Smitten (3 page)

“He's going to help us fix the toilets,” Lizabeth said.

Elsie didn't blink. “The toilets, huh?”

“She doesn't look impressed,” Matt whispered to Lizabeth. “Maybe we should up the ante. Tell her I'm going to paint the living room. Tell her I'll put a new floor in the bathroom.”

“That isn't necessary,” Lizabeth said. “It was an accident.”

“I know that, and you know that, but Elsie looks like she's contemplating death by meat loaf.”

He looked over Lizabeth's shoulder at Elsie. “New bathroom floors,” he called to her. “Ceramic tile.”

That caught Elsie's attention. “Ceramic tile? Does that include new grout around the tub?”

Matt leaned into Lizabeth and murmured into her hair. “Everybody has his price.”

Lizabeth glanced at Matt from the corner of her eye. “Really? What's your price?”

“What do you want to buy?”

“What would you be willing to sell?”

The question hung in the air. He didn't know what he wanted to sell. He was afraid it might be everything. His heart, his soul, his chromosomes. He suspected that he offered to tile the bathroom not because he was afraid of Elsie but because he wanted to impress Lizabeth.

More than that, he wanted to do something nice for her. And he wanted to do something nice for the house. Now that he'd had a chance to see it up close, he realized it had wonderful potential. The basic structure was sound despite years of neglect. It was well laid out and had nice detail. Most important, it was the sort of house that grew on you. It had character. Just like Lizabeth.

When he didn't answer immediately Lizabeth's mouth curved into a grim smile. “Pretty scary question, huh?”

“The question's okay. It's the answer that's got me shaking in my boots.”

 

Two days later Lizabeth looked at the can of paint Matt had set out for her and felt her temper kick in.

“I've been on this job for three days, and all I've done is paint trim. I'll admit I'm not too bright about construction work, but I'm smart enough to realize that trim does not ordinarily get four coats of paint.”

Matt sighed. He didn't know what to do with her. He'd never had a woman on the job site before. Equal rights was fine in theory, but he didn't know how to go about putting it to work.

He had some old-fashioned ideas about women. His natural instinct was to protect and pamper. Asking a woman to clean half a ton of construction debris from a basement made him feel like a brute.

And to make matters even more complicated, he was sort of in love with Lizabeth Kane. Every day his feelings for her grew stronger. He'd asked her out, but she'd turned him down. Probably a weekend in Paris hadn't been a good choice for a first date. He'd gotten carried away, he admitted.

“I want to be treated like any trainee. I want to learn how to do carpenter things,” Lizabeth said. “I've been watching the carpenters work on House Three, and most of what they're doing seems pretty straightforward.”

“Lizabeth, it's ninety degrees outside, and it's only eight o'clock in the morning.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

Matt made a frustrated gesture and kicked the can of paint into a corner. “You win. But you have to work with me. I want you where I can keep an eye on you.”

“What kind of an attitude is that?”

“It's the best attitude I can manage right now.”

Four hours later Lizabeth pushed her damp hair from her forehead and readjusted the baseball hat Matt had given her. She hadn't been more than three steps away from Matt all morning, hammering one nail for his twenty, and she was sure he was slowing his pace so he wouldn't embarrass her. He'd slathered suntan lotion on her fried neck, bandaged the bleeding blisters on her hands, and kicked a carpenter off the project for unnecessary cussing. He was driving her crazy.

He looked up when she paused in her hammering, and he smiled at her. “Want a soda?”

One more soda, and she was sure she'd float away. He'd been pouring liquid into her since ten o'clock. Undoubtedly he knew what he was doing, but she couldn't take any more. “We have to talk.”

Thank goodness. He didn't think he could endure another half hour of watching her work. She seemed so frail, with her curly hair tucked under the baseball cap and her yellow T-shirt clinging to her slim frame. He wanted to whisk her away to a cool restaurant. Get her all dressed up in something pretty and feed her strawberries dipped in chocolate.

“We could take an early lunch break and talk
in the shade, under the trees,” he suggested hopefully.

“I don't want to take an early lunch break. I want to work like the rest of the men. I just don't want to work with
you
.”

“Want to run that by me again?”

“You're overprotective. It's sweet of you to want to take care of me, but I need to stand on my own.”

She began to hammer while she talked. “I want to be accepted as an equal out here. That's never going to happen if you keep hovering over me like a mother hen.”

He had a news flash for her. She was never going to be an equal. She was going to be the boss's wife. Equal that!

“This is just your first day as a carpenter. You don't know anything.”

“I know lots of things. I know how to hammer a nail. I can't hammer nails as fast as you can, but I can hammer them just as well. Look at this one. It's perfect.”

