“Yes, but it’s not usually the subject of such intense interest.”
“And what am I supposed to do next?”
“Next?”
“If we were courting.”
“If you were from Deerhorn, you’d take me out to dinner a few more times, you’d introduce me to your family, I’d introduce you to mine, and then we’d take the relationship further.”
“We’ve already taken the relationship further.”
“True,” Stacy said, blushing. “And you met my sister Marion when she fell off your trellis. Shame about all that clematis.”
“She couldn’t shake hands all that well—and she seemed a mite upset.”
“And I’ve met your daughter…but, Adam, what about the rest of your family?”
“Not much to tell. My mother is dead three years past,” he said, accepting her murmured sorry with a nod. “And my dad, well, you say I’m a wanderer, well, he beat me at that game. One day he ran off with a dancer. Not the ballet kind. I don’t even know where he is now.”
“A wanderer just like you.”
“Not like me,” Adam said vehemently. “I’m taking care of Karen—my dad just left me and my mother. I’m different. Period. And, besides, he never wanted to stay in the same place more than a day.”
“And you do?”
“I do now.”
She didn’t have the chance to challenge him because the mayor had approached their booth, quite obviously waiting for an invitation to sit down. Even as his wife, seated at the other end of the restaurant, waved her arms and hissed at him to leave the lovebirds alone. His son Bob, dressed in royal-blue pants, a silver lamé suit jacket and a spiky blue-black ’do, slipped low in his seat—dying of embarrassment.
“Adam, Stacy, good to see you…together,” Lefty said. “And I’m sorry to interrupt, but this is important.”
“Join us,” Adam said, squeezing closer to Stacy. “What is it?”
“The school,” Mayor Pincham said heavily. He sat down. “Betty told me this morning that you’re not working for Lasser anymore.”
“If you’re worried about the school getting built, Lasser will send somebody else up. It might take a few days to scare up a—”
“That’s just the point. He won’t. I called him this afternoon. Devil of a time gettin’ hold of him—but when I did, he didn’t take but two seconds to tell me. No school. His crew’s already gone back to Chicago and is packing for a Vegas trip. There wasn’t anything I could do to persuade him to change his mind—not even when I said I’d be happy with a statue of him.” His mouth twisted at the mere thought of such a monstrosity.
“Adam, if you just go to him and tell him you’ll take your job back—” Stacy pleaded.
“Is this because you want a school?”
“Yes,” Stacy answered. “But also, I want you to have what you want in life.”
Adam shook his head. “I’ve got a better idea,” he said, shoving the table back. He stood up and cleared his throat. “Who’s the best carpenter in town?”
Diners stopped mid-bite and mid-sentence. A few women nudged their husbands’ elbows. Bob Pincham slid so far down in his seat that he was able to rest his feet on the chair across from him.
“I said—who’s the best carpenter in town?”
A hand, calloused and worn, rose from a four-some near the kitchen.
“That’d prob’ly be me,” its owner said, rising from his seat. He tugged at a ten-year-old blue tie that he still wasn’t quite used to wearing. “Least aways, I think I am.”
“Sure,” Mayor Pincham said. “Ted’s a great carpenter. Made our kitchen cabinets.”
“All right. I’ve got a carpenter. And who’s the best mason?” Adam asked.
Two hands shot up. One belonged to a jowly faced man in a plaid sports jacket. The other to a dour young man sitting with his wife. The two men stood up.
“Me and Red,” the jowly man said, pointing to the other. “Me and Red worked in Geneva for a while. But after the addition to the hotel was built, we didn’t get another job. We’d like to help you, Tyler. It’s not like we’re doin’ anything ’cept collecting our unemployment checks, watching soap operas and drinking beer.”
“Two’s not enough,” Adam said. “Think you can teach someone?”
The two men nodded as a broadly built older woman raised her hand.
“I’d like to learn,” she said. “I don’t have kids at home anymore. I could do it.”
