by Marta Perry
He stopped at the front door. By the time he rounded the car, Annie was already lifting Marcy from the car seat.
He put his arm around both of them. “It’ll be okay,” he said softly. “Don’t worry too much.”
Annie nodded. For an instant she looked lost. Then she settled Marcy in her arms and marched toward the door.
It opened before they could knock. Julia reached for Marcy with every indication of eagerness.
“There now, darling. Come to Aunt Julia.”
He could feel the effort it took Annie to let go of the baby. She hesitated in the doorway, as if unwilling to turn away and leave.
Frank appeared behind his wife, smiling. “Julia, where are your manners? Invite Mr. and Mrs. Morgan in.” He laid the faintest stress on the titles, as if mocking them.
Julia stepped back, gesturing them inside. He had no desire to enter Frank’s house, but beyond them he could see Mrs. Bradshaw. It certainly couldn’t hurt to gain a few more minutes with her, especially after the mess he’d made of her visit to them.
He grasped Annie’s elbow in mute support and followed her into the house.
Frank rubbed his hands together. “Well, this is nice, having our favorite little girl in our house at last. We were just going to show Marcy’s room to Mrs. Bradshaw. Maybe you’d like to see it, too.”
Marcy’s room? What was Frank trying to pull? Marcy had never even been in their house, which spoke volumes for how interested they’d been in her.
“Yes, do come along.” Julia clutched Marcy tightly, as if fearing the child would try to get away. “We want you to see it.”
They followed Julia across the wide living room. Light poured in from the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the lake, glittering off glass and metal tables and tile floors.
Julia led the way down a hall lined with mirrored closets and flung open a door. “There, you see. It’s all ready for her.”
He blinked. This had been a guest room where they’d left coats the one time he’d been to the Lester house. Now it had been transformed.
Pale aqua-and-white baby furniture, billowing white curtains, a pale aqua rug. Low shelves lined the walls, filled with more toys than the local toy store had in stock. The far wall and the ceiling were covered with an elaborate fairy-tale mural.
“Pink is so passé, don’t you think?” Julia smiled possessively at the room. “This is much more elegant.” She put Marcy down and began to unzip her jacket.
“Yes. Elegant.” Annie’s voice sounded strangled.
He wrapped his hand around hers, trying vainly to warm it. He’d told Annie that the social worker would take one look and see how unsuitable this place was for a child. He’d assured her it would be all right.
Which only went to show how little he knew. He gripped Annie’s fingers tightly, and she clung to him. He’d underestimated Frank. He wouldn’t make that mistake again.
Annie stared out the car window at the houses they passed. She took a breath, feeling as if it was the first time she’d done so since they’d left the Lesters.
She had to clear her throat before she could speak. “Where are we going?”
“I have to go to my apartment to pick up some papers I need.” She felt Link’s worried gaze touch her face. “Then I thought we could stop at the work site. After that, it’ll be time to pick up Marcy.”
“What if she doesn’t want to leave?” She had a sudden, horrifying vision of Marcy crying at the thought of being torn away from all those toys. “What if—”
“You’re overreacting, aren’t you?” Link’s tone was deliberately dampening.
She rubbed her forehead, trying vainly to massage away the tension. “Am I? Mrs. Bradshaw just saw a decorator’s dream nursery.”
“I have to hand it to Frank. He worked fast.”
“Is that all you can say?” She felt a spurt of anger.
Link pulled into the parking lot in front of a block of apartments. He parked, then turned to her.
“Look, Annie, we knew Frank and Julia would cause problems. I have to admit, I didn’t foresee that they’d set up a nursery to impress the social worker.”
“But they did. Enid Bradshaw may think they’ve been longing to have a child.”
“She’s a smart cookie. She’ll realize that ‘Marcy’s room’ has been put together in the past week, and by a decorator, not by Julia. As for those toys, they probably went online and ordered everything that was recommended for a twenty-month-old.”
“However they did it, they did a good job. I hope you’re right about Mrs. Bradshaw, because I found it pretty impressive.”
Link shook his head, then reached for the door handle. “Let’s finish this conversation inside, okay?”
She followed him to the apartment door, then inside, stepping over a pile of mail that had been shoved through the mail slot. Link pushed envelopes and magazines out of the way, shut the door and turned to face her.
“Okay, what’s this really about?”
“That should be obvious.” She folded her arms across her chest. His apartment felt chilled and deserted. “The Lesters are—”
“The Lesters are two people interested in nothing more than Marcy’s inheritance. I still say you’re overreacting.” He frowned, looking at her searchingly.
“That’s what we keep saying, isn’t it.” She rubbed her arms, turning away from Link’s intense gaze. “But what if we’re wrong?”
“What are you talking about?” Link caught her elbows and swung her around to face him. “Wrong about what?”
The insidious doubt that crept through her in the dark moments of the night suddenly blossomed. “What if I’m wrong? What if I’m not the best person for Marcy? I want to be, but—”
Link gave her a light shake. “Annie, wake up. You’re letting fear get the better of you.” He sounded angry. “This is Marcy we’re talking about. You love that baby more than anyone else in the world. No one could be better for that child than you.”
