Housebound (22 page)

It took him a while before he realized that Lillian was willing, even eager to be an ally. But only on her terms. In the meantime the summer stretched in front of him, bleak and hot and empty without her. His time would be filled with starting the new job, dealing with the vagaries of apartment life while his house was being built. And when the weekends proved too long he would go out to the ocean and work on the rambling cottage his architect brother had designed for him. His hours would be filled with activity, and his life would be empty.

He could always ignore Lillian's warnings and drive up to Vermont. There were times when he thought that if he didn't see Anne soon he'd go crazy. But his regret always stopped him.

When it came right down to it, he had a hell of a lot of nerve, he told himself with weary self-disgust. He'd spent the three years since Nialla's death dodging commitments, dodging love. He'd tricked Anne, in effect lied to her, and offered her nothing. And now that he'd changed his mind, decided maybe he could offer her more than just a short, sweet affair, he had the colossal gall to hope she'd welcome him with open arms.

He didn't deserve her. And the least he could give her was the time she needed. If in the end she decided to listen to him, it would still take her a long time to forgive him his betrayal in taking the house from her. If she ever would. And if he had to suffer while she came to terms with it, then that was his deserved penance. But it seemed to be taking forever.

 

“Y
OU
'
RE GOING TO HAVE
to leave,” Lillian announced abruptly several nights later. Anne looked up from the lugu
brious Russian novel she was wading through with a question in her shadowed eyes.

“Driven you nuts, have I?” she questioned calmly, trying to still the little spurt of panic that clutched at her stomach. She wasn't ready to make decisions, to face the real world as yet. She knew she had to, sooner or later. But later would have been much more appealing.

“I've survived worse,” her aunt replied dryly. “No, it's you I'm thinking of. Your family is descending, almost en masse, to try to drag you back to New Jersey. Apparently the task of packing up a century's worth of accumulations is more than Proffy and Holly can manage.”

“And they want me to come back and help?”

“Knowing your family, I expect they want you to come back and do it all,” Lillian replied. “Holly said they were going to throw themselves on your mercy.”

Anne snorted, closing the turgid novel with a snap. “That's like asking someone to assist at his own execution.”

“Well, you can't really blame them, can you? After all, you've never told them no before. They think you're Superwoman, with nerves and heart of steel. It's only natural they think they can talk you into anything without you doing more than blinking.”

“Not this time.”

“So I told them. But they're coming anyway, and I think you should be gone when they get here.”

“Is that who's been calling all the time?” she asked, not really curious.

Lillian smiled faintly, refusing to answer. “When can you be ready to leave?”

“Whenever,” Anne replied with a shrug. “I'll have to decide where to go, though.”

“That's the best part.” Lillian looked quite pleased with herself. “I've been busy the past few days. I've found you a job.”

“I don't need a job.”

“You do, and you're going to take it. I went to a lot of trouble arranging this for you, and I'm not going to have you turn up your nose at this and make me look like a fool,” Lillian snapped. “Besides, it's right up your alley.”

“I'm not interested in editing at the moment.”

“The hell with editing. I've gotten you a construction job.”

“What?”

“A friend of mine is building a house on a stretch of oceanfront property in Connecticut. It's a simple, almost experimental affair. Lots of passive solar heating and other such newfangled ideas. He wanted to build it himself but things have gotten a little out of hand with his work. He's got a new job, so he's had to hire helpers. You'd be working with Sam Oliver during the week, and the owner would come out and putter on the weekends.”

“You must be kidding.”

“Absolutely not. I had the devil's own time convincing Sam to hire you. He usually makes do with a couple of teenagers during the summer, but his usual boy has gone into the army and he's been having trouble finding someone else. He said he was willing to give you a chance.”

“What about the owner? How does he feel about women's work?” Despite her initial dismay the idea was beginning to appeal to her.

“Oh, he doesn't care—he leaves it up to Sam. I don't think you'd even run into him.”

A sudden absurd suspicion flared into Anne's admittedly paranoid brain. “Who's the owner?”

“Fellow by the name of Matthews,” Lillian lied without batting an eye. “You'll like it down in Wilbury, Anne. I've visited when I was younger—a perfect little New England village, looks more like Maine than Connecticut. And Matthews is building right by the sea—you can take a swim on your lunch break.”

“You think I won't do it,” Anne challenged the older woman.

