“Marty—” He tried to ease away, but there was nowhere to go but the floor. He managed to slide off the sofa onto one knee, and felt stupid as hell. Smooth, man. Really suave.
“If you’re looking for an apology,” he said, the words grinding like a rusty hinge, “you’ve got it. I should never have—”
Sitting up, she laid a finger over his mouth. “Don’t say it. Just don’t, all right?” Her voiced sounded raw and her eyes refused to meet his.
He looked for other signs of vulnerability, but found none. Unless you counted the neck of her yellow sweater that was stretched out of shape, and the fact that her hair looked like she’d been through a wind tunnel.
With her chilly gray eyes focused somewhere over his left shoulder, she said primly, “Thank you very much for helping me get it in here.”
A few wildly inappropriate notions zinged through his head before his brain reconnected. “Yeah, well…next time give me some warning. The short one shouldn’t be a problem, though.”
As he stood up he watched her face, trying to get a read on what was going on in that squirrelly mind of hers. It was like watching cloud shadows racing over the water, disguising what lay just under the surface.
“Yell when you want help moving this stuff upstairs,” he said.
“Let me think about it first. Maybe this afternoon.”
You’d think they were two strangers who just happened to be passing the time of day.
Shrugging, Cole climbed the stairs to finish what he’d been doing when he’d first heard her yell for help.
What had he been doing? His concentration was now shot, that was for damn sure. It didn’t help that the bed she’d slept in last night was only a few feet away. His senses honed to a fine edge, he caught a whiff of the scented soap she used in the morning while she stood naked under the shower.
His power sander was waiting where he’d left it, a clue that he’d been working on her cabinet doors. He picked it up, reminding himself that power tools could be dangerous when a guy’s blood deserted his brain and headed south.
Ten
Downstairs, Marty stared at the monstrous intrusion between her coffee table and the ugly platform rocker that was the first piece of furniture she’d ever bought.
My God, she’d almost—
And she’d wanted to. For the first time in more years than she cared to remember, she’d been ready to tear off her clothes and make love. Burning for it. Throbbing for it. She never burned, much less throbbed. And besides, her box of condoms was upstairs.
Deep breath. Another one. Now, back to the real world. It took some doing, but she did it, a measure of just how disciplined she could be when she put her mind to it.
After first removing the drawers, she maneuvered her desk through the living room, around the bookshelf, across the hall and into the kitchen, where it blocked the refrigerator. Shaking her aching hands, she told herself she’d find a place for it later. It was only furniture, after all. She’d learned early in life to keep her possessions to a minimum and her goals realistic. Rearranging furniture was realistic. People did it all the time. If you didn’t like the results, you could always put things back the way they were.
The way they were? With a garage full of big empty bookshelves, another one blocking her living room, not to mention a ton of paperback books that were growing more out-of-date by the minute?
And do not, she warned herself—I repeat, do not even think about the man upstairs!
The maple drop-leaf dining table wasn’t all that heavy once she’d unloaded the to-be-read pile of books and the to-be-dealt-with stack of mail, which was mostly catalogs, anyway. By stacking the chairs, she managed to get all four, plus the table, in the utility room. She’d have to clear them all out to get to the washer, but it was the best she could do for now. With more rain—possibly even sleet—in the forecast, she could hardly set them out on the porch.
Hands on her hips, she surveyed the chaos. Was she there yet? At the point of no return? Once she got past that point, there’d be no going back. Until then she could still fire her carpenter, put a hot plate in the bathroom, wash dishes in the lavatory and use the refrigerator downstairs.
That was the trouble with having a galloping case of the hots. It blew any possibility of logical thought.
Dammit, he wasn’t even interested enough to take what she’d offered. What did he want—time and a half for overtime?
“Story of my life,” she muttered, glaring at the dishes in the sink that she had yet to wash and now couldn’t get to without climbing over a mountain of misplaced furniture.
Upstairs, the sound of a power sander continued, blocking out—she hoped—the sound of dragging and thumping, plus several four-letter words awkwardly strung together. Cursing was another area where she lacked expertise.
As she wandered back through her empty front rooms, Marty was surprised he hadn’t come downstairs to see what was going on. “Aren’t you even curious?” she muttered, eyeing her dusty staircase. “What are you afraid of? That I’ll grab you and tear off your clothes and have my way with you before you can scream for help?” She sighed, said, “Fat chance,” and shook off the mental image.
Hearing the commotion downstairs, Cole planed away a sixteenth of an inch too much wood, swore and laid aside his plane. Whatever the hell she was doing down there, she obviously didn’t need help, else she would’ve asked for it. Yeah, right.
He was tempted to go see what the devil she was up to, but even more determined to mind his own business. He didn’t understand women. Never had, never would. And Marty Owens was in a class by herself.
He waited until he’d swept up shavings and sawdust before he headed downstairs. There was barely enough room to stand.
She confronted him at the foot of the stairs, hands on her hips. “I didn’t move it all by myself—a neighbor helped.”
