Nora Roberts - Tribute

He found her standing in front of the newly planked veranda guzzling water from a bottle. The warming temperatures and the labor combined to lay a dark sweat line down the center of the white T-shirt she wore with the jeans. It only added to his annoyance that he found a sweaty, possibly unstable woman so damned appealing.

“Are you crazy or just stupid?” he demanded.

Slowly, she lowered the bottle. And slowly, she tipped her head down until those glacial blue eyes met his. “What?”

“Who lives like that?” He jerked a thumb back toward the house as he strode down to her. “The house is torn to pieces, you’re down to a hot plate in the kitchen, and you’re sleeping on the floor and living out of a cardboard box. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“I’ll take that one at a time. I live like this because I’m in the middle of a major project, which is why the house is torn up, though hardly to pieces. I’m down to a hot plate because I’m having the appliances rehabbed. I’m sleeping on an air mattress, not the floor, because I haven’t decided what kind of bed I want. And there’s nothing wrong with me.”

“Go on up and get what you need. You’ll take my spare room.”

“I stopped taking orders a long time ago. From my mother, from agents, managers, directors, producers and all manner of others who decided they knew what was best for me, what I wanted, what I should do. I’m afraid you’re too late.”

“You’re living like a squatter.”

“I’m living as I choose.”

He caught the flare of heat in the icy blue, but pushed anyway.“There’s a bedroom over there with a perfectly good bed, one with sheets.”

“Oh, if it’s got actual sheets… no. Go away, Ford. My break’s over.”

“Your bitch of a boss’ll have to give you another couple minutes. You can see this damn place from mine, and you can walk over every morning in about ninety seconds-after you’ve had a decent night’s sleep in an actual bed, and used a bathroom that isn’t the black and blue of a psychedelic bruise, and about the size of a quarter.”

For some reason his obvious fury banked any embers of her own. Amused now, she laughed outright. “The bathroom’s hideous, I’ll give you that. But doesn’t persuade me to pull up stakes. I get the impression you’re a lot more fastidious than I am.”

“I’m not fastidious.” Temper veered sharply into insult. “Old men in cardigans are fastidious. Wanting to sleep in a bed and piss in a toilet that was manufactured sometime in the last half century doesn’t make me fastidious. And your hand’s bleeding.”

She glanced down. “Must’ve scraped it.” She wiped the shallow cut carelessly on her jeans.

He stared at her. “What the hell’s wrong with me ?” he wondered, and grabbed her.

He jerked her up to her toes. He wanted those ice-blue eyes level with his, wanted that gorgeous, tasty mouth lined right up. He didn’t think any further than that before he swooped in and plundered.

She was sweaty, covered with sawdust and possibly had any number of screws loose. And he’d never, never wanted anyone more in his life.

He ignored her jump of shock. The bolt of lust that slammed into him blasted away any thought of niceties. He wanted, he took. It was as elemental as that.

The water bottle slipped out of her hand and bounced on the ground. For the first time in too long to remember she’d been caught completely by surprise. She hadn’t seen this move coming, and even the potency of the kiss they’d shared the evening before hadn’t prepared her for the punch of this one.

It was raw, and it was randy, and plowed straight through her to leave her muscles quivering and nerve ends quaking. She wanted, for one mad moment, to be gulped down in one greedy swallow, wanted him to throw her over his shoulder and drag her off to some dark cave.

When he jerked her away again, her head actually spun.

“Fastidious, my ass.”

As she stared at Ford, she heard Buddy the plumber call her name from behind. “Don’t mean to interrupt,” he continued, “but you might take a look at what I’m fixing to do in this bathroom. When you get a minute.”

She lifted a hand, wagged it vaguely in the air without looking around. “You’re a dangerous man, Ford.”

“Thanks.”

“I don’t know how I missed that. I’m usually good at spotting dangerous men.”

“I guess I wear it well, since I’ve missed that my entire life myself. There’s a lock on the spare bedroom. I can give you my word not to kick the door down, unless the house is on fire. Even then, since I’ve never kicked one down, you’d probably have plenty of warning.”

“If and when I sleep at your house, it won’t be in the spare room. But for now, I’m staying put. You’re a dangerous man, Ford,” she repeated before he could speak. “I’m a determined woman. I not only like living here, I need to. Otherwise, I’d be staying at the closest motel. Now, I’ve got to get inside. I’m putting in a basin-style sink with exposed pipes and wall-hung fixtures. Like you, Buddy doesn’t understand my line of thinking.”

He looked over her shoulder at the house, shook his head. “Right now, I’m not sure anyone understands your line but you.”

“I’m used to that.”

“Come on over when you’re done, we’ll check out that gym.” He picked up his satchel and camera. Then the water bottle. “Your shoes are wet,” he told her, then headed home.

Cilla looked down at her feet. Damned if they weren’t. She squished her way into the house to talk to Buddy.

Cilla spent the bulk of her afternoon looking at toilets. And choosing sinks. She debated the advantages of travertine tile and granite, limestone and ceramic. In her last incarnation of flipping houses, budget had been king. She’d learned to stick to one, to select the best value and look at the neighborhood as well as the house itself. Too much over, too much under, and profit would be sucked away like dust bunnies in a Dyson.

But this time things were different. While budget could never be ignored, she was making choices for home, not for resale. If she intended to live on the Little Farm, to build a life and a career there, she’d be the one living with those choices for a long time to come.

When she’d stumbled into the real estate game, she learned she had a good eye for potential, for color, texture, balance. And she discovered she was fussy. A slight difference in tone, shape or size in bathroom tile mattered in her world. She could spend hours deciding on the right drawer pull.

And she’d discovered doing so, and finding the right drawer pull, made her absurdly happy.

On her return to the now empty construction zone of a house, she grinned at the new planks of her veranda. She’d done that, just as she’d build the rail, the pickets, then paint it a fresh farmhouse white. Probably white, she corrected. Maybe cream. Possibly ivory.

The sound of her feet slapping down on those planks struck her like music.

She hauled the samples she’d brought with her up to the bathroom, spent time arranging, studying. And basking in her vision. Warm, charming, simple. Exactly right for a guest room bath.

The oil-rubbed bronze fixtures she’d already bought and had planned this room around would be wonderfully complemented by the subtle tones in the tile and old-fashioned vessel sink.

Buddy, she thought, would eat his words when this was done.

She left the samples where they were-she wanted to take another careful look at them in natural, morning light-then all but danced to the shower to wash off the day’s work.

She sang, letting her voice boom and echo off the cracked, pitiful and soon to be demolished tiles of her own bathroom. No playback from a recording studio or soundstage had ever pleased her more.