Cynthia Reese - What the Heart Wants

“Then you get your hearing. If the application is thorough and well thought out.”

“That makes no sense. Why can’t I just go before the committee and explain it? Rather than write it all down?”

Because then we’d have to tell you no. This way, you don’t fill out the paperwork, you don’t get the hearing and you blame yourself. Not us.

But Kyle didn’t say that. He cleared his throat again. “It’s a way to make sure you’ve thought it all through and explored your options.”

She harrumphed. “Busywork.”

“What?” He hoped that note of guilt in his strangled response hadn’t been as evident to her as it had to him.

“Okay. Hand it over. If this is what I’ve got to do, this is what I’ve got to do.” She stood up and reached for the paperwork again.

“Would you...like me to help you with it?”

“You would?” Allison’s face lit up. Her smile was absolutely breathtaking.

That. That is why you offered.

“Sure. On one condition.”

She frowned. “What?” she asked suspiciously.

“That you come to the historical society meeting. You’d find it interesting—this month’s program’s about Victorian homes. And you could share your story about how Belle Paix was built that you were telling me when we first met. That was fun. Entertaining. Our members would love it.”

“I dunno,” she said. She put a hand to her head as though warding off a sudden headache. “I was really never good at history.”

“I promise you won’t have to remember a single date. Or name. Except mine.”

Allison laughed. “I wouldn’t forget the guy who volunteered his elbow grease to help me out.”

“So?” Kyle couldn’t believe that he was holding his breath in hopes she’d say yes.

“I was planning on painting Gran’s room Thursday—I feel fairly confident in tackling the interior paint job on my own, though the exterior, what with three tall stories and all that scraping, well, that’s a horse of a different color. Anyway, you did say when you first mentioned it that the meeting was Thursday, right? I have to work this weekend—I’m a nurse on weekends at the ER at the hospital. So...I really need to get some work done at the house.”

“I love to paint. And I’ve been told I’m very good at it. If I help you tomorrow night, and maybe Friday afternoon when my classes are done...then you’d be free Thursday?”

“You don’t quit, do you?” Allison gave a bemused chuckle. It made his heart skip a beat.

“I just think...” He looked down at the paperwork. The meeting would be a way for history to come alive for her, to help her understand why people in Lombard were so passionate about protecting their architectural treasures. Not only that, the historic section was an economic engine for the community, bringing in tens of thousands of tourist dollars each year. “I think that anyone who grew up in that marvelous house ought to know about the time the house was built.”

“You really don’t mind helping me paint? Or...” Allison pointed at the stack of papers he had clasped in his hand “...working through that monstrosity of an application?”

“I really don’t mind.”

“Okay, then. That’s a deal I can’t refuse. Wow.”

She took the papers from him. He saw her skim through them, frown in puzzlement and then shake her head. “I really am going to need your help. Half of this reads like a foreign language.”

Again, a twinge of guilt assailed him. He’d made the language as opaque as possible to intimidate would-be variance seekers.

And until now, it had worked. Not a single person had ever actually taken an application once he or she had seen it.

But Kyle had a nagging suspicion that Allison wasn’t like anybody else he’d ever met before.

CHAPTER FIVE

ALLISON DUG HER nails into the palms of her hands.

Nope. Not enough pain. Her eyelids were still drooping.

Time for the old bite-your-cheek trick , she thought.

She risked a peek at her watch and saw that she’d been trapped in the historical society’s meeting room for an hour and forty-five minutes. And there was still no end in sight.

When would this meeting end? Didn’t these people have to eat? Go to sleep?

In the front of the room, a petite woman of about seventy with impossibly dark hair pulled tight into a bun fiddled with her bifocals. “No, no, Eunice, we can’t possibly plant that particular variety of flower in the public sections of the district,” she said. “It is a more modern variety—why, it wasn’t around until 1898!”

To Allison’s sleep-deprived brain, the woman’s shrill, nasal accent drilled into her as insistently as the tools of the trade of any dentist.

So why on earth was she still nodding off?

Okay, so it probably hadn’t been the smartest move in the world to soldier on and come to this meeting after she had been called in to work last night at the last minute. She’d managed to snatch three hours of sleep when she’d gotten home this morning, but the lift-chair electrician was supposed to have shown up.

He hadn’t. Of course not. That would have broken her perfect record of repair guys who hadn’t shown up for their appointments. Five of ’em. No shows, all.

But this last guy? The electrician? He’d sworn that he’d come, that he needed the work. And she’d crawled out of bed much too soon and even showered to make sure she was presentable.

It made Allison demented enough to want to call the guy up in the middle of the night and wake him up.

She should have told Kyle that she needed to sleep. But he’d stayed at the house painting until after 9:00 p.m., and he’d been so excited at the prospect of her coming. And then this evening, when he’d stopped by to walk her over to the library, and she’d started to tell him no, he’d been like a kid. Bubbling with enthusiasm about this person he wanted her to meet, and that expert on Victorians and...

And, well, she hadn’t had the heart to let him down. She hadn’t even admitted to working all night at the ER. Allison was sure he’d think she was making an excuse to wiggle out of the meeting.

He’d done his part. She hadn’t thought one historical society meeting was too much to ask for the help he’d given.

Ha. This is worse than any clinical staff meeting I’ve ever endured. No wonder Gran steered clear of these gatherings!

She stole a look at Kyle, who appeared to be riveted by this minutiae. He’d actually been paying attention, because now he was weighing in with his own opinion.

“Ladies, both of you are right,” he said, smiling.

Even in her sleep-deprived condition, the warm tug of his lips and the way his teeth flashed bright in his tanned, lean face sent a zinger through Allison’s body.

What a charmer. Those two old gals are eating him up.

And they were—when they weren’t glaring at each other. They turned their attention back to Kyle, who continued. “While that particular rose was very popular at the turn of the century—strictly speaking, toward the end of the historic district spending spree—it hadn’t been bred when some of our earlier houses were built.”

That drew a smile from the lady with the dye job. Kyle’s next words, though, elicited a told-you-so grin from Eunice, defender of the 1898 rose. “But who’s to say that some of the owners of the older homes might not have added new varieties? After all, none of us are content with the things we started out with. We keep adding new ones, right?”

Just as Dye Job’s smug smile soured, Kyle did something that really amazed Allison. He smoothed over the whole thing and left both ladies nodding thoughtfully. “Still,” he said, “we can always skip the roses and do a nice bougainvillea instead. Properly trained, it would do quite well, and it was popular and widely available during those years.”