She hooked a thumb in the direction of the living room.
“I’m having central heat and air installed along with the second floor repairs. I hope it’ll all be done before it gets really cold or else I’ll be living in a hotel.”
“Well, that’s nice,” Matt said, using a two-pronged forked to turn the fish, “but what I really wanted to know is how you like Chowan. I’m sure there’s been some culture shock, right?”
“Oh! Well, I really haven’t met too many people, so I haven’t figured out what the scene is here.”
Matt laughed heartily, exposing the top row of his perfect teeth. “There is no scene. Not what you’re used to, anyway, unless your idea of fun is church potlucks and cruising Broad Street in your boyfriend’s pick-up truck.”
“Well, the boyfriend part is far from being a problem at the moment.” Nora pointedly turned her attention back to her beer and Matt raised an eyebrow, but opted to say nothing. Good. He was smart.
• • •
“So, how’d your date go?” Chad asked in a bitter tone as he watched Matt bend over the pool table in Chad’s open garage to line up a shot.
Matt refrained from speaking until after he broke the ball formation. “It wasn’t a date,” he said finally, watching as balls pelted the bumpers and some banked into the pockets. “I made dinner and then we sat outside on Nora’s porch with beers watching cars drive past. She’s a talkative drunk, but doesn’t eat much.”
She was talkative, but Matt was entranced. Not only was she smart, but observant. She was the kind of woman he didn’t have to waste words on because she was already on the same wavelength.
“You do yoga,” she’d accused at one point after dinner when he’d paused to stretch his arms behind his back. He’d stared at her agape for a few seconds and had to fess up.
All he could manage was, “It was prescribed. Old football coach thought it would help me limber up.”
He’d waited for her to laugh, but she’d just turned her beer cap around and around in those long fingers and said, “Good for you.”
“Uh huh.” Chad positioned himself on a long side and stared at one striped billiard ball after another. He was probably trying to find one that he could actually get in. His hand-eye coordination wasn’t exactly world-renowned. “I thought you said she wasn’t cute.”
“She’s not,” Matt said. “She’s a lot of things, but I don’t think ‘cute’ is one of them. She probably hasn’t been cute since she was twelve and wearing pigtails.”
“You knew what I meant.”
“Yup. I knew exactly what you meant. Nora isn’t cute in the same way Carmen Jones wasn’t cute.”
“Who?”
“Never mind, man.”
“If you were interested, why didn’t you just say so?”
“I didn’t say I was. Besides, you shouldn’t be chasing tail this soon after a separation, anyway. Give it some time and let that shit breathe, man.”
Chad smacked the cue ball and completely bunged his shot. “Motherfucker,” he spat, throwing down his stick. He paced around the table a while and shoved his hands into the pockets of his pleated khakis. “Well, if you’re not interested, then what’s it matter to you if I am? Have you even dated a black chick before? They have special needs.”
Matt narrowed his eyes at him and tightened his grip on his own stick, hearing it creak just a bit from the pressure of his vise-like hands. He set it down carefully and crossed his arms over his chest. “Do you know what you sound like right now?”
“What?”
“A huge tool. An even bigger one than usual and that’s saying something.”
“Oh, come on, man — you’ve never stood in the way of me getting some ass before. It’s what I do. As if I’d pass up tail that fine. Are you crazy? Have you seen the pickings around here lately? Even Morgan Connelly has a dude now and she has a face like a dog’s ass. You can do the celibate monk shit all you want, but don’t try to enforce it for me.”
Matt grabbed Chad’s stick from his hands and threw it onto the concrete floor. “I don’t want your sloppy seconds again, Chad. Stay away from Nora.”
Chad let out an involuntary, smug little scoff. “Are you serious? You playing guard dog now? That piece of hunting land that important to you? I’ll back off. All you had to do was say so.” Chad shook his head even while he held up his hands in defeat. Matt backed up a few paces.
“And I’d better not hear about anything going wrong with her satellite dish so you have an excuse to go out there to do unnecessary repairs,” Matt warned, putting his pool cue in the rack and taking his jacket off the coat hook. He didn’t wait around for Chad’s confirmation, and just pushed his motorcycle helmet onto his head and took quick, long strides to his bike. By the time Chad made it to his garage door to see him off, Matt was already gunning the engine and leaving huge tire ruts in the muddy patch of Chad’s front yard.
Such an odd set of emotions for Matt. The last time he’d felt so protective the object of his concern was a ten-year-old orphan. But Nora wasn’t a little girl. She was all woman. His kind of woman. He hadn’t known a woman like her existed.
• • •
“Oh my god oh my god oh my god, I’m so sorry!” The tall, thin woman clad in cartoon character scrubs and orthopedic white mules flailed indecisively at the door while Nora stood out on the deck with minestrone stock dripping off her windbreaker. “Let me get you a towel.” The frazzled brunette turned and took two steps to the dryer behind her and started clawing through the unfolded laundry. “I’m so sorry,” she repeated, finally extracting a navy blue bath sheet that appeared to have seen better days. Nora leaned into the laundry room and set the remnants of the soup and freezer bag on the nearby washing machine before accepting the towel from the woman.