Matt looked at the nail and agreed it was pretty good. “Okay, so you can hammer a nail, but you have no common sense. You let yourself get sunburned and blistered. And you try to carry things that are too heavy for you.”

He was right. She'd been stupid. “I'll be better. I'll keep my hat on, and I'll wear gloves.”

“What about the heavy stuff?”

“You'll have to settle for two out of three. I want to pull my weight.”

Matt pressed his lips together. Damn stubborn female. She had him. There was no way he'd ever fire her as long as she wanted the job. And there was no way he could force her to obey his every command. He couldn't exactly duke it out with her if they had a disagreement. She'd never go out with him then.

He took a deep breath and studied the toe of his work boot while he got his temper under control. “If you want to continue to work here, you're going to have to work with me.” He saw her nose belligerently tip up a fraction of an inch, and he held up his hands. “However, I'll try to be less of a mother hen.”

“I suppose that's an okay compromise.”

The truth was, she enjoyed being next to him. The excitement was always there, but running parallel to that was a comfortable rapport. Matt Hallahan felt like a friend. Despite his tattoo, he felt like someone she'd known and liked for a very long time.

And as long as she was being honest with herself, she had to admit that a part of her enjoyed being clucked over. It had been a lot of years since anyone had regarded her as fragile, probably because she wasn't, and while she couldn't let it interfere with learning her job, she secretly treasured the attention.

She was working on the second deck of the house, laying four-by-eight sections of three-quarter tongue-and-groove plywood. She stuck a nail into the wood and whacked it three times, driving it home. She moved over six inches and set another nail.

She was beginning to understand why Matt liked building houses. Every hour you could stand back, look at your progress, and know you were making something that would last a long, long time. Children would grow up in the house, they'd leave for college, get married, and return with children of their own—and still the house would remain. It was important that the house be built correctly, she decided. It wasn't just a matter of safety. It had to do with pride and creativity and immortality.

She stood up, took a step backward to admire her handiwork, and fell into the open stairwell.

Benny Newfarmer, all 254 pounds of him, was there to break her fall. He caught her square in the chest and crashed to the floor with a thud that carried the length of the cul-de-sac. Lizabeth sprawled across Newfarmer, stunned by the impact, then rolled off his huge belly as if it were a giant beach ball.

“I'm so sorry,” she said to him. “Are you all right?”

Newfarmer stared unblinking into space, his breath coming in short gasps.

Bucky Moyer ambled over. “Cripes,” he said, “I've never seen him flat on his back like this. He looks like a beached whale.”

Lizabeth nervously cracked her knuckles. “Why isn't he saying anything? Why isn't he getting up? Maybe we should call an ambulance.”

Bucky grinned. “Nah, he's okay. You just caught him by surprise. He's not used to women jumping on his body like that.”

“Yeah, I'm okay,” Newfarmer said, struggling to get up. “You just took me by surprise.”

Lizabeth glanced over at Matt. He had his hands on his hips, and his face looked as if it had been chiseled in granite. It was the sort of steely-eyed, hard-jawed look you get when
you grit your teeth for a long time. She grimaced. “Are you mad at me?”

He unclenched his teeth and expelled a long breath. “No, I'm not mad at you. I'm just glad you didn't kill him. It would take a forklift to get him out of here.” He unbuckled his carpenter's belt. “Lunch, everyone.”

Matt sat back and waited until the men had dispersed. When he was alone with Lizabeth, he stared at her for a long time before speaking. He was torn between wanting to take her in his arms and hold her close and wanting to shake her until her eyes crossed.

“Lizabeth…”

He was at a loss for words. What the hell was he supposed to say to her? He'd known her less than a week, and his heart had stopped when he saw her disappear down the stairwell.

“Lizabeth, you really scared me.” He gave a frustrated shake of his head, because what he'd said was so inadequate.

He pulled her to him and took her face in his hands while he slowly lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her with infinite tenderness, pressing her closer, needing to feel her soft warmth, needing to be reassured that she was
all right, that she was his, at least for the moment.

Lizabeth tilted her head back so she could look at him. “That felt like a serious kiss.”

“Mmmm. I'm having some pretty serious thoughts.”

“I don't know if I'm ready for serious thoughts.”

The pain went straight to his heart. He clapped a hand to his chest and grunted. “Boy, that hurts. The first time I have long-term plans for a relationship and look where it gets me. Heartbreak City.”

He was a flirt, Lizabeth decided. The nicest man she'd ever met, and also the most outrageous. Long-term plans probably meant an hour and a half. She thought about his offer to take her to Paris and smiled, wondering what he would have done if she'd accepted.

