“Mm-hmm.”
“And how old is she?”
“Younger than me.”
“Do you like the daughter? Does she — ?”
“Mary!”
“Mother.”
Both men interrupted her at once. Cutter didn’t want his mother thinking along those lines at all. As if he could stop her. And as if his own thoughts hadn’t returned several times that evening to Adrianne Rhodes. It was hard not to remember her wide eyes when the gravy was the same rich, golden brown shade, and the butter melting in a pool on his roll looked as soft and yielding as her hair, and...
Ah, forget it, he was just hungry, he told himself with a mental shake as he attacked the potatoes. His head had been turned by a pretty girl before, and he had two very short, very crummy marriages to show for it. He wasn’t interested.
“I’m glad you’re keeping busy, that’s all,” his mother said, sliding into her own chair. “I was just telling your brother the other day... You know they made him produce manager over at the supermarket?”
“Yeah, you told me.”
“Tom’s been with them seven years, it’s about time they gave him his own department. Especially with Lucy expecting again. I swear, I always say it’s a good thing he works at a grocery store with all those mouths to feed.” She picked up her husband’s fork and helped him wrap his twisted fingers around the handle. “Anyway, I was telling him with business so good, it looked like you would probably stay around awhile —”
“Mom, I keep telling you, I’m not going anywhere.” Cutter kept his voice gentle. They’d been through this before. “I’ve been back two years now.”
“Goodness, has it been that long? Two years. My, my.” She shook out a napkin and draped it across her lap, protecting a dress sprinkled with a rose design almost identical to the gravy boat’s. “When’s the last time you stayed in one spot for two years? That city in Germany, wasn’t it, the one with the wall?”
“Berlin, Mary, for pete’s sake,” his father said gruffly.
“Well, of course I know it was Berlin. The name just slipped my mind, that’s all.”
Cutter smiled, savoring his mother’s pot roast and his father’s advice in equal measure. He’d missed both during those years in Berlin and Prague, Warsaw and Moscow. His mother was grayer now, and plumper, but she still cooked like an angel, dressed like June Cleaver and lived for her grandchildren, now that he and his brother were grown.
His father looked the same as ever, whip thin with a full head of coal black hair, wearing the matching khaki pants and shirt that had been his uniform for as long as Cutter could remember. His eyes were different, though. Years of pain had etched deep lines around them, drawing them back into his skull as if they could hide from it that way. And, then, of course, there were his hands.
Many a mission, as Cutter had raced against the clock to hot-wire a jeep or set the delicate timing device on an explosive, he’d remember his father’s capable hands. Hands that turned a screwdriver with swift, deft strokes to repair a toaster, hands that fixed a bike’s slipped chain or banged in just the right spot to get the old furnace wheezing again. Big, strong hands that patiently teased slivers from grimy small-boy fingers. Caring, loving hands that had fixed Cutter’s world.
And all the time, as Cutter slunk through the alleys of those ancient capitals, he’d thought he was fixing something, too. He’d thought he was saving the world for democracy, making it a better place. The meat in his mouth turned dry, as tough and hard as he felt inside. His eyes flicked to his father’s gnarled fingers, the joints swollen and twisted, so tortured by arthritis they couldn’t even pick up a screwdriver, let alone use it. As useless in the end as Cutter and all those dark alleys.
“I’m just glad Cutter’s home where he belongs,” his mother said. “You know, sweetheart, your father and I aren’t getting any younger.”
“Speak for yourself, old woman. I’ve still got some kick in me yet” His father wagged his thick eyebrows at her. “In fact, I’ve got my eye on one of those exercise contraptions that’ll give you abs of steel in only six weeks. Oprah had a whole show on ’em. Abs of steel, that’s what it said.”
His mother sniffed. “That’s just what you need, all right.” She laid down her fork and steepled her fingers in that way she had. “But I wanted to talk to Cutter about...” She hesitated.
Cutter stopped eating with a strange sense of foreboding. “What is it, Mom?”
“It’s just things are getting to be a bit much for your father and me.”
“Now, Mary, this isn’t the time to be going into all that. Let the boy eat his meal in peace and quiet.”
“Take this house, for instance. The yard went to rack and ruin last year. I couldn’t seem to keep on top of it — that’s all I’m saying.”
“You know I’ll be glad to help out,” Cutter said. “Why don’t you write up a list of chores that are bothering you and I’ll get started on them this week?”
“That’s sweet of you, dear, but your father and I have been thinking about —”
“What’s for dessert?” his father interrupted with a joviality so forced Cutter wondered whom he thought he was fooling. “I’ve been smelling apple pie all afternoon.”
His mother’s smile was thin as she pushed back her chair. “Tom brought over some apples this morning that the store marked down. They had some bruises but were still nice and sweet.” She got up and moved toward the kitchen.
His father had obviously won this round. Now, if Cutter only knew what war he was in the middle of. He ate his pie, all the time watching his parents carefully, his unease growing. He didn’t like mysteries this close to home.
Adrianne had offered to run errands, and he took her up on it, sending her after parts the next morning — from a lumberyard on the other side of town. It would take her two hours to fight her way across the city and back, and he used that time to finish his search of her bedroom — before she started her cleaning frenzy in there.
He’d never seen anyone clean like she did, as if there was some dark purpose besides the cleaning. As if she was on a mission. It was unusual behavior, and anything out of the ordinary was automatically added to his mental file. It could be important in the end.
By the time he heard her minivan pull into the driveway shortly before noon, he’d sifted through every dust bunny and, except for a dime under the bed, hadn’t caught so much as a whiff of money.
“Brought you some lunch.” Adrianne stuck her head into the pantry. “Hey, you got the bathtub in! It looks great.”
“So does that,” he said, pointing to the sack she held, golden french fries sticking from the top. And so did she, he thought, liking the way her T-shirt fit tight and her cotton shorts fit even tighter. “Thanks.”
“No problem.”
She’d been extremely polite to him that morning, trying to be friendly, although it was obvious she was uncomfortable around him. She’d caught him by surprise yesterday, liberally, and he’d been gruff in his disgust with himself and his shock at how attractive he found her. But now he was steeled and ready. Beautiful women often made the best agents. You looked, you touched, you forgot all about why you were there. But he knew better. So he pasted on a smile and prepared to be friendly, the world’s friendliest carpenter. They would chat, she would tell him things, they’d be bosom buddies.
She divided up hamburgers and fries while he washed his hands in the kitchen sink.
“So,” she said with a smile as they