His Perfect Family

“Mr. Matchett?” she repeated. There was just a hint of the South in her voice.

“I was checking the direction of the floor joists,” he said calmly. He gave a rap on the floor and cocked his head, pretending to listen for a hollow ring. Thank God this section of her bedroom was directly over the pantry downstairs.

“Oh.”

He stuck his head back into the closet and began to pound some more, his heart drumming in his ears just as loudly. What in the hell was she doing home! He was disgusted with himself for being caught in such a foolish position. That little weasel Round had said she worked at the bank from eight to five and the daughter didn’t get home from school until at least four-thirty. He was getting lazy and sloppy in his old age, and he cursed himself. In the good old days, it would have been a bullet in the back instead of her soft touch on his spine.

He could still feel a leftover tingle where her fingers had rested. An icy little blonde, Round had said, yet he had burned right through, head to toe, when he’d looked at her. Fire, not ice. He shifted his shoulders, trying to shake off the odd sensation. She was the mark, honey eyes or not

Adrianne stared at the back of Cutter Matchett’s jeans sticking from her closet. It was difficult to have a conversation in this position, she decided, so she said nothing, still disconcerted by the long, cool look he’d just given her. And by her reaction to it. It had been rather like staring into the hypnotic eyes of a large predatory cat, she decided. You admired its grace, its power, all the time uneasily aware that the beast was wondering whether to eat you now or later. She found herself anxiously studying his trim behind while she waited for the rapping to stop.

Seconds later, the man sprang to his feet. “Got it.” He nodded to her crisply, then strode from the room, down the hallway toward the stairs without another word, leaving her to stare after him.

Well.

Slowly, she retraced her steps. She’d come home from her grocery-shopping trip to find his truck blocking her driveway and his tools in her kitchen, and she’d made a quick survey of the house until she’d found him in her bedroom. By the time she returned downstairs, he was already at work in the pantry, attacking the old shelves with a crowbar.

His back was to her, so she gave him a quick, surreptitious once-over from the safety of the doorway. Six foot and strong as an ox, if the way nails were popping was any indication. He wore tight, faded jeans and a black T-shirt that had been washed so many times she could see the lighter tint of his skin showing through at the shoulders. A battered tool belt hung around his hips, tugging at his jeans. His boots were sturdy-looking high-tops, laced with leather.

A man’s man, she thought. The type who would handle hammers, rifles, horses — women — with a relaxed yet firm grip. Good whiskey, rare steak, voluptuous blondes. So different from the men at the bank or Harvey’s professional friends, who monitored their cholesterol with religious fervor and could order quiche with a straight face. Not at all the type of man she was used to being around. She licked suddenly dry lips.

“Well, I better get the groceries out of the van.” She addressed his back and wasn’t surprised when there was no answer.

The paper bags were unloaded and groceries put away with no sound except the soft shutting of cupboard doors and the tortured noises coming from the pantry. She felt the urge to tiptoe and found herself holding her breath during any unexpected silences. This was ridiculous! The man was going to be in her house for the next two weeks. In her kitchen, which was where she and Lisa spent most of their time. She couldn’t very well pretend he wasn’t there. He was large, uncommunicative, intense, but that was no reason why she couldn’t be polite.

She marched over to the pantry and planted herself in the doorway. This was her house, after all, and no—no hunk with a hammer was going to intimidate her. “Is there anything I can do to help?” she asked.

He tore a two-by-four loose from the wall before he turned his head to consider her over his thick shoulder, the board in his hand studded with twisted nails like some medieval weapon. “Are you planning to be home all day today, Mrs. Rhodes?”

“It’s Adrianne, please.” She smiled.

He didn’t.

“I’m on vacation. I thought as long as the house would be a mess with the remodeling, it would be a good time to repaint the upstairs and do my spring-cleaning. The place hasn’t been painted since we bought it....” He watched her, unblinking, as she wound down. “So, uh, if you need me to run errands or anything, just let me know.”

