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“And do what?” he challenged.
She threw up her hands. “Sell ties at a major department store, wait on tables at Indigo’s, become a bank teller. Anything.” When Gordon made no response, she added through gritted teeth, “The way I did when you torpedoed Wyatt Construction right out from under me.”
The look he gave her said she’d severely wounded him by bringing the past up. “I don’t want to take just anything, J.D.”
Easy for him to say. He had never hustled for a job. On those occasions when she landed a remodeling assignment that required more than just one person, she hired him on to help and, for the most part, things worked out. But the rest of the time, he seemed content to be “looking for himself” and doing absolutely nothing. Well, it couldn’t continue.
Getting up, she crossed to him and lowered her face so that it was level to his. “You like to eat, don’t you? Have a roof over your head? Shower daily? News flash, big brother. The best things in life aren’t free.”
He ignored the fact that she was now in his face. “When did you get so mercenary?”
“When you abdicated the position of adult and became my other child,” she retorted. If anything, she thought of him as being younger than Kelli.
“Ouch.” Gordon cringed dramatically, as if ducking a blow. “Just because you’re not working, don’t take it out on me.”
“I’m not taking it out on you,” she countered, her patience dangerously low. “I just want you to pull your load. I just—” Exasperated, she waved her hand at him. “Oh, never mind.”
“Okay then—” he settled back against the pillow, stretching his legs out before him “—maybe if I try hard, I can get back to the dream you so rudely terminated for me.”
The temptation to smother him with his pillow was tremendous. She struggled to calm herself down. Janice knew her brother didn’t mean anything by this and he really was having a rough time of it. Gordon seemed to fail at everything he tried, but she was bound and determined to keep him from sliding into some sort of black hole and dwelling there for the remainder of his life. He needed to stand up on his own two feet—the very minute he took them out of a certain part of his posterior.
And she supposed he was right in his own strange way. She was taking out her frustration over her forced inactivity on him. She had a perfectly good job lined up with some very nice additions, but she was stuck in first gear until Zabelle called her.
Or she found out what the holdup was.
The best way to do that was to beard the lion in his den. And she knew where the lion lived.
Janice abruptly made her way over to her daughter. “Sweetie,” she called out. After taking another stroke the little girl stopped and glanced up at her. “I’ve got to go out for a while. Keep an eye on your Uncle Gordon for me, okay?”
Her request was met with a sunny smile. “You can count on me, Mama.”
“I know.” She kissed the top of Kelli’s head. “More than on him,” Janice added under her breath as she left the room.
She briefly thought about changing, but then decided that there was no point. This was the way she looked when she was working and, besides, she wasn’t trying to impress Zabelle with her looks, just with her talent and her ability to get the job done in record time. Which she couldn’t do if she didn’t get started, she thought angrily.
This was why contractors took on more than one job at a time, she decided, getting behind the wheel of her 4x4. So that they wouldn’t have to waste precious days with any downtime, some contractors would sign on for two, three jobs concurrently. But that had never been the way she operated. She believed in giving each job her complete, undivided attention from start to finish, finishing it and then moving on, not playing musical houses and going from one job to another as if they were all part of some kind of life-size round-robin.
She’d developed all the skills needed for this kind of work—all except for the tough hide. Ignoring the needs and requirements of others to satisfy her own just wasn’t her style.
Janice knew, for instance, that she should be harder on Gordon, that maybe what he needed was a swift kick in the seat to get him moving and to make him repentant for losing the company, but she couldn’t get herself to do it. Besides, she didn’t see how making him feel guilty about losing the company would help since it would all be after the fact and it wouldn’t accomplish anything. It certainly wouldn’t get the company back.
It had taken her a while to come to grips with the loss. But, as always, she’d rallied and told herself that the company was not something that the bank held a deed to, the company was her—and Gordon when she could light a fire under him and get him to help.
At the time of her father’s death, the company had included eight other men, men who had since gone on to work for other contractors, or left the area or even the business. But they were just the craftsmen. She was the heart of it, she was the blood that pumped through its veins.
And she wasn’t going anywhere.
“You’re not kidding,” she murmured to herself as the irony of the phrase hit her. She turned her truck down Zabelle’s street. She’d never get anywhere if jobs kept drying up on her.
Well, she wasn’t about to let this one dry up, at least not without knowing the reason why. He owed her that much.
The house where Philippe Zabelle resided was located on a through street. It was part of a community of townhomes made to resemble well-spaced single dwellings that had lawns like lush green carpets. Bedford was considered to be one of the more upscale cities within Southern California. None of the neighborhoods were allowed to run down. Everything looked new or at least lovingly cared for. There was an abundance of pride within the city that kept its homes neat and looking their best.
