Rachel stifled a sigh of relief and grabbed the key to unlock the safety chain around the display. “How many grandkids do you have?”
“Four. And two great-grandbabies. I love my children, but, everything you’ve ever heard about grandparenthood is true. Love ’em and leave ’em with their parents. That’s my motto.” She winked elaborately then added, “Michael is the oldest. He lived with me and my husband nearly every summer while both of his parents were working. He’s a dear man and very good father. He and his wife love Virginia Beach, but I always hear a twang of nostalgia when he asks about South Dakota. He’ll love having this to hang on his wall.”
Rachel helped the woman—Jan Knutson, she learned after introductions were made—find the right spear for her grandson. The most expensive one of the bunch. As she rang up the sale, Rachel asked, “Is the reason you don’t mind spending that much money because it’s such a unique piece?”
The woman signed her credit card before answering. “Yes,” she said, carefully balancing the intricately carved shaft between her outstretched hands. “It’s a work of art. Michael knows and appreciates nice things. And every time he looks at it, he’ll think of me. And the Black Hills. That’s a wise waste of money, don’t you think?”
Rachel finished typing the mailing address in the proper form and hit Print. Char would carefully box the spear and call for a pickup when she returned. “Not a waste at all. I agree with you completely. I asked because I’m starting to market some rather unique art pieces for a client.” She caught herself before she said friend. Where did that come from?
Jan looked interested. “What sort of things?”
“Dreamhouses. He combs the hillsides looking for natural materials that he incorporates in each piece. At the center of each house is a chimney. You write your dreams on a slip of paper, roll them up and tuck them away.”
“How intriguing,” the woman said. “Do you have any here? My youngest granddaughter is graduating from high school this coming spring. She’s next to impossible to buy for.”
“Put your e-mail address on the back of my card,” Rachel said, quickly digging one out of her bag. “I’ll send you photos and a price sheet. If one strikes your fancy, I’ll bring it here for you to look at before you buy.”
“Wonderful,” Jan mumbled, pawing through her purse for something. “Here. This is my son’s card. He and his wife publish a monthly magazine that focuses on local businesses and people of the Black Hills. My daughter-in-law writes most of the articles. She might be interested in doing a story on the artist. Have him give Jim a call.”
Rachel felt a familiar inner buzz that told her things were falling into place. The organizing problem-solver in her loved the feeling and couldn’t wait to share it. She checked her watch. Still early by Rufus Miller standards, but surely he’d want to hear that the universe was starting to align in his favor. With luck—and a little free publicity—orders for his Dreamhouses would soon be rolling in.
RUFUS KNEW THAT TAKING a morning soak ran a certain risk. Despite his pointed hints to the contrary, Rachel’s exuberance for life and passion for her job ran contrary to his schedule.
“I’m not a morning person,” he’d told her.
“You’re not that much of an afternoon person, either,” she’d retorted cheerfully.
She was always cheerful—morning or evening. Chipper. Vivacious. Positive. Optimistic.
All things he wasn’t. Had he ever been that hopeful, he wondered, carefully lowering himself into the oversize copper bath he’d ordered from a specialty company when he first moved into his house.
The cabin was equipped with a very nice, tiled shower in the master bathroom, but Rufus’s idyllic vision of living in the mountains had always included being able to soak in a tub in front of a roaring fire. With the help of specially adapted hoses and an in-tub heating system, he could do this with very little mess. His contractor had even included a cleverly disguised drain in the wood floor so the gray water could be filtered and reused to water plants.
Rufus loved his tub. It was where he achieved his best meditation.
He’d set an alarm clock this morning for the first time since moving to the Hills to be sure he could bathe in peace and privacy. He wasn’t sure how Rachel had talked him into giving her a key to the house—or had it been his idea?—but she’d made it a habit to stop at the house before heading to the workshop. She said she liked to touch base with him without having to talk over the smell of glue and tung oil.
