by Nora Roberts
“We had a deal,” Darby said again.
“Apparently,” Zane tossed back, “we’re renegotiating.”
“We are. And here are the terms. I’ll reimburse you for the materials. I expect you, being a licensed contractor, got them at a discount. I’ll take the discount.”
Those shoulders relaxed, just a little.
“Now, you’ll also have an accounting of the cost of labor.”
“No.” Darby picked up her wine.
“Yes, you do. I’m willing to negotiate the bottom line on that.”
“Roy’s the first employee of High Country Landscaping. I pay him.”
Zane held up a hand. “You hired Roy? Officially?”
“He’s going to fill out the W-4 tomorrow.”
“She performs miracles,” Zane commented.
“We’ll negotiate the cost of labor,” Emily continued. “And if we come to terms, I’m going to contract you to do the rest of the bungalows.”
Darby’s mouth fell open, shut as she pressed her lips together, closed her eyes. “Oh. Oh, that’s playing dirty.”
“I play to win.”
“You won’t beat her,” Zane commented. “Trust me.”
“I want that so much.” She pointed at Emily. “You know how much.”
“I do. And I’ve got better, dirtier. I’ve seen the way you look at my house. You finish the bungalows, it’s yours. I want you to do to my house what you’ve done here.”
“Goddamn it!” Shoving up from the table, Darby circled the patio. She dragged off her cap, raked hands through her hair. “It’s so beautiful, so perfect. So ridiculously naked. I’ve got a dozen different designs in my head already. This is so not fair.”
She dropped down again, huffed out a breath. “Half. Half the labor. Fifty-fifty.”
“I can agree to that.”
“And the paint for the chairs—and that labor. The pots, the plants and labor, the window box, the wind chime. Those are gifts. They’re gifts, and that’s that.”
“Done.”
Darby stared at the hand Emily held out. “Really?”
“Really.”
When they shook, Emily held on another minute. “You get me the accounting tomorrow. How soon can you start on the next bungalow?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Don’t you want a day off?”
“No. No, I really don’t. I’ve been working on designs in the evening. Optimism. Tomorrow.”
When Darby’s eyes filled, Zane sighed, looked skyward. “Not you, too.”
“This means everything to me.” Now she gripped Emily’s hand in both of hers. “I made a difference for you here, and I will with all the others. But this is my life, and you’ve just made a difference in my life.”
“Honey, you’re going to need more than Roy once people around here see what you can do.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m hoping to steal Gabe from you this summer.”
“Gabe?” A smile flickered around Emily’s lips even as surprise filled her eyes. “Really?”
“He’s got an eye, good hands, an interest—and a work ethic I imagine he got from you. We’ll talk about it. Meanwhile, I maybe need a lawyer, too.” Darby shifted to Zane. “Do you handle real estate?”
He’d spotted the tattoo, found it nearly as fascinating as her eyes. “Not so far. But things change. Why?”
“I’ve got my eye on a place up for sale. If it works out, don’t I need somebody to handle the property search thing, and the settlement, all that?”
“Wouldn’t hurt.”
“You’re hired. I was going to take one more look, but I’m going to go ahead and make an offer tonight. I feel like all this is a sign.”
“The Hubbard place, right? I heard you’ve been looking at it. You remember that place, Zane? This side of the lake, closer to town, and back down that steep lane.”
“Yeah, vaguely.”
“The house isn’t much, but I don’t need much there. What it has is five-point-eight acres, and I need that. Greenhouse, equipment shed, and so on. It’ll work. Anyway, the bungalows. They won’t look like this.”
Emily jerked back. “But I love this. I want this.”
“For this one. You don’t want your bungalows—those homes away from home—to all look the same, to be uniform, like a development. Each one should be unique to its topography, its view, its setting. You’ll have, we’ll say, a look, a flow, but not cookie-cutter. I’ve got some designs worked up on my laptop. Why don’t I get it, you can look? You could pick where you want me to start next.”
“She always zero to sixty?” Zane wondered.
“In my limited acquaintance, yeah.”
“Sorry, if you don’t have time now, I can bring them to you tomorrow morning.”
“I’ve got wine, got my boy. I’ve got time.”
“Great. Be right back.”
Zane frowned after her. “Does she ever wind down after hitting full speed?”
“Not that I’ve seen.” Emily tipped her head to his shoulder. “I’m so glad you’re home, Zane.”
He brushed his lips over her hair. “Me, too.”
* * *
Zane had the guest room in the rambling old house. His usual spot on visits. He knew Emily and Lee would be perfectly content to have him live there, open-ended. But he’d find a place. If he was back, he was back, and needed to reset his roots, so to speak.
Gardening terms, he thought as he tried to settle in for the night. Probably came from the landscaper.
He needed to start looking at houses. No condos like he’d had in Raleigh. Time for an actual house. Hell, he could hire the landscaper to do whatever with a yard if he ended up with one.
A view of the lake—an absolute must. Reasonable proximity to his family, to town, where he’d need to set up an office. It appeared the landscaper—again—would be his first nonfamily client in Lakeview.
