All Through The House (21 page)

There was a moment's pause, and then Meg said, "You
want to know what I think?"

Abigail swung to face her partner, still comfortably sitting
behind her desk. "Yes, of course!"

"I think you're too damned independent." Meg softened
her voice. "I know why you are, but you're carrying it to an extreme. The
guy buys you a few pretty things, you think he's burying you in them. Lord, I
wish Frank'd bury me in a few! Abby, you're overreacting. Did it ever occur to
you that Nate's seen you in action at the Irving House? I doubt he'd hand you a
plum like this just because he has the hots for you. He's taking a big risk
here, Abby. He must trust you."

Abigail stared at her partner. What if Meg was right? A wave
of anguish washed over Abigail and she bit her lip. "He may trust
me," she whispered, "but I don't think he'll ever speak to me
again."

The next week seemed to prove her right. Nate had cast her
loose with a vengeance. Every time she called his office with a question, she
got his partner instead. John Mercer was nice enough, though every time they
talked, Abigail wondered how much he knew about her. Was he aware of her and
Nate's relationship? Had he really wanted the listings to go to McLeod &
James, or had he agreed reluctantly under pressure from Nate?

Abigail carried Meg's words with her like a talisman. Had
she misjudged Nate so terribly? What if he'd intended all along to offer her
this chance? Or—worse yet—what if he had made this offer in response to her
misgivings, as a way of proving his respect for her abilities?

And yet.... She always came back to her fears. What if he
had figured this would show her, big time, what he could give her?

As the days passed, she realized how empty her life was
without him. There was Kate, of course, but after her daughter went to bed,
Abigail would wash the dishes and then wonder what to do. She might read, but
her mind wouldn't be on it; turn the TV on, but she hardly ever finished a
program. She wanted to hear one particular voice so badly, she would stare at
the phone with the hunger a starving man feels for a loaf of bread. She wanted
Nate desperately—so desperately she didn't dare call. She wondered if she had
lost herself again. Need this bone-deep couldn't be healthy. She couldn't let
herself depend on anyone again.

But the work Nate had given her was absorbing. She visited
the site and discovered that the streets had been laid out, the curbs in place,
though the roads themselves were still dirt. There was access from two
directions and the several roads looped in gentle curves up a slope steep
enough to provide breathtaking views, but not so steep as to make most of the
acreage unusable.

At the bottom, where it was most level, was the raw land
that would be community pasture, with a huge stable and indoor and outdoor
arenas. The first two houses built were to be at opposite extremes of the site:
one near the main entrance, to serve as a model house, the other at the top of
the hill to take advantage of the spectacular view east to the white-topped
Cascade Mountains.

In company with John Mercer, a man as large and impressive
in a different way as Ed Phillips, Abigail familiarized herself with boundary
markers and the pros and cons of different pieces of land.

"This one wouldn't be great for a horse," she said
thoughtfully one day, as they inspected the bulldozed site of the house that
would crown the ridge.

"No, but the owner could pasture one down below. Tell
you the truth, though, our projections are that buyers of only about one house
in three will be interested in horses."

"Even in a development geared toward them?"

"Yep." John shoved beefy hands into the pockets of
his denim jacket. "I've seen similar places. Nate and I talked to owners
in some of them. You'd be surprised. Some of the people think they'll get a
horse someday and never do. Some of 'em just like what this kind of community
does for their property value. We expect to attract people who want a view and
enough acreage to guarantee privacy. So I don't anticipate that you'll have
trouble selling the steeper lots."

"The view is unbeatable," she agreed, turning as
she did every time she came here to admire the mountains, obscured though they
were today by rain clouds.

Walking back down to John's pickup truck, the two discussed
the advertising campaign.

"Eager as I am to get started," Abigail said,
"the initial advertising should just whet people's curiosity. I can send
flyers to other agencies, get signs out between 1-5 and here. We need people to
see the custom quality of these houses before we can adequately promote them.
Which reminds me, what do you plan in the way of entrance gates?"

