by Nora Roberts
Ignoring the voice in his head that urged him to just lie down, sleep off the rest of the day, he dressed for the cold, layering sweatshirt over insulated shirt, getting a ski cap, gloves.
Maybe he wasn’t going anywhere, but that didn’t mean the walkways, the driveway, even the terraces shouldn’t be cleared.
He’d promised to tend to Bluff House, so he’d tend to Bluff House.
It took hours, with snowblower, snow shovel. He lost count of the times he had to stop, to rest when his pulse beat pounded alarm bells in his head, or his arms shook like palsy. But he cleared the driveway, the front walk, then a decent path across the main terrace to the beach steps.
And thanked God when the light faded to dusk and made continuing with the other terraces impractical. Inside, he dumped his outdoor gear in the mudroom, walked like a zombie into the kitchen where he slapped some lunch meat and Swiss cheese between two slices of bread and called it dinner.
He washed it down with a beer, simply because it was there, eating and drinking while he stood over the sink and looked out the window.
He’d done something, he told himself. He’d gotten out of bed, always the first hurdle. He’d written. He’d humiliated himself on the cross trainer. And he’d tended to Bluff House.
All in all, a pretty decent day.
He popped four Motrin, then dragged his aching body upstairs. He stripped, crawled into bed, and slept until dawn. Dreamlessly.
It surprised and pleased Abra to find the driveway cleared at Bluff House. She’d fully expected to slog through two feet of untrampled snow.
Normally, she’d have walked from her cottage, but opted against navigating deep snow or thin ice on foot. She pulled her Chevy Volt behind Eli’s BMW, grabbed her bag.
She unlocked the front door, cocked her head to listen. When silence greeted her, she decided Eli was either still in bed or closed up somewhere in the house.
She hung her coat in the closet, changed her boots for work shoes.
She started a fire in the living room first, to cheer the room, then headed to the kitchen to make coffee.
No dishes in the sink, she noted, and opened the dishwasher.
She could track his meals since he’d arrived. The breakfast she’d made him, a couple of soup bowls, two small plates, two glasses, two coffee mugs.
She shook her head.
This wouldn’t do.
To corroborate, she checked cupboards, the refrigerator.
No, this wouldn’t do at all.
She turned the kitchen iPod on low, then gathered ingredients. Once she’d made up a bowl of pancake batter, she went upstairs to find him.
If he was still in bed, it was time he got up.
But she heard the clicking of a keyboard from Hester’s home office, smiled. That was something anyway. Moving quietly, she peeked through the open doorway to see him sitting at the wonderful old desk, an open bottle of Mountain Dew (mental note to pick up more for him) beside the keyboard.
She’d give him a little more time there, she decided, and went straight into his bedroom. She made the bed, pulled the laundry bag out of the hamper, added bath towels.
She checked other baths on the way back in case he’d used hand towels or washcloths, checked the gym.
Back downstairs, she carted the bag into the laundry room, sorted, separated and started a load. And shook out, hung up his outdoor gear.
Not a lot to tidy, she realized, and she’d given the house a thorough cleaning the day before he’d arrived. While she could always find something to do, she calculated the time. She’d make him a kind of brunch before she rolled up her sleeves and really got to work.
The next time she went upstairs, she deliberately made noise. When she reached the office, he was up and moving to the door. Probably with the intention of closing it, she thought, so she stepped in before he could.
“Good morning. It’s a gorgeous day.”
“Ah—”
“Fabulous blue skies.” With her trash bag in hand, she walked over to empty the basket under the desk. “Blue sea, sun sparkling off the snow. The gulls are fishing. I saw a whale this morning.”
“A whale.”
“Just luck. I happened to be looking out the window just as it sounded. Way out, and still spectacular. So.” She turned. “Your brunch is ready.”
“My what?”
“Brunch. It’s too late for breakfast, which you didn’t eat.”
“I had . . . coffee.”
“Now you can have food.”
“Actually, I’m . . .” He gestured to his laptop.
“And it’s annoying to be interrupted, to be hauled off to eat. But you’ll probably work better after some food. How long have you been writing today?”
“I don’t know.” It was annoying, he thought. The interruption, the questions, the food he didn’t want to take time for. “Since about six, I guess.”
