Secretly Yours

by Gina Wilkins

  Trevor sighed and moved to a new spot. “Forgive me for being concerned,” he muttered.

  Pointedly ignoring him, Trent went back to work, concentrating fiercely on the task and pushing the memories to the back of his mind.

  THERE WAS ANOTHER NOTE on Trent’s refrigerator when he arrived home that afternoon. “Your laundry is folded on the bed,” it read. “I didn’t know if you wanted me to open closets and drawers to put things away. I forgot to ask.”

  Again, there was a postscript: “Did you make that big rocker by the fireplace? It’s fabulous.”

  Shaking his head, Trent reached into the fridge and pulled out a cola. He drained a third of it in one long guzzle, then read the note in his hand again. Annie seemed to have a thing for his furniture.

  Remembering the worn odds and ends of furniture he’d seen when he went in her house to check the ceiling for signs of leaks, he suspected that most of it had been chosen for economy rather than personal taste.

  She was definitely an odd cookie, he thought, tossing the note onto the counter. Pretty, but odd.

  He moved into his bedroom to put his neatly folded socks and underwear away, and found himself wondering again what her story was. It irritated him to realize that he was suddenly feeling rather protective of her. Working on her roof earlier, he’d had the irritatingly satisfying feeling that he was helping someone who needed him.

  As if he had anything to offer Annie—or anyone, he added with a heavy scowl.

  THE FIRST THING Annie always did when she returned home on Tuesday and Friday afternoons was to find out what Trent had done that day. It amazed her how much he had accomplished in the three weeks that had passed since they had begun their arrangement. Their only personal interaction during those weeks had been the mornings when she arrived at his house to clean.

  She thought she’d done a decent job of hiding her reaction to him during those fleeting encounters. She wanted to think he had no idea that she all but melted every time he looked at her in that sizzlingly intense manner of his. But she wouldn’t be surprised if he suspected it, anyway. A man like Trent had to be used to finding puddles of women at his feet.

  His mother had warned her that Trent considered their arrangement only temporary and was likely to end it at any time, but Annie wasn’t worried. Even if he decided today that they’d swapped their last service, she still believed it had been well worth it. Her front step was safe to walk on now, her roof hadn’t leaked during a fairly heavy rain yesterday, he had cleaned out her gutters and unclogged her drains. She didn’t know how many hours he’d spent there—he was always gone by the time she came home—but she knew he’d spent more time working at her place than she had at his.

  Determined to repay him, she had worked very hard at his place—cleaning, scrubbing, shining and polishing everything in his house. He’d given her free rein, so she had scrubbed floors, cleaned the oven and refrigerator and washed windows—inside and out. She’d dusted and vacuumed everything that hadn’t moved, but it still didn’t feel like enough.

  There was an odd intimacy to spending so much time in his home while he was working in hers. She didn’t feel that way about her other clients, seeing their houses as just rooms to clean and money to earn—but it was different, somehow, with Trent. She told herself it was only because she was aware that he was as familiar with her home as she was with his. There was certainly no more personal element involved between them.

  When she walked into her place on the first Tuesday afternoon in March—her fourth week of working for Trent—she was startled to find his big wooden rocker sitting in her living room. No, not his rocker, she realized, taking a step closer. Just as beautiful, but not the same. The color was slightly different, the grain not quite like the other.

  There was a note taped to the back of the chair. In printed block letters it said, “You said you like my rocker. This was the first one I made. I broke the arm and had to glue it, but if you want it, it’s yours.” He hadn’t bothered to sign his name.

  Her heart in her throat, she studied the rocker more closely. She found the break he’d referred to, eventually. The wood had apparently split when he’d nailed it, but he’d repaired it so expertly that only an obsessive perfectionist could find fault with it. But she was crazy about it, trivial flaw and all.

  Hardly able to believe what he had done, she sank into the chair and began to rock, her work-weary muscles almost sighing in relief. Annie had grown up surrounded by beautiful, expensive things, but she had never fallen this hard for any inanimate object.

