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“You’re kidding.” She took the item from him as if it might bite. “You actually started a fire with this?” she said to the boys.
“Yep!” Tommy, less experienced at reading his mother’s ire, swelled with pride.
She didn’t miss a beat. “And is it okay to play with fire?”
Both children visibly sagged. Small voices muttered, “No.”
“That’s right,” she said. “And what’s the rule about fire?”
“There has to be a grown-up with us.” The older boy looked chastened—but not exactly sorry.
“And what happens when you don’t follow the rules?”
As one, two little faces fell, and they turned toward the house. “Go to our rooms,” they said in mournful unison.
“I’ll let you know when you can come out,” she called after them. Then she turned to Ronan. “Mr. Sullivan, I don’t know what to say, except thank you again.” She sighed, looking at the magnifying glass and shaking her head. “They can find things to get into that I’ve never even thought of.”
He couldn’t suppress his grin any longer. “They were pretty proud of that trick.”
She shuddered. “Thank God you came along when you did. I went the other way to look for them because that creek is like a magnet. I was sure they were down there.” She slipped the lens into her own pocket. “You know, if you decide to stay here, you’ll have to put up with them.”
He chuckled. “They aren’t so bad. Just lively.”
“You can say that again.” She shook her head in exasperation and blew out a breath as she shoved stray black curls out of her peripheral vision. Pointing to the stable as she began to walk, she indicated that he should follow her. “I’m sure you’ll think twice about this apartment when you see it. I’ve been planning to fix it up, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. As I said, it needs a lot of work.”
“I don’t mind work,” he said mildly.
“And Butler County isn’t exactly a hotbed of social events. You’ll have to drive back into Baltimore for any kind of nightlife.”
“Definitely not high on my list.” The thought of social events led like an electrical current through a chain of thought that halted at the first time he’d ever met this woman. As he followed her into the barn and up a flight of stairs, he could almost see her sitting in a pool of candlelight, a strained, obviously false smile pasted on her pretty face.
The social event had been the annual Christmas party for the office employees of Bethlehem Steel. His cousin Arden, being between boyfriends, had invited him. He hadn’t had any plans, so he’d agreed to go. They were seated at dinner by name cards, eight to a table. He and Arden had been paired with one of the company vice presidents and his wife, the vice president’s executive secretary and her husband, and Deirdre and Nelson Patten, who was another top executive.
Drink had flowed freely during dinner, too freely, and Patten had gotten slurring and stupid, well before the end of the meal. His wife had sat in embarrassed silence, eyes on her plate unless someone spoke directly to her.
He’d been struck by her unusual beauty, unable to keep his eyes off her—and the first time she’d risen to visit the ladies’ room, he’d realized that she was heavily pregnant. He’d never thought pregnant women were particularly sexy, but his body seemed to forget that when he looked at Deirdre Patten.
Even obviously unhappy, she was strikingly pretty, with soft roses blooming under the fair skin along her high cheekbones and big, long-lashed green eyes beneath strongly defined, arched brows. Her black hair was pulled back into a classic twist, but strands of it escaped to form a halo of curl around her head.
The gown she wore was basic black, plain in contrast to some of the sequined atrocities that decorated some of the other party goers. But in his memory, the color had been the only thing basic about it. The dress had only two teeny, tiny straps, baring her creamy shoulders, showing off her delicate collarbones and her long, pale neck before molding itself to her breasts and falling over her belly nearly to the floor. It had a sort of stole around it that clipped in the front, right at her breasts, and though she was certainly far better covered than many, he could see that she was generously proportioned in that department. Most generously proportioned. At the time he’d wondered if that was due to her pregnancy, but now he plainly could see that she was still well endowed.
The dancing had begun after dinner. He’d taken Arden onto the floor, and promptly lost her to the attentions of a young man. As he returned to his seat, he’d noticed Patten had taken to the dance floor, too. But instead of holding his lovely wife in his arms, he was wrapped in an indecently close embrace with the executive secretary, whose husband was nowhere to be seen. Deirdre sat alone at their table, a small, forced smile pinned into place, her head high.
A real lady, he remembered thinking. He also remembered thinking that if she were his, the last place he’d be was in the arms of some other woman. Especially when she was pregnant. Any idiot knew women needed reassuring when their bodies were stretched out of shape and their waists were nothing but a memory. No, he’d have to take that back. Her idiot husband obviously didn’t know it.
Ronan had taken the seat next to her, but he’d never been good at small talk. Why was it that he could think up dozens of glib lines for his characters to utter, and when he needed them, words always seemed to have dried up? Deirdre had sat beside him in silence, trying gamely to ignore her husband practically having sex with the woman on the dance floor.