His dark eyes were as unsettling now as before. She found herself studying his face as intently as he had hers. His dark hair was cut short, military short, and shot through with gray. The cut made his disturbing hooded eyes and heavy brows stand out and threw his straight nose into prominence. Extras in Mafia movies had faces like his. His jaw was determinedly square and drew attention to his lips, lips that curved in a smile that wasn’t really a smile. More like a mocking arc, but whether he laughed at her, himself or the world in general, she couldn’t tell. Whichever, it wasn’t very pleasant

Well, she was more than used to dealing with unpleasant people. As a loan officer, she dealt with them all the time. All you had to do was smile — always. The more unpleasant they became, the more pleasant you became. And you always, always, smiled.

She’d seen her mother do it every night of her childhood, those hot summer nights in Atlanta when the air was so wet and muggy you had to force it into your lungs. The more her father drank, the more Blanche would smile, the more gaily she would laugh as she’d take Adrianne into another room and shut the door tight and play dolls or dress-up or fairy princess.

So now she smiled politely at the man in her kitchen until he finally said, “I’D let you know if I need anything.”

“All right.”

He lifted the crowbar once again. Obviously, the conversation was over as far as he was concerned. And she felt nothing but relief. Ignoring him as best she could, she gathered her cleaning supplies and prepared to tackle the living room. She stood in the doorway, bucket in one hand, rag in the other, and took a deep breath. A strange sense of anticipation grew within her. As the weather had warmed, she’d felt an increasing need to — purge. She wanted everything around her clean and fresh and...hers. Just hers.

She wanted to wash away every fingerprint Harvey had ever put on the woodwork, pick up every piece of lint that had ever dropped from his pockets. She wanted to vacuum away the indentation of the policemen sitting on her sofa and that odious man from the insurance company, badgering her, looking at her with suspicious, disbelieving eyes while she insisted she didn’t know what they were talking about. She didn’t know anything about any twenty-five thousand dollars. Harvey hadn’t come home from the office that day. She’d never seen the money, never heard of the money; she had no idea what they were talking about.

She wanted it all gone.

So she started on the baseboards, wiping them clean. Next, she moved every piece of furniture and vacuumed underneath, took down the drapes, removed pictures from the walls, dusted the leaves of live plants and silk plants alike. Nothing was spared.

For three hours, she cleaned and scrubbed and polished until the living room shone in the sun that came through the curtainless, sparkling windows. And while she cleaned, she was aware of Cutter Matchett in the next room tearing her pantry apart.

She’d just decided to take a break for a cup of coffee when the vibrating sound of something being applied to what sounded like an essential part of her house had her edging toward the kitchen. She peered around the pantry door to find all the shelves gone, revealing a larger than expected room, and her carpenter using what looked like a giant jigsaw to cut a hole in the floor.

The vinyl shook under her feet until he finally removed his finger from the trigger. It took another moment for the noise to finish echoing in the enclosed room. He pulled his hammer from a loop on his tool belt and gave one quick, sharp blow to the floor. A neat square fell into the crawl space below.

“Mr. Matchett, would you like some coffee?”

He looked up at her, and she knew with a sudden certainty that he wanted to say no. He didn’t like her. He didn’t want coffee. He wanted nothing to do with her. But then his face closed, his dark eyes became even more shuttered and he nodded his head. “Thanks, that would be nice. And the name’s Cutter.”

She busied herself pouring coffee while he crossed the floor and settled himself at the table. She pulled out a chair and sat across from him, noting how unnaturally still he sat, his wide-palmed hands unmoving on the table. Now she regretted her impulsive decision to ask him to join her and his inexplicable change of mind. What kind of small talk could they possibly make for the next ten minutes?

Cutter took the matter out of her hands when he asked, “Was your husband Harvey Rhodes by any chance — the accountant?”

“Why, yes. Yes, he was.”

“A friend of mine recommended him at tax time last year. I was sorry to hear about the accident.”

“Thank you.”

“Must be tough. Had a friend whose husband died. No insurance. She’s still trying to recover.” He paused. “You must be doing okay, though. Able to do a little remodeling with the insurance money?”

Adrianne felt her lips compress and she took a quick sip of coffee. Harvey had canceled his life-insurance policy without consulting her. She’d had no idea until after his death that she’d have to handle the mortgage, Lisa’s college, everything from now on with just her salary and what they had in savings. She’d returned Cutter’s contract in the mail last week with a lump in her throat at the number on the bottom line. It would put a major dent in her savings account.