His emotion pierced the misery that had surrounded her since she’d seen that picture-perfect nursery. She took a breath, forcing tight muscles to relax. She shook her head, smiling a little.
“You’re right.”
His grip eased, but he still watched her warily. “I’m glad you realize that.”
“I don’t know what got into me. I just lost my confidence all of a sudden.”
“Well, don’t. You’re what’s best for Marcy, and we’re going to prove it. Right?”
She nodded. “Right.”
“Okay, then.” He released her. “If you don’t mind waiting a second, I’ll get some things I need from the bedroom.”
He crossed the room with quick strides and disappeared through a doorway. She glanced around.
Becca had been right. The place did look like a motel. The beige carpeting and beige walls were typical of a rental unit, but most people would make the place their own with furnishings, pictures, knickknacks.
It didn’t look as if Link had done a thing. The faux-Danish-modern living room set had to have come with the apartment. Link surely wouldn’t have gone out and bought it deliberately. The only personal item in sight was a photo of Link and Davis, wearing hard hats, standing in front of an excavation and grinning proudly.
Link had said he didn’t know how to be a father. Based on the evidence, he also didn’t know how to make a home. The neglected child who’d been hauled from one furnished apartment to another probably hadn’t had a chance to learn that.
He came back into the room carrying a cardboard box, then picked up the photograph and added it to the contents. He glanced around, as if to see whether there was anything else worth taking.
“Not much of a home, is it?” he said.
His words echoed her thoughts so accurately that she couldn’t deny them. “I guess you didn’t spend a lot of time here.”
“No.” Perhaps he saw the apartment through her eyes. “Becca offered to help me fix it up, but there always se
emed to be more important things to do.” He shrugged, dismissing it. “Let’s go.”
He scooped his mail into the box and they went out, snapping the door shut on the empty rooms. She waited while he stowed the box in the trunk, shivering a little as the wind whipped fallen leaves across the parking lot. She’d been cold since she left the house that morning, and it wasn’t just a question of the temperature.
The Lesters’ place, elegant though it had been, hadn’t felt like a home to her. The chill in the atmosphere hadn’t been physical, but she’d felt it. They lived in an expensively decorated vacuum that didn’t betray a thing about who they were or what they valued.
Link’s apartment, cold and barren, spoke volumes about who he was. He was a man on the way up, too busy to be bothered with mundane things like home and family.
She was living in her sister’s house, trying to pretend she was making a home there with Link. None of them had a real home. It was all pretend.
Chapter Eight
“I have to speak to the men for a minute. You can stay here, if you want, so you won’t get your shoes muddy. I’ll be finished in plenty of time to pick up Marcy.”
Annie nodded, then watched as Link strode quickly toward the bare frames of houses at the lakeside project. This was where Link’s heart was—not in relationships or family. In his work. Specifically, in this project he and Davis had started.
She tried to visualize what Link saw in the clutter of raw framing, stacks of materials and piles of earth. He was building the houses into the hillside, facing the lake. The workers hadn’t cut the surrounding trees, and the leaves that had begun to drift to the ground softened the raw appearance of the site.
The view was the best part, as far as she was concerned. Clear blue water stretched across the valley, its surface rippling in the light breeze and glinting in the sunshine. On the far side, the hills were hazy against the sky, with a hint of gold and orange showing in the green of the trees. The lake, a shimmering mirror, reflected the outline of hills and clouds. She pictured sitting on a deck with a mug of morning coffee, feeding her soul with such a glimpse of God’s creation.
She looked back at the construction. Ironic, in a way, that the boy who’d never had a real home, the man who didn’t bother to establish a home of his own, loved to create for others what he’d never had for himself.
Obviously the Lesters thought of their cold elegance as home. She saw again the nursery they, or their decorator, had created for Marcy, and felt a shiver of panic. Link was certainly giving Mrs. Bradshaw a lot of credit, assuming she could see through their facade to what was in Frank and Julia’s hearts.
No. She couldn’t let herself obsess about what was happening at the Lester house right now. She had to have faith that God would work this out.
She’d take a closer look at the houses, mud or no mud. That would occupy her mind until the moment when she had Marcy back in her arms again.
She picked her way across the torn-up earth, approaching the nearest of the buildings. It seemed to be the farthest along, with its roof nearly complete.
A movement caught her eye, and she saw Link step out onto the roof as easily as she would step onto a pavement. He walked lightly along the roof edge, emerging from shadow into sun.
The light hit him. It outlined his tall figure, glinted from his dark hair, dazzled the eye. She stopped, feeling her heart thump wildly.
Maybe being around him so much for the past week had dimmed her realization of the effect he had on her. She’d begun to take it for granted, just as the carpenters must take for granted working thirty feet from the ground.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. That didn’t mean falling wouldn’t hurt.
The trouble was, she couldn’t help it. She was falling in love with him again.
No.