  She could picture herself sitting in this wonderful chair on the cold nights still ahead, rocking, resting, listening to music from the stereo she was going to buy as soon as she had saved enough. Everything her uncle had owned had been sold at an estate auction, by his request, a few months after he’d died, and the proceeds had been deposited into an account for her, so there had been no furniture when she’d moved into the house he’d left her. She’d had to pick up a few odds and ends at secondhand shops to get by until she could do better. This chair was now the nicest piece she possessed. Having this beautiful rocker to relax in would certainly brighten up her evenings.

  She had never envisioned herself living alone this way, but there were times when she actually enjoyed it enough to forget about the loneliness.

  Had her uncle Carney enjoyed the solitary existence he’d led here? Eccentric and free-spirited, he’d rebelled early against the stringent expectations of his family—something Annie now understood all too well. She hadn’t seen her uncle often, only when he breezed through Atlanta to make contact with his only living relatives—her father and her—a total of only half a dozen times or so that Annie could remember. But he had always seemed fond of her, telling her wonderful stories about all the places he had seen, all the adventures he’d had.

  He’d settled in Honoria—for reasons no one but him had ever known—after he’d broken a hip and had no longer been able to travel as he once had. He’d lived here nearly ten years before his death, but apparently hadn’t really gotten to know anyone in this town very well. Annie hoped to make a few more friends here than her great-uncle had. She only wished that she could have gotten to know Carney, himself, better. He would have understood, as no one else could, her need to break away from her parents, her father, in particular.

  Her hand still stroking the chair, she glanced at the telephone nearby. Trent wasn’t the type to graciously accept gratitude—he’d always brushed her off when she’d tried to thank him for the work he’d done here—but she couldn’t wait until Friday to tell him how much this meant to her.

  He answered in his usual curt manner. “H’lo?”

  She spoke without bothering to identify herself. “Thank you. The chair is beautiful.”

  “You didn’t have to call. I said you can have it if you want it.”

  “Of course I want it. I love it. But—”

  “Good. It was in my way here. I don’t need two.”

  “I’d like to pay you for it,” she offered boldly. “You must have spent hours making it. Not to mention the materials.”

  “Forget it. It wasn’t for sale, anyway. I told you, it’s flawed.”

  “But—”

  “Look, do you want the chair or not?”

  She sighed. “Yes.”

  “Fine. Enjoy it. See you Friday.”

  A dial tone sounded in her ear before she could say anything else.

  Blinking, she hung up the receiver, then laughed incredulously, shaking her head. Trent McBride was one of the most exasperating men she had ever met. Rude, moody, withdrawn—and yet there was a streak of kindness and generosity in him that he hadn’t quite been able to hide from her.

  She had learned a little more about him during the past three weeks. She hadn’t asked questions—she would consider that both unprofessional and unethical—but the people here seemed anxious to volunteer information about each other. They’d told her that Trent had been hospital
ized for weeks after his accident, and that his injuries, whatever they were, had put an end to his air force career. And now everyone wondered what he was going to do with the rest of his life.

  Annie wondered about that herself—not that it was any of her business, of course. Several of her clients had tried to pump her for information about Trent, but she refused to cooperate, skillfully changing the subject whenever his name came up.

  She crossed the room, stroked a hand over one satiny-smooth arm of the rocker, then sank into it again. Putting her head back, she closed her eyes and began to rock. The pleasurable sigh that escaped her seemed to echo in the quiet room.

  GIVING ANNIE THE CHAIR had probably been a mistake, Trent thought glumly as he stared into his refrigerator on Friday of the following week. He’d thought she might like it, but he hadn’t been prepared for her to show her gratitude quite so…fervently. A stack of casserole dishes—enough for several days of meals—were neatly stacked in the fridge. Two loaves of fresh-baked bread sat on his counter. There was a plant on his kitchen windowsill, for Pete’s sake.

