Radcliffe McQueen might be the most challenging case she ever assigned herself. Most of the people she met and “renovated” wanted to change, wanted to find happiness.
The snarly old man didn’t look like he wanted anything from anyone. Then again, she’d barely scratched the surface with him. Her brother hefted the trunk into the back of the truck and she pulled him into a bear hug. “Thanks, Lance.”
He returned the embrace, using the closeness to whisper in her ear. “Are you sure you’ll be okay? What if he tries something?”
Pulling away, she shook her head. “I’ll be fine. He is not giving off that vibe at all. If anything, I think if I touched him, he’d be the one freaking out rather than vice versa. It’s fine. Besides, I have a cell phone. You’re not far. I’ll call you if he does even one strange thing.”
“Today, artist. I’ve things to do besides wait on you.” McQueen called the words from his barely cracked window before rolling it back up with a protesting squeak.
“Okay, I lied,” she modified. “I’ll call you if he does one strange thing that scares me.”
Lance snorted and glared at the front of the truck. He looked like a little boy, worried the playground bully might bother his sister, so she punched his shoulder to relieve his concern. “Seriously, I’ll be fine.” Turning from him, she jogged around the truck and got in.
McQueen didn’t look at her. Putting the truck in gear, he headed out of the parking lot.
At a snail’s pace.
She could almost feel herself aging in the time it took for McQueen to chug his slow and lumbering truck to his home on the outskirts of the small town. Another decade passed while he avoided potholes and meandered up his driveway. The entire drive, he neither spoke nor looked in her direction, keeping both hands firmly on the wheel at exactly ten and two. She cleared her throat. “So, you’re a very safe driver.” Complimenting those who needed renovating often built up long disregarded confidence, helping them to rejoin society as a functioning person.
Radcliffe neither answered nor seemed impressed with her ability to find a silver lining. Actually, he could have gone deaf for all the response he gave her.
Finally, after what seemed an endless amount of time in his passenger seat, he parked and shut off the truck. Getting out, he plodded in his hunched way to the house, not once glancing back.
He neither opened the door for her nor offered to help with the steamer trunk. Sighing, she unbuckled her seatbelt and tossed her satchel on her back. It took her nearly a half hour to lug the trunk out of the back of the truck and into the house. Once she made it inside the door, she froze.
“Dear God, he’s a hoarder.”
Dust greeted her, dancing in what sickly light managed to penetrate the filth covering his windows—wait, were those curtains? And filth. It was a combo wall of light-resistant dirt and fabric. Not that she could see much of the windows beyond stacks of flotsam that stood higher than her and only allowed a small path to a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling and trying bravely to penetrate the gloom with its lone illumination.
As if summoned by her words, Radcliffe appeared. He’d shed his hat and overcoat, as well as the scarf and fingerless gloves he’d worn in the store. He now stood in a button down shirt and worn jeans—still hunched into himself, as if he’d prefer to hide from her rather than to speak. Hands stuffed deep in his pockets, he shifted, chewed his lips and finally spoke. “You may sleep in the bedroom off the top of the stairs. I don’t go up there and you may not go in my office. I don’t care if the entire house catches ablaze, stay the hell out of my office. It’s rule number two, understand?”
She nodded, glanced back at her trunk and considered how fun it would be to lug it up stairs. “Is there someplace I could set up to work as well? I mentioned I’m an artist and—”
His hand, held up as if to ward off her words, stopped her. “Don’t babble. Yes, off the kitchen is a space. Gets good light. Should work. Don’t be noisy.”
With that, he vanished with the very final sounding of a door closing and a lock turning punctuating his desire to be done with the conversation.
Glancing at the trunk, she sat on it and looked around. Trying to bite back her horror, she searched for the Pollyanna side of the situation.
She’d come up with something good about this…she was sure there was something.
He could hear her moving around. He’d considered helping her with the trunk, since the antique thing must have weighed nearly as much as his unwanted houseguest, but resisted. It would set the wrong sort of precedent. He wasn’t here to play housemaid to an eccentric artist obviously set on foisting herself off on a stranger.
Thump.
She’d started up the stairs, from the sound of it, ridiculous luggage in tow. Sliding into his leather chair, he spun for a moment or two, listening for the next step.
Thump.
It took her very nearly five minutes between steps. He sighed.
To tune out her pained progress, he booted up his computer and connected to the Internet. Pulling up his favorite search engine, he clicked in her name and allowed results to populate.
Thump. Three steps cleared…only two flights to go.
She had a website, not surprising in this day and age. Even the biggest hacks could create a free website and—
Thump.
The first sight of her work seemed to suck the very breath from his lungs. Opening another gallery, he began to scroll through the images, enchanted.
Thump.
Her talent glowed off the screen, as vibrant and alive as the colors she chose to use. From twirling women bedecked in bubbles to heartbreakingly sad panoramas, her gift was something even he couldn’t deny. He leaned back, steepling his fingertips.
Why would a woman so obviously gifted in her field go up to a stranger and ask to visit his home? The prices listed below the pictures—many overridden with large red letters proclaiming them SOLD—bespoke an artist who was far from starving. And yet she’d foisted herself off on him.
