“He shouldn’t try to make anything look too modern,” Amanda said firmly. “He should be upgrading while retaining the period atmosphere.”
“Well now, maybe you should stop in and tell him that,” Mary suggested, glancing up at Amanda’s flashing blue eyes.
Amanda hesitated, then nodded, sipping her coffee thoughtfully. “I think I will,” she said. “After we get finished, Mary, I think I just might drop in there on my way home and see what he’s doing.”
“Good idea. Like I said, he could sure use the help. But I’ve got you first,” Mary added cheerfully, pouring more coffee into Amanda’s mug. “I can’t wait to see that jumpsuit. I’ve never worn a jumpsuit.”
Amanda smiled fondly at the other woman. They lingered at the kitchen table, sipping coffee and chatting about clothes while the rain pounded against the windows. But Amanda’s eyes were distant and preoccupied, and part of her thoughts were clearly elsewhere.
BROCK PUT HIS HAMMER in the little pocket on his carpenter’s apron and frowned at the section of baseboard he’d just replaced. Alvin sat beside him, sniffing contemptuously at the new wood.
“Oh, come on, Alvin,” Brock said cheerfully. “Don’t keep acting like that. I shaped that piece of oak so nice that you can’t even tell which part is old and which is new. Don’t be so damn critical.”
Alvin gave his master a cold look of disdain and wandered off toward the kitchen, sniffing hopefully under the table and around the bottom of the fridge.
He paused by the door and gave a couple of lazy barks, then glanced expectantly through the archway at Brock, who still knelt by his new baseboard, running a hand over the beautifully fitted section of oak.
“No way, Alvin,” Brock muttered without looking up. “I let you out just twenty minutes ago, you monster. You’ll just run around outside and then track mud all over the new hardwood floor.”
Alvin barked again, with slightly more energy, and Brock shrugged, bending to peer at a miter joint that was a shade off perfection.
“What’s the matter? You know you don’t want to go outside. There’s still some thunder out there, you little coward, and you’re scared to death of thunder.”
“No, I’m not,” Alvin said in a hauntingly familiar voice, causing Brock to stiffen and leap to his feet, gazing wildly into the kitchen.
Amanda Walker stood there in a stylish pale green rain cape, with water droplets glistening like showers of diamonds on her shining dark curls.
Brock was so astounded at this apparition that he gaped, stunned speechlessly by her loveliness. The woman glowed like a candle in the shadowed depths of his big untidy kitchen, her cheeks pink, her blue eyes shining like stars. To Brock, she looked like a flower, all cream and pink and blue, rising from a chrysalis of green in some warm spring rain.
“I knocked twice,” she said at last, shifting uncomfortably under his intense gaze. “Nobody answered.”
“Sorry,” he muttered. “It’s…I guess it’s raining so hard, and I was…I was talking to Alvin.”
Amanda grinned, then looked down to hide her smile. “I see,” she murmured solemnly. “And this big fellow is Alvin, I take it?”
After a brief but careful appraisal, Alvin had obviously fallen in love. He crept across the room and dropped himself humbly at Amanda’s feet, then rolled over onto his back, waving his paws and exposing his fat belly.
Amanda bent to tickle his silky abdomen and Alvin grunted, eyes closed in bliss, legs moving in rhythmic shivers of ecstasy.
“Yeah, that’s Alvin,” Brock said grimly, watching with envy while Amanda knelt close to the prostrate fat dog and caressed him, murmuring endearments. “He’s just a big phony, you know,” Brock felt compelled to add. “He’s not usually this nice. He’s only doing it to impress you.”
“Putting on the dog, you mean?” Amanda asked, with a sparkling glance up at the tall man who stood in the archway.
Brock chuckled and moved closer, reaching down to help her to her feet. “Let me take that wet thing,” he said, indicating her elegant cape. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit, Miss Walker?”
“Oh, your house is lovely,” Amanda breathed, letting him remove the cape from her shoulders and gazing around at the big square rooms. “I was just over at Mary’s and she tried to describe it, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen woodwork this beautiful. Look at it! This is solid oak, all of it.”
