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“Allison,” she said, offering her hand.
Kyle took it, liking the way her handshake was firm and professional. “That’s, ahem, an interesting retelling, Allison,” he said. “I’ve never heard that version before. How do you know so much about Belle Paix?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “Family stories.”
“Oh, gossip, then. I thought you had access to some primary sources that I wasn’t familiar with—”
“Not gossip.” Now the smile retreated, and Allison’s chin lifted. “I guess you historical types would call it oral history. They’re the same tales my grandmother told me, the ones her mother told her—passed down. Plus there’s a set of journals.”
“Journals?” Kyle’s brain buzzed as the possibility of a new, undiscovered set of turn-of-the-century documents brought up all sorts of ideas. “You have journals?”
But Allison pushed past him and opened Belle Paix’s wrought-iron gate. “Sure, Davinia had to do something with her time once she married money and became a lady of leisure. She’d grown up dirt poor, with ten brothers and sisters, so she was used to hard work. But Gran’s made it clear that the journals are private, for family only. And as for how I know about the house, I grew up here.”
The gate clanged shut, and Allison strode up the walk away from them. Halfway up, she paused and turned around.
“I don’t mean to be standoffish, and it wouldn’t bother me at all, but Gran doesn’t much care for trespassers. You can take all the pictures you want from the street, but she’d be mad if you put so much a pinky toe this side of the fence, okay?”
Allison didn’t wait for their reply. Instead, she continued up the walkway, bounced up the steps, paused at the dark mahogany double doors with their arched glass inserts, and swung one open. It soon thudded shut behind her, leaving Kyle tantalized and frustrated. He’d not gotten so much as a peek inside the house, and it didn’t seem as if that would change anytime soon.
* * *
ALLISON PEEKED OUT the door’s beveled glass pane and saw to her satisfaction that Kyle Mitchell and his historical house fans were staying put on the street side of the fence. Good. She wouldn’t have to confess to Gran that she’d let an interloper in, although he’d seemed respectful enough.
He’d surprised her when he’d said was a professor. Obviously, professors could come in all shapes and sizes, but Kyle Mitchell landed closer to the more outdoorsy and overtly masculine end of the spectrum than the tweed-jacket stereotype. Dark blond hair cut short, tanned, with a big wide smile...
She squinted to spy some more. He was tall—a good head taller than her, so that meant he had to be well over six feet, since she was five foot seven. And yeah, he was wearing a jacket, but it was a navy one that fit him well.
A flying fur bullet zoomed from behind her, probably from the formal front stairs, and landed at her feet, yowling. Allison jumped, still not entirely used to Cleo’s ninja ways. The Siamese wound around Allison’s bare legs, then must have realized those legs didn’t belong to Gran. She backed up, sat down and glared at Allison.
Allison let her heart settle into a more predictable rhythm before attempting to pet the cat, which skulked backward.
“Cleo...” She knelt down and crooned, the way Gran always did with the stubborn feline. “It’s been a month and a half. You have to trust me. I’ll get Gran back home as soon as I can.”
But the cat, from all appearances, remained unconvinced. She turned and stalked off toward the dining room, her seal point tail hiked high with disdain. She would accept food and water from Allison, and sometimes, when she got desperate, would snuggle up at the foot of Allison’s bed. But that was only after she’d kept her awake half the night, yowling piteously for Gran.
“Hey! I miss her, too!” Allison called after the cat.
Good grief. I’m getting more and more like Gran every day. This house will send me to the loony bin.
No point in wasting time wondering when insanity would make its appearance. Allison had planned to rip out the carpet in the dining room this morning, and she still had time to get it done before her afternoon visit with Gran.
The carpet was the reason Gran was in rehab to begin with. The seam at the dining room and library had raveled, and Gran had caught her shoe in it.
Allison crossed the length of the long hall, the formal stairs rising above her in a graceful curve. She stood in the dining room doorway, surveying what had to be done.
Before she could rip out the carpet—a Mamie Eisenhower pink design, which Gran had laid in the dining room and library in the early 1950s, after she’d married Pops—Allison had to move a few things.
