All Through The House

by Janice Kay Johnson

  Never again.

  Abigail went in the tiny bathroom and turned on the water, then stared at herself in the mirror over the sink. Her eyes were huge and dark, her face pale and her lipstick smeared. "Why?" she whispered. Why couldn't Nate have left things the way they were? Why couldn't they enjoy each other without moving so fast, without demands?

  Running scared by Sunday evening, she had almost convinced herself to tell Nate she couldn't see him for a while. When she was with him, it was easy to tell herself he was worth any risk—but away from him she could be more dispassionate. His hints of possession, his very satisfaction in her and in their relationship, had begun to remind her too much of the past she had escaped.

  By the time he arrived at six o'clock, Abigail's mouth was dry and her pulse racing. Kate seemed to pick up on her tension, because she hovered while Abigail changed into a sundress that bared lightly tanned shoulders and a slender back. She gazed at herself in her full-length mirror.

  "I don't know," she mumbled, "maybe it's too...." Sexy?

  "You look pretty, Mommy. You're lots prettier than Teacher Patty."

  "Why, thank you." Her smile trembled and she felt hot tears under her eyelids as she bent to hug her daughter. "Oh, heck," she mumbled.

  "Are you crying?" Kate's anxious face stared up at her. "Why are you crying?"

  "I don't know." Abigail sank onto the bed, gathered her small daughter into her arms, and held her tightly, cheek against the soft dark hair. "I'm just so mixed up."

  "Is Nate going to be my daddy?"

  Her head shot up and she held the child away from her. "What would make you think...?"

  "I saw you kissing." The vivid blue eyes were scared. "Are you mad at me, Mommy?"

  Her breath rushed out as she hugged Kate again. "Oh, no, Sunshine, of course not. No, I don't think Nate's going to be your daddy. That's a pretty drastic step, don't you think?" She lightened her voice. "We're doing pretty well on our own, huh?"

  "I like Nate," Kate mumbled into her shoulder.

  "I do, too," Abigail said. That's the trouble, she thought, but didn't say.

  "I wish I were going with you tonight," Kate nodded.

  Abigail tried to smile at her daughter. "It's a pretty lousy deal, isn't it?"

  The doorbell rang just then and Kate leaped from the bed to race for the front door. "I'll get it!"

  "It'd take an Olympic sprinter to beat you," Abigail called after her. Assuming Erika was here, she went ahead and put on lipstick and earrings, took one last dubious glance at herself in the deep-rose-and-lime-green sundress, and headed for the living room, high-heeled sandals in one hand.

  The rumble of a deep voice was her first warning. She stopped dead in the living-room doorway, unnoticed for a moment. Nate sat on the couch, Kate perched on one knee.

  "Sounds like you were pretty brave," he said gravely.

  "Well, I did cry," Kate admitted. "The rainbow climber is high. Almost as high as you when you're standing up. I needed two bandages."

  "Can I see?" he asked.

  She pulled up her leggings to show him the two bandages, side by side.

  "That is a big scratch," Nate said solemnly. "Did your teacher kiss it, too?"

  "She doesn't do things like that." Kate was clearly discontented.

  "I bet your mom made up for it." He turned his head, as though mention of her had awakened his instincts. "Speaking of which...." His voice became deeper and he set Kate on her feet so he could stand himself. "Your daughter was showing off her wounds."

  "I hear." The glint in his eyes as they took in her bare shoulders warmed Abigail, loosening the bands that had squeezed her chest. Suddenly feeling awkward and very shy, she said, "Uh, I'd better call the sitter and see what's holding her up. I hope she didn't forget us."

  "I have a better idea," Nate interrupted. He rested one big hand on Kate's curly dark head. "What would you say to a threesome? MacDonald's? Alfy's Pizza? Maybe we could even find a kids' movie."

  Kate stood very still, her eyes widening. "Can we, Mommy?" she begged.

  Abigail was totally disarmed. "It sounds good to me," she agreed, smiling at Nate and her daughter. "Let me call Erika, and you find your shoes, Katie Rose. Maybe Nate can help you put them on."

  "If I remember how to tie a lace," he said. That engaging, sexy, and very unpaternal smile flashed at Abigail before he trailed her small daughter to the hall closet.