He turned his chin and looked at the poinsettia plant she’d brought him the day before. Variegated red and pink with green lower leaves. A bright and festive addition. A nice gesture. Unfortunately, the plant made Rufus more aware of the fact his home never changed with the holidays. The question he couldn’t shake from his mind returned. When had his life become so stagnant?
“Damn,” he muttered. He took a big gulp of air and sank down so his head was completely under the water. Eyes closed, he tried to block the image that popped into his head.
Rachel.
Awake. Asleep. It didn’t seem to matter. She was omnipresent.
Understandable, he told himself. She was a huge presence in his life, these days. She was a giant agitator shaking up the status quo. Pretty flowers were the tip of the iceberg. She brought fresh ideas, too.
“I really think you need a Facebook page, Rufus. Online social networks are great for passive PR. You start by connecting with classmates, old friends, business associates from your past. Before long, they’ll buy a Dreamhouse and recommend you to all their friends.”
He lifted his chin to suck in a gulp of air. His knees were cold. It crossed his mind that he should have added another log to the fire.
Oh, well, where was I…? Facebook. Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen.
“What about a blog?” she’d proposed the day before. “You wouldn’t have to type it. To start out, you could record your thoughts and I’ll transcribe everything and post it for you. I think people would be interested in what it’s like to be you.”
“Argh,” he blurted as he sat up.
The woman wanted too much from him. She was like a reverse caveman—dragging him by the hair into the twenty-first century. The changes were too dramatic and contrary to his original plan. He had to find a way to put this genie back in her bottle.
“Uh-oh. I’m way too early this time, aren’t I?”
Rufus froze at the unexpected sound of a voice. Rachel’s voice. He used his fist to wipe the water from his eyes and looked toward the door. She’d only popped her head in. He gave her points for manners.
“I knocked. The dogs didn’t bark so I assumed you were at the workshop. Sorry.” She closed the door a little more. “I’ll be down there. Bad Rachel.”
She’d freeze at the shop. He hadn’t started a fire, yet. If she tried to do it herself, she’d probably burn the place down. “Come in.”
His tone sounded gruffer than he’d intended.
“I don’t have to stay. I can come back in an hour or two.”
She could. But she’d probably spend that time working on his Web site. Something he’d decided he wanted to scale back—in a big way. He had to—for reasons he couldn’t share with her. He knew the news wasn’t going to sit well with her.
“As long as you’re here, you can wait…” She couldn’t stay in the kitchen or living room. He’d grown considerably more modest than his earlier career might suggest. There was no way he was getting out of the water with her in the room. “In the loft.”
His private space, but he couldn’t remember leaving out anything too personal or too revealing.
Her head popped back in. “Seriously? You’re sure?”
“Shut the door. It’s cold.”
She jumped into the room and was immediately surrounded by dogs. “Hi, guys,” she said, bending to hug and pet each of them. “I guess you’re getting used to me being here. You didn’t even bark.”
She took off her g
loves and stuffed them in one pocket of her jacket. From the other pocket she withdrew three doggie chew bones.
It was obvious from his dogs’ response that bribery had become routine without his knowing it. As usual, Chumley carried his treat to his large, padded bed, which Rufus had moved to the corner by the hearth. The old dog’s arthritis seemed worse in the winter months. Fred disappeared as if fearful someone might try to take the bone away. Rat-Girl paraded around the tub a couple of times, showing off her prize, as if to say, “How come you never bring us presents?”
“Nice tub,” Rachel said, shrugging off her jacket. She started to toss it on the sofa, but caught herself and hung it from the peg behind the door.
“Meditation.”
She had to pass by within a few feet of him to reach the spiral staircase to the loft, but she politely turned her back and crab-walked, talking the entire time. “Meditation. Oh. Cool. Like some people might use yoga or a steam bath or sauna. I get it. Maybe you could blog about that.”
