Chapter 11
Eleven
Upon hearing Zoe’s words, the ghost, who had been lingering inconspicuously in the background, blurted, “Outta here,” and fled.
Stunned, Alex looked down into Zoe’s upturned face. Before he could react, she hurried on in a nervous rush. “I didn’t know he was gay when we got married,” she said. “Chris didn’t know, either, or at least he wasn’t ready to face it. He genuinely cared about me, and he thought… hoped… that marrying me would solve all the complications. That I would be enough for him. But I wasn’t.”
She paused, a deep carnelian flush covering her face. Her free hand dipped under the water, and then she patted her cold wet fingers against her cheeks. The sight of the sparkling droplets sliding down her smooth skin was nearly too much for Alex. Carefully he removed his arm from her back.
Encouraged by his silence, Zoe continued. “‘A woman who looks like you’… I’ve heard that phrase all my life, and it never means anything good. People who say that always think they know exactly who I am without ever bothering to get to know me. They think I’m dumb, or fake, or conniving. They assume that all I’m interested in is having sex or… well, you know what they assume.” She slid him a guarded glance, seeming to expect mockery. Finding none, she bent her head and resumed. “I matured a lot earlier than everyone else—by the time I was thirteen, I had to wear a C cup bra. Something about the way I looked caused other girls to not like me, and spread rumors about me in school. Boys shouted things at me when they drove by in cars. In high school, they asked me out only so they could make passes at me and lie to their friends about how far I had let them go. So for a while I stopped going out at all. I didn’t trust anyone. But then I became friends with Chris. He was smart and funny and nice, and it didn’t matter to him what I looked like. We became a couple—we went everywhere together, helped each other through tough times.” A melancholy smile hovered at her lips. “Chris went to law school, and I went to a culinary arts school, but we always stayed close. We talked on the phone all the time, and spent summers and vacations together, and… eventually it all just led to marriage.”
Alex wasn’t quite certain how he’d come to be in this position, standing at a sink with Zoe while she confided in him. He didn’t want to hear any of it. He had always hated talking about personal problems—his own, and other people’s. But Zoe kept on talking, and he couldn’t seem to find a way to shut her down. And then he realized that if he had really wanted to shut her down, he would have by now. He actually wanted to listen, to understand her, and that scared the hell out of him.
He heard himself ask, “Before you got married, did you and he…”
“Yes.” Zoe’s face was partially averted, but he could see the pink curve of her cheek beneath the dark sweep of her lashes. “It was affectionate. It was… nice. I wasn’t sure if either of us was really into it, but I didn’t have enough experience to know how it should be. I thought in time we’d get better at it.”
Affectionate. Nice. Alex’s brain summoned thoughts of Zoe’s luscious naked body, and what he would have done to her, given half a chance. The glinting locks of her hair trailed like curled ribbons, and he couldn’t stop himself from touching them, playing with the tousled silk. “When did you find out?”
Zoe took an extra breath as his fingertips reached the curve of her scalp and stroked gently. “He told me he’d been having an affair with another man. A lawyer at the firm. He hadn’t meant for it to happen. He didn’t want to hurt me. But something was missing in our relationship, and he’d never been able to figure it out.”
“Given the fact that he slept with another guy,” Alex said, “it’s pretty obvious what was missing.”
Zoe looked at him quickly, but when she saw the glint of humor in his eyes, she relaxed.
Sliding his hand to the nape of her neck, Alex relished the texture of cool, soft skin, the fine muscles beneath. The kitchen seemed to breathe around them, stirring currents of toasted air that carried the bittersweet zest of lemon rind, the dank sweetness of scrubbed wooden cutting boards, the floating richness of cake, the crisp bite of cinnamon, and the black tang of coffee. All of it whetted a deep thrill of hunger. It seemed as if Zoe were part of the feast all around him, made to be tasted and felt and sensually enjoyed. The only thing that held him back from her was a thread of honor that was stretched nearly to the breaking point. If he let himself do what he wanted, if Zoe didn’t stop him, he would end up being the worst thing that ever happened to her. He had to make her understand that.