Seven more diners stood up, volunteering to learn. A busboy, one of the curious who had come out from the kitchen, raised his hand and said he’d like to learn a trade.
“I’m nineteen, got a wife with a baby on the way,” he said. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful to my boss here, but I need a trade that has a future. Masonry sounds as good as anything else.”
“We’ll teach you.” Red allowed.
“I’ll baby-sit anybody who needs it,” Mrs. Smith, the elementary teacher said, pushing her chair back from her table. “And my husband can help me. Come on, stand up, John.”
“You’re hired,” Adam said. “Now, have I got any electricians?”
Three hands. Three men rose to their feet.
“Roofers?”
Four guys, who commuted to Milwaukee when there was work, rose to their feet.
“Painters?”
Six women stood up and one of them explained that she had just finished doing a nursery for one of the others.
“Plumbers?” Adam asked.
“There’s only one plumber in town,” the mayor said. “And you don’t get better than him.”
All eyes turned to the front desk, where the Brandweises stood waiting for their table.
Marion and Jim stared at their neighbors. It was an odd sight to be sure—some diners standing up, only a few left seated.
“What are you talking about?” Jim asked.
“Jim, I’m Adam Tyler,” Adam said, reaching out to shake. “I’m giving Deerhorn a school, but the town’s got to build it.”
“At cost?” the mayor asked.
“Free,” Adam said, waving away Stacy’s protest. “I’m buying materials. I’ll rent whatever equipment we don’t have. I’ll general contract. But you’ve got to build it—and it looks like you’ve got the people to do it.”
“Count me in,” Jim said. “And pleased to finally meet you.”
“What about me?” Stacy asked.
“You’re my girl Friday and when we’ve got the thing built, you’re the landscaper,” Adam said. “Are you writing down everybody’s job assignments?”
And the dining room burst into applause as. Tanglewood’s maître d’ announced that a round of champagne was on the house.
“THAT WAS AN UNUSUAL DATE,” Stacy said, as they walked up the path to her house. The moon hung low and full in the sky. The white blooms of hosta and hydrangeas waved gently in the dark foliage. Stacy pulled a tendril of trumpet vine from a tree as they passed beneath it. She twisted it around her finger.
“I thought you said you haven’t done a lot of dating,” Adam teased.
“I haven’t. But I’ve never heard of a dinner that ended up with all the tables at Tanglewood pushed together for a meeting.”
“We had to do it that way so we could put together a schedule. I’ll drive those people—I don’t think they realize how hard—but we’ll have a school opening in September.”
She pulled her keys out of her purse and opened her door.
“Do you…want to come in?” she asked.
“No.”
She stared. “No?”
“No. I can’t. I promised Betty Carbol I would kiss you once. Just once. That is, of course, if you let me. If I go inside, I’ll be tempted to do more.”
“One kiss?”
“I promised. I’m living under Deerhorn rules. That’s how the regulars do it.”
“And then you’re going to say goodbye?”
“Until our next date. Which is tomorrow. Stac
y, I’m working on trying to be a good man. A good father. A good citizen.”
“All right, then, kiss me.”
He dropped his hands to her tiny waist, brought her close to him and pressed her softly yielding mouth with his lips.
His tongue darted into all the secret, sensitive parts—he felt her rise, her breasts pressing against him. Strong memory of what more he could give her had made her bold—she tentatively matched her own tongue to his. She sighed.
He relinquished her.
“It’s five minutes after midnight,” Stacy said huskily. “Could we count this as our next date?”
“I wish we could, but I have to get up early,” Adam said gently. “I’ve got a school to build. Stacy, I want to have more than an affair with you. I want to court you—properly. For that, I have to follow the rules.”
“Okay. But I haven’t ever been courted. What should I expect?”
“Expect to be kissed within an inch of your life. And be ready for work at seven,” he said. “We’ve got to work as hard as anybody else. Sleep well. I’ll make breakfast for you if you stop by the house.”
“Pancakes?” she teased.