  A few minutes later they were on their way in Abigail’s car, Kate's laces very firmly tied and double-knotted. Nate had suggested she drive, since his pickup had only two bucket seats. From the dashboard, Abigail handed the folded newspaper with the movie section to Nate. "Here, make yourself useful."

  He accepted it and after a moment made a suggestion.

  "Forget Kate, I'd have nightmares," Abigail said.

  "That's not a prerogative of adult movies. When I was a kid, The Wizard of Oz gave me nightmares."

  "Me, too," Abigail said, remembering. "Those dark twisted trees grabbing at Dorothy." She pretended to shiver.

  "I wanted ruby-red slippers like hers," Nate said. Something in his voice made Abigail turn her head to look at him. "I wanted to click my heels together and make my wishes come true."

  "My mother told me they only work in Oz."

  His face was impassive. "Yeah, well, my father didn't think little boys should want stuff like that."

  Abigail would have liked to pursue the subject, but with Kate listening she didn't dare. So she merely said, "So, what's the verdict? Pizza or hamburgers?"

  Hamburgers won, as did Disney's latest animated fairy tale. Kate, who always worried during scary scenes, sat on Abigail's lap for half the movie and on Nate's for the rest. He groaned when they stood up to leave while the credits rolled on the big screen.

  "My legs are dead."

  "You just have to toughen up," Abigail informed him heartlessly.

  "Hey, I didn't get to start like you did when she weighed six pounds." To give the lie to his grumbles, he effortlessly swung a delighted Kate up to his shoulders, where she clutched his hair.

  Abigail laughed. "Actually, she weighed eight and a half pounds. And to think she seemed heavy then!"

  It wasn't quite nine o'clock, and not dark yet, but Kate dropped off to sleep almost the minute they pulled out of the parking lot, lulled by the car engine. In the rearview mirror, Abigail gazed fondly at her daughter: one pink cheek compressed against the door, thumb sagging from her mouth, slow, even breaths.

  Nate watched her, too. "I wish I could drop off like that."

  "No kidding." Abigail thought of the hours she'd lain in bed this week, staring up at the dark ceiling and agonizing. Now the decision she thought she had made was unmade, all because Nate had thought more about Kate tonight than his own wishes.

  "Will she stay asleep?" he asked hopefully.

  Abigail's blood quickened. "Um hm."

  "Deeply asleep?"

  She nodded, slanting a shy glance at him. His expression had changed and the set of his mouth was more sensuous, his eyes darker, with that purposeful glint that made her heart skip.

  "Then what are we waiting for?" He nodded ahead, at the light that had just turned green. "Step on it, lady."

  Abigail stepped on it. During the half-hour drive home Nate kept his hands to himself, but her prickly awareness of him beside her shredded her concentration. Once there, he carried Kate inside, draped sleepily over his shoulder. Following, Abigail felt a peculiar twisting sensation in her chest. Her sudden thought unsettled her. That's what a daddy should look like.

  Oh, Lord, not her, too. She should be grateful Kate wasn't awake enough to know who carried her to bed. If she already had dreams of Nate as a daddy, this would be the last straw. It wouldn't be fair to let her get her hopes up, when Abigail had no intention of letting her feelings for Nate take her that far.

  No intention at all.

  She tried to remind herself of that while she slipped Kate's shoes, socks, and pant
s off, then tucked the covers around her chin and settled her blankie within easy reach. She tried to remind herself again when she stepped out of her daughter's bedroom to find Nate waiting in the hall, leaning lazily against the wall.

  "About time," he said. The glint in his eyes had turned a molten glow, hot and passionate, melting Abigail’s reservations. Whatever resistance she had left crumbled beneath the gentleness of his kiss.

  She wouldn't worry about the future, she decided hazily as she wrapped her arms around his neck and let herself be molded to his strong body. Not now, anyway. Not tonight.

  *****

  Their next dinner together was quite different from MacDonald's plastic booths and children's cartoons. It was separated by the space of a week from that night, and by two more gifts. Just as the petals fell from the roses, Nate delivered another batch, this time mixed with deep purple lavender and white dianthus. The fragrance was even headier, more unforgettable. The other present was a pewter knight to go with the castle.

