Love Built to Last

by Lisa Ricard Claro

  “I can, sure.”

  “What happens first?”

  “Demo work first, taking out the existing cabinetry and counters. We’ll do the floors last, which will save on materials and make it easier to take up the floor later if you ever want to replace it.”

  “I’m excited. I can’t believe I’m finally doing this.”

  Cal grinned. “You’ll believe it when the noise starts. Hammering, sawdust. It’ll be great.”

  “How long to complete the whole thing?”

  “A few weeks, depending on how quickly your materials and appliances are available. Since you want the cabinets custom-made I can start sooner. I’ll bring finished wood samples so you can decide what you like, and then I’ll make it happen.”

  “What do you recommend?”

  “Cherry,” he said without hesitation. “It’ll be dynamite with your brickwork.”

  “Don’t bring samples. Cherry’s perfect.”

  “You sure?”

  She nodded. Jack’s desk was cherry and that made it the right choice. “So I’ll have a new kitchen by the middle of July?”

  “End of June, first week of July.”

  “Okay. I’m just trying to get a handle on how my summer’s going to go.”

  “Sawdust and noise,” he flashed a grin, “and you won’t be doing much sleeping in. I’d like to get an early start, if you don’t mind, to beat the heat.”

  Brenna’s voice sounded in Maddie’s mind: ‘Shirtless, wearing low-slung jeans and a tool belt.’

  She cooled her throat with the last of her sweet tea, and her cheeks only heated a little when she said, “I can live with that.”

  ***

  Thursday morning Maddie rose before dawn to shower and eat breakfast ahead of Cal’s arrival. She had spent the prior afternoon emptying her cabinets and clearing the countertops. The contents of her kitchen now sat in boxes stacked in the dining room. The overworked coffee pot stood in its temporary home on the dining room table, atop a cookie sheet to protect the table’s mahogany finish. The machine bubbled and brewed while Maddie hovered with impatience for her first hit of caffeine.

  She expected Cal by seven but wasn’t surprised when she heard his truck pull in at quarter till. When he didn’t knock at the screen door she peeked out. He stood in the driveway with his job binder opened on the hood of his truck. He had a takeout cup in one hand and the phone to his ear. A minute later, he abandoned the binder and paced beside the vehicle sipping his coffee and speaking into the phone, too low for Maddie to hear. He didn’t appear upset, so she figured he was just killing time until seven. She moved away from the door, so he wouldn’t catch her staring, and wondered who he was talking to.

  Mother, sister, friend? Girlfriend?

  Did he have a girlfriend? She hadn’t asked and he had never said. Not that it was any of her business, of course. It would just be nice to know.

  Not that it mattered.

  His rap at the door startled her and her coffee sloshed over the rim of her mug and onto her hand. “Ouch!” She set the cup on the counter, turned on the cold water, and thrust her hand into the cool flow. “Come on in,” she called over her shoulder, but Cal was already opening the door.

  “That’s becoming a bad habit. You’re dangerous with a full mug.”

  “Very funny. You startled me when you knocked. Fresh coffee’s in the dining room if you need a refill.”

  “Thanks. I’m good for now.” He held up a bag bearing the Lump & Grind logo. “I come bearing gifts. Since I’m rousting you so early and you didn’t complain about it I figured I ought to at least take care of your breakfast.”

  Maddie sniffed. “Mmm. The L&G’s famous cinnamon buns, I hope.”

  “Made fresh this morning by Greta herself.” Cal narrowed his eyes and nodded, smug. “So who’s your favorite carpenter now?”

  “First, the gorgeous woman you see behind the counter every day with black hair and blue eyes happens to be my BFF, and she owns the L&G, so my addiction to Greta’s cinnamon buns is well-documented. Second, of course you’re my favorite carpenter. You’re my only carpenter.” Maddie dried her hands. “But then, you have no competition.”

  “Because Jack recommended me?”

  “That. And you brought L&G’s cinnamon buns.” She made a “gimme” motion with her fingers. Cal grinned and handed her the bag.

  “So the lady likes cinnamon buns and coffee. I’ll remember that going forward.”

