by Nora Roberts
It had everything—the under-counter wine cooler and ice machine. The dishwasher drawers, a professional eight-burner range top with fancy hood, double wall ovens.
Plus, she knew from her lookie-loo tour, it boasted a butler’s pantry with another dishwasher, a fridge, a big sink, more counters, more cabinets. And a storage pantry big enough to camp in.
“This kitchen almost makes me want to learn to cook—really cook.”
“I’m happy to say it hasn’t pulled me there.” Zane handed her the beer. “Which is why I said a bed of herbs doesn’t make sense.”
“Herbs always make sense.” She tapped her glass to his bottle, sipped, sighed. Then handed him brochures. “One of those is mine, just informal for now, but some of the work I’ve done may show you what I have in mind here. I’m still working on the web page, but it’s up. Such as it is.”
“If you want help with that, you should contact The Computer Guy.”
“That’s Micah Carter, right? He’s been recommended.”
“My oldest pal, and despite that, I can honestly say he’s the best.” Curious, he flipped a brochure open to one of her tags, saw stone walls in tones that reminded him of his kitchen counters, saw the night shots with those clever little lights glowing.
“Okay, wow.”
“Right? You could have that.”
“This is—what do you call it—terraced. You know, a couple of levels, with stone steps.”
“You could have that, too, minus the steps. No reason for them. The terraced wall’s not only doable, but I’d recommend it.”
“You didn’t mention that before.”
She smiled over her beer. “Didn’t want to scare you.”
He looked up at her, deep green eyes full of cynicism. “You talk waterfalls, but don’t want to scare me?”
“I’d lulled you a little by then. I’d recommend the two levels for aesthetics and more stability.”
“But then you plant stuff like this one in the lower level, and that’s—”
“Native plantings with an underground irrigation system. Heavily mulched. We maintain; you enjoy.”
“That oughta be on your logo. Why don’t you have a seat? I can flip through some of this while you’re right here.”
“Great.” She pulled over a stool, then handed him some printouts she’d stapled together. “Take a look at this.”
When she opened it to a damn waterfall, he felt himself sink.
“You built this.”
“My mother and I did, yeah.”
“It’s amazing.”
“I think so. It’s a little bigger and more elaborate than what I’d want here, but it gives you an idea of what can be done. Working with the land, using the natural drop.”
He studied the photos. This one spilled from several heights, had plants tumbling out of the stone, ledges big enough for someone to perch on.
“You’re trying to make me want it.”
She sipped her beer. “You already want it. I’m helping you get past your garden-o-phobia.”
“What about winter?”
“Drain it, pull the pump. Then it’s just a pretty feature until spring, when the pump goes back.”
“Well, shit.”
She didn’t bother to muffle the laugh. “I’ll draw you up what I have in mind, give you an estimate. Then you decide.”
She angled, noted the page up on his laptop. “Checking out your outdoor living options.”
“Yeah, you’re right about that. I want to have the family up, but I haven’t dealt with stuff for outside yet.”
“You don’t want to go too contemporary or too rustic. You—Sorry, can’t stop myself. Do you mind if I just…” She circled a finger. “See more of how you’re outfitting the house?”
“Sure.”
“I really like what you’re doing with the space. Big space, high ceilings, so the oversized chairs, the big-ass sofas, they really work. Mostly manly colors,” she continued as she wandered, “but not dull. Comfortable, but not sloppy, nothing rigid when it comes to style. I hate when everything matches. And I love your dining room table.”
“I just picked that up. They called it industrial rustic, whatever that means.”
“Whatever it means, it’s great.” She trailed a finger over the long surface. “It’s like barnwood, right? Man, you’re really neat and organized.”
A punch in the gut if you forgot to pick up your socks would do that, he thought. “I guess I am.”
She wandered out to the living room, glanced through glass doors into a room he’d nearly finished making his home office. “What are you going to do with the lower level? Are you keeping the home theater?”
“I’d be crazy not to. I need to get some stuff for the guest suite down there. Right now I’ve set up my home gym, and that’s about it.”
Lips pursed, she walked back to him, curled her hand around his right biceps, squeezed. “I thought so. Very nice.”
Then wandered off again, leaving him bemused.
“Okay, you obviously know what you’re doing, what works for you and the space. I can, however, give you a list of places in the general area where you’d be able to see, touch, sit in, and so on the actual product rather than buying online.”
“Okay.”
“Why don’t you give me your email, and when I work all this up, I’ll send it to you.”
“Sounds like a plan. I even have a card.”
He pulled a case out of his pocket, handed her one.
“Impressive. ‘Zane Walker, Attorney-at-Law.’ It’s a good name for an attorney. It’s an even better one for an action hero. My card’s in the brochure, if you have any questions.” She handed him the glass. “Thanks for the beer.”
“Half.”
“Just right.”
“Let me walk you out. Wait, I’ve got one of Micah’s cards.” He opened a drawer, ruthlessly organized, took out a card. “If you need a computer guy, call The Computer Guy.”
“I actually should, so thanks.”
“He thinks you’re hot.”
“He—hmm.”
