скачать книгу бесплатно
“Can we talk?” he asked as she took her first sip.
A slight frown beetled his brow but this time she didn’t think for even a moment that he was referring to talking about what had happened fourteen years ago. Instead she was reasonably certain the house and what was going on with it was more what he had in mind.
Chloe stepped out of the way of the door as an invitation. “Looks like we’d better,” she said, pointedly glancing at the disarray of the living room that the front door opened into.
Reid accepted the invitation, closing the door behind himself. When he had, he nodded in the same direction. “Luke and I have been working on the place.”
“So I understand. I just got off the phone with Betty. She tells me you plan to work here all week.”
“Yeah, that was the plan.”
“And since you saw me get dropped off here last night you thought maybe you should be a little nicer to me so I’d agree to let you go through with it.”
“Actually, no,” he said very matter-of-factly. “When I saw Molly drop you off here last night I went in and kicked the couch and cussed for a while. It wasn’t until after that that I decided—and not because of the remodel plan, but for other reasons—that I needed to come over this morning and start again. So, let me do that by backing up and asking if you’re okay. Physically.”
“I’m fine.”
“Seriously? Because I can’t say that was the best exam I’ve ever done and by now the doc from Billings who’s filling in for me this week should be at the hospital. He could do a recheck. I wouldn’t have to have anything to do with it.”
“Seriously, I’m fine. I was stiff when I got out of bed, but even that’s better.”
“No bruises that appeared overnight? No abdominal pain? No nausea? No headache or neckache? No difficulty breathing when you went to bed or going up or down the stairs? No—”
“No nothing. I’m fine and I don’t need the Billings doctor to confirm that. I was probably not even going ten miles an hour when I hit that pole. If the cop hadn’t insisted, I wouldn’t have gone in to a hospital at all.”
Reid nodded slowly, as if he wanted to believe her reassurance but was still skeptical.
Then he said, “If you’re absolutely sure you’re all right, then it’s a relief. I’m ordinarily not that lousy a doctor.”
“You were pretty lousy,” Chloe couldn’t resist confirming just because it was obviously bothering him and she thought she’d earned at least that much retribution for his bad attitude the previous evening.
“And,” he continued, “I should have asked where you were staying, I should have offered you a ride to wherever you needed to go. I was a jerk.”
“Yes, you were.”
“But this isn’t easy for me. You have to know that.”
“It isn’t easy for me, either,” she countered quietly, somberly.
That seemed to bring about a stalemate and silence reigned for longer than Chloe was comfortable with.
When she got too uncomfortable, she ended it.
“So, you’re really needing to work here this week,” she said to get back on the track they were both better able to deal with.
“I’m afraid I do. Northbridge has some support medical staff, but I’m the only doctor in town. I don’t get a lot of vacations and when I do take one, it’s complicated and really tough to back out on after everything has been set into motion. And our renters really need to get in as soon as it’s humanly possible, and we’ve promised that the minute we close the place it will be ready for them. I know it’s inconvenient for you, but Betty didn’t say anything about you coming—”
“Betty didn’t know.”
“Well, we’re in a bind.”
Guess you shouldn’t have been so contrary to me…
It was on the tip of Chloe’s tongue but she didn’t say it. After all, his scorn of the night before wasn’t altogether uncalled for. And if accommodating the work he needed to get done on the house would put that scorn and contempt in check so she didn’t have to deal with it while she was in Northbridge, she knew it was for the best.
“It looks like you’d be mainly working downstairs,” she said with a question in her tone.
“I would be.”
“I suppose I should have let Betty know I’d decided to do it, but I came to go through the stuff in the attic. I need to know what should be moved and what can just be thrown out. But with you down here and me up there, there would be a whole floor between us so maybe we wouldn’t get in each other’s way.”
“We probably wouldn’t.”
“I guess it might be okay,” she finally concluded, sounding hesitant, but less hesitant than she felt.
“I appreciate that,” he said. Although getting what he wanted seemed to be double-edged.
Then he added, “If you are feeling all right, I’ll leave and give you a little breathing room to get your day started. There are some supplies I need to pick up at the hardware store and I won’t be losing much time if I come back in a couple of hours.”
“That would be good,” Chloe said.
“Okay then.”
Reid hadn’t moved more than a few steps from the door and he retraced those steps to open it again.
But before he went outside, he hesitated and glanced back at her from over one big, broad shoulder. “You’re sure you don’t have any signs of physical problems from the accident?”
“Positive.”
He nodded but his gaze remained on her anyway for another moment before he actually did go out and close the door behind him.
Leaving Chloe with the image of his face branded on her brain as if it were the first time she’d ever seen him.