Around eleven o’clock the pair had disappeared altogether for a time. Arden had come floating by, whispering in his ear that this might just be The One, and would he mind very much if the fellow took her home, at which he’d laughed and told her to call him in a few days.
He could have left then, but no power on earth would have dislodged him from that table while Deirdre Patten sat there all alone. Finally, when midnight came and her husband was still nowhere in sight, he’d said, “I’d be happy to see you home, Mrs. Patten.”
She’d looked at him then, and he had the feeling she was really seeing him for the first time.
“Thank you, but I can call a cab. I’m used to it,” she’d said. She’d risen then, and so had he “Good evening.”
There was no reason for him to stay longer, so he’d followed her out of the ballroom. He had no idea when her baby was due but she looked like she couldn’t be far away from delivering. God forbid she should fall. Catching up to her in the hallway, he’d offered her his arm at the top of the steps. She’d hesitated, whispered, “Thank you,” and slipped her hand into the crook of his elbow.
Outside the front of the lavish hotel in which the party had been held, the doorman hailed a cab at Ronan’s signal and he helped her into the back seat. And as the cab drove her away, he’d thought it was a damn shame for a woman like that to be wasted on a jerk like Patten.
Now he waited, a step below her as she unlocked the door to the rooms above the stable. Dressed in a butter yellow tank top tucked neatly into a pair of belted khaki shorts, she didn’t resemble the elegant woman from that Christmas party. But as he eyed the neat hourglass figure, the curve of her buttocks beneath the shorts and the thick ponytail that confined most of her black curls, he decided she was equally attractive like this.
He’d fantasized about her for months after the party, picturing her with him, how he’d handle her like spun glass, how she would respond.... It had been a harmless fantasy; he’d never expected to see her again, though he’d wondered if her baby had been a girl or a boy. And, if he was honest, what she’d look like when she wasn’t pregnant.
Now he knew. She looked damn good. No, she looked fantastic. Running into her at that store had given him a jolt because she’d looked incredibly close to the way he’d recreated an unpregnant Deirdre Patten in his agile mind.
Immediately, he began hoping that he would see her again and her children...but not because he wanted to get to know her. Although she’d been a pleasant, harmless fantasy, he wasn’t looking for romantic entanglements. That was the absolute last thing on his mind, of course. No, he was interested in her sons. His knowledge of kids was limited. Being around her children would be exactly what he needed to give life to his current novel. True, the boys were a little younger than the kids he’d first envisioned in the plot he was working on, but it actually would make the story even more compelling if the children were preschoolers.
Her rental property was a stroke of incredible luck. And it wasn’t a lie—he was looking for a place to live. Bolton Hill, right in the center of downtown Baltimore, was an enclave of wealth a few blocks wide. But it was surrounded by crime and squalor, and shrinking every year. And while he loved the area, he had found it getting more and more difficult to write in that setting.
He needed space; space to walk and think without the constant vigilance of warding off muggers, to sleep without gunfire and sirens, to work without well-meaning neighbors constantly interrupting his work hours to prove to their friends that a bestselling author really did live next door.
He craved anonymity. He craved the simple ability to walk out of his home without being recognized, a respite from the women who constantly planted themselves at his elbow, hoping for a relationship or even a night with him.
And after the experiences he’d had recently, being hard to locate was highly desirable.
“I warned you.” Deirdre stepped aside to let him enter the first room.
She wasn’t kidding when she said it needed work, was his first thought. The main room was a large one, with an old wall-mounted sink and an ancient refrigerator at one end—presumably what passed for the kitchen-living area. The floors were unfinished lumber, the walls unpainted. But two skylights as well as a wide window at the near end gave the room a light and airy feel. Through a door at the far end, he discovered a smaller room—a bedroom?—and a bathroom. A real bathroom, with a claw-footed tub and white porcelain fixtures. This room also boasted a large window at its end, though it had no skylights.
Rustic, definitely. But with a few modifications, he could make it work.
“It really is awful,” she said from behind him. “I need to fix it up a little before I rent it. It was built more recently than the rest of the buildings here, about sixty years ago when the owner had racehorses. His head groom lived here.”
Sixty years ago. Recent, by the standards of the house and the big barn, both of which had to be well over a century old.
Nodding his head, he walked around the empty space. He already knew he was going to take it but he didn’t want to appear too eager. Finally he said, “I think it will do if I work on it, add paint and paper, maybe sand the floor.”
“You want it?” She eyed him as if he weren’t quite sane.
He laughed. “It’s solid, looks well insulated. The rest is cosmetic. Would you mind if I fix it up a little?”
“You can do whatever you like with it,” she said. “I would offer to reimburse you for any expenses, but—” she swallowed and looked him straight in the eye “—my finances are a bit too strained.”
He nodded. “I can understand that.”