“And I have no idea why that came out of my mouth. He’s in a serious, monogamous relationship, and crazy in love with Cassie.”
“Good for him,” she said as they walked to the front of the house. “And I am hot, so he’s not wrong.”
“He won’t hit on you.”
“Good to know. Man, I love your place.” She stepped out on the veranda, breathed in the air, the view. “When I’m finished with it, the fairies will dance, the angels will sing.”
“And the water will spill?”
She laughed. “If you’re smart, it will. I’ll talk to you later.”
He watched her walk down the steps, walk to her truck. Yeah, definitely hot, he decided, in a strange, visceral, compelling way he couldn’t quite get a handle on.
“Hey!” he called out. “Maybe I’ll see you at Gabe’s game.”
“Hope so.” She hopped in her truck, shot him a wave, and drove off.
And he realized as she drove away there’d been a kind of buzzing energy in the air that faded off.
He sort of missed it.
* * *
Zane supposed he started the email relationship with Darby when he sent her one with his choice for the stone for the walls. And adding he leaned toward the terrace deal. And the lights.
Within two hours, she sent him an acknowledgment, an approval on his choice, and a meticulously detailed pricing for labor and materials that included an estimate on time and an approximate start date (weather permitting).
The fact the cost came in somewhat under his fears didn’t stop his quick wince. He wandered out on his bedroom terrace, looked at his grounds, currently lit by floodlights. Imagined that nice, soft glow against the stone.
Walked back in, emailed her instructions to send him a contract.
And she emailed him that within thirty. God help him, he printed it out, signed it, scanned it, sent it back. Rec
eived her acknowledgment thereof.
All of this before midnight on the very day she’d come to talk him into it all.
The next evening after dinner with his family, he checked his email, saw another from her.
This one had a drawing of the waterfall attached, complete with measurements. He studied it, coveted it, walked away from it.
When he got home, he walked outside, stared at the space, all but heard the water spilling against rock. Walked back inside and into his home office.
Do it, he wrote. You’re starting to piss me off.
Her reply came moments later.
I get that a lot. Do you want a separate contract, or do you want to wait until I calculate the rest?
Figure out the whole damn thing. I’m not going to say yes to the whole damn thing, but figure it. I’ll pick and choose. And I’ve decided you’re not as hot as you think you are.
I should have full numbers for you by Gabe’s game. Either way you go, if I see you there, I’ll buy you a hot dog. And my hotness, unharnessed, is incendiary. Do you/can you set up LLCs?
I can. It’ll cost you a million dollars. And a hot dog.
Great. We’ll negotiate. I’ll call your office for an appointment.
Zane found the rest of his week surprisingly full. He hired an intern, a sharp grad student with ties to the area. She’d been raised by her grandparents—father unknown, mother long gone. As her grandparents had retired to Lakeview a few years earlier, she wanted a summer position close by.
You didn’t get much closer than smack on Main Street, and as she hit every mark he’d aimed for, Zane and Gretchen Filbert came to amicable terms.
Which meant he had to come up with another desk, and all that went with it.
He drew up an unhappy woman’s marital separation agreement, talked his former US History teacher out of suing his own brother over what was, essentially, a family spat, took on a client who needed help settling her mother’s estate as the attorney of record was also dead.
He couldn’t claim a jammed calendar, but for a guy launching a private law practice in a small community, he figured he was doing just fine.
He returned from what he thought of as a house call frazzled, exhausted, and damp from the afternoon thunderstorm, and dropped into one of the chairs in reception.
Maureen swiveled around to study him. “You have the ‘I’ve just spent two hours with Mildred Fissle’ look. Eyes glazed, hair sticking up, as the electric charges in your brain shot through it, mouth slack from shock.
“Want coffee?”
“Will it have whiskey in it?”
“No. You have an appointment in thirty minutes. No booze for you.”
“She—you know, I thought she was ancient and scary when I was a kid. Now she’s really ancient and just plain terrifying. I had to sit in her parlor in this little rock of a chair—two hours with my knees up at my ears. I had to drink horrible tea that tasted like muddy flowers.”
Maureen gave him a deliberately exaggerated sad face. “Poor baby.”
“Everything smelled like withered rose petals and cats. She has five cats—that I saw. There may be more. One of them sat there and never stopped staring at me. It didn’t blink, so I thought maybe it was dead and stuffed. Then it moved.”
He shuddered. “I’m going to have to go back there, Maureen. I’m going to have to go back.”
Enjoying him, adoring him, Maureen leaned forward. “She wanted to change her will again, didn’t she?”
“She dragged out half a million previous wills, codicils, and all these little handwritten notes attached to them. Dozens of Post-it Notes, with cats on them.”
Maureen rose. “I’m going to get you a Coke, sweetie. Just sit and breathe for a minute.”
She came back with a cold bottle for him, and a glass of the ice water with lemon slice she preferred. “I’m friends with one of her granddaughters, went to school with her. Miss Mildred—even her grandkids call her that—changes her will more often than most change their sheets. Whichever one of her many children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren—and the building number of great-greats—happens to be in favor at the moment is told the numerous secret hiding places around the house where she stashes cash, jewelry, bankbooks, insurance policies, the latest will, and so on. Then that one falls out of favor. Miss Mildred writes her notes, changes hiding places, calls her current lawyer, and does it all again.”