“Sorry, I never get serious in the first four days.”

“I suppose you're right,” he admitted. “Four days isn't a lot of time. How long do you think it will take?”

“To get serious?” Lizabeth smiled. “I don't know. I don't mean to be insulting, but it's not
high on my list of priorities. I have to find myself.”

“I didn't know you were lost. Maybe you've been looking in the wrong places.”

“Easy for you to joke about it,” Lizabeth said. “You have a secure personality. You didn't grow up as ‘Mac Slye's Kid.' And you didn't spend ten years as Paul Kane's wife and Jason and Billy Kane's mother. I used to buy T-shirts with my name written on them, hoping once in a while people would call me Lizabeth.”

“You're exaggerating.”

“Not by very much. I liked being a wife and mother, but when I got out on my own I realized my image had been much too closely tied to others.”

“Seems to me you have a good grip on your image.”

She studied his face, decided he meant it, and felt a rush of happiness. There were times, toward the end of her marriage, when she wasn't sure if there was any Lizabeth left at all. It was wonderful to know she'd survived.

“Well, we could be friends for a while,” she said. “We could see how it turns out.”

“It has to be tough to dissolve a marriage. How long have you been on your own?”

“We've been separated for 18 months. Divorced for six. It seems longer. I've covered a lot of ground in that two years. I look back on my marriage and I realize it was doomed from the very beginning, Paul wanted a hostess and I was in love with the idea of being in love.”

“Mom's home!” Jason yelled, looking out the front window. “She's with Mr. Hallahan, and he's helping her up the sidewalk.”

“What's the matter with her?” Elsie called from the kitchen. “Why does she need help?”

“I dunno. She's all wet, and she's walking funny.”

Elsie went to the door and watched her niece slowly make her way up the porch stairs. “Now what?”

Matt tried to look concerned, but his mouth kept twitching with laughter. “She lost her balance and fell into a freshly poured cement driveway. We had to hose her down before the cement set, but there were a few places we missed…like her shoes and her underwear.”

“I didn't lose my balance,” Lizabeth snapped. “I was signing my initials in the wet
cement, and one of
your
workmen snuck up behind me and got fresh.”

Elsie shook her finger at her niece. “I told you, you gotta be careful about bending over when you're around them construction workers.”

Lizabeth swiped at the wet hair plastered to her face. “I don't want to talk about it.”

Elsie looked at Matt. “Well? Is that the whole story? How come she lost her balance?”

“She lost her balance when she punched him in the nose,” Matt said, smiling broadly. It had been a terrific punch. Square on the snoot. He couldn't have done it better himself.

“No kidding?” Elsie was obviously pleased. “That comes from her mother's side of the family. We're a feisty bunch. So how about this guy's nose—did she flatten it?”

“Wasn't exactly flattened,” Matt said, “but it was definitely broken.”

“Wow,” Jason said, “that's so cool. Wait'll I tell the guys. My mom broke someone's nose!”

“It was an accident!” Lizabeth said. “I reacted without thinking, and his nose got in the way. Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm going to take a shower. If I'm not out of the shower in half an hour, send up a chisel. And don't you
dare invite Matt to supper. He smirked at me all the way home.”

“She don't mean it,” Elsie said to Matt. “We're having baked ham. We'll eat at six.”

Matt stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Sounds good to me. I'll pull the tile up in the downstairs bathroom while I wait. Tomorrow's Saturday. I'll come first thing in the morning and put down a new subfloor.”

Upstairs Lizabeth kicked her clothes into a corner of the bathroom and dragged herself into the shower. Laying plywood was a lot more tiring than painting trim. Chances were, if she hadn't been so tired, she wouldn't have fallen into the cement, she decided. If she hadn't been so tired, she would have sensed Oliver Roth sneaking up behind her. And if she hadn't been so tired, she might have had more patience with Roth's groping.

She lathered up and watched the last vestiges of cement sluice down the drain. Thank heaven it hadn't hardened on her. She washed her hair and winced when the water beat against the back of her neck. She was sunburned. Occupational hazard, she told herself, wondering about the statistics on skin
cancer for construction workers. The statistics probably weren't good. On the other hand, after another week of pounding nails she'd be so physically fit she'd be able to forget about cardiovascular disease.

And there were other things she was learning. Elsie was wrong about carpenters. Most of the men were extremely courteous to her, going out of their way to make her feel comfortable.

She shut the water off, wrapped a towel around her head, shrugged into her threadbare terry-cloth robe, and stumbled into her bedroom. She flopped facedown onto the bed and instantly fell asleep.

At six, Jason shook Lizabeth awake. “Mom, it's time for supper. You better hurry up.”