“You can?” Her expression warmed, and the beginnings of a tentative smile appeared.
“Umm-hmm.”
“Money.” She sighed. “Life would be so much easier if we didn’t have to worry about it.”
“Umm-hmm.” This was dangerous ground, considering the staggering sum of his last royalty statement.
“Where do you work, Mr.—Ronan?”
Out of habit he searched for an evasion; admitting to being a bestselling suspense novelist had caused him more grief in the past than he could recall. He’d become even more cautious since a fan had been apprehended and eventually convicted of stalking him a year ago. And being anonymous had the added attraction of keeping fortune hunters and celebrity hounds at bay. No, he never told people who he was anymore. It was safer, and less complicated in the long run. And Sullivan was a common enough name that the association didn’t come up.
“I’m, uh, sort of a freelance journalist.” Well, it wasn’t a lie. He’d started out writing articles to support himself while he worked on his first novel.
She nodded, comprehension flooding her expression. “Not exactly a profession you’ll get rich at.” Then, to his relief, she changed tack. “Cleaning service is included in the rental.”
“Uh, that’s not necessary. I can clean it myself.” If she saw what he already was planning to do to the interior, she’d know for certain he wasn’t a struggling writer. He knew that eventually he’d have to tell her the truth, but he hoped the renovated apartment would compensate for his harmless deception. She wouldn’t have any trouble renting it after he left.
“Oh, no, I insist—”
“No, I insist.” He injected a, “case closed,” note into his voice. “You have a business to run and I wouldn’t think of letting you waste time on cleaning this place. It’s so small I’ll have no trouble.”
Her brow was furrowed, her eyes troubled. “All right, if you’re sure. But if you ever need a hand, don’t hesitate to let me know.”
“I promise.” He held up a hand like a Boy Scout. “Now, how much is the rent?”
Three days later he moved in. Deirdre had told him she was going to be away for the day, taking her sons to a family reunion up in Pennsylvania. She wouldn’t be back until well after dark, probably close to midnight, she said. “So don’t be alarmed when you hear my Bronco coming down the lane.”
The timing couldn’t have been better. She left at seven in the morning. As soon as her vehicle was over the ridge, he used his cell phone to call the team he’d hired. Speed was of the essence, he’d stipulated when he’d called the renovation firm. And he didn’t mind paying extra for it. When the guy heard that he planned to pay the full amount in cash, he couldn’t get the details fast enough.
The paneling came first. He’d chosen a light blond oak because drywall would have to dry before it could be painted or papered; this had to be done in one day. The panels went right over the rough wooden walls, the studs in the original walls providing plenty of support.
Once the paneling in the first room was done, the subfloor for the carpet went down. The plumber arrived shortly after one o’clock to install the shower and the Jacuzzi, and the guys with the tile for the kitchen and bathroom were right on his heels. By four in the afternoon, he had a rather nice-looking little place, if he did say so himself. The electrician was still working on the dimmers and the surge protection for his office equipment when his new furniture arrived. They were just finishing when the movers arrived with the things he wanted to bring up from his place downtown, and right behind them came the woman from whom he’d ordered the custom blinds and the decorator with art and some stuff like baskets and wreaths for the kitchen walls. It fit perfectly with the casual country feel of the paneling. Lucky for him, the stable windows didn’t face the house, or he’d have had to keep the blinds permanently closed.
The last contractor was gone by ten in the evening and he sank down on the new leather couch with a satisfied sigh, looking around him. Amazing. Money worked miracles. He hadn’t grown up with it, and he still wasn’t used to how easily the thought of extra money could make things move.
Tomorrow the man from the phone company would install his modern line, his fax and telephone. He would unpack his books, get on-line again, and hook up his computer and printer—
The sound of a vehicle growling down the lane was unmistakable. He glanced at his watch—10:09. Wow. He’d just barely made it. He distinctly remembered her telling him she wouldn’t be back until late. Since when was a woman ever early?
The next day was Sunday. Deirdre hustled the boys out of bed and they all went to church. Then she turned the car south toward Baltimore. This was the part she hated. The judge had decreed that every Sunday her ex-husband would have visitation rights with Lee and Tommy.
Every Sunday she drove to her friend Frannie’s home, where she handed her precious children over to Nelson under the watchful eye of either Frannie, her husband Jack, or both. Nelson wasn’t permitted to come near her anymore since she’d gotten the protection order, and the judge had been quite firm in his admonitions. One more little trick and Nelson wouldn’t see his sons at all.
She might have to answer for it at the Pearly Gates someday, but she prayed for that one little trick.
