Angel Song (26 page)
He looked out the window for a moment, his jaw twitching. “You didn’t answer me.”
“Well, you haven’t answered me.”
“I always eat my lunch while driving around running errands. Not exactly high class, but it gets a lot more accomplished.”
“And I’m not taking charity. So I’ll get back to my work so I can be ready when you get here at three.”
He shook his head slowly, then sighed. “Okay, I’ll see you at three. You are one stubborn woman.”
“Thank you.”
“I didn’t mean it as a compliment.” He pulled at the bill of the cap so that it almost covered Ann’s eyes. “You know, it is definitely funnier when it’s on you. Cuter at least.” He winked at her as he turned and walked out of the room.
Long after he’d gone Ann kept finding herself looking toward the door. Almost . . . what? Wishing?
Ethan’s plans had failed. Miserably.
The past few weeks spent trying to get Ann’s house finished, or his part of it at least, before she returned hadn’t quite panned out. And he should have known she would be too stubborn to accept that he wasn’t going to use her half of the barter deal. How was he supposed to keep his distance now that she was back?
As he led Ann through the house, he grew more and more nervous about what she might think. “This house has been on the market for almost a year. The kitchen was original and in terrible shape, but it took the real estate agent several months to convince the family they needed to have some work done before they had a prayer of selling it—which is when I came in. I’ve known the couple who owns this place for a long time. They’re in their seventies, and they’ve already moved to Tennessee to be near their daughter. In fact, they’re living with her, her husband, and their five kids right now, and will be until this place sells. I’m hearing enough rumblings from that direction to know that they need to get their own place as soon as possible. The tension’s getting a little thick. Know what I mean?”
Ann laughed. “Got it.” She walked through the smallish three-bedroom house, touching countertops, sliding open drawers, staring at ceilings. “The bathrooms have obviously been updated within the last decade. They aren’t cutting edge, but they aren’t bad.”
When she walked into the kitchen, Ethan could feel his heart speed.
“This kitchen is amazing. Is this maple?”
“Yep.”
“Nice choice of granite too.” She ran her hand over the countertops, then began to open and close the cabinets. When she pulled out the built-in spice rack, she said, “Is all this custom?”
“Yeah.” He pretended to be looking out the window.
“You’re very talented.”
He turned to thank her, but she’d already walked into the dining room. “The carpet’s new, right? And the walls look like they’ve been freshly painted.”
“Yeah, they did all that when they first put the house on the market.”
“This place would show better if it were a little less cluttered. If they would rent a storage unit for a month, take out about half of this furniture and most of the trinkets, this space would appear much larger and cleaner.”
It made sense. “If I can talk them into that, and I can’t see why I couldn’t, would you help me pick which pieces should stay and which should go?”
“Of course.” Ann walked around the dining room and put her hand on one of the old oak chairs. “This table and chairs are not my style, but they suit the place nicely. However”—she pivoted to put her hand on the oversized buffet against the wall—“this piece, and the china cabinet on that side of the room, crowd this space and make it appear smaller than it is. I think the room would show better with nothing but the table and chairs.”
Ethan looked at the furniture and tried to picture the big pieces gone. It probably would make the place look bigger. “Sounds good. What else?”
They walked around the house and talked about the pieces that should stay and the pieces that should go. “Well now, I’m glad I conned you into helping me with this. The Krutenats are good people. I’d like to help them out if I can.”
“Conned me? Hah. I’ve had you doing manual labor over at my place for a month now, and I spend one hour over here and you think
you’ve
conned
me
.”
He leaned against the doorjamb and looked at her. It took every ounce of his willpower to keep his hands at his sides, because everything inside him ached to reach out and touch her. “Ah, but I did con you. I was never doing all that work so that you would help me. I was conning you there too.”
“Then why were you doing it?”
In spite of his best efforts at restraint, he reached out and brushed a wisp of dark hair from her face, his fingers lingering on her cheek. So beautiful. So incredibly soft.
