by Sarah Remy
It rang and then connected to Chris’s voicemail. She snapped the phone shut, and tossed it onto the bed.
He was probably asleep in front of the television. Or in the shower, pretending to shave the bit of peach fuzz he’d recently become so proud of. She wouldn’t let herself worry.
The room seemed dark as a cellar. She wandered to the windows, and jerked back the drapes. She looked out across the patio tent at the gazebo. The sun would soon set, and the icicle lights were already beginning to glow.
She wanted, desperately, to gather up her things and run away to Chris. To reassure herself that her son was safe and healthy and, yes, happy. That, at least, no one could take from her.
Abby pulled the room’s delicate rocking chair away from the hearth, and set it before the windows. She sagged into the chair, hugged her ribs, and pressed her lids together to keep back the ache in her head.
Her sigh was so loud she didn’t hear the door opening. But she heard the slight snick as the latch closed again. Her spine stiffened.
“Abby? Windsor said you weren’t feeling well.”
“Windsor can kiss my ass,” she snapped.
“What?” Everett sounded incredulous.
“Nothing.” She’d tell him about the will herself. She’d make him understand.
“He said he found you overdoing in the upstairs hall. White as a sheet.”
“He fed me two aspirin. I’m fine.”
“You’re still white. Look at me.”
How she loved the sound of his voice. Even when he tried so hard to hide the drawl, the Southern lilt still seeped in. She’d lived around Southern men all of her life, but none sounded so sweet to her ears as Everett.
He crouched in front of her chair, green eyes narrowed in concern. And something else. Fright?
“What happened?” He demanded with an arrogance that gave lie to the uncertainty in his expression. “You’ve been working too hard. Have you made yourself sick?”
“No, I told you. Just a headache.” She scowled, annoyed at herself, at Windsor, at Everett and his concern.
She waved him off, and jumped to her feet, pacing the small room.
Everett followed after and his hands soothed her shoulders. “Nerves?”
His fingers dug the knots from her muscles, and started a pulsing down low. The moan slipped from her lips before she could bite it back.
“You’re tight as a wire,” he said into her hair. “I can’t believe it. Abby Ross, nervous.”
Terrified.
“You’ve already bedazzled Rachel Duncan sight unseen, and she’s the hardest to please of them all. She’s demanding to know where you found the kitchen cabinets.” Gentle hands ran down her arms and caught her fingers. “Your house is a work of art.”
“Edward’s house.”
“My house,” he corrected without hesitation. “You’ve made it my house.”
“Wait until you see the bill.”
He laughed, and turned her until they stood thigh to thigh. “Feeling better? Your color has come back.”
The spare planes of his body burned against her own. The throbbing in her head had traveled to take up a rhythm in her blood.
“It’s you,” she managed.
“Me?” His eyes were full of swirling currents. He lifted a hand, ran a finger across her forehead, down the bridge of her nose, and against her mouth, trailing fire. “And here I thought I’d caught you making eyes at that bull of a caterer.”
“Who?” When she spoke a knuckle slid between her parted lips and grazed her teeth. He tasted of snowflakes and desire. Wanting more, she sucked lightly.
Everett swore a muffled oath as he pulled his hands from her body. His abrupt withdrawal left Abby swaying against the rocker. She put a hand on the back of the chair for balance, and tried to catch her breath.
“Sorry.” He strode across the room, and stood before the cold fireplace. “I’m probably not doing your head any good.”
“No. I mean, yes. Ev.” She couldn’t trust her legs to take her across the floor to him.
“No.” Back turned, he shook his head. “Later. Once this damned week is over, there are some things I need to say.”
Her skin prickled and she shivered.
“This room is freezing.” Still without looking at her, he began arranging kindling in the hearth. “The heat never manages to make it way back here. I’d forgotten. I’m sorry.”
Why was he apologizing when all she wanted was for him to touch her again?
But when she finally gathered the strength to go to him, he’d snagged a poker, and appeared to be focused on building the fire. She stood behind him, and watched as he jabbed the poker between the flames.
Several tendrils of tow colored hair had escaped his sleek head and fallen over his brow. Abby bent to smooth the strands from his eyes, but he straightened, and stepped away.
“It’ll warm up quickly, now,” he said, refusing to meet her eyes. “Why don’t you take a nap? There are still several hours before dinner and you’ll feel better for it.”
“I should run home and check on Chris.”
“I’ll see to it.” He was already at the door. Abby stood in front of the merry fire, and stared helplessly after.
“Sleep,” he urged. “I’ll come for you at five. Introduce you all around.”
Abby started to protest, and then shut her mouth with a snap. He was already gone, the door swinging quietly shut on his heels. She stood alone, lust roiling unsatisfied through her veins.
