his look. Most men’s eyes looked at her with a scary, out-of-control conflagration—all smoke and molten sweat. Nick’s was more like a pilot light on a furnace, a soft blue flame that beckoned her to cup her hands around it and warm herself. The heat jumped the space between them to spread to her body; she was conscious of the blood, pounding warm at the backs of her knees, her throat, her temples.
Bugs barked and lunged, breaking her trance.
“Hi.” He pushed away from the railing. “Jesse told me about your new dog.”
“Not my dog. I’m just giving it medicine until it’s presentable enough for the pound.”
“Of course. So what’s his name?”
“Well, Butt Ugly seemed to hurt his feelings, so I shortened it to Bugs.”
He just grinned at her.
Blood pummeled her collarbone on the way to her cheeks. “Well, the darned thing was going to die on my back step. What was I supposed to do?”
He chuckled. “Can I pet him?”
“Prepare to be slimed.” She allowed Bugs’s squirming hindquarters to pull her across the porch.
Bugs, as always unaware of his repulsiveness, plopped on his side and gleefully offered his belly for a scratch. Nick squatted. “Wow. What happened to you, big guy?”
“I wish I knew. He just appeared out of my bushes one day.” Sam tucked her hands in her pockets, not trusting her fingers. They wanted to brush back the coffee-colored hair, to slide their backs against his tanned neck. “It doesn’t make sense that someone would dump a pedigreed dog. Jesse’s asked around in town, but no one’s claimed him.”
With a last pat, Nick stood. “Well, at least he’s found a good home now.”
“He’s found a hotel.” Sam grabbed Bugs’s collar and dragged him to the open door. “But I’ll make sure he finds a permanent home, once he’s completely healed.” Bugs staged a sit-in protest. She had to put her hands on his butt and scoot him through the door, then pulled it closed before he could sneak back through.
Nick led the way to where the Love Machine sat parked in the driveway, top down. When she reached the car door, Nick was there to open it. She paused, taking in a lungful of fresh air. “Don’t you just love the smell of eucalyptus?”
“You know the town was named after those trees, right?”
“Widow’s Grove?”
He nodded. “They’re tall and leafy, so farmers planted them at the edge of their fields as a windbreak.” He glanced to her fencerow. “But the root systems are small, and grow shallow. In a high wind, they can come down without warning.”
Nick touched her elbow, helping her into the car. “They used to call them ‘widow makers.’”
She shivered.
“Are you going to be too cold with the top down?”
And here she’d liked the trees’ grace, and scent. Why would they name a town after something like that? “I’m fine. A goose just walked over my grave.”
* * *
SAM SET THE empty tasting cup of Buttonwood Syrah Rose on the bar. “We’ve been to four wineries, Nick, and you haven’t tasted a thing.”
“That’s not true.” He lounged against the oak bar, watching her. She’d been catching him at it, all afternoon. “I tasted the chocolate at the Sunstone Winery, and the licorice, here.” He took a bite of the red twirl of licorice whip in his hand. “A rich cherry flavor, mellow and—”
“You don’t drink.”
His body shifted from relaxed lines to hard angles. His jaw tightened. “I’m an alcoholic. Eight years sober, this past Christmas.” There was pride in his words.
“I kind of figured. Good for you.” That explained the connection she felt with him. Her subconscious, recognizing the familiar cloud of her childhood.
Eight years sober is seven years, eleven months and twenty-seven days more than Dad ever managed.
She mentally shook herself. Doesn’t matter, because you’re not getting involved.
His breath huffed out, as if he’d been holding it. “You hungry?”
“Sure.”
They strolled outdoors to the manicured lawn, where a half-barrel barbecue threw off smoke and the delicious smell of grilling pork. The day had turned warm enough that Sam had abandoned her jacket in the car, but she shivered when Nick touched the inside of her naked elbow.
“I’ll get us lunch. Why don’t you get us something to drink and find us a spot to eat?” He stepped into t
he food line.
A woman at a table beckoned to Sam with a bottle of Chardonnay, but she shook her head and grabbed two cans of soda from stainless steel buckets beside the table instead.
Her lips twisted at the metallic taste of irony—only she would invite an alcoholic on a wine-tasting date. She carried the cans to an unoccupied picnic table and sat.
