by Carol Grace
“Well,” she said, stalling for time while she thought up an appropriate way to broach the subject. “Granny will be happy to get her can opener, but are you sure you don’t have an exercise ball?”
“Don’t think so. But why couldn’t she use any rubber ball? I’ve got a supply I use to throw for Dante to chase. Don’t worry—they’re fresh, never even been chewed or slobbered on.”
“Thanks.”
This time, he headed for his house and she followed close behind. If he wouldn’t invite her in to the barn, maybe the house wasn’t off-limits. She had a feeling there might be a clue to the man’s secret inside.
But there wasn’t. He hesitated a moment, then held the front door open for her, and when she looked around, she was impressed by his taste—wide-plank floors with handwoven Native American rugs; deep, wide leather chairs; huge windows with views of the distant mountains. But no photographs on the wall, no incriminating journals or papers on the slab of polished redwood that served as a rustic coffee table.
“Nice house,” she said.
“I like it. But it’s not everybody’s taste.”
“What do you mean? It’s beautiful.”
“It’s isolated. Far from town. Not many neighbors.”
“I assume that’s what you like about it.”
“That’s right.” He handed her a pink rubber ball. Then he glanced at the door, obviously a hint. She chose to ignore it. She knew she ought to leave. She knew he didn’t want her here. He didn’t want anyone here. But she couldn’t leave without making an effort to find out why. She couldn’t help it. She was curious. Anyone would be after seeing what she’d seen.
“I wonder,” she said, fanning her face. “Could I have a glass of water before I start back?”
“What? Oh, sure. My hospitality skills need work, which you may have noticed. I’m sorry, it’s a warm afternoon and you look…hot.” Now why had he said that? She shot him a quick look to see how he’d meant it, and he continued as smoothly as he could. “What I mean is… I’m not much of a host.”
“Well, I’m not much of a guest. First I come under false pretenses, then I spy on you.”
He didn’t deny it. “I’ll be back in a minute.” She nodded and sat down in one of his leather chairs. He looked surprised, probably afraid she was planning on staying for a while. She wasn’t. She was just waiting, just observing. She was curious about him. There was nothing wrong with that, was there? The only thing was that the more she found out, the more she wanted to know.
As soon as he left the room, she stood up and prowled around the spacious room. Against the wall, there was a small table with a basket overflowing with envelopes and paper. Half-opened mail, if she wasn’t mistaken. She had no intention of reading it. But when she got close, she saw a large legal-size envelope with the return address of the hands-on, prestigious children’s museum in San Francisco.
When he returned, she was back in her chair. “Thanks,” she said, taking the tall glass of ice water from his hands. She had made up her mind to ask her question. After all, what was the worst he could do? Refuse to answer? Throw her out?
He raised his eyebrows at the sight of her slowly drinking her water, no doubt wondering if she was ever going to leave. When she’d drained her glass and handed it back to him, his hand brushed hers, and once again she felt her pulse speed up. His gaze locked with hers and she knew he’d felt it, too. Felt it, but didn’t like it any better than she did. He took a step backward and stared at her with narrowed eyes.
She took a deep breath. “You’ll think I’m a terrible snoop,” she said. “But I couldn’t help it. I looked into your barn from the window.”
“Couldn’t help it? What are you, some kind of detective? What were you looking for?”
“Nothing…nothing. I’m sorry. If you weren’t so darned secretive, I wouldn’t have looked.” She got up and rocked back on the heels of her running shoes. She should leave, and leave now. But if she didn’t ask now, she might never get another chance. She took a deep breath.
“I…uh… What is all that stuff?”
“That stuff, as you call it, is my life’s work. Or was, until…” He didn’t finish his sentence. He folded his arms across his chest, his forehead furrowed.
She waited. The silence grew and grew. He gazed out the window, as if he’d forgotten she was there, and she didn’t know how to proceed. She shifted from one foot to the other. She could leave now and save them both any further embarrassment, or she could press on.
