Nora Roberts - Tribute

Reaching over, Steve patted her shoulder. “Nothing new there, doll.”

“I know. But in her current mood, she might have sent someone out here to poke around, looking for something of value.”

“Give me the letters, and anything else you’re worried about. No one’s going to look at my place for them,” Ford added when she frowned at him.

“Maybe. Let me think about it.”

“Anyway,” Steve said, “we can cross off the wild-eyed mountain man with a meat cleaver. Right? Or we can as soon as Ford climbs up there and makes sure there aren’t any dead bodies or severed body parts.”

“Oh, for Christ sake.” Cilla turned toward the ladder.

Ford blocked her, nudged her back. “I’ll do it.”

He tested his weight on each rung on the climb, as he pictured himselfcrashing through and breaking any variety of bones on the concrete floor. As he reached the top, he cursed roundly.

“What is it?” Cilla called up.

“Nothing. Splinter. There’s nothing up here. Not even the lonely severed head of an itinerant field-worker.”

When he’d climbed down again, Cilla took his hand, winced at the chunk of ladder in the meat of his palm. “That’s in there. Come on inside and I’ll dig it out for you.”

“I can just-”

“While you guys play doctor, I’ll go strap on my tool belt and do a man’s work.”

Cilla glanced back at Steve. “About damn time.”

“Had to make the doughnut run. Later,” he said to Ford and strolled out.

“Did he bring you doughnuts?” Cilla asked.

“Yeah. A bribe for use of the gym.”

“Mmm. Come on in, and bring the chunk of my ladder. I assume he also woke you up.”

“You assume correctly.” Ford shoved the barn door closed behind them. “And from a very interesting dream involving you, a red room and a brass headboard. But the jelly doughnuts almost made up for it.”

“Steve believes in the power of the doughnut. So, just what was I doing in a red room with a brass headboard?”

“Hard to describe. But I think I could demonstrate.”

She looked into his eyes, bold green against gold rims. “I don’t have a red room. Neither do you.”

“I’ll go buy the paint.”

Laughing, she reached for the mudroom door, and quickly found herself with her back to the wall of the house. It came as a constant surprise just how potent, how dangerous that mouth could be. The same mouth, she thought dimly as it assaulted hers, that smiled so charmingly, that spoke in such an easy drawl about everyday things. Then it closed over hers and spiked through her system like a fever.

He gave her bottom lip a light nip before he stepped back. “I thought it was Steve headed to the barn last night. To bunk down.”

“Why would Steve sleep in the barn?” It took another minute for her brain to fire on all circuits again. “Oh. We’re all grown-ups, Ford. I’m not asking Steve to sleep in the barn.”

“Yeah, I got that. But he’s going to borrow my old sleeping bag. I haven’t used it for about fifteen years, or since sleeping in a bag on the ground lost its thrill for me. He’ll like it. It’s Spider-Man.”

“You have a Spider-Man sleeping bag?”

“I got it for my eighth birthday. It was a highlight, and has never lost its luster.” He leaned down, brushed her lips with his and opened the door behind her. “I’m more than happy to get it out of storage so Steve can use it while he’s here.”

“Neighborly of you.”

“Not especially.”

She opened the first aid kit, checked the contents. “I’ve got what I need here. Let’s do this outside. In the light.” When they stepped out onto the veranda, she gestured for him to sit. She doused a cotton ball with peroxide and cleaned the wound.

“It’s not neighborly,” Ford continued, “because the motives are entirely self-serving. I don’t want him sleeping with you.”

She shifted her gaze up to his even as she began to clean a needle and tweezers with alcohol. “Is that so?”

“If you wanted to sleep with him, then I’d be out of luck.”

“How do you know I don’t? That I didn’t?”

“Because you want to sleep with me. Ow!” He looked down at his hand and the hole she’d made at the top of the splinter with the needle. “Jesus.”

“It’s too deep to milk out, and needs a route. Suck it up. If I want to sleep with you, why haven’t I?”

He eyed the needle in her hand warily. “Because you’re not ready. I can wait until you are. But-and don’t jab me with that again-I’m god-damned if I want you sleeping with someone else, old time’s sake or not, while I’m waiting. I want my hands on you, all over you. And I want you thinking about that.”

“So you’ll lend Steve your treasured Spider-Man sleeping bag so I can think about it without caving in to my needs and sleeping with him because he’s handy.”

“Close enough.”

“Look at that.”

He turned his head to look in the direction she indicated. The sharp, quick sting had him jolting. When he cursed, Cilla held the hefty splinter in the teeth of her tweezers. “Souvenir?”

“No, thanks.”

“You’re done.” She packed up the kit, then grabbed him by the hair, crushed her mouth greedily to his. Just as quickly, she broke the kiss, rose. “And you can think about that while you’re waiting.”

With a cool smile, she walked back into the house, let the screen door slap shut behind her.

Cilla grew so accustomed to the cars that slowed or stopped at the end of her driveway she barely registered them. The lookie-loos, gawkers, even the ones she imagined took photos, didn’t have to be a problem. Sooner or later, she thought, they’d grow accustomed to her, so the best solution to her way of thinking was to ignore them, or to toss out the occasional and casual wave.

To become part of the community, she determined, she had to demonstrate her intent and desire. So she shopped at the local supermarket, hired local labor, bought the majority of her materials from local sources. And chatted up the salesclerks, the subcontractors, and signed autographs for those who still thought of her as TV Katie.

She considered it symbolic, a statement of that intent, when she took Ford’s advice and followed her first instincts and had the gates removed. To follow up, she planted weeping cherry trees to flank the drive. A statement, Cilla thought, as she stood on the shoulder of the road and studied the results. New life. And next spring, when they burst into bloom again, she’d be here to see it. From her vantage point, she looked down at the house. There would be gardens and young trees as well as the grand old magnolia. Her grand old magnolia, she thought, with its waxy white blooms sweetening the air. The paint on the house would be fresh and clean instead of dingy and peeling. Chairs on the veranda, and pots of mixed flowers. And when she could squeeze a little more out of the budget, pavers in earthy tones on the drive cutting through lush green lawns.

Eventually, when people slowed down to look, it would be because they admired a pretty house in a pretty setting, and not because they wondered what the hell the Hollywood woman was doing with the house where Janet Hardy had swallowed too many pills and chased them with vodka.

She stepped back toward the wall at the sound of an approaching car, then turned at the quick beep-beep as the little red Honda pulled to the shoulder.

It took her a moment-and brought on a twist of guilt-to recognize the pretty blonde in cropped pants and a crocheted cami who hopped out of the car.

“Hi!” On a bubble of laughter, Angela McGowan, Cilla’s half sister, rushed forward to catch Cilla in a squeeze.