“Yeah, I know it is,” Brock said dryly, spreading the cape carefully across a gleaming old ladder-back chair that stood nearby. “And after all these years, it’s just as dry and hard as rock. You should see how many saw blades I’ve dulled since I’ve been working on this stuff.”
Amanda stared up at him in alarm. “You’re not cutting any of this wood, are you?”
Brock shrugged and took off his carpenter’s apron, tossing it onto a pile of paint tins in the hallway. “I don’t like to,” he said, “but sometimes it’s necessary. I have to replace some damaged parts and have to make a splice. This doorframe, for instance,” he added casually, glancing down at Amanda. “Can you tell what part’s new, and what’s eighty years old?”
Amanda looked at him cautiously, then turned to the wooden moulding, running a hand over its gleaming surface. “You’re kidding me, Brock,” she said finally. “You can’t possibly have replaced any of this. It’s all original.”
Brock shook his head, obviously delighted by her reaction. “See the lintel?” he said, reaching up to touch the ornate carved wood. “That was shattered forty years ago when my granddaddy accidentally fired off a shotgun blast in the kitchen. The whole piece was split and broken, so I took it off and used it as a model to make a new one.”
Amanda gazed at him, wide-eyed, then looked back up at the piece of oak that topped the doorframe. “But it’s perfect!” she said in amazement. “It’s the same pattern, the same color, everything.”
“I used four or five different router blades to shape the molding,” Brock told her calmly. “And I experimented with about a dozen kinds of stain before I found one that was exactly right.”
Amanda nodded thoughtfully, looking up again at the beautiful carved molding. Then she moved through into the big living room, pausing to peer closely at the side of the archway. “Pocket doors?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at Brock.
He nodded. “Two of ’em. Solid oak, all beveled panels, and four feet wide each.”
“Oh, my,” Amanda breathed. “May I see them?”
Brock shook his head. “They won’t slide out because the track’s warped. That’s my next project, to get the doors running smooth. But after that,” he added gloomily, “I don’t know what I can do. I’m stuck.”
Amanda glanced back through the arched doorway at Brock’s kitchen, where cupboards had been removed from the walls and dishes and packages of food were lying around in cardboard boxes, on open shelves, on the floor.
“It looks like there’s all kinds of work to do,” she ventured.
“Oh, no doubt of that,” Brock said grimly. “I just don’t know where to start. I’m scared to make mistakes, Amanda. This kitchen was built in the days when they still got their water supply from a hand pump connected to a storage tank. I don’t know what kind of design would fit in and be efficient without spoiling the atmosphere, you know?”
Amanda nodded approval at that. She reached over and patted his arm. Brock’s body shuddered at the casual touch.
“That’s just the way you should be thinking,” she said, apparently unaware of his powerful reaction to her nearness. “It’s such a big responsibility, renovating and preserving one of these lovely old houses. It certainly shouldn’t be approached carelessly.”
As she spoke, Amanda strolled back into the kitchen and looked around, frowning intently.
Brock followed her, seeing the room through her eyes. “Sorry about this awful mess,” he muttered with some embarrassment. “Seems like I just never get a chance to—”
“Don’t be silly,�
� Amanda said briskly. “I know what it’s like to renovate. Brock, I think glass-fronted cabinets would be perfect in here,” she added, her eyes narrowing as she gazed around. “And I don’t think they should be natural wood, either. People never used stained wood for cupboards back in those days.”
“Painted?” Brock asked with sudden interest.
“You think I should just use construction-grade wood and paint it?”
Amanda nodded. “I think a light cream enamel, with paneled glass doors.”
Brock stared at her. “Yeah,” he said with rising excitement. “I see what you mean, Amanda. That would brighten the whole room and look real authentic besides. It’d be a lot cheaper, too,” he added cheerfully, “than buying a ton of oak or ash or something.”
“Absolutely,” Amanda said, catching his enthusiasm. “Oh, Brock, can’t you just see this room with light cabinets, beveled glass doors, and this hardwood floor all finished with a dark stain, maybe partly covered with a braided rug?”
