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In a house with almost no doors, a door banged. Blue’s eyes inched open, disturbing the most delicious, erotic dream. Threads of gray light had crept into the room, and she let her eyes slip shut again, trying to reclaim the feeling of long fingers curling around her breast…a hand nuzzling inside her jeans….
Another door banged. Something hard pressed against her hip. Her eyes sprang open. A gravely voice near her ear muttered an obscenity, a hand that didn’t belong to her cupped her breast, and another pressed inside her jeans. A rush of alarm brought her fully awake. This was no dream.
“The carpenters are here,” a woman said from not all that far away. “If you don’t want company, you’d better get up.”
Blue shoved at Dean’s arm, but he took his time extricating himself from her clothes. “What time is it?”
“Seven,” April replied.
Blue yanked her shirt down and buried her face in the pillow. This hadn’t been part of her plan to stay ahead of him.
“It’s the middle of the night,” he protested.
“Not for a construction crew,” April replied. “Good morning, Blue. Coffee and doughnuts downstairs.” Blue rolled over and gave a weak wave. April waved back and disappeared.
“This sucks,” he muttered. And then he yawned. Blue didn’t like that. The least he could do was express a little sexual frustration.
She realized she hadn’t entirely shaken off the aftereffects of her dream. “Pervert.” She threw herself out of bed. She absolutely couldn’t let herself be turned on by this man, not even in her sleep.
“You’re a liar,” he said from behind her.
She looked back. “What are you talking about?”
The covers fell to his waist as he sat up, and sunlight from the bare windows skipped across his biceps, gilding the hair on his chest. He rubbed his bad shoulder. “You told me you had, quote, ‘no boobs.’ Turns out, you were dead wrong about that.”
She wasn’t awake enough for a good comeback, so she glared at him and stalked into the bathroom, where she turned both faucets on full force for privacy. When she emerged, she found him standing in front of an expensive suitcase he’d set on the bed. He was wearing only a pair of navy knit boxers. She stumbled, silently cursed herself, then pretended she’d done it on purpose. “For the love of God, warn me next time. I think I’m having a heart attack.”
He glanced over his shoulder, blasting her with all his stubbled, rumpled glory. “From what?”
“You look like an ad for gay porn.”
“You look like a national disaster.”
“Exactly why I have dibs on that shower.” She headed for her grungy duffel, which he’d deposited in the corner. She unzipped it and rummaged for clean clothes. “I don’t suppose you’d stand guard in the hall while I clean up?”
“Why don’t I just go in there and keep you company?” It sounded more like a threat than a come-on.
“Amazing,” she said. “A superstar like you still willing to help out the little people.”
“Yeah, well, that’s the way I’m made.”
“Forget it.” She grabbed her clothes, a towel, and some toiletries and headed for the bathroom. Once she was absolutely sure he wouldn’t try to join her, she shampooed her hair and shaved her legs. Dean didn’t know his mother wasn’t really dying, but he seemed more belligerent than sorrowful. She didn’t care what April had done to him. That was cold.
She dressed in a pair of clean but faded black bike shorts, a roomy camouflage T-shirt, and flip-flops. After a quick blast with his hair dryer, she pulled her hair up with a red ponytail elastic. The shorter ends refused to cooperate and straggled down her neck. For April’s sake she’d have added lip gloss and mascara if they hadn’t both gone missing three days ago.
As she came downstairs, she saw an electrician perched on a ladder in the dining room wiring an antique chandelier. The plastic had been taken off the living room doorway, and Dean stood inside, talking to the carpenter repairing the crown molding. Dean must have showered in the other bathroom because his hair was damp and beginning to curl. He wore jeans and a T-shirt that matched his eyes.
The living room extended the depth of the house and had a stone fireplace larger than the one in the master bedroom. A new set of French doors opened onto what looked like a freshly poured concrete slab that jutted out from the back of the house. She headed for the kitchen.
Last night she’d been too unnerved to appreciate everything April had done here, but now she paused in the doorway to take it in. The vintage appliances, along with nostalgic white bead-board cabinets bearing cherry red ceramic knobs, made her feel as though she’d stepped back into the forties. She imagined a woman in a freshly ironed cotton dress, hair rolled neatly at the nape of her neck, peeling potatoes over the farmhouse sink while the Andrews Sisters harmonized in “Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree” on the radio.
The fat white refrigerator with its rounded edges was probably a reproduction, but not the vintage white enamel gas stove, which had double ovens and a shallow, built-in metal shelf above the burners to hold salt and pepper shakers, canisters, maybe a Mason jar stuffed with wildflowers. The countertops hadn’t yet been installed, so she could see that the bead-board cabinets weren’t original but beautiful reproductions. The black-and-white checkerboard floor was also new. A paint sample taped to the wall announced the kitchen’s final color scheme: sunny yellow walls, white cupboards, bright red accents.
Don’t sit under the apple tree…
Light
flooded the room from two sources: a wide window over the sink and longer windows that had been added to the squared-off breakfast nook and still bore the manufacturer’s stickers. A clutter of doughnut boxes, abandoned Styrofoam cups, and papers sat on top of a chrome kitchen table with a cherry red Formica top.
