Susan Mallery - Why Not Tonight

Natalie sprang to her feet. “What was that?”

Before he could say he had no idea, there was a colossal ripping sound, then a rumble, as if part of the mountain were being torn away.

Ronan started for the front of the house, Natalie at his heels. He jerked open the front door in time to see a hundred-foot tree falling, falling, falling as the ground beneath it slid away. It started a cascade of trees around it swaying, then drifting toward the ravine in slow motion, pulled along by the mudslide.

The noise was deafening and the whole earth trembled. The last of the trees trembled and hovered, as if it hadn’t decided which way it was going to tumble. Ronan saw the trajectory, took a step toward it, then stopped. There was nothing he could do—nothing anyone could do. The last tree hovered for a second before crashing to the ground. The only thing in its path was a very wet, very battered twenty-five-year-old Volvo. The tree hit Natalie’s car, crushing it flat. Then the tree and the car slipped away down the side of the mountain.

“Holy crap,” she breathed, then started to laugh. “Did you see that? It was incredible.”

Worry nibbled at the back of his mind. He’d always thought she was funny. Had he mistaken mental instability for humor?

She did a little dance, then bounced back in the house and grinned at him as he closed the door.

“You know you just lost your car down the side of the mountain, right?”

She shimmied on the tile and spun in a circle. “It’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone.” She faced him and clapped her hands. “I’m so happy.”

“Which is not a normal response to what just happened.”

She stopped dancing and drew in a breath. “My insurance agent told me to drop collision or replacement or whatever it’s called on my car because it’s so old and wasn’t worth it. Only I didn’t want to because it seemed, you know, kind of mean. Like I’d given up on it.”

He was no less worried by her response. “You didn’t want to hurt your car’s feelings?”

“Exactly.” The smile returned. “They’re going to have to pay me the value of my now-totaled car. I’ve been saving for a new one—well, new to me, anyway—but I don’t have enough yet. I wanted to pay outright and not take out a loan. But with the insurance money, I can finally get my new car. Woo-hoo! I hope I can find a red one.”

She began to dance again. Ronan looked out the windows at the raging storm, the mud on the driveway, and doubted the roads were the least bit passable. They were stuck until the county road crew got up the mountain and cleaned things up. It was going to be, he realized, a very, very long couple of days.

CHAPTER TWO

RONAN SEEMED UNABLE to grasp the glory of the moment, so Natalie stopped trying to explain it. Losing her car was fantastic, but if he couldn’t see it that way, then she would be happy on her own.

“I emailed the county while you were in the bathroom,” he told her. “I should hear back on the status of the roads in the next hour or so, but if those trees fell, I’m sure others did, too.”

“So I’m stuck,” she said, turning the idea over in her mind. “Is that going to freak you out?”

One corner of his mouth turned up. “I’m not easily freaked.”

“Then I guess we’re good.” She wasn’t worried about staying with Ronan. He was basically a good guy, and they had food and a generator, so she would be fine.

He showed her the laundry room, which was so much nicer than the one in her apartment building.

“I can figure it out,” she told him, eyeing the sheets in the dirty clothes hamper by the shiny, front-loading machine. “I’ll use those to make a load. I’ll be fine, if you want to go, um, work.”

He studied her for a second, then nodded. “I’ll be in my studio for a couple of hours,” he told her. “Then we can figure out what to have for dinner.”

She’d just had soup and crackers, so wouldn’t be hungry for a while. Not that she wasn’t always up for a meal, but still. “Sounds great.”

She watched him leave, put her sopping clothes into the washer, added the sheets and detergent, then started the cycle. Only then did she wonder if he really was going to work. Lately he hadn’t been producing. She didn’t know if she was the only one to notice, or if his brothers had, as well. She wondered if the lack of work was the reason Ronan had been so withdrawn over the past few months. To be as gifted and incredible as he was and then to not be able to work would be... Honestly, she couldn’t imagine. Maybe the saddest thing ever. To have that creative gift taken away was the definition of cruelty.

The front-loading washer door locked into place. She watched it for a second, realized there was a timer that told her she had forty-seven minutes until the cycle was over and knew there was no way she could stay here watching laundry wash.

The right thing to do would be to quietly sit somewhere, minding her own business, maybe playing a game on her phone, but the burning need to explore the huge, intriguing house was so much more appealing. She wouldn’t go anywhere too personal, she promised herself. A quick tour of mostly public spaces should be okay.

She retraced her steps through the kitchen and into the entryway, wanting to start at the beginning. The double front doors were huge. They looked as if they’d been reclaimed from some castle teardown, not that they had many of those in the southwestern part of the country. She ran her hands over the wood and briefly imagined barbarians using a battering ram to break down the door.

The foyer itself was large and circular. A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling two stories up. It seemed to be from the same design era as the front doors—wrought iron and glass twisted into a medieval feel. To her right was a staircase hugging the curved wall. Beyond that was a hallway. To her left was a shorter hallway leading to the kitchen-slash-family room, and there was a half-open door straight across from her. Inside was a very prosaic but necessary powder room.

She headed down the hallway to the right. It led to a beautiful formal dining room with a big table and eight chairs. Ronan wasn’t the type to host a dinner party and she couldn’t imagine him buying the furniture. Had the house been furnished when he’d bought it?

She went back into the kitchen. It was just plain big. Starkly modern with stainless-steel appliances all in fancy brands like Sub-Zero and Wolf and gorgeous quartz countertops. The backsplash was done in swirling glass tiles that morphed from gray to blue to green to yellow and back to gray. The shapes fit together like a puzzle, and depending on where she stood, the colors seemed to blend and merge or stand out on their own. What on earth?

“Duh,” she murmured to herself as she pressed her hands against the cool-to-the-touch backsplash. Ronan was a gifted glass artist. He would have made the tiles himself.

The glass door to the pantry had an inset that matched. She saw a built-in wine cellar that was filled, and plenty of cupboard space. After glancing over her shoulder to make sure she was still alone, she opened one of the cupboards and saw a stack of dishes. Nothing noteworthy. Everyone had dishes. Only these were special.

She picked up one of the plates and studied it. The pattern—one that was similar to the backsplash—was unfamiliar, but she recognized the work. Mathias, Ronan’s brother, had made them. Mathias sold all kinds of dishes, serving pieces, light pendants and blown-glass sinks. As the part-time office manager, she cataloged his work, but she’d never seen these before. Had he made them specially for his brother, and if so, when had that happened? While they weren’t estranged exactly, she couldn’t imagine Ronan asking for something like this.