Lillian smiled serenely. “I don't know anymore what you'll do. You'd be crazy not to jump at the chance. You could room at the local boardinghouse and have a peaceful summer doing good hard physical labor that will leave you too tired to brood. Get a good tan and a feeling of accomplishment, and then come fall you can look at life from a different perspective.”

“You take a lot for granted, Aunt Lil.”

“I was counting on your still having a lick of gumption beneath that mournful exterior. Was I right?”

Anne hesitated for only a moment longer. There had been no word from Noah, no message. Not that she'd expected anything, she maintained stoutly. But an apology, no matter how feeble, would have been something. Lillian's badgering was well founded—she had spent far too much time mourning a lost cause.

“You were right, Aunt Lil.” Getting up from her perch on the comfortable old sofa, Anne crossed the room and pressed a kiss against her aunt's papery cheek. “Thank you, Lillian. I'll miss you.”

The old lady's eyes misted. “I'll miss you too, darling. You write me from that place. And don't let Sam Oliver push you around. He knows his stuff—you couldn't work for a better man. But he has a tendency to be a mite autocratic. Not to mention sexist.”

“Sexist? Then why in the world is he hiring a woman construction worker?”

Lillian grinned. “Because the fool man never could say no to me,” she said with deep satisfaction.

Anne stretched to her full height. “Well, whatever his misgivings, I'll make sure he doesn't regret this. I think you may have saved my life, Aunt Lil. I'm going to love this.”

Love was not the operative word, Anne thought later of her first few weeks as a laborer. Exhaustion, frustration, annoyance, discomfort and a rough satisfaction were more accurate. Sam Oliver had proven to be cut from the same cloth as Aunt Lillian—opinionated, irascible, with a warm heart beneath that grumpy exterior. He was also an incredible craftsman, and his demands on Anne, even from the first, were phenomenal. Every nail had to be nailed at the exact angle called for, every measurement had to be done three times at least to be sure of its exactness. Even with something as fast-moving and rudimentary as framing the rambling modern house was accomplished with a care for details. Anne both dreaded and anticipated the more exacting finishing work when it came along. If Sam would put up with her. And despite his vociferous complaints, she could tell that on occasion he was not displeased with her work.

The first week was a disaster. Her stamina for the rough physical labor of hauling two-by-fours around was limited to four hours a day. By the second week she found she could push herself to eight hours, and by the end of the month her pace for the twelve-hour working days Sam favored almost equaled his.

Her soft, lean arms grew lovely muscles, her pale skin first burned in the bright early summer sunshine, then turned a deep golden tan. The worst part of the whole experience, Anne mused, was early June, when the mosquitoes were at their worst. She was roofing then, the hot sun beating down on her, and all the odoriferous Woodsman's Fly Dope couldn't keep the little monsters from feeding on her succulent flesh. They left Sam's leathery hide completely alone—”too tough for 'em,” he said smugly. That night when she looked into the mirror, her face blistered from the sunburn, swollen from a thousand and one mosquito bites, she burst into tears. But a good long soak in a baking-soda-filled bath and a sound night's sleep, and she went back to the roof with the resignation of an early Christian martyr, determined to do her duty no matter what the cost.

June slipped into July, and the house began to assume some shape. Sam and Anne would work all week long—framing, sheathing, roofing—and then have the weekend off. Anne grew to hate those weekends. For the first part of them she was content to walk along the tourist-crowded streets of the little town, to hike along the ocean, to lie in the sun and read something a bit more cheerful than Russian novels. But as Sunday lengthened and her body rested, the events of the spring would return and she recalled with a pang of regret Noah Grant's laughing blue eyes in his dark Gypsy face. She never slept well on Sunday nights, and when she did her dreams were of Noah and she would wake, bereft once more.

Her least favorite job on the whole house was the wall of windows facing out toward the sea. Each sliding window had weighed in at several hundred pounds, and despite her newly formed muscles she was exhausted by the third one. “I sure the hell hope Matthews is going to appreciate this house,” she
said, panting, one Friday afternoon late in July as they settled the window into place. “It's going to be hard enough giving this up after we've worked so hard on it. I just hope he has the sense to love it, too.”

“Pretty possessive, aren't you?” Sam drawled, tapping the corner of the window against the frame with just the right amount of force. “You forget that he comes and works on it every weekend.”

