The Obsession

by Nora Roberts

  She found more shots inside. The place went on forever, packed with everything under sun or gloom.

  Glassware, tinware, collectibles, mirrors, chairs, desks.

  In fact, she paused in front of one of the desks. She’d decided to go with new for a permanent desk—something that looked right with the bed, but had all the modern touches. Keyboard drawer, plugs, file drawers.

  But.

  It was nearly black from years—probably decades—of varnish, and the drawers stuck. It needed new hardware. It wasn’t at all what she’d decided on.

  And it was perfect.

  “The shape’s terrific,” Jenny said beside her. “Just enough curve at the corners. Plenty of drawers. It needs work.” Lips pursed, Jenny checked the tag. “And some bargaining.”

  “It’s solid, sturdy. Mahogany. It needs to be stripped down to the original finish. It’s not what I was going for. And I really love it.”

  “Don’t say you love it to Cecil—his place. Look doubtful when you ask him about it. You need a good chair—a new one—ergonomic, lumbar support. Kevin says you spend a lot of time at your desk.”

  “Kevin’s right. The computer’s the darkroom today. Though I want to put an actual darkroom in. I still get the urge to shoot film sometimes. Is that a mermaid floor lamp?”

  “It appears to be.”

  “A bronze mermaid floor lamp.” Struck, she pulled out her phone again. “I need that for my portfolio.”

  “No-name and I are going to wander.”

  “I’ll catch up.”

  She fell for the mermaid floor lamp, which she told herself was stupid. She wasn’t looking for a floor lamp, much less a bronze mermaid with sly eyes and sleek breasts. But she wanted it.

  “Don’t tell Cecil,” she reminded herself, and tried to find Jenny and the dog in the maze of fascinating things.

  Jenny found her. “Don’t hate me.”

  “Does anybody?”

  “Kevin’s old high school girlfriend.”

  “Because she’s a slut.”

  Jenny beamed. “I didn’t realize you knew Candy.”

  “Candy? Definitely a slut. A pink-wearing slut.”

  “Actually, I have a cousin named Candy, and she’s not. She’s wonderful. But to circle back, don’t hate me, but I think I found the dresser.”

  “Why would I hate you for that?”

  “It’s expensive, but I really think it’s perfect, and maybe we can team up and drive the price down, especially if you get the desk, too.”

  “And the mermaid lamp.”

  “Really?” Jenny threw back her head and laughed. “I love it. I figured you’d see it as a novelty, just for photos, but I think it’d be fabulous in your house.”

  “So do I. Let’s see this dresser. If I hate you, you have to walk home.”

  There were advantages, Naomi discovered, to shopping with a friend—a friend with a sharp, creative, and discerning eye. It was more gentleman’s chest than dresser—which really hit a note for her. Not female and fussy, but gorgeous and dignified without the stuffiness. In good condition, which surprised her, the finish glowing with that lovely reddish gold undertone. She’d change the hardware—get rid of the ornate brass handles—and one of the drawer bottoms had a long diagonal crack, but that was it.

  The price made her hiss and shudder.

  “We’re going to talk him down. You wait and see.” Jenny gave Naomi a bolstering pat.

  Cecil might have been a scrawny man in bib overalls, a straw hat, with a grizzled beard—and he wouldn’t see eighty again—but he had a gimlet eye and a hard line.

  But so, Naomi discovered, did the sweet and cheerful Jenny.

  She poked her oar in a time or two, just to say she did, but it was primarily Jenny who did the bargaining and, with tenacity and guile, shaved a full twenty percent off the dresser where Naomi had hoped for ten.

  The three of them managed to load the dresser in the 4Runner—Cecil was old, but he proved ox-strong.

  “Kevin’s going to pick up the other pieces,” Jenny told Cecil.

  “He is?” Naomi wondered.

  “Sure. He’ll get them after work or in the morning. And remember, Cecil, Naomi has that big house to furnish so we’ll be back. And expect good prices.”

  The dog sprawled out content enough beside the dresser, and Jenny settled in the passenger seat.

  “That was fun.”

  “I’m dazzled by your Arabian marketplace skills. Thank you, really. I can come back and get the other pieces. Kevin doesn’t have to come all the way out here.”

  “It’s fine. Plus, if you hire me to refinish that desk, he’ll just bring that home to my little workshop.”

  “You have a workshop?”

  “I refinish and reimagine furniture and decorative pieces on the side. I didn’t want to say anything, make you feel obligated or awkward. But boy, I want to do that desk. I’m good, I promise. I’ll make it gorgeous.”

