Lizabeth gestured to the envelopes. "There were a few things I felt comfortable handling, but you'd better check everything just to make sure. I've tried to divide the rest up into categories. Bills, bids, contracts. I've filed the catalogs and advertisements."
She'd shut off the air-conditioning and opened the sliding patio door, letting the moist morning air pour into the basement. Her hair had begun to curl in ringlets that pressed against her temples and straggled over her forehead, and her face was alive with a sense of accomplishment. Matt watched her push the hair back from her face, and felt himself go breathless. Every movement she made excited him, every part of her seemed perfect, exquisite. He wanted to reach out and tangle his hand in her hair. He wanted to kiss the spot of downy-soft skin in front of her earlobe. He wanted to hear the little catch in her throat that meant passion had caught her by surprise, had overwhelmed her, had rushed through her like a flash fire. Another time, he told himself. He wasn't in the mood to start something he couldn't finish. Three hours of sleep had left him with a short fuse. He was trying to impress the lady with his compassion and sensitivity. So he struggled to keep up the casual attitude they normally fell into during work hours.
She was the sort of woman who always rose to a challenge, he thought. And she took pride in a job well done. He liked that in a person. He didn't have a bunch of fancy degrees behind his name, but he knew everything there was to know about building houses. He could figure out a mortgage payment faster than a calculator. And he knew about people. He knew talent when he saw it, and he knew he needed Lizabeth in the office almost as badly as he needed her in his life. "Lizabeth, you've just been promoted to General Office Manager. You're going to like this job. It pays twice as much as your old one."
"Can you afford to do that?"
Matt glanced down at the wrinkled forms on the desk. "I can't afford not to. I'm sinking. I build beautiful houses, but I'm an unorganized slob."
It was the truth, Lizabeth thought. He was a slob, and he was sinking. From what she'd seen this morning, bills were going unpaid through negligence, several bids had expired, and food poisoning had to be a constant danger. "Do I work the same hours?"
"You work whatever hours you want. If you can get the job done in three hours and want to go home, that's fine by me. Ill pay you for a full day anyway." And she would be rested by evening, he thought. He had plans for her evenings.
She was still working at five-thirty. "I'm almost done," she said, running her finger down a column of numbers. "I've made out tomorrow's payroll checks, and I think I've got your accounting system figured out. It's no wonder you couldn't run this office while you were building houses. Five years ago, when you and Frank went into business for yourselves, you were building one house at a time, and the paperwork was manageable. You're now building three houses on this site, and you have a fifteen-acre parcel of land seven miles south of here that you're having partially cleared for future development. You've expanded your business, but you haven't expanded your support staff. For starters, I think you need a professional accountant. And I think you need to upgrade your office equipment."
"I know. Frank and I had been talking about it, and then he broke his hip, and I didn't have time to look into any of that stuff. Maybe you could do it for me. Find us an accountant, and buy whatever you think we need." He closed the ledger she was studying. "Right now, we need to go home. You know how Elsie hates people being late for dinner. If I don't get you home by six she won't feed me."
Lizabeth stood and stretched and realized they'd driven to work on the Harley. That meant they were going to have to go home on the Harley. Unless she chickened out and walked. The thought prompted a small groan that was caught and squelched midway in her throat. She wasn't sure what the groan represented. Fear? Excitement? Embarrassment? She followed Matt up the stairs and said a silent prayer that a miracle would happen and they could sneak into her driveway without anyone noticing. If she was going to hyperventilate, she'd prefer to do it with some privacy.
"Lord, Lizabeth," Matt said, "you look like you're going to keel over, and you haven't even gotten on the bike yet." He massaged the back of her neck. "You have to relax."
"I'm relaxed," Lizabeth said.
"Honey, you're not breathing. Listen, we could walk. Or I could zip on home and come back for you in the truck." He felt her spine stiffen, felt determination push aside fear. She was a fighter. She wasn't a woman who gave in to weakness. Hawkins blood, Elsie would say. And she might be right. The thought brought a smile to his lips.
"What's so funny?"
"I was just thinking that you and Elsie are a lot alike."
"Omigod."
