She ran back into the judge’s garden, absolutely certain she could trust Trent not to betray her, knowing that if she hadn’t told him, she would be a double rat. She hoped Vix would entertain keeping a secret from her brother-in-law, and she decided Vix would, or else she would have outed Calli as soon as she recognized her. Gaining confidence, she directed traffic on her site.
During the rest of the morning, she had few moments to think about Kell and the next time she saw him. He had his normal job to do, and so did she. She had barely seen him last week, and she would barely see him this week. Then again, he hadn’t mentioned seeing her. Well, he would have to because he lived next door. He might want to ask her something. She might want to ask him something. He might want a cup of coffee. She might want…him. She sighed. And of course she did. Any woman would.
Emotionally, she shouldn’t be able to come out of a string of dysfunctional relationships and throw herself straight into another. Anyone with a gram of sense would see Kell as he was, a delightful interlude in an otherwise dull existence. As long as she continued to treat him casually, and as long as he didn’t know that she was Alex Allbrook’s daughter, she would be safe from being wanted for the wrong reason. She wouldn’t call him or drop by. He could set the pace—if he wanted any sort of pace, if he wanted her.
In the meantime, her own pace grew frenetic. While the paving plodded along, she had a call from the bricklayer who had been hired to build her planter boxes. He’d had a cancellation and could start today as well. A delivery of gray slate arrived and then the bricklayer’s sand. She ordered fresh new soil for the planters, the best quality, and a load of compost, realizing that she may as well mound up everything now while the place was a mess.
She thought she could dig holes awaiting the arrival of her new plants, but whenever she settled in to do a task, she was wanted for a decision. She thrived on this. Organizing gardens and coordinating her designs kept her mind alert and brought her plans to life. The morning hurried into the evening, and she barely had the energy to make herself a meal. However, her only dependent needed clean water, an amenities break, and food. Hobo took her time outside before she came back through the door that had been left open for her.
“I think we ought to come to an agreement,” Calli said, bending down to look the cat in the eye. “I can hardly see your hip bones now, and I think I can trust you with the key to the door, relatively speaking. I’ll leave the window open and you can come and go as you please. Just promise me to keep away from the trucks. Nobody likes the look of a squashed cat.”
Hobo considered and showed great interest in the open-window policy. She sat on the sill and breathed in the cooler night air. Apparently cats didn’t like cooler night air, because after filling her lungs, she settled back in her own warm spot on the best part of the couch. She even conceded snuggling closer to Calli and that night, for the first time, she shared her bed.
By midday Thursday, Calli and the cat were bed buddies. As well, the paths delineated the garden beds and the planter boxes stood awaiting the fresh soil. Calli trudged back to the cottage, deciding on a salami sandwich and a cup of tea before loading the dirt into the planters. Hobo bounded along behind her. Freedom to come and go meant she followed Calli around the garden, supervising.
“Who’s this?” Calli muttered to her only advisor. A dark-haired woman dressed in jeans and a green sweater strode down the driveway. A welcoming smile plastered Calli’s face as she recognized her visitor.
“Sherry,” she called in delight to Kell’s sister-in-law. “I’m just about to have a cup of tea and a sandwich. I hope you have time to join me?”
“Tea would nice, but I’ll be taking Oscar home for lunch any minute. At the moment, he’s helping Luke. We’ve been next door to see the renovations while the other boys are at school. Luke’s almost finished the plumbing in the upstairs bathrooms. Kell decided on two en suites and a main, and he’s also having a half bathroom downstairs. I wouldn’t mind a house with three and a half bathrooms if I didn’t have to clean them.”
“There’s that,” Calli said with a laugh, plugging in the electric kettle and taking two mugs from the cupboard. “But each bathroom adds value. Take a seat. I need to wash my hands.”
Sherry settled herself at the kitchen table while Calli hurried off.