  He’d only given her an extra chair that had been sitting in his workshop—a chair with a patched arm, for that matter. Had no one ever been nice to the woman before? He should have tried harder to talk himself out of the impulse when it had first occurred to him.

  He closed the refrigerator and reached for the cup of coffee he’d poured a few minutes earlier. He’d thought he was hungry, but seeing all that food in there had killed his appetite. No more generous gestures, he promised himself. He didn’t want to encourage any more awkward expressions of gratitude.

  She knocked on his front door just as he finished his coffee. As he went to let her in, he hoped she wasn’t bringing food or flowers this time.

  Fortunately she was only carrying her cleaning supplies. She gave him one of her dimpled smiles when he reached out to relieve her of the heavy tote. He hated the way his abdomen tightened when she did that.

  He was trying his best not to be attracted to her. But he was. He didn’t even particularly want to like her. But he did. Damn it.

  “Good morning,” she said.

  He nodded, dragging his gaze away from her sweetly curved mouth. “I thought I would fix that kitchen-cabinet door by your sink today. I noticed it keeps swinging open.”

  Her smile tilted ruefully. “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve hit my head on it. I was beginning to think I was going to have a permanent goose egg on my forehead.”

  He glanced automatically at her smooth forehead, seeing no damage there. No flaws at all, for that matter.

  “Anything special you want me to do here?” she asked, her voice suddenly uncertain—as if the tension he was feeling this morning had rubbed off on her.

  He shook his head. “I’m on my way out.”

  He left quickly, before he could make a total fool of himself.

  As he let himself into her house a short while later and inhaled the lemon-and-flower scents that he associated now with Annie, he reminded himself that the month he’d originally granted for this arrangement was over. He’d gotten quite a lot done on her house; he could quit in good conscience now. Of course, it had been kind of nice having his house cleaned regularly, his laundry done, his fridge filled with ready-to-nuke meals. And her house did need quite a few more repairs.

  Maybe he would give it a couple more weeks. After that, it would probably be better if everything went back to the way it had been before.

  “THAT WAS VERY GOOD, Sam,” Annie told the six-and-a-half-year-old boy on the piano bench beside her the following Monday afternoon. “You have a lot of natural talent.”

  The boy seemed pleased. “I like music.”

  “You still want to learn how to play the piano?”

  His head bobbed affirmatively. “I want to play like John Tesh.”

  His stepmother, Jamie McBride, had entered the room just in time to hear that statement. She laughed and rested a hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Sammy’s the only six-year-old in his class who would rather listen to John Tesh than the latest pop group. He saw him on TV at Christmas and he’s been playing at the piano ever since. We’ve tried to find a teacher for him, but the few local teachers were either booked up or think he’s too young to start.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so.” Annie gave the boy a bracing smile. “I think Sam’s old enough as long he’s willing to do what it takes to learn. And that means practicing at least twenty minutes a day to start out, even longer as you progress further. Do you want to do that, Sam?”

  He nodded eagerly. “I’ll practice an hour a day.”

  Annie chuckled. “Eventually, you may very well practice that long, and more, but there’s no need to burn yourself out at the beginning. Would you like to play for your mom now?”

  Jamie raised her eyebrows. “You learned to play something in your first lesson?”

  He beamed. “Two songs. One’s called ‘Happy Hands’ and the other is ‘Buzzy Bees.’ Do you want to hear them?”

  “Of course I want to hear them.”

  His lower lip gripped between his teeth in concentration, Sam positioned his right hand on the keyboard, looking at Annie for confirmation that he was beginning correctly. She nodded encouragingly. The boy drew a deep breath and stared intently at the open music book in front of him as he played the very simple, four-measure melodies Annie had taught him during the past hour.

  Jamie applauded enthusiastically when he finished. “Sam, that was great! I can’t wait until your dad hears you. Who’d have thought you’d be able to play the piano after your very first lesson?”

  He gave her a reality-check look. “It wasn’t very hard.”

