Seven
She’d come for peace, quiet, solitude. And ended up with a houseful of people and noise. There were days when even the view didn’t balance it out.
When she asked herself why she hadn’t settled for just the basics—like reliable plumbing and a decent refrigerator—she couldn’t quite remember the answer.
The house was torn to pieces, full of dust—with the biggest Dumpster known to man sitting in her front yard. After three solid days of rain that made heading out with her camera unappealing, Naomi was ready to throw her things in the car and run.
She bought paint instead.
On the first day of rain, she cleaned and primed the master bedroom walls. On the first night of rain, she studied paint chips, created palettes and schemes with her computer. On the second day, she convinced herself it was just paint, and if she didn’t like it on the wall, she’d just paint it again.
She bought the amount of color Kevin recommended, and semigloss white for the trim—along with rollers, brushes, pans. She forgot a stepladder—next time—so again she borrowed one from the crew.
Dressed in the sweatshirt, jeans, and Yankees fielder’s cap already speckled with primer, she got to work cutting in. Since she couldn’t block out the Skilsaw buzzing, the nail guns thwacking, and the headbanger rock pounding from the first floor, she plugged in her earbuds and painted to her own playlist.
—
Xander drove up thinking the old house looked like it was made to loom on the bluff on rain-washed days. The day sloshed along gloomily, so the lights glinting against some of the windows added to the atmosphere. Maybe the giant Dumpster out front took some of that away, but he imagined Kevin and his crew were having a hell of a good time filling it.
He got out, hunched against the wet, strolled up to the house.
Inside the noise was amazing, but you’d have that on job sites. He smelled sawdust, coffee, wet dog—which meant Molly’d been out running around. Drop cloths and cardboard paths covered the floor.
The interior, as far as he could see, just looked sad. Dim, dingy, neglected. Maybe the high ceilings gave it some class, the natural stone fireplace some character, but he saw a lot of space to fix and fill.
He thought of the long, tall blonde with the sexy pixie hair and the don’t-make-me-kick-your-ass attitude. He couldn’t see the connection. She said city to him. Big city.
It made her and her choice of living arrangements all the more interesting.
He made his way back, following the noise. He saw stacks of lumber, tools, cords, wheels of wiring.
He wondered what people did with all these rooms. What the sexy blonde meant to do with them.
When he reached the kitchen, he had a partial answer. Here, at least, she meant to start from scratch.
They’d gutted the place, taken it right down to the studs, were now putting up new ones. A blue tarp shuddered from the windy rain over a big hole in the back wall. He knew enough about plumbing to read the rough-ins, get a sense of where things would go. Just as he could read that at one time there’d been a john in the far left corner.
“Hey, Kev, you planning on putting both kids through college on this place?”
Kevin, hunkered down with the plumber, glanced back. “It’s going to help,” he called over the noise.
He pushed up, crossed the tarped floor. “What brings you out here?”
“New tire for that FourRunner.”
“Right. I’d’ve picked it up for her, saved you a trip.”
“No problem. I wanted to see the place anyway.”
Satisfaction covering his face, Kevin looked around. “It’s coming along.”
Shoulder to shoulder, Xander looked around the same space. “To what?”
“You need vision, man. You just need vision.” He crooked a finger, stepped over to the dining area and the plywood set on sawhorses. “It’s coming to this.”
Hands in pockets, Xander studied the blueprint of the projected kitchen. “That’s what the hole’s for. What was there before?”
“Standard door. Total waste. I knew Naomi had that vision when she said to open it up.”
“Vision and deep pockets.”
“Lucky for both of us. Lucky for this place. She’s got an eye—you know, photographer and all that. And she gets the feel of the place, the character. She’s not looking to go all sleek and polished. This space here and the master bath, those are the biggest projects. You add in new windows—got them coming in tomorrow—refinishing the floors, the plumbing, the wiring, trim—she wants crown molding here and there, and some of the original trim needs to be replicated—painting, installing, it’s all mostly cosmetic, but it’s a lot of that.”
“How many rooms in this place?”
“Eighteen, plus five and a half baths now that we took the one out in here. Not counting a granddaddy of all basements—unfinished.”
“She’s single, right? Lives alone?”
“Some people like space, some people like to live in three rooms over their garage.”
“Some people drive a minivan.”