“I just laid that hardwood,” Brock told her, hoping for more praise.
“Did you? Oh, my goodness, what a beautiful job! Brock, you do such lovely work,” she exclaimed, kneeling to touch one of the perfect floor joints. Brock beamed at her, basking in her approval like a little boy.
“How about cupboard layout?” he asked, following her around, marveling at the way her unexpected arrival had somehow turned a dull rainy day into a little bit of heaven. “The sink used to be here, and the top cupboards were—”
“That’s all wrong,” Amanda said, waving a hand to cut him off. “You could fit in a small island on this side for more counter space, and it’d be much nicer to have the sink here under the window so you could use that wide sill for plants. There should be all kinds of plants in this kitchen, Brock. Hanging plants, ferns on antique stands…can’t you just see it? Especially with glass-fronted cabinets!”
Brock thought this over. “Alvin would eat them,” he said.
Amanda looked fondly down at the ugly dog who trailed close on her heels. “He would not,” she protested. “Would you, Alvin?”
Alvin gazed up at her with a look of innocence, his pink tongue lolling, and licked her shoe humbly.
“Nice Alvin,” Amanda crooned, bending to pat him and tickle his ears.
“Phony,” Brock whispered furiously, following Amanda out of the room and giving Alvin a rude shove with his foot. “You big phony, Alvin.”
Alvin gave his master a reproachful glance, then rushed across the room, plump body swaying, to catch up with Amanda. She stood by the vast fireplace, running her hands over the carved oak mantel.
“What are these initials?” she asked, gazing at a swirl of ornate lettering set in a wide oval on the expanse of golden oak.
“C.J.M. Caspar Josiah Munroe. My great-granddaddy carved that mantel with his own hands, the whole thing.”
“Oh, it’s just so lovely,” Amanda whispered, touching the gleaming old wood with a reverent hand. “Brock, all these things are treasures. They’re priceless. I wish I could…”
She fell silent abruptly, looking up at him, her eyes wide and startled.
“What, Amanda?” Brock asked gently, moving closer to her. “What do you wish?”
“Nothing,” she said, shifting uncomfortably on her feet. “I just…I like this sort of thing so much. I wish I could do it myself.”
“Carpentry?” Brock asked with a grin.
She smiled ruefully back at him. “Maybe not. I don’t think I’d be all that skilled at the actual woodworking part. But I love getting an idea, you know, and then putting it into practice, taking something that’s old and neglected and making it beautiful again.”
“That’s not what you told me that day I met you.” Brock leaned an elbow against the mantel and looked down at her intently. She was standing so near that he could smell the damp fragrance of her hair and a faint elusive scent of perfume.
“It isn’t?” She looked up at him with that same wide-eyed cautious look, almost a touch of shyness in her voice and face. But, Brock noticed, she made no effort to move away from him, to put distance between them.
“No,” he said quietly. “Not at all. You said that you liked success, power, spending money, buying yourself beautiful clothes and cars and things like that.”
Amanda flushed and shook her head. “I don’t know why I said those things,” she murmured, her voice so low that he had to strain to hear her. “I was…annoyed by you, and the way you acted, and I just…they’re not really true, Brock.”
“Then let’s start again, shall we?” Brock whispered huskily. “Why don’t you tell me what you’re really like, girl?”
She placed her trembling hands on his broad chest as if to push him away. But Brock gathered her hands in both his own, then drew her tenderly into his arms and held her, shivering with the harsh agony of his longing.
“Oh, girl,” he muttered into the fragrant tumble of her hair. “Amanda, I’ve dreamed about you all my life. Just you, sweetheart. Your eyes, your hair and face and smile…”
She shivered in his arms and he crushed her close to him, running his hands over her body, marveling at the beauty of her, the firm curving loveliness that felt so right in his arms.
She murmured something against his denim shirtfront and Brock bent to hear, but she looked up just then and their lips met, touched, melted together in a kiss that lasted forever, that left Brock shaken and dazed with a throbbing need to make love to this woman.