Thump.
“Dammit,” he muttered and punched the top of his desk. He didn’t really have time for an enigma, and he certainly didn’t have time for the guilt that riddled him with each of those damnable thumps. Pushing away from his desk, he unlocked the door and strode up the steps two at a time, to take the antique trunk from her.
With nearly as loud of a thump, she dropped to sit on the step, blocking his passage. “Oh, don’t be bothered, Mr. McQueen. I have this. One step at a time, right?” Her flushed face had burst out in sweat, leaving a pale lock to stick on her forehead. More guilt swamped him.
He didn’t appreciate the addition of guilt into his routine. He got by fine without any troublesome emotions, and if he’d chosen to indulge in any emotion, he certainly wouldn’t choose guilt to break the pattern. “You’re already bothering me.” He announced it and gestured at her.
She simply brushed the hair off her forehead and panted. “Well, sorry about that.”
She didn’t sound sorry. “Move. I can’t carry this ridiculous thing past your—” At a loss for words, he waved his hand with a bit more enthusiasm.
“My what?” Her smile broke free, charming him if he would allow it.
“Your person.” He settled on the word and looked away from her, waiting for her to move.
Laughter bubbled out of her, a deep throaty thing that wrapped him in intimacy and invited him to join her in mirth. “For a writer, you’re not so great with the words. Anyone ever tell you that?”
He scowled at her.
“Sorry. You’re pretty sensitive about the writing thing, huh?”
He resisted growling at her and she’d finally moved, so he lifted the trunk and sped up the remaining stairs. Once he made it to the door of the room he’d offered her, he dropped the trunk—which felt as if she’d packed i
t with bricks—and turned to flee.
She’d come up behind him and his movement brought him in direct contact with her tempting little body.
She smelled of vanilla and musk and woman. This close, her diminutive size begged him to protect her, to touch her. Rather than back away, she considered him by looking directly at him, head tilted back and eyes wide. A single motion of her pink tongue moistened her lips and he found his gaze locked on the curve of them. “You’re not old at all, are you?”
Her whispered words broke through the sensual haze her presence awakened and he backed into the room to escape her. “No.”
She turned sideways, allowing the space for him to pass her. He moved to do so, ignoring the zinging awareness she created simply by being in his space. When he’d nearly passed her, she spoke. “I’m sorry. I didn’t intend to break your rule and touch you.”
The sincerity of her words tempted him to be equally sincere. To admit he liked bumping into her, that he’d like to do more than bump into her. That he’d wanted, for the barest of heartbeats, to sample her lips.
If he’d been a hero in one of his books, surely he would have done just that—painting a seduction in words to encourage further and future intimacies.
He wasn’t a man led by temptation, however, so instead he straightened his back and cast words back over his shoulder. “Don’t let it happen again.”
With that, he headed back to his office to look at more of her art and consider the folly of inviting her into his home.
Chapter Three
The room he’d assigned her featured a large four-poster bed covered in a coverlet so old she’d been sure the fabric would rip as she removed it from the mattress. She did a quick scan for bugs—hoarder, after all—and found the room free of life forms but coated in dust. Instead of dealing with it after a day of travel, she’d dug out her trusty sleeping bag and snuggled in for a thankfully dreamless night of rest. She woke with the dawn seeping in the old farmhouse windows and stretched. Her mind whirred to life, planning and plotting against her temporary roommate.
Shuffling downstairs in yoga pants and a T-shirt, she crept to his office door and leaned her head on the wood. Soft strains of Sinatra leaked through the door along with a small beam of light. A large keyhole, big enough for an antique skeleton key, caused the stray line of brightness so she knelt and peered through it.
She barely stifled her gasp of surprise. Unlike the rest of the house, his office appeared modern, clean and remarkably free of debris. She could see the back of a leather chair and feet propped on a desk—one woolen gray sock on, one off. Diddle diddle dumpling…
Apparently, the man slept in a chair.
Shaking her head, she headed into the kitchen as soundlessly as possible considering every step she took made the old wood creak and she nearly toppled two ceiling-high piles on her way. In far better repair than the rest of the house but lacking the obvious renovations of his office, the kitchen did offer a single cup coffee maker, small plastic cups for it and a case of bottled water. Considering the orange stain on the faded and dull porcelain sink, she sighed in gratitude for the familiar label on the water. After only a few seconds, she cupped the mug in her hands and took the first sip of morning nectar.
“You’re noisy as hell, do you know that?” The rumbling growl startled her and she nearly dropped the mug, sloshing hot coffee on her fingers and gulping a bigger mouthful than she planned. “Don’t choke. It was merely an observation.”
Resetting the pot and reaching for another mug, he didn’t look her direction, affording her an opportunity to really consider him.
