Hands On (10 page)

He knew damn well why it was exiting.

The disconcerting wasn’t entirely unexpected, either.

The odd thump and rustle that came from the basement threw him right back to the bad old days with Jaye Rae. Ginnie had even chased him out in much the same way Jaye Rae had, saying he distracted her.

She certainly distracted him.

What had he been thinking, inviting her back into his house when she’d made it so easy for him by leaving? He’d let his impulse overrule his logical mind. The last time that had happened, he’d ended up in a world of hurt.

Definitely disconcerting.

Harry got out his calculator and tried to compare and contrast investment options for Norbert Kenton.

The numbers proceeded in their good, orderly fashion. It was his mind that kept giving him errors. Error one: sleeping with Ginnie. Error two: inviting her back after she’d moved out.

“Let me help,” he’d offered down at the basement workbench. The puppets and the remains of ceramic, wooden and paper-mâché marionettes covered the entire vast surface. “I’m handy with tools.”

She gave him a look he couldn’t interpret. “You’re sweet to offer. But I really need to do this myself.”

“If you need anything, I’ll be…”

“You’ll be upstairs, in your office. I know. Thanks.”

He wasn’t accustomed to feeling awkward, but he sure as hell did, retreating from his own basement. And it wasn’t out of sight, out of mind, either, the way it had been with Jaye Rae.

His mind was having trouble holding on to anything not-Ginnie.

His client’s prospectus and notes blurred and disappeared as Harry’s fingers caressed the glossy paper as if it were her smooth warm skin.

Warm skin?

Clearly it was time to shift gears, check the online updates.

Harry typed the address for Mr. Kenton’s up-to-the-minute scrolling stock update, but he mistyped.

Rather than stockmaster.com, he was treated to a fetish porn site.

Harry laughed in disbelief, then peered at the screen, curious.

He hadn’t realized
that
was possible.

And, of course, all the women reminded him of Ginnie.

Enough.

With a curse, he flung the mouse from him, stabbed the computer’s Off button, and fled his office and his house.

Chapter Six

Ginnie felt a stinging sort of shame after she hung up the phone.

She’d just confessed to Lara that she’d moved back in with Harry. Her property manager’s assistant and one-time, oh-so-brief roommate had been understanding. Smug, even. She’d used the word smitten.

Ginnie had to bite her tongue to keep from defending herself, explaining to Lara that it wasn’t because she was smitten. It was purely a business arrangement.

The business of keeping an eye on her old home and its contents, and fixing her puppets and staying safe from Rick.

Rick might do anything—take more things, burn down the rental house, if it would burn in Portland’s damp weather and frequent rain showers. Who knew what he would do?

Crazy to think that less than a month ago, she’d had fantasies about Rick coming to her and begging her to come back to him. Then he’d shown up and acted like a belligerent jerk, reminding her why she’d left.

Instead, it had been Harry to beg her to come back to him. Ginnie laughed, baffled. He hadn’t exactly begged, but still, it had been thrilling.

A little too thrilling. Maybe she was a bit smitten.

Little Jeffrey stared at her, his newly repaired face somehow accusing.

“Oh, you’ll always be my favorite. You’ve gotten plenty of attention, haven’t you?” she asked the marionette. “Got a new face, touched-up colors, oiled hinges. You’re quite dashing,” she assured Jeffrey even as she moved him to the side to concentrate on the many others needing her experienced eye. Cracked heads, crushed limbs, snapped strings, clothes stained and torn beyond repair.

Rick must really hate her.

And the thing was, she thought he might be a little bit in the right. Very little. But, she had left him rather suddenly, with only a few attempts at serious conversation at the end to let him know how unhappy she felt. When she got the Helping Hands job offer, it had seemed like a sign.

Rick had taken care of her. Strong to the point of aggression on occasion, well-off if not wealthy, he offered a reliable protectiveness Ginnie’d found comforting. Her mother approved of him, latched on to his obvious devotion to Ginnie, seeing nothing beyond the fact he wouldn’t abandon Ginnie the way she’d been abandoned.