In the bathroom, she glanced at herself in the mirror, making a rueful face. Without a doubt, Sherry had come to talk about Kell. Calli didn’t want to talk about Kell. She wanted to see him, grab him, hold him close, kiss his wonderful face, nibble his ear, and love him. Love him?
Shaking her head, she moved back out to the sitting room. “I hope you don’t mind me eating in front of you,” she said to Sherry while she turned and inspected the contents of the fridge.
“You eat, and I’ll talk,” Sherry said, settling her elbows on the table. “Luke’s guys will be finishing up tomorrow. They won’t be back until the tiling’s done. The master en suite bathroom is roomy—a double shower and a double vanity. I can just see Luke and me having a shower at the same time. Not. We would have three kids in with us, splashing water everywhere, either that or find out they had destroyed the house while no one was watching them. All this stuff, and most of it’s useless.”
Calli laughed, now certain that Sherry had not been told Calli was the daughter of a rich man. If she had, this talk of wasted money would never have happened. “I would be surprised if anyone with small children bought the house. Double basins are useful, though. It’s a pain having to wait to clean your teeth while someone else is cleaning theirs.”
“The other en suite is quite small, really just closet space, but it’s still bigger than my only bathroom. You would think if you married a plumber, you would have the very best bathroom, wouldn’t you?”
Calli shook her head, watching the water boil while she put teabags in the mugs. “If you marry an electrician, you’re stuck with faulty wiring. A doctor, and you can have the flu with no sympathy whatsoever. I hear that sort of thing all the time. People don’t take their work home with them.”
“Kell takes his home. He always has, his paperwork, that is. He’s a workaholic. As for the kitchen he’s putting in, and I can only judge by the plumbing prep, wow. The butler’s pantry is bigger than my whole kitchen, too. I think I’m going to have to talk Luke into upsizing as soon as we can afford it.” With a grin, Sherry rose to her feet as the kettle turned off. “You finish making your sandwich. I’ll pour the water. I drink mine black.”
“Me, too.” Calli slapped tomato on top of her salami and sat with her sandwich while Sherry brought around the tea mugs.
“I heard an earful from Trent about Emily,” Sherry continued, sliding back onto her seat. “I met her at Kell’s barbeque last. Trent has a date with her tonight.”
“So I heard.”
“I’ve known him for years.” Sherry squeezed out her teabag and left it on a spoon. “I hope it works out for him, but he’s planning on leaving for Sydney in a month or two. That will complicate their relationship.” She made a wry mouth. “He’s started to brick the new extension, and it’s going to look good. At the moment, he’s showing Oscar how to lay a line of bricks. I expect I’ll be brushing cement out of the little pest’s clothes when I get home.” With a mock doleful expression, Sherry dropped her face into her hands.
Calli grinned. “I love renovations. Some of them can take forever, but Kell’s seems to be racing along.” Not that Calli knew, though she could see the various trades’ vans parked outside the house.
“Your garden is speeding along, too. When do you think you’ll finish?”
“Most of it this week, hopefully.”
Sherry’s face dropped. “Oh,” she said blankly, and then she straightened. “I thought you would be here longer.”
“I will be. I’m here until Christmas, house-sitting. I’m hoping Kell’s work will be finished by then so that I can help with his garden.”
S
herry fiddled with her wedding ring. “We couldn’t help noticing, Vix and I, that he likes you. He doesn’t look at you like you’re a new toy he hasn’t quite decided to try out. He listens to you. Vix told me not to interfere, but I’ve known Kell since I was in primary school. I love him. He’s my family, but he’s not like Jay and Luke. Jay is totally confident of himself and what he is doing. He always was. Luke is a family man and a good father. Kell is a loner. He thinks he has to be self-sufficient.”
“Is that a bad thing to be?”
“No. Vix was right. I shouldn’t have said anything. It’s just that Kell is determined to be everything his father wasn’t—you know, responsible, successful, and in control. That doesn’t leave him much time to laugh, is all.”