The image of a bone structure that fourteen years had honed to look as if it had been carved out of Italian marble, complete with high cheekbones that dropped to hollow cheeks, which gave him a rugged, outdoorsy appearance. A rugged, outdoorsy appearance enhanced by a jaw that was sharply defined and his mink-colored hair that was cut very short and left bristly all over.
The image of a straight, square forehead, and an aquiline nose that was only slightly long and added to the manly appeal of a face that was undeniably one of the most handsome she’d ever seen. The image of lips that were thin enough to be masculine and still full enough to be sensual. Of great eyes that were vibrant green tinged with only a hint of blue around the edges.
Deep, penetrating, intelligent eyes that had once been warm, caring and sensitive rather than cold, remote, guarded and wary as they had been last night and again this morning even in the midst of making peace.
No, seeing Reid, being in the same house with him, putting up a good front, wasn’t going to be easy.
But even more difficult for her, Chloe thought, was resisting the urge to do something—anything—to make those eyes look at her the way they had so long ago, rather than the way they looked at her now.
Chapter Three
Chloe wasn’t sure exactly what time Reid returned that afternoon. When he wasn’t there by one-thirty she left a note propped against the outside of the front door telling him to just come in without ringing the bell because she might be on the phone. Then she went upstairs to her bedroom and called the rental car company where she’d encountered only problems.
But sometime during the two hours she was on the phone and mostly waiting, she heard water run downstairs and realized that Reid actually had come back.
And knowing that gave her conflicting emotions.
On the one hand it made her tense.
On the other hand, she became aware of a tiny flicker of excitement that she tried to expunge by concentrating on the difficulties she was having on the telephone.
But despite the fact that the difficulties were many and varied, they didn’t dim that flicker that was still alive at four o’clock when she finally got off the phone.
Four o’clock was a late start on the attic and the thought of Reid being nearby made her consider not doing any work at all today.
Maybe she should just go downstairs to say hello, she thought.
And get another glimpse of him.
It was tempting. It could even be her contribution to the truce, she told herself.
But she knew she was only making excuses to see him and that that was not an inclination she should give in to. So, in the end, she decided that a late start was better than no start and went to the attic.
What she found there was hardly what she expected. She hadn’t realized that her parents had accumulated—and left—quite that much stuff. Boxes upon boxes upon boxes were filled to the spilling point. There were two old trunks that were equally as packed, and an ancient bureau, a matching armoire and an aged wooden icebox that were all crammed full, too.
Plus the entire attic was covered in cobwebs and dust that made Chloe sneeze and warned her that the first thing she needed to do was clean away some of the yuck before she’d be able to spend the hours and hours it was going to require for her to sort through so much.
Luckily the old vacuum cleaner her parents had left in case the renters didn’t have one was still in the hall closet of the second floor. It was also fortunately in working order.
She dragged it to the attic and went about the first order of business—cleaning enough to be able to stand it up there, firmly setting her thoughts to that rather than to Reid.
At least as much as possible knowing all the while that he was just downstairs….
It took the rest of the day and well into the evening before the attic and the surfaces of what was stored there were cobweb-, dust-and spider-free. Only when Chloe was done did she realize that the daylight that had been coming in through the octagonal windows at either end of the attic had disappeared and left only darkness outside.
And for no reason she understood, Reid was the first thing to pop into her mind again when it occurred to her that the day was gone.
With the second floor between them, she hadn’t been able to hear anything, so she wondered if he was still downstairs or if he’d wrapped up his work for the day and left. Without a word to her.
And while she knew that was what she should be hoping for, as she turned off the bare bulbs that lit the attic and descended the narrow staircase to the second level, she wasn’t hoping for that. Although she wasn’t sure what she was hoping for…
Just in case he might still be there, she made a pit stop in her bedroom and the bathroom connected to it. The sweatsuit she’d put on earlier was covered in grime. Though she’d worn the less-than-attractive outfit so as not to run the risk of appearing as if she cared how she looked to Reid, she was secretly happy for the excuse to change and shed the sweats quickly, replacing them with jeans and a turtleneck T-shirt she tucked into them.
Then she went into the bathroom, washed her face, applied a hint of mascara and blush she’d also forgone earlier, and brushed out her hair. If she went downstairs and discovered Reid was long gone and she was alone, she was going to feel ridiculous for doing it all.
She was spared that, though. Because when she went down the second set of stairs, there was Reid, drying off a paintbrush.
“I didn’t know if you were still here or not,” Chloe said to announce herself, taking instant stock of him.
He was dressed in the same jeans and T-shirt he’d been wearing early that morning and there was a shadow of a beard darkening the lower half of that face that she wanted to study but knew she shouldn’t. The shadow of a beard that gave him a scruffy, sexy appeal he would never have had at eighteen when there was too much of the boy still on the surface.