Starting with Cleo, who’d taken a seat on the dining table and was grooming one long, slender hind leg. The feline paused, gave Allison a mild hiss with no bite to it and succumbed to the inevitable—she knew she wasn’t supposed to be on the table. That taken care of, Allison went upstairs to change into jeans and a T-shirt, determined to get the carpet ripped out before she visited Gran.
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_b25c03a5-419f-5293-8f2e-d95f654099bc)
AN HOUR LATER, however, Allison was completely stymied. She’d been able to move the heavy, ornate dining chairs, original to the house, and even the table. She’d managed to move the marble-topped sideboard with no disasters, save for scaring one of Cleo’s remaining lives out of her when the handcart fell over with a bang.
But the china cabinet, even with all the dishware removed and put on the kitchen table, even with the little Teflon slides she’d bought for the purpose, was not cooperating.
Allison rubbed her eyes and glowered at the hulking piece of mahogany that remained the last obstacle between her and an empty dining room. Who could she call in the middle of the day to help her move the thing?
The phone rang in the kitchen. She worked her way around the dining room chairs and sideboard she’d temporarily shoved into the kitchen, then stretched across stacks of her great-grandmother’s 1920s formal china and plucked the phone off its hook on the fourth ring.
“Thomas residence,” Allison said, as she managed to rescue a wobbling soup bowl. “Oh!”
“Pardon?” a male voice on the other end asked.
“Sorry, just a disaster averted. I almost broke a J & G Meakin 1920s bowl. Last time I did that I was ten, and in trouble for a week.”
A warm, rich chuckle came over the line. “That’s good. That you didn’t break it, I mean. I’m Kyle Mitchell. We met earlier, I think, if you’re Allison.”
His voice, still brimming with amusement, made her temporarily forget her bone-deep weariness. She pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and collapsed in it. “Yes. I hope I didn’t come across as rude this morning. Some years ago, my grandmother made the mistake of allowing the house to be photographed for a field guide of old homes, and after it came out, she had a flurry of people knocking on her door, thinking the house was open to the public.”
“Perfectly understandable. Listen, I just wanted to extend an invitation to you. Our historical preservation society meets once a month, and I thought you might be interested in joining us this Thursday evening.”
That voice... Over the phone, with nothing to distract her from its smooth baritone, Allison soaked in its resonance, its hint of good-natured humor. For a moment, she was tempted—not just by his voice, but her memory of him on the sidewalk. Kyle Mitchell had looked friendly enough earlier, and totally unlike her memories of the typical historical society members who’d visited with Gran during Allison’s teen years. Maybe it would be nice to meet some folks in Lombard who weren’t ten years past retirement age.
The stacks of china and the glut of furniture in the kitchen reminded her of her priorities. “I don’t know. I’m a little busy now—Gran’s in a rehab facility and I’m trying to get the place in shape for her to come home.”
“Oh, well, of course.” His voice dimmed with just enough disappointment to be flattering. It made her wish she’d said yes. “If you need some help or advice, just let me know. I love working on old houses.”
Allison snorted, startling Cleo, who’d curled up atop the fridge. “You must be a masochist, that’s all I can say. Right now I’m trying to rip up old carpet, and really struggling to move a china cabinet. You don’t know of any moving companies that would send out someone, do you?”
“Not a moving company...but I’ll help. I don’t have to teach classes today, so I’d be glad to. I know how heavy those things can be.”
“Oh—I wasn’t hinting—”
“No, no. Give me ten minutes. That okay?”
“Thanks! I won’t say no.”
Ten minutes later, she opened the door to see Kyle. He’d ditched the jacket and button-down for a T-shirt that, unlike hers, was clean and dust free. Automatically, she realized what a fright she must look like.
“I’ve been—”
“Working. No problem. Anybody who does anything on an old house knows it’s a dirty job. Lead me to this china cabinet.”
But Kyle stopped short in the front hall. He stared up at the ornate cornices and moldings, at the staircase, then craned his neck to see in the front parlor. Allison tried to view the home as he must, but she was at a disadvantage, having grown up here.