Buddy, you’d better
get out of here before you do something stupid. Really stupid
. Somehow he managed to pull his hand back, then turned and walked to the front door. “You’ll just have to see if you can figure that one out for yourself.” He opened the door and held it. “Shall we?”
She smiled and ducked under his arm. “Yes, I think we shall.”
“This is not the way back to the house.”
“Nope, it sure isn’t.”
“Well, where are we going then? To look at another one of your houses?”
“Nope.”
Ann couldn’t have cared less about the answer. She was just . . . happy? Seemed strange, but there wasn’t any other word for it. Whether or not she cared about the answer, there was still the lure of pulling the information from an unwilling informant. “Come on. I spent
my whole afternoon
”—she said these words in as dramatic a fashion as possible—“helping you with your project. Surely you’d be willing to at least give me a hint.”
“That’s fighting dirty. I’m not telling, but okay, I’ll give you a hint. We’re back on our tourist rounds. Today we are going to see a couple of Charlestons.”
“There’s more than one?”
He simply shrugged and smiled. “Yep, one for me and one for you.”
He pulled into a parking spot, and soon they were walking down East Bay Street. It took only a moment before Ann realized where they were going. “Rainbow Row? You brought me all the way down here to see Rainbow Row? While I admire the choice, it shows a shocking lack of imagination. Every tourist who’s ever come to Charleston hits Rainbow Row. We could have stopped in a drugstore and bought a postcard for a lot less effort.”
“I’m trying hard not to be wounded by that assumption. No, I did not drive you all the way down here just to see Rainbow Row, although walking past it was certainly the plan when I chose the parking place. I would think someone who is into architecture and design would appreciate this place more than most.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t appreciate it; I said the choice wasn’t very imaginative.”
An ocean breeze stirred the tops of palm trees as they walked. They neared the two blocks of original Charleston-style houses that faced the harbor. Standing shoulder to shoulder in a row of pastels—blue, salmon, olive, yellow, pink—these homes had been built a couple of centuries ago and had withstood wars and hurricanes and even an earthquake. Ann felt the nostalgia begin to sneak up on her. She tried to shrug nonchalantly, but she knew Ethan wasn’t buying it. “Okay, as much as I prefer a more subdued palate, I have to admit there is a certain amount of charm here.”
“Ann, if there’s one thing you’ve got, it’s the gift of understatement.”
Ann laughed and stopped in front of the arched doorway of a yellow-stucco house. She craned her neck to see the top windows. “Okay, I give. They are charming. And in spite of my earlier statement, a postcard does not do this place justice. It’s definitely much better in person.”
“That’s more like it.”
“Is this my Charleston or yours?”
“This is actually no-man’s-land—Switzerland, you might say. That’s what this little preview was all about. I’m simply softening you up for the real deal.”
As Ann walked beside Ethan toward the end of the peninsula, she tried to guess the rest of their venture. “I’m a little rusty on my Charleston geography, but are we going to White Point Gardens?”
“Well, that’s where we’re headed, but of course I’m going to dazzle you with some fun facts as we go.”
“Such as?” By now they were on Battery Row, a line of mansions from Charleston’s glorious past. As much as it wasn’t really her style, Ann couldn’t help but be just as overwhelmed as a first-time tourist would be.
They stopped in front of a three-story brick with green shutters and two-story white columns. Ethan pointed toward it and said, “This is the Roper House.”
“Greek Revival, nineteenth century maybe?”
Ethan rubbed his chin. “Not bad for a city girl. But this has to be one of the most interesting houses in the city—especially for us men—but nonetheless intriguing for you ladies, for another reason.”
“Nice of you gents to include us. So I’m guessing this is
your
Charleston?”
“Yep.”
“And why is that? Because it’s old and irrelevant?”
“When are you going to realize the past is not irrelevant? Case in point is the story I’m about to tell you.”
“Then by all means, let’s hear it.”
“When the Confederates had to abandon the city, most of their cannons were right over there at the Battery, right?” He pointed toward the seawall.
“Yeah, I suppose they were.”
