Rowan grunted. “And by the time I finish with this job, I’ll walk like I’m eighty, too.” He put a hand to the small of his back as if it ached.
“You’re a natural,” Clancey murmured. “I brought you a snack. I thought you might like a break.”
His expression softened — or at least, Clancey thought it did. Under the threateningly bushy gray eyebrows, it was hard to tell.
“Great. I’m almost done, though. Can it wait a couple of minutes?”
She shrugged. “If you want cold cookies, it can wait.” She stood in the doorway watching as he pried at the last remaining chunk of ceiling. It resisted, and finally she said, “If it’s stuck fast, why does it have to come down?”
“Because it isn’t practical to re-plaster the ceiling, and the modern stuff comes in neat rectangles and won’t fit against this raw edge.” His voice was slightly muffled by the mask and breathless from the exertion.
Clancey studied the beams that spanned the space above her head. Her eyes were beginning to sting from the particles in the air. “How about opening the windows and letting the dust blow out?” she asked. “Or would that hurt the fresh paint outside?”
Rowan shook his head. “No, but I can’t get the windows open.”
“Oh, I’d forgotten. Every window I’ve tried in the whole house has been painted shut.”
He groaned. “Just the kind of news I like to hear. With no air conditioning, how did Leonard’s tenants stand it in the summer?”
Clancey let it pass. How Rowan coped with the heat next summer would certainly be no problem of hers. “You know, I always wanted a beamed ceiling,” she mused.
“Not this kind. It was never intended to be seen.”
“Yes, I gathered that.” She craned her neck to look at the age-darkened timbers. “How strange. From here it looks as if the boards aren’t even straight.”
“Oh, they aren’t,” Rowan said grimly. “They also aren’t level, which means the plaster was half an inch thick in some spots and almost two inches in others. The sheer weight helped drag it down. It’s going to be loads of fun to replace this.” His frustration seemed to lend him strength, and the last stubborn corner came loose with an alarming crack.
Clancey shuddered at the sound of pieces raining down onto the hardwood floor. It was too bad no one had thought of putting down a tarp. Not that it would have made much difference in the long run, she supposed. If the roof itself had collapsed, it couldn’t have made much more of a mess.
Rowan went off to wash up, and Clancey found a broom and began sweeping the debris into piles. It took time and care, or a cloud of dust would swirl up and settle into yet another layer on every surface and in every crack. In fact, odd as it was, she didn’t even have to be sweeping for it to move around.
It took a few minutes before she realized that there was a definite draft in the front of the room, and longer to find the source of it under the discolored old shade on the front window. She’d raised the shade and was poking at the double-hung sash with Rowan’s pry bar when he came back in.
“The worst part of plaster dust is that when you get it wet, it turns into concrete,” he was saying.
Clancey glanced over her shoulder. His clothes still carried the unnatural grayish cast, but his hair was dark again. It was wet, too — it looked as if he had simply thrust his head under the faucet and let the water sluice over him.
“Look,” she said. “Not all the windows were painted shut, after all. This one was painted open half an inch.”
He came across to look at it. “That should be a nice source of fresh air all winter.”
“Particularly in January, when the arctic wind starts to howl through the gap.” She jabbed at the casing again. “When you’re the one who’s trying to sleep here.”
“You really know how to make a point, Clancey,” he complained. “Here, let me try.”
He seized the upper sash and gave a tremendous tug. At the same instant the pry bar Clancey was wielding broke through the last of the paint that was holding it fast. Clancey could do nothing but watch, eyes wide, unable even to shout a warning, as the sash slammed into place, trapping Rowan’s fingers between it and the wood casing.
And she wondered if the little crackling sounds she heard were from the window — or from Rowan’s bones snapping under the strain.
CHAPTER SIX
He didn’t blast her with a stream of bad language. Clancey gave him credit for that. Even though she had to pry open the lower sash and reach under it in order to tug the top one down so she could free his fingers, all Rowan did was moan. Clancey herself was shuddering at the pain that must be echoing through him with each vibration of the window. But finally he could pull free.
He could not, however, straighten his fingers from the claw-like position in which they’d been caught. Even the effort brought tiny beads of sweat to his upper lip and a pallor that rivaled the dusty look he’d had earlier.
“Ice,” she said briefly, and ran for the refrigerator.
Rowan followed her downstairs very slowly and watched as she began dumping ice-cube trays into the nearest container. It happened to be the dishpan, and when she gestured to him to put his hands atop the heaped ice, he protested. “What are you trying to do, give me frostbite, too?”
“At least then you’d be too numb to feel the pain on the way to the hospital. For any injury of this sort, the first treatment is ice.” Then she ruined the professional sound of that by adding, “Isn’t it?”