John shook his head. "That's Nate's department. Why
don't you give him a call?"

"He doesn't seem to return my calls," she said, hoping
her voice didn't give her away.

John frowned and they walked in silence for a minute. Then,
abruptly, he said, "It's none of my business, but Nate's a good friend of
mine. He's a little tough to deal with these days. He seems to think you didn't
feel as much for him as he did for you."

Had he intended to use the past tense to describe Nate's
feelings, as though they no longer existed? Abigail’s eyes stung. "No. No,
that's not true. I...I was divorced a few years ago, and.... Maybe I just
wasn't quite ready to try again. I needed time to think, and...that hurt
Nate."

His partner shrugged awkwardly. "Well, like I said,
it's none of my business, but I wanted you to know that he doesn't usually cut
and run like this. Showing the broker around, answering questions, this kind of
stuff is usually in his bailiwick. He's the one who thought you'd be more
comfortable with me."

"That was nice of him," she said in a strained
voice. "But I'm capable of separating business from personal feelings. I
don't see how we can help but talk on occasion. The designs are his. Especially
when we're selling a house sight unseen...."

"They'll want to meet Nate." John nodded.
"I'll talk to him."

*****

Still Nate didn't call. The petals had long since fallen
from the roses and the small pewter knight looked lonely with no dragon to slay
or princess to rescue. Abigail often opened the book Nate had given her and
studied the pictures of houses built over the span of three hundred and fifty
years of American history. Colonial saltbox, Georgian solidity, fanciful Queen
Anne, and simple farmhouse style. She saw echoes of all of them in the designs
Nate had left in that folder he'd tossed on her table.

And yet, his houses were different, subtly modern. The floor
plans were open, with rooms that flowed into one another and included practical
details like mud-room entrances and sizable eating nooks in the kitchens. Each
house possessed a magnificent master suite, and a number of the plans had
children's bedrooms that clustered around a play area. And windows—all of his
houses had great sweeps of glass to take advantage of views. Whatever the
style, the windows seemed to fit naturally, without being the soulless expanse
that often made modern homes look like office buildings.

The very precision of the black-and-white drawings gave her
some insight into Nate's character. She should have known, of course, that he
couldn't be a successful architect were he not careful and precise. Yet the
only time she had seen him working was that day she'd showed the house to the
two businessmen. Then she had been so conscious of the underlying tension and
the way Nate looked right through her, she had scarcely noticed the clean black
lines of his work.

Now, with his designs spread before her on the table,
Abigail could almost hear Nate's voice, rough and sexy, talking about form and
function, about small details, about the man who had taught him to love the
craft of building houses.

She had seen Nate as obsessed about Josiah, but were his
feelings so unnatural? Josiah's influence had made Nate the man he was; was it
any wonder that he preferred to talk about the man he loved instead of the
father he'd clearly hated?

In the days that followed, as fast as the ground was broken
and foundations poured, Abigail got her advertising campaign rolling. She chose
distinctive graphics for the signs, painted in crisp blue, green, and white. A
prominent one stood at the entrance, while smaller signs marked with arrows
every turn from town and from the freeway. For the flyers, printed in the same
colors and featuring sketches of some of Nate's designs, she wrote text that
conveyed the atmosphere of this exclusive development where houses were still
planned to suit families.

After a few hints from Abigail, both the Pilchuck weekly and
the county daily newspaper did articles about the projected development,
including interviews with Nate. Reading them, Abigail drank up every detail
they quoted from the "award-winning" architect, Nate Taggart.

Still he didn't call.

The first couple of times Kate asked about him, Abigail
cheerily turned the subject, making offhand excuses. Finally her
all-too-verbal, soon-to-be five-year-old confronted her.

It started with discussion of a birthday party Kate had been
invited to the next Saturday.

"I'm sorry, sunshine," Abigail said, "but I
have to work. I know you're disappointed, but—"

"Maybe Nate could take me," her daughter
interrupted.