  “I bet you will.” And she could cross off the hours it would take her to do it. “You’re hired.”

  “Really? Yay! If you came over for dinner Sunday—Kevin said not to bother you, but I’ve been dying to have you to dinner—you could see the workshop. I’ve got a bench I’m working on that’s perfect for the deck outside your bedroom. An old wire garden bench with a big, curved back. And you can bring the dog. The kids would love him.”

  Naomi started to make an excuse—knee-jerk. But curiosity won. “I’d love to see your workshop. You don’t have to feed me.”

  “Come to dinner. We eat a little early most Sundays. Come by anytime after four. Time to see my shop, for the kids to play with the dogs.”

  “I’ll be there. I’ll bring dessert.”

  —

  Bright and early she took a long-sleeved T-shirt and leggings out of boxes. She refused to use the dresser until she had Kevin fix the drawer and she’d replaced the hardware.

  When she walked casually out to the car, the dog followed, jumped right in, gave her that smug-dog grin.

  He didn’t know what he was in for.

  But he got at least part of the picture when she pulled into the parking lot at the vet’s.

  He quivered, shook, tried to glue his nicely healed paws to the floorboards.

  “This time you’ve got a reason, but you don’t know that. Come on, grow a spine.” She pulled, hauled, bribed—with a tennis ball, as food was off the table until after the surgery.

  “You won’t miss them,” she told him, then shook her head. “How do I know? I’d miss pretty much anything somebody snipped off me. But it has to be, okay? It’s just how it goes.”

  She got him through the waiting room—empty, as she’d arranged to be the first surgery or appointment of any kind of the day.

  “Hey, boy.” Alice greeted him with a good rub, relaxed him so he leaned on her. “We’ll take him from here. The procedure’s routine—sometimes a little tougher on a grown dog, but still routine. We’ll keep him a few hours after, to make sure everything’s good.”

  “Okay. I’ll come get him when you call.” She gave the dog a pat on the head. “Good luck.”

  When she turned to go he howled—long and mournful, as he’d done a few times when he heard a siren. She glanced back, saw his blue eyes full of sorrow and fear.

  “Shit. Just shit.”

  “Just let him know you’re coming back,” Alice advised. “You’re his alpha.”

  “Shit,” she said again, and walked back to crouch in front of the dog. “I’m coming back to get you, okay?” She took his head in her hands, felt herself battered with the love his gaze sent out. “Okay, all right. I’m coming back to get you, take you home. You just have to do this first. I’ll go—hell—I’ll go buy you some good dog-sans-balls presents.”

  The dog licked her cheek, laid his head on her shoulder.

  “He’d hug you if he could,” Alice commented.

  Sunk, Naomi hugged him instead. “I’ll be back.”

  H
e whined when she rose, cried when she started out.

  “He’ll be fine,” Alice called after her.

  And the heart Naomi hadn’t wanted to give away broke a little when she heard the dog howl.

  She bought him a little stuffed cat, a ball that squeaked—telling herself she’d regret both purchases. She added a sturdy tug rope, a dog brush.

  She made herself go home, made herself work. And when she couldn’t concentrate for more than ten minutes, she put on her paint clothes. She didn’t have to be creative to paint a room.

  While she primed the walls, she imagined furnishing it. Maybe a sleigh bed, maybe dark gray. Mason would like it when he came to visit her. Or maybe old and iron—gray again. Gray would work with the green tones she’d paint in here.

  Why didn’t Alice call?

  Annoyed with herself, she broke one of her unwritten rules about poking into whatever the crew was doing unless it was for pictures, and went downstairs.

  They’d primed the living room—mostly because she couldn’t quite decide what color she wanted there. The fireplace mantel needed refinishing, and made her think of Jenny. If Jenny did a decent job on the desk, she could do the mantel.

  She wandered the space, looked out windows at the views. She wasn’t ready to throw in the towel and hire a landscaper, but most of the outside rehab just had to wait until the bulk of the work was done inside, and men—and women—weren’t tromping all over the place.

  She moved on, stopped at the odd jut of a room she’d decided could be a little library. Maybe she didn’t often find or take the time to curl up with an actual book, but she’d imagined doing so there on a rainy day—or in the dead of winter with the fire sparking.

  Now Kevin and the buxom Macie set the first of the flanking built-ins in place to the right of the hearth.

  “Oh, Kevin.”

