by Janet Dailey
"There's just one thing," Valerie added.
"Oh? What's that?" Judd asked with distant curiosity.
"I'm not giving you possession of the house until the first of September. The barns, the stables, the pastures, everything else you can have when we sign the papers, except the house," she told him.
"And why is that?" He seemed only mildly interested.
"Because that's how long we'll be staying. I want to have this summer with Tadd," Valerie explained with a trace of defensiveness. "With working and all, I haven't been able to spend much time with him up until now. He's been growing up with babysitters. I've decided to devote this summer to him and begin working again this fall when he goes back to school."
"In that case, the house is yours until the first of September," Judd agreed with an indifferent shrug. "Are there any other conditions?"
"No." She shook her head, her long toffee hair swinging freely around her shoulders.
"Then everything is all settled," he concluded.
"I guess it is."
IT ALL WORKED AS SMOOTHLY as Judd had said it would. The matter was turned over to their attorneys. There wasn't even a need for Valerie to see Judd. When all the estate, mortgage and legal matters were completed, Jefferson Burrows brought out to the house the papers she needed to sign and gave her a check. The property became Judd's without any further communication between them and the documents gave her possession of the house until the first of September. It was all strictly business.
Something jumped on her bed, but the mattress didn't give much under its weight. "Mom? You'd better get up," Tadd insisted.
Valerie opened one sleepy eye to identify her son and rolled onto her stomach to bury her head under a pillow. "It's early. Go back to sleep, Tadd."
His small hand shook her bare shoulder in determined persistence. "Mom, what's that man doing on a ladder outside your window?" he demanded to know.
"A ladder?" she repeated sleepily, and lifted her head from under the pillow to frown at the pajama-clad boy sitting on her bed. "What are you talking about, Tadd?"
His attention was riveted on her bedroom window. A scraping sound drew her bleary gaze as well. The sleep was banished from her eyes at the sight of a strange man wearing paint-splattered white overalls standing on a ladder next to her window.
"What's he doing there, mom?" Tadd frowned at her.
There wasn't a shade at the window, nothing to prevent the man from looking in and seeing her. Valerie was angered by the embarrassing situation she was in. She tugged the end of the bedspread from the foot of the bed and pulled it with her. It was white chenille with a pink rose design woven in the center. She sat up on the side of her bed with her back to the window.
She picked up the alarm clock on the small table. Its hands pointed to seven o'clock. She began wrapping the bedspread around her sarong-fashion, fighting its length as her temper mounted. Pushing her sleep-rumpled hair away from one side of her face and tucking it behind her ear, she rose from the bed.
Tadd followed. "What's he doing there?" he repeated.
"That's what I'm about to find out!" she snapped, flinging a corner of the bedspread over her shoulder in a gesture unconsciously reminiscent of a caped crusader.
She stalked to the staircase and hitched the bedspread up around her ankles to negotiate the steps. Part of the white bedspread trailed behind her like a train and she had to keep yanking it along to prevent Tadd from tripping on it.
As she slammed out of the screen door onto the porch, another white-clad stranger was walking by carrying a stepladder. At the sight of Valerie, he stopped and stared.
"Would you mind telling me what's going on here?" she demanded, ignoring his incredulous and slightly ogling look. "And where are you going with that ladder?"
"Don't look at me, ma'am." The man backed away, absolving himself of any blame. "I just do what I'm told. The boss said I was to come here and I'm here."
"Where is your boss? I want to speak to him." Valerie forgot to hitch up the spread before starting down the porch steps and nearly tripped.
"He…he's on the other side of the house," the man stuttered as one side of the spread slipped, revealing the initial curving swell of one breast before Valerie tucked the material back in place.
She had taken one step in the direction the flustered man had indicated when she heard the cantering beat of horse's hooves and looked around to see Judd riding up on the big gray. She stopped and glanced back at the man.
"You can go on about your business now," she snapped.
"Yes, ma'am!" He scurried off as if he had been shot.