  “I’d be crazy to ask you to forget it. Seriously, thanks for bringing Greta’s buns.” She laughed at her own choice of words. “Okay, let me rephrase. Thanks for the pastries. I love these things. I’ve already had breakfast, but that isn’t going to stop me. Can you take a minute to eat, or do you need to get started?”

  “I can take a minute.” He followed her into the dining room.

  They dug into the cinnamon buns with gusto. Maddie ate only one, too full to eat the second. Cal, she noted, had no trouble downing two of the huge pastries.

  “You want my second one?”

  “Maybe later,” he allowed, licking creamy sugar from his fingers. “These things rock.”

  “Yeah, they do. But I’m guessing you don’t eat them every morning. You’d be big as a house.”

  Cal finished the last of his coffee and made use of the napkin. “Okay. Off to work. I’m going to hang some plastic in the doorway from the kitchen into this room to help keep the sawdust and plaster dust contained to the kitchen as much as possible.”

  “Besides staying out of your way, is there anything I need to do?”

  “No, ma’am. Not a thing. Today and tomorrow will be demo work. There’s going to be a big dumpster delivered later this morning. Unless you object, I’ll have it set toward the side of the barn so it will be easy to access but out of the way. I also wondered if I can set up a work station inside your barn, since it’s empty. A lot of the work I’ll do in my shop, but for some stuff it would be nice to have a work space here out of the sun.”

  “You’re welcome to make use of the barn, sure. But there’s no electricity in there, no lights.”

  “I’ll run an extension cord from the house, and I have lights.”

  “No problem then, but please watch out for my cats.”

  “They won’t like the noise, but I’ll make sure they don’t get hurt.”

  As Cal’s work got underway, Maddie got used to the banging, slamming, and the snapping of the screen door as he went in and out. He asked if she minded the radio, and she was pleased that he turned it to a classic rock station, less pleased that he blasted it so loud. Still, it was kind of nice to have activity going on while she did her laundry and sat down to pay bills.

  Around lunchtime, she peeked around the plastic sheeting Cal had hung and didn’t recognize her kitchen. He’d come a long way in a short period of time, she thought, impressed to see so much of the room already gutted. The radio blasted as Mick sang of getting no satisfaction. The screen door was propped open, but Cal was nowhere in sight.

  Maddie pushed through the plastic and approached the screen door, wondering if Cal would like to break for lunch. She stepped onto the porch and scanned the yard. He stood in the doorway of the barn with Snippet in his arms, cradling the diminutive cat with the utmost tenderness.

  Maddie’s breath hitched and her heart melted.

  Snippet kneaded at Cal’s chest, and Maddie knew the petite feline, with her kitten face turned upward, was probably purring like a motorboat. Caleb squatted and set the cat on her feet with gentle care, paused to offer Liberace some affection, and began the walk toward the house. He stopped to stroke Horace who, though his expression exuded less bliss than Snippet’s, no doubt appreciated the attention.

  “They’ll have you loving on them all day, if you let them,” Maddie called to him, noting the way his tawny hair glinted in the sun. She knew women who paid a great deal of money for highlights like those. She compared it in the next instant to Jack, whose dark hair had gleam
ed like black ice.

  “I’m thinking of a kitten for TJ,” Cal told her, still petting Horace. “Maybe if he has a cat, he’ll forget about a puppy for a while.”

  “Oh, c’mon, now. A boy needs a dog.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  “Didn’t you have a dog when you were a boy?”

  Cal walked to the base of the porch steps and eyed her with a narrowed gaze. “Did TJ slip you a twenty the other night or something? Actually, this is the only time of my life when I’ve been without a dog. Growing up, we had two chocolate Labs, and now my folks have a couple of a crazy Boxer mixes. They run around in a frenzy the second anything resembling a ball appears. Which is funny, because our Labs would never retrieve anything.” He chuckled. “Great dogs, but no matter what we tried, we couldn’t get them to fetch.”

  “So when you get a puppy for TJ what breed will you look for?”

  “You sound pretty confident.”

  Maddie just raised her brows, and Cal sighed, followed it up with a resigned laugh and a shrug. “Yeah, okay. The kid’s wearing me down. I’ll call one of the animal rescue groups when the time comes. Probably in the next month or so. Most of my upcoming work, after your kitchen, is orders for furniture which I build at my shop, so I figure that’ll be a good time to train a puppy.”

