“You stay here,” he said. “I’ll take them inside. What floor?”
“Four.”
He rolled his eyes.
“I’ll help,” she volunteered.
“If you help, who’ll watch? Stay.”
Just then Paul emerged from the building. His jeans were just as faded and just as snug as the ones he’d had on when they’d met, but he had buttoned his shirt either in honor of her arrival or in concession to the near-freezing temperature. He smiled at her, a slow, breathtaking smile that made her wish for a minute that he was her lover and that they were embarking on a mad, passionate affair.
Without saying a word, he took the full load of luggage from the taxi driver. Mort looked him over carefully, then nodded. He turned to Gabrielle. “Maybe it’ll be okay.”
“What was all that about?” Paul asked when the taxi finally had pulled away and they’d hauled everything up to the fourth floor landing.
“He doesn’t think I should be moving into this neighborhood.”
Paul opened his mouth. She spoke first. “I don’t care to have this discussion with you, too.”
“Fine.” He nudged the door open with his foot and stood aside for her to enter. She found…chaos. At least she hoped that’s what it was. Surely it couldn’t be his idea of furnishings.
A sofa that sagged dangerously in the middle had been shoved against one wall. Two chairs in a similar state of disrepair were situated haphazardly in the middle of the room. None of the pieces matched. An orange crate had been placed in the midst of this unlikely arrangement. A mayonnaise jar filled with marigolds had been plunked in the middle of it. As a gesture of welcome, it was a nice touch. As decor, it was frightening. She was terrified to look in the other rooms. Squaring her shoulders resolutely, she walked down the hall.
Each bedroom had a twin-size bed with a mattress that dipped in a way that set off desperate warning signals in her back. There was a scarred four-drawer dresser in each room. Each had a jar of marigolds on top. At least he was consistent, she thought with a sigh.
She dropped her suitcases in the room with the least offensive bedspread—pink chenille with a minimum of tufts missing. She would have to use the tiny dressers in both rooms and both closets for her clothes. She might not have her mother’s acquisitive nature, but she did own more than two dresses. Maybe Paul could at least keep his clothes downstairs while he worked on the apartment.
When everything had been dragged inside, she turned to Paul. “If you’ll just give me my keys now, I’ll start settling in and you can go on doing whatever you were doing before I arrived.”
He dropped the keys in her hand, picked up more of her bags and hauled them down the hall.
“Thanks, really, but I can manage the rest of this,” she protested.
“No problem. Until we get these things out of the way, we’ll just be stumbling over them.”
“Don’t you have work to do downstairs?”
“Not today. I took the day off so I could welcome you properly.”
Gabrielle was just picking up a box of dishes when the seductive undertone to his words registered. She dropped them. The crash of Limoges didn’t even faze her. “Welcome me?”
“Yeah,” he called over his shoulder. “I’m glad you like the pink room. I figured you would. I’d already put my stuff in the other room.”
“Why would you want to welcome me?” she said, regarding him suspiciously. “We have an arrangement. That’s all. You come and go as you please. I come and go as I please.”
He grinned at her. “Does that mean you don’t want lunch?”
Before she could say a strenuous no, her stomach rumbled. “Okay. Fine. Lunch would be good. We can iron out the details of the arrangement and make a schedule for the kitchen.”
“Whatever you say.”
In the kitchen there were more marigolds on the counter. A bottle of wine had been opened, an omelet pan was on the stove and she could smell French bread warming in the oven. Her mouth watered. She tried not to notice that the wallpaper was still peeling.
“Is there anything I can do?”
“Nope. It’s all under control, unless you’d like to pour the wine.”
“Sure. Where are the glasses?”
He nodded toward the cabinet to his left. “Up there.”
She found four jelly glasses with cartoons on them and a stack of plastic cups. Well, why not? The wine would taste just as good from a glass with little yellow Flintstone characters on it as it would from her Waterford. She selected the two that matched and poured the wine, then handed Paul his glass.
“Shall we have a toast?” he asked, glancing over at her.
“To what?”
“Roommates.” His gaze lingered on her until she felt heat rise in her cheeks. Her heart thumped unsteadily. “And friends.”
Before she could protest, he tapped his glass to hers and sipped the wine. “It may not be French, but it’s not bad.”
Gabrielle wondered at the defensive tone, then taunted back, “I prefer California wines myself.” She grabbed two mismatched plates from the cupboard and turned around to set the table…only there wasn’t one.
“Where… ?”
“We’ll have to eat in the living room, unless you’d like to go outside. I think it’s warm enough today for the garden, if we stay bundled up. The sun’s just getting around there.”
The garden. Perfect. Just the thought of it brought a smile to her lips. “We’ll go outside.”
She loaded up everything she could carry and went downstairs. Paul followed minutes later with the steaming food. When they’d finished the cheese and mushroom omelets, the entire loaf of French bread and a bowl of grapes, he slid lower in the chair, stretched his powerful legs out in front of him and stared at her as he sipped his wine.
“You should spend more