Kevin gave him a light punch. “Wait till you have kids.”
“Yeah, let’s wait on that. Where is she anyway?”
“She’s up in the master, as far as I know, painting.”
“She’s painting—like walls or with an easel?”
“Walls. She did all right on the prep and priming up there, but I expect we’ll be calling Jimmy and Rene in to handle the rest.”
He could’ve handed Kevin the bill, put the tire in her car, and gone on his way. But since he was here anyway . . .
“I’m going to go on up.”
“You can take the back stairs.” Kevin wagged a thumb. “Corner room, facing the inlet.”
“Buy you a beer when you knock off?”
“I wouldn’t mind it. Yeah, I’ll swing by.”
He went up the back way—and having Kevin for a friend all his life, he recognized good craftsmanship in the new stairs, the sturdy rail. The light looked like it had come out of someone’s cabin in the fifties, but that was an easy fix.
Then he reached the second floor and just stood, staring down the hallway. It looked like something out of The Shining. He half expected to see some kid on a Big Wheel pedaling along. Or a decomposing corpse leaking its way under a doorway.
He wondered how she slept in this place at night.
He knocked on the door of the corner room, considering his options when no one answered. He went with the simplest and opened the door.
She stood on a stepladder in paint-splattered clothes and ancient Converse high-tops, carefully cutting in the wall at ceiling height. She’d nearly finished, he noted, and couldn’t fault her work.
He started to rap his knuckles on the open door, but as she dipped her brush she picked up the chorus of “Shake It Off.”
“’Cause the players gonna play, play, play, play, play.”
Decent voice, he thought, and noticed the earbuds.
By the time she got to “Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake,” he’d crossed over, tapped her shoulder.
She spun around so fast, leading with the brush, he barely dodged the paint swipe across his face. He said, “Wow,” and then, because she overbalanced, put a firm hand on her ass to keep her on the ladder.
With that he smiled—all smug male. “Nice.”
“Back off.”
“Just keeping you and that bucket of paint off the floor.” But he dropped his hand. “I knocked, but you and Taylor were too busy shaking it off to hear.”
Very carefully, she set down her brush. “When you knock and nobody answers, the logical and polite thing to do is go away.”
“That’s fifty-fifty, don’t you think?” She had green eyes. He hadn’t been able to tell in the dark on the side of the road, but she had incredibly deep green eyes. And they were pissed. “A lot of people open the door, take a look.”
“What do you want?”
“Nice to see you again, too. I dropped off your tire—the replacement.”
“Oh. Thank you.”
“No problem.” He took a folded invoice out of his back pocket, held it out. “It cost more than a slice of pizza.”
“I bet. Will you take a check?”
“Sure. Cash, check, credit card.” He took an electronic swipe out of his jacket pocket. “Your choice.”
“We’ll use my card then. Isn’t that high-tech for a garage?”
“I like tech, plus it’s handy when people need roadside assistance. I can fix them up, swipe their card, send them on their way.”
She nodded, took a slim wallet out of her back pocket. Xander just cocked an eyebrow as she slid out a credit card. Every woman he knew carted around a purse the size of a Shetland pony, filled with the mysterious.
“I appreciate you bringing the tire all the way out here.”
“It’s not that all the way. I’ll put it in the spare compartment when I leave. Kev’s got it torn up down there.”
“Yes. Yes, he does.”
“You’ve got a big hole in the wall.”
“At the end of the day it’ll be a door. Please, God.”
He swiped her card. “Nice color—the paint.”
“Yeah. I think.” She worried over it as she signed her name. “Does it read warm to you?”
He handed her back her card and studied the soft, watery blue seriously. “Yeah. It’s warm, and calm, right? You’re picking up the tones of the water, early morning before it goes deep.”
“That’s it. I almost went a little more gray. More spa-like. Maybe I should’ve . . . It’s just paint.”
“It’s walls,” he corrected. “You’ve got to live with them.”
“Crap.”
“You hit warm and calm if that’s what you were after. And whatever it is, you’ll get used to it. I can email you a receipt.”
“That’s all right. I don’t need one.”
Didn’t want him to have her email, more likely. Xander pocketed the reader, the phone. “That’s a lot of wall to paint. You ought to open those doors, get some air in here.”
“It’s raining. And you’re right.” She stepped over, fought the slider open an inch. “This stubborn, ugly bastard’s going.”