Calli reached out and squeezed Sherry’s hand. “Like the rest of us, he’ll laugh when he finds time. That’s an enormous job he’s doing next door while he’s also working at his nine-to-five job. I don’t know how he finds time to blink.”
“Could you ask him to go to a movie or something? He never relaxes.”
Calli shrugged. “We don’t have that sort of relationship.” And she sat staring at Sherry because she didn’t know what sort of relationship she had with Kell. He helped her, she helped him, but no money changed hands. She used him for sex. He didn’t mind. In fact, he seemed quite happy with that, but he hadn’t made another date to see her, which meant that he would either drop by when he could or that he didn’t want a date with her. Then again, if he was a loner, he wouldn’t make dates. He would let dates find him, which seemed to happen. Emily had turned up without a qualm for a lunch, not knowing if he had other plans. “I’ll think about it. Now, do you want to see my garden?”
After she had taken Sherry for a quick tour, she thought about Sherry’s proposition and decided against asking Kell to go to a movie. If he wanted her, he would have to make the effort. She was no maiden waiting to be rescued. She had almost turned her life around and would, once she had consolidated her finances and found another couple of jobs. A man was the last thing she needed at this time. She had proved herself able to manage her sparse finances. She had proved she could keep on track. She had proved herself capable of independence.
She didn’t need to prove herself worthy of love. Been there, done that, and all she had proved was that some other woman was always more worthy than she.
* * * *
Kell arrived back at the house that night after spending the day inspecting a couple of old kitchens for women who wanted a new ones, and one for a family who had begun to build an addition to their house. He planned to draw up his measurements tonight and work out the pricing for his quotes.
First, he bounded up the stairs to see the progress Luke had made on the bathrooms. Trent had built the walls that allowed for the two new en suites, making five good-sized rooms into one large bedroom and three smaller. The upstairs plumbing had been finished and the waterproofing applied to dry out overnight. Sometime next week, the bathroom tiling would begin.
Luke had chosen the tiles and the fixtures. That was his specialty. Kell opened the boxes to check his brother’s choices. Each bathroom would feature white gloss subway tiles and stone-colored floors, a good neutral, suits-everyone plan. The more people the house suited, the higher the bargaining. Jay had raced through the plans for the extension. After the approval of the building inspector, the downstairs plumbing would begin.
Kell paced back to the kitchen where Trent stood chugging down a beer. “Don’t look at me like that. I’m having one for courage.”
Kell planted his hands on his hips. “Emily’s not all that scary.”
“Maybe not for you because you’re not interested in a relationship with her. When you find the woman of your dreams, you might understand nerves, buddy. Rejection is hard to swallow and this might be my last chance.”
Kell leaned against the doorway and adopted a smile smug enough to irritate Trent. Old habits died hard.
With a puff of disgust, Trent turned away to put his empty bottle in the bin. “You don’t ask women for dates. You let them ask you, and Calli is never gonna. And there she is day after day alone in that cottage. Why don’t you take her out tonight? Do the lady a favor.” He faced Kell.
Kell lowered his chin and stared at Trent for a few seconds before he indicated absolutely nothing, he hoped. He strolled into the bedroom and sat on the side of his camper bed, legs apart, elbows on knees, and his chin in his palms. Without a doubt, if he went to Calli and said, let’s get naked he would be in with a good chance.
He had no illusions about himself. He could please a woman in bed. He could also pass as a relatively silent handbag for the women who invited him to various functions from work dinners to weddings. He passed because of his looks, and he didn’t hang around because he had nothing to say to these women who preferred him not to mention he was a cabinetmaker with his own small business.
“It sounds as if you’re trying to get more work, Kell,” one woman told him as an excuse, because he knew that wasn’t true. She was simply ashamed to be with a man who wouldn’t impress her friends with his money or his glib tongue.
In truth, he was little more than a gigolo. He wasn’t very interesting. He wasn’t educated or the life of the party. He was introspective and boring. Women didn’t see past his looks. His policy had always been not to get too close or he would feel insignificant. Calli was bright and beautiful. She wouldn’t be interested in him if she knew him out of bed.