“Damn!” Abby plucked her tote from the bed and hurled it at the door. It burst like a ripe melon, spilling her magpie collection of tools and sketches and receipts and paper scraps to the floor.
She stared at the mess, and balled her fists, and tried to summon another spurt of agitation. She couldn’t. Because the fear growing in her heart chilled even the flames of her temper.
She’d find a way to explain. And she’d find a way soon.
Gritting her teeth, Abby settled on her haunches, and began gathering up her strewn belongings.
Chapter Twenty
“WOODEN PEGS, YOU SAY?” Ignoring the rush of busy caterers, Rachel Duncan crouched down smack in the middle of the kitchen, and studied the cabinets.
Abby’s lips quirked. Rachel was short and dark and definitely tenacious. Her long velvet gown bunched and wrinkled as she moved from a squat to hands and knees. Rachel didn’t seem to notice.
The caterers ignored the woman with professional aplomb, but Abby had a harder time. Suppressed amusement made her nose itch.
“Yes. It’s called mortise and tenon,” Abby explained. “My partner, Jackson Pierce, happens to be the local expert. He put each one together by hand.”
Gathering green silk against her ankles, Abby hunkered down by the woman’s side. A diamond the size of a gum drop gleamed on Rachel’s hand as she tapped fingernails on wood.
“Amazing. How long did it take?”
“Quite a long while,” Abby admitted. “But he does all the work himself, from top to bottom. The molding and stain and hardware.”
Beyond the kitchen Everett’s party was in full swing. Someone had tuned in and turned up It’s A Wonderful Life, and Jimmy Stewart’s lovable laughter seemed to rattle the walls.
Dinner, all three shifts of it, had met with success and accolades. After dinner drinks were now being guzzled up at an astounding rate, and the caterers were trying their very best to pass out dessert.
Abby silently wished them luck. She had never seen so many people in one place in her entire life, never imagined so much energy could be contained in one spot.
Everett’s friends and clientele made up a large and diverse group with apparently only business in common. An eclectic mix of young and old, hemp and satin, diamonds and leather, they mingled together in a soup of holiday cheer.
Abby had seen one man in jeans and a floor length leather duster. Another proudly displayed a spiraling tattoo along the curve of his jaw. A pair of ident
ical twins in matching black dresses danced together in the foyer while a cluster of men in Armani business suits discussed the stock market on the floor beneath the parlor Christmas tree.
A woman in a tuxedo sat on a bar stool in the hallway, knitting. As far as Abby could tell, she had spoken to no one at all.
“They’re gorgeous.” Somehow Rachel managed to keep her dignity as she crawled about on hands and knees. “I’ll have something similar.”
“For your kitchen?”
“For my kitchens.” She gathered up her gown, and climbed carefully back to her feet. “I’m having an old home broken into condos. In Tucson. Four kitchens.”
“Oh. My.” Abby put her hand under Rachel Duncan’s arm to keep the woman from stepping on her hem. “Jackson would be delighted, I’m sure. Let me just...”
She poked her head into the hall, scanning the crowd for Jack’s unmistakable height. “There he is.” She steered Rachel from the room. “Let me just introduce you.”
Everett took a welcome break from talk of mergers and acquisitions some time after his watch registered 2AM. He managed to weave his way between crowds of well wishers, and make the basement without spilling the long neck he’d snagged from a caterer’s tray. He settled into leather couch and exhaled gratefully.
He recognized several of the men grouped around the billiard table, and knew that they were hard core gamers. He wasn’t surprised when the betting became as serious as the game.
Farther behind the table a game of roulette was being played out to a chorus of shouting and giggling and general ruckus. Past the roulette, a black jack dealer went quietly about his business, waiting for interested players.
Black jack wasn’t Everett’s game. Roulette could wait. What he wanted most was bed. Bed and Abby and an endless dawn between soft sheets.
But he had learned, over the years, that business often depended as much on the salesman as the product. He had polished his skills and turned hill billy hick into consummate host.
So he ignored desire, and finished his beer, and cut in on a game of billiards, and quickly began raking in Ben Franklins. The table was sweet, the sticks to his taste, and his companions fast and loose with both money and booze. Time rolled by and before Everett knew it he discovered he was enjoying himself.
His funds grew in leaps and bounds, he kept a beer close at hand, and his opponents seemed to be generally decent.
When he glanced at his watch again it was after four, and the early morning was still speeding right along. As the consummate host, he quickly lost back most of the money he’d won and, citing thirst, took a break from the table.
He scrounged a bottle of mineral water from behind the bar, loosened the collar of his tux, and rubbed sweat from his brow with the back of his sleeve.