“She has six living children,” Zane put in, “twenty-nine grandchildren, sixty-seven greats, and nineteen great-greats. Three more coming.” He took a big glug from the bottle. “And she has specific bequests for every freaking one of them—except the ones she’s decided don’t deserve anything, and those she insists on leaving one dollar. It’s like, these earrings go to Sue, this table goes to Hank, and Wendall gets a dollar because he couldn’t be bothered to come in from Seattle to see me at Christmas.
“It went on like that for two hours.”
“There, there.”
“Funny. Remind me to give you a ‘there, there’ after you spend the rest of your afternoon turning my desperate notes into a legal document.”
“Challenge accepted,” she said when he opened his briefcase, took out a legal pad, a file. “It’ll be easier next time, say, three months from now. Plus, she’s, what, about ninety-eight? She can’t live forever.”
“She’s ninety-nine, and don’t be so sure of that.”
He rose, shifted his briefcase to shoulder strap as his phone signaled a text. He pulled it out as he walked to his office.
Darby.
Are you sitting down? If not, text me when you are. And you might want an adult beverage handy.
He sat at his desk, wondered why he experienced twin tugs of anxiety and delight whenever he heard from Darby McCray.
I’m sitting. And since I’m a professional and it’s only three in the afternoon—and Maureen said no—I have no adult beverage handy.
You might overrule her in a few minutes. I’m sending you an email now, with multiple attachments. I’m catching a couple innings of Gabe’s game tomorrow, then have to work to make up losing this afternoon to rain and lightning. See you there.
He heard the email come in, glanced warily at his computer. How bad could it be? Plus, he wasn’t going to do all the stuff she wanted anyway.
Pick and choose, Walker, he reminded himself. Just pick and choose.
He opened it, laughed out loud at the dancing hot dog GIF. Then downloaded and opened the attachments.
The first, showing just how clever and canny his adversary in this match was, featured drawings illustrating the projected work, completed.
“I’m not falling for it,” he muttered. “Jesus, it’s amazing. But I will not be lulled.”
He moved on to her careful listing of trees, shrubs, plants, with pricing—all guaranteed with replacement at no cost for a year should they croak.
Fair.
Then there was stuff like fill dirt, topsoil, mulch, irrigation systems, pots, urns, planters.
Mostly that made him scratch his head. Why wasn’t dirt just dirt—and shouldn’t it be dirt cheap?
Then came the labor, and when his eyes uncrossed from that, the total.
“Holy fucking shit!”
Maureen ran in. “Language! What’s wrong with you? We could have a client!”
He just pointed to his computer screen.
With the mother’s glare still on her face, Maureen rounded the desk. “Oh good God!”
“See?”
“For landscaping? What are you landscaping, Disneyland? Emily’s told me how reasonable Darby is, and I’ve been thinking about asking her to do a little something for me. But my good lord!”
“Don’t let this put you off. It’s a crazy bunch of stuff. And for some reason, she included the walls and waterfall I already contracted.”
“Waterfall? You want a waterfall?”
“No. Maybe. No. It’s crazy. I’m crazy.”
He brought
up the file, showed her. And she made a long, yearning sound.
“It’s so beautiful. Oh, these walls—with the plants? Why, it almost looks like it’s just part of the hill, doesn’t it? Like it grew right there. Zane, it’s wonderful. What else?”
Reluctantly now, he scrolled through the other drawings.
“This is fabulous, beyond fabulous. It’s magic, but, I don’t know, natural magic.”
“You’re not helping,” he muttered.
“Well, bless your heart, I see what I see. Bring back that cost page again.”
When he did, she rubbed his shoulder. “That’s definitely amazing, too. Wait, there’s another page.”
“There can’t be.” But he noted it. “I guess I was too busy having a stroke to notice.”
“Okay, okay,” Maureen reassured, “you see where she’s noted the previous contract and cost—because she’s giving you what she’s calling a Preferred Client discount on the work, including that. It’s a good discount, Zane. Not to say that’s not a lot of money, but it’s a good discount.”
He stared hard at the figures. “She’s cagey—you ask Emily. She’s cagey. She waited to do the discount until after my stroke or heart attack or coma. She waited, and didn’t mention any possible discount when I fell for the wall and waterfall, but she includes them. She was always going to. She’s lulling me. It’s what she does.”
Maureen scrolled back to the pictures, made that sound again. “If she can do all this, she can do a lot more than lull. Well, that girl’s an artist. A magician. What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to stop looking at the pictures, the drawings, and burn that final figure into my brain so it reminds me why I’m going to stop looking at them.”
He heard the quiet chime ring, something else Micah had installed to let him know when the front door opened. “And I’m blanking it all out.” He clicked the file closed.
“I’ll give you two minutes to recover, then bring your next appointment back.”
She walked to the door, glanced back. “You have to admit, it would be something special.”
“I don’t need special. I like sanity.”
