“What!”
So much for clipped precise authority.
Neely smiled. Perhaps it wasn’t the nicest way to convey the news that there was a leak in the underbelly of Sebastian’s new property, but as it could have been her houseboat, she wasn’t very inclined to play nice.
“You heard me,” she said. “There was water all over the floor this morning.”
“Robson?” The voice was barking in her ear now. She supposed she ought to have identified herself. “Is that you?”
“Who else could it possibly be?”
“One of my sisters,” he muttered. Then “What are you talking about?”
“Water water everywhere,” she said. “It means there’s a leak down under somewhere. I remember it happening once before. Frank had to call someone to come and pump something out, then get down under there and fix it. Sorry, I can’t get more technical than that. I can find out who he called, if you want,” she added helpfully. “Or maybe you have a better idea.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, long enough that she wondered if he might actually have a better idea. But then he said, “Get the guy’s name. Call him if you can and ask him to do it. I can’t get back until Friday.”
It was Wednesday evening now. He’d left on Monday, so basically she’d enjoyed a Sebastian-free week so far. It had been quite blissful.
Or it would have been if Max hadn’t taken to teasing her every day, asking her if she missed him.
“Right,” she said now briskly. “I’ll try to track Frank down. Sorry to trouble you.”
“No trouble,” he said. “It’s my responsibility. It’s my b—”
“Your boat. Yes, I know that. Okay. Bye.” She was about to hang up when he spoke again.
“Robson?”
She put the phone back against her ear. “Yes?”
“How’s Harm? Pushed anyone else in the water?”
“What?” The questions surprised her. “Um, no. But there hasn’t been anyone else here, either.”
“Good. I thought perhaps—Never mind. How’s the weather?”
“The weather?” What on earth? She was talking to Sebastian Savas about the weather? “Well, it’s raining,” she said. “As usual. Imagine that.”
He laughed. It was a low, intimate chuckling sound that sent a quick unexpected shiver of awareness down the back of her neck.
“Not here,” he said. “It’s hot in Reno.”
“I should think it would make a nice change.” She stared out the window at the rain bucketing down and tried to imagine a bit of sunshine.
“It does. But still I’ll be glad to get back.”
“So Harm can push you in the water again?”
“Not exactly.” But there was the unexpected sound of a smile in his voice.
Neely was having a hard time believing this conversation was happening. She hadn’t wanted to ring Sebastian in the first place. She’d imagined he would be abrupt, abrasive and think she was overstepping her bounds. When he was polite about the leak, that was as much as she’d hoped for. She certainly didn’t expect casual conversation.
And while it was difficult to imagine it was Sebastian on the other end of the connection, at the same time she was having no trouble seeing him—in her mind’s eye—at all.
It was evening. He was on the road. She’d been there often enough that she understood the scenario. There was no noise in the background, so he wasn’t out in one of Reno’s nightspots. He’d likely be in his hotel room, perhaps lying on his bed.
No. Don’t go there.
But even as she warned herself, a vision of the last time she’d seen Sebastian—damp-haired and bare-chested—became all too vivid, and she had to swallow hard. But before she could say a word, he spoke again.
“I don’t much like being on the road,” he said quietly.
And what was she supposed to do? Say, Too bad. Goodbye? Her mother had raised her better than that.
She said, “I don’t, either. I think it comes from moving so much when I was a kid.”
“Tell me about it,” he asked, sounding interested.
And the invitation to talk was somehow more than she could resist. She’d been trying to work ever since she got home. But she’d been restless—not to mention periodically mopping—and now she curled up on the sofa with Harm’s head in her lap and watched the rain.
“Well, I was home schooled mostly. Or should I say, commune schooled?” she corrected herself. “My mother was a hippie of sorts.”
“No joke?” He sounded surprised.
“Nothing funny about it,” Neely assured him. “My mother is definitely an independent free spirit. But she was never quite able to be an independent free spirit on her own. She needed a base, a group of people. But she didn’t like anyone telling her what to do. Mostly communes are live and let live. But they can have their idiosyncracies, and she always seemed to run up against them. And then we’d move on.”
“Just you and your mother?”
“Until I was twelve,” Neely said. “And then she met my stepdad. He was a policeman. We were living in Wisconsin at the time and he’d been sent to arrest her for selling her jewelry on the street without a business license. It’s funny, really,” she said, thinking about those days now, “they were so different. And yet they were just right for each other. They had a great marriage. It was awful when he died. But I knew good marriages exist because of theirs. I want a marriage like that someday.”
“Do you.” There was a sudden hard edge in Sebastian’s tone and his statement wasn’t a question. “Good luck.” He couldn’t have sounded less encouraging.
He was such a cynic. “You don’t believe in marriages that last?” She asked, at the same time wondering why they were discussing it at all. It certainly wasn’t the sort of conversation she ever expected to have with Sebastian Savas. But then, she’d never expected to be living with him, either!
“I wouldn’t say they can’t ever happen,” he said. “But I’d bet against it.”
“So did my mother. And then she found the right man. You won’t say that when you find the right woman.”
“There isn’t a right woman.”
“Well, maybe not yet, but—”
“Ever.”
“Oh.” She mulled that over, then said cautiously, “So…is there a right man?”
There was a moment’s stunned silence. Then he laughed. “No, Robson. I’m not gay. I’m just not getting married.”
Firm and final. The Voice of Authority was back now. This was the Sebastian Savas she knew.
“Act like that,” she said lightly, “and it won’t be a problem. No one will want to marry you.”
“Good.”
If there was ever an exit line, Neely decided, that was it.
“Right. Well, I won’t be expecting to get an invitation to your wedding anytime soon then. Thanks for warning me. I’d better go make your phone call now about the leak. And Harm wants out. Don’t you, Harm?” She patted the sleeping dog who never even opened an eye. “Bye.” And she rang off before Sebastian could say anything else.
Not