“Well, the last thing they wanted was to give the Yankees more weapons once they got here, so they started destroying everything that they couldn’t take with them. They blew up a thirty-eight-ton Blakely cannon that, unfortunately for the Roper family, left a part of itself in the attic of their house. It’s still lodged up there to this day—they say the thing could weigh five hundred pounds or more.”
Ann looked up at the white railing framing the roof and tried to picture part of a cannon crashing into such an elegant structure. “I suppose it would make for interesting party conversations.”
“You can say that again.”
“Interesting story notwithstanding, you said you were going to prove relevance. What, exactly, is relevant about that?”
“Well, if you owned the house, or if you were a contractor working on the house, wouldn’t you think that knowing such a heavy piece of metal was stuck in the roof could make a big difference in what you might or might not do today? If you don’t know it’s there, a little remodel might turn into a big demolition. Know what I mean?”
“Ah, yes. Point well made.”
“Thank you.” He took a few more steps.
“Yes, in one in a couple million cases—those cases with part of a cannon in the attic—the past can be important. I will concede to that.”
“You’re just being difficult, you know. How about previous flood damage? Wouldn’t you want to know that? Or past earthquakes that might have damaged the foundation? Just because I happened to give you the most interesting scenario doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty more valid ones.”
“Hmm. I guess so.” They walked through White Point Gardens, strolling under the shade of oaks and moss, past a white gazebo and various Civil War monuments and artillery, then straight through to the Battery promenade on the far side. Ann looked over the rail at the surging water far below them. “This is beautiful.”
“Yeah. It’s where the Ashley River meets the Cooper River to form the Atlantic Ocean . . . in case you forget.”
Ann laughed. “You’re talking like a Charleston snob now. Are you going to start telling me about when your family first settled here? As much as I hate all that ‘old Charleston family’ kind of talk, I’ll just tell you now, I’m sixth generation. Low class maybe, but sixth generation nonetheless.”
“I can’t top that. My mom and I moved here in 1996. I’ll always just be an outsider.” He said this in a mock wistful tone that made Ann want to give him a hug.
She decided to change the subject. “Just your mom?”
He shrugged. “Mom and Dad separated for a couple of years. Dad was working hard toward big success and he turned his back on everything that slowed him down—that included my mother and me. Mom wanted a clean start, so we moved here, away from anyone or anything she knew. The one thing she couldn’t give up was the ocean, so we left the Florida panhandle and moved to Charleston.”
“You said they
were
separated; does that mean they reconciled?”
“Yeah, it only took my father a few months to realize what a good thing he’d had and that he wanted it back. It took my mother a couple of years to be convinced to come back, but he eventually won her over.”
“But you stayed in Charleston.”
“Yeah, by then I’d discovered a passion for historic home restoration and a distaste for the frenetic lifestyle that caused my parents to break up in the first place. I’d also found a sense of purpose, down at The Washout.”
“You find purpose in surfing?” Ann still had trouble reconciling Ethan as a surfer. He definitely wasn’t the stereotypical type. “Couldn’t you do that in Florida too?”
“Yes, I could surf in Florida too, although my father had never allowed it. He was the nose-to-the-grindstone sort and always saw surfing as the antithesis to everything he stood for. That’s the main reason I took it up when we moved here. It was sort of my act of rebellion to get back at him for breaking up the family.” He stared out into the distance. “Then I started to get to know some of the guys on the beach, and I found out there’s a lot of hurting people down there, just looking for some peace, some hope. Sharing my faith, watching their lives change, well, it’s one of the times I feel most alive.”
Ann could think of many more questions she wanted to ask, but she didn’t want to cross the line into anything too religious, so she changed the subject. “Your father’s a developer, right? Have the two of you ever worked together?”
“No-oo.” Ethan laughed. “Dad builds vacation condos, and he wants them built fast. He doesn’t expend time or money to find the treasure in the old. To him everything needs to be new and disposable.” He looked out over the water. “I think that’s why I love Charleston so much. This city understands the value of the past.”
Ann looked across the water at Fort Sumter. “It is amazing to think that people stood at this very spot and watched the beginning of the Civil War.”