He, in fact, knew more about rejection than Trent, starting with his father and continuing throughout his life. One day he would be successful enough to impress the sort of woman he would want to impress. If Calli could wait for five years, he would have enough money to support her in the style she would expect, though of course by then, she would have happily married someone suitable from her social circle of private schools and wealthy successful parents. He sat staring into space, afraid to ask her for a date, afraid to start a relationship that had no future.
Finally Trent left after a moody, “Hope I don’t see you until tomorrow morning.”
“Good luck,” Kell called after him, rising to his feet.
He needed a meal before he started on his pricing. His books and pencils in hand, he walked to the stark uninteresting kitchen that would soon be the focal point of the house, and opened the fridge, seeing nothing but Calli opening her fridge in her lonely kitchen. With a “what the heck?” moment of resignation, he tossed his books onto the old tiled countertop, and pulled his phone from his back pocket. He would have her any way he could for as long as he could.
Finding her number, he texted, Want to go to the pub for dinner?
Who’s paying?
He laughed. The cabinetmaker. And then he smacked his head with his palm. He should have said something light-hearted rather stating his lowly trade.
The gardener is ravenous. I’ll be ready in 5.
“This is a lovely surprise,” she said five minutes later, standing in the doorway of the cottage. She looked beautiful in her form-fitting black slacks, a loose rusty colored shirt, and black-and-white high-heeled shoes. Very feminine and very smart.
He wanted to grab her into his arms and walk her backwards into her bedroom. “The one thing we have in common is a need to eat a few times per day.”
“Idiot.” She pulled the door closed behind her as she stepped out the doorway, tucked her bag under her arm, and tilted her head to kiss him, a light kiss, a friendly kiss, and the kiss of a woman who liked him. “We have far more in common than that.”
He could have grabbed her and given her a real kiss, but tonight would be a test of whether she liked him or whether she merely wanted him for his body.
Naturally he couldn’t take a woman like her to a greasy suburban hotel, so he drove into the city. His luck was in, and he found a park a few paces away from a new boutique pub Vix had mentioned a few weeks ago. The building had been renovated a few years a
go, the old wood floors sanded and polished. A marble-topped bar in front of shelves of glasses stood parallel to the front door. The trendily dressed patrons either sat on stools at the bar or at the scrubbed wooden tables in front.
Farther inside, where he led Calli, the place opened out to a dining room with the same wooden tables and comfortable black upholstered chairs. Apparently, local artists decorated the walls. The paintings looked interesting, one depicting Napoleon with a bow and arrow and his foot on a supine giraffe.
“Choose where you want to sit,” he said to Calli who led the way past various patrons to the back.
A waiter followed them with a carafe of water, glasses, and a menu. A woman at a nearby table called hi to Calli, who smiled and wiggled her fingers back. “If this is one of your usual spots, it’s amazing we haven’t met before,” she said to Kell. “I used to come here a lot.”
“It’s my first time,” he answered, half-pleased she already liked the place and half-disgruntled if that meant she might keep seeing people she knew. “So, tell me what you recommend on the menu.”
“Anything. I’ll have a Thai salad.”
“What about wine?”
“I’ll have a glass if you do. If not, water is fine.”
He ordered a steak and wine. Another woman came over and kissed Calli on the cheek. She said, “Glad you’re back,” and gave him a very significant glance.
After a few pleasantries, she left. Calli’s smile at him was full of mischief. “I think you’re about to fill my social calendar for me. She only came over to find out who you are.” Her phone started to ring. Frowning, she began a search of her bag. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bring it with me.” She glanced at the number and turned off the phone. “My sister again. She seems to know when I’m with someone. I’ll call her back later. Now, I hear from Sherry that your bathrooms are almost ready to be tiled.”
“The guys will start on the main bathroom next week.”
“What sort of tiles have you chosen?”
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