Page 5 (1/2)

As nervous as a parent sending her firstborn off to school, Cilla supervised the loading of her vintage kitchen appliances onto the truck Once restored, they’d be the jewels in her completed kitchen Or that was the plan

For the foreseeable future, she’d e, hot plate and e dorm than an actual home

"Get yourself brand-new appliances down at Sears," Buddy told her

"Call me crazy," Cilla said, as she suspected he already did "Now let’s talk about putting a john in the attic"

She spent the next hour with him, the electrician and one of the carpenters in theit when their suggestions made sense to her

With the an the laborious task of sorting and hauling the attic contents out to the old barn There, where the ghostly scents of hay and horses haunted the air, she stored both trash and treasure While spring popped around her, Cilla watched old s replaced by new, and old ceramic tiles hauled to the Dumpster She breathed in the scents of sawdust and plaster, of wood glue and sweat

At night she nursed her blisters and nicks, and often read over the letters written to her grand, too restless to settle after the various crews had cleared out, she hiked down to study and consider her iron gates Or she used the out on his veranda His casual wave as she stood on her side of the road, and Spock’s wagging stunted whip of a tail,your veranda," he commented "Where’d you learn to use power tools?"

"Along the way" After greeting the dog, she turned, looked back at the farm "My veranda doesn’t look too bad fro ood, too I’hts"

"Skylights in an attic"

"It won’t be an attic when I’m done It’ll be my office That’s your fault"

He suess that’s tit for tat, so to speak" He lifted his Corona "Want a beer?"

"I really do"

"Have a seat"

She slid into one of his wide Adirondacks, scratched Spock’s big head between his tiny pointed ears while Ford went inside for the beer It was a good perspective of her place froht She could see where she needed new trees, shrubs, where it ht be a nice touch to add a trellis to the south side of the house, how the old barn wanted to be connected to the house by a stone path Or brick, she thought Maybe slate

"I iine the sound carries over here," she said when Ford ca"

"I don’t hear " He handed her the beer, sat "Unless I want to"

"Superior powers of concentration?"

"That would be a lofty way of saying I just tune things out How’s it going over there?"

"Pretty well Fits and starts like any project" She took a pull of her beer, closed her eyes "God, cold beer after a long day It should be the law of the land"

"I seelanced at his, smiled "So I’ve noticed"

"My place isn’t fit for even casual entertainate?"

"Hard to miss"

"Do I have it restored, or do I have it replaced?"

"Why do you need it? See out, opening the gates, driving through, getting out, closing the autoed ainst her hand a few ti him "They’re there for a reason"

"I can see why she needed the them since you moved in"

"No, I haven’t" She smiled a little as she sipped her beer "Because they’re too much trouble They don’t fit the feel of the place, do they? The ra old barn But she needed them They’re just an illusion, really" God knew she’d needed her illusions "Not that hard to climb over them or the walls But she needed the illusion of security, of privacy I found some old letters"

"Ones she wrote?"

She hadn’tabout theue, Cilla wondered, or just his company? She wasn’t sure she’d ever met anyone so innately relaxed "No, written to her A number of them written to her in the last year and a half of her life By a local, I’d say, as the majority of the postmarks are from here"

"Love letters"

"They started that way Passionate, roled her head, studied hi you?"

"Why not?"

"I haven’t told anyone else yet I’ve been trying to figure the to talk to my father about it at some point, as he was friendly with Janet’s son-un the winter before he was killed-and appears to have started to go downhill a few months after"

"You want to knorote the lazily with his foot when Spock shifted to bun the them with varieties of ’up yours’ It didn’t end well He was h, curled up under Ford’s chair and began to snore "It’s no secret she had affairs with s to serious liaisons She fell in love the way other woood idea at the time"

"She lived in a different world than most women"

"I’ve always considered that a handy excuse or justification for being careless, for being selfish"

"Maybe" Ford shrugged "Still true"

"She craved love, the physical and the emotional As addicted to it as she was to the pills herher when she was four But I think this one was real, for her"

"Because she kept it secret"

She turned back to hiht Not just the way they looked with that rireen, the flecks scattered in it But the way he saw things

"Yes, exactly She kept it to herself because it was important And maybe Johnnie’s death made it all the more intense and desperate I don’t knohat she wrote to him, but from his letters I can feel her desperation, and that terrible need, as easily as I can read his waning interest, his concerns with being found out and his eventual disgust But she didn’t want to let go The last letter in the stack was mailed froaze focused on the farm "Died in that house across the road He told her, in very clear, very harsh words, that they were done, to leave hi the letter She walked off the set of her last, unfinishedexhaustion, and flew here That wasn’t her way She worked, she loved the work, respected the work, but she flicked it off this ti to win him back Don’t you think?"