He grinned. “This blows me away. A perfect example of a side-hall Second Empire. So often these old houses have been wrecked inside—too many ‘modern’ improvements.” He shook his head.
“Right. Luckily, our family’s motto has always been ‘If it was good enough for Ambrose, it’s good enough for us,’” Allison told him. “Hardly anything has changed.”
Just then, Cleo zipped past Kyle with a yowl, and Allison warned, “You’d better watch out. She always makes a return trip.”
“Wow. That’s—”
“Ninja cat.” Allison moved on to the dining room and swept a hand around. “As you can see, one of the few things that Gran did change was to put carpet in the downstairs.”
“Get a load of that pink. Now that is pure, bona fide original, Mamie Eisenhower pink.”
“Yeah. I don’t quite think that shade was what Pops had in mind when he told her to order it—”
“I don’t see why not. That was every woman’s dream color in 1954.” Kyle stepped into the dining room, gawked at the floor-to-ceiling bay window with its intricate cornices, and turned around to take in the space. His eyes lit on the chore before them: the hulking, huge china cabinet.
“Oookay.” He shook his head. “That cabinet took a small forest of mahogany to build.” He crossed the room and slid his palm against its smooth dark wood. “This is late Victorian? Is it original to the house?”
“Yep. Bought brand-spanking-new in 1888 and shipped all the way from Philadelphia. Like I said, what was good enough for Ambrose...”
Kyle caressed the mahogany, then trailed a finger down the intricately carved panels alongside the breakfront. She couldn’t help but notice his large, strong hands, with neatly trimmed nails. They seemed more suited to handling an ax than a professor’s red pen.
He glanced up at her, the amusement in his voice now crinkling the corners of his eyes. “They did believe if one carved flower or cherub was good, two would be better, didn’t they? When I offered to help, I was thinking of a china cabinet built in the thirties or forties, a colonial reproduction. Maybe I was a bit ambitious and rash in my offer. I mean, I do work out a little, but...”
Ah, yes, the evidence of that was right before her eyes. Kyle’s T-shirt couldn’t hide nicely defined biceps and a well-constructed chest. Whatever he was doing in the way of weightlifting was working well. Allison grinned, glad for his muscles to assist her with this job. “If you can help me move this, I think you can skip working out for a week. Or three.”
“So what was your plan? Originally, I mean?” he asked her, his eyes back on the heavy Victorian china cabinet, which was a good eight feet tall.
She walked over to stand beside him. Her hands, too, traced the smooth dark finish. Maybe it wasn’t to her taste, but she could admire the craftsmanship that some gifted cabinetmaker had poured into his labors, and she liked how Kyle could appreciate it, as well. “I didn’t think I had a prayer of moving it very far, but hoped that I could shift it enough to take the carpet off the nail strip behind it, cut the piece out, then move the cabinet back. Most things I can at least wiggle and wobble. But that critter? Uh-uh.”
“It’s not fastened to the wall, is it? For support?” Kyle bent to examine the rear panel.
“No. I know Gran has had it moved before—you know, for carpet cleaning. It was a bear then.”
He turned around, studied the room again and nodded slowly. “I think your plan is the best one. So how about this? Why don’t we start ripping up the carpet, get it all torn out except for under the cabinet, and then use a piece of the discard upside down to protect the floor? That will make the cabinet easier to shift into place, too.”
“Ahh.” Allison smiled in appreciation. “That’s a brilliant tweak to my plan. I was worried about scarring the floor. I have no idea what sort of shape it’s in, but I didn’t want to add work. However...”
“You see a problem?”
“I’m all for free labor, but you didn’t sign on to help me rip out carpet.”
“Hey, I’m curious. I want to see what that atrocious carpet is hiding. Unless...are you too tired? You’ve been moving all this furniture this morning. Maybe you want a break?”
Allison chuckled. “We Shepherd women never tire. We have Davinia’s blood in us. If you’re game, I’m game. It’s not often I get a sucker to help me out.”
Soon after cutting, yanking and tugging, they both oohed and ahhed as Allison rolled back a swath of the Mamie pink to reveal the heart pine floor.
