Social Graces

by Dixie Browning

  She was, painfully so. But she wasn’t about to admit it, much less explain her initial reason for coming here. Not that he’d even be interested.

  Watching him sip his tea, which had grown cold, Val wondered again what he was doing here. His accent wasn’t local. At least it wasn’t native. Perhaps he had relatives on the island—relatives who might even have known her own.

  Or not. One of the benefits she had recently discovered was anonymity. At least now when a stranger spoke to her, it was usually to ask if she weren’t Miss Achsah’s granddaughter, not to ask if she was Frank Bonnard’s daughter, and if so, how soon could they expect to be reimbursed for their lost savings.

  “I heard you’d moved down,” several people had said. People who’d known Grax. Friendly people, not prying—simply trying to place her in their context.

  “That’s right. She left me her house, so I’m living there now,” she always replied, increasingly proud of her legitimate link to the island. Roots might not have mattered to her mother, but Val was more than ready to reconnect. Her father had been an only son whose parents had been killed in an embassy bombing back in the eighties. There was nothing for her back in Greenwich, but here? Time would tell.

  Mac finished his thick ham, cheese, lettuce, onion and salsa on rye and shoved his chair back. Slinging one leg across the other, he picked up his cup, stared blandly at the tepid brew and set it down again.

  “More tea? I could heat more water.” She half rose from her freshly scrubbed white-enameled chair.

  “Thanks, I’m fine.” He frowned. She had a feeling he had something on his mind and was searching for the best way to phrase it.

  Please tell me you’re not backing out of our deal, she thought anxiously. There was still the flashing and the floor under the washer. The washer itself, for that matter. The thing leaked, and she certainly couldn’t afford to replace it.

  Had he noticed the way she’d looked at him when he was on the ladder or backing out from under the house? Was he uncomfortable sharing a house with her? There was no way they could avoid close contact in such a small house. The least thing—reaching into the same kitchen cabinet at the same time so that their hands brushed, or playing dodge as they passed in the hallway, one carrying a basket of laundry, the other a handful of tools—took on added intimacy.

  Once in the middle of the night, unable to sleep, she’d padded into the kitchen for a glass of milk and he’d been there. In a chair that had been turned toward the window, he’d been seated with his back to her, yet he’d known she was there. He couldn’t have heard her, yet he hadn’t even had to turn around. Barefoot and bare-chested, he’d been wearing only a pair of sweatpants. “Can’t sleep?” he’d asked, his voice edged with middle-of-the-night roughness.

  “Thirsty,” she’d mumbled, and that had been the end of it. She’d poured her milk, taken it back to the bedroom with her and forgotten to drink it. At least the focus of her worries shifted to something more pleasurable, if no more productive, than how to get to the bottom of what had happened back in Greenwich.

  Neither of them had mentioned it the next day. He had to know women found him attractive. Thank goodness they were both sensible adults and not impressionable, impulsive, hormone-driven kids.

  “Why don’t we go in where it’s warm before we tackle the next job?” he said. She’d mentioned being constantly cold, and the drafty kitchen was on the northeast side of the house, directly facing the wind.

  Darn it, if he was going to be nice to her, all bets were off. Sex rarely tempted her, it was just something a man expected from any woman he dated more than once, especially if he gave her a ring. Personally, she could take it or leave it. Mostly, she’d rather leave it. Tripp had suggested she talk to her physician about hormone supplements before they were married.

  There was definitely nothing wrong with her hormones—if nothing else she had learned that much over the past few days. Actually, what tempted her even more than the aura of sexuality Mac wore as casually as a favorite pair of faded jeans was the sense of strength he radiated. Not the macho-aggressive kind of strength, but the warm, benign kind. She found herself wanting to lean on him, to curl up in those powerful arms and forget everything but the moment.

  Of course, if her hormones wanted to get in on the act, who was she to argue with nature?