He would have laughed at her dogged determination and single-mindedness if not for one thing. Scooting sideways, as she did, gave him the best view to date of her near-perfect butt. Firm, trim but rounded in the right places. Maybe because of his previous claim to fame—People magazine had named his the hottest tush in the country one year—he had a soft spot in his heart for a nice derriere. And hers was set off most becomingly by her tight tan corduroy pants, which rode low on her hips with a thin brown leather belt woven between links of gold chain. A hunter green wool turtleneck sweater had been tucked in, but presently was half-hanging out.
He felt something stirring in the warm water. He looked down. Yep. Another party heard from.
“Awkward,” he muttered.
“Huh?” She paused and glanced over her shoulder. “Did you say something?”
He refused to succumb to modesty. For cripes’ sake, he’d posed with a veritable G-string on in front of twenty people or more at some shoots. “No.”
Their gazes met and held, but he sensed she had more than adequate peripheral vision. Her cheeks turned pink and her neck moved when she swallowed. “Oh. Okay.”
Her gaze dipped for a fraction of a second then she spun around and quickened her sidestepping pace until she reached the stairs. “Call me when you’re done. Take your time…um…soaking. I really am sorry about interrupting.”
He leaned against the curved back and let out a muffled groan. The tone of her apology seemed to imply that she thought she’d interrupted something more than a bath. Not a one-person orgy, he guessed, but something along those lines.
A memory popped into his head. “What’s masturbation?” Stephen had asked when Rufus was in junior high. Rufus had discovered girls and their father’s stash of Playboy magazines. The combination meant long showers and the occasional locked door of their joint bedroom.
“Jerking off,” Rufus had answered. He’d tried to keep things real with Stephen. Their parents weren’t the type to talk about the birds and the bees, even in those euphemistic terms. Rufus remembered thinking that he was Stephen’s best chance at leading a normal life when he grew up.
Unfortunately, he never got the chance. One stupid twist of fate ruined everything.
Pinpricks around the bridge of the nose made him inhale deeply and look up. To stare straight into the eyes of a beautiful voyeur.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SHE HADN’T MEANT TO LOOK
—not even a teeny little glimpse—but the metal circular staircase gave her a momentary sense of vertigo. It was look around or fall sideways. And since she happened to be facing toward the center of the room when the dizziness hit, she got an eyeful. Her knees immediately turned rubbery. Her palms tingled, making her tighten her grip on the railing. Her mouth went arid and she had to lick her lips to get enough saliva together to swallow.
Holy moly, the man was glorious in his nakedness. Stretched out in the oversize copper tub with its old-fashioned high back and rolled edges, his pale limbs seemed bigger than they should be. And practically hairless.
She leaned forward a bit, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. His bushy head of hair was slicked straight back from his high forehead. His beard seemed subdued—normal, even. But what surprised her most was the overall lack of body hair, except for a small, triangle between his amazingly well-defined chest muscles and a thatch at his groin.
Don’t look. Wrong. Bad, Rachel. Stop.
Her mind refused to listen. She wasn’t an expert on men’s bodies, by any means, but she was willing to label Rufus’s package prime, grade-A, choice. And a lot of it.
Oh, man, she silently groaned. The dampness between her legs was back.
To distract from the obvious wrongness stemming from the instant lust she was feeling she tried to focus on the other thing that was bothering her. What is wrong with this picture, she asked herself.
“You’re not a yeti,” she exclaimed, a jolt of awareness surging through her body. A different kind of awareness. “You…you’re a man. A regular, ordinary man.” She looked at his groin again. “Well, maybe not ordinary, but you know what I mean.”
He didn’t fake undue modesty. She gave him credit for that. He got up with purposeful grace. Dripping like the statue of David in the rain, he leaned over and reached for the large towel hanging from the back of a chair. After slowly, casually patting away the rivulets of water on his upper torso, he braced one long, beautifully masculine foot on the edge of the tub and wiped it dry. He planted the dry foot on a bath mat and adroitly hopped sideways to repeat the effort on his left leg.