Lizabeth opened her eyes halfway and looked drowsily at her youngest son. “Huh?”

He put his face down next to hers, nose to nose, and shouted. “It's time for supper!”

“Gotcha,” Lizabeth said. “I'm moving.”

“You better move fast. Aunt Elsie doesn't like people being late for supper. She'll whack you one with her wooden spoon. She'll make you eat the stalks on the broccoli.” He backed off and ran out of the room. “I'll meetcha down there.”

Lizabeth pulled a faded T-shirt over her head, stepped into a pair of old running shorts, and combed her fingers through her hair. She was doing her best to hurry, but her muscles weren't cooperating. Everything ached. Matt had been right. She was a wimp. She was thirty-two years old, and she was falling apart at the seams.

She took the stairs one step at a time, mumbling as she went. She stopped grumbling when she saw Matt watching her. “Oh, jeez, what are you doing here?”

“Elsie invited me for supper.”

“What a nice surprise.” About as nice as bubonic plague. She could barely move without screaming in pain, her hair looked like World War III, and she wasn't wearing a bra. As she descended the stairs, she decided it was the last fact that caused his look of rapt fascination.

“You seem kinda tuckered out.”

“I'm fine,” she said, shuffling past him. “I'm not at all tired. And I'm not the least bit sore.”

“Guess you're tougher than I thought.”

Jason took a scoop of mashed potatoes. “Good thing you're not tired. Matt said he'd play soccer with us after supper, and you could play, too.”

Lizabeth noticed it was no longer “Mr. Hallahan.” She supposed that was okay. Matt didn't seem to mind the familiarity, and the boys needed to have male friends. She would have preferred someone without a tattoo advocating sex with the animal kingdom, but she wasn't in the mood to quibble. She stared at her fork, wondering if she had the strength to pick it up.

“Soccer? That sounds like fun,” she said absently. “I could use some exercise.” She could use some exercise in the year 2009. Anything before that was going to be a major imposition.

Not to worry, she thought. Soccer was at least a half hour away. Right now she had more immediate problems. She needed to figure out a way to eat her ham. Cutting and chewing seemed like insurmountable obstacles.

“Something wrong with the ham?” Elsie asked Lizabeth. “You keep staring at it.”

“It's fine, but I'm thinking of becoming a vegetarian. I'm worried about my cholesterol.”

“Don't be a ninny,” Elsie said. “You're nothing but skin and bones, and you have bags under your eyes. You need meat. How do you think I've kept my looks all these years? I eat right.
Except for that time when I tried living in the old people's home. Worst food I've ever seen. Everything got squeezed through a strainer.”

“Yuck!” Jason said. “Like baby food.” He accidentally tipped over his milk, and it spread, like a flash flood, across the table.

Elsie jumped to her feet and ran for a kitchen towel. Lizabeth mopped up milk with her napkin. And Ferguson seized upon the opportunity to run off with the remainder of the ham.

“Ferguson's got the ham!” Billy shouted. He reached out for the dog, caught his elbow on the gravy boat, and the gravy boat slid into Matt's plate and smashed, dumping a cup and a half of semicongealed goo into Matt's lap.

“Oh, gross,” Jason said. “One time Ferguson got sick and made a mess on the rug and it looked just like that.”

Elsie watched dinner disappear around the corner. “There goes tomorrow's lunch,” she said. “Damned if you don't have to be on your toes in this house.”

“I guess we should postpone the soccer game until tomorrow,” Matt said. “If I play soccer in these clothes, I'll have every dog in the neighborhood following me.”

Lizabeth leaned back in her chair and managed a weak smile. She was saved. God bless Ferguson.

 

There were four bedrooms on the top floor of the old Victorian. Lizabeth had chosen a back bedroom for herself and had meagerly furnished it with a double bed and a secondhand oak dresser. One window looked out at the side yard, the view partially obscured by a mature stand of Douglas firs that served as a privacy fence. The other window in Lizabeth's room overlooked the backyard, which was, for the most part, packed dirt.

Ferguson had littered the yard with punctured footballs, soccer balls, half-chewed baseballs, and a few mangled shoes. A redwood picnic table and two benches had been left by the previous owner. The table was seldom used for picnics, since Lizabeth didn't have a grill. Instead, it served as the collection point for half-filled jars of soap bubbles, used boxes of crayons, a handful of Matchbox cars, empty juice glasses, plastic water pistols, and whatever other flotsam accumulated from two boys at play.

Since the yard was dominated by several large trees, it was continuously cast in shade. By moonlight the yard seemed solemn and spooky, and usually only Carol the Cat ventured into its black shadows.