Ten minutes later they pulled into Lizabeth's driveway, and a silver Lincoln pulled up behind them. Matt and Lizabeth got off the bike, removed their helmets and watched Paul Kane emerge from his air-conditioned car. His hair was dark, peppered with gray at the temples. His features were classic all-American and as bland as white bread. He was wearing a gray pin-striped, summer-wool, custom-tailored suit, starched pinpoint oxford-cloth cotton shirt, burgundy silk foulard tie. The first expression to register on his face was surprise, quickly followed by undisguised disgust.
"My ex-husband," Lizabeth said.
Matt squinted at him. "It's eighty-five in the shade. How does he manage to look like that?"
"Paul Kane's pants wouldn't dare wrinkle."
So far Matt hadn't liked anything he'd heard about Paul Kane, and now that he saw him he liked him even less. He especially didn't like the way he was looking at Lizabeth. "Suppose I punch him in the nose."
"I don't think that's necessary. Seeing the mother of his children on the back of a motorcycle had to be the equivalent of a good punch in the gut."
Matt slid a protective arm around her shoulders. "Sorry he caught you rolling in on my Harley. Are you embarrassed?"
Lizabeth tipped her head back and laughed. "Are you kidding? This Harley has class! It's a hog. I never really appreciated it until I saw the look on Paul's face."
"He was horrified," Matt said.
"Mmmm," Lizabeth mused. "I probably looked like that the first time I saw your Harley sitting in your living room. But I'm better now," she added. "I can run across a board in the rain, and I can almost have fun on a motorcycle."
She closed the gap between the two men and extended her hand. "Nice to see you again, Paul." He gave her the required hand squeeze and cast a glance at the house. He withheld comment, but the glance was enough. Five years ago she would have been devastated by that dismissal, Lizabeth thought. Today she found it amusing, maybe even satisfying. Her house didn't measure up to Paul Kane's standards and to her that seemed to be a step in the right direction. Paul Kane was a snob, a stuffed shirt, a shallow person. And to quote Elsie, he was a horse's behind.
"Seems to be a family-oriented neighborhood," Paul said. "I imagine you feel comfortable here."
"It's perfect," Lizabeth said. "The boys have lots of friends. They can walk to school, and I can walk to work."
Concern flicked across Kane's brow. "What sort of job do you have that you can walk to work?"
His mouth tightened. "You're not a domestic, are you?"
"No," Lizabeth said, "I'm a carpenter. Actually, I suppose I'm not a carpenter anymore. I just got a promotion."
"Wonderful. What were you promoted to? Back-hoe driver?"
"Office manager," Lizabeth said, enjoying the moment, knowing Paul wouldn't think any more of office manager than backhoe driver. "And this is my boss. Matt Hallahan."
The two men measured each other. When it became obvious neither was going to observe the usual amenity of a polite handshake, Lizabeth took over. "Elsie will be serving dinner in a few minutes." She turned to Paul. "Would you like to join us? It will give you a chance to say hello to the boys."
Color suddenly stained his cheeks. "Elsie's here? Crazy Elsie Hawkins? The woman who talks to pigeons?"
Lizabeth smi
led. This was getting better and better. "Elsie's spending the summer with us. I needed a baby-sitter for Billy and Jason."
"I suppose Lizzie Borden was your first choice."
"Very funny," Lizabeth said. "I'm going to tell Elsie you said that, and she'll make you eat pork-chop fat."
Elsie met them on the front porch. "You come all the way up from Virginia just so you could mooch a pork chop?" she said to Paul.
Paul made a strangled sound in the back of his throat. "Nice to see you again, Elsie."
"He wants something," Elsie said to Lizabeth when they were alone in the kitchen. "The man's a taker. Never could understand why you married him. The first time I laid eyes on him I thought he was a pig's patoot."
Lizabeth took the buttermilk biscuits from the oven and dumped them into a basket lined with a white linen napkin. She and the boys had lived alone for over a year now, and Paul had called only a handful of times. He'd sent their Christmas presents UPS and completely missed Jason's birthday. Lizabeth had to agree with Elsie. There was no possibility that this was simply a friendly visit. She filled a big bowl with mashed potatoes that had been warming on the stove and filled another bowl with steamed green beans. She took the pork chops and cooked apple rings from the oven and arranged them on a ceramic platter. Ferguson quietly inched his way up behind her and grabbed a pork chop.