“In high school,” he said, “I was the kind of asshole who would have teased and bullied you.”
“I know.” After a moment, Zoe said, “You would have called me a dumb blonde.”
At the very least. He had been angry at the world. He’d hated all the things he couldn’t have. And he would have especially hated someone as gentle and beautiful as Zoe.
She took a deep breath before asking, “Is that how you think of me now?”
Although she’d just handed him the perfect way to put some distance between them, Alex couldn’t bring himself to use it. Instead he told her the truth. “No. I think you’re smart. I think you’re good at what you do.”
“Do you think I’m… attractive?” she asked hesitantly.
He was nearly drowning in the desire to demonstrate exactly how attractive he found her. “You’re sexy as hell. And if I thought you could handle my kind of trouble, we wouldn’t be standing here talking. By now I’d have dragged you to the nearest dark corner I could find, and—” He broke off abruptly.
Zoe gave him a look that was difficult to interpret. Eventually she asked, “What makes you sure I couldn’t handle you?”
She didn’t know what she was asking for, from a man who couldn’t remember what it was like to be innocent. Lightly gripping her hair, Alex forced her face close to his. The blond curls danced around his fingers and tickled the backs of his hands. “I’m a bastard in bed, Zoe,” he said quietly. “I’m selfish and mean as the devil. I have to have all the control. And I’m… not nice.”
Her eyes widened. “What do you mean?”
He wasn’t about to discuss his sexual preferences with her. “No, we’re not going there. All you need to know is that I don’t make love to women, I use them. To you, sex is about kindness, honesty, commitment… well, I don’t bring any of that to bed. If you’re as smart as I think you are, you’ll believe that.”
“I do,” Zoe said promptly.
Drawing his head back an inch, Alex stared at her. “Really?”
“Yes.” But after a long hesitation, Zoe’s gaze dropped and the corners of her mouth quirked. “No,” she admitted, “I really don’t.”
“Damn it, Zoe—” He broke off in frustration, all the more provoked because she was trying not to smile, as if she thought of him as some big pussycat trying to pose as a tiger. She was playing with fire. She wouldn’t begin to understand the depravity that had passed for his love life. He knew who he was, and he knew how to hurt people—God knew he’d done it often enough.
The hint of amusement flitting across her lips drove him crazy. Before he knew what he was doing, he crushed his mouth over hers, holding her head so she couldn’t jerk back. He expected resistance. He wanted to scare her off. That was how the lesson would go. But after the first innocent start of surprise, she went soft and easy against him, her fingers lacing into his hair, curving around his skull. Alex was mortified by the force of his own response. He could have no more broken her hold on him than he could have snapped a steel beam in two.
She tasted like lavender sugar. Sweet, dark-flowering kisses, opening in a way that focused all his senses on this one moment, this one blinding perception of pleasure.
Too late, he realized that she wasn’t the one playing with fire.
He was.
He reached down to gather her in, all the deep curves and persimmon-smooth skin and silky heat. The feel of her was so lush, so unlike his ex-wife’s spareness, that he kept adjusting his hold, trying to fit her more closely against him, and the voluptuous friction aroused him unbearably.
Once, when he was still a teen, he’d been bodysurfing on a trip to Westport with friends, and he’d timed a six-foot wave badly. He’d been tossed and turned like a load of laundry until he’d finally been deposited on the beach, so disoriented that for a few minutes he couldn’t remember his own name. He felt like that now, only this time he wanted to dive back in and never come up for air.
His hands went to the inward arc of her waist and moved blindly upward. Reaching the sides of her breasts, he encountered the edges of a bra with sturdy straps designed to support substantial curves. His fingertips followed the straps in restless strokes, up to the tops of her shoulders, back down again.
Her mouth broke from his. Alex stood there panting with fractured breaths. Zoe held his gaze, her eyes pure blue and drowsy and intent. She had no understanding of how close to the edge he was. She reached behind her waist to untie her apron, and then the straps behind her neck. The garment dropped limply to the floor. Rising on her toes, she kissed him again, her fingers touching the sides of his face, stroking tenderly. This moment would haunt him for the rest of his life, the sweet bloom of her mouth, the overpowering heat of his response to her, the way the moments drifted like sparks from a fire and vanished before he could catch them.