  He glanced back, grinned as he shoved up the bill of his cap. “Go ahead and say it. You were right; I was wrong.”

  “I didn’t know you’d finished them.”

  “We figured we’d surprise you. You were right. I didn’t see it, little room like this. Take out that wall, I told you, and you’d have some space. But you stuck, and you had the eye. What you’ve got is cozy, and good light, and—what do you say, Macie?”

  “Charm. It’s gonna have charm, especially when we put up the crown molding.”

  “It’s beautiful wood—the cherry—and beautiful work.”

  “That’s what we do, right, Mace?”

  “Damn right.”

  “You were right about straight open, floor to ceiling, too. Gives it dimension, makes the room seem bigger.”

  “I’m going to have to send for my books. I usually read on my tablet, but I’ve got a couple boxes of books back home.”

  “If you need more you can tap Xander.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s got books everywhere,” Macie told her.

  “Oh yeah.” Kevin took a small level out of his tool belt, laid it on a shelf. “Every now and then he’ll box some up, donate them, but mostly he hoards them. If you need to fill some of these shelves, you should tap him about it.”

  “I’ll see what—” She jumped when her phone signaled, snatched it out of her pocket. “It’s the vet. Yes, this is Naomi. Okay. Okay. Really?” As relief washed over her like a warm wave, she rubbed her hand over her face. “That’s great. I’ll come now. No, I’ll be there in a few minutes. Thanks.”

  Blowing out a breath, she shoved the phone away again. “The dog—he’s out of recovery or whatever. Ready to come home. I’ll be back.”

  “Oh, in case I don’t see you—you made the papers.”

  “The what?” She stopped dead.

  “The papers,” Kevin repeated. “I got a copy in the kitchen.”

  She kept her voice even. “What happened?”

  “The Cove Chronicle. It comes out once a month. Just a few pages, local news and such. It’s a nice story about the house, fixing it up.”

  “Oh.”

  Local little paper. Nothing to worry about. Nobody but the locals would see it.

  “I’ll leave you the copy. Jenny’s got more at home, as I got some ink, too.”

  “I’ll read it when I get back. Thanks. I better go get the dog.”

  She’d put off the reporter, editor, publisher—she thought the woman who’d wanted to talk to her wore all three hats. But it didn’t matter. Naomi took every precaution to keep her name out of print, to keep her whereabouts out of print.

  Nobody beyond Sunrise Cove, or certainly no one outside the county, would read the article. And nobody would connect her with Thomas David Bowes.

  And she had more important things to worry about right at the moment.

  She dashed into the vet’s, muttered a thanks when the receptionist gestured her to go back. She found Alice fitting the dog with a cone.

  He looked a little dazed and confused, but he let out a short, happy bark, and his tail wagged madly when he saw Naomi.

  “He’s okay?”

  “Came through like a champ. He has meds, and you have instructions. The cone’s to keep him from worrying the site, the stitches. He’ll probably sleep more than anything else. He may be a little sore and not want to walk much for a day or two.”

  “Okay. That’s okay.” She got down, stroked his ears inside the cone. “You’re okay.”

  She took the meds, the instructions, paid the bill, gave him a boost into the car.

  He didn’t sleep. He had to sniff at everything in the front yard—though he walked a little stiffly. He had to sniff and wag at the crew. He and Molly had to sniff and wag at each other.

  And he bumped into everything. Walls, tools, her.

  She helped him upstairs, gave him the stuffed cat—a mistake, she noted as the cone got in the way.

  One of the crew called up with a question. She went down, and in the fifteen minutes she was gone, he’d managed to get out of the cone and was licking away where his balls had once been.

  “How the hell did you get out of that?”

  Pleased, he thumped his tail.

  “You can’t do that anymore. Those days are over.” She fitted the cone back on him—an ordeal, as he seemed to hate it more than the leash.

  She got it back in place, gave him a rawhide, and considered the matter settled.

  It wasn’t.

  —

  Xander figured he’d given it some time—and he had the excuse of paying her for half the ball snipping. Maybe, if he played it right, he could get another dinner out of it. And with that, maybe he could get her a few more steps closer to that big, beautiful bed.

  It was worth the drive out.

  He pulled up on his motorcycle, with the dog barking and wagging in greeting. The dog would’ve rushed over to finish the hello, but Naomi sat on the porch steps, and had the dog in a death grip.

  Holding him in place while she . . . Jesus Christ.

  Appalled, sincerely, Xander pulled off his helmet. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “What the hell does it look like I’m doing?”