“Well, God! It’s eleven, so definitely time for a break. I set you up in the morning room this time. The view’s so nice from there, especially today. Do you want me to do any cleaning in here while you eat—or ever?”
“No. I . . . No.” After another slight pause. “No.”
“I got that. Go ahead and eat, and I’ll do what I have to do on this level. That way if you want to go back to work, I’ll be downstairs where I won’t bother you.”
She stood between him and his laptop, smiling genially in a faded purple sweatshirt with a peace sign dead center, even more faded jeans and bright orange Crocs.
As arguing seemed time-consuming and futile, he simply walked out of the room.
He’d meant to stop and have something—maybe a bagel, whatever. He’d lost track of time. He liked losing track of time because it meant he was inside the book.
She was supposed to clean the house, not take on the position as his damn keeper.
He hadn’t forgotten she was coming. But his plan to stop writing when she arrived, to grab that bagel and take it with him on a walk, to call home while he was out, well, the book sucked that away.
He turned left, into the glass-walled curve of the morning room.
Abra was right. The view was worth it. He’d take that walk later if he could find a reasonable route with the snow. At least he could get to the beach steps, take some pictures with his phone, send them home.
He sat at the table with its covered plate, its short pot of coffee, crystal glass of juice. She’d even taken one of the flowers from the living room arrangement and tucked it in a bud vase.
It reminded him of the way his mother had put a flower or some game or book or toy on the tray when she brought food to his sickbed when he was a boy.
He wasn’t sick. He didn’t need to be mothered. All he needed was someone to come in and clean so he could write, live, shovel damn snow if it needed shoveling.
He sat, wincing a little at the stiffness in his neck, his shoulders. Okay, the Shovel Snow for Pride Marathon had cost him, he admitted.
He lifted the dome.
A puff of fragrant steam rose from a stack of blueberry pancakes. A rasher of crisp bacon lined the edge of the plate and a little clear bowl of melon garnished with sprigs of mint sat beside it.
“Wow.”
He simply stared a moment, struggling between more annoyance and acceptance.
He decided both worked. He’d eat because it was here, and now he was damn near starving, and he could be annoyed about it.
He spread some of the butter she’d scooped into a little dish over the stack, watched it melt as he added syrup.
It felt a little Lord of the Manor—but really tasty.
He knew very well he’d been raised in privilege, but pretty brunches with the morning paper folded on the table hadn’t been everyday events.
The Landons were privileged because they worked, and worked because they were privileged.
As he ate he started to open the paper, then just set it aside. Like television, newspapers held too many bad memories.
The view contented him, and letting his mind just drift, he watched the water, and the drip of melting snow as the sun bore down.
He felt . . . almost peaceful.
He looked over when she came in. “Second floor’s clear,” she told him, and started to lift the tray.
“I’ll get it. No,” he insisted. “I’ll get it. Look, you don’t have to cook for me. It was great, thanks, but you don’t have to cook.”
“I like to cook, and it’s not all that satisfying to cook just for myself.” She followed him into the kitchen, then continued on to the laundry room. “And you’re not eating properly.”
“I’m eating.” He mumbled it.
“A can of soup, a sandwich, a bowl of cold cereal?” She carried in a laundry basket, sat in the breakfast nook to fold. “You don’t have secrets from the housekeeper,” she said easily. “Not about eating, showering and sex. You need to put on about fifteen pounds, I’d say. Twenty wouldn’t hurt you.”
No, he hadn’t been able to find his anger for months, but she was drawing him a map. “Listen—”
“You can tell me it’s none of my business,” she said, “but that won’t stop me. So I’ll cook when I have time. I’m here anyway.”
He couldn’t think of a reasonable way to argue with a woman who was currently folding his boxers.
“Can you cook?” she asked him.
“Yeah. Enough.”
“Let’s see.” She cocked her head, swept that green-eyed gaze over him. “Grilled cheese sandwiches, scrambled eggs, steak on the grill—burgers, too—and . . . something with lobster or clams.”
He called it Clams à la Eli—and really wished she’d get out of his head. “Do you mind read as well as make pancakes?”
“I read palms and tarot, but mostly for fun.”