Suddenly a yearning tugged her insides; to be on the bike, leaning into turns, a road song filling her head. The nervous chatter in her mind quieted as, closing her eyes, she imagined the scenery blurring, and the roar of the wind in her helmet as the guitar riff of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” rumbled through her mind.
* * *
NICK CARRIED THE two loaded plates to the table where Sam sat, eyes closed, a look of peace on her beautiful face. Wonder what she’s thinking? Had he blown it, telling her about his addiction? Well, if I did, this wasn’t going to work, anyway. Better knowing now than—
He heard her humming. “Thunderstruck”? He wasn’t sure what that signified, but maybe it wasn’t bad. At least it wasn’t “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer.”
“AC/DC?” He stepped over the picnic table seat, putting down the two loaded plates before sitting himself. She glanced up—her shuttered expression told him more than he wanted to know. His confession stretched on the table between them like a pregnant porcupine, bloated, awkward and prickly. “I’m sorry I’ve ruined your after–”
“My dad was an alcoholic.” She pushed coleslaw around her plate.
He winced as that fact bit. Looking at the pork sandwich on his plate, his stomach churned. He could no more eat it than two-week-old roadkill.
“He was a great dad.”
He raised his head at the strength of truth in her tone.
She stared out at the grapevines, eyes narrowed. “Life just threw more at him than he was equipped to deal with.” When she turned her head, the naked pain in her eyes hit him like a slap. “You know?”
Better than you can imagine. He nodded.
“I took care of him from the time I was a little kid. And in his way, he took care of me.” Her glance slid away. “The best he was able to, anyhow, given what he knew.” She sat straight and flicked her hair over her shoulder. “I’m not going to judge you based on your past, Nick.” Her shoulders dropped, just a bit. “I can only hope you’ll be able to do the same for me.”
“You loved your dad a lot, didn’t you?”
She just nodded. The heavy conversation seemed to weight the afternoon, smothering the life out of it.
As they pretended to eat, the air developed a nip, so he helped her into her jacket, then into the car. They did manage some normal conversation on the way home, if you could call yelling over the wind normal.
He pulled in the drive and turned off the ignition. They sat a moment, listening to the tick of the cooling engine. He unsnapped his seat belt and twisted in the seat so he faced her, his leg within inches of hers. “I’d like to see you again, Sam, if my history hasn’t scared you off.”
* * *
SAM KNEW NICK was giving her an out—a chance for a graceful retreat. It was her wisest choice, given her hyperawareness of the proximity of his knee to her thigh. And his hand, hanging from the back of the seat, long-fingered and heavy-veined, only a few short inches from her shoulder.
But if she were wise, she would have said no when he invited her out to begin with. “I’m game if you are.”
“Great.” He got out of the car, and walked around to her side.
His smile was disarming—literally. This guy made her want to drop her guard.
Nick Pinelli made her feel safe, normal and so desired. Worse yet, Nick Pinelli made her feel.
She reached behind the seat for her two bottles of wine. When he opened her door, he reached to take the bottles from her. She snatched them to her chest.
“Sam. I’m not going to go off on a binge because I carried two unopened bottles of wine to your front door. I promise.”
Cheeks flaming, she let go of the bottles as if they burned her palms. She led the way to her front porch, turned soft and golden by the setting sun. She put the key in the lock. The dog barked, once, then she heard him snuffling on the other side of the door.
“It looks like you’ve got yourself a guard dog.” Nick handed her the bottles.
“Yeah, maybe he’s good for something, after all.” She turned to say goodbye.
Nick put his arm over his head and leaned on the doorframe, bringing his face inches from hers.
She froze.
He took his time, as if memorizing her features before tipping his head. His lips brushed hers. A soft, chaste kiss, with only the barest flick of the flame she’d seen in his eyes. It made her want to get closer. Much closer.
The bottles bumped his chest. His lips lifted in that bad-boy smile. He pushed away from the doorframe, and leaned in again. But this time he only opened the door. Bugs’s mashed-in snout appeared in the crack.
“Thank you, Samantha.” He brushed the back of his fingers across her cheek. “For everything.”
Oh, you are so in trouble here.
He turned, walked across the porch and practically bounced down the stairs, striding the broken sidewalk to his car, hands in pockets, whistling “Thunderstruck.”
