Hush, Little Baby

by Judith Arnold

  “Hi,” she said pleasantly, sliding the strap of her tote bag off her shoulder and wrapping her fingers around it. “I didn’t know you were going to be coming here.”

  “I had a few minutes.”

  “Where’s your son?”

  It still pained him, like a sharp jab in the gut, when someone referred to D.J. as his son—not because he was appalled by the idea but because it negated Ruth. D.J. was her son and always would be.

  But he wasn’t about to straighten Corinne out about D.J.’s lineage. It was hard enough explaining the situation to friends, who invariably turned gloomy and maudlin when he told them his sister was dead. He saw no reason to go through all that with a near-stranger.

  “Someone’s watching him for a while,” he said. “I don’t have much time, though, so we should probably get right down to it.” He lifted his portfolio.

  She circled the lobby with her gaze. An antique-looking camel-back sofa stood in one corner, facing a wingback chair. Neither seat looked particularly comfortable, but they’d do for a quiet one-on-one.

  “Actually, I’m kind of thirsty. Why don’t we get something to drink?” She started toward the dining room off the lobby.

  He checked his watch again. Only a drink, he resolved. He didn’t have time to eat.

  The dining room was nearly empty—it was a little early for lunch. Corinne passed it for the taproom to one side. Was she planning to hit the booze? Wouldn’t that make for a fun meeting, he thought grimly.

  The taproom was darker than the dining room, its décor a cliché of paneling, intimate tables, amber lighting and a long mahogany bar. A single bartender stood behind it, lazily drying glasses and standing them upside down on a shelf. The room felt sleepy, almost dead.

  At their entrance, the bartender lowered his dishrag and stared at them, mildly curious. “Do you have iced tea?” Corinne asked him.

  “Sure.”

  Corinne peered at Levi. “Two iced teas,” he ordered, then gestured toward the nearest table.

  As soon as they were settled, the bartender brought over two frosted tumblers of iced tea garnished with lemon. “You want any pretzels or anything?” he asked.

  Corinne glanced at Levi again. Her eyes were truly extraordinary, the irises a mix of gray and gold, the lashes unusually long and thick and devoid of mascara. Her mouth seemed at war with itself, soft yet determined to express her words firmly, without ambiguity.

  “No pretzels for me,” he said.

  She sent the bartender away with a thank-you, then lifted a packet of sugar, shook it and tore it open. He watched her hands, smooth and long-fingered, the nails glinting with a clear polish. In her severely tailored suit and conservative shoes, she seemed to be screaming to the world, Take me seriously!

  No reason anyone wouldn’t take her seriously, Levi thought. She was Gerald Mosley’s representative. No matter how flaky Mosley was, only a fool would ignore his newly minted internet millions—or his second-in-command.

  He sipped his unsweetened tea and settled back in the captain’s chair. It wasn’t big enough for his long body, but he was used to that. She fit well in her chair, her skirt riding up a couple of inches above her knees.

  Nice knees. Very nice legs.

  And he’d better take her seriously, or that delectable mouth of hers was going to spew invective. “I’ve looked through your notes,” he said as she stirred the sugar into her tea, “and the answer is no.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  “What’s the question?”

  For a moment, one dangerous, disconcerting instant when his gaze slid from her knees to the delicate indentation in her upper lip, he couldn’t remember the question. Then it came to him: “Will I make all the changes you’ve requested to the design? No. This house was conceived as a unified, organic whole. Every detail was put there for a reason. The design is exactly what it should be.”

  She must have heard the fervor underlining his calm words. He couldn’t hide it; if he didn’t feel passionate about a design, the design didn’t leave his drafting table. If she and her boss had wanted an architect who didn’t care about his work, who didn’t invest himself heart and soul in it, they could have hired someone else. Mosley had come to Levi and Arlington Architectural because he’d wanted an architect who cared.

  “Gerald doesn’t think the design is exactly what it should be,” Corinne said gently, as if she didn’t want to hurt his feelings.