  “You build furniture? What kind of furniture?”

  “The wood kind,” he deadpanned.

  “Funny man.”

  He grinned. “I can build whatever you want. Tables, chairs, rockers, beds—name it. I have my own designs, but I work with clients to build to their specifications. You’d be surprised how many people want a rocking chair just like the one their grandma had, or a headboard in the shape of the family crest.”

  “So you can design, say, a bench or gazebo for the clearing in the woods?”

  “In my sleep. How big is the area you’re trying to accommodate?”

  “Hold on. Let me put something on my feet and I’ll show you.” She disappeared into the kitchen and returned wearing her favored flip-flops. “This way,” she said, and Cal followed her across the yard and into the woods.

  The slender path wound through a forest of pine trees and scattered hardwoods, honeysuckle and copious shrubbery, yawning into a sun-spattered clearing beside a narrow creek. The humid air hung thick with the loamy forest scent, dense and tangy and sweet. Bugs chirped and whirred, hidden in the foliage, and leaves rustled with the movement of small animals and birds.

  “So? What do you think?” Maddie spread her arms and turned in a circle. When she looked at Cal, her smile was luminous. “It’s like a faerie glen, isn’t it?”

  Cal smiled. “That makes you the Faerie Queen. You have plenty of room for the gazebo you mentioned. It has to be just the right size to fit the space, but this is perfect. What’s that purple thing?” He pointed to a heavy-hung riot of purple blooms flourishing within a stand of trees near the stream. “My parents grow that in their yard and I’ve always loved it but have no idea what it is. Plant names escape me.”

  “What kind of Southerner are you that you don’t know wisteria?” She breathed deep and slow. “Mmm, and smell the honeysuckle. I love it out here.”

  Cal moved past Maddie to stand beside the stream. The sheer size of him drew her attention. She couldn’t help making the comparison to her Jack’s more compact build.

  Jack. The last time she stood here with him was a few months before he died. They had an argument about something stupid and she had stomped off to be alone. The rain had sprinkled down at first, then poured and, despite the dampness and the mucky Georgia red clay, he’d traipsed after her in his suit and tie, black dress shoes slipping and sliding in the mud.

  “Damn it, Maddie,” Jack had said, mud-splattered and gorgeous. “Will you please stand still? I’m not done fighting with you yet.”

  Her lips curved upward at the memory. They had ended up laughing like children and ran back to the house hand in hand, anxious to shed their wet clothes. Their shoes, which they ditched outside by the kitchen door, had never recovered, and sat side by side on the porch for months after Jack died until Brenna came by one day and threw them in the trash.

  That argument with Jack had ended better than the one they had on the day he died. She pushed the thought away.

  Cal stood with his back to the creek, assessing the open space with keen eyes. Maddie took in his clothes and thought his boots, unlike Jack’s dress shoes, would more than survive a walk in muddy Georgia red clay, and his work-worn jeans and faded tee would be none the worse for a hike in the rainy woods.

  “This can be a beautiful space, if you want it to be,” he said. “What ideas do you have?”

  “Gazebo, picnic bench.” She shrugged and moved next to him, but faced the water. She watched a leaf ride the flow of the creek before it stalled on a rock.

  That’s me. Life flowing like a river around me, over me, and under, and I’m stuck in a shallow dam. How do I get free, Jack?

  She shuddered in a breath.

  “Hey,” Cal laid his hand on Maddie’s shoulder, a steadying force. “You okay?”

  She faced him and blinked back unexpected tears. “Yes. Sorry.”

  Cal stood close enough for Maddie to see the circle of black around the irises of his eyes, green as forest shadows. Close enough for heat to prickle at the back of her neck and creep up to her cheeks. It was just after noon, but his jaw already sported sexy stubble and his hair, that burnished gold she’d admired earlier, waved over his ears in need of a trim. It was only natural to wonder how it would feel in her hands. Wasn’t it?

  Maddie sucked in a breath when Cal lifted his hand to her face. He brushed his callused thumb over her cheek. The gentle touch shot a tingling heat cruising through her blood. And more than a little panic.