While he’d hunched and slouched, he’d disguised the tall and powerful frame of his body somewhat. Towering over her by more than a foot, his dark head was topped with a remarkably full mane of curling black hair. It needed washing, as did he from the faint smell of sweat she could pick up from here, but would probably be shiny and soft when clean. His jaw was marked with dark and unruly stubble, like he’d shaved sometime recently but not so recently she could really see under the regrowth. She’d noticed his eyes when he’d inadvertently run into her the night before—startling blue, like the sky right before sunrise—lined by dark lashes, sooty accents to the vibrant color. If she were to sketch him, she’d do it in all henna tones or charcoal except those brilliant eyes.
As if he felt her gaze on his back, he shot a glare at her, wrinkling his brows together. Or rather brow. He obviously didn’t spend a lot of time on his manscaping, judging by the woolly bear crawling across his forehead. “Quit staring at me,” he ordered.
“Is that another rule?” She couldn’t help but poke at him. His responses were so damned honest—like he didn’t care what she or anyone else thought, so why even bother with the little white lies everyone used to protect their feelings?
Breathing out once harshly from his nose, a disgusted sound if ever she’d heard one, he turned back to his coffee preparation. “No.”
She rolled the mug back and forth between her fingers. “Thanks for letting me stay. I was thinking of going on a walk, getting a feel for the property—”
“I don’t care.” He snapped the words and opened a drawer with a loud clatter of silverware.
“I actually was going to invite you to come along.” She waited. If he said no, she’d work on the house and try again tomorrow. She could be tenacious. He wasn’t the first to need her to wear at him like water on a stone.
“I—” The refusal in his tone cut off and he looked out the window. Whatever thoughts caused him to reconsider weren’t shared, but he did glance her way. “Fine. I’m freshening up first.”
He strode out of the room as if demons nipped at his heels and she leaned on the counter. “You don’t want to be alone, not really, do you, McQueen?”
Luckily, he couldn’t hear her. Before he could clean up and then come up with excuses to revoke his acceptance, she should be dressed and ready to go. Bringing the mug with her, she headed upstairs to throw on clothes and run a brush through her hair.
Just because he was a red-hot mess didn’t mean she should be. If anything, perhaps her own care with her appearance would inspire him to follow suit.
Generally, walking the property eased his mind, a welcome respite from hours crunched over his desk staring at a glowing screen. Nothing about Sheri settled him, instead making him feel twitchy, as if his very skin were a suit he’d outgrown overnight.
“Is that a crane?” Reaching out a hand, she caught his arm before pointing. In an almost comical moment, she realized she’d broken his rule—again—and snatched the offending fingers away from his arm.
He cleared his throat to resist laughing. Since he couldn’t speak without giving away his amusement, he simply ducked his head before wandering farther west. The woman acted as if he were sensitive, like touching him would truly upset him. Although he didn’t glean any pleasure from casual and meaningless touches, he didn’t completely abhor her touch either.
He didn’t answer her question. The creature was so obviously not anything but a crane he assumed her comment was of an exclamatory nature rather than needing confirmation. Instead, he wandered away from her to watch the creek bubble across rocks. Often, when he appreciated the scenic nature of the property, he considered other authors and their retreats. Walden’s Pond, Key West…most of the greats had a place to call their own, a naturally beautiful counterpoint to the extremely unnatural hobby of stringing words together like dainty pearls, an act that needed an exacting eye to find symmetry and grace in their assemblage. He had his parents’ farm, humble, but graceful in its own way.
Not that the loveliness of the farm ever distracted him from the desperate emptiness the place awakened for him. Ghosts lingered on these acres, reveling in their ability to haunt the last of the great McQueen line.
“Are you plotting a book or simply enjoying the view?” She’d come to sta
nd with him while he’d been rumbling around alone in the dark corners of his own mind.
“Neither.”
“You’re not always a grumpy hermit—I’ve seen pictures of you at conferences and traveling for your books. Why are you so different when you’re home than when you’re working?”
He considered her question, rolling it around before coming to a conclusion. “That’s work. It’s not me. As I said, I’ve no desire to be one of my heroes. I’m simply a man, not unlike any other, I’m sure. What about you? I looked up your art and—”
“Really?” He scowled at her for her interruption, but she simply barreled onward. “You looked me up?”
“You’re in my house.” To him, that said enough.
“Aha. Sorry for interrupting. Please, continue.”
To punish her for her rudeness, he didn’t. After a moment, she sighed in a loud and gusty way. “You looked up my art and you had a question,” she reminded him.
Since silence wouldn’t get him answers, he cleared his throat. “Well, I looked up your art and you’re not half bad.” No need to stroke her ego and tell her how beautiful her work was. Like he wouldn’t waste words expounding on her beauty, something she obviously knew she possessed, he wouldn’t ramble on about how moving some of the images had been. “So why ask a stranger—a hermit author obviously preferring to keep to himself—to stay with him? And don’t feed me that hogwash about my scenic views. Although it’s lovely here, there are any number of other lovely places to visit in the nearby region that don’t involve shacking up with me.”
She coughed and he wondered if she masked a laugh with the choked sound. “Well, Radcliffe, I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone call anything hogwash in my entire life. What the hell is hogwash, anyway?”
While You Were Writing: Watkin's Pond, Book 2 Page 2