Xander put a hand above hers, gave the slider one good shove. Then looked out as she did.
“Walls don’t mean dick when you look at that.”
“I keep telling myself.”
In the rain the world outside was dreamy, with gloom adding a fanciful edge, just touches of fog and mist floating like gossamer birds.
“Makes you forget the second floor looks like part of the Overlook Hotel.”
“Well, thanks for that. I’m going to imagine Redrum written in blood on that horrible wallpaper now.”
He grinned. “Points for getting the reference. I gotta get going. Good luck with this.”
“Thanks.”
She stood when he walked out, watching the cool spring rain.
He’d scared her, she could admit that. The quick, firm tap on her shoulder when her mind had been on painting and music. The equally quick and firm hand on her butt.
She’d have caught her balance, probably.
He’d backed off when she’d told him, easily, signaling he was harmless.
But he wasn’t harmless. Despite the easy talk about paint and wallpaper, he wasn’t harmless. He had strong blue eyes, very direct—and something behind them warned that he wasn’t a man to trifle with.
She had no intention of trifling with Xander Keaton.
He might have had a runner’s build, but there was a toughness in there. She knew how to judge who might be an easy companion for a night or two, if she had the need.
No question he was attractive, in a rough and sexy sort of way, and though she’d learned not to let it matter, it was a bonus that he had a good four inches over her in height. She wouldn’t deny she’d felt a tug in the belly, but if and when she had that need, she’d steer clear of Keaton.
Keep it simple, she thought as she went back to the stepladder. Because her life, her nature, would always be complicated.
Instinct told her Xander Keaton was anything but simple.
—
When the soaking rain finally moved off and the sun sparkled again, Naomi had the sheer delight of folding outswing doors off her kitchen. After they’d been installed and the crew left, she opened and closed them half a dozen times just for the fun of it.
With the turn of weather, she donned her boots and a light jacket and grabbed her camera. Stock photos of flowers always provided a decent revenue, and the burgeoning bulbs and wildflowers offered her a treasure trove. She could ramble the woods looking for the interest of rough bark, nurse logs, the charm of a narrow stream running fast with snowmelt. The surprise of a little waterfall running faster yet to a tumble of rocks below.
And she got an unexpected shot of a bear when they encountered each other in the silvery quiet of dawn.
After ten days of working for a living, the tedium of painting, the stress of selecting cabinet hardware and kitchen appliances, she sat on her new king-size mattress with her laptop.
Hello from Construction Central, loves of my life.
I did it. This room is painted, every square inch of wall, ceiling, and trim. I have wonderful atrium doors leading out to my deck, and intend to sit out there—on the chair I sanded and repainted—in the morning and wallow with coffee over my view. It’ll be a short wallow as the crew comes early, and the indescribable noise comes along with them. But I can see the kitchen coming together. I remember when you had the kitchen redone about—what—six years ago. I was home for a couple weeks and it was chaos. This is chaos times infinity.
But I think I like it—the process of it.
I saw a bear this morning. Don’t worry, I was more interested in him than he was in me. Picture attached. I couldn’t get one of the whale—I’m sure it was a whale—sounding way out. By the time I got my camera, zoomed out, it was gone.
I’m happy here. They’re getting to know me in town—enough to say hello when I’m at the market or hardware—my two favorite places right now. Oh, and the pizza place. It’s not New York pizza, but it’s not crap either.
I’m happy here, despite the daily noise, the deluge of decisions. Kevin says I really have to decide on the tile for the master, and the backsplash for the kitchen. Both terrify me more than a little. But that’s for later.
Write me back soon—and that goes for you, too, Mason, with more than an all’s good, how’s it going. I’m about to start picking color and designs out for the rooms I’ve earmarked as yours when you visit.
Before pictures also attached.
Miss you, love you,
Naomi
Once she sent the email off, she ordered herself to work. She had to update her Facebook page, do the Tumblr thing, the Pinterest deal, and write something for the blog. All chores she’d have put off for the rest of her life if they weren’t part of the job.
An hour later, she took her laptop back to the desk to plug in the charger. And saw the moon riding over the water.
She grabbed her camera, filters, a second lens, and went out on her deck in the deep night chill.