Ginnie shook her head. Seemed it was true. Rick wouldn’t give her up easily. Problem was, he didn’t particularly want her, either. Not the real her. He always made her feel as if she were silly and neurotic for sharing her feelings about puppetry, or her feelings about him, or about anything—which had had the effect of making her more insistent that he listen, which made him irritated, until he slammed out of the house or worse—and she’d figured out there was no point in continually stirring up a hornet’s nest.

When she finally left Rick, arriving at her mom’s new place a few hours away, she’d hoped for emotional support and maybe shelter for a few nights. Solidarity against men would’ve been her mother’s forte considering the woman’s own background, she’d assumed. Ginnie’d been impressed by the gated ranch home on a lush city acre, courtesy of her mother’s newest and richest husband. Ginnie was more than ready to finally forge a real mother-and-daughter bond, so it had come as a shock when she was hit with “If you throw away a good thing, you’re stupid—don’t you make the biggest mistake of your life,” and “you made your bed, so you go on back and lie in it,” and worse, “just like your father, sneaking away in the night like a coward.”

What echoed in her head, though, was the thing her mother had called after her as Ginnie finally fled her sharp tongue: “You’ll screw this up too!”

But despite the agony of uncertainty and the sadness that called forth tears at the slightest provocation, Ginnie followed her dream, clinging firmly to her hope of a better, happier life. She’d held it in her mind as a True North, all the way to Oregon.

And now Rick tried to intimidate her.

It was pretty low of him to go after her things just because he knew she loved them. Ginnie lifted the two pieces of a puppet’s split leg, the knee joint’s tongue-and-groove no longer held together with a pin. The pin was long gone.

Ginnie shuddered as if she were ill.

Should she fix her marionettes, the way she desperately wanted to, or should she put it off indefinitely and to do the sensible thing of getting another job? She needed the money. She knew the right answer.

It was a matter of financial prudence. She couldn’t live off her returned security deposit and the rumored settlement payout forever. She should do what Harry suggested—take a position at a temp place, or a retail shop, if they’d hire someone a bit overqualified. A craft store might not be too horrible.

Even more financially prudent, she could acquire a mid-tier management position at another nonprofit company. Somewhere she wouldn’t be too passionate about the work. Passion got her in trouble.

Passion made her care too much and try too hard and focus on the wrong things. Passion made her listen to her instinct rather than logic. Passion kept her from being an easygoing team player.

A squeaky noise startled her, and she looked down. Clara, her slender African ballerina marionette, performed a slow pirouette. Without conscious thought, her hands had performed the repair work on Clara’s strings, so that Clara gracefully swayed on her ballet-shoe toes.

Ginnie oiled a hinge. The squeak disappeared. Clara almost seemed to smile.

Tears sprang into Ginnie’s eyes. How could she give this up, or relegate it to just an occasional hobby? Bringing puppets to life, telling their stories, was her joy.

To her mother, and even to Harry, practicality and financial sensibility ruled. Head over heart.

For her, that would be a living death.

Ginnie suddenly knew what she had to do.

Harry keyed open his front door, nudging it with his shoulder so he could carry in the armful of archive folders he’d fetched from work. But even before he pushed the door shut once more, he could tell two things were very wrong.

One, the house smelled delicious.

And two, the sound of children’s laughter came from his basement.

Folders slipped from Harry’s suddenly nerveless fingers, making muted thumps as they landed on the handmade Persian rug. Papers scattered.

Children in his house?

He fought back panic. This wasn’t another setup. Ginnie didn’t know, couldn’t know the ugly thing that had happened last Christmas.

It was all perfectly innocent.

His company’s last Christmas party had kicked off well enough. There was much mingling and many smiles, and Harry remembered taking great pleasure in the way women looked elegant and even royal with their formal gowns and jewels. The men looked like him. All successful, confident and proud in custom tuxes. The scent of pine candles tickled his nose, and everywhere flashed the glitter of red, green, gold, silver.

Reporters covered the event. It was unusual to be allowed into the inner sanctum of the elusive H. Barrett Sharpe, but Jaye Rae had wanted them there.

It had been Jaye Rae’s idea, his Santa costume. And her suggestion, too, holding the children on his lap for Christmas photographs. He’d given each kid a small present. When that six-year-old boy’s turn came, Jaye Rae led him by the hand and whispered—Harry had assumed—calming, encouraging things in his ear. Harry was feeling gratified at making the kids so awed and happy. Christmas music and childish laughter contributed to his sense of well-being.