“We’re fine,” she said, not about to discuss her financial situation with this man. Instead, she said with all the politeness she could muster, “It’s almost lunchtime. Can I fix you something? A sandwich?”

So she wasn’t going to get cozy over a cup of coffee, Cutter thought, not really surprised. There were many women who, given the opening he’d given her, would have cussed their husband up one side and down the other for leaving no insurance. Told him all about it, with crocodile tears in their eyes, hoping to get him to cut his bill a little in sympathy.

But not our Southern beauty here. He was still trying to get used to the little jolt he felt each time those amber eyes lifted to his. He reminded himself of Marcia’s baby-blues. They’d cooed that same innocence — while she’d hidden a bottle under her pillow and a lover under her bed. Adrianne Rhodes had a honeyed drawl, honey hair, honey eyes, but underneath all that gold could easily beat a larcenous little heart.

“No, thanks,” he said to her offer of lunch, remembering the key he still had in his pocket. “I’ll —”

The front door burst open, and a teenager in black came into the kitchen, followed by an older woman.

“I’m starved. Lunch ready?”

“In a minute,” Adrianne replied. “Lisa, I want you to meet Cutter. Cutter, this is my daughter, Lisa, and my mother, Blanche Munro.”

He stood up to shake hands with the girl, noting her strawberry blond hair, freckles and stocky build. She took after her father, he decided.

He turned to the woman behind her, taking her hand. Now, here was a dame who knew how to play the game. She was obviously fighting the clock every step of the way, and it looked as if she won more often than not. He placed her in her midfifties, but she hardly looked older than his own forty, thanks to a great highlighting job and a fairly recent tuck around the eyes.

“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Munro Realty, by any chance?”

“Why, yes.” Her handshake was cool and firm.

“I’ve seen your signs here and there.”

The flirting smile Blanche had started to give him, woman to man, evaporated instantly. Her eyes were shrewd now, sizing up a potential client. “Are you in the market for a new home, Cutter?”

“Not right now.” Blanche’s accent was pure South, born and bred, he noted, while Lisa had the Arkansas twang of a native. A twang he’d spent the first six months in intelligence trying to lose.

“Do keep me in mind,” she said. “I’m sure I could find something you’d like.”

So, the grandma was sharp as nails under all that bleached hair, he thought. He filed away the information. It was too soon to know what was important and what wasn’t, so he treated every snippet, every impression, as if it were the key to the puzzle of the missing money.

“Darling, I see you’ve started your cleaning crusade already,” Blanche said, helping herself to the coffee. “How tiresome. I know I said I’d help, but I just had my nails done. Why you want to spend your vacation this way is beyond me.”

“I told you, you don’t have to help, Mother.”

“I’ll do my room myself, I promise,” Lisa chimed in. “Although this is not how my friends are spending their half-day off, trust me. Teacher’s workdays are supposed to be reserved for the mall.”

Cutter looked around the kitchen, bursting to the brim with chattering females. He suddenly longed for the days of smoky bars, coded greetings and silent black limos easing out of the mist. He sighed and unbuckled his tool belt, thinking dark thoughts about Jonathon Round and his insurance cases. Might as well go to lunch—in peace and quiet It was obvious he wasn’t going to get his hands in any more pantie drawers today.

Chapter Two

Cutter ladled gravy into the crater he’d made in a mountain of mashed potatoes. “So if I bring that three-quarter-inch copper across for the tub, I’ve got to drill through the joists.” He reached across to his father’s plate and poured a spoonful onto his similar mound, then carefully set the gravy boat with its delicate rose pattern on the tablecloth next to the peas.

“Sometimes that’s just the way it is with a remodel,” Peter Matchett told his son, waiting patiently while his wife cut his roast into bite-size pieces and buttered him a roll. “Reinforce it with plywood and it should be all right.”

“Who is it you’re doing this bathroom for, dear?” Mary Matchett asked as she bent over her husband’s plate.

“Her name’s Adrianne Rhodes, and she works at that bank over by the mall. Her husband was killed in a car crash last fall.”

“Well, now, that’s too bad.” His mother looked up, all innocence behind her gold wire glasses. “Is she nice?”

“Mm-hmm.”

