By Design (15 page)

Emmie was holed up in her childhood bedroom at her father’s house, clad in musty-smelling clothes she had dug out of the bottom drawer of her old dresser—too-small sweatpants and a voluminous “Go Panthers” sweatshirt. She hadn’t left the room all day, not even when her father tried to talk to her through the closed door. She knew she was being terribly rude. After all, he had picked her up late at night outside the near-ruin of her house and tucked her into her old twin bed, murmuring to her that she’d “get through this.”

But she couldn’t help it. She was just . . . numb. Her beloved house was a wreck. Despite repeated assurances from the firefighters and her father that the damage would be covered by insurance, she couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if it wasn’t. (Was the torching of one’s house through an ex-boyfriend’s stupidity covered by her homeowner’s policy or not?)

She burrowed under her pink-and-orange-striped bedspread and matching sheets, also rather stale smelling, and stared in the general direction of her small white TV/VCR combo as the final moments of
It’s a Wonderful Life
aired. Now, if she were in Bedford Falls, all her friends would come to her aid and rebuild her home in a weekend while joyfully singing Christmas carols. But her friends were more broke than she was, plus most of them couldn’t tell the business end of a hammer from their Wii controller.

Nope, she was on her own. Except for Trish, of course. Her friend had been appropriately aghast to hear about the events of the evening that far outdistanced her kids’ adventure with toy submarines diving in full washing machines. When Emmie called to give her the news, Trish begged her to stay with them, which Emmie politely and repeatedly declined, more for Trish’s sake than her own. So she promised to bring Emmie some extra clothes, and, as a bestie should, offered to hunt down Kyle and beat him senseless.

Emmie’s attention drifted from the movie, and she looked around her old bedroom. New Kids on the Block poster above her bed. White jewelry box on her dresser.
The Baby-sitters Club
book series on the low shelves along the wall. Dollhouse in the corner.

She slid out from under her comforter, nearly boneless in her exhaustion, and made her way over to the dollhouse perched on a round, kid-height white table. She squeezed her sweat-suited butt between the armrests of one of the matching spindled chairs and peered in the tiny windows.

In spite of her dark mood, she smiled a little. The interior was a mishmash of strange furniture, much of it homemade by Emmie out of pieces of cardboard (many a shoebox was sacrificed, she recalled), colored with paint and markers and adorned with scraps of fabric left over from her mother’s sewing projects. She had even glued blocks of fabric to the walls and floors—a budding designer’s version of textured wallpaper and carpeting. Oh, and there was her favorite piece: a beanbag chair made out of an uninflated balloon stuffed with grains of rice, the latex now tacky and cracked.

She was startled out of her reverie by a knock on her bedroom door. Her ghost of a smile vanished—she still didn’t feel like talking to her father, despite the guilt she felt at locking him out—but she called out, as receptively as possible, “Yeah?” then returned her attention to the dollhouse.

The door opened a crack. “Emmie?”

That wasn’t her father’s voice. She looked up. The door opened wider, and there stood Graham, filling the doorway. Her heart jumped, and her first thought was that she looked like hell and her clothes smelled, and dammit, why didn’t he get a gander of her all dressed up last night . . .

Then she noticed that he looked terribly uncomfortable—that easy self-confidence that usually surrounded him like a mantle of light was missing. In his right hand were two paper bags. One was a large shopping bag, the other a small, gold-and-red-striped gift bag with red tissue paper sticking out of it. He hooked his right thumb into the pocket of his jeans and shoved his left hand into the other pocket.

“Hey,” he said awkwardly. “Your dad sent me up. I, uh, I’m sorry I didn’t make it to your party last night.” Before Emmie could respond, he rushed on, “I was going to, really. Well, I went back and forth about it for a while—not because of you—definitely not.” His words tumbled out faster. “But . . . I was angry with Juliet for . . . well, a bunch of reasons, actually, and . . .”

“It’s okay.”

“I felt bad about it,” he said, “and I stopped by your house today to . . . and I saw . . . well.” He stumbled to a halt and gazed at her with a sympathetic expression. God, how she loved it when this man looked at her, because he really
looked
at her. He rustled the paper bags he was holding. “I was going to bring you the hostess gift I had gotten for last night.”

He held out the gift bag and moved forward a couple of steps into the room. Emmie told herself to stand the heck up and meet him halfway, but when she rose a few inches, she found that the kiddie chair was coming with her. It was stuck to her behind—or, rather, her behind was stuck in it.
Oh, good Lord.
She sat back down and let him come to her.

“How did you find out where I was?”

“Ah, well, your home is a bit of a tourist attraction at the moment.”

“Imagine that.”

“And I ran into your friend Trish on the sidewalk. She, uh, seemed to know who I was, somehow.” Emmie was sure her face was crimson with embarrassment.
Why, yes, we had many discussions about you, Realistic Hottie.
“Anyway, she came up, introduced herself, we talked about what happened. She said she had been hoping to get some of your personal items out of the house for you, but she wasn’t sure it was safe to go inside. She was on her way here with this,” he indicated the larger bag, which he put on the floor. “Some of her own clothes and things for you. But instead she asked me to deliver it.”

All the blessings of the gods upon Trish, dearest, bestest friend in the world,
Emmie thought. Having Graham deliver the clothes for her—genius. Pure genius. As Emmie welcomed the giddy butterflies back to her stomach, Graham prompted, “Anyway, open your gift.”