“It’s okay, really. Please don’t fret.” Fortunately, Nora’s jacket was waterproof and stain-resistant: the perfect combination for a painter who had a proclivity to cleaning things with garden hoses when a sink would do fine. The raven-haired waif looked doubtful. Nora wiped her hands on the towel and patted at the soup remaining on her torso. “Really. No big deal. It’s what I get for buying cheap containers.”
“What’s going on? I could hear you all the way in the shower, Karen.” Matt’s familiar deep voice boomed from further in the house and a few seconds later his head appeared at the inner door. When he saw Nora standing there, the corners of his eyes wrinkled as his smile reached his whole face. He stepped into the laundry room and leaned against the doorframe, clad only in one very lucky towel knotted at the waist, his torso still wet from the shower.
Nora raised one eyebrow at the scene but kept her eyes directed squarely at Matt’s face. That didn’t mean she hadn’t looked. She’d seen the flat belly, firm pectorals, and biceps the size of oil tankers. He could probably tote someone as small as Nora around using only one arm and limited exertion. “Am I interrupting anything?” she asked, looking back and forth from the disheveled Karen to the nearly naked man behind her.
“Nope,” Matt said, giving Nora a curious look as she bundled the bath sheet in her hands. “Running a little late today on showering because I came home from work and found that a pipe under Karen’s bathroom sink burst and damn near flooded the hallway. Just now got the thing fixed. It’s probably been leaking since Karen left for work this morning.” The brunette blushed. God, she was young. Too young for Matt, Nora thought.
“I thought I could just put a bowl under it until later,” she mumbled.
“Oh. You don’t share a bathroom?” Nora asked with forced nonchalance.
Matt laughed and shook his wet head. “We haven’t shared a bathroom since Karen was around four.”
Nora’s face relaxed with slow understanding. “Oh, so Karen is your sister.”
“Oh, sorry,” Karen said, eyes g
oing wide with mortification. “I got you all dirty and didn’t even ask your name.” She held out one cold hand to shake. “Karen Vogel. I’m this big lug’s little sister. Sorry again for splashing you. I need to go get the shop vac to suck up all that water. Hope you don’t mind if I run off?”
“Sure. Matt didn’t tell me he had a sister. I thought he lived here all alone.” Nora shook her hand. “I’m Nora Fredrickson. I live right over there.” Nora pointed through the trees in the general direction of her house.
Karen’s mouth made an “O” from recognition as she started to slip through the door and head in the direction of the aluminum shed. “Well, nice to meet ya. I’ve been itching to get in some crossbow practice.”
Matt cleared his throat and made an “uh uh” head shake at his sister. Karen gave him a confused look as she backed away, but said nothing.
With Karen gone, Matt stepped into the laundry room doorframe. “Long time no see,” he said, taking the towel from Nora and shoving it into the washer. “Want to come in? Carpet’s a little soggy but the place is otherwise habitable.”
“Uh, no,” Nora managed, swallowing hard as Matt untucked the corner of his towel and casually readjusted it so it was more snug at the waist. There was nothing he could have done with the towel to minimize the bulge that met her at near chest level. At five-feet and one inch tall, Nora felt like a child standing in Matt’s shadow, although one with very adult awareness.
“I’ve been tucked away working on a painting for the past week. This is the first time I left the house other than to get the mail. I suppose I have you to thank for leaving that bag of crabs on my porch?”
“Yeah. No problem. I thought they looked good that day and with you being from Maryland I figured you like them. Hope I wasn’t being presumptuous.” He crossed his arms over his now-dry chest and leaned against the washer.
“Not at all. I do like them. That’s, uh, actually the reason I came over.” She picked up the plastic freezer bag that accompanied the soup and handed it to him. “I tend to get too distracted to cook when I’m working on big projects, so I cook in big batches when I have time. I made some soup and crab cakes this morning and thought since you cooked for me last week I’d bring you a little something.”
He smiled broadly as he accepted the offering. “Thanks. Karen doesn’t or can’t cook, I don’t know which, so that actually helps a lot.” He hooked a finger into the soup container and dragged it across the top of the washer. “Might need a soup refill, though.”
“Yeah. Sorry about that. Karen opened the door before I could ring the bell and walked out without seeing me standing here.” Her hand went to the paisley-print pink scarf around her head and fondled the ties idly. “I’ll bring some more.”
“Don’t trouble yourself. I’ll just pop over with my thermos later and I’ll have my lunch for tomorrow. Besides, that’ll give me a chance to see if you’ve really been working or if you’ve just been avoiding me seeing you in the yard.” Those dimples again were almost distracting enough to keep her eyes away from that towel.
Nora smirked, the tension that had been coiling inside her starting to ebb. “Trust me. I’m the slowest moving target you’ll ever see. If I’m not at home, I’m probably out buying paint or taking pictures. My circuit is a short one.”
Matt screwed up his face with something Nora interpreted as disbelief.