Tadd stood on the porch, one bare foot resting on top of the other. He was watching the proceedings with innocent interest, curious and wide-eyed. Like his mother, his attention had become focused on Judd, who was dismounting to walk to the house. Valerie stepped forward to confront him.
"Would you like to explain to me what these men are doing here at this hour of the morning?" she demanded, her nostrils distending slightly in temper.
"I came by to let you know I'd hired a contractor to paint the place. I think I'm a little late." As he spoke, his gaze was making a leisurely inspection from her tousled mane of honey-dark hair down her bedspread-wrapped length and returning for an overall view of her alluring dishabille.
At the touch of his green-eyed gaze on her bare shoulder and its lingering interest on the point where the white material jutted out to cover her breasts, Valerie tugged the spread more tightly around her. She realized he was very much aware that she was naked beneath it.
"A little late is an understatement," she fumed. "I woke up this morning to find a man outside my bedroom window on a ladder!"
"If I'd known you slept in the altogether, I would have been the man on the ladder outside your window," Judd drawled with soft suggestiveness.
An irritated sound of exasperation came from her throat. "It's impossible talking to you. I'll speak to the contractor myself and tell him to come back at a decent hour!" As she started to take a step, her leg became tangled in the folds of the bedspread.
Judd reached out with a steadying hand on her arm. "I think you'd better go back into the house before you trip and reveal more of your considerable charms than you'd like." He lifted her off her feet and into his arms before she could suspect his intention. The bedspread swaddled her into a cocoon that didn't lend itself to movement.
"Put me down!" Valerie raged in fiery embarrassment.
A lazy smile curved his mouth as he looked down at her. "I hired house painters, not nude artists. Not that I wouldn't object to having a private portrait of you."
She caught sight of Tadd staring at them with open-mouthed amazement. "Will you stop it?" she hissed at Judd, and he just chuckled, knowing she was at his mercy.
"Will you open the door for me, Tadd," he requested in an amused voice as he carried Valerie onto the porch.
Tadd scampered forward in his bare feet to comply, staring at Valerie's reddened face as Judd carried her past him. He followed them inside, letting the screen door close with a resounding bang. In the entry hall Judd stopped.
"Now will you put me down?" Valerie demanded through clenched teeth, burning with mortification and a searing awareness of her predicament.
"Of course," he agreed with mocking compliance.
The arm at the back of her legs relaxed its hold, letting her feet slide to the floor while his other hand retained a light, steadying grip around her waist. Having both feet on the floor didn't give Valerie any feeling of advantage. Without shoes, the top of her head barely reached past his chin. To see his face, she had to tip her head back, a much too vulnerable position. She chose instead to glare upward through the sweep of her lashes.
"I think it would be wise if you put some clothes on," he suggested dryly as his gaze swung downward from her face, "or at least rearrange your sarong so that pink rose adorns a less eye-catching spot."
His finger traced the outline of a rose
bud design on the chenille bedspread. In doing so, he drew a circle around the hard button of her breast. Heat raced over her skin as Valerie jerked the bedspread higher, pulling the rose design almost to her collarbone. Judd chuckled for the second time, knowing how deeply he had disturbed her.
Spinning away from him Valerie lifted the folds of the material up around her knees and bolted for the staircase. On the second step she stopped, remembering the predicament that awaited her upstairs. She sent an angry look over her shoulder.
"You go out there and tell that painter to get away from my window!" she ordered in an emotion-choked voice.
"I'll have him on the ground at once." Judd grinned at her, laughter dancing wickedly in his eyes.
Valerie glanced at the boy standing beside him. "Tadd, you come with me," she commanded. "It's time you were dressed, too."
Reluctantly Tadd moved toward the stairs. As Judd started toward the door, Valerie began climbing the steps to the second floor. Clara met her at the head of the stairs, her nightgown ruffling out from beneath the hem of her quilted robe.
"What's all the commotion about?" Clara ran a frowning look over Valerie's attire. "And what are you doing dressed like that?"