Cole was forced to step over a stack of desk drawers. “Are you out of your mind?” he demanded.
“Well, I don’t know. What’s your diagnosis?”
Her tone was suspiciously reasonable, her eyes suspiciously glittery. Her small, rounded chin jutted out as if daring him to take a swing at her.
As if he would. As if he would ever hit a woman, no matter what the provocation. “You want my diagnosis? Clinically speaking, I think you’re scared out of your gourd. I think you’re trying to put yourself in a position where backing out’s not an option. How’m I doing so far?”
“I hired you as a builder, not a shrink. Is that trash? Give it to me, I’ll take it out.” After snapping out orders like a small female general, she reached for the bag.
He stepped back and attempted to stare her down. “Your jaw’s about to snap out of alignment.”
“Just give me the damn trash bag!”
So he handed it over. “Tie your shoelace before you trip.”
She took a deep breath, drawing his attention to her upper assets, which were—in his estimation, at least—just about perfect.
She poked the bag back at him. “Then you do it!” Normally her complexion was parchment pale, but now twin splotches of color bloomed on her cheeks. The tip of her nose was pink, and her eyes—
Oh, hell, they were starting to leak again.
He dropped the sack of sawdust and shavings, stepped over two desk drawers, endangering the contents, and before the first tear splashed down he had her safely in his arms. “Hey, it’s no big deal, honey. Whoa, now, don’t cry. Rainy days are made for doing stuff you don’t ordinarily have time for, like rearranging furniture. I knew this woman once who—”
“I don’t want to know about your d-damn women,” she sobbed, her voice muffled against his shirt.
He was filthy—covered in sawdust, but that didn’t keep him from holding her while he made those noises men make when they feel about as useful as tits on a male dog.
“This is twice,” she sobbed. “Th—that’s a record.”
He hadn’t the least idea what she wa
s talking about, not that it mattered.
Her hair tickled his chin even as her soft, warm body wriggled closer. If ever a woman needed holding, this one did. He wouldn’t even claim any merit badges for taking on the job, because some jobs were their own reward.
“Shh, it’s all right, honey. Good idea, in fact.”
“What’s good about it?”
Feeling her fingers at his waistband, he instinctively sucked in his breath. She was pulling out his shirttail? To do what? To get to what?
To use it as a handkerchief.
“I’ll wash it,” she promised, her elbows poking him in the chest as she tugged his flannel shirttail up to her face to dry her tears.
Without releasing her, he shifted his hips to one side in an effort to hide his body’s enthusiastic reaction. Talk about a trial by fire!
He made a few more of the only kind of noises a man can make when his brain skips out leaving no forwarding address.
When she dropped his shirttail and wrapped both arms around his waist, pulling him into alignment again, he closed his eyes and prayed for patience. Forbearance. Maybe sainthood.
“Whoa—that is, uh—why don’t I take that trash out while you, uh—find a place to sit down. Then, when I come back I’ll make us some coffee and we can talk about what you’re planning to do in here. How’s that sound?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, but gently pried her arms from around his waist. It was either put some distance between them—a couple of continents should do it—or lower her onto the nearest flat surface and let nature take its course.
She sucked in a shaky breath and stepped back. And then, damn if she didn’t smile at him. Red eyes, pink nose, wet cheeks and all, it was that smile that cut through all the scars that had built up over the years, making him think thoughts he had absolutely no business thinking.
And not just of sex, either.
So he grabbed the sack of trash and fled.
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face—she’d had some crazy idea that by moving out what had to go out and moving in what had to come in she could get ahead of schedule and put an end to all the second thoughts that were driving her batty. The deeper she got into this mess she’d created, the harder it was to extricate herself.
Marty shoved aside the sofa cushions and snatched her coat from the closet. She scrambled around and found a rain hat that was as old as dirt and probably no longer waterproof, but then, it hadn’t actually started raining yet. She jammed it on her head, snatched her purse and left. She’d better get in the last dog-walk because later was looking less and less likely.
The car started on the second try, just as Cole came around the corner of the house. He called out and waved his arms. Marty pretended not to see or hear. She didn’t want to talk to him now, she really didn’t. So she backed over her bulb bed to get around his truck, and just as she pulled out onto the street, the first few spatters of rain struck the windshield.
Cole watched the white minivan disappear around the corner. He was tempted to follow her. If she needed provisions before the weather closed in, she should have said so. If she wanted to get in a second dog-walk before things got too messy, then she should have told him, dammit, and he’d have gone with her.
Had she forgotten about that Mercedes?
Oh, hell, she didn’t need him. If nothing else, she’d proved that much with this morning’s exercise. For all he knew, she tore up her house and shifted all her furniture whenever the notion struck her. What did he know about women, anyway? Paula, the spoiled daughter of a construction worker who’d been canny enough—or maybe just crooked enough—to make millions, might have been born with a stainless steel spoon in her mouth, but she’d quickly adapted to sterling.
