by Susan Wiggs
“Enjoy your meal, Mr. Davis,” said the hostess as Connor held out a chair for Olivia.
“She just called you Mr. Davis.”
A date restaurant where they knew Connor’s name. Olivia said, “Did you do construction work here? Is that how they know you?” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she knew she’d done it again. “Oh, God,” she said. “I didn’t mean…I meant…”
“That you can’t conceive of me actually being a guest at this place?” he suggested.
Yes. That had been exactly what she meant, and he clearly knew it. Mercifully, he didn’t seem insulted at all. Instead, he gave her a smile that caused her heart to speed up.
The sommelier stopped by the table. “Will you be having wine tonight?” he asked.
“Definitely,” Connor said. “Do you have a preference?” he asked Olivia.
“White, please,” she said automatically.
“A bottle of the Hamilton Russell Chardonnay.”
Olivia was surprised. Most of the men she dated had fancied themselves wine aficionados, but they were always clueless, covering it up by ordering according to the menu price. Connor, on the other hand, had chosen a genuinely excellent bottle of wine from South Africa. Maybe that was a coincidence, but maybe not. Maybe he knew what he was doing. Every time she turned around, this man surprised her.
The food was perfection, beautifully arranged on thick white china plates. They had buttered filets of rainbow trout, locally grown produce, cups of huckleberries for dessert. While they ate, darkness fell and the moon came up, and a trio arrived to perform on drums, piano and clarinet. Olivia let the soothing sounds of the ensemble flow over her as she sipped the last of her wine.
“Thank you,” she said quietly to Connor.
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m not sure what I would’ve done without you today.”
“You’ve done fine without me for years.” He held out his hand, palm up. “Dance with me.”
The three little words should not have had the power to make her heart flip over in her chest. And yet that was her reaction, that and a flustered intake of breath.
Rather than waiting for her to answer, he took her hand, drew her to her feet and out onto the dance floor. “Do I make you nervous?”
“Do I seem nervous?”
“Yeah.”
“This is sort of…unexpected.”
“What’s unexpected?”
“That we seem to be attracted to one another, that this project has turned into…more than a job. I didn’t expect that. Did you?”
“Hell, yeah, I did.” He seemed incredulous that she would question it. “So now you’re starting to feel a little bit turned on by me, right?”
She swallowed past a sudden dryness in her throat and said, “I’m not starting to feel that way.” She had to swallow again before she could tell him the rest. “I started a long time ago.”
The couples around them, regardless of age, were all doing their own version of old-fashioned couples dancing. Olivia lost sight of everything except Connor. Under her left hand, she could feel the muscles of his arm. The brush of his hand against her was a wicked temptation. He led smoothly and with confidence. He even hummed along with the music, and initiated some risky turns and dips. He still had a nice voice, still had perfect pitch the way he had as a kid, the first summer she’d met him.
It was tempting to stay here with him and dance all night, but at the end of the number, she said, “We really should be going.”
“Why? Do you have a curfew?”
“Worse. I have a cousin. Nosiest cousin in the world, and I’m sharing a cabin with her.”
“Not to worry,” Connor said. “She’s on a date with Freddy tonight.”
“How do you know that?”
“I told them about the Jerry Lewis film festival at the drive-in movie in Coxsackie. Free Bobble Heads and everything.”
He made her laugh. She could not remember the last time she’d been on a date with a guy who made her laugh. One thing she did remember was how sexy that could be.
They danced through one more number, and then Connor said, “All right, Cinderella. Let’s roll.”
Against all expectations, she was feeling more relaxed and hopeful after the wine, the dancing, the laughter. “All right,” she said, tilting back her head to look up at him. “Let’s roll.”
She buckled herself into the seat beside him, her purse in her lap. Olivia took a deep breath, shut her eyes, leaned her head against the headrest.
“You all right?” Connor asked.
“I’m all right,” she said softly. She smiled, surprising herself because it was a genuine smile. She tried to figure out what she was feeling. Safety. That was it. She was with a man who made her laugh and made her feel safe. What a concept.
Then she opened her eyes and glanced over at him. Out here on the country road, there were no streetlights, so she could barely make out his profile in the glow from the console. The road at night was alarmingly busy with wildlife. Deer, raccoon, opossum and badger seemed to haunt the verges, often wandering out onto the pavement. “Careful,” she said.
“I’m always careful.”
They entered the city limits, lumbering over the railroad tracks. The train station and town square were artfully illuminated by floodlights. The bed-and-breakfast inns beckoned, warm and inviting, with lights in the windows, and Vacancy signs glowing softly.
“This place rolls up its sidewalks early,” Olivia observed.
“Seems to.”
“That shouldn’t bother me. Most weeknights, I make an early night of it.” Rand used to bug her about that. He loved to stay out late, trolling from club to club, feeling the reverberations of a deep bass beat, sighting people he knew and engaging in shouted, pointless conversations with them over pricey drinks delivered by beautiful waitresses. The next day, he rarely remembered whom he’d run into. He could never recall what was said during those lengthy, earnest discussions.