"I don’t know You do"

"I do" It hurt, she realized A little pang in the heart "And when she realized it was hopeless, she killed herself Her fault Hers," she said before Ford could speak "Whether it was the accidental overdose, as the coroner decided to rule it, or the suicide that seems much more realistic But this man has to know he played a part in what she chose to do that night"

"You want the piece of the puzzle so you can see the whole picture"

The shadoere long now, she thought Long and growing longer Soon the lights would sparkle through the hills, and the reith her like another person in the house, or wherever I went, whatever I did Her life, her work, her brilliance, her flaws, her death Inescapable And now, look what I’ve done" She gestured with the bottle toward the farm "My choice I’ve had opportunities I never would have had if Janet Hardy hadn’t been randmother And I’ve dealt with a lot of crap over the years because Janet Hardy’s randmother Yeah, I’d like the whole picture Or as much of one as it’s possible to see I don’t have to like it, but I’d like, maybe even need, the chance to understand it"

"Seems reasonable to me"

"Does it? It does to me, too, except when it doesn’t and strikes e, and only one generation rerandparents, on both sides Of course, three out of four of the-and two of those three still live around here And will talk your ear off the side of your head given half the chance"

"And apparently so will I I need to get back" She pushed to her feet "Thanks for the beer"

"I’rill in a bit" He rose as well, casually shifting in a way that boxed her between the porch rail and his body "That and the microwave are my culinary areas Why don’t you have another beer, and I’ll cook soht, she had no doubt Tall, sun-streaked and charood "I’ve been up since six, and I’ve got a full day toertips-just the fingertips- down her ar on you"

"I suspected that I’ht now"

"In that case I’d better take advantage of the moment"

She expected smooth, a nice quiet cruise by the way his head dipped toward hers, by the lazy interest in those gold-rimmed eyes Later, when she could think about it clearly, she decided she hadn’t been entirely wrong It was sht up, is sot a strong, hard jolt when his ht to her belly The hands that gripped her arainst hiainst the post, and her ht And she’d forgotten to strap in first

She clamped her hands on his hips and let the speed take her

Everything he’d iination was boundless- paled Her taste was enerous, her body more supple It was as if he’d painted this first kiss in the brightest, boldest colors in his palette

And even they weren’t deep enough

She was a ride on a dragon, a flight through space, a dive into the deep waters of an enchanted sea

His hands swept up fro the band tying it back He eased away to see her with her hair tuain

But she pressed a hand to his chest "Better not" She let out a careful breath "I’ve already hit my quota of mistakes for this decade"

"That didn’t feel like a mistake to me"

"Maybe, maybe not I have to think about it"

He ran his hands down to her elbows and back up as he watched her "That’s really a damn shame"

"It is" She took another breath "It absolutely is But"

At her light nudge, he stepped back "Here’s what I need to know There’s persistence, there’s pacing and there’s pains in the ass I’ory you’d consider it if I wander over to your place now and then or invite you over here, with the full intention of trying to get you naked"

The dogsound fro eyes open As if he waited for the answer, too

"You haven’t come close to the third yet, but I’ll let you know if you do"

She sidestepped "But I’ to take a rain check on that offer of food and nudity I’ve got a porch-veranda-to finish tohed, went down the steps before she changed herhit on"

"Come back anytime for any or all of the above"

He leaned on the rail as she walked across the road, returned the wave she sent hiates And he bent and picked up the little stretchy band of blue he’d tugged out of her hair

FORD DEBATED GIVING her some time, some space Then decided the hell with that His latest novel was on his editor’s desk, and before he dove too deeply into Brid, he wanted some visual aids Plus, since Cilla didn’t appear to be put off by the persistent, he intended to be just that

After he rolled out of bed at what he considered the civilized hour of ten, checked the backyard to see that Spock was already up and chasing his ghost cats, he took his coffee outside and watched her work on her front veranda

He considered he could get so lens But decided that edged over into the murky area of creepy Instead, he poured hi her

The body was great Long, lean, lanky and on the athletic side rather than y and slight Cass would be fit, he decided, but instinctively conceal her attributes Brid, well, she’d be right out there

The hair, that deep blond like shadowed sunlight, he decided An easy transition there, too Cass would habitually keep hers restrained; Brid’s would fly and flow Then the face He wished he could see Cilla’s now, but it was blocked by the brim of the ball cap she wore as she worked He had no probleles, the tones It would be a face Cass played down, one lasses, the lack of makeup