“They… It looked like a kind of toyland.”
“You’re very observant.”
“But who? What? How?”
“Who?” he repeated. “Me. I made them. What? They’re toys, of course. And how? That’s a long story I don’t want to bore you with. I’ve already taken too much of your time.”
“But what about…?” What about that letter in his unopened mail pile from the Children’s Toy Museum? What was that about? Were his toys museum quality? She bit her lip. No, she couldn’t say anything more. He’d made his point. She’d taken too much of his time. What could she do when he opened the front door but leave? He was sorry she’d come. Sorrier she’d spied on him. She bit her lip to keep from asking the questions that burbled forth in her brain: Why keep the toys locked up in a barn? Why hide them, and yourself, from the world? Who and what was he hiding from? Had he designed them, made them, made money on them?
She kept the questions to herself for the moment, and with a polite smile, she took herself and the boxed can opener and the squishy pink rubber ball and headed down the path to Granny’s. The sight of rusty bicycles, dusty hoops, wheels and spikes, twisted wires and huge machine tools was dancing in her brain. Along with that letter.
But the sight she really couldn’t get out of her mind was the man without his shirt. She’d only had a momentary glance at the smooth muscles of his chest covered with a fine dusting of dark hair, his bare arms raised above his head before he put his shirt on, his arm muscles flexed, but it was an image she couldn’t shake. It was the body of a man who did physical work, not like the guys at her health club. No getting around it, the man was gorgeous. Why he hadn’t been taken by some woman by now was beyond her. Unless it was his prickly personality. No amount of good looks would balance that. Some women might consider him a challenge. Not her. She had enough challenges in her life without a man like Brian Wolf.
Chapter Four
When she got back, Amelia refrained from telling Granny she was on to her well-meaning tricks. She simply gave Helen her new ball and repaired can opener and helped her down the steps into the garden, where she sat on a lounge chair under the apple tree with her knitting.
“You took your time,” Granny observed, that knowing twinkle in her eye.
“Who, me?” Amelia asked innocently.
“Yes, you. You must have made a hit with our Brian.”
Amelia shook her head. “’Fraid not,” she said. “The only reason he tolerates me is because I’m related to you. I got your ball and your can opener, and I got a drink of water for myself and that was it.” She didn’t say anything about the toys. Granny would only say “He’ll tell you when you get to know him better, and when he wants you to know,” and that would be never. Amelia had her own ways of digging out facts, and she lost no time taking the steps to the tiny bedroom and her computer.
She tried to raise the windows to let the fresh air in, but the they were stuck shut, and the heat under the eaves was oppressive. In a few minutes, the perspiration was dripping down her temples, but she had a few answers. A few answers but even more questions.
“Granny, do you have a chisel or a hammer? I need to pry open those windows in the bedroom.”
“Oh, dear, it’s warmed up this afternoon and the heat rises. The windows sometimes get stuck. I’ll just give Brian a call. He has all the tools for the job.”
“No, don’t do that. I’ll get what I need at the hardware store and then I can do it.”
“I don’t mean to interfere, Amelia, but it doesn’t hurt to be a little helpless now and then. Men like to take charge. In my day—”
“Don’t tell me you let Grandfather take charge. Who painted those windows year after year? Who put up the screens, and who even got her fingers dirty laying the flagstones in the driveway? Not Grandpa. He was upstairs, writing his memoirs.”
Granny chuckled. “All right, I admit it, but the important thing is he thought he was in charge.”
“So you tricked him.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. I call it a division of labor. Surely that’s not out-of-date, too.”
“That’s what I mean,” Amelia said agreeably. “We’ll just borrow the tools from your neighbor, because I feel like we’ve already intruded enough.” Enough? She’d intruded way too much. “I have the distinct feeling he doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
“He doesn’t think he does, but really, you’re good for him. Already, I see a change in him. For the better.”