In Avalon’s town square, they passed the shop front of the Sky River Bakery. The hanging sign had a small spotlight shining on it. Through the display window, she could see the shadowy hulks of display cases and coffee equipment, and a security light blinking steadily in conjunction with the alarm system.
“A burglar alarm at a bakery,” she said. “I don’t get it. Especially since they’re just a few doors down from Palmquist Jewelry. If I was a thief, I’d go for the jewels, not the doughnuts.”
“You’ve obviously never had a maple bar from Majesky’s.”
“That good, huh?”
He glanced over at her. “Like a small orgasm.”
Yikes, she thought. This was flirting. They’d gone on a date and now they were flirting.
The lights of Avalon fell away as they headed up the mountain. En route, they passed a few farmhouses with lights glimmering in their windows. Then, after a long stretch of darkness, they came to the turnoff for Connor’s place, marked by reflective numbers on his mailbox. “Home, sweet home,” he murmured.
“Do you miss it?” she asked.
“Nope. I like staying at the camp. What about you? Do you miss your place in the city?”
“I thought I would, but I don’t,” she admitted. “Not one bit.” She was trying to figure out the reason for that. Was it because she knew the summer was speeding by, and she’d soon be home? Or because she’d found something better?
The truck whispered past the turnoff.
“I’ve never seen your place,” she commented. God, Olivia. Could you be any more obvious?
“Would you like to?”
“I’ve never even seen the inside of an Airstream.”
“Then I have no choice.” He stopped right in the middle of the road and put the car in Reverse. “It’s a matter of honor.”
“Good point,” she said, and smiled into the darkness.
Her pulse sped up as he turned down the gravel road, although she pretended as hard as she could tha
t this was strictly about satisfying her curiosity about the Airstream. Connor parked the car and cut the engine. She thought it was significant that he cut the engine.
Before she could let herself out, he was there, opening the door and giving her a hand. His touch felt so good. Solid and strong. And the mellow warmth of the wine still lingered. She felt so at ease with this man, as though nothing bad could happen to her as long as she was with him.
He opened the door and turned on a light. She stepped inside and saw that everything was neat and stowed. There was a diner-style booth and cupboards in the kitchen area, a two-burner range top and small fridge. The sitting area comprised a banquette with a low table in front of it and a TV and stereo anchored on a shelf. Then there was a narrow passageway with more cupboards, which she assumed led to the bedroom in the back.
Olivia was struck by the Spartan neatness of the place. She felt him watching her and realized she was staring. She smiled. “I was psychoanalyzing you based on the way you’ve organized everything.”
“Yeah?” He turned and took something from the fridge. “So am I a serial killer? A cross-dresser?”
“Neither,” she said. “My degree is in psychology. I can tell.”
“Then what?”
“At first I thought obsessive-compulsive, but it’s not that. Ex-military?”
He didn’t say anything.
That wasn’t it. She wondered if he was inclined to be so meticulous because of his chaotic childhood. Perhaps, out of a sense of self-preservation, he had been a very organized child, as careful with his belongings as he had been reserved with his emotions. Connor never said much about his life, and lately, she felt something more than nosiness. She wanted to know him, period. Not as a kid or a high-school crush, but as an adult. “Is it because you moved around a lot? Maybe you developed a habit of being neat in order to keep track of everything?”
“Never thought about it. If everything is where it belongs, then you never have to think.”
She suspected there was more to it. Maybe it was the only way to deal with the chaos of his mother’s life—the emotional roller coaster she seemed addicted to, her self-absorbed hunger for attention and approval, her disregard for her sons. “That’s not a very revealing answer,” she said.
“Neither is saying you were a psychology major. This is the purpose of dating, Lolly. To get to know each other.”
“Wait a minute. Dating? Who says we’re dating?”
“This feels like a date,” he said simply. “Dinner, dancing, a nightcap at my place.” He took out two slender, stemmed glasses. “To me, that spells date.”
“We skipped over the asking out and primping and getting nervous beforehand.”
“Yeah, who needs that?” He popped the cork on a bottle of Moscato and poured two glasses.
She sipped her wine and focused on four framed photographs, lined up on a narrow shelf above the built-in table. In one, Connor stood with his arm draped around his father’s shoulders as they stood side by side in front of a rock wall, with gardens and angular brick buildings behind them. Terry Davis appeared thin and haggard, with pale skin and dark circles under his eyes. Connor looked heartbreakingly young, like the boy she’d known years ago.
“Where was it taken?”
“That’s at a treatment center. The last one he attended.”
“I’m really happy for you and your dad,” she said. “You must be proud of him.”
“Yeah. I am.” For a moment, he looked as though he might tell her more, but then seemed to change his mind.
Olivia forbade herself to dig deeper, knowing he’d suffered horribly, growing up with a father who was an alcoholic. Not now, she thought. Connor was calling this a date. Bringing up old wounds would only spoil it. She thought about how different their lives had been, how sharply their paths had diverged. She’d always blamed the rift on the way he’d treated her, their last summer together, but that wasn’t it. Their directions had changed. She had entered the granite halls and tree-shaded quadrangles of Columbia, while he had been obliged to look after a man who was supposed to take care of him.