  His feelings had nothing to do with it. His ego wasn’t involved. It was a matter of design, of lines and angles coming together, of stone and glass marrying and creating a home. “A month ago, Gerald knew this design was perfect.”

  “He hadn’t thought it through. Now that he has, he realizes that there are certain impractical aspects to it.”

  “Impractical?” Levi swore his ego wasn’t involved, but really—she didn’t know what the hell she was talking about. If she was simply quoting Gerald, he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, either.

  “For example,” she said, “the kitchen.”

  “The kitchen.” The kitchen was the heart of the house. It beat, it pulsed, it sent life pumping through the rest of the building. She didn’t seem to have a clue about what made a house come alive. Rather than point out her ignorance, however, he only shifted in his chair, took another swig of iced tea and waited for her to justify what couldn’t be justified.

  “Yes, the kitchen,” she said cheerfully. “First of all, the counter space.”

  “What about it?”

  “There’s not enough. You lose one entire wall to that glass—”

  “The glass wall is the most essential element of the room.” He stated it as irrefutable fact.

  “The glass wall not only means losing a whole lot of work and storage space, but it’s going to make the room impossible to heat in the winter.”

  “The kitchen is traditionally the warmest room in the house. This kitchen shares a two-sided fireplace with the family room, it’s got radiant heating in the slate floor, and the glass wall will actually add warmth to the room. We’ll be using triple-glazed thermopanes.”

  “If the glass wall adds warmth to the room in the winter, it’s going to add warmth to the room in the summer, too. It’ll be unbearably hot in July and August.”

  “The panes can be covered with shades. Look, Corinne—can I call you Corinne?” At her faint nod, he continued. “I know what I’m doing, okay? I know how to design a house that will hold its temperature. Everything is insulated to the maximum level. I’ve designed commercial buildings and private residences, and no one has ever complained that they can’t keep the interior temperature stable. The builders’ work is guaranteed—”

  “The builders can’t guarantee that there’s enough counter space, because there isn’t. And taking up half the pantry with that wine cellar—”

  “My clients love mini wine cellars in their kitchens. Your boss was really taken with that.”

  “It reduces the storage space in the pantry.”

  “And saves him from having to hike up and down the stairs whenever he wants a bottle of wine.”

  “Speaking of stairs—”

  He knew what was coming next—he’d read all her notes in the folder—and he cut her off before she could speak. “Gerald loved the concept of multilevel rooms. It breaks the monotony. It skews sight lines and gives the house energy.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she muttered, then took a quick sip of her iced tea as if she needed to cool off before erupting in anger. “Who needs skewed sight lines? Gerald hired you to design a house for him. He’s the client. It’s your job to listen to what your clients want.”

  “Gerald Mosley is my client, but right now I’m listening to you.”

  “Good,” she said, a smile teasing her lips. “That’s exactly what I was hoping you’d do.”

  He didn’t mean to smile back. The woman was being a pain in the ass. She was wrong about the house, wrong about w
hat it should be, wrong about everything in her stupid folder. Yet she’d tripped him up on his own words, and her eyes glowed with pleasure. He couldn’t not smile back.

  Smiling weakened his resolve. It nudged him into remembering that Mosley’s house was a big job with a big paycheck attached to it, and that ever since he’d gained custody of D.J. he hadn’t been doing his fair share at the firm. He couldn’t dismiss the woman. He had to listen to her, to keep this project alive.

  Smiling also tweaked his awareness of her beauty—the gentle curve of her lips, her chin tilting slightly, her eyes warming in the reflection of her own smile. It felt so normal to be smiling with an attractive woman in a dimly lit tavern—even if it wasn’t yet noon and they were sipping iced tea. Gazing into a woman’s eyes, talking to her, listening to her—it was the sort of thing he used to do quite often, before he’d lost a sister and gained a son.