“I haven't forgotten. His work isn't as good as yours is—I can always recognize anything he's done.”

“Nobody's as good as me,” he replied, a calm statement of fact. “Not even you, young lady. But he does a good enough job, for all that.” Which was high praise indeed, given Sam's high standards. Praise that even a jealous Anne had to admit was deserved. “If you're going to keep building houses, you're going to have to let go, Annie.”

“Even if I don't build houses I'm going to have to learn to let go,” she said darkly.

“We all have to, sooner or later,” Sam agreed, setting the window in place with a few short perfect taps of his hammer. “You want to help me with the last one, or could you use a trip into town about now?”

“A trip into town would be wonderful. I'm out of Coke.”

“You and that bellywash. Why can't you make do with coffee like me?” he demanded.

“Because mediocre coffee isn't worth drinking, and the stuff in your thermos would be deeply flattered to even be called bad. What do you need in town?”

“We're about ready for kitchen cabinets. And unless you want to try your hand at building them you'll have to go pick out some ready-mades at the home-building center.”

“Could I build them?” she asked curiously.

“You could. But they're a pain in the butt. I won't do 'em anymore, and if I were you I'd settle for store-bought. They've got some nice ones down there—take your pick.”

“But doesn't the owner want to choose? Or his wife?”

“Ain't got a wife. At least, not yet. That's why he's building this house, to try and win her. And I guess he figures that one woman's opinion is as good as another's in these matters.”

“That kind of attitude is hardly going to endear him to the lady in question,” Anne observed wryly. “You sure you don't need any more help?”

“Nope. I'm just going to finish hanging the bedroom door and then head on home. You do the same—don't bother coming back after you place the order. You've had a long week.”

Anne stretched her weary muscles, a slow, luxurious stretch like a cat's. “True enough. I enjoyed it, though.”

Sam snorted inelegantly. “Glutton for punishment, I'd say. Get on with you.” Anne was halfway out the door when his rough voice called her back.

“By the way, young lady,” he said, and she waited for the ax to fall. He only used that tone of voice when he was about to point out some incredibly stupid mistake. “You did a damned fine job on the windows.”

A slow grin lit her face at his unaccustomed praise, and she surveyed the wall of windows with unrestrained pride. “I did, didn't I?” she replied, in a perfect mimic of Sam's laconic tones.

He gave a bark of laughter. “See you Monday, squirt. Seven o'clock and no later.”

“Yes, sir!”

As she pulled into the home-building center she gave her yellow Volvo an affectionate pat on its peeling dashboard. It
had served her well the last few months, once she'd replaced the muffler. Even now it was still a little noisier than she would have liked, but she accepted the fact that its engine would herald her appearance. She was already somewhat of a conversation piece in the small seaside town, she realized, casting a quick, untroubled glance at her reflection in the rearview mirror. Her long black hair was caught in a single braid down her back, though the heat and humidity had combined with the day's exertions to leave a halo of wisps around her face. With her deep tan, slightly hollow cheeks and straight, strong nose she looked like an exotic Indian. Until one took in the deep-green eyes, the baggy carpenter jeans that rode low on her hips, and the sleeveless jersey that exhibited an expanse of long, muscled arms. She did love her muscles, she realized with a sigh. If she ever went back to a desk job she would miss the exercise.

She didn't take long in her choice of cabinets. Matthews had more than enough money, and while the rustic oceanside house was in no way elegant, no corners had been cut, either. She chose solid oak cabinets with a raised panel door, consulting the little plan she'd drawn up earlier several times as she chose the pieces that appealed to her. Too bad if the future Mrs. Matthews didn't like to cook—she was getting a food preparation center that would hold a mixer, food processor and blender within a modicum of space. Too bad if she preferred a single sink—Anne picked out the champagne of double sinks, with every accoutrement a dedicated cook could ask for. The only thing that stumped her was the countertops—she couldn't decide whether she wanted Formica in a nice primary color with a matte finish or solid wood butcher block.

“Why don't you go ahead and send this out on Monday and
I'll let you know about the countertops,” she said finally, signing her name to the order with a scrawl.

“That's the old Matthews place, right?” The teenaged clerk staggered back under the weight of the first cabinet, and it was all Anne could do not to come to his aid. Sternly she repressed the urge, waiting until he dropped it with an ominous thud. She knew how fragile male pride could be at that age, and she'd always had a fondness for that particular clerk.