Parking her car by the curb, Janice marched up the dozen or so white cement stairs that led up to the front door and knocked. First once, then twice and then a third time.
Nothing.
Maybe she should have called first, she thought. But if she had called and Zabelle had told her not to come, she would have lost the advantage of talking to him face to face. She always did better in person than over the phone.
Janice raised her hand to knock one more time.
“Looking for Philippe?”
Startled, her hand still raised, she swung around and found a tall, good-looking, dark-haired man with an easy smile and kind eyes standing to her left. She hadn’t even heard him approach. Belatedly, she dropped her hand, realizing that, had he been standing any closer to her, she would have wound up punching him.
“Yes,” she said when she regained possession of her voice. “I guess he’s not home.”
“Oh, he’s in there,” the man assured her. “He just tends to slip into another world when he’s working. Doesn’t see or hear anything else but what’s on the screen in front of him.”
“Dedicated,” she commented.
The man smiled, amused. “One way of looking at it.” Taking out a key, he unlocked the front door, pushed it open, then stood back. “Go ahead,” he urged, gesturing toward the inside of the house.
She hung back. “I don’t know if I should just walk in.”
“I do it all the time.” A grin flashed as he pocketed the key and he extended his hand to her. “Hi, I’m Georges. Philippe’s brother,” he added.
“Oh.” Realizing that she was standing there like a bump on a log, Janice slipped her hand into his and shook it.
Georges’s dark blue eyes were bright with curiosity as they swept over her. There was something unobtrusive about the way he did it. She took no offense. “And you are?”
“J. D. Wyatt,” she told him, then added, “I’m supposed to do some work on your brother’s house.”
Recognition entered his eyes. “Oh, right, you’re the one Vincent mentioned.” And then, as his own words registered, he seemed to do a mental double take. “You’re J.D.?”
She smiled, removing her hand from his. This was the reaction she was accustomed to. “Not exactly what you expected, right?”
Rather than look embarrassed, he grinned. The man was charming, she thought. His brother could probably stand to pick up a few pointers—not that that mattered in the scheme of things, she reminded herself.
“Only in my better dreams,” he told her. “Philippe didn’t mention that he actually hired anyone, only that he was thinking about it.”
That didn’t bode well, Janice thought. Had Zabelle changed his mind after all? He’d signed contracts, but there was always a way around that if a person was clever and she didn’t have the money for a lawyer to fight him on this anyway. Served her right from not insisting on getting a check right up front, right after Zabelle had signed on the dotted lines.
“But then,” Georges added quickly, “Philippe doesn’t say that much of anything, especially when he’s in the middle of a project.”
She had a feeling that Zabelle’s brother was just trying to make her feel better. She examined him more closely. As brothers, they were more different than alike, she decided. “What does he do, your brother?”
“A little bit of everything.” There was no missing the pride in the man’s voice. “But officially, Philippe’s a computer programmer. Right now, he’s designing software packages for online advertisers.”
She glanced toward the opened door. They still had not gone inside. “And he works at home?”
Georges nodded. “Turns into a regular hermit when he’s in the middle of designing something.” He walked in, then turned when she didn’t follow him. “C’mon, let’s track him down.”
When she’d gotten behind the wheel, she had been completely fired up. But on the way over, some of that fire had dissipated. It was one thing to confront the man at his door and read him an abbreviated version of the riot act about wasting her time, it was another to go from room to room, looking for him and running the risk of possibly catching him in a way he wouldn’t want to be caught. God knew she wouldn’t have appreciated having someone skulking around her house, looking for her.
She forced a smile to her lips. “Why don’t you find him for me?” she suggested. Because he was looking at her expectantly, she ventured a few steps into the house, then indicated the living room. “I’ll be right here, waiting for you.”
The smile on his lips washed over her, leaving no part untouched. She really, really had to start dating again. Either that or begin working out rigorously—which she’d be doing if she were working, she silently insisted, bringing the argument full circle.
“Have it your way,” Georges said. Turning, he faced the rear of the house and called out, “Hey, Philippe, where’re you hiding?”
Still standing, Janice knotted her fingers together, feeling incredibly awkward. She closed her eyes for a second, trying to frame her first words to Zabelle under the present circumstances.
Georges had no sooner left the area than Philippe walked in from the kitchen. He stopped abruptly when he saw that there was a woman standing in the living room. The math equations that he’d been mentally grappling with receded as recognition set in.
J.D.
That still didn’t answer what she was doing here. Or how she’d gotten in. He was damn certain he’d locked the front door. “Did I miss seeing cat burglar on your résumé?”