“You like the Moscato?” he asked.
She took a sip of the effervescent wine. “It’s delicious.” She studied a picture of a woman she’d never seen, whose gorgeous face was oddly mesmerizing. “Your mother?” she asked.
“That’s her.”
“She does look like Sharon Stone. You told me once that she did, and you’re right.”
Connor didn’t reply. In addition to being beautiful, she looked enigmatic, her eyes hard to read. Olivia wanted to know more about this woman, about Connor’s fractured family, but she didn’t know how to ask and yes, yet again, she didn’t trust herself to know what to say. Chicken, she thought, then indicated a long paper tube tucked into the shelf. Maybe this was safer territory. “Are those blueprints?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “You can check them out if you want.”
Curious, she unrolled the bundle, weighing down the corners with salt and pepper shakers, a napkin holder. “House plans,” she said.
“I’m going to break ground this fall,” he said, “and be done by next fall.”
Finally, she understood. The Airstream was only temporary. He was going to build this house, right here on this lot. From the elevation drawings, she could picture the finished place, situated in the brow of the hill, with a wraparound porch overlooking the river. The stone-and-timber construction had a subtly old-fashioned tone that would harmonize perfectly with the landscape. “This looks absolutely beautiful,” she said, studying the kitchen layout, the great room and fireplace.
“Thanks.”
“What’s this?” She pointed to the plans.
“I think the current trend is to call it a garden room. Like a sunroom. With library shelves.”
She could even make out the small, irregular shape of a baby grand. “You’re still musical,” she said.
“Aren’t you?”
“Not as much as I’d like.” She was going to explain that her tiny apartment had no room for a piano, but it was more than that. Her days were so busy, she had no time to give to playing the piano, even though she loved it. For some reason, seeing the house he wanted to build for himself made her feel a strange tug of…yearning? Recognition, maybe. Creating the place where you wanted to live your life was something she could relate to. Returning her attention to the floor plan, she asked, “Four bedrooms?”
“You never know,” he said.
She bit her lip, stopping herself from asking what she really wanted to know. Why isn’t there someone special in your life to share this with? There were a number of things that astonished her about Connor’s plans. But the thing that surprised her the most, the thing that maybe even scared her, was that these plans reflected things she’d wanted for herself. All right, so maybe her dreams were not unique, but still, it was strangely thrilling that he had unknowingly designed her dream house.
“You have a talented architect,” she said inanely.
“No, I don’t. These are my original plans.”
They looked every bit as precisely engineered as the plans made by a degreed architect, one with a special gift for design.
He laughed. “Don’t look so shocked, Lolly. There’s a local engineering firm that lets me use their blue-line machine. Is it so unbelievable that I could be self-taught?”
She had done it again. She had completely underestimated this man. She’d let surface appearances dictate what she thought of him. He had grown up poor, the product of a broken home, the son of a drunk and a difficult woman. She hadn’t let herself see beyond that. Now she realized there was so much more to him. Life hadn’t given him very many breaks, yet he’d made good, with an equity fund, a viable company and this God-given talent most architects had to study for years in order to achieve. She felt vaguely ashamed. Even knowing what she knew about him, she’d still thought of him as a biker who lived in a trailer. She hadn’t bothered to look an
y deeper.
“Well,” she said.” Well. I’m intrigued.”
“Good,” he replied. “Take off your clothes.”
“What?” Her cheeks flamed.
He laughed. “Just checking.”
“Checking for what?”
“To see if being intrigued is enough.”
“Not funny,” she snapped.
“But you’re still intrigued.”
“I might be.”
“Good,” he said. “That’s a start, then.”
“A start for what?”
“For this.” He kissed her, his movements slow and deliberate, completely in control.
Her response was anything but. The instant he touched his mouth to hers, it felt like a match touching dry kindling. She half expected to hear a whoosh as her hair ignited. He tasted of wine, and she parted her lips, wordlessly begging him to deepen his kiss. His hands cupped her shoulders and then slid down her arms and behind her back. She clung to him with a physical need she’d never felt before. What was it about this man, what made her so desperate to feel every inch of him against her? This, she thought, half-afraid, half in wonder, this was what had eluded her through far too many dates, through three failed romances. This sense that one man could obliterate the rest of the world. His kiss, the touch of his hands, took her somewhere far away, to a place of dreams.
He walked her backward a few steps through a narrow passageway. The room was dark, the louvered windows letting in a pine-scented breeze. She sank backward on the bed, keeping her arms around him.
“Damn,” he whispered, “I think you’re sexy as hell, Lolly.”
Oh, she wanted him, she wanted to be as sexy as he thought she was. It occurred to her that when she was with him, she was no longer Olivia, the three-time loser, Olivia, the unlucky in love. She was on fire with a heat that came from a hidden source inside her. She felt his hand on her bare leg, warm and searching, and she discovered to her complete amazement that she was about to lose it. And he hadn’t even…all it would take was…She started to move, pressing herself toward that tender, questing hand, wishing he would hurry.