His bare derriere was a true work of art, she realized, salivating. Look out, David, there’s a new butt in town.
Once he had the towel secured around his waist, he turned to look at her. “I never said I was a yeti.”
“Maybe not in so many words, but you let people believe you were Bigfoot’s close cousin. Why? Are you in trouble? Witness protection? Hiding out from an ex-wife and nine kids that you owe back child support?”
She knew the answer to that. Of course not. He was an honorable man, even if he had been—in a sense—lying to her from the very beginning. Hiding his true self beneath layer upon layer of scratchy plaid wool.
The way her ex hid behind his charming smile. The way her father hid behind his white lab coat.
Suddenly furious—and very close to saying or doing something she might later regret—she plunged ahead up the staircase, vertigo be damned. She was three steps into the room when it dawned on her she’d marched straight into the lion’s den. This was his bedroom. Yes, there was a couch and chair and reading lamp set adjacent to a built-in library along one wall, but to her left was a king-size bed with a gorgeous red silk comforter. What kind of clueless hulking recluse decorated with red silk?
And, if I’m not mistaken, real, honest-to-goodness oil paintings.
Two. Bold, impressionistic, Warhol-influenced. She couldn’t name the artist, but she’d seen a similar style at a gallery in London. The price tag on each piece had made her jaw drop.
She felt, rather than heard, him climb the stairs. He was a big man. That much was true. And he must have taken sweats downstairs with him because he was dressed all in black when he reached the landing. Except for his white athletic socks. She found that incongruity reassuring.
“Who are you?”
“You’ve seen my driver’s license. And my credit card. You know who I am.”
That was true, but she could tell by the way he didn’t meet her eyes that there was more to his story. “Who were you?”
His head went back slightly so he was looking down his long, slender nose at her. A tiny squiggle of memory bounced around her mind. Not someone she’d ever met. Not one of her ex-husband’s friends or someone on the professional golf circuit. He didn’t seem athletic enough, despite his toned body. No, but he could have been someone she’d seen.
“Are you an actor?”
He made a scoffing sound. “Good gri
ef, no. I stay as far away from the Sentinel Passtime people as possible. I’m sure they’re nice enough, but their energy is enervating.”
Books. Art. Silk. Vocabulary words. She searched his face but nothing came to her. His beard was starting to fluff out again as it dried. His hair had filled in around his face covering his ears. He was starting to look more like the Rufus she knew.
“Listen, Rachel, I’m sorry about the peep show. I didn’t expect you for a couple of hours. I needed to think, and I do my best thinking in a bath. The house design didn’t lend itself to an indoor tub and I don’t like the cold well enough to sit in one outside in the winter, so I had the copper tub made. I call it my Saturday night special,” he said, a sort of self-deprecating humor in his tone.
She knew he bathed more often than once a week. “Today’s Tuesday.”
“I know. Like I said, I needed to think.”
Now, the humor was gone and something faintly foreboding seemed to linger in the air. “You’re pulling the plug on your Web site, aren’t you?”
“Not the sales part, but everything else,” he admitted.
She’d sensed his growing disenchantment with the whole online-community concept, but being Rachel, she’d ignored his concerns in favor of what she thought best for him. Shades of Mom, Jack would have said.
“Then, I guess we’re done here,” she said, trying to salvage a scrap of pride. She started toward where he was standing, intending to leave. He didn’t need her. No one did. Not really.
“Rachel,” he said, his voice low and conflicted. He stepped to the left to block her way. His large, warm hand closed around her forearm when she tried to push him aside. “You’re wrong about that.”
Then he pulled her to him, his arms enclosing her in a cocoon of warmth that made her think she might be in the middle of one of his Dreamhouses. Safe and secure.
His kiss was not at all what she was expecting. Soft, gentle and far too proper—at first. When she tilted her head and leaned into him, his reaction matched hers. Their tongues got involved. Their breathing changed. Her hands were touching—or were they gripping?—his massive shoulders.
Until He Met Rachel Page 8