by Nora Roberts
“I’m not happy with you, Cilla.”
What else is new? Cilla thought. And you’re drunk or stoned. Ditto. “Well, I’m sorry to hear that, especially at three-thirty in the morning, East Coast time. Which is where I am, remember?”
“I know where you are.” Bedelia’s voice sharpened even as it slurred. “I know damn well. You’re in my mother’s house, which you tricked me into giving you. I want it back.”
“I’m in my grandmother’s house, which you sold to me. And you can’t have it back. Where’s Mario?” she asked, referring to her mother’s current husband.
“This has nothing to do with Mario. This is between you and me. We’re all that’s left of her! You know very well you caught me in a weak moment. You took advantage of my vulnerability and my pain. I want you to come back immediately and tear up the transfer papers or whatever they are.”
“And you’ll tear up the cashier’s check for the purchase price?”
There was a long, brittle silence during which Cilla lay back down and yawned.
“You’re cold and ungrateful.”
The thin sheen of tears on the words was much too calculated, and too usual, to get a rise. “Yes, I am.”
“After everything I did for you, all the sacrifices I made, all of which you tossed away. Now, instead of you willing to pay me back for all the years I put you first, you’re tossing money in my face.”
“You could look at it that way. I’m keeping the farm. And don’t, please don’t, waste my time or your own trying to convince either of us this place matters to you. I’m in it, I’ve seen just how much you care about it.”
“She was my mother!”
“Yeah, and you’re mine. Those are the crosses we have to bear.”
Cilla heard the crash, and pictured the glass holding her mother’s preferred nighttime Ketel One on the rocks hitting the nearest wall. Then the weeping began. “How can you say such a horrible thing to me!”
Lying on her back, Cilla swung her arm over her eyes and let the ranting, the sobbing play out. “You should go to bed, Mom. You shouldn’t make these calls when you’ve been drinking.”
“A lot you care. Maybe I’ll do what she did. Maybe I’ll just end it.”
“Don’t say that. You’ll feel better in the morning.” Possibly. “You need to get a good night’s sleep. You’ve got your show to plan.”
“Everyone wants me to be her.”
“No, they don’t.” Mostly, that’s just you. “Go on to bed now, Mom.”
“Mario. I want Mario.”
“Go on to bed. I’ll take care of it. He’ll be there. Promise me you’ll go up to bed.”
“All right, all right. I don’t want to talk to you anyway.”
When the phone clicked in her ear, Cilla lay as she was a moment. The whining snub at the end signaled that Dilly was done, would go to bed or simply lie down on the handiest surface and pass out. But they’d passed through the danger zone.
Cilla pushed the speed-dial button she’d designated as Number Five. “Mario,” she said when he answered. “Where are you?”
It took less than a minute to recap the situation, so she cut off Mario’s distress and hung up. Cilla had no doubt he’d rush home and provide Dilly with the sympathy, the attention and the comfort she wanted.
Wide awake and irritated, she climbed out of her sleeping bag. Carting her flashlight, she used the bathroom, then trudged downstairs for a fresh bottle of water. Before going back to the kitchen, she opened the front door and stepped out onto the short section of porch that remained.
All the pretty sparkling lights were gone now, she noted, and the hills were utterly, utterly dark. Even with the thin scatter of stars piercing through the clouds overhead, she thought it was like stepping into a tomb. Black and silent and cold. The mountains seemed to have folded in for the night, and the air was so still, so absolutely still, she thought she could hear the house breathing behind her.
“Friend or foe?” she asked aloud.
Mario would rush into the house in Bel Air, murmur and stroke, flatter and cajole, and ultimately sweep his drunken wreck of a wife into his toned (and younger) Italian arms to carry her up to their bed.
Dilly would say—and say often—that she was alone, always so alone. But she didn’t know the meaning of it, Cilla thought. She didn’t know the depths of it.
“Did you?” she asked Janet. “I think you knew what it was to be alone. To be surrounded, and completely, miserably alone. Well, hey, me too. And this is better.”
Better, Cilla thought, to be alone on a quiet night than to be alone in a crowd. Much better.
She stepped back inside, closed and locked the door.
And let the house sigh around her.
THREE
Ford spent two full hours watching Cilla through his binoculars, sketching her from various angles. After all, the way she moved jump-started the concept every bit as much as the way she looked. The lines, the curves, the shape, the coloring—all part of it. But movement, that was key. Grace and athleticism. Not balletic, no, not that. More . . . the sort of grace of a sprinter. Strength and purpose rather than art and flow.
A warrior’s grace, he thought. Economical and deadly.
He wished he could get a look at her with her hair down and loose instead of pulled back in a tail. A good look at her arms would help And her legs. And hell, any other parts of her that might pop into view wouldn’t hurt his feelings any.
