Nora Roberts - Tribute

“I told you I’d swing down if I had time.”

“I didn’t think you’d have time, or remember to swing down.” Steve tipped down his Wayfarers and looked at Cilla over them with his deep and dreamy brown eyes. “When have I ever forgotten you?”

“Do you want a list?”

He laughed, gave her a hip bump as they crossed the veranda. “When it counted. Whoa.” He stopped just inside the doorway, scanned the living area, its pockets of drying plaster, the patchwork of scarred floors and splattered drop cloths. “Excellent.”

“It is, isn’t it? And it will be.”

“Nice space. Floors’ll clean up. Walnut?”

“They are.”

“Sweet.” He wandered through, passing casual how’s-it-goings to the workers still on-site cleaning up for the day.

He walked lightly, and looked slight. Looks, Cilla knew, were deceiving. Under the T-shirt and jeans, he was ripped. Steve Chensky honed his body with the devotion of an evangelist.

Cilla thought if he’d worked half as hard on his music, he’d have made it from struggling artist to serious rock star. Or so she’d told him, countlesstimes. Then again, if he’d listened to her, their lives might have turned out very differently.

He stopped in the kitchen, took his measure of the place with his sunglasses hooked in his T-shirt. “What’s the plan here?”

“Take a look.” She flipped through the notebook sitting on the one remaining counter, found her best sketch of the concept.

“Nice, Cill. This is nice. Good flow, good work space. Stainless steel?”

“No. I’m having the fifties appliances retrofitted. Jesus, Steve, they rock. I’m looking at faucets. I’m thinking of going copper there. Kind of old-timey.”

“Cost ya.”

“Yeah, but it’s a good investment.”

“Granite countertops?”

“I toyed around with doing polished concrete, but for this? You’ve got to go with granite. I haven’t picked it out yet, but the cabinets are in the works. Glass fronts, see, copper leading. I nearly went white there, but I want the warmth, so they’re cherry.”

“Gonna have something.” He gave her an elbow bump this time. “You always had an eye.”

“You opened the door so I could use it.”

“I opened it. You knocked it down. I drove by the Brentwood house before I headed to New York. Old time’s sake. It still looks fine. So, gotta beer?”

She opened the mini fridge, pulled out a beer for each of them. “When do you have to head back to L.A.?”

“I got a couple of weeks. I’ll trade labor for digs.”

“Seriously? You’re hired.”

“Like old times,” he said, and tapped his beer to hers. “Show me the rest.”

Ford bided his time. He waited a full hour after the crews headed out for the day. No harm in wandering over, he told himself. Paying a friendly visit. He scowled at the Harley, and after Spock peed copiously on its front tire, crouched down to exchange a quick high five with his loyal best friend.

It wasn’t as if he’d never driven a motorcycle. He’d taken a few spins in his day. Okay, one spin. He just didn’t like bugs in his teeth.

But he could drive one if he wanted to.

He jammed his hands in his pockets and resisted giving the Harley a testing kick. He heard the music-ass-kicking rock this time-and instead of going to the front, followed the sound around back.

They sprawled on the steps of the veranda with a couple of bottles of beer and a bag of Doritos. His flavor of Doritos, Ford noted. With her head tipped back against the post, Cilla laughed so the sound of it poured right over the music. And straight into Ford’s gut.

Tattoo Guy grinned at her, in a way that spoke of love, intimacy and history.

“You never change. What if you’d… Hey, Ford.”

“Hey.”

Spock stiff-walked over to Tattoo Guy. “Steve, this is Ford, my neighbor across the road. And that would be Spock. Steve detoured down from New York on his way back to L.A.”

“How you doing? Hey, guy, hey, pal.” He ruffled Spock’s big head with his ringed hand. Ford’s lips curled in disgust when his dog-his loyal best friend-dropped his head lovingly on Steve’s knee.

“Want a beer?” Steve offered, giving Spock a full-body rub.

“Sure. Are you driving the Harley cross-country?”

“The only way to travel.” Steve opened a beer, passed it to Ford. “My girl out there, she’s my one true love. Except for Cill here.”

Cilla snorted. “I notice you still put the bike first.”

“She’ll never leave me, like you did.” Steve clamped a hand on Cilla’s knee. “We used to be married.”

“You and the bike?”

The cool remark had Steve tossing back his head and laughing. “We’re still married. Cill and I only were.”

“Yeah, for about five minutes.”

“Come on. It was at least fifteen. Pull up a step,” Steve invited.

The polite thing to do, the sensible thing to do would be to back off, back away. But Ford was damned if he’d be polite or sensible. He sat. And the brief sour look he sent Spock had the dog hanging his head. “So you live in L.A.”

“That’s my town.”

“Steve got me into flipping. Houses,” Cilla added. “He needed some slave labor on a flip one day, drafted me. I liked it. So he let me go into the next one with him.”

“When you were married.”

“God no, years after that.”

“You were writing a script when we were married.”

“No, I was doing voice-overs and recording. I started the script after.”

“Right, right. I worked on a session with Cilla, picking up some change and contacts while I was trying to get my band off the ground.”

“You’re a musician.” It just figured.

“Right now I’m a licensed contractor who plays guitar on the side, and does the HGTV thing.”

“ Rock the House ,” Cilla supplied. “Home-improvement type show that takes the viewer through stages of a rehab, remodel, a flip. Named after Steve’s construction company.”

TV guy, Ford thought. That just figured.

“Construction was my day job, back in rock-star-hopeful days,” Steve continued. “And I talked Cill into bankrolling my first flip when I saw how the real estate market was heading and when the band flushed away. Hit that mother in the sweet spot. Is that your Victorian across the street?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice. So do you know where we can get a pizza around here?”

Pizza was a key word for Spock, who lifted his shamed head and did his happy dance. “Eat in or delivery?”

“Delivery, man. I’m buying.”

“I’ve got the pizzeria’s number,” Cilla told him. “Do you want the usual?”

“Stick with a winner.”

“Ford?”

“Whatever you want’s fine.”

“I’ll call it in.”

When Cilla went in, Steve tipped back his beer. “Did you rehab the place yourself?”

“No, I bought it that way.”

“So what’s your line? What do you do across the street?”

“I write graphic novels.”

“No shit.” Steve bumped Ford in the arm with his beer. “Like The Dark Knight and From Hell ?”

“More Dark Knight than Campbell. You into graphic novels?”

“Ate comic books for breakfast, lunch and dinner when I was a kid. But I didn’t discover the graphics until a few years ago. Maybe I’ve read some of yours. What… damn, are you Ford Sawyer?” The brown eyes went child-like wide, and full of thrill. “Are you the fucking Seeker?”

So maybe the guy wasn’t a complete asshole, Ford decided. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“This is unreal. It’s like surreal . Check this out.” Standing, Steve yanked off his T-shirt, turned his back. There, among the other art decorating Steve’s back, was a tattoo of the Seeker striding over the left shoulder blade.