She was shivering by the time she got back inside. The shower wasn’t working but she could at least wash her face. Pouring water from the old porcelain pitcher they had found in the closet into a matching basin, she plunged a washrag into the chilly water and began to scrub off yesterday’s dirt.
There was a mirror over the dresser, missing most of its silver but good enough that she could see her reflection. She brushed the tangles out of her hair and clipped it back and began to feel a little better.
She wasn’t used to going without makeup. Applying a little base that included sunscreen, a whisper of light brown eye shadow, and a stroke of blush to each cheek, she added a dab of lipstick and walked toward the kitchen, feeling almost her old self again.
“Thought we’d start by fixing up this here furniture a little.”
“Fix it? You mean like paint it?”
“Needs it, don’t it?”
Charity thought Maude must be the queen of the understatement. “Absolutely.” Though she had never been particularly handy, out here there really was no other choice. “Unfortunately, we didn’t buy any paint.”
“I brought some I had down to the house.”
Charity eyed her warily. “What color is it?”
“There’s a can of bright red or kind of an olive green. You can take your pick.”
Catching a whiff of coffee on the stove, Charity went over and filled her cup, giving herself time to mull the notion over. She wasn’t handy but she had always had a good sense of style and taste. “Red or olive green.” It sounded a little too much like Christmas, but hey, when in Rome …
She glanced down at the peeling white paint on the breakfast table and chairs and tried to imagine them painted bright red. She didn’t think she could handle red but maybe the green, if it actually was more of an olive. She envisioned the aging dresser in the bedroom and thought of it also painted green. If the knobs were painted red along with the ornate iron headboard of the bed … if she used bright-red accents throughout the tiny cabin, it just might look pretty.
“We’ll have to brace ’em up a little, make ’em more sturdy,” Maude said.
“Okay, but sometime today I think we should go back in to town. I want to get the workmen started on the plumbing and we’d better get something done about the roof.” So far the place hadn’t leaked but she wasn’t sure how much longer the sagging timbers would hold out. Better to be safe than sorry.
As soon as breakfast was over, they dragged what furniture they’d found in the house out onto the porch and started bracing each piece up so it wouldn’t wobble.
“We’re gonna run outta nails,” Maude grumbled. “I’ll see if I can find us some out back.” She ambled off to look through one of the wooden sheds behind the cabin while Charity continued to hammer away. She was pounding, making quite a racket, when she looked up to see a man striding down the path along the creek, headed in her direction.
He was tall, at least six-two or six-three, dressed in a pair of faded jeans that molded to long, muscular legs, and a worn denim shirt that stretched over shoulders the width of an axe handle. He was lean, no extra flesh, yet his movements spoke of power and physical strength. Whoever he was, he needed a haircut. Coffee-brown hair, several inches too long, curled over his collar, and it looked as if he hadn’t shaved for the better part of a week.
As he got closer, she noticed he was very tan, his eyes an amazing shade of blue with tiny lines fanning out at the corners. He was probably mid-thirties, and even with his unkempt hair and several days’ growth of beard, he was a very attractive man.
Charity thought of Jeremy Hauser but only fleetingly. This man and Jeremy had nothing at all in common. While Jeremy was almost ridiculously civilized, this man looked as if he had just stepped out of the pages of a Jack London novel, like a lumberjack, or maybe a trapper, home from weeks spent out in the woods.
He kept on walking, his strides long and filled with purpose, and as he approached the porch, she saw that his features were sharply defined: his nose straight, his cheeks lean, and his jaw square. There was a slight indentation in his chin. She wondered if he was a neighbor, started to smile and introduce herself when his deep voice cut through the cool morning air.
“All right, what the hell is going on?”
Ignoring the anger in his voice, Charity set her hammer on top of the dresser and climbed down from the porch.
“Good morning. I’m Charity Sinclair. I’m the new—”
“I don’t care who you are, lady, I want to know what you’re doing on this property.”
She fixed a smile on her face, though it took a good bit of effort “I’m here because I’m the owner. I bought the Lily Rose from a man named Moses Flanagan.”
He narrowed those striking blue eyes at her. “Bullshit. Old man Flanagan may not live here anymore but he’d die before he’d ever sell the Lily Rose. I don’t know who you think you’re kidding, sweetheart, but if you’re planning to squat on his property you can forget it.”
It was getting harder by the moment to hang on to her temper. “You’re wrong, Mr …?”
He made no effort to answer, just continued to glare down the length of his nicely shaped nose.
“Mr. Flanagan decided to move in with his son in Calgary. He listed the property for sale several weeks ago with Smith Real Estate in Dawson. I’m the person who bought it.”
His features looked even harder than they had before. “That’s impossible. I tried to buy this place from Mose Flanagan every other month for the last four years. He refused to even consider it.”
Her irritation inched up a notch. “Well, apparently he changed his mind. The transaction officially closed yesterday morning. I don’t know why he didn’t tell you the property was for sale.” When his black scowl deepened, she couldn’t resist adding, “Maybe he just didn’t like you.”
He opened his mouth to argue, clamped down on his jaw instead, and a muscle jumped in his cheek. Apparently her goading had hit on a portion of the truth.
“So now you’re the owner,” he said darkly.
“That’s right, I am.”
He looked her over from head to foot, taking in her Liz Claiborne jeans and the touch of makeup she hadn’t been able to resist. She bristled at his smug expression.
“And you actually intend to move in?”
“I am in, Mr …?”
“Hawkins. McCall Hawkins. I’m your next-door neighbor, so to speak. And I don’t appreciate all that hammering you’ve been doing. I like things nice and quiet. I enjoy my privacy and I don’t like being disturbed. It’ll be easier on both of us if you keep that in mind.”
“I’ll do my best,” she lied, thinking of the noisy dredging equipment she intended to use in the stream. She gave him a too-sweet smile. “I’d say it was a pleasure, Mr. Hawkins, but we both know it wasn’t. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to work.”
Turning away from him, she climbed the stairs to the porch, picked up her hammer, and started pounding on the dresser again, dismissing him as if he had never been there. For several long moments, he simply stood there glaring. Then she caught the movement of his shadow as he turned and stalked away, back down the path beside the creek.
Of all the nerve. Who the devil did he think he was?
She remembered passing his house just before she reached the Lily Rose, a newer, cedar-sided home with a large, metal-roofed garage of some sort attached to it.