He’d Googled her, and studied several photographs, and he’d NetFlixed her movies, so he’d have those to study. But the last movie she’d done—I’m Watching, Too!—was about eight years old.
He wanted the woman, not the girl.
He already had the story line in his head, crammed in there and shoving to get out. He’d cheated the night before, taking a couple hours away from his latest Seeker novel to draft the outline. And maybe he was cheating just a little bit more today, but he wanted to do a couple of pencils, and he didn’t want to do those until he had more detailed sketches.
The trouble was, his model had too many damn clothes on.
“I’d really like to see her naked,” he said, and Spock gave a kind of smart-assed snort. “Not that way. Well, yeah, that way, too. Who wouldn’t? But I’m speaking professionally.”
There came growlings and groanings now, with Spock rolling to his side. “I Am a professional. They pay me and everything, which is why I can buy your food.”
Spock snagged the small, mangled bear he carted around, rolled again and dropped it on Ford’s foot. Then began to dance hopefully in place. “We’ve been through this before. You’re responsible for feeding him.”
Ignoring the dog, Ford thought of Cilla again. He’d pay another “Hi, neighbor” call. See if he could talk her into posing for him.
Inside, he loaded up his sketch pad, his pencils, tucked in a copy of The Seeker: Vanished, then considered what he might have around the house to serve as a bribe.
He settled on a nice bottle of cabernet, shoved that into the bag, then started the hike across the road. Spock deserted the bear and scrambled up to follow.
SHE SAW HIM COMING as she hauled another load of trash and debris out to the Dumpster she’d rented. Inside the house she’d started piles of wood and trim she hoped to salvage. The rest? It had to go. Sentiment didn’t magically restore rotted wood.
Cilla tossed the pile, then set her gloved hands on her hips. What did her hot-looking neighbor and appealingly ugly dog want now?
He’d shaved, she noted. So the scruffy look might’ve been laziness rather than design. She preferred laziness. Over one shoulder he carried a large leather satchel, and as he came down her drive, he lifted a hand in a friendly greeting.
Spock sniffed around the Dumpster and seemed happy to lift his leg.
“Hey. You’ve had a lot going on here the last couple of days.”
“No point wasting time.”
His grin spread slow and easy. “Wasting time ca
n be the point.” He glanced at the Dumpster. “Are you gutting the place?”
“Not entirely, but more than I’d hoped. Neglect takes longer to damage than deliberation, but it does the job just as well. Hello, Spock.” At the greeting the dog walked over, offered a paw. Okay, Cilla thought as they shook. Ugly but charming. “What can I do for you, Ford?”
“I’m working up to that. But first, I brought you this.” He dug into the satchel, came out with the bottle of red.
“That’s nice. Thanks.”
“And this.” He drew out the graphic novel. “A little reading material with your wine at the end of the day. It’s what I do.”
“Drink wine and read comic books?”
“Yeah, actually, but I meant I write them.”
“So my father told me, and I was being sarcastic.”
“I got that. I speak sarcasm, as well as many other languages. Do you ever read them?”
Funny guy, she thought, with his funny dog. “I crammed in a lot of Batman when they were casting Batgirl for the Clooney version. I lost out to Alicia Silverstone.”
“Probably just as well, the way that one turned out.”
Cilla cocked an eyebrow. “Let me repeat. George Clooney.”
Ford could only shake his head. “Michael Keaton was Batman. It’s all about the I’m-a-little-bit-crazy eyes. Plus they lost the operatic sense after the Keaton movies. And don’t get me started on Val Kilmer.”
“Okay. Anyway, I prepped for the audition by studying the previous movies—and yes, Keaton was fabulous—reading some of the comics, boning up on the mythology. I probably overprepped.”
She shrugged off what had been a major blow to her at sixteen. “You do your own art?”
“Yeah.” He studied her as she studied the cover. Look at that mouth, he thought, and the angle of her chin. His fingers itched for his pad and pencil. “I’m territorial and egotistical. Nobody can do it the way I do it, so nobody gets the chance.”
She flipped through as he spoke. “It’s a lot. I always think of comics as about twenty pages of bright colors and characters going BAM! ZAP! Your art’s strong and vivid, with a lot of dark edges.”
“The Seeker has a lot of dark edges. I’m finishing up a new one. It should be done in a few days. It would’ve been done today, probably, if you hadn’t distracted me.”
The wine tucked in the curve of her arm took on another level of weight. “How did I do that?”