He rolled his eyes and cooperated. Clancey swathed a towel around his hands and started dumping another layer of cubes over them, as gently as she could.
Rowan winced as an ice cube bounced off his knuckle, and said plaintively, “Why stop with my hands? Why not just put me on the first train to Siberia and freeze my feet, too?”
Clancey relaxed a little. If he was starting with the wisecracks again, he was going to be all right.
*****
Clancey stopped the car by the emergency entrance and came around to help Rowan get out. He paused just inside the emergency-room door. “You can’t leave the car there. It’s double-parked.”
“I know. I’ll move it as soon as they start working on you.”
“Are you kidding? They won’t even touch my wounds till all the insurance forms are out of the way.” Then he groaned in what sounded like mortal agony.
“It’s getting worse, isn’t it?” she asked. Guilt welled up in her so strongly she was almost physically sick herself.
“It’s not my hands, exactly. It’s the thought of all the paperwork.”
“Oh, I see what you mean. Well, maybe they’ll let you make an X instead of signing your name.”
“Not only that,” he muttered. “There’s the problem of my insurance identification card.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t have it.”
“Well, I wasn’t expecting to have an accident,” he began.
“Nobody ever does, Rowan. That’s included in the damned definition of the word.”
“Would you hush? I do have the card. It’s in my wallet.”
Clancey glared at him. “Then what’s the problem?”
“The wallet is in my hip pocket.”
And if he couldn’t move his fingers he wasn’t going to be reaching into the back pocket of those form-fitting jeans, either. Someone else was going to have to retrieve his wallet.
Clancey sighed. “Turn around.” She slid her fingers into his pocket. The leather wallet was warm and supple from the heat of his body, and unexpectedly slick. On her first try it slipped out of her grip, and she had to dig deeper, till almost her whole hand was out of sight. That wasn’t the worst of it, however. The blue denim was so soft and well-worn it was practically nonexistent.
Clancey could feel herself turning red.
Rowan was looking over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t recommend a second career as a pickpocket if you can’t do any better than that, Clancey.”
She got hold of
a corner of the wallet and yanked it out. She felt like slapping it into his palm. Instead she settled for handing it over to the clerk who had come to greet them, and without another word went to move the car.
It would serve Rowan right if she just drove off and left him there.
On the other hand, it had been her window, and she’d been pushing on it when his fingers got in the way, so she did have a responsibility to see him through this. And if it turned out that all his fingers were broken...
Well, she could always buy him that ticket to Siberia, she decided bleakly. It would be a whole lot easier than listening to him, that was sure.
When she returned to the emergency room the clerk showed her down the hall to the treatment cubicle where a nurse was bending over Rowan. “Am your hands normally this cold?” she was asking as Clancey came in.
Rowan sent an I-told-you-so look at Clancey over the nurse’s shoulder. “No, that was the half ton of ice she packed me in.”
“Oh. Well, icing it down was a good idea, actually.”
Clancey stuck her tongue out at Rowan.
“It’s a good thing you weren’t wearing a wedding ring, Mr. McKenna,” the nurse went on. “Your finger’s so swollen, we would’ve had to cut the ring off. I’ll get you over to radiology in a minute for your X-rays. Just sit still now.” She smiled and whisked out of the room.
Clancey perched on the edge of a chair. “What gave her the idea you have a wedding ring?”
He shrugged. “Simple logic, I suppose.”
“Just because I’m here to hold your hand?”
He jerked back a little, protective of the injured fingers.
“Figuratively speaking, of course. I’m not about to touch you again.”
“Thank heaven,” Rowan said piously.
“Why did you want me, anyway? The clerk said you asked her to bring me in.”
“Look, Clancey, I’m damned if I’m going to explain all by myself how this happened.”
“Thanks. I suppose it’s better to defend myself. Otherwise you’ll make it sound like I did it on purpose.”
Rowan nodded. “Assault with a deadly window, I think they call it.”
In the end, the X-rays showed that nothing was broken. “You’re very lucky,” the doctor concluded as he wrapped the last injured knuckle. “The force was distributed equally across all your fingers, so none of them took the full brunt of the blow.”
Rowan’s expression was incredulous as he looked down at his bandaged hands. Only his thumbs and his pinkies had escaped. “This is lucky?” he said, almost hoarsely.
Clancey got him out of there as quickly as she could, before he became hysterical.
*****
As soon as the car stopped in the driveway, Rowan automatically reached for the door handle and muttered something under his breath when the bulky supports and bandages got in the way. “If nothing’s broken,” he went on more loudly, “then why all the splints?”
“To keep you from hurting yourself more.”
“Well, that’s one sure way to prevent it — make sure I can’t do anything. It’s going to be nearly impossible to drive.”
