‘My grandmother loved these candlesticks,’ he said. ’she’d brought them with her from Poland when she and my grandfather emigrated. They were a wedding gift.’
Oh, great. Now she was going to have to feel guilty. No, she was already feeling guilty. Inside her the little fairy was practically screaming.
‘You can have them,’ she heard herself say. Guilt was a nasty emotion and not one she intended to cultivate.
‘I’ll buy them from you.’
Their eyes met. ‘I can’t have you buy back your own grandmother’s favourite candlesticks,’ she said. ‘Just take them.’
‘All that businesslike behaviour covers up a soft heart, doesn’t it?’ he said with a crooked smile.
‘Oh, please, spare me,’ she said derisively and concentrated on her food, which was delicious. She wanted to ask him who he was, what he was. But something inside her kept her from asking. The less she knew, the better it was. She already knew about a Polish grandmother and wedding-gift candlesticks. She wanted him out of her way. If he didn’t like her carting out all the old furniture, what was he going to say when the contractor arrived and some of the walls were going to come down?
‘What were you doing in the rainforest?’ she heard herself ask. She couldn’t help herself. She wanted to know. ‘Catching tropical birds and smuggling them out? Cutting down the trees for tooth-pick companies?’
He raised his brows. ’do you always think so well of people, or is it just me?’
She gave him a wide-eyed, innocent look. ‘Just a few wild guesses, that’s all.’ She smiled. ‘May I assume you’re doing something more honourable?’
‘I’m involved in a research project. I study the interaction between the indigenous people and their rainforest environment.’
‘Ah, a scientist.’
‘I’m an ecological anthropologist.’
It sounded very impressive. She was impressed. ’do you live with the people you’re studying?’ she asked.
He nodded. ‘I live in a traditional longhouse village.’
‘Live? Are you going back?’
‘Yes.’ He was on home leave for two months, he said, working for the University of Virginia, giving lectures and interviews in various places. After that he would go back to Kalimantan. He gave her this information in short, crisp sentences.
‘Why do you want this house, then? You’re not going to live here anyway.’
He gave her a dark, inscrutable look. ‘For starters, I intended to live here for the next couple of months while I’m in the country. And more importantly, this was my grandmother’s house and the place I call home.’
The place I call home. Had he no family, then? No parents? The guilt stirred some more and again she forced it down. ‘I see,’ she said, cutting a piece of steak. ‘Obviously your grandmother had other ideas.’
His jaw tightened and he did not respond. For a while they ate in tense silence.
‘What are your plans for this house?’ he asked then. His voice was coolly casual.
She swallowed a piece of steak. ‘I told you. I’m going to renovate it, then sell it.’
‘What sort of renovation do you have in mind?’
She didn’t want to discuss it. Yet he was not being unreasonable asking these questions. Anyone coming to the house could conceivably be interested in what she intended to do. It was not exactly a terribly sensitive, private, personal thing. Only it was. She glanced at her plate.
‘I’m going to add another bathroom upstairs and modernise the two existing ones and put in a whirlpool bath. The kitchen is going to be overhauled.’ There was more. Walls were going to come down, a sunroom added. She didn’t tell him.
‘Are you an architect?’
‘No. I’m good with hammer and saw and paint.’
He studied her face. ’there’s a whole lot more to it than that.’
So there was. ‘I know what I’m doing. I’ve done it plenty of times before.’
‘Ah, a handywoman.’ He poured more wine. She kept looking at his hands, which aroused disturbing images in her mind.
If she weren’t feeling so off-balance, it would be very pleasant, actually, sitting here in such a civilised fashion eating a wonderful meal, fixed by a man. The man she married would have to be willing and able to cook. This was one of the prerequisites, if not the most important one. Most important was, of course, his eternal devotion.
He buttered a piece of bread. ‘Are you going to have contractors, plumbers, electricians, workmen around here?’
‘Yes. All the wiring is going to be replaced and most of the plumbing.’
‘And you’re dealing with these men on your own?’
She raised a quizzical brow. ‘Yes, I am.’ And she was very good, too. Growing up with four brothers was good for many things. ‘Is there a problem with that?’
‘I imagine there could be many. Many men are not comfortable taking orders from women, especially not if they perceive their manly domain invaded.’
She nodded. ‘Men with shaky egos, yes, I’ve noticed. You have to know how to handle them.’
His mouth quirked. ‘And you do?’
‘I’m an expert.’
Humour sparked in his eyes. ‘No pushover, are you?’
‘I grew up with four brothers. I learned to hold my own.’ Unfortunately she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold her own with this man.
His eyes narrowed, scrutinising her, assessing her, and she felt again that odd reaction—the warmth, that hypnotic feeling of not being in control. His black eyes seemed to look straight inside her very soul.
She didn’t want anybody looking into her soul uninvited, and certainly not this man. She got up from the table. ’thank you for a delicious dinner,’ she said nicely. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll have to go back to work.’
She hoped he would leave now. Put his things in his car and go. A while later she heard strange sounds coming from outside and looked out of the window. Clint was standing on a ladder, sawing a big dead limb off one of the old oaks. Transfixed, she watched the movement of his body, noticing the effortless control he had over it. Powerful arms, a strong back straining under his shirt. The sound of the limb crashing to the ground startled her out of her trance. She closed her eyes for a moment and took a deep breath.
She stayed out of his way for the rest of the evening, knowing he wasn’t leaving, not knowing what to do about it. She slept restlessly, aware of his presence down the hall, seeing in her mind the intent look in his black eyes, feeling apprehension shiver through her body.
The next morning he was gone by the time she came downstairs, but when she looked in his room his things were still there. He hadn’t given up.
Well, she hadn’t expected him to, had she?
She was angry and relieved at the same time.
* * *
‘I thought I’d come along and see if I could help,’ said Sara. ‘My mom’s babysitting the kids.’ Sara had short red hair, lots of freckles and a big smiling mouth. She was Jack’s wife and Livia loved her. The two of them had arrived around ten that morning and Jack had brought the blueprints for the remodelling work.
Livia and Jack had had the opportunity to tour the house on several occasions before the sale was finalised so they’d been able to plot and plan and take measurements