  He’s standing so close. He’s too close, Jack.

  “Mosquito,” he said, but his hand remained against her face and his gaze stayed on hers.

  Maddie’s heart pounded with dual beats of desire and panic.

  He must have sensed her confusion, must have understood it was too fast, that she wasn’t ready. When he dropped his hand and stepped away, relief washed through her. On its heels followed a cold blast of contradictory disappointment.

  “So is it a gazebo you’re after for your faerie glen, or a picnic bench?” he said, his tone light.

  “A gazebo won’t be out of place sitting here in the middle of the woods?”

  “The wrong gazebo will be out of place. The gazebo I design will rock.”

  He flashed a confident grin that put Maddie at ease, and she smiled. “Then by all means, design me a gazebo.”

  “Fit for a Faerie Queen,” he promised. His eyes held Maddie’s for a beat, and another, before he looked away and said, “We better get back. I’ve still got a lot of work to do.”

  Hours later, as she lay surrounded by darkness in her solitary bed, Maddie imagined a gazebo in her sun-dappled hideaway, the air redolent with sweet honeysuckle and wisteria. She pictured herself there, not alone, and it wasn’t Jack’s image her mind conjured.

  She squeezed her eyes shut against the grief and the guilt, and sought solace in the darkness through sleep.

  Chapter 5

  “Sorry I missed you at the restaurant last week. Busy as hell.” Dante Caravicci twisted the top off a bottle of water and set the cap on the coffee table. He dropped onto Cal’s sofa and toed off his ragged sneakers before plopping his feet up next to the plastic top. “Chloe said you were in for lunch with somebody female and very attractive.” He lifted the bottle as if preparing for a toast. “Glad you’re diving back in, man.”

  Cal used the front of his sweaty T-shirt to grip the top on his own bottle of water and twist it off. He took a long swallow before responding to his friend.

  “Chloe’s a great hire. She took good care of us. And I hate to disappoint, but the lady in question is a client. I’m doing a rehab on her kitchen.”

  “You sure? �
��Cause Chloe said you two looked pretty chummy. Shared a cannoli.”

  Cal eased into the recliner and suppressed a groan. Maybe he was just too damn old to be playing Saturday morning one-on-one in the summer heat. Everything ached. Damned if he’d admit it to Dante, though, who looked relaxed and comfortable.

  “I’ve only known the woman a week. Give me a break.”

  “With the right woman, a second’s long enough.”

  Amused, Cal said, “Well, aren’t you just a romantic bastard.”

  “Blame the Italian blood.”

  “So now I know Chloe’s a gossip. When did you hire her, anyway? I’ve never seen her before.”

  “That’s because you don’t come in very often. She’s been on the payroll at least three months. No, wait. More than three. I hired her right after Valentine’s Day.”

  “It’s easier to have our pie delivered.” Cal shrugged. “Look at it this way, I still throw money into your till, I just don’t take up space at your tables.”

  “So what prompted last week’s visit then?”

  “Convenience. My client and I needed to meet and Caravicci’s was nearby.”

  “Your client have a name?”

  “Maddie Kinkaid.”

  Dante’s water stopped just short of his mouth. “Jack Kinkaid’s widow?”

  Cal nodded, focused. “You know her?”

  “No, but I knew Jack. He was my accountant. Great guy. We played racquetball, caught a game and a few beers a couple times. And I know his brother and sister, Brenna and Sean. Sean, because he’s handled some legal stuff for me, and Brenna, because I’ve gone head-to-head with her over homeowner covenants at my townhouse. She lives next door to me. The lady’s a stickler for rules and regulations.” He looked into the mid distance and his expression turned pensive. “Legs that love a pair of high-heeled shoes and a body that makes grown men weep.” His lips curved into a wistful smile. “And a face that could launch a thousand ships. Think Snow White.”

  “The ship launching was Helen of Troy, smart one.”

  Dante dropped his head back and laughed. “You idiot. I know who Helen of Troy was. Snow White was a reference to peaches and cream skin, black hair, and eyes bluer than the bluest blue. Almost purple they’re so blue. Gorgeous, in a word. “