by Cara Colter
“Not like what?”
“You,” he said, and could hear the gruff sincerity in his voice, “are perfect. You are too heavy for the sander! We dug some pretty good ruts in the floor.”
“Oh.” She blushed and looked back at the menus. She was pleased that he thought she was perfect. And he was pleased that he had pleased her, even though the road they were on seemed fraught with danger. “You should have hired it out.”
“Very unmanly,” he said.
“You,” she said, and he could hear the sincerity in her voice, “couldn’t be unmanly if you were wearing this dress.”
He was pleased that she thought he was manly, though the sense of danger was hissing in the air between them now.
She was right, and not just about the manly part. He should have hired the floor job out. The truth, he wouldn’t have missed those moments of her laughter for the world. Even if the floor was completely wrecked, which seemed like a distinct possibility at the moment, that seemed a small price to pay.
“I just need something lighter than you to put on the sander.” He deliberately walked away from the building tension between them and went out the back door to their toolshed. He found an old cinder block. He didn’t miss the look on her face when he came back in hefting it, as her eyes found the bulge of his biceps and lingered there for a heated moment.
He slowed marginally, liking her admiration of his manliness more than he had a right to. Then he went into the living room and found and pitted himself against a nice comforting problem, one that he could solve. How did you get a cinder block to sit on a sander?
Kade finally had it attached, and restarted the machine. It wasn’t nearly as much fun as waltzing around the room with Jessica. And it wasn’t nearly as dangerous, either.
Or that was what he thought until the precise moment he smelled smoke. Frowning, he looked toward the kitchen. They were having pizza. What was she burning?
He shut off the sander, and went into the kitchen doorway, expecting crazily to find her pulling burned cookies from the oven. She had gone through a cookie phase when she had made her world all about him. Who had known there were so many kinds of cookies?
Once or twice, he had tried to distract her from her full-scaled descent into domestic divahood. He had crossed the kitchen, breathed on her neck, nibbled her ear...
He remembered them laughing when he’d lured her away and they’d come back to cookies burned black. She had taken them out of the oven and thrown the whole sheet out into the yard...
But now there were no cookies. In fact, Jessica was standing right where he had left her, still studying all the take-out menus as if each one represented something very special. Which it did, not that he wanted to go there now. Kade did not want to remember Chinese food on the front steps during a thunderstorm, or a memorable evening of naked pad thai, a real dish that they had eaten, well, in the spirit of the name.
“Don’t distract me,” he snapped at her, and that earned him a wide-eyed look of surprise.
“What are you burning?”
“I’m not burning anything.”
He turned away from her, sniffing the air. It wasn’t coming from in here, the kitchen. In fact, it seemed to be coming from the living room. He turned back in and the sanding machine caught his attention. A wisp of something curled out of the bag that caught the sawdust coming off the floor.
And in the split second that he was watching it, that wisp of phantom gray turned into a belch of pure black smoke.
“The house is on fire!” he cried.
“That’s not funny,” she said.
He pushed by her and opened the cupboard by the stove—thank God she had not moved things around—and picked up the huge canner stored there. He dashed to the sink, then remembered the canner didn’t fit well under the faucet. He tilted it precariously and turned on the water. It seemed it was filling in slow motion.
She sniffed the air. “What the—”
He glanced back at the door between the kitchen and the living room. A cloud of black smoke billowed in, up close to the top of the door frame.
“Get out of the house,” he yelled at her. He picked up the pot and raced out to the living room. The first flame was just shooting out of the sawdust bag on the sander. He threw the pot of water on it. The fire crackled, and then disappeared into a cloud of thick black smoke that was so acrid smelling he choked on it.
He threw the pot on the floor, and went to Jessica, who, surprise, surprise, had not followed his instructions and had not bolted for the door and the safety of the backyard. She was still standing by the menus with her mouth open.
He scooped her up. He was not sure how he managed to think of her arm under these circumstances, but he did and he was extracareful not to put any pressure on her injured limb. He tucked her close to his chest—and felt a sense, despite the awful urgency of this situation, of being exactly where he belonged.
Protecting Jessica, looking after her, using his superior strength to keep her safe. She was stunned into silence, her green eyes wide and startled on his face.
And then he felt something sigh within her and knew she felt it, too. That somehow she belonged here, in his arms.
He juggled her to get the back door open, then hurtled down the back steps and into the yard. With reluctance, he let her slide from his arms and find her own feet.
“Is the house on fire?” she asked. “Should I call 911?”
“I want you to make note of the technique. First, you get to a safe place, then you call 911.”
“But the phone’s in there.”
“I have one,” he tapped his pocket. “But don’t worry. The fire’s out. I just didn’t want you breathing that black guck into your lungs.”
“My hero,” she said drily. “Rescuing me from the fire you started.”
“It wasn’t exactly a fire,” he said.
She lifted an eyebrow at him.
“A smolder. Prefire at best.”
“Ah.”
