Now she took a gulping huge breath. From the sound of the pups barking, they’d already located Fergus in the back room. She peeled off her fleece jacket, stashed her bag and mail on the kitchen counter, pushed off her shoes and tried to think how to handle seeing him, greeting him.
No magical or brilliant ideas occurred. She shook her hair loose, took a big breath and then walked to the doorway of her therapy room—then stopped, still.
The waterfall was done. Or it sure looked that way.
Fox was crouched down with the dogs, making a fuss, rubbing tummies and baby talking to them. There was still a mountain of trash and debris that he’d obviously just started to clean up, but the waterfall itself took her breath away.
It was her dream. The backdrop wall and sides were mortared in river stone. There were steps, as if you were in nature and really walking from shallow water into a deeper pool before you stepped under the waterfall. The tall windows above had the effect of skylights. You could lie in the pool, look up and see sunlight or stars, be secluded from the rest of the massage room environment. Lighting had been built into the lower pool. The outside steps had places to set ferns and plants.
“Oh, Fox,” she whispered hopelessly. “It’s so, so perfect.”
He spun around at the sound of her voice and immediately stood up. If the light hadn’t been straight behind him, she might have perceived his expression, but as it was, she caught his dusty knees, his rough-brushed hair, but his eyes were in shadow. “You’re here just in time.”
“In time for what?” she asked, and then shook her head for asking such a silly question. “Obviously in time to help clean up—”
“No. That’ll wait. I need a victim, an experimentee. Translate that to mean ‘sucker.’ Your waterfall’s done, ready to test. I know itworks, but I don’t want to put everything away until I’m positive we’ve got it all the way you want—height of the hidden shower head, water pressure, water temperature and all that stuff. I don’t think we’ll have to make any major plumbing adjustments—please God—but I still want to test the details.”
“Sure. What do you want me to do?”
“Just use it the way you’d use it. Close the drain. Turn it on. Fill up the pool the way you would if you were using it with a client. Just make sure everything’s the way you expected, then we’ll drain it and call it quits. I’ll keep cleaning up in the meantime.”
Something inside her froze for the oddest second. It was as if her heart understood she had a choice.
One choice. Right then. A choice, a chance, that would disappear if she didn’t take it.
Fox turned away again. Flanked by the dogs, who seemed to think he desperately wanted their company constantly, he started stacking spare parts, gathering trash, putting away tools. The whole time he kept up a conversation. “Now, you’re used to using oils in your work, right? You can’t in this. You’ll need your clients to take a ‘clean’ shower to get the oils off before they soak in the waterfall tub, or it’ll be too slippery.”
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“I hear you,” she said, as she pulled off her shirt. Fox didn’t glance back, just kept working.
“And then, I’ve been thinking about a way you could rig up a sling for babies. I assume that’s part of what you want to do, right? Use it for the little ones?”
“I had in mind using it for all ages. But when I’m working with babies, part of my idea was having their moms in there with them. So both of them could relax at the same time,” she said, as she peeled off her jeans and socks.
“Yeah, I figured that. So this sling idea…it’d be like a little hammock. Soft. But water flowing in and around it. Obviously you wouldn’t leave a baby alone in it, but it would be a way for a small child to feel the flow of water without it overwhelming him.” A couple of hammers and crowbars made a heck of a racket when he piled them in one long metal container.
Slowly, her stomach starting to curl, she unsnapped her navy lace bra and let it fall. Then walked barefoot into the new waterfall tub and turned on the faucets. “That sounds ideal for the babies,” she said. She stood there, not getting wet yet, just lifted her hand to the spray until she had the water temperature nice and warm.
She wasn’t completely naked yet. She was still wearing her favorite thong—the navy satin one, with the red, white and blue flag in the triangle. They weren’t the underpants of a shy, retiring girl. They weren’t underwear for a woman who wasn’t inherently in-your-face sexy. Which, of course, was why Phoebe had always worn the kind of clothing where no one could see them.
“Okay…well, while you’re letting the pool fill up, I’m going to start making a bunch of trips out to the truck. It’s going to take me quite a—” He turned around. Saw her.
Dropped a crowbar. Then a hammer.
While he was speechless, which she suspected wouldn’t last long, she stepped under the waterfall spray.
“You got the water pressure perfect,” she called out.
He dropped the whole damn toolbox.
She lifted her face to the pelting spray, feeling the water gush and rush and slink down her face, her throat, her body. Her hair went from a tidily brushed mass into a heavy, thick, water-soaked rope in seconds. She closed her eyes, trying not to feel how hard her pulse was thudding, her badly her tummy was twisting, how scared she was.
When it came down to it…this was how she used to feel when she was younger. About herself. About life. It would never have occurred to her
