With Strings Attached (Gabriola Island)

by Vanessa Grant

  She found a pair of clean but ancient sneakers that were just slightly too big. They were comfortable, old enough to stand up to any abuse she might give them if she got involved in whatever David planned to do with a load of gravel at Pat's place. She tied the laces quickly and ran out to the truck, climbing up easily now that she was dressed for trucks instead of city streets.

  "Haven't changed, have you," David said in amusement as he started the truck. "You never could stand to be left out of anything."

  She hugged herself, feeling a crazy nostalgia at sitting beside David, tagging along. "Did you mind much?"

  "No. You were good company." He shifted and turned up McNaughton Road.

  "Really?"

  He shrugged, a gesture that almost persuaded her he meant it. Trust David not to be willing to say a compliment twice. Good company. He must mean it. David had never been one to make up pleasantries. He had always been the tell-the-truth-and-be-damned type.

  "How's Pat?" she asked as he turned up his younger brother's drive.

  "Married."

  Julie hadn't expected that, could hardly believe it. "Who? When?"

  "Molly. She illustrates children's books about dinosaurs. Sarah's kids figure they've fallen into heaven with a dinosaur lady for an aunt."

  "She sounds...different."

  "Hmm. Nice, too."

  "They're happy?"

  He nodded. "Glowingly."

  She smiled, remembering Pat with his string of pretty girls. Pat, who always had a date, but never took any of the girls home afterwards. The man with the smooth easy-going surface and the steel underneath. "I have trouble believing anyone got to him, but I'm glad. He deserves someone nice."

  "So does Molly, I'd say. They're still away on their honeymoon, somewhere in France, I think. This gravel is Pat's project. He wants to surprise Molly with a new Jacuzzi pool when they get back."

  The hole in the ground behind Pat's house looked more like an ugly scar than a promising site for a hot pool. Julie scrambled out of the truck, asking ominously, "How long will they be gone?"

  "Another two weeks."

  "This will never be in shape in two weeks." She wondered how easygoing Molly was.

  David circled the excavation, his eyes narrowed critically. "It always looks bad at this stage. The bedrock is close to the surface up on this hill. I had to bring in twenty loads of fill. Tomorrow I'll bring the back hoe over and get it ready for the pool. The spa man is coming on Friday. We'll have it all together in a week. Grass planted, too."

  "You'll never make it. When they get back, it'll be a nightmare here."

  "Bet?" his eyes challenged hers.

  "Bet," she agreed, grinning. She would lose. If David said it would be done by Friday, of course it would, but it was fun to challenge him.

  "Okay." His lips twitched. "You're on. Now hop out of the way. I don't want to dump a load of gravel on you in my haste to win this bet."

  "You already tried to bury me under that gravel once today." But she moved away, towards a big cedar tree that would shelter her from the gravel dumping.

  "Julie—?"

  She swung to face him, startled to find him close behind her. The look on his face ... she swallowed, whispered, "I know it was my fault. Really. I just...David, I ..."

  His hand moved slowly toward her face. She held her breath. Something inside her screamed at him.

  Don't touch.

  Stay back.

  She was frozen, waiting until he slowly brushed one copper curl back, ignoring dozens of others. She felt his fingers against her cheek. Rough calluses. Gentle. He bent and caressed her cheek softly with his lips. She gasped at the delicate warmth of his touch.

  "What?" she breathed. "Why?"

  "I'm sorry I was so hard on you earlier, Julie."

  She was intensely aware that his eyes were on her parted lips, the tip of her tongue moistening the abrupt dryness. "That's...all right. I—It was my fault."

  "Yes," he agreed softly. "It was." His fingers caught her chin and tilted her face up while he studied her closely. He said quietly, forcefully, "You scared hell out of me. I thought...do you have any idea how heavy that truck is when its loaded? How lethal?"

  He moved and she thought her heart would never start again. His lips covered hers and it ceased to matter that she could not breathe. Seconds. A moment. Endless. When his lips left hers slowly and he lifted his head, her eyes were wide and disturbed.

  "Why did you do that?" she whispered.

  "I've no idea," he answered, then he turned away.

