Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Loose Id Titles by Maryn Blackburn
Maryn Blackburn
BRICK BY BRICK
Maryn Blackburn
www.loose-id.com
Brick by Brick
Copyright © June 2014 by Maryn Blackburn
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
eISBN 9781623001308
Editor: Crystal Esau
Cover Artist: Victoria Miller
Published in the United States of America
Loose Id LLC
PO Box 806
San Francisco CA 94104-0806
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This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Chapter One
“Abso-fucking-lutely gorgeous,” James said.
“You like?” My face warmed. He’d given this compliment only once in all the years we’ve been together, the first time he saw me naked.
We’re strictly jeans people, which made tonight’s metamorphosis all the more amazing. The moss-green dress brought out my eyes and showed a daring amount of cleavage, and the strappy sandals’ high heels elongated my legs. I felt beautiful. Sexy too. James had himself a sure thing after the party.
“Right back at you, handsome.” Nearly ten years ago I’d leaned on him, hard, to buy the classic Brooks Brothers suit for our wedding. Then and now, it transformed him from macho construction type into elegant gentleman, so luscious in the navy tropical wool that I was eager to get him out of it. “You’re sure this isn’t too…” I groped for a word that meant slutty but sounded better.
“It’s not too anything. Doug and Cynthia will be dressed up. Did I tell you he said I could wear a tux? Like I might have one.” He tugged his shirt collar away from his throat. “Like anybody in Tucson has one.” Except for weddings, funerals, and federal court, living here rarely requires so much as a necktie. “He’s lucky his bricklayer has a suit.”
My shoes clicking on the kitchen tiles, I trailed James into the powder room. He scowled at his reflection until I reached over his wide shoulders to snug his tie against his collar. I ran my nails through the shock of blond hair that threatened to fall onto his forehead, and he smiled at my reflection before turning around.
The kiss was a James special, the bold tonguing kind that often came not long before he did. Its passion startled, irritated for the instant I remembered I wore lipstick, then fully roused the part of me that his compliment had awakened. He moved calloused hands down my back, settled on the lower back of the velvet dress, and pulled me to him.
He broke the kiss to grin at me crookedly. “You ready?” He wiped at his mouth with a square of toilet paper, which came away rose tinted.
“For anything,” I said. “I’m serious. Are you sure we have to go? We could, you know, stay in.” I pressed my lips together. A mirror check showed my makeup intact.
James led the way to the back door. “I told Cyn we’d be there. She wants to meet you.” He lifted the spare key to my car from the hook.
“What, this isn’t a truck evening?” I dead bolted the door.
“Ha. It’s making that noise again anyway.” He opened the door and helped me into the passenger seat like his date, not his wife. “I figure we’ll stay an hour, hour and a half. You don’t have to stand there and smile while I’m working the party. Have a drink, meet some people, enjoy yourself.”
I admired the cords of his neck as he turned his head and backed out of the carport. “Who’s going to be there, anyone I know?”
“Considering what they spent on masonry, I’m hoping their other friends are rich people.”
“Are you sure I look all right?”
“Oh, yeah…” He paused at the foot of the driveway, and his cool eyes judged me, head to toe. “Nobody there is going to look as good as you do.”
“I’m sorry to be nervous over nothing. It’s just a party. They’re just people.”
“They’re not snobs. Hell, Doug invited us. And wait till you meet Cynthia. She’s as down-to-earth as anybody. Listen, we’ll find each other and decide then if we want to stay.” He hadn’t driven my car in a long time. It took him two tries to find first gear. “Although the way you look, I can’t imagine anything better than the private party we’ll have at home.”
Now I dreaded the party for a different reason. It wasn’t fair, how easily James could make me squirm in anticipation when it would be hours before we were home again. I set my hand on his thigh, rubbed it lightly, and allowed my little finger to stray to the bulge in the navy wool, which stirred. “Me, either.”
Chapter Two
James parked at one end of a generous brick drive that looped across the front yard. He winced when the tires squealed.
“They had me add a curb to keep people from driving off the edge. And to chew up the tires of anybody who only parallel parks a couple times a year.”
Thick with native vegetation, the yard was worth defending. Bot
h architect and builder had to work around the one-armed saguaro, since the stately cactus was protected, but Doug and Cynthia had saved a dozen golden barrels in sizes from wastebasket to keg, a lone cholla reaching for the stars, and numerous sagebrush and manzanita between the semicircular brick driveway and the street.