It didn’t surprise him, he realized, not in the least.
“Anyway, I’ll make up a casserole or two, something you can just heat and eat. I’ll be going to the market before I come back. I marked my days on the calendar there so you’ll have a schedule. Do you want me to pick up anything for you, besides more Mountain Dew?”
Her brisk, matter-of-fact details clogged up his brain. “I can’t think of anything.”
“If you do, just write it down. What’s your book about? Or is that a secret?”
“It’s . . . A disbarred lawyer looking for answers, and redemption. Is he going to lose his life, literally, or get it back? That kind of thing.”
“Do you like him?”
He stared at her a moment because it was exactly the right question. And the kind he wanted to answer rather than brush off or avoid. “I understand him, and I’m invested in him. He’s evolving into someone I like.”
“Understanding him is more important than liking him, I’d think.” She frowned as Eli rubbed at his shoulder, the back of his neck. “You hunch.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Over the keyboard. You hunch. Most people do.” She set the laundry aside, and before he realized what she meant to do, she’d stepped up to dig her fingers into his shoulder.
Pain, sudden and sweet, radiated straight down to the soles of his feet. “Look, ow.”
“Good God, Eli, you’ve got rocks in there.”
Annoyance edged to a kind of baffled frustration. Why wouldn’t the woman leave him alone? “I just overdid it yesterday. Clearing the snow.”
She lowered her hands as he stepped back, opened the cupboard for the Motrin.
Partly overdoing, she thought, partly keyboard hunch. But under all that? Deep, complex and system-wide stress.
“I’m going to get out for a while, make some phone calls.”
“Good. It’s cold, but it’s beautiful.”
“I don’t know what to pay you. I never asked.”
When she named a price, he reached for his wallet. Found his pocket empty. “I don’t know where I left my wallet.”
“In your jeans. Now it’s on your dresser.”
“Okay, thanks. I’ll be right back.”
Poor, sad, stressed Eli, she thought. She had to help him. She thought of Hester, shaking her head as she loaded the dishwasher. “You knew I would,” she murmured.
Eli came back, set the money on the counter. “And thanks if I don’t get back before you leave.”
“You’re welcome.”
“I’m just going to . . . see what the beach is like, and call my parents, my grandmother.” And get the hell away from you.
“Good. Give them all my best.”
He stopped at the door to the laundry room. “You know my parents?”
“Sure. I’ve met them several times when they’ve come here. And I saw them when I came to Boston to visit Hester.”
“I didn’t realize you came into Boston to see her.”
“Of course I did. We just missed each other, you and I.” She started the machine and turned. “She’s your grandmother, Eli, but she’s been one to me, too. I love her. You should take a picture of the house from down at the beach and send it to her. She’d like that.”
“Yeah, she would.”
“Oh, Eli?” she said as he turned to the laundry room and she walked over to pick up the laundry basket. “I’ll be back about five-thirty. My schedule’s clear tonight.”
“Back?”
“Yeah, with my table. You need a massage.”
“I don’t want—”
“Need,” she repeated. “You may not think you want one, but trust me, you will after I get started. This one’s on the house—a welcome back gift. Therapeutic massage, Eli,” she added. “I’m licensed. No happy endings.”
“Well, Jesus.”
She only laughed as she sailed out. “Just so we understand each other. Five-thirty!”
He started to go after her, make it clear he didn’t want the service. And at the jerk away from the door, dull pain shot across the back of his shoulders.
“Shit. Just shit.”
He had to ease his arms into his coat. He just needed the Motrin to kick in, he told himself. And to get back inside his own head without her in it, so he could think about the book.
He’d walk—somewhere—call, breathe, and when this nagging stiffness, this endless aching played out, he’d just text her—better to text—and tell her not to come.
But first he’d take her advice, go down to the beach, take a picture of Bluff House. And maybe he’d wheedle some information out of his grandmother about Abra Walsh.
He was still a lawyer. He ought to be able to finesse some answers out of a witness already biased in his favor.
As he followed the path he’d cut down through the patio, he glanced back and saw Abra in his bedroom window. She waved.
He lifted his hand, turned away again.
She had the kind of fascinating face that made a man want to look twice.
So he very deliberately kept his gaze straight ahead.
