satisfied, she drove out to Manet Hall.
The door was open. She imagined he was one of the few who'd lived here who would leave that impressive front door open to whoever might wander in. Country living or no, someone should put a bug in his ear about a security system.
She could hear the racket of workmen from the back of the house, but took her time getting there.
The parlor grabbed her attention. She crouched down, touched her fingers to the glossy floors, and found them hard and dry, and, stepping in, just looked.
He took care, was all she could think. He took care of what was his. Paid attention to details and made them matter. Color, and wood, the elegant fireplace, the gleam of the windows, which she imagined he'd washed personally.
Just as she imagined he would furnish this room personally-and with care and attention to detail.
She'd never known a man to take so much …
bother, she supposed, with anything. Or anyone. And maybe, she was forced to admit, she'd spent too much time with the wrong kind of man.
'What do you think?”
She turned and, framed by the windows, by the light, looked at him as he stood in the doorway. 'I think this house is lucky to have you. I think you see it as it should be, and you'll work to make it come to life again.”
'That's nice.' He crossed to her. 'That's very nice. You look rested.”
'A man's not supposed to tell a woman she looks rested. He's supposed to tell her she looks gorgeous.”
'I've never seen you look otherwise. Today you look rested on top of it.”
'You are the smoothie.' She wandered away, toward the fireplace. She trailed a palm over the mantel, stopped when she came to the brown leather frame holding the photograph of a young woman. 'Abigail,' she whispered, and the ache went into her. Went deep.
'Miss Odette gave it to me. You look like her, a little.”
'No, I never looked as innocent as this.”
Compelled, Lena traced a fingertip over the young, hopeful face.
She'd seen the photograph before, had even studied it, point by point, during a period in her life when she'd found the story, the mystery of it, romantic. During a period when she herself had been young enough to see romance in tragedy.
'It's odd,' Lena said, 'seeing her here. Seeing part of me here.”
'She belongs here. So do you.”
She shook that off, and the sorrow those dark, clear eyes coated over her heart. Turning, she gave Declan a long, considering look. Work clothes, she thought, tool belt, a night's stubble. It was getting harder and harder to picture him wearing a pin-striped suit and carrying a fancy leather briefcase.
It was getting harder and harder to picture her life without him in it.
'Why did you leave my place this morning?”
'Didn't you see the note? Counter guys.' He jerked a thumb back toward the kitchen. 'I had to beg and pay extra to get them to schedule me for a Saturday morning. I had to be here.”
'That's not what I meant. You didn't come into the city, work-what was it, about six hours busing tables?-and give me a foot rub because you didn't have anything better to do on a Friday night. You came in for sex, cher, and you left without it. Why is that?”
He could feel his temper prick holes in his easy mood. 'You're a piece of work, Lena. You've got a real talent for turning something simple into the complicated.”
'That's because things are rarely as simple as they look.”
'Okay, let's clear it up. I came into the city because I wanted to see you. I bused tables because I wanted to help you. I rubbed your feet because I figured you'd been on them about twelve hours straight. Then I let you sleep because you needed to sleep. Hasn't anyone ever done you a favor?”
'Men don't, as a rule, unless they're looking for one in return. What're you looking for, Declan?”
He gave himself a moment, waiting for the first lash of anger to pass. 'You know, that's insulting. If you're worried about your pay-for-work ethic, I can spare about twenty minutes now. We can go up, have sex, even the score. Otherwise, I've got a lot to do.”
'I didn't mean to insult you.' But she saw, quite clearly, she had. 'I just don't understand you. The men I've known, on an intimate level, would have been irritated by what didn't happen between us this morning. I expected you to be, and I wouldn't have blamed you. I would've understood that.”
'It's harder for you to understand that I could care about you enough to put sex on the back burner so you could get a few hours' sleep?”
'Yes.”
'Maybe that's not insulting. Maybe that's just sad.' He saw the color deepen in her cheeks as the words hit her. Embarrassed color, he realized. 'Everything doesn't boil down to sex for me. It helps things percolate, but it's not all that's in the pot.”
'I like knowing where I stand. If you don't know where you stand, you can't decide if that's where you want to be, or which direction you'd like to go from there.”
'And I'm fucking up your compass.”
'You could say that.”
'Good. I'm a pretty agreeable guy, Lena, but I'm not going to be lumped in with others you've dealt with. In fact, you won't deal with me at all. We'll deal with each other.”
'Because that's the way you want it.”
'Because that's the way it is.' His tone was flat, final. 'Nothing between us is like, or going to be like, anything either of us has had before. You may need some time to get used to that.”
'Is this how you get your way?' she demanded. 'By listing off the rules in that annoyingly reasonable tone.”
'Facts, not rules,' he corrected in what he imagined she would consider that annoyingly reasonable tone. 'And it's only annoying because you'd be more confident having a fight. We've already eaten into the twenty minutes we could've earmarked for sex. Good sex, or a good fight, take time. I'm going to have to take a rain check on both.”
She stared at him, tried to formulate any number of withering remarks. Then just gave up and laughed. 'Well, when you cash in your rain checks, let's do the fight first. Then we can have make-up sex. That's like a bonus.”
'Works for me. Do you have to get right back, or have you got a few minutes? I could use a hand hauling in and unrolling the rug I've got for in here. I was going to snag one of the counter guys, but with what I'm paying them, I'd as soon they stick with the counters.”
'Pinching pennies now? And you with all those big tubs of money.”
'You don't keep big tubs of money if you let yourself get hosed. Besides, this way I'd get to keep you here and look at you a little while longer.”
'That's clever.' And the fact was, she wanted to stay, wanted to be with him. 'All right, I'll help you with your rug before I go. Where is it?”
'Next parlor.' He gestured to the connecting doors. 'I've got most of what I've bought so far stuffed in here. I'm working in the library next, so I can clean out what goes in the front parlor and in there before I start on this one.”
Lena moved to the pocket doors he opened, then just goggled. Aladdin's cave, she thought, outfitted by a very rich madman with very eclectic taste. Tables, sofas, carpets, lamps, and what her grandmother would call doodads were spread everywhere.
'God Almighty, Declan, when did you get all this?'
'A little here, a little there. I tell myself no, but I don't listen. Anyway'– he began to pick his way through the narrow aisles his purchases formed-'it's a big house. It needs lots of … stuff. I thought about sticking with the era when the house was originally built. Then I decided I'd get bored. I like to mix things up.”
She spotted a brass hippo on what she tagged as a Hepplewhite side table. 'Mission accomplished.”
'Look at this lamp.' He ran his fingers over the shade of a Tiffany that exploded with gem colors. 'I've got a weakness for lamps.”