"He works most Saturdays, too."

In her stubborn little voice, Kate said, "I'll bet he'd
take time off for me."

"Are you mad that I can't?" Abigail hoped she was
getting to the main issue here, which couldn't possibly be the birthday party.
The little girl having the party wasn't even a close friend of Kate's.

But she ducked her head. "I don't want you to take me.
I want Nate to."

"Honey...." Abigail paused helplessly.

Kate looked up with huge blue eyes that shimmered with
tears. "Doesn't he want to see me anymore?"

"Oh, honey, it's not you." Damn it, her eyes were
filling with tears, too. Just what she needed, to weep all over her
preschooler. So much for strong, dependable Mommy.

"I thought he'd be a good daddy," Kate mumbled.
"He said he wished he'd be a daddy. Why can't he be mine?"

Oh, boy. Had Nate encouraged Kate on purpose? Or had Kate
just blown a casual answer to one of her questions out of proportion? Either
way, how was Abigail to explain what had gone wrong, when she spent every day
desperately wondering whether she was a fool?

She sat down on the couch and drew Kate onto her lap. It
made her sad that her growing child didn't fit the way she once had. The
process of separation had begun, and maybe it bothered her even more than most
parents because she was so conscious of Kate's lack of a father.

"Honey, Nate and I haven't been seeing each other
lately," she said gently. "I needed time to think about what I wanted
from him. I guess I'm a little scared to get married again. It hurts when you
promise somebody forever and then it doesn't turn out that way. I have to be
really sure before I'd promise not only him, but you, that we would have
forever. Do you understand?"

Kate searched her face. "Do you mean...do you mean, he
wants to marry us?"

Abigail opened her mouth, then closed it. She couldn't bring
herself to lie to her daughter. She finally compromised. "All I'm trying
to say is that it's an adult decision. I can't always explain, because you're
just not quite old enough to understand. I'm sorry."

Tears welled in Kate's blue eyes, and then she wrenched
herself off her mother's lap and ran sobbing into the bathroom. Frazzled and on
the edge of tears herself, Abigail sagged back and closed her eyes. Dear God,
had she messed up Kate's life as well as her own?

*****

Not calling Abigail was the hardest thing Nate had ever
done. But she'd asked for time, and by God he'd give it to her. A hundred times
a day he wanted to pick up the phone or stop by her office. But every time he
was too tempted, he remembered her reaction to the offer he'd thought was such
a grand gesture.

"Why?" she had asked. "Why now?"

What was the answer? Had he once again tried to tie her to
him in the one way she couldn't resist?

He just plain didn't know, no matter how often he confronted
the question. How could he separate his motives into bits and pieces? He loved
her, he wanted her, he couldn't imagine a life without her. Was that a crime?
She was probably right that he had secretly wanted reassurance that he was more
important to her than her career. Well, she'd shocked him into recognizing his
chauvinism, if that was the right word for wanting to come first.

But here he'd done his damndest to show her that he
understood how important her job was to her, that he respected how good she was
at it. And what had she done? Almost accused him of buying her. Buying her!

Nate swore viciously and threw the newest copy of
Architectural Digest across his office. It knocked a framed print askew and
fell to the wood floor.

John stuck his head around the doorjamb. "Should I
duck?"

"Depends what you want to talk about."

"Not Abigail, if that's what worries you."

"Come on in," Nate growled.

"Just got a call from Linstead." Joseph Linstead
was a member of the school board and deeply involved in the process of planning
and siting the new elementary school. "He says they'll make an
announcement Monday."

Nate swung his feet off his desk and sat up. "Would he
tell you anything?"

John dropped down into the upholstered chair on the other
side of Nate's mahogany desk. "Nope. But would he have called at all if we
weren't getting it? He said, and I quote, that we'd be 'very interested' in the
announcement. You know what?" He grinned widely. "I think it's
ours."