“I’m trying, I’m trying.”
She went into the house and gently closed the door. He stood out on the porch for a long time, feeling his anticipation rise and then ever so gently it became an acceptable part of him. He looked up at the sliver of moon on an indigo sky until he saw the second-floor bedroom light switch on.
Deerhorn rules.
It was a wonderful, if exhausting, discipline.
Chapter Eighteen
Twenty-four-seven days. Everyone pitched in. Moms took care of the children of folks who were working on the job. Every night, a different family volunteered to host tired workers for a home-cooked dinner. Lakeside Groceries sent sandwiches, chips, peanut butter cookies and gallons of lemonade every afternoon. The dermatologist who had a summer home on the north side of town sent a case of sun block from his offices in Milwaukee. The owners of the house next door to the site opened their home for anyone who needed a bathroom, a phone, a few minutes rest. Mrs. Pincham brought a cooler of beer and sodas around eight o’clock on the late nights when everyone was almost, but not quite, ready to drop.
The Milwaukee affiliate of a prime-time network news show sent a crew out. Mayor Pincham spoke eloquently on camera about Deerhorn’s long history of civic pride—his rant about why in heck Chicago weekenders would go forty miles away to Geneva when they could come to Deerhorn and have just as much fun wasn’t aired.
True to his word, Adam worked his volunteers hard. Acting no differently than he had with the Lasser & Thomas crew, he praised good work lavishly and in public and criticized bad work in private and sparingly. But oh, those long hours! The pride in perfect workmanship! The way that every joist, every nail, every piece of PVC piping was secured!
He made only two adjustments to the life-style he had enjoyed in Brazil, Mexico, Colorado, Texas or the dozens of other places that boasted a Lasser & Thomas–Adam Tyler creation.
He came in late, which no one begrudged him. He made Karen breakfast every morning. He read books to her, looked over drawings she had made the previous day, and gave Mugs a day’s worth of scratches behind his ears. Around nine o’clock, Stacy came over, and she would braid Karen’s hair and supervise her teeth-brushing while Adam showered and dressed. At ten, Stacy and Adam dropped off Karen at Mrs. Smith’s house, where there were already other children whose parents were helping with the school.
“My wife sent you this recipe,” the fire chief said one morning when the griddle went up in flames. “She says the secret is to set a timer so even if you get distracted, you’ll remember to turn them over.”
“I wasn’t making pancakes,” Adam said. “I was trying an omelet.”
The two men regarded the stove. One piece of charred food covered with extinguisher foam didn’t look much different than another.
“Whatever,” the fire chief said cheerfully, dragging his tank down the back stairs. His helmet toppled behind him.
Coming in late meant staying late, which Adam nearly always did. He never left the site if there was any worker still on the job. When the only plasterer in town taught fifteen Deerhorn matrons how to put up a smooth, flat wall, that meant working straight through the night. Adam thought that the Lasser & Thomas crews, given the highest wages and travel allowances in the industry, could have used a lesson in dedication from this group. Along about three o’clock in the morning, the women led Adam through the school, lit by lanterns, to show him their work.
“Smooth as silk, ladies,” he said, rubbing his hand along the walls. “Smooth as silk.”
They cheered him. They cheered themselves. And when they went home, their husbands were proud, and their children were in awe.
But there were other nights when work didn’t run that late.
That’s where Adam made the second change in his work habits.
On other jobs, sure, he always had a woman for when he needed one. He’d sleep with a woman. Drink with a woman. Have dinner with a woman. But these were discreet acts that had nothing to do with the rest of his hours.
Stacy was different.
Stacy was his buddy, his assistant, his personal Post-it note, the woman he bounced ideas off—and then when the day was over, Adam did something with her he never would have guessed he would do with a woman.
He dated.
Feeling a little like a schoolboy, he took her to movies, bowling, to the racetrack fifty miles south in Kenosha. He took her to dinner at Tanglewood and dinner at Burger Joint. Sometimes Karen came with them, sometimes she had sleepovers with one of her many friends.