He began to move his hands more urgently and she finally pulled away, flushed and confused.
Brock sensed her agitation and dropped his hands, looking down at her gravely.
“I’m sorry, Amanda,” he murmured, his voice husky with emotion. “I didn’t mean to upset you. It’s just that you’re so…”
“Don’t!” she whispered urgently, not looking at him. “Don’t say it, Brock. Please,” she added, glancing up at him with a pleading helpless expression that tore his heart. “Please, can’t we both just forget this ever happened?”
“I can’t,” Brock said calmly. “Not as long as I live. But if that’s what you want, Amanda, I won’t mention it again, and it won’t happen again unless you say so. I promise.”
She nodded, looking down at the floor while he gazed at her dark glossy head.
“Would you like some coffee?” he asked after a moment’s awkward silence.
She shook her head. “I just had some at Mary’s. I have to get home,” she added. “Edward will be waiting for me. We’re going out to dinner.”
“That’s the New York boyfriend?” Brock asked, keeping his voice casual and turning away to hide the pain in his eyes.
“Yes. He’s been here almost a week.”
Brock gave her another intent glance. “I see. Well, I’d ask how you two are getting along, but it’s none of my business, right?”
Amanda nodded uncertainly and moved with halting steps back into the kitchen, taking her cape from the chair and allowing Brock to help her put it on.
“Amanda,” he said, pausing with his hands on her shoulders.
“Yes?”
“I meant what I said. Nothing like this will happen again unless you want it to. Do you believe me?”
She looked up at him, searching his face with eyes so blue and deep that Brock found himself in real danger of drowning. “Yes,” she said finally, her voice grave and quiet. “Yes, Brock, I believe you.”
“Good,” he said, lifting his hands from her shoulders and trying to sound hearty. “In that case, do you think you could drop by again sometime soon, just to help me with the house? I told you before, Amanda, I really value your opinion, and I know you’re interested in this kind of thing. We could work on it together as friends, no pressure of any kind. What about it?”
She paused and glanced wistfully around the littered old kitchen. “I’d like that,” she said finally. “I’d really like that.”
“That’s great,” Brock said briskly.
“How about tomorrow?”
Amanda recoiled and moved nervously away. “Oh, no, not tomorrow,” she whispered. “Tomorrow Edward and I are planning to…he’s helping me with some inventory problems. I’m sorry, but I…”
“That’s all right. Whenever you have the time, Amanda. I’m always here. Alvin, quit licking her shoes, you monster! She doesn’t like you that much.”
Amanda laughed, clearly relieved at the change of subject. “Alvin’s a darling,” she said, bending to caress the besotted little dog, who promptly rolled over again to present his abdomen.
Amanda patted him a few more times, then straightened, murmured something inaudible to Brock and hurried out to her car. Brock watched her running across his yard, a slim flash of pale green in the rain-washed landscape.
Long after her car disappeared from view, he stood in the kitchen doorway and gazed out into the flowing silver light, his face bleak with loneliness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“I SUPPOSE you’re going to be far too full for dessert,” Edward said with an ironic grin, softening his words by reaching over to clasp Amanda’s hand on the table.
“Yes, I probably am,” Amanda said listlessly, causing her dinner companion to glance at her in surprise. “I wish I weren’t,” she added with a small faraway smile, freeing her hand and reaching for her wineglass. “This place serves the most wonderful chocolate cake.”
She sipped her wine, unaware of Edward’s concerned expression. Suddenly she was consumed by memories of Brock Munroe, of their dinner at this same restaurant, of his teasing conversation and his tanned quiet face in the candlelight.
And in spite of herself she remembered the way he’d kissed her just a few hours ago, an experience so shattering, so overpowering that she still quivered whenever she thought of his arms around her and his lips on hers.
Troubled and silent, Amanda picked at the remainder of her lobster and moved a piece of baked potato around on her plate.
What kind of woman was she, to be so completely absorbed with thoughts of one man while she was out with another? And far, far worse…what kind of woman would let a virtual stranger kiss her with that kind of passion on the very day she planned to invite another man into her bed?
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