“The sander must be flawed. Sheesh. We could sue them. I’m going to call them right now and let them know the danger they have put us in.” He called the rental company. He started to blast them, but then stopped and listened.
He hung up the phone and hung his head.
“What?”
Kade did not want to admit this, but he choked it out. “My fault. You need to check the finish that was on the floor before you start sanding. Some of the finishes become highly flammable if you add friction.”
She was smiling at him as if it didn’t matter one bit. “You’ve always been like that,” she said. “Just charge ahead, to hell with the instructions.”
“And I’m often left cleaning up messes of my own making,” he said. “I’m going to go back into the house. You stay out here. Toxins.”
“It’s not as if I’m pregnant,” she said, and he heard the faint bitterness and the utter defeat in those words.
And there it was, the ultrasensitive topic between them. There was nothing to say. He had already said everything he knew how to say. If it was meant to be, it would be. Maybe if they relaxed. It didn’t change how he felt about her. He didn’t care about a baby. He cared about her.
So he had said everything he could say on that topic, most if it wrong.
And so now he said nothing at all. He just laid his hand on her cheek, and held it there for a moment, hoping she could feel what he had never been able to say.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
JESSICA DID SEEM to be able to feel all those things he had never been able to say, because instead of slapping his hand away, she leaned into it, and then covered it with her own, and closed her eyes. She sighed, and then opened her eyes, and it seemed to him it was with reluctance she put his hand away from her.
And so they went into the house together and paused in the doorway.
“Wow, does that stink,” Jessica said. She went and grabbed a couple of dish towels off the oven handle. “We need these over our faces,
not that I can tie them.”
Kade took the towels from her and tied one over the bottom half of her face and one over his.
“Is mine manly?” he asked. “Or did I get the one with the flowers on it?”
He saw her eyes smile from under her mask. Now Jessica was in an ugly dress and had her face covered up. But the laughter still twinkled around the edges of her eyes, and it made her so beautiful it threatened to take his breath away far more than the toxic cloud of odor in the room.
Firmly, Kade made himself turn from her, and aware he looked ridiculous, like an old-time bandito, surveyed the damage to the living room.
All that was left of the sander bag was ribbons of charred fabric. They were still smoking, so he went over and picked up the sander and threw it out the front door, possibly with a little more force than was necessary. It hit the concrete walkway and pieces shot off it and scattered.
“That gave me a manly sense of satisfaction,” Kade said, his voice muffled from under the dish towel. He turned back into the room.
The smile deepened around her eyes. How was this that they had narrowly averted disaster, and yet it felt good to be with her? It was as if a wall that had been erected between them was showing signs of stress, a brick or two falling out of it.
There was a large scorch mark on the floor where the sander had been, and a black ugly film shining with some oily substance coated the floor where he had thrown the water. The smoke had belched up and stained the ceiling.
“I think the worst damage is the smell,” Kade said. “It’s awful, like a potent chemical soup. I don’t think you’re going to be able to stay here until it airs out a bit.”
“It’s okay. I’ll get a hotel.”
“You’re probably going to have to call your insurance company. The smell is probably through the whole house. Your clothes have probably absorbed it.”
“Oh, boy,” she said, “two claims in one week. What do you suppose that will do to my premiums?” And then she giggled. “It’s a good thing the furniture is on the lawn. It won’t have this smell in it. Do you think I’m going to have to repaint?”
“You don’t have to go to a hotel,” he said. “I’ve got lots of room.”
Son, I say, son, what are you doing?
She hesitated. There was a knock at the door.
“Pizza,” they said together.
* * *
Jessica contemplated what she was feeling as Kade looked after the pizza delivery. He cocked his head slightly at her, a signal to look at the delivery boy, who was oblivious, earbuds in, head bobbing. He didn’t seem to even notice that he was stepping over a smoldering piece of machinery on the front walkway to get to the door. If he noticed the smell rolling out of the house, it did not affect his rhythm in any way.
As they watched the pizza boy depart, she felt like laughing again. That was impossible! She’d had two disasters in one week. She should be crying, not feeling as if an effervescent bubble of joy was rising in her.
Shock, she told herself. She was reacting to the pure shock of life delivering the unexpected. Wasn’t there something just a little bit delightful about being surprised?
“Of course I can’t stay with you, Kade,” she said, coming to her senses, despite the shock of being surprised. “I’ll get a hotel room. Or I can stay with friends.”
“Why don’t we go to my place and eat the pizza? You don’t make your best decisions on an empty stomach. We’ll figure it out from there.”
Other than the fact it, once again, felt good to be known, that sounded so reasonable. She was hungry, and it would be better to look for a place to live for the next few days on a full tummy. What would it hurt to go to his place to have the pizza? She had to admit that she was curious about where Kade lived.
And so she found herself heading for the borrowed truck, laughing at the irony of him carefully locking the door when all her furniture was still on the lawn. Except for her precious bench, which at the last moment, she made him load into the box of the truck, they just left everything there.
She suspected leaving her furniture on the lawn was not nearly as dangerous as getting into that truck with him and heading toward a peek at his life.