"Mr. Prescott neglected to inform us that he'd hired some painters to come out to the farm," was the short-tempered reply. "I woke up to find one outside my window on a ladder." Bunching the spread more tightly around her hips, Valerie started toward her bedroom.
"I've told you about going to bed like that," Clara's reproving voice followed her. "Haven't I warned you that someday there'd be a fire or something and you'd be caught!"
Valerie stopped abruptly to make a sharp retort and Tadd, who was following close behind her, bumped into her. Her hand gripped his shoulder to steady him and remained there as she sent Clara a look that would have withered the leaves from a mighty Oak, but Clara was made of stronger stuff.
Swallowing the remark she had intended to make, Valerie muttered, "You're a lot of comfort, Clara," and glanced at the small boy. "Come on, Tadd. Let's get you dressed first."
Altering her course, she pushed Tadd ahead of her to her old bedroom that Tadd now occupied. While she went to the dresser to get his clean clothes, Tadd padded to the window and peered out.
"I don't see those men anymore, mommy. Judd made them go away," he told her.
"Good. Now off with those pajamas and into these clothes," she ordered curtly.
When Tadd was dressed, Valerie sent him downstairs and went to her own room. She made certain there wasn't a painter anywhere near the vicinity of her window before getting dressed herself. When she came downstairs she walked to the kitchen where the aroma of fresh-perked coffee wafted invitingly in the air.
Tadd was sitting at the breakfast table. An elbow was resting on the top and a small hand supported his forehead, pushing his brown hair on end. A petulant scowl marked his expression.
"Mom, Clara says I have to drink some of my milk before I have another pancake." He glared at the stout woman standing at the stove. "Do I have to? Can't I drink it afterward, mom? Please?"
Valerie glanced at the glass of white liquid that hadn't been touched. "Drink your milk Tadd."
"Aw, mom!" he grumbled, and reached for the glass.
"Don't fix any pancakes for me, Clara." Ignoring her son, Valerie walked to the cupboard and poured a cup of coffee. "I'm not hungry."
"You'd better eat something," the woman insisted.
Before Valerie could argue the point, there was a knock on the back door and a taunting voice asked, "Are you decent in there?"
"Yes!" Valerie shot the sharply affirmative retort at the wire mesh where Judd's dark figure was outlined, and carried her cup to the table.
The hinges creaked as the screen door opened and Judd walked in. "The coffee smells good," he remarked. After one dancing look at Valerie's still simmering expression, he addressed his next words to Clara. "Do you mind if I have a cup?"
"Help yourself," the woman agreed with an indifferent shrug.
As he walked to the counter on which the coffeepot sat, Valerie watched the easy way he moved. His broad shoulders and chest, his narrow male hips, and the muscled columns of his long legs moved in perfect harmony. His body was programmed and conditioned to perform every task well. An ache quivered through her as Valerie remembered how well.
Pausing at the stove, Judd observed, "Pancakes for breakfast. Buckwheat?"
"Yes." Clara expertly flipped one from the griddle.
"Help yourself, Judd," Valerie heard herself offering in a caustic tone born out of a sense of inevitability. In an agitated desire for movement she rose from her chair to add more coffee to her steaming cup. "Orange juice. Bacon. Toast." She listed the choices. "Just help yourself to anything."
"Anything?" The soft, lilting word crossed the room to taunt her. She pivoted and caught her breath as his gaze leisurely roamed over her shape to let her know his choice.
She felt as if her toes were curling from the heat spreading through her. She turned away from his disturbing look and breathed an emotionally charged, "You know very well what I meant." Adding a drop more coffee to her cup, Valerie silently acknowledged that she didn't have many defenses against him left, certainly none when the topic became intimate. She attempted to change it. "Did you straighten those painters out about starting work at such an hour?" she demanded.
"In a manner of speaking," Judd replied, casually accepting the change in subject matter. "They started early to avoid working in the heat of the day. Unfortunately, they were under the impression that all the buildings were vacant, including the house. They know better now," he added with faint suggestiveness.