  She laughed and ruffled his blond hair. “Give me a break, will you? If you’re going to take piano lessons, I reserve the right to be disgustingly proud every time you learn something new.”

  Though he was smiling, Sam made a production of rolling his blue eyes. “Oh, man. This is going to be embarrassing.”

  “Bet on it,” Jamie assured him cheerfully.

  Annie noticed that the boy didn’t look particularly dismayed. Quite the opposite, actually.

  She stood and stepped away from the piano bench. “That’s the end of our first lesson. Practice your exercises and I’ll see you next Monday after school, okay, Sam?”

  He nodded, his attention already focused again on the music book in front of him. “See you, Ms. Stewart.”

  Jamie motioned toward the doorway. “Would you join me in the kitchen for a cup of coffee, Annie?”

  “Yes, I’d like that.”

  Jamie led the way through her comfortably decorated house to the kitchen. She had just filled two good-size mugs with fresh-brewed coffee when they were joined by Abbie, who was almost three.

  “Juice?” she asked Jamie hopefully.

  Jamie obligingly poured apple juice into a spillproof toddler cup, handed it to the blue-eyed, blond cherub, then joined Annie at the table. “Sam certainly seems to have enjoyed his first piano lesson.”

  “I can tell he’s going to learn quickly. You were right, Jamie. He has a genuine affinity for the piano.”

  Jamie beamed. “Of course. I know real talent when I see it.”

  “Yes, I suppose you do.” Annie knew from gossip that Jamie had spent nearly ten years working as an actress in New York before moving back to Honoria almost two years ago to teach drama at the high school.

  Some people had expressed surprise that the flamboyant redhead had married Trevor McBride, a conservative lawyer and widowed father of two. Having seen Jamie and Trevor together on a couple of occasions at his office, Annie had sensed the deep, loving bond between the couple that had made their differences irrelevant. And it was very obvious that Jamie was crazy about her stepchildren.

  “Speaking of talent…have you ever done any acting?” Jamie asked, studying her guest in a manner that almost looked assessing.

  A bit warily, Annie asked, “Not since college. Why?”
>
  “I knew it. You were a music major—musical theater?”

  “Piano, mostly, but I had a few singing roles. What—”

  “Have you ever longed to be back on stage? Missed the sound of applause ringing in your ears?”

  Though she couldn’t help smiling at Jamie’s whimsical questions, Annie still asked, “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m involved with the Honoria Community Theater. We’ve done a couple of plays already, but now everyone wants to put on a musical for the first time. Would you be interested in trying out, maybe for a fall performance?”

  Annie didn’t know if she would still be in Honoria in the fall. She hadn’t planned that far ahead. As for performing in a musical… “I don’t know, Jamie. It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything like that. And I’m really not sure I would have the time.”

  “Think about it, okay? We’d love to have you. We’ll be holding auditions in early June.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Annie promised, though her first impulse was to refuse on the spot. She’d been fairly content to live in the shadows lately; she wasn’t sure she wanted to take a chance at losing that comfortable anonymity.

  “So how are things going with the repairs on your house?” Jamie asked, obligingly changing the subject. “Trevor told me he and Trent worked on your roof. Did it help? Is it still leaking?”

  Surprised, Annie asked, “Did you say your husband worked on my roof?” It was the first she’d heard of it.

  “You didn’t know?”

  “No.” She bit her lower lip.

  Now it was Jamie’s turn to look surprised. “Does that bother you?”

  “A bit.”

  “Why?”

  “I haven’t paid him anything. The arrangement I have with his brother is that I clean his house in exchange for the repair work.”

  “Trevor doesn’t want to be paid to help out a friend. And besides, you clean his offices and you’re giving Sam piano lessons.”

  “But he’s paying me for both of those. I still come out in his debt.”

  “So you can do him a favor sometime,” Jamie said with a shrug. “Don’t worry about it, Annie. It isn’t charity.”