“The way you look, the way you move. I’m not hitting on you on a personal level.” He slid his gaze down. “Yet,” he qualified. “It’s a professional tap. I’ve been trying to come up with a new character, the central for another series, apart from the Seeker. A woman—female power, vulnerabilities, viewpoints, problems. And the duality . . . Not important for today’s purposes,” he said. “You’re my woman.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Dr. Cass Murphy, archaeologist, professor of same. Cool, quiet, solitary woman whose heart really lies in the field work. The discovery. Prodigy. Nobody gets too close to Cass. She’s all business. That’s the way she was raised. She’s emotionally repressed.”
“I’m emotionally repressed?”
“I don’t know yet, but she is. See.” He pulled out his sketchbook, flipped to a page. Angling her head, Cilla studied the drawing, studied herself if she wore conservative suits, sensible pumps and glasses.
“She looks boring.”
“She wants to look boring. She doesn’t want to be noticed. If people notice her, they might get in the way, and they might make her feel things she doesn’t want to feel. Even on a dig, she . . . See?”
“Hmm. Not boring but efficient and practical. Maybe subtly sexy, given the mannish cut of the shirt and pants. She’s more comfortable this way.”
“Exactly. You’ve got a knack for this.”
“I’ve read my share of storyboards. I don’t know your field, but I can’t see much of a story with this character.”
“Oh, Cass has layers,” he assured her. “We just have to uncover them the way she uncovers artifacts at a dig. The way she’ll uncover an ancient weapon and symbol of power when she’s trapped in a cave on a mythical island I have to create, after she discovers the dastardly plans of the billionaire backer of the project, who’s also an evil sorcerer.”
“Naturally.”
“I’ve got some work to do there, but here she is. Brid, Warrior Goddess.”
“Wow.” It was really all she could think of. She was all leather and legs, breastplate and boobs. The boring and practical had become the bold, dangerous and sexy. She stood, legs planted in knee-high boots, masses of hair swirling and a short-handled, double-headed hammer lofted skyward.
“You might’ve exaggerated the cup size,” she commented.
“The . . . Oh, well, it’s hard to tell. Besides, the architecture of the breastplate’s bound to give them a boost. But you hit on what you can do for me. Pose. I can get what I need from candid sketches, but I’d get better with—”
“Whoa.” She slapped her hand over his as he flipped to a page covered with small drawings of her. “Those aren’t character sketches. That’s me.”
“Yeah, well, same thing, essentially.”
“You’ve been over there, watching me over here, making drawings of me without my consent? You don’t see that as rude and intrusive?”
“No, I see it as work. If I snuck over here and peeked in your windows, that would be rude and intrusive. You move like an athlete with just a hint of dancer. Even when you’re standing still there’s a punch to it. That’s what I need. I don’t need your permission to base a character on your physicality, but I’d do a better job with your cooperation.”
She shoved his hand away to flip back to the warrior goddess. “That’s my face.”
“And a great face it is, too.”
“If I said I’m calling my lawyer?”
At Ford’s feet, Spock grumbled. “That would be shortsighted and hard-assed. And your choice. I don’t think you’d get anywhere, but to save myself the hassle, I can make a few alterations. Wider mouth, longer nose. Make her a redhead—a redhead’s not a bad idea. Sharper cheekbones. Let’s see.”
He dug out a pencil, flipped to a fresh page. While Cilla watched, he drew a quick freehand sketch.
“I’m keeping the eyes,” he muttered as he worked. “You’ve got killer eyes. Widen the mouth, exaggerate the bottom lip just a hair more, diamond-edge those cheekbones, lengthen the nose. It’s rough, but it’s a great face, too.”
“If you think you can goad me into—”
“But I like yours better. Come on, Cilla. Who doesn’t want to be a superhero? I promise you, Brid’s going to kick a lot more ass than Batgirl.”
She hated feeling stupid, and feeling her temper shove at her. “Go away. I’ve got work to do.”
“I take that as a no on posing for me.”
“You can take that as, if you don’t go away, I’m going to get my own magic hammer and beat you over the head with it.”
Her hands curled into fists when he smiled at her. “That’s the spirit. Just let me know if you change your mind,” he said as he slid the sketchbook back into his bag. “See you later,” he added and, tucking his pencil behind his ear, headed back down her driveway with his ugly little dog.
SHE STEWED ABOUT IT. The physical labor helped work off the mad, but the stewing part had to run its course. It was just her luck, just her freaking luck, that she could move out to what was almost the middle of nowhere and end up with a nosy, pushy, intrusive neighbor who had no respect for boundaries or privacy.
Her boundaries. Her privacy.
All she wanted was to do what she wanted to do, in her own time, in her own way—and largely by herself. She wanted to build something here, make a life, make a living. On her own terms.
She didn’t mind the aches and pains of hard physical labor. In fact she considered them a badge of honor, along with every blister and callus.
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