Inside the driveway a paloverde tree threw shadows on us as we neared the door. The big house blended into the desert better than most new developments. I liked that its owners had not tried to re-create some Eastern ideal but embraced the Sonoran desert, right down to the color of their paint.
James reached for the bell, but the door opened before he touched it.
“Here he is,” a plump woman in a silver-and-gray silk tunic said to a man in a navy suit similar to James’s. She kissed my husband’s cheek with a loud smack. “Aren’t you handsome?”
“I clean up pretty good for manual labor, huh?” He wiped at a muted red smear, raked his hair back one-handed, then kissed her cheek.
“And how.” The woman caught my eye and sighed. “Come in, come in. I love the winter days, but these nights feel nearly as cold as New York.”
I stepped inside, James right behind me. The four of us crowded the foyer once we moved in enough to close the door. No one but me knew James’s hand petted my rear.
“Thanks for inviting us,” he said. “Really.”
“Oh, you! We invited everybody we like.” She leaned close and whispered, “And as few of Doug’s clients as we could get away with.”
Doug laughed too loudly, as New York transplants so often did for the first year or two. “You must be Natalie. I’m Doug Rosenfeld, this is Cynthia, and we’re very pleased to have you here.”
“We enjoyed James being around every day, but I ran out of things to make out of brick,” Cynthia said.
“Right about the time I ran out of money,” Doug added, “so it worked out. James, you should meet Larry Kline before he’s too drunk. He just bought Rincon Office Park, and he’s got both money and vision.” He led James away.
“I don’t think he’s trying to be rude,” Cynthia said, tilting her head toward her husband. “It’s business.”
“Doug’s a lawyer, right?” I thought that’s what James had said.
“Not Doug’s business—James’s. We’re just so pleased with the terraces and the walkways and all that we think everybody should hire him.”
I thought so too. All the trades had their lean periods, but the Rosenfelds’ business had been the only new build my husband had in far too long. Seeking more, James had tucked a short stack of business cards into his breast pocket. “He’d be glad to have more creative work. He loves the design aspect.”
“I bet he loves you in that dress too. I won’t ask where you got it, since the figure to wear it is just a recurring fantasy I have.”
I didn’t know what to say, but Cynthia laughed, so I did too.
“I’m on hostess duty for a while longer, but I hope we can talk later. I was so excited when James told me you’re a reader. Meanwhile there’s a wine bar in the big room, left and to the back, past the kitchen, and another one outside. Get yourself something to drink and mingle.”
“Thanks. I’ll probably just people watch at first.”
“That’s right. James said you were the quiet type. Doug is too. Luckily you both ended up with extroverts. I don’t think that’s any accident, do you? You go right ahead and people watch, because they’re certainly going to be watching you. Oh, there’s the bell. Later, all right? I want to know all about whatever you’re reading.”
The bartender was a tiny Mexican man with a huge smile for my breasts. “Champagne or burgundy, señorita?”
Señorita? I was thirty-three and wore both wedding band and engagement ring. “Champagne, por favor.”
Glass in hand, I observed the big room, as warm and sedately yet expensively appointed as its owners. Cynthia seemed to share my reading tastes, judging by the hardbounds I had in paperback, and clusters of photos showed their sons were college graduates, one married. I revised my guess of Doug’s and Cynthia’s ages from early to late forties.
I roved the edges of the party, eavesdropping on clusters of people I passed. I paused near two women in their well-preserved fifties.
“Did you see the backyard?” said the one with peach-tinted hair. “It’s all these different levels and just flows, like on one of those home shows.”
“The yard? Screw the yard.” Her blonde friend laughed.
“I was over when they were putting it in. Screw the bricklayer, if you ask me.” She flushed to the roots of her peach hair when she realized I’d heard.
I stepped in. “I do.”
Silence, and probably offense. I hoped neither of these women was Mrs. Larry Kline. “I’m his wife, and the first time I laid eyes on him rebuilding my Aunt Donna’s steps, I had exactly the same reaction.”
“Oh my,” said Peach Hair. “You’re living my daydream.”
“Only part-time.” I rolled my eyes. “He likes the Three Stooges and intends to die with the remote in his hand.”
“Don’t they all? I’m Naomi Kline, by the way.”
“Bonnie Bailey,” said the blonde, offering her hand. The cut stone in her ring was pink, the size of a peanut.