  Suddenly the small house felt entirely too intimate, almost as if it hummed with an energy all its own. “Can we get to the washing machine sometime today?” she asked abruptly. “I really do need it, but not if it’s going to flood again and fall through the floor.”

  “I’ll check out the hoses.” To add to an already potent mix, he had one of those deep, quiet voices that registered in her nethermost regions.

  “Thanks.” Feeling a restless need to do something physical, she wandered into the living room, averting her face from the box of file folders that still awaited her attention.

  He followed, lingering in the open doorway. It was toasty warm in the small room. If there’d been an open fire, she’d have avoided it like the plague, but there was nothing romantic about a smelly old oil stove.

  She said, “I suppose now that the useable parts of the house are as clean as they’re likely to get anytime soon, I might as well finish unpacking.” Two boxes remained, one of odds and ends, the other containing files. She’d already dipped into the latter several times, coming away after each session more frustrated, none the wiser.

  “Need any help?”

  “Oh—no, thanks. It’s just…” She needed help, but she doubted if his talents ran to bookkeeping or accounting. Hers certainly fell lamentably short. From what she’d seen so far, most of the files should have been shredded months, even years ago. Old bank statements for people she’d never heard of. Other papers, none of which appeared to be related to BFC. Sooner or later she was going to have to wade through every single item in search of something she probably wouldn’t recognize if she saw it.

  Why, she kept asking herself, had her father asked her to remove these particular files from his study? Following his instructions, she had gathered up only the unlabeled ones, leaving the alphabetized ones in place.

  Could she have got it wrong? She’d been frantic that day—she might have misunderstood.

  God, she hated feeling so inadequate.

  Sighing, she stared at the stove that had been finished to resemble wood grain, which suddenly struck her as absurd. Nerves tight as a bowstring, she snickered.

  “Something funny?”

  “The stove.” She nodded toward the ugly metal box that sat on a brown metal pad in front of the boarded-up fireplace. “Would you call that a pecan or a rosewood finish?”

  Mac glanced at her, saw her blink away a film of moisture, but remained silent.

  “These fumes,” she grumbled. “What would it take to get rid of the stove and open up the fireplace again?”

  “An adjustment in your insurance policy, for one thing,” he said dryly. He sniffed. The fumes were barely noticeable. The lady was edgy. Too much pressure applied too fast, he cautioned himself, and she’d either clam up or break.

  Somewhat to his surprise, he was no longer certain he wanted her to break. The more he was around her, the more unwelcome doubts were creeping in. Will had called late last night to ask if he’d learned anything yet.

  “Look, you might as well know,” his stepbrother had said. “Macy’s left me. She said her lawyer would be in touch, so I guess it’s official.”

  “Hey man, that’s tough.” What could he say? Congratulations?

  “Yeah, like I really need another lawyer in my life.”

  Now Mac studied the woman who was backed up to the stove, toying with a place on her inner thumb where a blister had burst. “Don’t pick at it,” he warned. “Where’s your first aid stuff? You need to put something on it.”

  “I forgot to bring any.” A wistful smile flickered past so quickly he thought he might’ve imagined it. She snagged her full lower l
ip between her teeth, shifting his attention away from her hands.

  “Salt’ll toughen your skin up, but it’ll burn like the devil.”

  “No thanks, I’m healthy as a horse.” This time the smile lingered long enough to knock the wind out of his sails.

  “Why do you think there are veterinarians?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’d better get the rest of the plastic on the windows before I tackle the other rooms upstairs. I did my bedroom and the bathrooms first thing, but I keep the other rooms closed.”

  He could have told her that her makeshift storm windows wouldn’t do her much good, with all the gaps she’d left between staples, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “Let me do the rest. I can reach without having to stand on anything.” Meanwhile, the air leaks from those she’d already covered would serve to offset any fumes from the old stove.

  Besides, he didn’t want to see her balanced on one of those spindly kitchen chairs, her shapely little behind roughly at eye level. He remembered too well the legendary sirens that reportedly lured unwary seamen to their death.