Because of Nelson’s past behavior, the boys were exchanged at this specified location in front of witnesses. She never wanted to be caught alone with her ex-husband again. Since she’d taken precautions to secure her privacy when she moved out of the house they had once shared, she didn’t think he even knew where they lived now. She picked up her mail at a post office in the next little town, had her telephone number unlisted and her business telephone now showed no address. If he had to contact her, he called Frannie and left a message that Deirdre returned. She hated having to instruct Lee and Tommy not to tell their father their address or phone number, but there was no way around it. When she explained that the judge had suggested it, they’d been sufficiently impressed that she doubted their father could bribe the information out of them with ice cream or anything else.
Today went like it usually did. Nelson was waiting for her in front of Frannie’s. When she pulled in, Jack came out of the house to greet her. Bless his heart, he must have been watching. She helped her sons out of the car, hugged each fiercely and said, “Have fun with your daddy today.” Then Jack took each little hand, and her babies walked down the driveway to the car where their father was waiting.
She was uneasy the entire time the boys were gone, every Sunday. During their marriage, Nelson had saved his worst temper tantrums—her euphemism for abusive rages—for times when he and she were alone. She prayed their children would never know what he was capable of.
As she watched, Lee spoke earnestly to his father before Jack let go of his hand, and she knew he was telling Nelson that she had said it would be nice if he took the boys swimming today. In truth, Tommy was on medication for an ear infection and shouldn’t get his head wet, but if she asked his father not to let him swim, they’d go swimming, sure as the moon came up at night It gave her a small measure of satisfaction to outsmart him. After a few weeks of writing notes that he took great pleasure in crumpling and tossing on Jack’s driveway without reading, she’d resorted to this approach when she had instructions she wanted him to hear.
She stood in the driveway waving to her children until the car turned the corner. Then she turned to smile at Jack as he walked back up the driveway. Or tried to smile, anyway. Not an easy feat when your lip was trembling.
Jack lifted an arm and encircled her shoulders loosely as they walked toward the house. “They’ll be back before you know it.” His voice was a comforting rumble in her ear.
“I know,” she said. “But I’m a mother. It’s my job to worry.” They had a variation on this conversation nearly every Sunday. Time to change the subject—divorce was an ugly, boring topic, and she tried not to inflict it on her friends. “So how’s it going with two?”
Jack and Frannie had had a second child five weeks ago—a son. Actually, it was their first, since their daughter Alexa was really Jack’s orphaned niece, whom they’d adopted when they were married ten months ago.
Jack looked thoughtful. “I think it’s going okay, but I don’t really have anything to judge by. Lex was such a piece of cake.”
Deirdre laughed. “Must be nice. Neither of my children has ever been a ‘piece of cake.’” She stepped past the door that Jack held open for her and entered the home.
“Hi, Dee. Look, Alexa, it’s Aunt Dee-Dee.”
Alexa was thirteen months old and full of herself, blond and chubby. She ran full tilt at Deirdre, holding up her little arms to be picked up. “An-Dee!”
Catching the little girl up in a fierce hug, Deirdre felt her eyes welling with tears again. Frannie sat in a rocker in the family room with baby Brooks at her breast. She looked serene and happy as she watched her husband, and Dee couldn’t help but envy her a little bit. “Never forget how lucky you are,” she said, swallowing.
“Lucky to get me,” Jack said from behind her. When both women snorted and rolled their eyes, he clutched at his heart and staggered toward the doorway. “Mortally wounded.” He straightened and headed for the door to the kitchen. “I know it’s a struggle, but if you can bear to be without me, I’m going out to mow the grass.”
“Okay, honey,” Frannie called after him. “If you do a good job, maybe we’ll invite you back later.” She exchanged an amused smile with Deirdre. “So how are you? I haven’t talked to you all week.”
Deirdre shrugged. “Fine. I got another big order from that doll museum in upstate New York. That’ll keep me afloat for a little while.”
“That’s great! This is the third time they’ve used you, isn’t it?” Frannie lifted Brooks to her shoulder and rubbed his back. “Boy, are you a load,” she said to him.
“Just like your daddy,” Deirdre said, nodding in answer to the previous question. It was true. Little Brooks had weighed a whopping ten pounds, two ounces at birth and showed every sign of being as big as his daddy.
Then Deirdre remembered that she really did have some news. “Oh, guess what? I found a tenant for the apartment.”
“Wow!” said Frannie. “That was fast. You just decided to rent it last week. I thought you said it needed some work before it could be rented out.”
“It does. But the man says he’ll do it himself.”
“A man! Do tell.”
“His name is Ronan Sullivan,” Dee told her.
“And...?”
“And nothing.”
“How old?”
“Thirty -five-ish.”
“What’s he look like?” Frannie’s gaze was glued to Dee’s face.
Dee thought for a moment. “He’s not as big as Jack—who is?—but he’s bigger than Nelson. He has dark hair and he seems very nice.” And his hands are warm and gentle.
