All Through The House (13 page)

"Of course," Meg continued, sounding somewhat more
cheerful, "considering the way he looks at you...." She smiled,
shrugged, and stood up. "I guess I can't blame you."

"Frank's eyes still glow when he looks at you,"
Abigail pointed out.

"Yeah, but he's balding and has a potbelly now."

Abigail tactfully didn't respond, and Meg scrunched up her
nose. "Okay, okay. I have a few extra pounds now, too. And I went for
electrolysis the other day to get rid of those disgusting little hairs that
want to grow on my neck. And the breasts aren't what they used to be   "

Abigail just laughed. "Meg, if I can look as good as
you when I'm fifty—"

"Forty-nine. Please." She stopped in the doorway.
"Just be careful, okay?"

Abigail was terribly afraid that the only way to be careful
would be never to see Nate again. He made her feel reckless, young, trusting.
All highly dangerous emotions.

"Careful." She tried to smile. "Right."

After Meg had disappeared back into the front office,
Abigail opened the beautiful book of old houses again. She riffled through the
pages until she found the pressed flower. It had been a deep purplish-red, now
faded by drying. The scent still lingered, however, tantalizing and romantic.

Her ex-husband had made romantic gestures, too, but all
conventional, none—as Meg had put it—so singularly appropriate. Candlelight
dinners, one red rose in a crystal vase, lingerie... Oh, yes, he had given her
delicate teddies and negligees, just naughty enough to make her feel
self-conscious, a state he had delighted in. She had come to hate the gifts
meant to soothe her, to make up for the friends and freedom she was denied. And
meant, as well, to dress her up for his pleasure, like a child's Barbie doll.
That was what she had come to feel like—a doll, without feelings or choice.

Was this expensive book the first of many gifts with a
similar purpose? Or was it a genuine expression of emotion? Abigail wished desperately
that she knew.

But she couldn't resist, however wistfully, touching the
rose again, savoring the elusive scent that reminded her of overgrown formal
gardens, faded Oriental carpets, and the warmth of sunlight pouring through old
glass.

*****

"Lunch?" Abigail murmured into the phone.
"Today? Uh, I'm with a client right now, but...sure. Why not?"

"Can we make it in your office?" Nate said.
"I'll bring sandwiches. I have something I want to show you."

"I did pack a lunch," she admitted. "You can
just bring your own. One o'clock? Fine."

She hung up and smiled at the young couple. "Sorry. So,
do you see anything you like?"

"Well, this one looks interesting," the man said.

Or should she call him a boy? Abigail wondered, feeling old.
They'd only been married a year, the wife had admitted with a blush. They
looked like the high school jock and the cheerleader, but neither had gone on
to college. The boy was a mechanic—which probably meant he made thirty dollars
an hour, Abigail thought wryly—and the girl had attended beauty college and now
cut hair. They were cute, cuddly, and expecting their first child. And ready to
buy their first house, though they couldn't afford much. Especially not
nowadays, when "starter" homes were a hundred and thirty thousand dollars.

"That house has loads of charm," Abigail said,
looking over his shoulder. "It needs work, though, I won't kid you about
that. It does have a new roof...."

"I can do the work," he said, and his wife nodded
happily.

"You can get lots of square footage for the money,
then. Three bedrooms, and I like the neighborhood. This one," Abigail
leaned forward and turned the page, "is a little more, a hundred and
thirty-five. Can you go that high?"

They eyed each other and nodded.

"I think it's an excellent buy. Twenty-year-old split
level, nice private yard...."

She ended up showing them three houses and steering them to
a woman at a mortgage company with whom Abigail often cooperated. There was no
point in letting them get too excited about a house until they—and she—were
sure what they could afford. House hunting was sort of like sitting down to a
big meal: people's eyes were often bigger than their pocketbooks.

Nate appeared at one o'clock sharp with a sandwich from the
deli under one arm and two sturdy brown cardboard rolls under the other.

Abigail met him at the door to her office. He winked at
Lisa, the receptionist, then kissed Abigail lightly on the cheek. She actually
felt herself blushing as she shut the door behind them. This was getting
ridiculous.

