His 1-800 Wife (20 page)

The phone rang, snapping his thoughts and bring­ing him back to the present. He picked it up on the second ring.

"Hello?"

"Jarrod, it's Catherine."

"Cathy." The object of his thoughts was on the other end of the line. She called often, or he called her. They spoke at least once a day on the phone, sometimes two or three times. Yet today he felt as if there was something wrong about this call.

Catherine hesitated. He could hear her breathing on the other end of the line. Had she guessed? Did she know he was thinking of her? He only called her Cathy when he was deep in a passionate state. And that was exactly how she had found him.

"Good morning," she said after a moment. "I for­got to remind you about Elizabeth's party on Halloween."

"The Westfield party? She's still putting that on?"

"It's traditional,'' she said.'' She does it every year.'' He could hear the laughter in her voice. Jarrod loved hearing her talk; her low, sexy voice curled around him and he wanted nothing more than to rush to her office and drag her home to bed.

"I'll look forward to it," Jarrod said.

"What are you doing?"

"Right now?" he asked.

"This very minute."

He couldn't tell her what he was doing. "Why do you ask?" His voice was light. At least he hoped he'd disguised it enough that she couldn't guess his thoughts.

"I just wondered if you were thinking about me."

Jarrod nearly dropped the phone. Her voice was full of innuendo. They'd never played this game before.

"I
was
thinking about you. I was having an erotic daydream about you." There, he'd said it. Now what would she say?

"Did it go any further than this morning?"

Jarrod's throat went dry. Where was this going? He thought of her this morning in his arms, her legs straining to get around him.

"If the phone had rung a second later. . ." He left the sentence open to her own interpretation.

When Catherine didn't come back with a response, Jarrod sat forward in his chair. He sensed something had happened other than their kiss at breakfast.

"Catherine, is everything all right?"

"I found the dance card."

It was his turn to hold his breath. He didn't know how she would react to the me-Jane, you-Tarzan parody, but their dancing was part of breaking the ice and he wanted to keep things light and easy.

"I enjoyed the dance."

"I liked the song better," she said. He could hear the smile in her voice. He imagined her sitting in her office, slumped back in her chair, dangling the folded card in front of her.

"I haven't done much today. I need to go to Provi­dence. Would you like to go with me?"

"I have a ton of things to do here." She sounded disappointed.

"Can't they wait? The season is virtually over for boat sales, isn't it?"

Another hesitation. Then, "Pick me up in fifteen minutes," she said decisively.

It took Jarrod only a little time to clear up his desk and tell his secretary where he was going and that he wouldn't be back that day. Then he was heading to pick up Catherine. Since morning their relationship had changed. He could feel it, and he admitted he liked the way things were going. She was discovering that living under the same roof had its complications. He felt she was getting used to him, even wanted him around. But he had to take it slow. If he made the wrong move at the wrong time, Catherine would bolt as quickly as any two-year-old filly at her first race.

***

"'Put this on." Jarrod handed her a hard hat. They'd arrived in Providence at the site where a shopping center was being constructed. She got out of the Jeep, feeling out of place dressed in a navy blue business suit with a white blouse and three-inch heels. All around her was sand, red dirt, stacks of building supplies and two-ton I-beams. She doubted the metal hat could protect her from the danger that seemed to lurk in this place.

Jarrod reached for her hand and she put it into his without hesitation.

"You should have brought me some shoes," she commented, taking a step.

"I did." He went back to the car and pulled a pair of tan work boots out of the backseat. "Sit down." She sat on the seat of the open door, and Jarrod carefully removed her heels. His fingers slid up her feet, tickling her and sending shivers from her toes up her legs. She yanked her foot back with a laugh. Jarrod looked up at her with a smile. He held her gaze for a charged moment. Then he took her foot and pushed the boot onto it.

"Whose are these?"

"My secretary's," he said. "The hat too." Catherine stood up and walked a few steps. "Do you like my fashion statement?" She held her straight skirt as if it were a gown and she was about to curtsy. Then she put one foot out and cocked her head to the side.

"I like everything about you." A tremor ran down her back. She stood up straight. Catherine told herself she had to stop reacting to Jarrod's comments this way. She was speechless, her throat as dry as the Sahara Desert, her body as hot as hell. If he got up and touched her, she'd dissolve. Had she always felt like this about Jarrod? Had their antics as teenagers been covering up their true feel­ings? Why had she picked him, over all the other men who called the 1-800 number? Why had Jarrod been the one she thought of as the best candidate? Catherine waited as he stared, wondering now as he looked at her with something in his eyes that held her to the spot as surely as if she were tied to a stake. What was it about him that took her ability to think clearly away?

Jarrod got up from his crouched position. He took her hand and they turned toward the central area where construction was at its height. He spoke to many of the men, sometimes unrolling large pieces of blue paper with white lines on it. There were notes on some of the pages. She could see Jarrod's handwriting and understand only a little of the jargon used exclu­sively by architects and builders. At the boat yard they had architects too, mostly men who'd been in the navy. Boats were also architecturally designed and plans had to be drawn for them. Catherine could interpret some of them, but these were much more complicated.

Jarrod introduced her to several of the men and the few women with whom he spoke. He kept close tabs on her if she wandered away from him. She presumed it was to keep her out of danger. She loved the fact that he looked at her often. Trucks drove in and out of the yard along rutted tracks in the ground. The constant beeping of backup horns indicated that people should take care. Cranes lifted steel beams into the air and men, balancing on surfaces the width of high-wires, guided them into place. She could hear the burst of battery-operated screwdrivers as they drove screws the size of her hand into the metal fittings. Behind her a dump truck left the yard. The wake of wind following it blew dust in her face, and she shaded her eyes with her hand. Her hat wobbled forward.