“That's right,” she said pleasantly. “We'll be there to give you a hand unloading.”

“Oh, I won't need any help,” he said righteously, mopping his sweating brow. “How's the house coming?”

He almost, but not quite, could have been her son, Anne mused, but the look in his eye was faintly swaggering. Maybe she should have helped him with the cabinet—it would have cooled his ardor a bit. She gave him her easiest smile. “It's beautiful,” she said. “Another few weeks and we should be just about done.” She didn't like to think about it, didn't want to think about leaving her house by the ocean and the small town of Wilbury that she had come to love.

“Hey, that's great. I can't wait to see it. Is it a real palace?”

“Actually, it's quite simple. Very pleasing aesthetically.”
Almost too pleasing
, she thought mournfully. “But nothing fancy.”

The boy shook his head. “Sure am glad old Matthews decided to sell. It's been great for business and it's brought some welcome strangers into town.” His puppy-dog glance left no doubt as to who the welcome stranger was.

Anne smiled uneasily. “You're very kind. Now, I think I'd better—” Suddenly the rest of his words penetrated. “Did you say old Matthews decided to sell? When was
this?” Perhaps his lady had turned him down after all. Perhaps Anne wouldn't have to lose the second house she'd poured her life and blood and soul into. So far she had steadfastly refused to accept any part of the money from the sale of the old farmhouse. Her share came to over a hundred thousand dollars—she had no idea what Matthews would charge, but that would surely be enough to cover a goodly share of it. She could…

The boy shattered her dreams a second later. “He sold his place three years ago. It's taken this long to get the old ruins torn down and the new house started. It's a lucky thing Mr. Grant finally got around to it—that place was dangerous, sitting around unused, with the floors caving in and all. After all, there aren't any neighbors around, and kids used to go out there all the time. To…you know…neck and all.” He smirked lasciviously, but Anne was beyond noticing.

“Grant?” she echoed, her voice a hoarse croak. “Noah Grant?”

“Sure. Didn't you even know whom you were working for?” The boy stared at her in amazement.

“I do now,” she said grimly, turning on her heel and stalking toward the door.

“Hey!” the boy called after her. “What time do you want these delivered?”

Anne's reply was succinct, obscene and quite loud before she sailed out the door, slamming it violently.

How could he have done it to me again
, she demanded in white-hot rage as her battered Volvo tore down the road. Did he get some sort of perverse pleasure in using her, making a fool of her? Or maybe, worst of all, he felt sorry for her. He carried such a burden of guilt already, maybe he simply added
her to it, drumming up this job as therapy and to absolve himself of his responsibility in ripping her house from her.

Well, this time he wasn't going to get away with it. Hadn't Aunt Lillian suggested revenge? Though Aunt Lillian's part in this was none too pure, she realized belatedly. She'd been in on the setup all along, sending her straight into the lion's den without a second's hesitation. The traitor.

Well, revenge might not be sweet, but it would be infinitely satisfying. Noah Grant was not going to live in the house she had sweated over, wasn't going to bring one of his New York sweeties to live in her house.

The Volvo raced at forty miles an hour down the rutted road that led to the house. In her red-hot fury Anne heard several pieces of metal fall off with a crash, and her foot pressed even harder on the accelerator. She wasn't going to let second thoughts stop her this time. She'd leave Noah Grant a clear message as to what she thought of him.

Sam had left long ago by the time she pulled up with a screech. She slammed the car into first and wrenched out the key, stalking from the car like a hunter stalking its prey. And even through her haze of anger she recognized the beauty of the house as it stood there in the late afternoon sunlight. The cedar shingles were stained a light gray; the row of windows reflected the setting sunlight with a rosy glow. For a moment Anne hesitated, tears of rage and pain bright in her eyes.

Give it a minute or two
, she ordered herself, trying for a semblance of calm.
Make sure you want to do it.

She started off down the beach, half walking, half running, trying to drive the demons of anger and hurt from her heart. She ran until she dropped, sinking into the sand, her breath coming in short, deep gasps, her heart pounding. She lay
there for a long, long time, listening to the sound of the ocean lapping on the beach and the slow, steady pounding of her heart, her eyes following the trail of the sun as it dipped slowly in the west.