When he dropped the two rolls on her desk, she hazarded,
"The elementary school?"

"Nope, but I'll bring that next time if you're
interested."

"I'd love to see it," she said. "After all,
Kate'll be going to school there, you know." ,

"Hey." His expression was arrested. "So she
will. Assuming...."

"Ye of little faith," she murmured, and he gave a
hearty laugh and swept her into a passionate embrace.

Of course, Abigail melted. When he let her go, flushed and
trembling, she retreated behind her desk to her seat and sank into it. Looking
up, she met his eyes, which held a glow that quickened a pulse already racing.

"You remember the first time I came here?" he
asked, voice low and rough.

Abigail nodded.

Nate braced his hands on the desk and leaned toward her.
"You looked at me just like that," he said. "Your eyes were
dreamy and your mouth was soft and I knew I had to kiss you."

"Now you have," she managed.

"Now I want to keep kissing you." His gaze lowered
to her mouth with sensuous intent. "I may never stop," he whispered,
just before his mouth covered hers.

"Unfortunately," he straightened at last and she
opened heavy lids to see a smile flicker at the edges of his mouth, "I'm
getting too old to do it in this position."

Her laugh felt good. "And here I was just deciding you
really are a romantic."

"Nah." He grabbed a chair, pulled it up to her
desk, and slumped comfortably into it. "I was a romantic when I was
sixteen. Wrote poetry, which, thank God, I didn't keep. I was madly in love
with Rebecca Hechtlinger, who...." He stopped.

"Who?" she prompted.

"I was about to be sexist."

Abigail wrinkled her nose. "Go ahead. I'll let it pass
this once."

He opened the clear plastic container and took out his
sandwich. "Well, Rebecca was a year older than me. A senior, who actually
went out with a junior! Rebecca liked jocks. One for every season. I was it
during football. Since I didn't play basketball…. Nate shrugged and took a
bite.

"Baseball?"

He swallowed, then produced a devastating grin. "I was
a hell of a baseball player."

Abigail rolled her eyes. "Okay, so what's in here?"
She nodded at the cardboard rolls.

His face brightened and he set his half-eaten sandwich back
in its container. "Have you met my partner yet?" When Abigail shook
her head, Nate said, "We'll have to have dinner some night." He
popped the top of one carrier. "We've bought some land up toward the
Heights. Section on Two Twenty-eighth that's just been logged."

"You mean the ridge above it?" Abigail leaned
forward. "It has an incredible view."

"That's the one. We're planning a development.
Two-and-a-half-acre lots, nice homes. There'll be a community stable and indoor
riding arena down on the flat part. Anyway, these are the plans for the first
few houses." He spread a sheaf of large, heavy papers flat. The top one
was a drawing. The house depicted was beautiful, as distinctive as Abigail
could have hoped for. Rather than copying the Victorian style, complete with
turrets, that had been in vogue here in the Northwest, Nate had used the
vernacularism of the early twentieth-century arts and crafts style. Others, she
saw as he spread the heavy drawing paper across her desk, combined elegance
with a graceful sweep of wraparound porch, or simplified the stolid dignity of Georgian
revival. Abigail would have happily moved into any of them.

"They're glorious," she said simply.

"Do you think so?" He looked as vulnerable as a
boy, and as lacking in confidence. Stunned, she realized that he needed her
approval. He must believe in himself to come as far as he had, she thought. But
the scars left by his childhood had to go deep.

"I love them," Abigail said, tracing the line of a
Mansard roof with her fingertip, but surreptitiously watching him. "I
think...this one the most." She drew the drawing from beneath several
others. It represented a relatively simple farmhouse style given distinction by
fine details: cornices and porch railings and the modern angle of dormers, not
to mention the tall windows that must flood it with light.

"Yeah, I like that one, too." He tilted his head
and studied it, then finally sighed. "Well, we've been stopped in our
tracks with this sewer situation. Damn it, we were promised permits before we
went this far, and now they slam the door in our faces. They're talking about
not allowing construction for a year. Next thing we know, it'll be two."
He shook his head.

"Surely it won't be that bad."