  Abigail smelled the flowers, gazed at the tiny knight brandishing a sword, and tried to do her job. She tried very hard not to think about Nate constantly. Tried, and failed.

  A silent dialogue seemed to run in her head constantly. He's a nice man, one side of her argued. Sexy, kind, good to Kate, everything I've ever dreamed about.

  Possessive, selfish, demanding, the other side of her insisted. Something has to give, he said. Remember? Want to bet on what gives?

  No! He can learn, can't he? He's not crazy possessive, not like James. Look at how much Kate likes him. James wouldn't even acknowledge her existence if he could help it.

  Maybe Nate's just a little smarter. Ever think of that? Maybe he knows the only way you'll ever be "his" is if he can charm Kate into wanting him, too. Maybe he calculated every time he had to lean over to pick up that stupid toy on wheels from the floor, every second of that Disney movie.

  You're a cynic, she thought in amazement. She'd known she was scared, determined to be independent, all too shaky inside. But she hadn't known that she could look so coolly at another person and wonder how sincere he was.

  That small voice murmured, Yeah, well, if you'd done that with you-know-who, you'd have saved yourself some misery and a chunk of your life.

  And I wouldn't have Kate, she argued, for once silencing the argument. All of her loved her blue-eyed daughter, and wouldn't have traded her for anything, up to and including the lost chunk of her life.

  The dinner with Nate was thanks to Abigail's mother, who every couple of weeks swept her granddaughter away for the night, giving Abigail rare time to shop by herself or rent a video she wanted to see. Or, now, to have dinner with Nate. He had announced his intention to cook a meal for her in keeping with the grand dimensions of the Irving House's dining room.

  When she parked her car in the midst of the circular drive, then used the brass knocker, she looked at the key box on the porch railing and thought of the other times she had been here. Would she discover an unpleasant surprise this time, too, if she used her key and let herself in? Then Nate opened the ornate front door and smiled with such charm, she forgot those other times.

  "Are you expected, madam?"

  "Of course," she said haughtily, then smiled even as he kissed her. "What a forward waiter," she whispered against his mouth as he lifted his head enough for her to breathe.

  "I'm the chef," he murmured back. "They are, you know."

  "Um." Abigail slipped her arm around his waist and leaned comfortably as he led her along the marble-floored entry hall. "Is that the first course I smell?"

  "Would you believe first, middle, and last?" he said ruefully. "I discovered I'm not quite as good a cook as I thought I was."

  "Should I smell the smoke any minute?"

  He grimaced. "Unfortunately, yes."

  "You're kidding."

  "Nope." He stopped in the doorway to the kitchen, drawing Abigail to a halt with him. The atmosphere here was indeed hazy with smoke. And pungent. "It was the brown rice," Nate said. "I, uh, put it on and thought I'd get a little work done while it was cooking. Next thing I knew...." He shrugged. "Thank God for smoke alarms."

  Surprised at her ability to joke about it, Abigail said, "Maybe you should try this to put off the next househunter."

  "Can't compete with my plumbing disaster." He sounded smug. Then, "Oh, hell!" and he sprinted for the stove, where water was boiling over onto the burner and steam rising.

  Laughing helplessly, Abigail said, "Anything I can do?"

  He gave her a harried look over his shoulder. "Salad?"

  "At your command." While she tore lettuce and peeled carrots, Nate turned the new batch of rice down and sampled the beef burgundy.

  "Smoked," he uttered.

  Actually, it proved to be delicious. Over dinner at the long, shining mahogany table in the dining room, Abigail said, "You know, you're not the first renter to try to keep a house from selling."

  He had seated them at one corner of the table, despite her insistence that a huge silver epergne blocking their view of each other was required to create the proper atmosphere. Now Nate reached for the wine and poured himself half a glass, then raised one brow as he held the slim-necked bottle above her goblet. At her nod, he poured her more, too.

  "I'll bet I'm more creative than most," Nate asserted. "What do they do, leave dirty dishes in the sink, let mold grow in the toilets? Throw garbage out the back door? No finesse. Admit it, I'm in a class by myself."