“And how old is she?”

“Younger than me.”

“Do you like the daughter? Does she — ?”

“Mary!”

“Mother.”

Both men interrupted her at once. Cutter didn’t want his mother thinking along those lines at all. As if he could stop her. And as if his own thoughts hadn’t returned several times that evening to Adrianne Rhodes. It was hard not to remember her wide eyes when the gravy was the same rich, golden brown shade, and the butter melting in a pool on his roll looked as soft and yielding as her hair, and...

Ah, forget it, he was just hungry, he told himself with a mental shake as he attacked the potatoes. His head had been turned by a pretty girl before, and he had two very short, very crummy marriages to show for it. He wasn’t interested.

“I’m glad you’re keeping busy, that’s all,” his mother said, sliding into her own chair. “I was just telling your brother the other day... You know they made him produce manager over at the supermarket?”

“Yeah, you told me.”

“Tom’s been with them seven years, it’s about time they gave him his own department. Especially with Lucy expecting again. I swear, I always say it’s a good thing he works at a grocery store with all those mouths to feed.” She picked up her husband’s fork and helped him wrap his twisted fingers around the handle. “Anyway, I was telling him with business so good, it looked like you would probably stay around awhile —”

“Mom, I keep telling you, I’m not going anywhere.” Cutter kept his voice gentle. They’d been through this before. “I’ve been back two years now.”

“Goodness, has it been that long? Two years. My, my.” She shook out a napkin and draped it across her lap, protecting a dress sprinkled with a rose design almost identical to the gravy boat’s. “When’s the last time you stayed in one spot for two years? That city in Germany, wasn’t it, the one with the wall?”

“Berlin, Mary, for pete’s sake,” his father said gruffly.

“Well, of course I know it was Berlin. The name just slipped my mind, that’s all.”

Cutter smiled, savoring his mother’s pot roast and his father’s advice in equal measure. He’d missed both during those years in Berlin and Prague, Warsaw and Moscow. His mother was grayer now, and plumper, but she still cooked like an angel, dressed like June Cleaver and lived for her grandchildren, now that he and his brother were grown.

His father looked the same as ever, whip thin with a full head of coal black hair, wearing the matching khaki pants and shirt that had been his uniform for as long as Cutter could remember. His eyes were different, though. Years of pain had etched deep lines around them, drawing them back into his skull as if they could hide from it that way. And, then, of course, there were his hands.

Many a mission, as Cutter had raced against the clock to hot-wire a jeep or set the delicate timing device on an explosive, he’d remember his father’s capable hands. Hands that turned a screwdriver with swift, deft strokes to repair a toaster, hands that fixed a bike’s slipped chain or banged in just the right spot to get the old furnace wheezing again. Big, strong hands that patiently teased slivers from grimy small-boy fingers. Caring, loving hands that had fixed Cutter’s world.

And all the time, as Cutter slunk through the alleys of those ancient capitals, he’d thought he was fixing something, too. He’d thought he was saving the world for democracy, making it a better place. The meat in his mouth turned dry, as tough and hard as he felt inside. His eyes flicked to his father’s gnarled fingers, the joints swollen and twisted, so tortured by arthritis they couldn’t even pick up a screwdriver, let alone use it. As useless in the end as Cutter and all those dark alleys.

“I’m just glad Cutter’s home where he belongs,” his mother said. “You know, sweetheart, your father and I aren’t getting any younger.”

“Speak for yourself, old woman. I’ve still got some kick in me yet” His father wagged his thick eyebrows at her. “In fact, I’ve got my eye on one of those exercise contraptions that’ll give you abs of steel in only six weeks. Oprah had a whole show on ’em. Abs of steel, that’s what it said.”

His mother sniffed. “That’s just what you need, all right.” She laid down her fork and steepled her fingers in that way she had. “But I wanted to talk to Cutter about...” She hesitated.

Cutter stopped eating with a strange sense of foreboding. “What is it, Mom?”

“It’s just things are getting to be a bit much for your father and me.”

“Now, Mary, this isn’t the time to be going into all that. Let the boy eat his meal in peace and quiet.”

“Take this house, for instance. The yard went to rack and ruin last year. I couldn’t seem to keep on top of it — that’s all I’m saying.”