This evening a human form picked its way around the footballs, soccer balls, and baseballs. He cursed when he stepped on a shoe and stood still for a minute to get his bearings. He moved back a few feet and took a handful of small stones from his coat pocket.

As Lizabeth pulled herself up from the drowse of sleep, she thought it must be sleeting. She lay absolutely still, very quietly listening to the
tik tik tik
of something hitting her windowpane, and realized, as she became more awake, that it was summer and sleet wasn't possible. It almost sounded as if someone were throwing stones at her window!

There was a brief stab of alarm, then she relaxed. Matt. The thought brought a smile to her lips. Poor guy was really smitten with her.

Another stone pinged on the glass, and Lizabeth swung her legs over the side of the bed. It was two in the morning, and obviously Matt hadn't been able to sleep. She imagined him thrashing around in his bed, feverish with
pent-up passion. And now he was here! What was she supposed to do with him? She could hardly invite him up to her bedroom. Maybe he would want to take her back to his apartment. Maybe he wouldn't be able to wait that long. Maybe he'd drag her off into the bushes or lay her out on the picnic table. She hated to admit it, but the picnic table sounded incredibly erotic.

Good grief! she thought. She was a mother, and mothers didn't go around rutting on picnic tables. Lord, what would her children think? What about Elsie? Lizabeth, she told herself, you're getting weird. That's what happens when you've had a whole lifetime of sexual deprivation. She'd been a virgin going into her marriage and in some ways she was a virgin to the very end. Paul Kane had given her two beautiful children and for that she was grateful. The pleasure she'd hoped to find in the making of the babies had been elusive. Paul Kane wasn't a man to waste time on preliminaries.

Lizabeth pulled the curtain aside and squinted into the darkness. “Anybody out there?” she called.

There was the distinct rustle of clothing in
the darkness below her. A flashlight clicked on and Lizabeth was temporarily blinded as the light played across her face. The intruder held the flashlight aloft, redirecting the beam onto himself, and Lizabeth was treated to a solid minute of full frontal male nudity.

The man was wearing a paper bag mask, a striped tie, and Docksiders. “Matt?” Lizabeth whispered.

No, of course not. Matt was blond. Then again, blonds might not be blond all over. She stifled a hysterical giggle and dialed the police.

Ten minutes later a black-and-white cruiser pulled up to the house and two policemen met Lizabeth at the door. The taller of the two men looked Lizabeth over. “I'm Officer Dooley. Are you the lady who saw the flasher? Can you give us a description?”

“He was pretty ordinary. Not too fat. Not too thin. Average height. I didn't get to see his face, but I'd guess he was in his twenties or early thirties. No chest hair…”

Elsie stomped down the stairs in her robe and nightgown. “What's going on here?”

“I thought I was hearing sleet,” Lizabeth said, “but it was actually a flasher throwing stones at my window.”

Elsie's eyes got wide. “You mean he stood there with no clothes on? Buck naked?”

“He was wearing a tie,” Lizabeth said. “And shoes.”

“Shoot. I always miss the good stuff,” Elsie said. “It isn't fair. I never get to see any naked men.”

“This is my aunt Elsie,” Lizabeth explained to the policemen. “She's spending the summer with me.”

“Maybe he'll come back,” the cop said to Elsie. “You might get another crack at it.”

The possibility of that happening made Lizabeth uncomfortable. She didn't like having a naked man skulking around in her yard.

“You don't really think he'll come back, do you? Maybe you should stake out my house.”

“We don't usually stake out for flashers. If he threatened you, or if there was indication of violence…”

Lizabeth shook her head. “No. He just stood there.”

 

Matt rang the doorbell again and looked at his watch. Seven-thirty. The curtains were still drawn and there was no sign of life in Lizabeth's house.

It was hard to believe they weren't up yet. Seven-thirty seemed like the middle of the afternoon when you were used to getting up at five every day. He set the bag of doughnuts and the gallon of paint on the porch and walked around the house. Lizabeth's bedroom was in the back.

“Lizabeth!” he called in an exaggerated whisper. He cupped his hands to his mouth and called again.

There was no response. Her curtain remained closed. He gathered a few stones and tossed them one by one at her window.

Lizabeth woke up with a start. A stone pinged against her windowpane, and her heart jumped to her throat. He was back! She reached for the phone beside her bed and dialed the police, then waited, like a frightened fugitive, while the stones continued to tap on the glass.

Five minutes passed on her digital clock. It seemed like five hours. Someone was forcefully knocking on her front door. Lizabeth crept to the stairs and saw the flashing red light of the cruiser pulsing behind her living room curtains.