He remembered thinking Jaye Rae was taking his calling off their marriage astonishingly well.

She’d been so enraged when he’d presented her with the prenuptial agreement, he’d just assumed she’d freak out when he ended their relationship. She’d been appalled at the time, deeply appalled and angry…but now she appeared the unshakeable, gracious hostess. It was as if he’d imagined the demon woman who’d castigated him so harshly. This was their last event as a couple before announcing the split publicly. The holiday spirit had him so mellow, and he was so impressed by her game-faced stoicism, that for a moment he’d actually reconsidered his decision.

Then, disaster.

“Santa touched my pee-pee.”

Harry thought he’d misunderstood the boy’s mumble. He leaned closer, holding the boy’s legs so he didn’t slide off. “What?”

“Santa touched my pee-pee!”

The kid bounced, and Harry grabbed instinctively to keep him from falling.

Cameras flashed, capturing his unfortunately placed hand.

He remembered how Jaye Rae marched up and the way her palm stung his face. There’d been that awful silence, broken only by the shocked gasps of people he’d once thought of as friends, crucifying him. “I didn’t do anything!” he’d protested, but the inhuman cameras and their even less-human operators didn’t care for that. They were after dirt and they’d get it.

Harry shook his head violently. They’d gotten enough dirt to wreck his good name, to kill his enthusiasm for running Sharpe Industries and being in the public eye, and to strike a shameful fear in his heart whenever he heard a child’s voice.

Like now.

In his house.

He heard children’s laughter. Ginnie’s feminine laughter joined it. The sound of it touched him painfully, deep in his heart. It shouldn’t have to be this way, he knew. But it was.

The voices increased in volume. Ginnie led two small kids down his hallway. She bent, listening to them, nodding and smiling. When she noticed Harry, she waved. “Hey! Lily and Tommy were just helping me test-drive some of the fixed marionettes.” Her smile slipped into a quizzical expression when she saw his face.

“Get them out. Out of the house. Now, please.” Harry kept his voice calm and steady with an effort.

Ginnie gaped. The kids, sensing the sudden tension, moved closer to her.

“I mean it.” Harry opened the front door wide. He stood aside. “Out.”

Ginnie looked bewildered. “But I made dinner. For four.”

“Sorry.” Harry jabbed his thumb at the street.
Out
.

After whispering something in their ears that made them look at him giggling, Ginnie herded Lily and Tommy through the doorway.

After watching them safely descend the porch steps, she carefully shut the front door.

Then she whapped him on the chest with one open palm.

“Ow.” Harry rubbed at where his buttons impacted muscle.

Ginnie grimaced too, shaking her hand in reaction. “Ow is right. Bulletproof vest? No? So, tell me, big guy. What the hell is wrong with you, scaring little kids?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” Harry stooped, gathered papers, shoved them randomly into folders. He’d be reorganizing the mess for hours.

“Chasing the kids out like some kind of boogieman.” Ginnie paused, considering him intently. “Do you hate kids?”

“I have no use for kids.”

“Ever?”

“I’m not having this conversation.” Harry walked through the living room. Unfortunately, his automatic course took him straight to the kitchen, where the good scent of garlic and baking things made him salivate. He shoved the stack of folders into one unused corner of the granite countertop and made himself a stiff drink. “Want one?” he belatedly asked Ginnie, after tipping back half a glass of scotch. “Place smells good,” he added, after the liquor hit his stomach with a welcome warmth.

Ginnie shook her head in exasperation and flipped the oven temperature to zero. She stirred the contents of one pot, then another, then answered him. “Yes. I’d like one.”

Harry fixed it neat. Their fingers touched as he handed it over. “So, what’s cook—”

“Oh, no you don’t. If you want this excellent dinner of filet mignon with wild shiitake mushroom sauce, you’ll tell me what happened out there.”

“
Nothing happened
.” Harry finished his scotch. Put down his glass.

“All righty then, guess you don’t want this homemade, perfectly grilled filet.” Ginnie threw open the oven door. Harry’s taste buds reacted to the scent by filling his mouth with saliva. He grimaced. Clearly the woman believed in fighting dirty.