  “You never did say where you were from,” Val ventured a few hours later as she dried the last dish and placed it in the cabinet. The dinnerware was mismatched, most of it cheap and ugly. There were only a few pieces of the delicate pattern she half remembered from her one and only visit.

  “Hmm?” He was peering out the window at the traffic rolling past, mostly SUVs with rod holders affixed to one or the other bumper like big snaggled teeth.

  Forthcoming, he wasn’t, but as long as they were sharing a house, it only made sense to know something about him. She was beginning to suspect that he was no ordinary handyman. In fact, he occasionally struck her as almost scholarly. Not that a handyman couldn’t be educated, but still…

  An out-of-work professor? One on sabbatical? One who couldn’t get tenure, perhaps, and had quit in a huff?

  Whatever else he was, MacBride wasn’t the huffy type.

  “New England,” he said. “Mostly coastal.”

  It took her a moment to remember what she’d asked him. That explained the shirt. “I’m from Connecticut, isn’t that a coincidence? How long have you been here on Hatteras Island?” In other words, what’s a splendid creature like you doing clanking around in a tool belt in exchange for room and board?

  Something didn’t add up, and she wanted it to. She really, really wanted him to be exactly who and what he professed to be. The last thing she needed was one more mystery to deal with.

  “Not long,” he said in answer to her inquiry.

  “Me, either. Actually, I believe I mentioned that I’d barely moved in when you came along. Thank goodness Marian found you—she was afraid all the available help was tied up on all these cottages under construction.”

  The odd look that came over his face was gone too quickly to interpret. He shrugged and said, “Lucky I was between jobs.”

  “Lucky for me.” But the more she was around him, the more certain she was that there was more to MacBride than met the eye. Not that what met the eye wasn’t distracting enough.

  They chatted a few more minutes while she wiped off the table and counters, comparing the New England coast with the mid-Atlantic area. Val picked over his brief responses, searching for clues. When Mac switched topics and mentioned the weather, she said, “It might be a good idea to check the oil in the tank if you know how. I’d hate to have to rely on those little space heaters.”

  “I’ll check next time I go outside.”

  To think she had always taken heating and air-conditioning for granted. Considering how much her father had spent on her education, from boarding school through college, she couldn’t help but think what a waste it had been. She could probably qualify as a candidate for one of those TV reality shows. Sheltered woman, loaded with social graces, falls out of the nest and gets smacked upside the head by real life.

  Tripp used to talk about the “little people,” as if a lower tax bracket were indicative of an entirely different species. It had always irritated her, but she’d let it pass. Tripp had political aspirations. He was going to be the “champion of the little people.”

  No wonder he’d been so quick to dump her, she thought, more amused than hurt. A business scandal that included not only a loss of wealth and social position, but a father-in-law who’d died in jail waiting to be indicted for embezzlement from his own company, was hardly the kind of baggage an ambitious young politician needed.

  On the other hand, she was now one of the “little people” he’d vowed to help. Could he help her to learn to use a washing machine without flooding half the house? Or show her how to wield a mop and a broom without raising trophy-sized blisters on thumb and forefinger? Or cook bacon without setting off the smoke alarms?

  She became aware that Mac was studying her with a curious look on his face. “What?” she snapped.

  He flipped his hands palm up in a gesture of surrender. “You were looking pretty grim there for a minute.”

  “I was thinking about—about my furniture.”

  He nodded slowly, as if he might be evaluating her sanity.

  “Well, you’ve got to admit it’s ugly.”

  “I’ve seen better.” And before she could comment, he added, “Seen worse, too. Hey, it’s not so bad. At least it’s comfortable…for the most part.”

  “All the same, I intend to replace a few things in the very near future, starting with the mattresses and bedsprings.”

  That is, if Marian still needed someone to clean cottages.

  “Plywood’s good enough for me. I’ll do your bed, too, if you’d like. And by the way, you need new batteries in the smoke detectors. The one in the hall’s started clicking.”