She sure as hell made Emily happy, and that earned her major points in his book. Happy enough, after the family celebration meal—man, Emily could cook—that she’d dragged the whole family down to the bungalow.
And there, in the moonlight, they’d been treated to the lighting Darby had added. The quirky lamppost with its copper cap, the walkway lights, little lights under the eaves, front and back, that added charm and practicality.
She’d come out, of course. Cleaned up, and she cleaned up well. Of course, she’d looked just as interesting in a sweaty T-shirt and dirty jeans.
Interesting, he thought as he stared up at the ceiling, rather than a beauty like his sister, his aunt. The short, not quite red, not really brown hair exposed the little tattoo on the back of her neck.
An infinity symbol. Had to be a story there.
She had a wiry kind of build, and he figured it suited her, as she seemed wired altogether to him. Eyes so blue they read kind of purple in a face of sharp angles. And a nose slightly, just slightly, off angle.
Broken at some point, he thought. He knew how that felt.
Lost her mother in the last year, Emily had told him. Had sold off, packed up, and moved. That took either guts or a streak of recklessness.
So did the initial deal she’d made with Emily. Maybe she had both.
He had a feeling Lee knew more, but hadn’t asked. He expected Lee would have run her background, just as a precaution—and since he’d watched Lee with her, had to assume Lee hadn’t found anything to worry him.
The boys liked her, Britt liked her, Silas, too. The baby and the dogs apparently considered her their new best friend. So Zane decided he wouldn’t worry either.
Plus, anyone who could talk Roy Dawson into a structured job had some sort of magic going. So he’d put all that to bed even if he couldn’t seem to do the same with his brain.
He rose, went to the window.
He could see the lights across the lake, could pick out the security lights glowing on the house where he’d once lived in fear and misery.
Someone else lived
there now. Not the someone else who’d initially bought it once Graham and Eliza had sold it, but another someone else. He hoped any residue from his life had long been banished.
Eliza had, to his knowledge, never come back to Lakeview. He knew where she was. Once she’d served her term, she’d moved to Raleigh, and there visited her husband in prison every week. Clockwork, never missed.
Zane had never run into her, something he was grateful for. Raleigh proved big enough for all of them. Or it had. In the last few months, he felt it closing in on him. Had begun to feel, however good his life, however satisfying his work, he’d never be fully shed of them if he could turn a corner one day and run into Eliza.
And more, Graham would very likely make parole the next time out—and that was coming right up. That had crawled under his skin and stayed there.
For a long time he’d believed he couldn’t live in Lakeview again, live with the memories of that fear and misery. Then he’d come to believe he needed Lakeview, and the good memories, the people who made his real family.
He’d missed Audra’s birth by an hour because he lived in Raleigh and couldn’t get back in time. He’d played basketball with Brody, but had never been to one of his games. Only made it to a couple of Gabe’s baseball games due to the luck of timing on visits.
The kid had an arm on him.
Standing, looking at the lights, Zane picked up the baseball he carried—a replacement for the one he’d long ago worn down.
They wouldn’t come back here, he thought. There was nothing for them here. There could be everything for him here. All he had to do was take it, and make a life.
He went back to bed, the ball in his hand. Rubbing the stitching, he listened to the sigh of the breeze from the lake, the whisper of it through leaves gone green with spring.
And slept.
CHAPTER TEN
He didn’t expect to run into Darby again so quickly. Lakeview wasn’t Raleigh, but it held more than five thousand people, not counting visitors.
Still, within a couple of days he spotted her car on the lake road, slowed to give a wave.
She rolled to a stop, gesturing, so he stopped. Since he had the top down, he waited for her to lean out her window.
“Figured you’d be digging or something.”
“I have been. I left Roy and Gabe clearing and leveling the walkway. Stone and sand coming this afternoon. I can’t get some of what I want from Best Blooms, so I have to head out to one of the bigger garden centers. I want a good-sized weeping dogwood, for one thing.”
He tipped down his sunglasses. “You’re going to fit a tree in that car?”
“No, I’m buying a truck on the way there.”
And just kept studying her over the tops. “You’re buying a truck on your way to pick up a tree.”
“I ordered it over the phone this morning.”
“You ordered—I have to stop repeating what you say just because what you say is weird.”
“It’s not weird. They had what I want, they’re starting the paperwork. I go in, boom, boom, drive off and get the tree, and so on. Anyway, are you still my lawyer?”
“I … could be.”
“I need a quick minute. Let’s pull over.”
Since she did, he, baffled, followed suit. Got out as she did.
She wore brown cargo pants, strong boots, an unzipped red hoodie over a pale yellow tee.
“Okay, the Hubbards accepted my offer. I signed the contract this morning.”
Zero to sixty, he thought again. “You’ve had a busy morning.”
“Best kind. So, can you contact the Realtor? Lakeview Realty, Charmaine’s handling it. And do what lawyers do? That’s a really excellent car, by the way. I don’t really know cars, but I can see that’s a blow-up-your-skirt kind of car.”
“Whose skirt?”
“Since I’m not wearing one, whoever.”