He felt her reaching awkwardly for his hands, trying to pull them to her. She wanted him to touch her. God help him, if he started, he wouldn’t be able to stop. But his will eroded in the rush of pure feeling, and resisting her was no more possible than stopping his own heart from beating. Zoe took his stiff wrist and shyly urged his hand to the front of her shirt. The backs of his fingers brushed against her breast, the tip jutting distinctly against the elastic webbing of the bra. For a second he couldn’t breathe. His hand opened to cup the luxurious weight, his thumb rubbing the peak in savoring circles, until she gasped against his lips.
Alex took his hand from her, having to secure his balance by gripping the edge of the sink behind her. His equilibrium was gone. It didn’t help that Zoe began to nuzzle into his neck with erotic delicacy, nibbling and kissing, the tugs of her lips siphoning up pleasure. His body was nothing but drive and sensation. He reached down to grip her bottom with both hands, pulling her high and tight. Zoe’s eyes opened as she felt the searing pressure, blatant even through the layers of their clothing. He urged her closer, letting her feel how much he wanted her, letting the hardest part of him slide with intimate exactness against the softest part of her. She quivered, a vibrant hum in her throat… and then she flinched with a cry that had nothing to do with pleasure.
They had both forgotten about the burn on her arm. She had accidently brushed it against his shoulder. It must have hurt like hell. The realization shocked Alex’s mind into clarity. He pulled back from her and carefully gripped her arm to look at it. The quarter-sized blotch on her arm was purple, the skin slick and puffy.
Zoe stared up at him, her cheeks fever-colored, her mouth kiss-bruised. Her hand went to the taut plane of his cheek, and he felt the vibration of her palm. She was shaking. Or maybe it was him.
She began to say something, but an unearthly yowl interrupted her.
“What the hell was that?” Alex asked hoarsely, infuriated to be pulled out of the erotic dream, his heart pounding in heavy blows.
They both looked to the source of the noise near their feet. Baleful green eyes stared out from a huge mass of white fur, a thick neck cinched by a glittering band of crystals.
“That’s Byron,” Zoe said. “My cat.”
It was an enormous, weird-looking cat, with a flat face and enough fur to create at least three more of itself.
“What does it want?” Alex asked, revolted.
Zoe bent to pet the cat. “Attention,” she said ruefully. “He gets jealous.”
Byron began to purr as she stroked him, the sound rivaling a Cessna single-prop engine.
“He can have your attention after I leave.” Alex reached over to shut off the water, and picked up the first-aid kit. Grateful for the distraction, he brought the kit to the table and sat down, gesturing to a nearby chair. “Sit there.”
Zoe obeyed, giving him a bemused glance.
Alex arranged her arm on the table with the burn facing upward. Finding a tube of antibiotic cream, he applied it in a thick layer, his head bent over the task. His hands weren’t steady.
Zoe reached down to pet the massive cat, which was pacing through and around the legs of her chair. “Alex,” she asked in a low voice, “are we going to—”
“No.”
He knew she wanted to talk about it. But denial was a skill that had been honed over generations of Nolans, and it was going to work just fine in this situation.
In the silence, Alex heard the ghost’s sardonic voice. “Is it safe to come back in now?”
Although Alex would have loved to give a scathing reply, he kept silent.
Zoe was befuddled. “You… you want to pretend that what just happened didn’t happen?”
“It was a mistake.” Alex applied a bandage, meticulously sealing the adhesive edges.
“Why?”
Alex didn’t bother to soften the impatient edge of his tone. “Look, you and I don’t need to know each other any more than we already do. You’ve got nothing to gain and everything to lose. You need to find some decent guy to go out with—someone who’ll take it slow and talk about your feelings and all that sensitive crap. You need a nice guy. And that’s not me.”
“I’ll say,” the ghost chimed in.