Nate began rolling the sheaf to insert the drawings back in
the cardboard containers. "I'm just being a pessimist today. I never have
liked waiting."

"The school."

"Yeah, the school. They keep putting off making a
decision. Then there's the house." His gaze locked with hers. "And
you."

"Me?" Abigail said, rocked with surprise.
"What do you mean?"

"You looked pretty scared the other day. You don't like
what happened, do you?"

"I...." She faltered, stopped. "It was so
sudden."

"Come on, Abigail." His expression was impatient.
"You knew the first time I kissed you that we'd end up in bed
together."

"No," she denied heatedly. "And I sure didn't
expect us to end up on the floor!"

"Hey." He leaned back in his chair, a ghost of a
smile in his eyes. "We were having a second youth. Impetuous,
passionate...."

"Stupid."

The smile was gone. "What in hell does that mean?"

"I'm just not ready!" she almost wailed.

"Well, I am. Abigail...." He stood up and circled
the desk to draw her to her feet. When he saw that she had no shoes on,
amusement mixed with the tenderness in his smile. "I want some time just
with you," he said huskily. "Can I have that?"

She was weakening, his touch and his smile and her own need
conspiring to flood her with warmth. "I...I don't know."

"This weekend," he said, lifting one hand very
slowly to capture a bundle of curls and wrap them about his fingers. "I
can get a friend's sailboat for the weekend. The weather's perfect. Remember
what I told you about the San Juans? We could find a few secret coves, fly with
the wind, rock to sleep at night in each other's arms..." His voice was so
low, so deep, it had a texture she could almost touch. Not plush but Berber,
soft enough not to hurt and rough enough to scrape every nerve ending.

She found herself nodding docilely. "Yes," she whispered.
"If Kate can stay with her grandmother...."

He made a sound in the back of his throat, a growl of
satisfaction, and bent his head. Just before he kissed her, he said under his
breath, "I can hardly wait for those nights."

*****

Abigail's mother was delighted to have her granddaughter for
the weekend, with the result that Abigail found herself Saturday morning,
dressed in jeans and windbreaker, leaning against the teak railing of a long,
slim sailboat moored at the marina at Shelter Bay near La Conner. Using the
motor on the back, Nate eased them through the long slough under the arching
orange bridge, past the rickety old docks and shops of La Conner, and out into
the bay east of Anacortes.

Abigail still hadn't decided in late afternoon whether she
enjoyed sailing, though there had been exhilarating moments. Nate took the boat
around the northern tip of Anacortes, across the ferry lanes toward Decatur and
Shaw Islands. A huge green-and-white ferry boomed its deep warning as it
crossed their wake in the open, choppy blue water. The unfurled sails, bright
red and blue, snapped and swelled with the breeze. Abigail learned to duck, and
duck again, as the polished boom swept across the boat when they tacked to take
advantage of the wind. Though the day was warm and clear, she became soaked by
the salt spray as she leaned against the tilt of the boat.

She loved the smell of the Sound, however, and the wind
against her face as they sliced cleanly through the water. But for the sails
and the slap of water against the hull, there was a magnificent silence that
allowed her to notice the cry of a gull that followed them in hopes of a handout
and the distant keen of another ferry horn. And she loved to watch Nate in his
element.

He wore a pair of baggy blue pants, the legs rolled up above
his ankles. With a white polo shirt that clung to broad shoulders he looked
satisfactorily nautical, though his feet were bare and his hair rumpled and
damp with sea spray. It was the joy on his face that gave Abigail the most
pleasure, however. Until now she hadn't realized how guarded his expression
usually was. Now she saw happiness in its simplest form; he smiled and laughed
easily, and his lean face had relaxed until he looked younger.

Most of the sails were furled now, so that the boat moved
slowly through deep rock channels, almost close enough to touch the slabs of
granite and basalt that tilted into the green water. Coves sheltered clusters
of houses and gentle pasture; other houses clung to exposed points. The islands
were cloaked in the dark green of fir and cedar and spruce trees, those at the
water's edge gnarled by the wind. Islands too tiny for houses made obstacles
for the sailboat to tack around; small intriguing coves and passages tempted
them into exploration.