She shifted to study his sleek, silver Porsche. “Yep. That’s an excellent single guy’s car.”
“I’m a single guy.”
“Yeah, I need a truck. But if I could also have an excellent car, that one would be top of the list. Anyway, can you handle this deal?”
“I can, conditionally.”
Now she tipped down her sunglasses, peered over them with suspicious eyes. “Do you take after Emily?”
He’d liked her, Zane thought, because she’d made Emily so damn happy. Now, he realized, he just liked her.
“Maybe she takes after me. Here’s the deal. I do it pro bono.”
“I don’t need—”
“I do. I’ve spent the last eight years as an ADA. I haven’t done much general law. You’d be practice, and I need it. A simple settlement’s an easy way to slide in. I just finished getting office space in town. Haven’t even hung out my shingle, so to speak. I need the practice, kind of like you had to get your foot in the door with Walker Lakeside Bungalows. So it’s pro bono.”
“Maybe.”
“And you can pay me back with a free consult.”
Now those suspicious eyes—and they were kind of fabulous—showed some interest. “On what?”
“I’m figuring on buying a house. I’m also having a busy morning, heading out to look at one. I looked at one already, and that’s probably it, but I’m looking at a couple more first.”
She held up a finger. “It’s going to be the one way up on the ridge on this side of the lake. The one that’s like it’s built into the hill. All the glass, that sloped, uneven ground with the big drop-off in front, the view people would commit murder for.”
Well, he thought, son of a bitch. “Why?”
“Because, not unlike your car, it’s amazing. I looked at it myself—just to look, because it wasn’t what the business needs. It may have pulled at my guts, but I need the spread of land, the location nearer town. Plus, there’s the stickiness of the price. They’re only selling because he accepted a transfer to London, their kids are grown, she’s an artist who can work anywhere, and she has cousins in Brighton.”
“How do you know all that?”
“They told me. People do that, tell me. Am I right?”
“Maybe. Probably. I’m thinking about it.”
After tapping her sunglasses back up, she beamed at him. Megawatt-style. “You should buy it so I can landscape the crap out of it. It’s got nice work now, but I could make it as magical as the view. Anyway, consults are free all the time, for everyone.”
“Do you make everyone dizzy?”
“I don’t think so. I’ve got to go. Charmaine, the same one who’s handling the house you should buy. We’ll figure out the rest later.”
“Darby?”
She paused, one hand on the car door.
“How’d you break your nose?”
“Ex-husband. You?”
He usually lied if someone noticed and asked—a knee-jerk thing. Said line drive or some other fantasy. But the word came out of his mouth. “Father.”
She let out a sigh of air. “You win that one.”
She hopped in, drove off.
Apparently people did tell her, he thought. And more, she was right. He should buy the house. Screw looking at a couple more when that one had—right again—pulled at his guts.
It looked like he’d be handling two settlements.
He pulled out his phone, stood right there on the side of the road, and made Charmaine’s day.
* * *
He went back into town, signed the contract, picked up some pizza, and took Britt to lunch in the empty office space of the building he’d bought right on Main Street.
They sat on the floor, drank Cokes, ate pizza.
“We can do this a lot more, at an actual table, once you’re really in here. It’s a good spot, Zane. Smack on Main Street, front entrance, the little porch. More than enough room for your office, a receptionist, a law library, and maybe a conference room upstairs. You even have the little kitchen.”
“It’ll work. We’ll see if I will.”
Sitting in her bare feet, her quietly professional gray dress, she glanced around. “And you bought a building. And a house! That’s the one I can’t get my head around yet.”
“Me either. I don’t do that.”
“Buy houses?”
“Go on impulse. The building, that’s different. But I just bought an entire house, a fricking big-ass house, on impulse.”
“It’s a great house, or it looks great from down here. I’ve never been up there.”
“It’s amazing, but still. It’s a lot of house for just me.”
“It’s not just you.” Before she pointed, she licked sauce off her finger. “You come with a big family, and we expect you to entertain us lavishly and often.”
“Ha. I don’t think I’d have done it if I hadn’t run into the landscaper.”
“Darby? I like her. She’s…” Searching, Britt circled her Coke in the air. “Infectiously appealing.”
“That’s one way to put it. Accurately,” he decided.
“But what’s she have to do with it?”
“Nothing, really, but she starts talking and you start seeing what she’s saying. Or you don’t but you’re nodding along in your head. She bought the Hubbard place this morning, asked me to handle the deal for her, and before I know it, I’m telling her about this place, and the house, and she’s convincing me I should buy the house. She’s buying a truck on the way to buy a tree.”
“Okay.”
He snagged more pizza, wagged it for emphasis. “No, I mean, she ordered the truck over the phone—like I did this pizza—and she’s buying it just like that, picking up a tree, and coming back. She’s got Roy and Gabe working.”
“Oh yeah, no school today. Well, if she convinced you, good for her. Because you’re going to live on the tall hill, work in town, be right here. I missed you like crazy.”
“I missed you, too, and all of this, more than I let myself admit.” Reaching over, he laid a hand on hers. “He’ll most likely make parole this time.”