Amelia could only imagine what he’d been like before if he was better now. She looked around the garden at the overgrown strawberry patch and at the apple tree heavy with yellow-green Golden Delicious apples. Yes, she should go up and get busy working, but it was so hot up there, and so nice down here with the breeze rustling the leaves and the scent of ripe apples filling the air. And there were all those apples hanging there, just begging to be picked. So she did. She hauled the ladder to the tree, and under the watchful eye of her grandmother, who made suggestions from where she sat while beaming her approval, Amelia soon had a basket full of apples.
Back in the kitchen, Amelia didn’t think she’d remember how to make her grandmother’s crust, but it all came back to her, in the same way as riding a bicycle did. Bicycle… That reminded her of Brian Wolf, and the information she’d gotten about him off the Internet. As she rolled her crust, she once again wondered what the “brilliant inventor of children’s toys and developer of performance bikes” was up to now. Was it really “nothing”? And if so, why? What was the tragedy that had put a stop to his life’s work? She’d just slipped the pie into the oven when her cell phone rang. She ran up the stairs and came clattering back down while she talked.
“Fine, I’m just fine,” she told Jeff as she fanned herself with her hand, opened the screen door and went out onto the front porch to cool off—and talk out of range of Granny’s sharp ears in the orchard.
“Getting any work done?” he asked.
“Not really. Unless you count making a pie.”
“A pie? You’re making a pie?” He sounded as surprised as if she’d said she was spinning gold out of yarn. “What about all the things you were working on at the office?”
Amelia frowned. She didn’t want to be reminded of the work that waited for her upstairs. She didn’t need anyone to urge her to work harder.
“This is Saturday.” She realized as soon as she’d said it that she often worked on Saturday, and that he knew it. “I’m taking the weekend off. I’ll get to it on Monday. Right now the windows are painted shut and it’s hot and—”
“Turn on the air-conditioning,” he said.
Amelia took a deep breath. Had Jeff ever been in the country? Had he ever been in a house or a building without air-conditioning?
“Right,” she said, unwilling to explain it all to him. “How’s everything back there?”
“Great. Everyone’s going out tonight to celebrate Marty and Joe’s engagement.”
“That’s right. Sorry I can’t make it. Give them my best, and let them know I’m out of town, will you?”
“Sure. You know what they want to know—when is it our turn? When will they celebrate our engagement?”
“Oh…well…” He would have to start in, just when she was out of town and feeling disconnected. “We’ll talk about it when I get back.”
“When will that be?”
“I don’t know. That depends on how Granny does.”
“I don’t understand why you have to take care of her. Can’t you hire someone, a health-care professional, to do the job?”
“Maybe, but it’s not the same. I’m family.”
There was a long silence while Jeff digested this, and she couldn’t think of anything else to say. Then Jeff told her about a run-in he’d had with his boss, and she had to listen while he went into the details of the argument, as the smell of apples and cinnamon came wafting out the door, lulling her into a kind of daze, reminding her of just how far away she was from Jeff, both geographically and emotionally.
“I have to go now, Jeff.”
“You don’t sound like yourself, Amelia. We’ll talk when you get back. I have something to ask you, and this time I want an answer.”
She knew what he wanted to ask her and she didn’t have an answer, so she said goodbye abruptly and hung up.
She’d just taken the pie out of the oven and was admiring her work on the fluted crust when Brian Wolf appeared in the doorway, tall, dark and disturbingly good-looking in cargo pants and a rumpled T-shirt. Granny was right, of course. He was attractive. But although that was no reason to be so flustered, she almost dropped the pie.
“Don’t you ever knock?” she asked, setting the pie on Granny’s worn pine hutch to cool.
“You’re asking me?” he said, his eyebrows raised in surprise.
“All right, all right. I came to your house unannounced, without knocking. Did you have a hot and heavy pie in your hands?”
“Worse. I had an ax. I could have chopped my toes off.”
She let her gaze travel down his legs to his feet. “I see they’re still intact.”