The room had filled up since last he’d notice, and grown stuffy. The black jack table ran smoothly. He couldn’t see the roulette wheel past a cluster of boisterous onlookers. He felt a burst of pride. It looked like the party was already a legend in the making.
Suddenly, fiercely, he wanted Abby. He sucked down a last gulp of water, thumped the plastic bottle back onto the bar, and shrugged his way through the crowd, searching.
He found her on his new patio, perched on a folding chair beneath a glowing heater, protected from a light fall of snow by the sturdy tent overhead. She seemed in deep conversation with a woman in red velvet while two older men smoked thin cigars in the background.
After the warmth and noise of the house the patio seemed whisper quiet. Everett turned one of the white rental chairs backward and sat. If Abby noticed him, she didn’t give any sign.
She’d shed her wrap somewhere, and he realized the dress he’d brought her afforded little protection against winter. But she looked as though she’d left her earlier head ache behind. Her cheeks were flushed, her voice animated, and as Everett watched she laughed at something her companion said.
He stifled an urge to take her in his arms and chaff her bare skin until it warmed. Instead he slouched in his chair, and listened with half an ear. The woman in velvet seemed to be the president of a small software firm. Everett thought he should probably remember her name. He had spoken to her only once or twice, but he knew Windsor had insisted she make the guest list.
He recalled that she had a quick mind and a generous spirit. As Everett listened, she questioned Abby closely about the work done in the master bath.
Abby answered in low tones. Everett lost himself in the liquid murmur of her voice.
Beyond the tent the sky had cleared and gone dark and full of stars. Feeling deeply content, he propped his arms on his thighs, and admired the gleam of the night across undisturbed snow.
In the distance he could hear the sluggish, frozen bubble of the Creek.
Abby laughed, and Everett caught the exchange of business cards. Good. By the end of the week she’d be known coast to coast.
Abby laughed again, and the woman in velvet left the porch, taking the entourage of cigar smoking men away with her. The kitchen slider banged shut, and the noise of the house was muted.
Silence wrapped like a blanket. Everett took a breath of crisp air and held out his hand. She came to his side, and he pulled her close, rubbing her bare arms until the goosebumps faded.
“How many of those have you given out?” He asked, still watching the stars. Her thawing skin felt sleek and warm against his palms.
“Business cards?” She snorted a little. The vibration thrummed along his spine. “Twenty or thirty. Not as many as Jack. The women love Jack.”
“They seem to.” He took his gaze from the sky and watched consternation flush her face. “What?”
“Nothing.” She leaned into him, just a little. His body went immediately hard. He bent his head, burying his face in the fall of her hair.
She shifted. “You stink of booze. Are you drunk?”
The press of her body against his own was torture. “No. Buzzed, maybe.”
“Lush,” she scolded. She edged away from his seeking hands but when he stood her own came around to circle his neck.
Through the perfume of her hair he found her ear. “And you haven’t had a single drop, Abigail?”
“Not enough to matter,” she returned, prim and proper. “A lady doesn’t get tipsy when she’s trying to impress.”
“And who,” his tongue traced the shell of her ear until she gasped, “are you trying to impress tonight?”
She didn’t answer. He nipped the edge of her ear, and she squeaked in surprise, and then exhaled, shuddering.
“Abby. Come upstairs with me.”
“Someone will notice you’ve disappeared.”
“I don’t care.” His mouth trailed kisses along the curve of her throat. Alcohol and lust burned through his system, pooling in his groin, a pleasure that was quickly becoming painful.
If he didn’t have her soon, he knew he’d burst.
“I don’t care. Abby, I need you.”
“I know.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “Everett. There’s something I have to tell you.”
“Will the world end if you don’t tell me this instant?”
She quivered. He though she might be laughing. “Probably not.” Her fingers inched past the waist band of his trousers.
“Christ in a kayak!” He felt dizzy with desire, hot and horny as a teenager. She wanted him. “God, you’re beautiful.” If he didn’t have her this very minute, he’d burst.
She smiled against the curve of his neck. Her fingers dipped lower.
The kitchen slider hissed open, and a wave of noise broke from the house. A shadow the size of a Redwood clattered down the steps.
“Abby!” Pierce ducked under the tent. He clutched Abby’s tote in one paw, her small phone in the other.
“It’s Mrs. Witherspoon.” Brow creased, Pierce passed Abby the phone. “She says Chris just left the house on a beater cycle. Roddy Green was driving.”
“Let me come with you,” Everett demanded for
the third time.
“No.” She shook him off, and reached into the coat closet for her wrap. Pierce grabbed his own coat but Abby batted him away. “I’m his mother. You’ll both stay.”
“It’s nearly dawn. People will be heading for their beds. No one will care if I disappear for an hour or two. However long it takes.”
Abby shot him a look of disbelief.