"Damn dog!" Elsie shouted, smacking Ferguson on the top of his head with her wooden spoon. Ferguson opened his mouth in surprise, and the pork chop fell onto the linoleum floor. Elsie picked the pork chop up and brushed it off. "It's okay," she said, carefully setting it apart from the others. "We’ll give it to Paul."
Matt might have cheered up some over dinner if he'd known Paul was eating dog drool. As it was he was having a difficult time dealing with the emotions Paul Kane triggered in him. He was overwhelmed with protective instincts and powerless to act on them. His anger simmered as he watched two of the most gregarious children he'd ever met turn excruciatingly shy. Jason and Billy hadn't mumbled more than three words throughout the entire meal. They kept their eyes on their plates, fiddling with their meat and pushing their beans into their mashed potatoes. Matt understood the sudden personality shift. He knew what it was like to be ignored by your father. And he knew all the manifestations of rejection: denial, animosity, self-doubt. People like Paul Kane didn't deserve to have terrific kids like Billy and Jason, and Billy and Jason didn't deserve to have a father like Paul Kane. Matt almost felt sorry for Kane. The man had to be a total imbecile to have let Lizabeth, Jason, and Billy walk out of his life. A mistake he didn't intend to make, Matt thought. He wanted to give them all the love he'd never received. All the support. All the understanding. He wanted to teach the boys to paddle a canoe, and he wanted to buy them ice-cream cones on hot summer nights, and he wanted to be there when they split their lips trying to do wheelies on their dirt bikes.
The evening was growing painful for Lizabeth as well. The earlier joy at shocking her ex-husband had turned to despair as she watched her sons struggle through the meal. She'd forgotten how tongue-tied they became when they were with their dad. She shouldn't have invited him to dinner, but she'd honestly hoped for a warm reunion. Actually, Paul wasn't behaving badly, she thought. He was being the perfect politician, making innocuous dinner conversation, smiling at the appropriate moments, easing around Elsie's occasional barbs. It was the sort of performance that had first piqued her interest in him. He could be gracious and charming when he wanted, and fool that she was, she had married him, not realizing that the interest in others was feigned and the kindness self-serving. Paul Kane was an entirely selfish man.
Billy and Jason Kane knew all this. And it didn't matter. He was their dad, and they waited like street urchins, silently begging for crumbs of affection and acceptance.
"Well, what have you accomplished this summer?" Paul asked Jason.
Jason looked at his father with wide eyes. At age eight he still had a soft, baby's mouth. The mouth opened, but no words emerged. He blinked once and held tightly to his fork. "Nothin.” he finally whispered.
"Surely you've done something?"
"No sir."
Paul Kane looked pleased. "I think you’ll find the next two weeks a nice change of pace then. For the next two weeks you’ll have lots of interesting things to do."
Lizabeth leaned forward slightly. "What are you talking about?"
"Surely you haven't forgotten. These are my two weeks with the boys. It was very clearly spelled out in the divorce agreement."
Panic prickled at the nape of Lizabeth's neck and expanded in her chest, making it difficult to breathe. "But you've never called! You've never mentioned it. You've never shown any desire to spend time with them ..."
"I've been busy," Paul said, a sly little cat's smile playing over his face.
Billy coolly stared at his father. "What will we do with you?"
"You'll come live in my house, of course. I've made arrangements for you to have tennis and swim lessons at the club."
"I guess that would be okay," Billy said. "It's just for two weeks, isn't it?"
Jason bit into his lower lip. "Can I bring my bear?"
Paul looked to Lizabeth. "His bear?".
"You remember, the fuzzy brown teddy bear he takes to bed. Woobie."
"You won't be needing Woobie," Paul said to Jason. "You'll have better things to occupy your mind."
Jason pressed his lips together and scowled. "I'm not going without Woobie."
Paul shot Lizabeth a look that said his suspicions had been confirmed. She was a total failure as a mother.