“You know I’ll be glad to help out,” Cutter said. “Why don’t you write up a list of chores that are bothering you and I’ll get started on them this week?”

“That’s sweet of you, dear, but your father and I have been thinking about —”

“What’s for dessert?” his father interrupted with a joviality so forced Cutter wondered whom he thought he was fooling. “I’ve been smelling apple pie all afternoon.”

His mother’s smile was thin as she pushed back her chair. “Tom brought over some apples this morning that the store marked down. They had some bruises but were still nice and sweet.” She got up and moved toward the kitchen.

His father had obviously won this round. Now, if Cutter only knew what war he was in the middle of. He ate his pie, all the time watching his parents carefully, his unease growing. He didn’t like mysteries this close to home.

Adrianne had offered to run errands, and he took her up on it, sending her after parts the next morning — from a lumberyard on the other side of town. It would take her two hours to fight her way across the city and back, and he used that time to finish his search of her bedroom — before she started her cleaning frenzy in there.

He’d never seen anyone clean like she did, as if there was some dark purpose besides the cleaning. As if she was on a mission. It was unusual behavior, and anything out of the ordinary was automatically added to his mental file. It could be important in the end.

By the time he heard her minivan pull into the driveway shortly before noon, he’d sifted through every dust bunny and, except for a dime under the bed, hadn’t caught so much as a whiff of money.

“Brought you some lunch.” Adrianne stuck her head into the pantry. “Hey, you got the bathtub in! It looks great.”

“So does that,” he said, pointing to the sack she held, golden french fries sticking from the top. And so did she, he thought, liking the way her T-shirt fit tight and her cotton shorts fit even tighter. “Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She’d been extremely polite to him that morning, trying to be friendly, although it was obvious she was uncomfortable around him. She’d caught him by surprise yesterday, liberally, and he’d been gruff in his disgust with himself and his shock at how attractive he found her. But now he was steeled and ready. Beautiful women often made the best agents. You looked, you touched, you forgot all about why you were there. But he knew better. So he pasted on a smile and prepared to be friendly, the world’s friendliest carpenter. They would chat, she would tell him things, they’d be bosom buddies.

She divided up hamburgers and fries while he washed his hands in the kitchen sink.

“So,” she said with a smile as they scooted their chairs into the table a few moments later, “I’m really pleased with the way things are going. How long have you been a carpenter, anyway?”

Yup, best bosom buddies.

“Two years, since I retired from the military. But my dad was a builder, so I grew up in the trade.” Chat, chat, chat. He looked up to make some friendly eye contact and found himself fascinated as she dipped a fry in ketchup and brought it to her mouth. The oil glossed her lips, and little crystals of salt clung to them.

“What branch?”

He took a large bite of his hamburger, chewed determinedly, and swallowed. “Navy.”

“A career man, huh?”

“Twenty years.” His eyes followed her tongue as it slid across her bottom lip, catching a drop of ketchup at the corner of her mouth. He swallowed twice more, hard.

“Well, that certainly explains the posture.”

“And the haircut,” he ageed.

Adrianne smiled in response to the mocking curve of his lips. He seemed more approachable today, and she relaxed a little. This wouldn’t be so bad after all. Now that he mentioned it, he definitely looked ex-military. Tough and hard and very, very competent. To last twenty years in the service, he’d need to be. Bosnia, Somalia, the Gulf... She paused with a fry halfway to her mouth. “Vietnam?”

He froze for a brief moment, then calmly reached for his drink. “Just missed it.”

“Not a very popular move, I bet, enlisting right after the war.”

“No.”

She waited, but he didn’t say anything else, just finished his hamburger in three more efficient bites and wiped his fingers with a paper napkin. He looked too big sitting there at her kitchen table, too male, too... She didn’t know what, but whatever it was it made her shift uncomfortably in her chair. She wasn’t used to testosterone, if that’s what was soaking into her air. Any pheromones she encountered in the course of her day were safely cloaked in dark suits and wrapped in ties, camouflaged with aftershave, sanitized by a wedding ring and photos of kids on the desk. He must have felt her stare because his dark eyes lifted to hers — cool again, emotionless, as detached as that predatory cat’s.