A shopping center didn't go up one store at a time, Catherine discovered. They built the structure first, much like an office building, a metal skeleton rising from the ground. What Catherine saw was an open framework that had a curvature to one side. She could tell the finished building would have several areas that were gargantuan arcs bound together and run­ning the length of one side. At the end of them, the beams would support straight walls. Girders soared into the air, and she had to hold her hat on her head as she looked up. It reminded her of being on the back side of a Hollywood set, where only support beams and anchor poles propped up a painted facade.

Men worked on all areas of the site. Catherine couldn't tell how large it would be. She could estimate the amount of warehouse space needed to construct a yacht, taking in the storage capacity for materials and waste to within three feet, but she couldn't deter­mine the dimensions of this building standing in its shadow.

Catherine kept moving, stepping and sidestepping one hazard after another, saying, "excuse me" over and over as people went about their duties. Jarrod saw her and came over. Putting his arm around her waist, he led her back to the group of men, a lamb being returned to the fold. Jarrod went back to the discussion, only removing his arm from her waist when he had to point out something on the blue and white plans. Then his arm was back around her.

He could be doing it for show, or to communicate possession. They had an audience of hard bodies who eyed her without shyness. She didn't care what Jarrod's reasons were. She enjoyed being attached to him.

The meeting went on for several minutes. Finally, the men smiled, shook hands with Jarrod, nodded at her, then moved away, leaving the two of them alone. Jarrod rolled up his plans and stuffed them back in his leather case.

"You look like Alice," he said.

"I think I am." Catherine had left her sunglasses in her car. She squinted at the bright sun reflecting off the skeletal structure. "This looks fascinating, like a huge erector set."

"You can't say you've never seen a building going up before."

She shook her head. "I've seen them, but often from a distance, while driving my car or sitting in another high-rise. I've never been this close to hun­dred-foot cranes, pneumatic drills, concrete by the pallet and
dynamite.
"Her voice rose on the last word and she took a step closer to Jarrod.

"Only designated people can handle that." They were looking at a truck with
EXPLOSIVES
written on the sides.

"Why do you need dynamite?"

"It doesn't take much time when you're digging to hit solid rock. We need to blast the stone to break it up and remove it."

"I see." She paused. "Why are you still involved? I thought an architect was done when the plans were accepted and a builder was hired."

They began walking back the way they had come.

"An architect's job isn't over until the building is done, all the electricity and plumbing are in place and the basic walls and floors have been finished."

Catherine stopped, staring up again, her hand on the crown of her hat. "You mean you're responsible until the place is leased?"

"Not to the stores that rent space. I'm responsible until the planned interior walls and floors are finished and everything is cleaned away, making the building ready for an interior decorator and the land ready for the landscape architect."

"You haven't been back that long." They started walking again. "Why is this project yours?"

"I inherited it when Mike Thomas left. It was already in progress. That isn't unusual."

Catherine knew Mike Thomas. He'd recently retired and moved to Arizona, where his daughter and his grandson lived.

"It takes about a year to eighteen months to com­plete a project of this size. Someone had to pick it up. I was the new guy on the block."

"You weren't new. You're a partner in that firm." She saw the smile on his face.

"I volunteered for this one. Mike did a great job on the blueprints, and I've worked with this builder before."

They'd nearly reached the Jeep when someone called Jarrod's name. He turned back. A man waved him over, and Jarrod left her to see what he wanted. Catherine watched them, fascinated by the way Jarrod moved. He had always been athletic, and his years in England hadn't added an ounce of fat to him. They walked more in England, he'd told her, and he'd been fortunate enough to have a swimming pool at his disposal. The thought of his nearly naked body assaulted her nerves. She turned away, but not before heat flooded into her bloodstream.

She promised herself she would get some control. Yet she didn't seem to have the capacity to do it. Anything could have her imagining him naked, the two of them making love or the remembered feel of his heavy body on top of hers.

Catherine concentrated on controlling her thoughts. She didn't hear the sounds around her any longer. They blended together into a cacophony of white noise that disappeared as surely as the incessant pounding of the ocean and appeared soothing and safe. She didn't see the truck backing up in her path or hear the warning beeps. She didn't notice the truck coming forward from the opposite direction or the small incline that showed the deeper wear of tire marks. She didn't hear the shouts of the men on the rising building, hollering and waving for her to move. She heard nothing until Jarrod's voice penetrated the bubble that encased her. Then, like a deaf person who suddenly regains her hearing during the climax of a symphony, everything crashed into focus. Trucks from opposite directions bore down on her. Her brain told her feet to move, but it didn't seem as if she had time to get out of the way. Jarrod ran toward her, a slow-motion figure, his face contorted, cutting through air as thick as jelly.

Catherine looked at one truck, then the other. She turned to move. Jarrod launched himself toward her, crashing into her like a football player trying to stop a touchdown. His arms closed around her, lifting her off the ground. Together they were propelled through the liquid air. She landed on her back, her shoulder digging out a crater in the ground, Jarrod on top of her. Breath was forced out of her lungs. Catherine squeezed her eyes shut, clamping her teeth on her lower lip to hold in the scream accompanying the sudden impact. Pain shot through her shoulder. Unbidden tears sprang to her eyes. She lay there holding herself stiffly, willing the pain to subside, waiting during the long, agonizing seconds that felt like hours for the burning pain to abate.