“I just wrapped it up for the day,” he answered, his tone again amiable, if slightly restrained.
But then, as if he couldn’t maintain that restraint, he nodded in the direction of the kitchen and said, “There’s nothing to eat around here. What were you thinking about for dinner?”
“I hadn’t thought about it yet,” she admitted. Which was true. She’d eaten before leaving Billings the night before, assuming she would do a grocery run today. But without a car and feeling a bit too wobbly to walk to Main Street, she’d lunched on the cheese crackers she’d brought with her. Then she’d been too busy fighting with the rental agency, cleaning the attic and thinking about Reid to consider what she was going to do for the evening meal.
“No car, no food in the house—how about ordering a pizza?” Reid said. “Paul’s delivers now. It’s one of Northbridge’s flashy new amenities. I’ll even treat.”
“Really?” Chloe was so surprised by that offer that the word slipped out on its own. She just couldn’t believe he was asking her to have dinner.
“Really,” Reid confirmed. “We can do that, can’t we? After all this time? Share a friendly pizza? It shouldn’t be a big deal, should it?”
It probably shouldn’t have been. But it was. At least to Chloe. It was a big deal that he was suggesting it, that he was willing to do it. And it was a big deal that she would be spending some time with him when he was making an effort to be pleasant. When he was likable. When he looked the way he did even in clothes that had paint smudges on them….
“Sure,” she said after another moment’s hesitation. “I think we can share a pizza. We’re two grown up, civilized people.” Who were both obviously only tentatively feeling their way along what was a new path for them.
“Let’s do it then,” he said. “Do you still want ‘The Works’ or have you gone vegetarian or something?”
Chloe knew from their high school days that the only pizzeria in town—Paul’s Pizzeria—made a pie called The Works and that it was a large pizza topped with pepperoni, sausage, seasoned ground beef, black olives, mushrooms, green peppers, onions and three different kinds of cheese. It had been their favorite and at that moment it sounded wonderful.
“No, I haven’t gone vegetarian or anything. The Works would be great,” she said.
Reid set his paintbrush and rag down, then retrieved his cell phone from the pocket of his jean jacket where it was slung over the carpet roll. It took him only a few moments to order. He clearly recognized Paul’s voice, identified himself, and said he wanted The Works sent to the rental house. In Northbridge everyone knew everyone else’s business so intimately that that was all the information necessary.
Then Reid hung up. “We’re all set. Luke and I have the fridge stocked with sodas and beer. Which would you like?”
Before Chloe could tell him, his cell phone rang.
“Why don’t you tell me what you want and I’ll get drinks while you answer that?” Chloe said.
“Soda is fine for me,” he said by way of conceding the logic in that idea.
Chloe couldn’t help overhearing the conversation as she took two colas from the refrigerator. While the tone was medical, there was something else about the exchange that sparked her interest.
When the call ended she went as far as the archway between the living room and the kitchen with cans in hand and said, “Linoleum or paint-splotched carpeting?” Since there weren’t any chairs anywhere they would need to sit on the floor of one room or the other.
“Paint-splotched carpeting,” he decreed, motioning for her to sit in the very center where the least of the splatters marred the olive green shag floor covering.
Chloe sat with her legs curled to one side, watching as Reid returned his phone to his coat pocket, and trying—really, really trying—not to watch him do it and notice that even his derriere had improved with age.
“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your call but…well, I did anyway. Do you deal in blood that isn’t human?” she asked, referring to something she’d overheard him say.
He didn’t join her on the floor. Instead, he went to stand with his back braced against the door, raising a knee so that the sole of one cowboy-booted foot was flat against the wooden panel. Then he slid his hands into the rear pockets that she’d been attempting not to look at a split second before.
“Remember the stories that have been around forever about Reverend Perry’s wife?” Reid asked rather than giving her a direct answer about the blood.
“The scandal about her helping two itinerant farmhands rob the bank and running off with them?” Chloe said with intrigue in her tone.
“That would be the story, yes.”
It was one of the biggest scandals to ever hit Northbridge. It had happened in 1960. Celeste Perry had reputedly grown weary of her righteous life as the wife of the town minister and the mother of their two young sons. She’d become enamored of one of two hard-living, hard-drinking farmhands—Frank Dorian and Mickey Rider—who had come into town during harvest season. On a night at the end of that October she’d slipped out of her marital bed to meet up with her lover and his partner. Later investigation had revealed that her lover and his partner were bank robbers rather than migrant farm workers, and after breaking into Northbridge’s only Savings and Loan and its vault, and cleaning out all the money they could carry, the reverend’s wife and the two men had disappeared.
“Is Reverend Perry still around?” Chloe asked, not only because she was curious, but also because it helped to have something to talk about that was completely separate from either of them and their own past problems, and she wanted to prolong it.