“Natalie Bedwell. Pleased to meet you both. Is that Naomi Kline as in Mrs. Larry Kline?”
“It beat ‘Naomi Levenkroner’ all to hell.” She laughed. “Do you know Larry?”
“No. Doug took my husband to meet him.”
“He’d better hurry. Larry’s not much of a drinker, but he’s celebrating his new property. Rincon Office Park? He’s got all these ideas about executive patios and breezeways and shaded outdoor rooms.”
“Really? How interesting.”
“How furnace-like, you mean,” Naomi said. “No way people will be comfortable outside in July, shade or not.”
“It might make meetings shorter.” Bonnie smiled brightly. “Uncomfortable people might get to the point faster.”
“Hopefully before they get to their melting point,” I said.
The ice was broken. We talked about long meetings and hiding from summer afternoons, and how nice the winter days were, and the snowbirds descending in droves now that Christmas was over. Cynthia arrived with a guest in tow. “This is Professor Alejandro Ruiz,” she said, patting the young man’s sleeve. “He’s at the law school.”
“Assistant professor, and it’s Al, please. Cynthia seems to have stolen my wife.”
“Don’t worry,” Bonnie said. “She always gives them back.”
For the next hour or so party guests came and went, but I didn’t feel the need to move, since everyone else did. Cynthia stayed with our group much of the time, excusing herself to answer the doorbell rung by a late arrival or interact with guests who stood awkwardly alone, bringing them to one group or another, often ours.
She was wonderfully funny and spared no one, herself and Doug included. Off to the side of the conversation swirling around us, we agreed we’d meet at Crave Coffee Bar to talk books, and that we weren’t just saying it but would do it, and soon.
I sipped my champagne slowly but was glad to see the bartender circulating with a bottle in each hand, even though he addressed his “Refill, señorita?” to my breasts.
I held my glass as low and steady as his gaze. “Gracias.”
The crowded room had lost much of its population without my noticing. Near the fireplace, James listened to a silver-haired man in a tuxedo. They exchanged business cards and parted, the man darting into the kitchen to be greeted with a frat-boy roar of drunken approval.
Firelight gilded my husband’s hair and skin and danced on his Nordic bone structure. The powder-blue shirt made his eyes bluer even from a distance. He glanced my way and licked his lip, then cocked one eyebrow and grinned.
Soon, I told myself. Hang on.
Chapter Three
James sauntered to our group with the self-assurance of a man who knows wom
en want him. Only I would get him.
“Any of you lovely ladies ready to leave with me?” he asked.
“Every single one of us,” someone said and giggled.
“Every married one too,” Cynthia said. “You’re a lucky woman, Natalie.”
“I think so,” I said, taking James’s arm. “Excuse us?”
To James I said, “Part of me wants to get you home right away, but part wants to see the terraces in person, not pictures, then get you alone.”
“You’ll freeze in that dress. You can see them from the great room,” he said, guiding me down two steps.
Cigarette smoke curled near the recessed lights in the high ceilings. Most of it seemed to come from the men singing Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman” around a baby grand, where a man played with more enthusiasm than skill. His bumbling segue into Bob Seger’s “Old Time Rock and Roll” met with applause.
“It’s like freshman dance,” James said.
“What?”
“All the boys on one side of the room, all the girls on the other.”
I hadn’t noticed, but the women clustered around a man backed against the picture window. They all talked at once, clamoring for his attention. His head swiveled, but his smile seemed dazed.
“They’re blocking the terraces,” James said. “Take my jacket. We’ll go outside.”
“Later? The show’s in here, I think.”
“Yeah. Who is that guy?”
“Give me a minute.” Over the rim of my glass, I studied him. As tall as James but slimmer, his pale skin contrasting with gleaming hair swooping backward in two dark wings.
“Some boy band?” James said.
“I don’t think Bonnie Bailey and Naomi Kline would be drooling over some pop singer too old to be called a boy.” Whoever he was, he was our age, not handsome so much as beautiful without being feminine.
“Is that Larry’s wife?”
“Yes. She’s nice. By the way, she says not to lowball on the bid. Larry’s been known to go with the highest bidder when quality matters.”
“Maybe we should be networking at parties more.” He leaned back, his hips and shoulder blades on the wall, and took my champagne from me with a smile. He sipped and returned it. “Got it yet?” He tilted his head toward the man.
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