  She prowled around the outside of Pat's house, wandered through the trees and finally settled on a park bench that hadn't been there a few years before. She closed her eyes and listened to the sound of David's dump truck, concentrated on planning tomorrow and the rest of her days.

  Anything but remembering that kiss. It meant nothing. Just a touch, telling her how disturbed he'd been. He couldn't shake her the way he might have when she was a child. So...he had kissed her instead.

  Tomorrow she would go into town. She supposed she would have to go to the ICBC Claim Center and talk to someone about her car, see if her insurance entitled her to a rental car. Then—She had three weeks until school started again. She could—If she had any sense, she would go back home and forget this place.

  She felt a warm presence beside her. "Hi, kitty," she whispered. The cat was black and white, furry and purring loudly. She stroked absently and the cat stretched its claws gently against her denim-covered thigh.

  "Whose cat are you?" she murmured. The animal merely purred in response. Julie's fingers found the spot on the side of the kitten's chin that all cats seemed to like. She was rewarded with increased volume on the purr. "You like that, do you?"

  Behind her, David's voice said wryly, "It figures."

  "What does that mean?" She twisted to see him. He was watching her with an odd expression in his eyes. Confused, she bent over the cat and asked, "Do you know her name, David?"

  He pulled his hat off and sank down on the soft moss in front of the bench. "Her? How did you know she was female?"

  "Instinct. Telepathy." Julie grinned. "A good guess. What's her name?"

  "Trouble. And she's a miserable, antisocial beast."

  Julie stroked the glossy fur. "She's a darling."

  "Oh?" He pulled a long strand of grass out of the ground. "Your darling tore up Pat's screen window, haunted the neighborhood with yowling, got stuck in Pat's chimney one night, wouldn't come near anyone...until Molly came."

  "The dinosaur lady?"

  "Hmm." David was quietly amused. "Sorceress, more likely. She charmed Trouble and my brother. Trouble is almost civilized now. Sarah's kids can feed her, but only Molly can pet her."

  Julie's brows lifted. The kitten settled more firmly into her lap.

  "And you," added David. "Which figures, I suppose."

  "Why does it figure?" She had heard the frown in his voice, frowned back at him. "Is that a compliment?"

  "I'm not sure."

  Trust David to be honest rather than flattering. Julie bent over the cat, enjoying the glossy sleekness under her fingers, the rewarding purr. "It's strange, being here, looking at that house. I remember when Pat was building it."

  David leaned back against a tree trunk, his legs stretched out lazily in front of him. He had the look of a strong man who had been working hard. She wondered what his callused hands would feel like if they touched other places, not just her cheek... . No! She must not let herself think like that. Dreams were all very fine, but they should be at least possible. Either that, or so remote a woman couldn't take them seriously.

  David chewed on the end of a long strand of grass. "That was quite a summer for you, the year Pat started the house."

  "Yes." The cat stretched its head back and Julie rubbed gently along the exposed throat. She had been seventeen that year, restless and dissatisfied, just graduated from high school. As always, her parents had come to Gabriola for the summer.
It had started as a long summer for Julie. Sarah was gone from the farm, working the summer in Victoria. David's parents were also away somewhere, perhaps on the show circuit although Julie had no memory of knowing. At the farm there had been David and Sandy, with Stanley perhaps four years old.

  "What kind of a year was it for you?" she asked softly. "I remember seeing you riding the tractor, Stanley sitting up in front of you."

  David smiled at the memory. "He's a bit big for that now."

  "He always looked as if he enjoyed it."

  "He did, and the chickens, although it was a good thing we weren't in the poultry business, just raising eggs for ourselves."

  "He broke a lot?"

  "Yeah. Quite a few."

  Silence crept over them. Julie stroked the cat absently, although she could feel the restlessness in the small animal. Soon it would twist and escape her touch. Across from her, David's fingers were bending a long strand of field grass. The silence seemed complete, forever, and when she realized there were sounds, they belonged. The drone of a bee somewhere. An eagle crying overhead.

  The cat stirred and she felt its fur rise. "It's an eagle," she said softly. "Too big for you, Trouble."

  She saw the smile in David's eyes, said softly, "I remember that summer. I remember watching you with Sandy and Stanley."

  "I watched you, too." He snapped another piece of grass off in his fingers. "You and Tom Summerton. I tried to tell you he was no good for you."