“I see you’ve been baking.” He leaned forward and wiped a smudge of flour from her nose with his thumb, and she drew in a sharp intake of breath. What was wrong with her? A simple gesture had her shaking inside. “Actually, I smelled it.”
“All the way at your house?” she asked, leaning back against the kitchen counter. “I find that hard to believe.”
“When the wind is right, smells carry.” He inhaled deeply. “Sounds, too.”
“And sights. Was that you burning the midnight oil last night?” she asked.
“Guilty as charged.”
“I thought country folk went to bed with the chickens.”
“Some of us have insomnia. That’s not your problem. Your lights were out at ten.”
“You were spying on me?” she asked.
“Force of habit. I keep an eye on your grandmother.”
“I’m here now. You can relax,” she said.
Brian nodded. Relax. Easy for her to say. He hadn’t relaxed since that fateful day over a year ago, when Natalie had run off and hadn’t come back. There was a long silence. The room was filled with heat from the oven and the rich smell of hot apples and flaky brown crust. Amelia looked as uncomfortable as he felt. Her face was flushed, her glorious red hair had come loose from the knot and curled in tendrils around her face. There was yet another smudge of flour on her cheek, and his fingers itched to brush it off. But the touch of her skin a few minutes ago had sent his temperature soaring, and it had nothing to do with the heat from the oven. So he tried to ignore the flour and her hair and the way her shirt had come unbuttoned at the neck to expose the valley between her breasts.
He searched his mind for something to say, something to lighten the atmosphere and to cut through the tension that was building. He couldn’t tell her why he was here because he wasn’t sure himself. Lately he was more comfortable at Helen’s than he was in his own home. Why, he didn’t know. He only knew he was restless. He’d started out from his house walking in the opposite direction, only to turn around, pick up his tool kit and head for Helen’s cottage as if it were a magnet.
Yes, he’d smelled the pie baking, but not until he’d arrived on the front steps. Yes, he’d received a call from his neighbor about the windows. And yes, he’d seen the unmistakable twinkle in Helen’s eyes when she greeted him, and knew what she was thinking
. So he was here. It was better he come when the grand-daughter wasn’t around, but here he was. It didn’t make any sense. But nothing had made sense for a long time.
“So,” Amelia said at last. “You’re here because you smelled apple pie?”
“No,” he said more brusquely than he intended. “I’m only here because your grandmother asked if I’d pry open the windows upstairs.” He pointed to his tool kit he’d left at the door.
“I hope you don’t think that was my idea, because there was no need for you to come. All I needed was the tools—a knife and a hammer—and I could do it myself. At least let me help.”
He shrugged. It wasn’t a two-man job, but if she needed to feel useful, as workaholics often did, who was he to stop her? In any case, she followed him up the narrow staircase and into the tiny bedroom. She’d only been there one night, and already her light, flowery scent filled the room. Her suitcase was open on the bed, and he noticed a tangle of silky underwear before she quickly closed it and shoved it under the bed. He bent over to open his tool kit and clear his head. So she smelled like wildflowers and wore silk underwear. So did most women. No big deal. No need to get excited. Relax, he told himself. Why was that so hard to do?
“How long is this going to go on?” she asked.
“What’s that?” he asked, tapping a knife with a hammer against the window frame.
She leaned one shoulder against the woodwork. “Oh, come on. You know as well as I do that my grandmother is plotting to set us up. Can’t you do something about it? Can’t you discourage her?”
“What do you want me to say?” he asked, his face turned toward the window so she wouldn’t see that his mouth was turned up in a reluctant half smile.
“That you’re not interested. That you’re engaged to someone else. That you’re gay or you’re entering a monastery next week. I don’t know. Use your imagination.”
“Maybe I don’t want to discourage her. Maybe I want her to throw us together. Maybe I saw your picture and I got fixated on you and I asked her to do it. It happens. Ever think of that?”