He even double-dated, driving forty miles to Geneva to see movies with Marion and Jim or having dinner with the Pinchams—although Lefty boycotted Geneva, hated the very name of the city that had eclipsed Deerhorn in tourism. Still, the Pinchams hosted good dinners and better late-night poker games—nobody lost more than a few cents or won more than a quarter.
For Adam, the concept of double-dating was something he would have found laughable, were it not for the fact that it was fun.
He hid nothing about this relationship and Deerhorn citizens accepted the couple, issuing dinner invitations to “you and Stacy” with the same ease they did with married or engaged folks. When Stacy and Adam walked the day’s stress off with a trip to the Sweet Shoppe ice-cream store, Adam put his arm around Stacy’s waist. People waved and said hello without a double take.
He could do this because Betty Carbol had everything under control. She told him the rules and he followed them. Betty made her own phone calls to any Deerhorn citizen who thought contrary.
Kisses were sweet—and were just that, kisses. Clothes were meant to be worn—not torn off. Beds were for sleeping in, and Stacy and Adam both had their own—in separate houses. Scantily dressed women were for lingerie catalogs, and men without a shirt lingered at the beach—nothing Adam or Stacy had time for.
And absolutely no talking about the future—Adam assumed there was one, Stacy thought he was just fooling himself.
In fact, late one night in August, Stacy got an idea of how quickly the future was slipping away.
“I just finished writing the checks to the lumberyard, the electrical supply shop and the paint store,” she said, looking up from his desk. In front of her was a neatly arranged stack of business-sized envelopes, stamped and addressed.
Adam roused himself in his armchair. “And?”
“You’re almost out of money.”
“Okay,” he said, stretching. His paperback dropped to the floor. “Have we got enough to open the school in two weeks?”
“Probably. And I want you to know that I am so grateful to you for doing this. I know you’re doing it for me.”
He shrugged, acknowledging the truth.
“But you have to get a job.”
“Oooh, nagging me already, and here we’re not even married.”
“Adam, be serious,” she chided. “What are you going to do after the school is built?”
“I talked to Betty Carbol—and she said when I get to the point that I absolutely cannot stand this chaste courtship I should ask you to marry me.” He grinned wickedly. “I’m there, baby.”
“Adam, don’t propose, not even in jest. I can’t leave Deerhorn.”
“I can’t either,” he said. “I like it here. I like having people know who I am. I like having people wave to me as I pass by. I like having a place where Karen is happy. But most of all, I love you. What’s wrong with all that?”
“Plans, Adam. You have to make plans.”
“What are your plans? Move in with Marion? Take care of your nephews for years?”
“Adam!”
“I’m sorry, but it’s true. You were happy to make love to me once, as an experiment. I was happy to make love to you once because I like making love. But things have changed.”
“I’m being realistic.”
“You need to be romantic.”
He stood up, taking her pencil out of her hand, shutting off the calculator, snapping the checkbook shut.
“Come here, redhead. Betty Carbol hasn’t given me my limits for the day. Maybe she forgot, or maybe she’s decided there aren’t any.”
He closed his eyes, putting his hands flat on the desk behind him. Murmured once “that’s the way I like it” when she got so close her calves brushed against his pant leg. Her hands hesitated an inch from his hips and then he regarded her from beneath heavy lids.
“Just remember everything I taught you, Stacy.”
She put her hands on his firm, slim hips and though she was wearing heels, stood on her toes to put her mouth to his. His lips were hard and closed. There was an elemental disappointment in the soft guttural moan that came from her throat. But then her mouth brushed against his in just the way he had once done to her—and his mouth opened to receive her tongue.
The male conquered was quickly aroused. With his fingers wide on her buttocks, he drew her to his hardness even as his tongue explored her flesh. Every nerve in her body remembered—recalled with startling accuracy the way he would bring her body to ecstasy. She felt herself weakening in his arms.
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