  He missed it. He missed taking the time to admire women, to get to know them, to contemplate the possibilities with them. Did acknowledging how much his life had changed in the past few weeks make him a bad person? It wasn’t D.J.’s fault that he’d landed in Levi’s lap and turned his existence inside-out, but for the first time since Ruth’s death, Levi found himself resenting the baby and all the uninvited responsibility that came with him.

  “The way I figure it,” Corinne was saying, “The changes Gerald wants shouldn’t add to the expense of the house. Well, some of them, maybe—the additional bathrooms. But removing the fireplace, and converting that glass wall into a regular wall with a few windows and some counter and cabinet space below—these improvements would actually bring the cost of the house down, wouldn’t they?”

  “They’re not improvements,” he said quietly, sifting all emotion from his voice. He didn’t want to antagonize her. He just wanted to convince her that her “improvements” would turn the house from a masterpiece into something mundane and boring.

  Which would still give him a nice payday, a small voice at the back of his head needled him.

  Which would go against all his esthetic instincts, another voice nattered.

  “The bathrooms I can do,” he relented, figuring that if he let her win that round she might concede on the more important issues. “I don’t know what a single man needs with more than three full baths on top of the half-bath downstairs and the stall shower and lavatory in the pool house. But I can probably carve a bathroom out of one of the bedrooms and pair the plumbing up with the master bath. A fifth full bath…I don’t know what we’ll have to lose to make room for that, but I might be able to figure something out.”

  “Maybe four bathrooms would be enough,” she said generously.

  Lucky Gerald, he thought, trying not to smirk. How fortunate the guy was to have an assistant eager to guarantee him variety when he had to take a leak.

  Corinne seemed to read his mind. “I’m anticipating that he’ll be entertaining guests at the house. That’s what the extra bathrooms are for—so each guest could have his or her own en suite bathroom.”

  “Okay.” He nodded, hoping to prove to her that he could be reasonable. “If he’s entertaining, I’ll bet his guests will be spending a lot more time in the kitchen and family room than in the upstairs bathrooms. So I think you ought to let the kitchen remain the focal point it is. As I’ve designed it, it’s the kind of room where Gerald’s guests will walk in and gasp with delight.”

  “But it will be harder to cook big meals for those guests. The room needs more counter space.”

  “It’s got acres of counter space.” He decided that sounded too combative and softened his voice. “Don’t forget, the dining area of the room is enormous.” And fronted by all that spectacular glass, he almost said, but she hated the glass, so he chose not to mention it. “It’ll take a huge table to fill that area. I assume that’s what Gerald’s planning. The table will increase his work space significantly.”

  “You can’t assume that the table is going to be work space. Most people have clutter on their kitchen tables—newspapers, the car keys, dirty coffee mugs, whatever. Kitchen tables don’t count as work areas.”

  Somehow, Levi didn’t see the amount of counter space as a significant concern of Gerald Mosley’s. He couldn’t imagine Mosley rolling out dough for pie crusts or preparing an in-house luau complete with a stuffed whole pig. The kitchen Levi had designed for him was state-of-the-art, with more than adequate counter space for normal use. Normal use was what Gerald had described when they’d been brainstorming about the house.

  He wanted to remind her, again, that Gerald had loved the idea of the glass wall. He wanted to question her about when Gerald had undergone his change of heart, and under whose influence he’d undergone it. But before Levi could speak, his cell phone beeped. With an apologetic smile, he pulled the phone out of his portfolio and clicked it on.

  “Levi?” Mary’s voice cut through a faint hiss of static. “Your baby needs a clean diaper.”

  He inhaled deeply, using the moment to submerge his frustration. He couldn’t ask Mary to change D.J.’s diaper—but damn it, he was trying to salvage a project. Surely this interruption wasn’t necessary.

  “Leave it,” he instructed her. “It won’t kill him. I’ll take care of it when I get back.”

  “But it…it smells, Levi. My work area stinks.”