She caught the moon along with its reflection in the water. Mirror Moon, she thought, already composing as she took more pictures, changed filters, angles. She’d make a series—cards, which always sold well off her site. If they turned out as well as she thought, she’d set up her mat cutter and board and start sending some art to the gallery.
But she was doing one for herself. She rose, drew in the quiet, the light, the sense of lovely, lovely solitude.
She’d hang the best of the best on the wall she’d painted herself.
Her moon over her inlet.
It didn’t get better than that.
—
Three weeks after demo, Kevin stayed late to finish installing the hardware on the kitchen cabinets. Overwhelmed, Naomi grabbed tools and worked with him while Molly napped by the doors.
“I can’t believe how it looks.”
“It’s coming along.”
“Coming along? Kevin, it’s amazing. I didn’t make a mistake, right, changing up from the idea of the dark cherry cabinets for this sage green?”
“They’re classy, have character, and don’t look like a showroom—in a good way. With the gray granite, those veins of green in it? You’ve got an eye, Naomi. The beveled glass fronts set it all off.”
“I think so. I guess I’m going to need something better than paper plates and plastic cups to go in them. I’ve never bought a set of dishes in my life.”
“Didn’t you have like an apartment or something before?”
“Oh, here and there, but mostly I stayed on the move. Have camera, will travel. And it was paper, plastic, or secondhand. I never intended to settle.”
Overwhelmed definitely, she thought, glancing up at her empty cabinets. “It looks like I have, so I’d better think about dishes and glassware. I don’t know where I’m going to find the room in my head for that with faucets and light fixtures and tile.”
“You should talk to Jenny. That woman loves playing with new dishes.”
“Maybe I’ll just go with restaurant white, so I don’t have to think about it.”
“You should talk to her. You know what?” He nudged back the bill of his ball cap. “You should come on out tonight, have a drink with us at Loo’s.”
“That’s the bar, right, off Water Street?”
“Yeah, it’s a nice place, though. Good food, friendly. Music tonight, too. Jenny and I have a sitter, so we’re going for a while. Why don’t you meet us?”
“That sounds like date night to me, Kevin.”
“Yeah, sort of. The thing is, Jenny’s been after me to ask you over to dinner, and I figure you’ve had enough of all of us by the end of the day.”
Good instincts, she thought, because truer words.
“You come out tonight, have a drink, talk dishes with her some, it’s a compromise. Seems like you could use a night off and out, too.”
“Maybe.”
He didn’t push, so they fell back to companionable silence as they worked. When it was done, they bumped fists.
“I’ll see you at Loo’s if you make it,” he said, and she just waved him off.
She didn’t intend to leave her nearly finished, wonderful kitchen with its empty cabinets and pale gray (hinting toward green) walls. She had dozens of things to keep her busy, including reading the owner’s manuals on her new appliances.
Settling in, she reminded herself. If she really meant to settle in, no matter how innately unsociable, it required minimal doses of friendliness.
Otherwise she was that weird woman up on Point Bluff. That just asked for talk and attention. Normal people had a drink with friends now and then. She didn’t really know Jenny, but she definitely considered Kevin a friend.
Harry would have deemed them simpatico.
So why not? She’d throw on some halfway decent clothes, slap a little makeup on, and drive into town. Have a drink at the local bar, talk with her friend’s wife about tableware. She’d stay for one set since there was music, and consider any and all social obligations met for at least a month.
Good deal.
She opted for black jeans, and because it ran cool at night, a sweater. Not black, she ordered herself, as that was her first choice. She chose the one Seth and Harry had given her for Christmas—worn only once—and in nearly the same shade as her kitchen cabinets. She considered changing her habitual silver studs for something more fun and frivolous, then decided that worrying about earrings was too much for a simple drink with a friend and his wife.
She took some trouble with her makeup mainly because those needs could come calling—and maybe there was a local boy who could meet them at some point.
No reason to scare him off, whoever he might be.
Night had fallen when she set out, so she left the porch light on—new fixture yet to come—and locked up. Alarm system, she thought, installed very soon.
When she glanced back at the house, she nearly went back inside. It looked so appealing sitting there, so quiet. One drink, she ordered herself, and pushed herself to drive away from solitude.
She’d never been into town this late—no reason to—and saw that Friday night hopped a bit. She imagined that those strolling along the boardwalk by the marina were tourists, but it was likely a mix with those on the street, poking into shops open late, sitting out with heaters at outdoor tables.