“Drive?” Clancey’s voice was no more than a squeak. “You can’t mean you’re planning to drive yourself home?”
“How else do you suggest I get there? My apartment is clear across town.”
“I’ll take you.”
“And leave my car here?”
Clancey shrugged. “No doubt I could drive it.”
“Great. And then you’d be stuck at my place without a way to get back.”
The way he said it, Clancey thought, indicated that the idea of having her around seemed to him more of a handicap than all six bandaged fingers put together. She didn’t blame him, exactly, so she tried another approach. “The label on the painkiller bottle says you shouldn’t drive while you’re taking it. And you’ve had two of them — remember?”
He didn’t answer.
So it wasn’t that he didn’t possess common sense; he just didn’t want to exercise it at the moment. “Look,” Clancey said. “Let’s say for the sake of argument that you manage to get yourself home without cracking up your car. Do you live alone?”
He nodded.
“Then how do you plan to unlock the door? And what do you plan to eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You will be once the shock wears off. And you’re not in any shape to use even a can opener, Rowan.”
He glowered at her.
Clancey was beginning to regret that she’d found out he wasn’t married. She could have turned him over to Kaye without a qualm.
“I’m already feeling like a worm, you know. At least let me help, would you? I cook a mean—” she paused, wondering what on earth he might be able to eat, and went on hopefully “—stir-fry, and as soon as you have something to eat, I’ll drive you home and take a cab back.”
He showed no sign of having heard her.
Clancey lost her temper. “And don’t get the idea that I’m trying to hold you hostage because of your wonderful temperament, McKenna. I’d be glad to see the last of you, but I’ll feel awful if you have a wreck on top of everything else, so I am not going to let you out of my car as long as you’re threatening to drive yours. And you can’t open the door by yourself, can you? Or you wouldn’t be sitting here listening to me. That’s it. If you don’t cooperate, you’re just going to have to stay out here all night.”
“So there,” he said under his breath.
Clancey folded her arms and glared at him.
He added innocently, “I was just finishing up the lecture for you, since you were obviously running out of breath. All right. I’ll cooperate. Now will you let me out of this tin prison you call a car?”
“What’s wrong with my car?” Clancey seized the change of subject. At least he was talking.
“It’s one of the six worst models on the road at surviving a collision, that’s what,” he said as she helped him get out. He followed her up the front walk. “Hit a road sign at twenty and it’s totaled. The car, not the road sign. Hit a truck and it’s Good night, sweet princess.”
“Thank you.” Clancey dug her house key out and ushered him through the front door.
He was frowning suspiciously. “For what?”
She rewarded him with a soft smile. “For caring whether I’m safe on the highway,” she murmured. “I think you’ll be most comfortable in my living room upstairs. Are you feeling steady enough to make it by yourself, or do you need a hand?”
“It’s my fingers that got hurt, Clancey — not my toes. I can walk.”
She refused to take offense. ‘Then I’ll get you something to drink while I fix dinner. What would you like?”
“Coffee.”
She looked a little doubtful, but he had already dragged himself up to the first landing by then, so she didn’t argue.
When she took up his coffee a few minutes later, Rowan was sitting on the couch with his eyes closed and his head lolling against the high back. His legs sprawled across the carpet and his hands rested awkwardly with the palms up, one on each thigh. He looked miserable.
The drawn look touched her heart, and she almost put her hand out to smooth his hair back from his temple, but she stopped herself at the last minute. She brought over a small table instead and set it beside him to hold his coffee.
He opened his eyes then. “That smells good.” He reached for the cup, curling his little finger into the handle and bracing his thumb against the side, but despite his care the cup started to tip uncontrollably. “Dammit!”
Clancey caught it and guided it over to the table.
Rowan let his head fall back against the couch. “Thank you. I thought I was headed to the emergency room again — with burns this time.”
“I was expecting that. I tried it out with an empty cup downstairs, you see, and I didn’t have any success.”
His eyes opened to wary slits. “So you brought it up to see whe
ther I’d make a fool of myself? How entertaining for you.”
“Not at all. I thought perhaps you’d be more dexterous than I was. But just in case—” She pulled her hand out from behind her back. “I also brought this.”
He eyed it with something close to malevolence. “A curlicue straw. How thoughtful.”
Clancey held it up for closer inspection. It was a garishly-colored thing, nearly a yard long if it had been straight, and a good many of the twists and curves were enclosed in a clear plastic bubble shaped like a turtle’s shell. “Straight out of Small World’s inventory,” she added. “I’ve sold hundreds of these things. The kids love them, because it looks like everything you drink is filtered through the turtle’s digestive system before it reaches your mouth.”
The Unexpected Landlord Page 8