“What?” she asked, jamming her hands into her jacket pockets, utterly confused by his bemused expression.
“Nothing. Let me throw some clothes on and I’ll follow you right over.”
Oh, don’t bother with the clothes, she thought, even as he disappeared into the house.
• • •
“Hey, Matt. Can you hold that lamp up for me?” As soon as Matt had stepped into the house, Nora put him to work. He hoped that meant she was getting comfortable around him.
“This one here?”
“Yes. Just hold it up high over the painting. I hate using the flash and it’s so damn dim in here. I want to make sure the colors are true to life in the photo without me having to do digital correction.”
Matt grabbed the ceramic lamp by the base and held it up a couple of feet over Nora’s restaurant painting. When he’d walked into Nora’s sunroom at her request, his eyes had automatically landed on the three foot by four foot photorealistic work. His temptation had been to reach out and touch it so he could feel the texture of the paint to validate her claims that it wasn’t a printed piece, but she implored him to resist because the paint hadn’t quite cured.
“It’s really good, Nora,” he repeated for the third time, shifting the weight of the heavy lamp from one hand to the other to spare his bum wrist.
“Yeah, you keep saying that,” she said, smiling behind her camera while she shot the canvas from several angles.
“How much do you think it’ll sell for?”
She shrugged and walked over to him, wrapping her fingers around his naked forearms and bringing the light down a little lower. Her gentle touch made the hair on his arms stand on end. “Hard to say.” He liked the electric feeling he got from being near to her and found himself subconsciously moving closer to her whenever she was nearby. She could never be close enough — not until there was nothing at all between them. He needed to change the subject and fast or he’d need to use the easel to hide his growing erection. As it was, every time she looked away, his eyes were cataloging her curves. He kept thinking about how his hands would feel encircling her naked waist and wondering if the most gentle way to take her the first time would be with her astride his body — or perhaps it would be more enjoyable for her if he eased into her from a spooning position.
Fuck.
“Hey, Nora?”
“Hmm?”
“How do you decide what to paint?”
She put her camera down and looked off to the side, seeming to ponder his question thoroughly. “Well, I take a lot of pictures of things I find interesting. When I get home and look at them on my computer screen sometimes they turn out not to be so interesting after all. Other times, things that I hadn’t intended to specifically capture pull my eye to some part of a photo I’d neglected and it’ll become its own thing.”
“Is that why you put the white tablecloths and candles on the tables? To draw attention to the cook?” he asked, cocking his head toward the easel.
“Hey, you get it!” she said, smiling wider than he’d ever seen her manage.
Matt stared. She was gorgeous: the kind of woman he’d love to have on his arm to show off to anyone who’d look and listen. “That’s my girl,” he’d say. “My Nora.”
“Hey, I read and stuff,” Matt countered, finally breaking free of her hypnotism and smiling himself. “Do you always put a little joke in all of your paintings?”
“Most of the time, yes. Sometimes the humor is already overt and I don’t have to add anything.” She tapped his shoulder to indicate that he could drop the lamp and put her camera away.
“What are you going to paint next?” Matt settled into the cushioned wicker chair half-strewn with catalogues and tubes of oil paint and rested an ankle on his opposite knee comfortably.
Nora sat on the tall stool in front of her easel and faced him, chewing her bottom lip. “That — I don’t know. I rarely work on projects this size on this sort of deadline and have ideas plotted out well in advance, so I’m at a loss here.” Her fingers went to the tails of her headscarf again, fiddling. He ached to reach over and grab her hand to stop her, to kiss those hands, but resisted using a well of willpower he rarely needed to access.
“Well, I don’t know what I could show you that’d you’d consider interesting enough to paint, but since you’re not enthralled in work at the moment, how ’bout you let me show you around some?”
Nora looked wary. “What’d you have in mind?”
She gave him a doubtful look that made him laugh. “It’s not that bad, Nora. Mosquitoes are basically out for the year and the boat ride can be sort of serene, looking at all those trees with their leaves dropping off and the fish all lazy beneath the surface of the water.”
“Boat?”
“Mm hmm.” Matt heaved himself up and stretched his back by reaching his arms high over his head. He noticed Nora staring at the bit of hair that carpeted the skin between his navel and waistband and gave her three additional seconds to enjoy the show. “Canoe, actually. Ah, Nora. Your distrustfulness of me is downright adorable,” he said, climbing the three stairs up into the kitchen and picking up his thermos.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.” She followed him up and pressed a lid onto another container of soup for Karen’s dinner. “I’m just not sure if me and a boat in a swamp make the best combination.” She ran a strip of freezer tape around the container for insurance.
“It’ll be fine, I promise. Hey, I’ll make you a deal,” he said, chucking her under the chin playfully. “If you absolutely hate it, I won’t bring up the hunting issue ever again. I’ll find a new honey hole.”
Nora blushed and mumbled something about finding a plastic grocery bag. She’d caught the innuendo. Matt wanted to see just how far he could push.
“Fine,” she acquiesced. “But if I fall into the swamp you owe me big-time and not just for a new camera.”
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