She knew Loo’s sat a block off Water Street, tucked between a seafood restaurant and a snack shop. She spotted Kevin’s truck, found a parking spot half a block down from it.
She needed to come back at night with her camera, get night shots of the marina, the old character homes, the bold red door and the blue neon curl of LOO’S over it.
Music pumped against the door before she opened it.
She’d pictured a little bar, but it proved bigger—even boasted a small dance floor, packed now as crowd-pleasing rock beat out. She smelled beer and fried food, perfume, sweat. The bar itself dominated one wall in dark, aged wood backed by more than a dozen taps. She heard the whirl of a blender and immediately decided on a foamy frozen margarita. As she scanned, Kevin waved from a table near the dance floor.
She wound her way through, found her hand caught in Jenny’s.
“I’m so glad you came! Kevin didn’t think you would.”
“Couldn’t resist.”
“Sit, sit. Kevin, get Naomi a drink.”
“What’ll you have?”
“I hear the song of a frozen margarita—with salt.”
“I’m going to get that going for you. It takes a while for them to get to the tables. Jenny?”
“I’m still nursing this one.”
As Kevin moved off, Jenny swiveled in her chair. “God, you’re so beautiful.”
“I . . .”
“I’m on my second glass of wine. I get loose easy. It’s just I always wanted to be tall, and look what happened.”
“I always wanted to be petite. What are you going to do?”
“I looked up your website, your photos. They’re wonderful, really. There’s this one of a water lily, just one water lily with these ripples around it where it floats? I felt like I’d been on vacation just looking at it. And this one of an old gravestone in a cemetery, and you can see the shadow of the church. The dates? She was a hundred and two when she died, and it still made me tear up. I can’t remember the name on the stone.”
“Mary Margaret Allen.”
“That’s right.” Jenny’s eyes, nearly the same soft doe brown as her hair, smiled. “What I’m saying—I take a good snapshot. Slices of life, the kids and all, I mean. And it’s important to have the record, those memories. But what you do, it just grabs emotions right out.”
“Best compliment ever.”
“It’s a true one. Kevin said you needed dishes and glassware and such.”
“I do. I was thinking white and clear, and done.”
“Well, going that way you can jazz it up with napkins and so on. The thing is . . . He took some pictures of the kitchen with his phone, and showed me. I just love the soft green of the cabinets, and the pewter tones of the hardware, the gray of the walls. It’s like you’re pulling the tones and colors from outside in.”
“I can’t resist that either.”
Jenny sipped her wine, gave her long, loose hair a push back. “I think it’s just right, if that matters. And it struck me how if you went deep, deep blue with the dishes, like cobalt blue, you’d have that pop behind the glass, and keep with that scheme.”
“Cobalt blue. It would look great.”
“I think it would, then you go for color in the glassware, softer, like blues and greens—a mix, just tie it in. I can give you sites to look at, and I’ve got a stack of catalogs. And before Kevin comes back, because I’ll embarrass him, I’m going to ask you to ask me to come over and look at the place, at his work, and what you’re up to. I know he said you took this old glider and chair and redid them. I love doing that kind of thing, finding something someone’s gotten rid of and making it new.”
“Sure you can come by, have a look.”
“I swear I won’t be a pest or take advantage.” She beamed at Kevin when he came back with a jumbo margarita.
“I’ve talked her ear off. Stop me.”
He set the drink down, sat, kissed his wife’s cheek. “Shut up, Jenny.”
“I will. Plus I love when they do this number.”
“I could take a bath in this,” Naomi commented. She took a sip. “But I’ll drink it instead.”
She angled to look at the band as she recognized the Springsteen classic—and the voice lit the suggestive lyrics of “I’m on Fire” like a slow-burning match.
He wore black—jeans and a T-shirt, worn motorcycle boots. He stood, the guitar slung low, his fingers working the frets and strings while that voice wrung every drop of sex out of the words.
She should’ve known.
“Xander and the band play here every few weeks,” Kevin told her. “They’re the Wreckers.”
She said, “Oh.”
And deep inside as those bold blue eyes met hers, as that voice sent out lures and warnings, something inside her said, Oh damn.
She figured she’d need every drop of that margarita to cool off.