  He ground his teeth together to keep from cursing, from pointing out that D.J. was a healthy child and healthy children emptied their intestines at semi-regular intervals, and as he’d learned from recent experience, it was not such a big thing. “All right,” he muttered. “I’ll get there as soon as I can.”

  He disconnected before Mary could complain anymore. He couldn’t blame her; she was an intern fresh out of graduate school, and her job description didn’t include diapering babies.

  Soon he’d have a full-time nanny. Soon D.J. would no longer be limiting his ability to perform his job. He’d be able to design projects and defend them without worrying about his cell phone breaking into the discussion, carrying dire news about D.J.’s digestive health.

  “I’ve got to go,” he told Corinne.

  “Oh?”

  “D.J. needs me. I’m sorry.”

  The elegant lines of her face and her clear, cool gaze made him realize how sorry he was. He didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to argue with her over Mosley’s house, but he didn’t want to leave her, either. He wanted to sit with her, drinking his iced tea and talking to her about what movies she’d seen recently, whether she was a Yankees fan, whether she liked to ski or hike or garden…whether she was involved with anyone at the moment. Whether she was free for dinner.

  “We could continue this discussion over dinner,” he suggested.

  Something sparked in her expression, bright and curious. “Tonight?”

  “Were you planning to leave Arlington tonight?”

  A slow smile traced her lips. “I’m planning to leave Arlington after I’ve gotten the design for Gerald’s house fixed.”

  He accepted her words as the challenge they were, but he wasn’t offended by them. The design for Gerald’s house didn’t need to be fixed. But Corinne Lanier was going to be in town until he convinced her of that.

  Which meant she was going to be in town tonight.

  “I’ll pick you up around seven, all right?” He pushed away from the table and zipped his portfolio shut.

  She seemed bewildered, a touch apprehensive. Did she think he was going to attempt to seduce her into viewing the house his way? Maybe that wasn’t so far from the mark.

  She didn’t say no.

  “Seven o’clock,” he repeated, then smiled, gave her hand a shake that felt more like a caress, and left the taproom.

  Chapter Three

  SHE STARED at the mirror one last time, then ordered herself to stop obsessing about her appearance. However she looked would have to do.

  She’d attended business dinners before, but never with a man whose parting handshake had caused a ribbon o
f heat to unfurl up her arm. The sensation had left her off-balance. She’d spent the rest of the afternoon trying to regain her equilibrium.

  Actually, she’d regained enough of her equilibrium to spend a few hours reviewing two reports Gerald had prepared. After selling his company to a much bigger competitor for millions of dollars, he’d become a consultant, and Corinne had remained with him. While he advised start-ups on the technical aspects of their companies, she advised them on the business aspects. Gerald related well to the computer geeks. They all spoke the same language. She was far from fluent in geek-ese, but she worked with the business people, the money people, people who communicated in sentences rather than bits and bytes. She’d thought she would get along just fine with the architect Gerald had commissioned to design his country house.

  And she did get along fine with him, she assured herself, turning from the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door. She’d removed her stern gray suit, showered and donned a pair of tailored slacks and a silk shell blouse, then worried that she looked too casual, then worried that she looked too formal, then worried that if Levi shook her hand again that unnerving heat would return, spinning up her arm and spreading through her body.

  The clock on the nightstand read five past seven. She caught another glimpse of herself in the mirror above the dresser and wondered whether the simple diamond posts in her ears looked too elegant. Then she wondered why she cared so much about making the right impression on Levi Holt.

  Because she wanted to get him to rework the design, she told herself—but she honestly didn’t believe that that was all it was.

  The room phone rang as she was reaching for her gold hoop earrings. Abandoning her jewelry case, she crossed the room and answered. “Levi Holt is here for you,” the desk clerk informed her.

  “Thanks.” He’s here for you. What was wrong with her that even the clerk’s innocuous statement unsettled her?

  She stuffed her room key into her purse, stepped into her sandals and left the room, refusing to look into any mirrors on her way.