Valerie didn't need to be reminded of the early-morning episode. The absence of a direct answer to her first question prompted her to ask, "You did arrange for them to begin work at a more respectable hour, didn't you?"
"No," he denied. "There isn't any reason to change their working hour—"
"No reason?" she began indignantly.
But Judd continued, "However, from now on they'll be working on the barns and stables in the mornings."
"I should hope so," Valerie retorted tightly.
"I drank some of my milk," Tadd piped up, a white moustache above his upper lip. "Can I have another pancake now?" Clara set another one in front of him. As Tadd reached for the syrup, he glanced at Judd. "They're very good. Do you want one?"
"No, thank you. I've already had my breakfast." Judd drained the last of the coffee from his cup. "It's time I was leaving. If the painters give you any trouble, Valerie, call me."
"I will," she agreed, but she could have told him that the only one who gave her trouble was himself. He troubled her mentally and emotionally, and there didn't seem to be any relief in sight.
Chapter Six
A RESTLESSNESS RACED THROUGH VALERIE. She tried to contain it as she had for the last several days, but it wouldn't be suppressed. There had been too much time on her hands lately, she reasoned. She was accustomed to working eight hours, coming home and working eight hours more with meals, housework and wash. But here the workload of the house was shared with Clara and she had no job except to play with Tadd.
One of the painters had a radio blaring a raucous brand of music that scraped at her nerves. Of the half a dozen men painting the barns and stables, there always seemed to be one walking around, getting paint, moving ladders, doing something, which was more than Valerie could say for herself.
Sighing, she left the porch and entered the house. Clara was in the living room, watching her favorite soap opera on television. Her gaze was glued to the screen and she didn't even glance up when Valerie entered the room.
"Clara," Valerie began, only to be silenced by an upraised hand. A couple of minutes later a commercial came on and she was allowed to finish what she had started to say. "I'm going to take Ginger out for a ride. Tadd is upstairs having a nap. Will you keep an eye on him while I'm gone?"
"Sure. Go ahead," h
er friend agreed readily.
Outside, Valerie dodged the gauntlet of ladders and paint cans to retrieve the bridle and saddle from the tack room. Several people had been out to look at the bay mare Mickey Flanners had suggested she sell privately, but so far no one had bought her. Valerie didn't mind. One horse wasn't that difficult to take care of and Tadd enjoyed the rides she took him on.
The bay mare trotted eagerly to the pasture fence when she approached. Lonely without her former equine companionship, the mare readily sought human company. There was never any difficulty catching her and she accepted the bit between her teeth as if it were sugar.
Astride the animal, Valerie turned the brown head toward the rolling land of the empty pasture. The mare stepped out quickly, moving into a brisk canter at a slight touch from Valerie's heel. She had no destination in mind. Her only intention was to try to run off this restlessness that plagued her.
The long-legged thoroughbred mare seemed prepared to run forever, clearing pasture fences like the born jumper Mickey had claimed she was. Valerie rode without concentrating on anything but the rhythmic stride of the animal beneath her and the pointed ears of its bobbing head.
When the bay horse slowed to a walk, Valerie wasn't aware that it was responding to her pressure on the reins. They entered a stand of trees and she ducked her head to avoid a low-hanging branch. When she straightened, it was in a clearing. Her fingers tightened on the reins, stopping the bay, as the blood drained from her face.
Unconsciously she had guided the mare to the place where she and Judd had met. From a long-ago habit, she dismounted and wound the reins around the broken branch of a tree. The mare lowered her head, blew at the grass and began to graze.
Almost in a trance, Valerie looked around her. The place hadn't seemed to change very much. The grass looked taller and thicker, promising a softer bed. She tore her gaze from it and noticed that lightning had taken a large limb from the oak tree some time ago.
Wrapping her arms tightly around her stomach, she tried to assuage the hollow ache. There was a longing for Judd so intense that it seemed to eat away at her insides. She wanted to cry from the joy she had once known here and the heartache that had followed, but no tears came.