The thought was so emphatic she had to look around to be sure she hadn’t said it aloud. But if she had, there was no one close enough to hear.
She took a breath, trying to rein in the thoughts that galloped through her mind like runaway horses. She couldn’t fall in love with Link. She couldn’t. They both knew this marriage was make-believe—that it would end as soon as Marcy was safe.
She wouldn’t embarrass both of them by feeling something for Link that he clearly didn’t feel for her. Even if all the other good reasons why she shouldn’t love him miraculously vanished, that was still plain.
What am I doing, Lord? Her prayer felt desperate. Is this just imagination, the result of being thrown so close together at such a traumatic time? Please, help me understand what’s happening. Show me what to do.
“What do you think?”
Link’s question startled her so that for a moment she feared he’d seen into her thoughts. Then she realized he was talking about the building.
“It will probably be lovely when it’s done.” She shaded her eyes to look up at him.
He laughed, balancing on the edge of the roof in a way that made her dizzy.
“It doesn’t look like anything yet, but it will.” He gestured, swinging his arm wide, and her heart lurched. “There’ll be a deck off the living room there, looking out over the lake.”
“Wonderful.” She tried to breathe. “Now, would you please come down if you’re going to talk to me?”
His chuckle was warm and teasing. “Afraid of heights, Annie? I’ll be down in a second.” He turned to call a few instructions to one of the workmen, then swung himself onto a ladder and scrambled down.
A few feet from the ground, he paused and looked down at her, his eyes betraying amusement. “Sure you wouldn’t like to come up? There’s a great view from the top.”
“No, thanks.” She hoped her tone was prim enough to disguise the fact that she was breathless. “But don’t let me keep you from anything you need to do.”
He dropped to the ground next to her. “I’m finished up there, but I need to find some papers in the trailer. Come along and see what the plans look like.”
He took her arm to lead her across the rough ground to a small metal trailer set in the shade of a huge hemlock. The simple gesture sent a shiver of awareness through her.
She tried to suppress the feeling. She had to get a handle on this, right now. Being so close to Link was like juggling dynamite—sooner or later it was bound to explode.
The green-and-white construction trailer sat a little distance from the houses, looking, oddly enough, more permanent than they did. Because it was a finished work, she supposed. The houses, when they were done, would fit into the wooded landscape in a way that the metal trailer couldn’t.
“Watch your step.” Link clasped her elbow to help her up the cement block that served as a step into the trailer.
“I can manage.” She drew free as she stepped inside. She’d better manage. She’d better find a way to erase these irrational feelings.
Being in the close confines of the trailer certainly didn’t help. Drawings lined the walls, and papers covered the long table. What appeared to be some sort of legal permit was pinned above the desk.
Link seemed to fill all the available space, so that no matter where she moved, she was within a foot of him. Clearly he wasn’t as bothered by this proximity as she was. He looked totally preoccupied.
“That’s what the project will look like when it’s finished.” He nodded toward a detailed drawing that covered one wall of the trailer. “Davis did that for our presentation to the investors.”
He began sorting through a stack of files on the battered desk. As she moved closer to the drawing, she realized that her imagination hadn’t been good enough to do justice to the project.
Ten houses blended into the surrounding trees, looking as if they had grown there. Each was individual, yet all of them harmonized. Link and Davis had taken advantage of the uniqueness of each site, employing a wraparound deck on one house, a soaring cathedral ceiling on another.
She touched the detail of a gracefully arched deck. “It really is a wonder
ful plan, Link. I can see why this means so much to you.”
He picked up a couple of files and joined her, his gaze fixed on the drawing. His eyes darkened, like those of a man seeing the woman he loved. He was looking at his dream.
Her throat tightened. A woman would have to be very special to compete with that.
“We wanted this project from the moment we heard the land was available. We had to sink everything we had into the property and materials, but it would be worth it. This project would put Conrad and Morgan on the map.”
“Would?” Something about his tone made it sound as if the dream had receded.
He shrugged. He was so close she felt the movement of his shoulders.
“This was doable with Davis’s help.” He traced one of the houses with his fingertip, then planted his palm flat against the drawing. “We worked well together. We complemented each other in a lot of ways. Without him, it’s not so easy.”
“But you’ve made a strong start. And Chet said that the board was behind the project.”
“Behind the project, yes.” He stared intently at the drawing, his dark eyes hooded, hiding his feelings. “Behind me? I’m not so sure.”
“They must know that you’re the logical person to bring this project to a conclusion. Who else would do it?”
His mouth twisted a little. “Frank would like to be the boss, even though he knows little or nothing about construction work and even less about design.”
“There’s your answer, then.” She wanted to wipe away the tension that was evident in every line of his body. “The other investors are surely smart enough to know that about Frank.”
“I hope so.” He straightened, running his hand through his hair and then clasping the back of his neck. “I’d be happy just to see a little less of him. I keep finding him wandering around the site. And Vera says he’s been turning up at the office when I’m not there.”
“You can’t keep him away?” She made it a question. At this point, anything Frank did that might have a connection with Marcy’s custody was of concern to her.