  "Forcefully," she said, remembering with a smile. She twisted the cat's tail gently around her hand. "Maybe you're good at that, deciding who's good with who. Because you and Sandy...she was perfect for you."

  He said obscurely, "That was always your problem. You thought everything was black and white."

  She shook her head. "No, I—I remember wanting that for myself. What you and Sandy had." She laughed self-consciously. "Wanting it quite desperately."

  He threw the grass away, demanded harshly, "What the hell was Tom thinking of? You were seventeen, for God's sake! He was twenty-two. He had no right—"

  "I told him I was nineteen. And ..." She shrugged. "It wasn't really Tom's fault." Tom had been Patrick's friend, come to help Pat build his house on weekends. Not a strong man, but blown with the winds. Her desire to fall in love had carried them both into an impulsive runaway marriage.

  She said quietly, "Tom didn't have a chance."

  To purchase

  WHEN LOVE RETURNS

  and for more books by Vanessa Grant

  visit your favorite online bookstore, or

  backlistebooks.com/author/vanessa-grant/

  Did you love With Strings Attached? Then you should read Lifelines: Kate's Story by Vanessa Grant!

  Kate Taylor hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since her husband David died. It doesn’t help that David’s dog, Socrates, watches her constantly as if he expects her to bring his master back; that her personal life is a series of telephone conversations with her evasive adult daughter and her demanding mother; that working as a family counselor she regularly faces a client named Rachel, a narcissistic woman who evokes Kate’s most painful memories.

  Kate is exhausted: tired of coping, tired of listening, tired of life. Then one night on an icy road, she goes into a treacherous skid. A razor’s edge from death, she realizes she wants to live.

  She makes plans. She sets goals. She takes a lover. She copes with her daughter’s newest crisis and her mother’s financial foolishness. Then Kate discovers something about Rachel that throws her into an ethical nightmare.

  Her career could be destroyed.

  … so could her life.

  Read more at Vanessa Grant’s site.

  Also by Vanessa Grant

  Gabriola Island

  With Strings Attached

  When Love Returns

  Think About Love

  Latin Legacy

  Catalina's Lover

  Dance of Seduction

  Strangers by Day

  Pacific Waterfront Romances

  Storm - The Author's Cut

  Shadows and Dreams

  Jenny's Turn

  Stray Lady

  It Started With Angus

  Make Love, not Music

  Awakening Dreams

  Wild Passage

  Taking Chances

  So Much for Dreams

  One Secret Too Many

  The Touch of Love

  Angela's Affair

  Wind Shift

  Women's Fiction

  Lifelines: Kate's Story

  Standalone

  Seeing Stars

  If You Loved Me

  The Colors of Love

  After All This Time

  The Broken Gate (Short Story)

  On Johnny's Terms

  Yesterday's Vows

  Watch for more at Vanessa Grant’s site.

  About the Author

  Meet Vanessa Grant

  “Writing fiction is a perfect life choice for someone like Vanessa Grant who can’t make up her mind what she wants to do when she grows up!”

  There are so many choices and I want to do them all. In real life I’ve taken a lot of roads: I’ve studied psychology, volunteered on a crisis line and as a peer counselor for a family life organization, worked as an accountant and a software developer, more recently taught accounting and fraud investigation at a university, and best of all–told stories about life, love, and secrets. In my stories, my heroes and heroines have lived many of the lives I’m fascinated by.

  I live with my wonderful husband and two aging-but-energetic Australian Shepherds on Vancouver Island … and every so often we indulge in wanderlust and leave the island to go exploring.

  In addition to publication in print, most of my novels have now been released as eBooks for Kindle, Sony, Apple and Kobo as well as other formats. Free samples are available for all my eBook editions.

  I love discussing storytelling, books, and the creative process, so don’t hesitate to post a comment on my blog or one of my pages here on the site, or contact me through my Web site at VanessaGrant.com, or on Twitter @Vanessa_Grant

  For book listings and links to my books at online retailers, visit BacklisteBooks.com/author/vanessa-grant/

  If you’re a writer, feel free to check out my free online database of 60,000 Character Names for Writers on my Web site at VanessaGrant.com.

  Read more at Vanessa Grant’s site.