“So we’re going to forget about this,” Alex continued. “No discussions, no repeat performances. If you want to find some other contractor for the remodel, I’ll totally understand. In fact—”
“No,” the ghost protested.
“I want you,” Zoe said, and blushed hard. “I mean, you’re the right person for the job.”
“You haven’t even seen the designs yet,” Alex said.
The ghost circled them. “You can’t quit. I need to spend time at that cottage.”
Shove it, Alex thought.
Scowling, the ghost folded his arms and went to lean against the pantry door.
Zoe picked up a few of the pages from the table, studying them.
Alex closed the first-aid kit. “That’s how the kitchen will look after the interior wall is taken out and replaced by an island.” He had added as much storage as possible, as well as a row of windows that let in abundant natural light.
“I love how open it is,” Zoe said. “And the island is perfect. Can people sit on this side?”
“Yes, you can line up about four bar stools.” Alex leaned closer to point to the next page. “Here’s the configuration on the other side—the microwave drawer, a spice drawer, and a swing-up mixer lift.”
“I’ve always wanted a mixer lift,” Zoe said wistfully. “But all of this looks expensive.”
“I listed stock cabinets in the specs—they’re a lot cheaper than custom. And I’ve got a supplier who deals in surplus building materials, so we can save on the countertops. If the wood flooring is salvageable, that’ll cut down on costs, too.”
Zoe picked up more pages from the table. “What’s this?” She held up a design of the second bedroom. “There’s a walk-in closet here, isn’t there?”
He nodded. “I included an option for converting that into a full bath.”
“A full bathroom in that little space?” Zoe asked.
“Yeah, it’s tight.” Alex reached over to find the design for the bathroom. He handed it to her. “No room for a cabinet. But I could put a recessed set of shelves in the wall for towels and supplies. I thought…” He hesitated. “I thought living so close with your grandmother, you’d probably like to have a little privacy instead of having to share the main bathroom with her.”
Zoe continued to look over the rendering. “It’s even better than I’d hoped for. How long would it take to get all of this done?”
“Three months, give or take.”
A frown puckered her forehead. “My grandmother will leave the nursing facility in a month. I can afford to pay for her to stay an extra couple of weeks, but probably no more than that.”
“Could she stay at the inn?”
“It’s not set up for her. Too many stairs. And every time we can’t rent out a room, it’s a loss of income. Especially during the summer.”
Alex drummed his fingers lightly on the table, calculating. “I could delay the garage and get some of the subcontractors working simultaneously… in six weeks I could make the house livable. But most of the finish work—moldings, casings, paint, would still have to be done. Not to mention replacing the air-conditioning. Your grandmother probably wouldn’t take well to all the noise and activity.”
“She’ll be fine,” Zoe said. “As long as the kitchen and main bathroom are done, we’ll put up with anything.”
Alex gave her a skeptical glance.
“You don’t know my grandmother,” Zoe said. “She loves noise and activity. She used to be a reporter for the Bellingham Herald during the war, before she got married.”
“That’s cool,” Alex said, meaning it. “Back in those days, a woman who wrote for a newspaper was probably a…”
“Hot tomato,” the ghost said.
“… hot tomato,” Alex repeated, and then snapped his mouth shut, feeling like an idiot. He sent the ghost a discreet glare. Hot tomato—what did that even mean ?
Zoe smiled quizzically at the old-fashioned phrase. “Yes, I think she was.”
The ghost told Alex, “Ask how her grandmother is.”
“I was going to,” Alex muttered.
Zoe looked up from the design. “Hmm?”
“I was going to ask,” Alex said, “about how your grandmother’s doing.”
“The therapy is helping. She’s tired of staying in the nursing facility, and she’s impatient to move out. She loves the island—she hasn’t lived here in a very long time.”
“She used to live in Friday Harbor?”
“Yes, the cottage is hers—it’s been in the family forever. But my grandmother actually grew up at that house on Rainshadow Road. The one you’re helping Sam restore.” Seeing Alex’s interest, she continued, “The Stewarts—that’s her family—owned a fish-canning business on the island. But they sold the Rainshadow house a long time before I was born—I’d never set foot in there until I went to visit Lucy.”