  "Oh, I don't know." Abigail sipped her wine. "One time I was helping a young couple find their first house. She was pregnant and he was so proud. They were sweet. Anyway, I'd made an appointment to show them this cute little place, so I was surprised when the renter’s car was there. The woman met us at the door in a bathrobe. Just a bathrobe. It was gaping open enough so we could tell. I couldn't get rid of her. She followed us around and leaned provocatively in doorways, brushed against the poor husband every time she could think of an excuse to pass him. I finally told her, very bluntly, that we preferred to look at the upstairs without her. Needless to say, the couple was too distracted to even see the house. When we came down at the end, we found the woman draped across some pillows in the living room, her bathrobe open. She laughed when we left."

  Nate's grin was provocative. "Maybe I should try that. Some sagging pajama bottoms? Thin ones. Very thin."

  "Don't you dare!"

  "What, you don't like sharing?"

  There he went again, everything reduced to possession. Unfortunately, Abigail realized, she didn't like the idea of sharing. Not at all. She remembered her first impression of him as a womanizer, so casually charming that he spread himself thin. When had she quit thinking of him that way? When she realized how vulnerable he was beneath that charm?

  She could tell from his smile that he'd noticed she didn't answer, but he didn't comment, thank heavens, and she managed to change the subject without being too obvious.

  After dinner Nate tucked her hand in the crook of his arm. "How about a tour?"

  "Trying to win me over?"

  "No." His eyes were serious. "Trying to show you why I love this house enough to have lied to have it."

  "Was it hard?" she asked, searching his face.

  His mouth twisted. "To lie to you? It was hell."

  Abigail bit her Up. "I...I'd like that tour," she finally said, simply.

  His expression changed, becoming eager and almost boyish. "Come on." He towed her into the kitchen. "You ever notice the servants' stairs here?"

  In her initial look at the house, she had opened the oddly small paneled door tucked into a shadowy corner behind large pantry cupboards. Moved by a sudden feeling of pity for the maids who would have been forbidden to use the wide, graceful staircase rising from the front hall, Abigail had made herself climb the steep, narrow staircase with a ceiling so low she had felt claustrophobic. What had it been like, living in this magnificent house and yet possessing less importance than a newfangled
kitchen stove might have had? Thoughtfully, Abigail tuned back in to what Nate was saying.

  "These weren't here, of course," he went on, gesturing at the cupboards. "Just open shelves, probably. And the stove here," he nodded at an empty wall, "one of those big cast-iron ones that heated hot water and probably burned half a cord a day." He tugged on her hand, pulling her along. "Did you know the floor's brick, too, under this vinyl?"

  "Really." The Realtor in Abigail perked up. A brick floor, carefully sealed, would have far more appeal than the nicest inlaid vinyl. It could be a selling point…. But she slammed a mental door on the thought and sneaked a guilty glance at Nate.

  He clearly hadn't noticed her momentary preoccupation. "Think what it would have been like, back about 1900. The Irvings must have had a dozen or more house servants—maids, governess, tutor, cook, maybe a butler. You know there are fifteen rooms up on the servants' floor? The cook probably slept down here," he jerked his head toward a small room whose purpose Abigail had wondered about, "and some of the lower maids must have doubled up. There would have been gardeners, maybe three or four, there's a good reason the gardens have gone to pot. Josiah tried, but he had only a housekeeper and a boy who came once a week to mow and do a little trimming."

  "And then there are the stables and the carriage house...." Abigail mused.

  "Yep." Nate had a faraway look in his eyes. "It was damn near a self-contained village. Floors gleaming, cut flowers in every room, meals to feed fifty people cooking here in the kitchen.... All because William Irving was smart enough to see the money to be made in timber, and eventually in railroads. Think of it. A family like that, and now the house is left to the ghosts and the mercy of Ed Phillips, who wouldn't care if it was carved up into condos." His tone was sharp, even angry.

  Did Nate see himself as the keeper of the flame? Abigail wondered. A member of the Irving family in all but blood?

  Her suspicion that he did grew as the tour proceeded. In the library Nate conjured a picture of leather-bound books filling the leaded glass-fronted bookcases, a small fire on the hearth, and the old timber baron himself seated at an elegant cherry desk, pen in hand as he scrawled a distinctive signature on documents. Nate showed her a letter William Irving had written his wife in bold black cursive and flowery language, that signature sprawled at the bottom.