  “Put it on the list.” She wiped up a damp spot on the counter with more energy than the task demanded. “I guess you’d better cook the bacon from now on. I probably wore it out. The smoke detector, not the bacon. Either that or stock up on batteries.”

  He smiled and finally she did, too. His smiles were contagious and she was far from immune. It occurred to her that Miss Mitty would have liked him, and Mitty Stoddard’s people-instincts were infallible.

  Later that afternoon Val went through a file full of receipts for landscape services, plumbing and a new set of tires, most of them dated between two and eleven years ago.

  Her father had scribbled across most of them—meaningless words, initials and series of numbers that defied interpretation.

  “I need an aspirin,” she muttered. “Either that or a Rosetta Stone.”

  Five

  Tired of the fruitless task of searching for a needle in a paper haystack, Val headed for the kitchen for something rich and sinfully decadent. Lacking any thing better, peanut butter dipped in chocolate syrup would serve as an antidote to frustration, only she didn’t have any chocolate syrup.

  Speaking of sinfully decadent, Mac was on his knees under the kitchen sink, an array of tools and a section of drainpipe beside him. She paused in the doorway to admire the view.

  “Hmm?” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Nothing. That is, I thought we might take a peanut—that is, a tea break between chores.”

  He backed out, bumped his head on the edge of the sink and started to swear, but cut it off. “Are we between chores?”

  “I am. I’ve just gone through a dozen years of worthless receipts for a house I don’t even own. I had no idea plumbers charged so much. Are we sure I can afford you?”

  Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he grinned up at her. “Depends. How good you are with a pipe wrench?”

  “About as good as I am with a frying pan.”

  “That good, huh?” He chuckled, and in one fluid movement, came to his feet only inches from where she was standing.

  She inhaled sharply, aware of the intoxicating aroma of clean male sweat and the laundry detergent she’d bought because it promised sunshine-fresh results. “Yes, well…we all have our talents.”


  His eyes sparkled like polished amber. “Any in particular you’d care to brag about?”

  She stepped back and tripped on a chair. He caught her arm before she could fall. “Let me guess,” he said, briefly steadying her against his body. “You’re a ballet dancer, right?”

  No, she was a blithering idiot. She’d heard the term brain drain, but she’d never before experienced it personally. She backed away and he let her go, watching her as if he knew to the exact heartbeat how his touch affected her.

  “How’d you guess?” When poise deserts, play the clown. “Three years, starting at age five.” She struck a pose. “I was the one whose tights were always twisted, the one who was forever relegated to the back row because I was always two steps out of synch with the rest of the chorus.”

  He laughed as he was meant to do and the moment passed, leaving her breathless, but otherwise unharmed. Now that she knew how susceptible she was, she’d take care to avoid further touching. Consider him her personal poison ivy.

  “How about you? You’re musical, right?” A little polite sarcasm couldn’t hurt. “I’ve heard you whistling.”

  “Ouch,” he said softly. “That smarts. I’ll have you know I played comb and tissue with a four-man band when I was in seventh grade. I wanted to be one of the Bee Gees. Never got the call, though.”

  “So you reluctantly settled for being a repairman,” she said, and this time they both laughed. What had happened, she wondered, in the years between comb-and-tissue player and pipe-wrench wielder?

  “Among other things. But about your plumbing,” he said, a hint of laughter lingering in his eyes, his voice.

  She really didn’t want to hear about her plumbing, it was those “other things” she was curious about. “Let’s go outside first, shall we? The front porch is sunny and out of the wind.” And the kitchen was too darn small. The entire house was too small. For all she knew, the whole island might not be large enough for her to ignore his presence.

  Avoiding the swing by mutual consent, they sat in the weathered Adirondacs, feet propped on the rail. There was a small graveyard on the other side of the road, backed by acres of marsh and stunted maritime forest. Two white herons flapped lazily across the rushes to land on the pale branches of a bay tree.