Hearing an imprecation from the ghost, Alex glanced at him quickly.
The ghost looked stunned and worried and excited. “Alex,” he said, “it’s all connected. The grandmother, Rainshadow Road, the cottage. I’ve got to find out how I fit in.”
Alex gave him a short nod.
“Don’t screw this up,” the ghost said.
“Okay,” Alex muttered, wanting him to shut up.
Zoe gave him a questioning glance.
“It’s okay,” Alex revised hastily, “if you want to bring her to Rainshadow Road for a visit. She might get a kick out of seeing it restored.”
“Thank you. I think she would. I’m going to visit her this weekend, and I’ll let her know. It’ll give her something to look forward to.”
“Good.” Alex watched her as she continued to look over the renderings. It struck him that she was doing something remarkably selfless in sacrificing a year or more of her life to take care of an ailing grandparent. Was she going to have some help? Who was going to watch over Zoe? “Hey,” he said softly. “You got someone to give you a hand with this? Taking care of your grandmother, I mean.”
“I have Justine. And a lot of friends.”
“What about your parents?”
Zoe shrugged in the way people did when they were trying to gloss over something unpleasant. “My father lives in Arizona. He and I aren’t close. And I don’t even remember my mother. She bailed on us when I was still pretty young. So my dad gave me to my grandmother to raise.”
“What’s her name?” the ghost asked in wonder.
“What’s your grandmother’s name?” Alex asked Zoe, feeling like he was playing the old telephone game in which a sentence was repeated until it no longer made sense.
“Emma. Actually, it’s Emmaline.” Zoe pronounced the last syllable “lin,” as if there were no e at the end. “She took me in when my dad moved to Arizona. She was a widow at the time. I remember the day Dad dropped me off at her house in Everett—I was crying, and Upsie was so sweet to me—”
“Upsie?”
“When I was little,” Zoe explained sheepishly, “she would always say, ‘Upsie-daisy,’ when she picked me up… so I started calling her that. Anyway, when my dad left me with her, she took me into the kitchen and stood me on a chair at the counter, and we made biscuits together. She showed me how to dip the biscuit cutter in flour, so the circles of dough would come out perfectly.”
“My mother made biscuits sometimes,” Alex said, before he thought better of it. He wasn’t in the habit of revealing anything about his past to anyone.
“From scratch or from a mix?”
“From a can. I liked to watch her hit it against the countertop until it split open.” Zoe looked so horrified that he was privately amused. “They weren’t bad biscuits,” he told her.
“I’ll make you some buttermilk biscuits right now,” she said. “I could whip them up in no time.”
He shook his head as he stood from the table.
Standing in the fragrant kitchen with its cherry-print wallpaper, Alex watched as Zoe went to retrieve her apron from where it had landed on the floor earlier. She bent over, her denim capris stretching over a perfect heart-shaped bottom. That was all it took to make him want her again. He had the insane urge to go to her, take her in his arms, and hold her, just hold her and breathe her soft fragrance while the minutes bit through a long quiet hour.
He was tired of denying himself the things he wanted, and of being haunted, and most of all he was tired of picking up the pieces of his life and discovering that most of them were pieces he didn’t even want. He’d learned nothing from his failed marriage with Darcy. They had always done what was necessary to satisfy their own selfish needs, taking without giving, knowing it was impossible to hurt each other because the worst hurts had already been inflicted.
“Take a few days to look at this stuff,” he told Zoe as she returned to the table. “Talk it over with Justine. You’ve got my e-mail and phone numbers if you need to ask something. Otherwise I’ll be in touch at the beginning of next week.” He glanced at the bandage on her arm. “Keep an eye on that. If it starts to look infected—” He stopped abruptly.
Zoe smiled slightly as she looked up at him. “You’ll put another Band-Aid on it?”
Alex didn’t smile back.
He needed to numb out. He needed to drink until there were a half-dozen layers of smoked glass between him and the rest of the world.
Turning away from her, he picked up his keys and wallet. “See you,” he said curtly, and left without looking back.