CHAPTER TEN
AS PROMISED, SAM kept in touch with Tim Raven, stopping to visit him at the hotel on her frequent forays to the hardware store. Today, though, she had a problem with plumbing, and hoped he knew of a local who could help. She pulled the Jeep into the parking lot of the Rest.
Tim stepped out of one of the cabins, blinking in the bright sun. As usual, he looked like a garage sale fugitive, rumpled clothes hanging off his bent frame.
“Hey, Tim, what’s with the formal attire?” She stepped out of the Jeep.
“I’ve got a date at the opera as soon as I finish this job.” Tim walked over, ignored her outstretched hand and hugged her.
Frozen for a moment in awkward surprise, she patted his back once and took a step back.
“You’ve got a guard dog, I see.” He tipped his chin toward the Jeep.
“Not my dog.” Bugs stood, front feet against the dash, drool stretching from his panting lips, watching them through the windscreen. “As soon as he’s presentable, he’s off to the pound. I’m starting to think he’s trying not to grow hair as a delaying tactic.”
She turned her back on the smiling mutt. “Tim, you know everyone around here. Can you recommend a good plumber? My pipes are in sorry shape, and I always farm that job out.”
His blue eyes twinkled from under gray caterpillar eyebrows. “You’re looking at him, missy.” He threw his shoulders back, then snatched at his sagging pants just in time to save them both embarrassment. “I wasn’t always living in the lap of luxury, you know.”
Doubt must have shown on her face. He thrust out his whiskered chin. “I was a plumber for thirty-five years. Did quality work, too.”
She cringed, imagining the fragile old guy carrying heavy tools, much less cast iron fittings. “Well, Tim, it’s just that this is a pretty heavy job.”
“I’ll make you a deal. You’ve got a couple of kids working for you, right? I’ll charge you half my usual rate if you let me use one of them to do the grunt work. That way, I’d make some extra money and I won’t be killing myself doing it.” He scratched under his moth-eaten Tyrolean felt hat. “What do they call that nowadays? Consulting.” He chortled. “That’s me, a consultant!”
She smiled, remembering the polished yuppie consultant she’d done a remodel for. “Far be it from me to keep you from a new career. But if this turns out to be too much—”
“No problem. From what I hear, consultants never break a sweat.”
Together, they worked out the details of the
ir agreement right there in the parking lot and shook on it. Tim led her back to the Jeep. Bugs stretched his head out of the driver’s side window, and Tim gave him a good scratch. “Have you had a chance to meet your neighbor at the bottom of the hill?”
Sam told him of the disaster in Mrs. Strauss’s garden.
“Anajuska is one of the finest women I’ve met. She’s been through a lot.”
“I wouldn’t know. Getting to know her isn’t easy.” Sam opened the Jeep’s door, shooing the dog to the passenger side, then snatched a rag from behind the seat to wipe drool from the steering wheel. “She seems reclusive. Do you know why?”
Tim frowned. “If she wants you to know, she’ll tell you. I ain’t no gossip.”
Sam recognized a wall when she ran into one. But Tim’s answer only made her more curious. Maybe she’d stop by Ana’s soon.
* * *
WHEN THE STUDENTS showed up that afternoon, Sam had them set up scaffolding in what was becoming the great room. Since her collarbone wouldn’t allow overhead work, Sam got the kids started, then put the finishing touches on the spaghetti. She’d been afraid the teenagers would be picky eaters, but quantity seemed more important than quality. Sam drained the pasta and called them to fix their plates. Pete showed up first, Sunny and Beau right behind.
He grabbed a plate. “Spaghetti. Great, my favorite!”
“You say that every day,” Sunny called from the back of the line. “Leave some for the rest of us.” They served themselves, then walked to the front porch to eat.
“Monday, we’ll have another instructor on-site. A plumber.”
“Plumbing. Gross.” Sunny’s mouth turned down. “Do I have to learn that? I’d rather just work on the construction part.”
Sam settled on a plastic chair, balancing her plate on her knee. “As a contractor, you have to at least understand every aspect of the trade, even if you sub out some parts. Otherwise, how do you know if you’re being overcharged, or if the work is substandard?” She pushed the dog’s nose away. “Besides, I don’t think you’re giving plumbing a fair shake.”
“You’re kidding, right? Toilets?” Sunny shook her head. “I’d hardly put the invention of plumbing up there with the creation of the internet.”