Her eyes flew open. Surprise and embarrassment took equal possession of her features. The resulting color was rather intriguing.
“I knocked,” Janice protested.
He was pretty sure he hadn’t heard anyone knocking, but he gave her the benefit of the doubt. Because of where his office was located, he probably wouldn’t have heard the approach of the Four Horsemen, either.
“And then broke in?” he guessed.
“No,” she protested quickly. The color in her cheeks rose up another notch. “Your brother let me in.”
Both of his brothers were a bit too free about coming and going from his place, but then, he supposed he should count himself lucky. It could have been his mother and there would have been no end to her questions. To J.D.
“Which one?” he asked mildly.
“He said his name was Georges.” Curiosity got the better of her. “You have more than one?”
The shrug was careless. He wasn’t about to be sidetracked. “I like having a spare. What are you doing here?”
She heard the slight tone of irritation in his voice. Any apology she was about to tender vanished. He was on the offensive? He didn’t have the right to take the offensive. If anything, he was supposed to be on the defensive, explaining why he’d kept her dangling the way he had.
Janice forgot about being uncomfortable and invading the man’s space, and thought about being made to play hide and seek with her ever-growing stack of bills.
“I’m here to find out why you’re welching,” she said without preamble.
He stared at her, dumbfounded. “Welching?”
Okay, maybe that was a tad too harsh. She rephrased. “We had a deal, remember?”
“Yes, of course I remember. Frankly, I was wondering why you hadn’t gotten started.” He’d been too bogged down with a glitch in the program to notice during the day, but at night it would hit him that she hadn’t called or shown up. By the time it registered, it was always too late for him to call and investigate.
She stared at him incredulously. He was serious. Either that or playing her for a fool. For the moment, she ignored the latter and began to talk to him as if he were mentally challenged. “I can’t get started until you tell me what you picked out.”
His response told her that she’d guessed correctly. The man had no clue. “Picked out?”
“The tile,” she prompted. “Picked out the tile.” She didn’t see a light dawning in his eyes. How could he be that obtuse?
Again, Philippe shrugged. The mundane had little hold on him. “I don’t know. I thought you were supposed to handle all that. I was okay with the drawings,” he reminded her.
That was for the redesign of the kitchen and the bathrooms. That didn’t take any of the materials into account.
“Yes, you were,” she enunciated each word slowly, “but I don’t know what color you want. What kind of cabinets you’d like to put in or even what kind of tile you want me to use.”
He looked at her for a long moment, as if the words were slipping into his brain one at a time and he was processing them. “Tile comes in kinds?”
Having dealt with this world all of her life, it was impossible for Janice to imagine that anyone was ignorant of this sort of thing. Especially anyone who appeared to be intelligent. “Have you even been to a tile store?”
“No.”
“Okay, baby steps,” she murmured, more to herself. She made a spur of the moment decision. “All right, I’ll take you.” She just needed to call home and make sure that Gordon wasn’t about to run off somewhere and forget that he had a niece to watch over.
Zabelle still didn’t seem to be following her. “Take me where?”
“To a tile store.”
Or two or three, she added silently, keeping that to herself. She guessed that if the man were told that this was a process that took most people several afternoons, he would balk and make excuses why he couldn’t go.
His eyes narrowed. It didn’t look encouraging. “When?”
“Now.” It was half a query, half a direct order.
He shook his head. “I can’t go now. I’m in the middle of something.”
“How long before you’re not in the middle of something?” she asked.
Philippe thought for a second. The deadline had been moved just yesterday. He’d never been comfortable about rushing through a project. That was his name on the cover and his reputation meant a great deal to him. “End of November.”
Janice looked at him, stunned. November was three months away. She couldn’t stretch things out until then. “Look, if you’re trying to break the contracts—”
“Go with the lady,” Georges said, picking that moment to walk in. “A few hours away from the drawing board might recharge your batteries.”
Philippe began to protest that Georges didn’t know what he was talking about. Georges was a doctor, not a designer. He had no idea what was involved in the process. But then he shrugged. The sooner he agreed and got this over with, the sooner the woman would be busy working and out of his hair.
He looked at J.D. “How fast can you get me there?” he wanted to know.
He’d done a one-eighty so fast, she felt as if she’d just sustained a severe case of whiplash. “Fast,” she volunteered. Then, because she sensed he’d appreciate it, added, “But I’ll try not to break any speed limits.” As she spoke, she reached for her car keys and headed toward the front door. Turning, she nodded at Georges, silently thanking him.
He winked at her in reply.
Definitely less family resemblance than more, she decided.