His condo building sat in the middle of a parklike setting in a curve in the Bow River. Everything about the building, including its prime nearly downtown location, whispered class, wealth and arrival. There was a waterfall feature in the center of the circular flagstone driveway. The building was faced in black granite and black tinted glass, and yet was saved from the coldness of pure modern design by the seamless blending of more rustic elements such as stone and wood in the very impressive facade.
A uniformed doorman came out when Kade pulled up in front of the posh entryway to the building.
“Hey, Samuel, can you park this in the secured visitor area for me?”
Kade came and helped her out of the truck, and she was aware of the gurgle of the waterfall sliding over rocks. Something in the plantings around it smelled wonderful. Honeysuckle?
If the doorman was surprised to have a pickup truck to park among the expensive sports cars and luxury vehicles, it certainly didn’t show in his smooth features.
“It’s underground,” Kade said to Jessica, when the truck had pulled away. “You don’t have to worry about your bench.”
The truth was she was so bowled over by her surroundings, the bench had slipped her mind.
Though the incredible landscape outside should have prepared her for the lobby, she felt unprepared. The entryway to the building was gorgeous, with soaring ceilings, a huge chandelier and deep distressed-leather sofas grouped around a fireplace.
No wonder he had never come home.
“Wow,” Jessica said, gulping. “Our little place must seem pretty humble after this. I can see why you were just going to give it to me.”
Kade looked around, as if he was puzzled. “I actually didn’t pick the place,” he said. “The company owns several units in here that we use for visiting executives. One was available. I needed a place to go and we had one vacant. I rent it from the company.”
She cast him a glance as they took a quiet elevator up to the top floor. He really did seem oblivious to the sumptuous surroundings he found himself in. Once off the elevator, Kade put a code into the keyless entry.
“It’s 1121,” he said, “in case you ever need it.”
She ducked her head at the trust he had in her—gosh, what if she barged in when he was entertaining a girlfriend?—and because it felt sad that she knew she would never need it. Well, unless she did stay for a couple of days until the disaster at her place was sorted.
Already, she realized with wry self-knowledge, her vehement no to his invitation was wavering.
Maybe that wasn’t so surprising. Kade was charming, and he could be lethally so. She needed to remember charm was not something you could take to the bank in a relationship.
He opened the door and stood back.
“Oh, my gosh,” Jessica said, stepping by him. The sense of being seduced, somehow, increased. She found herself standing in a wide entryway, floored in huge marble tiles. That area flowed seamlessly into the open-space living area, where floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the park and pathways that surrounded the Bow River.
The views were breathtaking and exquisite, and she had a sense of being intensely curious and not knowing where to look first, because the interior of the apartment was also breathtaking. The furnishings and finishes were ultramodern and high-end. The kitchen, on the back wall of the huge open space, was a masterpiece of granite and stainless steel. A huge island had the cooktop in it, and a space-age stainless-steel fan over that.
“Let’s eat,” Kade said. He’d obviously gotten used to all this luxury. The fabulous interior of his apartment didn’t create even a ripple in him. “Maybe on the deck? It’s a nice night. I’ll just get some plates.”
Jessica, as if in a dream, moved out fold-back glass doors onto the covered te
rrace. It was so big it easily contained a sitting area with six deeply cushioned dark rattan chairs grouped together. On the other side of it sat a huge rustic plank table with dining chairs around it. It looked as if it could sit eight people with ease.
Huge planters contained everything from full-size trees to bashful groups of purple pansies. She took a seat at the table and wondered about all the parties that had been hosted here that she had not been invited to. She looked out over the river.
She felt as if she was going to cry. The apartment screamed to her that he had moved on. That he had a life she knew nothing about. After all their closeness this afternoon, she suddenly felt unbearably lonely.
Kade came out, juggling dishes and the pizza.
“What?” he said, sliding her a look as he put everything down.
“Your apartment is beautiful,” she said, and could hear the stiffness in her own voice.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” he said. She cast him a look. Was he deliberately understating it?
“The kitchen is like something out of a magazine layout.”
He shrugged, took a slice of pizza out of the box and laid it on her plate, from the pepperoni half, just as if they had ordered pizza together yesterday instead of a long, long time ago.
“I think I’ll look for open concept in my next place,” she said. She bit into the pizza and tried not to swoon. Not just because the pizza was so good, but because of the memories that swarmed in with the flavor.
“Don’t,” he said.
Swoon over pizza?
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, open concept.”
“Oh,” she said, relieved. “You don’t like it?”
“You can’t be messy. Everything’s out in the open all the time. Where do you hide from your dirty dishes?”
“That would be hard on you,” Jessica said. She remembered painful words between them over things that now seemed so ridiculous: toothpaste smears on the sink, the toilet paper roll put on the “wrong” way. “But I didn’t see any dirty dishes.”
“Oh, the condo offers a service. They send someone in to clean and make the beds and stuff. You don’t think I’m keeping all those plants alive, do you?”