As for his mother, Aurelia Stevens had been a piano teacher who had never gotten over her dream of being a concert pianist. Cole had watched her grow old, staring out the window day after day, year after year, as one or another tin-eared kid who would rather be outdoors playing ball, abused her precious baby grand.
Both Cole and his father, a security guard with a serious drinking problem who’d had trouble holding a job, had saved for years to buy her that piano. That was one of the reasons it had got to him when Paula had decided she needed a Steinway to fill the corner of what she called her drawing room. She didn’t even like music, much less play. She’d majored in cheerleading. Rah, rah, rah…
Back to Marty, he told himself as a soft freezing mist dampened his face. Follow her or get back to work?
He settled for hauling all the furniture he could handle single-handedly upstairs and stashing it in the larger of the two bedrooms, the one she planned to use as a living room. The sofa would have to wait. Maybe once the weather let up he could get Bob Ed to lend him a hand in exchange for the windows he’d installed.
That done, he worked on fitting the cabinet doors, marking and chiseling out for the hinges. Some time later he glanced at the clock. It wasn’t as late as it looked, but she’d already been gone nearly two hours. Something between sleet and frozen rain fell steadily, although judging from the few cars that passed by, nothing was sticking to the streets. The temperature still hovered a few degrees above freezing.
At three, he called Bob Ed and asked him to check on the boat. “I left a leeward port open a crack for fresh air. Would you mind closing it? And while you’re there, how about listening to be sure the bilge pump’s not running. The timer’s been giving me some trouble lately. Oh, and I probably won’t make it back tonight.”
By the time he heard Marty pull into the driveway, Cole had the lower doors ready to hang. He’d tried working on the drawers, but had given it up. Everything was a mess, himself included. His concentration was shot. Damn, it was none of his business where she went, or who she spent her time with.
So how come it felt like his business?
He went downstairs, just as she came in through the front door, bringing with her a waft of cold, wet air. Shaking moisture from her coat and stripping off the ugliest hat he’d ever seen, she stopped dead in her tracks.
“How come you’re still here? I thought you’d leave early today on account of the weather.” She looked around slowly. “And where’s all my furniture?”
“Most of it’s upstairs. Your shoes are wet, better take ’em off before you catch cold.” The legs of her pants were wet, too, but he wasn’t about to go there.
“I’m numb. It’s freezing outside!”
She shivered and rubbed her hands together, and Cole forgot all the things he’d intended to say about having a plan and sticking to it, about not going off half-cocked, and especially about not going off without telling him where she was headed and when she expected to return.
“You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had,” she said, shaking her head.
The hat had left her hair plastered to her forehead and frizzed out on the ends. On her, it looked…cute.
“Tell me there’s coffee in the pot.”
He cleared his throat. “Which part of your day wouldn’t I believe? The part where the first elephant invaded your living room, or the part where—”
“Oh, hush up.” She tossed her wet coat toward the bench, where he’d stacked the contents of her coffee table before toting the table upstairs. “I haven’t eaten a bite in ages, so don’t talk to me, okay? I’m mean as a junkyard dog when I’m hungry.”
A slow grin spread across his face. “Yeah, I believe you,” he said as he followed her into the kitchen and waited for her reaction to the two bookcases he’d cut down while she was gone. All four sections.
Compared with bringing her flowers or candy, it hardly rated. As he waited for some sign of approval, he realized with a degree of alarm just how much her approval meant to him.
Trouble was, there was no easy way he could back off at this stage.
Eleven
So then Cole had to explain how he’d called the marina and left orders to secure the Time Out, and how he’d stuck aro
und because he’d been worried about her, and how as long as he was here, he’d figured he might as well accomplish something.
“Accomplish something! You’ve done all this—?” She waved her hands around the room, where the only alien pieces were the bookshelves. “My God, in—what, two hours?”
“More like four. I’d have had the rest of them done and moved into the living room, ready for you to start stocking with books, if you’d been any later.” The truth was, he’d been about ready to go out and beat the bushes looking for her. Muddy Landing wasn’t all that big. He figured he could cover it in less than an hour as long as he didn’t mind breaking a few speed laws.
And as long as she’d stayed in town.
She could have been anywhere. She could’ve taken a notion to drive up to Chesapeake with her nutty redheaded friend. To say Marty was maddening didn’t begin to describe how she frustrated him, but it was a start.
She refused to look at him. Marty was in no mood to be fussed at. Leaning back, elbows braced on the table, she toe-heeled off her wet shoes. Then, groaning, she bent over and pulled off her socks. Her feet were bluish white, her toes red.
“You walked the dog, didn’t you.”
Whether or not he meant it as an accusation, that’s the way she took it.
“So? I agreed to two walks a day. The times weren’t specified.” She ran her fingers through her hair and frowned down at the wet ends. “That dumb dog thinks rules don’t count on rainy days. Either that or he’s already forgotten everything you taught him.” Propping one foot on her knee, she tried to thaw it out with massage.
“I didn’t teach Mutt, I taught you!”
Her Man Upstairs Page 13