“A good cleaning and a coat of wax, and this will be good as new,” Kyle said, clearly admiring the dusty but still intact planks.
“And nothing for Gran to trip over.” Allison knelt beside him and skimmed the satin smooth surface of the wood with her index finger. “It’s definitely pretty. The upstairs floors aren’t nearly in this good a shape.”
“This is the original? From when the house was built?” After her nod, he said in a low voice, “Almost a crime to have covered this up in the first place.”
She frowned and sat back. “I don’t think it’s so bad to make a house your own. I mean, like you said, in 1954 it was every woman’s dream color. Gran didn’t have her own house, and this was her way of making it hers and new and modern.”
“If you’d seen some of the hideous updates I’ve witnessed, you’d understand what I meant,” Kyle said. “At least this was carpet and not permanent. The worst I saw was when someone decided they didn’t like their oak because it wasn’t ‘uniform’ in color, so they poured concrete over it to transform it into a really bad do-it-yourself terrazzo. Didn’t even try to salvage the old floor. Awful.”
Irritation pulled at Allison. She tried to smother it, tried to attribute it to the fact that she’d been working like a dog almost the entire morning and was tired, hungry and dirty. Kyle was helping her. She shouldn’t be annoyed with him.
But then he added, “Yeah, people don’t know what they have with these old homes. They just don’t appreciate them properly.”
“Oh, really,” she snapped. “I know what I’ve got on my hands—a huge old place that’s two times the size Gran needs, filled with plumbing and wiring that are obsolete and that I can’t get anyone to work on.”
He held up both hands. “Easy, easy. I live in an old house myself—a Sears kit home built in 1926. So I know how aggravating living in an old house can be.”
She rolled her eyes. “Ha. You’ve got a house fifty years younger than this one...and think what technological innovations came in that half century. Electricity. Plumbing. Real, modern plumbing. And drywall. An amazing invention, drywall.”
“Okay. Truce. I can see you love the old place,” he said. “Now how about we finish this job?”
“Sorry. I get so frustrated with this house. I want it safe and nice for Gran. That’s all. And here I am, chewing on the nice guy who got roped into more than he offered.” She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Gran would not have approved of how rude Allison had been. Even when her grandmother was telling someone off, she did it with impeccable manners.
Kyle laid a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. People are allowed one meltdown per afternoon when they’re renovating a house over a century old. And I’ll spot you a bonus daily mini-tantrum, since Belle Paix was built before the turn of the century.”
Allison smiled, warmed by his good nature, and patted his hand.
An hour later they returned from dumping the last section of carpet by the side street bin. Allison stood beside Kyle as they stared at the big china cabinet, still in its original place.
“Are you sure,” she asked, “you don’t have a bunch of historical committee buddies just like you? You know, with strong backs and accommodating ways regarding free labor?”
The corners of his mouth quirked. “Sorry, no. Looks like it’s just you and me.”
“Good thing we’ve got a great team approach going, then. Let’s do this.”
Allison watched, her breath catching, as the ropy muscles in Kyle’s arms flexed when he used the hand truck to lever up his end of the cabinet. Would they be able to move it?
“How am I doing?” he asked.
She pressed her hands against her side. “Good—careful! Careful! It’s wobbling—not so high!”
Kyle didn’t argue, but lowered it. “Better?”
“Yep! Thanks for not arguing—most guys would.”
His breath came in a grunt of effort as he walked the end of cabinet the few inches to the carpet strip. “No point. Saving. My. Breath.”
Finally, after a few more near misses, the cabinet was on the scrap of carpet. Allison knelt in the close confines between it and the wall to start the task of ripping up the last section. She jumped when Kyle squeezed by her.
“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Here, let me give you a hand.”
His nearness seemed to cause her fingers to slip. All she could focus on was his scent, clean and crisp and slightly citrusy. She stared down at the carpet and tried to smother a helpless little laugh at how such a small thing rattled her.
“Having trouble?” he asked. Without another word, he leaned over her to tackle the carpet edge. Of course, it came loose without any hesitation, and she felt her cheeks flare doubly hot. “I think I got lucky,” Kyle told her.