"Of course you can take Woobie," Elsie said. "And I'll take care of him for you when you go off to them fancy tennis lessons."
Kane raised his eyebrows. "Excuse me?"
"Don't worry about it," Elsie said. "I'm not charging Lizabeth anything for being nursemaid and I won't charge you neither."
"I don't need a nursemaid ..."
"Of course you need a nursemaid. An eight-year-old needs constant supervision. You gonna watch him twenty-four hours a day so he don't nail your shoes to the floor? And more than that, you're not taking these kids out of the house without me. I agreed to take care of them for the summer and that's what I aim to do."
"Suppose I refuse to take you."
Elsie narrowed her eyes. "Then I get in my Caddy, and I drive to that ritzy house you got in Virginia, and I sit on the lawn until the police come to take me away. I imagine that'll be pretty newsworthy. If I sit on that lawn long enough I might make Good Morning America."
Kane considered it for a moment. "I suppose a live-in baby-sitter wouldn't be a bad idea."
Elsie plunked a fresh-baked apple pie on the table. "You help yourself to some pie, and I'll get us all packed up."
Seven
Lizabeth sat on her front porch and watched the sun set behind Noogie Newsome's house. She cast a disparaging glance at the tent caterpillars in the Newsomes' crab-apple tree and clucked her tongue at the rusted antenna that halfheartedly clung to the Newsomes' chimney. "Sunsets aren't what they used to be," she said with a sigh.
Matt cocked an eyebrow. "What did they used to be?"
"Pretty. They used to be pretty." She hunched forward, elbows on knees, chin resting on her hands. "Who wants to see the sun setting behind the Newsomes' ugly old TV antenna?"
"Honey, the sun always sets behind the Newsomes' TV antenna."
"Yes, but I never had time to watch it set before. I never realized how ugly it was."
Matt patted her on the knee and continued to scratch the top of Ferguson's head.
"And it's boring In this neighborhood. People grow grass as an intellectual pursuit," Lizabeth said.
"It's not such a bad neighborhood."
"Sure, it's fine if you have kids and they keep you busy. Then you don't have time to be grossed out by lawn fungus."
"Lizabeth, the kids have only been gone for a half hour. "
"You think
they'll be okay?"
It was the four hundredth time she'd asked that since Paul had left with Jason and Billy. Matt answered it just as he always did. "They'll be fine. Elsie's with them."
"I suppose you're right," she said morosely. She stared at the Newsomes' chimney, and a tear squeezed out of her eye and trickled down her cheek. "I hate that damn TV antenna."
Matt wiped the tear away and gathered her to him. "We need to take your mind off this antenna stuff. We need recreation."
"I don't want to leave the house," Lizabeth said softly. "Elsie said she'd call when they got to Richmond."
"Your answering machine will take the message."
"I don't have an answering machine."
"Oh. Well then, how about if we rent a movie for the VCR?"
"I don't have a VCR."
Ferguson sunk his teeth into Matt's shirtsleeve and gave it a yank. Matt stuck his finger through the hole Ferguson had made and scowled. "Forget it. I'm not scratching your head anymore."
"It's my fault," Lizabeth said. "He always gets grumpy when I get grumpy. He's very sensitive."
Matt thought Ferguson was about as sensitive as a brick. "All right, you and Ferguson stay here, and I'll see what I can do about the evening's entertainment."
"No mud wrestlers, please."
He left on the motorcycle, but he returned in the truck. Lizabeth looked at the boxes and quilted bundles in the back of the pickup. "What is all this? It looks like laundry."
"It's stuff from my house. I figure it'll get more use over here."
She grabbed a box and trailed after him. He'd brought a VCR. a telephone answering machine, his popcorn popper, two boxes of movies, a box full of junk food, a Monopoly game that looked like it had been run over by a semi, a huge jug of red wine, and a small paper bag that Lizabeth discovered contained three packages of condoms— thirty-six in all.
Matt looked at his cache of goodies. "This should keep us busy."
Lizabeth held the little bag between thumb and forefinger. "Thirty-six?"
"You think I overestimated?"
"You weren't planning on using them all tonight, were you?"
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