“It’s the first house on the left,” she said.
Robert turned into the narrow driveway. He cut the engine and turned slightly toward her. He still wasn’t completely sure she was as all right as she claimed. She was so thin...fragile looking. He could easily encompass her wrist between his middle finger and thumb with room to spare! Her short hair, lightly curling, changed from blond to silver depending upon the angle and degree of light. Her naturally pale skin held the lightest trace of a summer tan. Carved, delicate features, a long, graceful neck, a narrow waist.... He could only guess at her age, but he’d estimate late forties, early fifties. Her face had a quality that youth didn’t know...of numerous challenges won and lost and, as well, a haunting shadow of pain deeply held.
“Thank you for bringing me home,” she murmured, remaining stiff and formal in her manner even as she reached for the door handle.
“I’ll see you inside,” he offered.
“That’s not necessary.” She threw him a look from pale blue eyes that exactly matched the suit she wore. The look bade him not to press. But it also showed him her uncertainty. She didn’t know what to do with him! Twice they’d arranged to meet to discuss the new library and twice some outside event had gotten in the way. She couldn’t ask him into the house to work because she knew he wouldn’t agree to do so. Also, she was irritated with him because he had advised her to rest...something she obviously didn’t do a great deal. But she couldn’t just dismiss him. She needed him. So there she was, in a quandary. He tried to ease the situation for her. She’d already been through enough.
“I have friends who live on Lake Geneva. They’ve told me to stop by any time I’m in the area. Why don’t I go visit them for a couple of hours, then I’ll swing back by here and take you to the library. We can talk after that. It shouldn’t take long today. Just a few preliminaries.”
He’d wanted to do a lot more than that. He’d wanted to dig right in and feel out where she stood on a number of necessary changes. He already had a few proposals in mind. But looking into that pale face and seeing the edge of tiredness she couldn’t disguise made him willing to wait.
“Why just a few preliminaries?” she questioned, latching on to the key word. “I’d rather get on with this, wouldn’t you? Progress as far as we can.”
“Well, because...”
“I’m perfectly all right!” she insisted. “I simply forgot to eat lunch, that’s all. Then when Joe said what he did...I had a perfect right to be upset! Joe knew it. That’s why he didn’t want to tell me.”
“Do you faint every time you get upset?”
“I didn’t faint!”
“You came close to it.”
“But I didn’t actually faint!” Her denial was low and surprisingly fierce. She took a breath. “You’ve said you think we can make this new library work. I’m going to hold you to that, Mr. Fairmont. I’m willing to put in whatever amount of time it takes. You should be, too.”
“That’s what an architect does, Miss—”
“Good. Now, you go visit your friends. I think that’s an excellent idea. Then come back and we’ll get started on the plans.”
Robert continued to look at her, a smile pulling at his lips. She might appear to be fragile, but he could see that she was a force to be reckoned with when she spoke on behalf of the library. It might have been her child, a living, breathing entity she would give her all to protect. Attack it and you attacked her.
“Whatever you say,” he murmured dryly.
Her cheeks took on a rosy hue and she quickly let herself out of the car. He watched as she walked, her back straight, to the tiny porch that fronted the house, then she disappeared inside.
Robert’s gaze stayed on the door for a moment before moving away. Her house was one of the more neatly kept homes on the block. The white paint was fresh, the shrubs trimmed and numerous flowers bloomed in their beds. The look was pleasing to the eye.
He restarted the car. If he was going to stop in on Harry and June, he needed to find a telephone. Not that he wouldn’t enjoy a simple ride in the country if they weren’t at home. But he felt he should give them ample warning. He backed out of the drive, and after another glance at the unprepossessing house Elise lived in, accelerated down the street.
* * *
ROBERT TURNED AWAY from the pay phone at the service station. His friends were at home and had begged him to visit. It was months since they’d heard from him, they’d complained. And they were right. During term, there was always so much to do in the design studio, working with his students, challenging them to grow and to see beyond what was expected. Students of architecture, particularly during the last weeks of a semester, were some of the most overworked scholars on campus. Some practically lived in the studio in order to meet their deadlines. Accordingly, their teachers devoted long hours to the subject as well—a fact that Robert wouldn’t change. He loved working with his students, conveying knowledge and receiving in turn intellectual stimulation.
Yet between his work at the university and his work with the firm, little time was left to keep up social obligations. Friends sometimes became lost in the shuffle. Which was one of the reasons why he had never married. He didn’t feel his life-style would be fair to a wife. He had heeded perhaps a little too well the advice of an admired professor—that an architect should never encumber himself prematurely with outside obligations. Translated, that meant a wife, children and a mortgage. Not if the architect intended to travel extensively or to immerse himself in all the work involved in starting his own practice. It was advice he himself had given students over the years, advice that he still believed. Only sometimes did he wonder if he might have carried it a little too far.
Robert shrugged the thought away. He paid for the gasoline that had been pumped into his car and set off along the highway that would take him to Lake Geneva. But instead of looking forward to the enjoyment he would soon experience upon seeing his old friends, he found his thoughts returning to the Tyler library. Not the new one. The old one.
Robert had loved old buildings all his life, particularly old homes. To him, they were the key to another age—an age that in many ways was much more graceful than the present. As a child, he had lived in just such a house, creating fantasy worlds from basement to attic. He had always dreamed of owning one himself, but as the years passed, his dream faded. Still, he loved to look at such structures and to poke around in them when given the chance.
His business in Tyler afforded just such an opportunity. The old library, though decried by its users, was interesting to him. His guess was that it had been built at or near the turn of the century, and judging from the exterior and interior style, influenced by the revolution in architecture that had taken place around that time. It was the period when fellow Wisconsinite Frank Lloyd Wright had begun to evolve the personal style that so greatly influenced twentieth-century architecture.
Robert’s two short investigations of the building had whetted his appetite to see more. Both times he’d been distracted by other things: the water damage to the books, his second appointment with the librarian. He wanted more time to look around. And he saw no reason why, as he worked closely with Elise Ferguson, he couldn’t take it.
* * *
THE DOORBELL RANG and Elise went to answer it. Butterflies were aflight in her stomach. The fluttering increased when she saw that Robert Fairmont stood on the porch. She’d known all along it would be him, but reality seemed more potent than her thoughts.
“Hello,” she said, striving to keep her voice circumspect.
“Hello,” he returned, a smile both in his eyes and on his lips.
She stepped back, wordlessly inviting him inside. He moved past her into the formal front room. She saw his gaze quickly take in his surroundings—the heavy furniture and curtains, the ornate rug. Repeatedly over the years since their parents’