She rooted around in the bag until her fingers closed around something quite heavy. She drew out a brass candle snuffer. And she started to laugh.

“I swear I bought that yesterday, not today.” Graham grinned, the relief evident on his beautiful features. “I was really hoping you’d laugh and not, you know, bludgeon me with it.”

Emmie was laughing so hard tears were leaking out of the corners of her eyes. Or maybe she was crying. She couldn’t tell anymore. She hastily wiped at her cheeks with the overlong cuffs of her old sweatshirt and rasped, “Thank you, Graham. Really. It’s . . . lovely. A little too late, maybe . . .” And they both laughed out loud. “But lovely.”

“You’re welcome.”

She wanted more than anything to stand up and give him a hug—or, if she were perfectly honest with herself, a little something more—but she didn’t dare attempt to get out of the chair again. So she gestured to the other kiddie chair. “Won’t you join me?”

He looked down at the tiny seat suspiciously, but he gamely wedged himself into the little wooden trap. Graham shifted in the seat, his knees going every which way. “Comfy,” he said, unconvincingly. He looked around the room. “I like what you’ve done with the place. Very retro.”

Emmie rolled her eyes. “I don’t know why my parents left my bedroom like this.”

“I’m sure they’d say it’s a tribute to a wonderful daughter.” Emmie blushed again and studied the candle snuffer. It was engraved with vines and leaves, and she traced the lines with a trembling fingertip. “Nice,” Graham was saying. She looked up to find him peering into the dollhouse. “I can see certain ‘Emmie touches’ in there. May I?” She nodded, and he opened up the dollhouse on its hinges. He murmured, “Sophie’s been asking for a dollhouse. I was thinking of getting her one for Christmas. Well,” he amended, “I wanted to make her one, but I’ve been so busy with work, I just didn’t have time.”

Emmie studied his profile—that gorgeous face she’d been obsessing over for months—and she found it was even nicer than the images she conjured up in her daydreams. She drank in his handsome profile, the crow’s-feet around his brilliant blue eyes, the slight curl at the base of his black hair and the touch of gray at his temples, the faint trace of stubble on his chin. But as perfect as his face and body were, somewhere along the way she had come to realize that she liked what was inside even more.

Then, suddenly, Graham blurted out, “Emmie?”

“Mmm?”

“I . . .”

Emmie caught her breath. What was he going to say? Oh, she desperately needed him to declare his love for her. Right now. Nothing else would do. Surely that’s what he was going to say . . . right?

“I . . .”

And . . . ?

“I’m sorry, but I
really
have to get out of this chair.”

He looked so comically uncomfortable that she couldn’t help but laugh. As Graham fought his way out, Emmie dared to stand up as well. And she didn’t quite mind so much anymore if the chair was still adhered to her butt, because somehow she felt that Graham wouldn’t mind, either. Still, just to make sure, she planted her hands on the armrests to help separate the chair from her behind, and found that one of the arms was jammed into her sweatpants pocket. So that explained it; she didn’t really have that broad of a backside. At least that was something.

She got to her feet and stumbled a little. Graham caught her by the elbows and steadied her. She looked up once again at that warm smile and in one step closed the short distance between them. She shocked even herself, leaning into him—and was mortified for a moment, as Graham, startled, drew his head back a fraction of an inch. Then relief and warmth flooded through her as she felt his arms close around her, his broad hands spread across her back. She slid her arms around his neck, felt her heart hammering in her chest. She dropped her gaze and noticed a pulse throbbing at the open collar of his striped oxford.

Their foreheads touched, their noses nuzzled, and then Emmie’s mouth sought Graham’s. Or his sought hers. She wasn’t sure anymore, and it didn’t matter. Emmie gloried in the sensation of the length of his body fused to hers. They fit. They
fit
! She always knew they would . . . but she had no idea just how perfectly. The tip of her tongue grazed his bottom lip. He pulled her tighter and his tongue found hers—just a little, just enough to draw a little gasp from deep in her throat.

“Uh-
hum.
”

Oh, the air was cold between them when Graham pulled away. She needed to find him again—she leaned in once more. She opened her eyes and followed his gaze. He was looking over his shoulder, at—

“Dad!”

“Sorry! Sorry,” her father blustered, holding his hands up in protest.

Emmie felt herself deflate when Graham pulled his arms from around her. Even if it was temporary—she desperately hoped it was temporary—it was a miserable feeling.

“No, no, my apologies, Mr. Brewster,” Graham stammered awkwardly. “We were just . . . uh . . .”

“Going to go check out my house,” Emmie filled in. “You know, assess the damage.”

At this, Emmie’s father felt more comfortable looking them straight on again. “Ah. Good. About time you started thinking about what to do with the place.”

Emmie rolled her eyes. Trust her father to expect her to pick herself up within hours of the fire and charge ahead with repair plans.

“Well, we do need to take a look at it as soon as possible,” Graham said, “because, well . . .” He turned to her. “I want to offer my architectural services, and put my best workers on the job. Free of charge,” he hastened to add.

Emmie gasped. “Graham . . .”

“That’s awfully nice of you, young man,” Bob Brewster chimed in.

“Graham, I couldn’t possibly—”

“Please,” Graham interrupted. “I want to. Really.”

She smiled through the tears threatening to spill over again. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Graham smiled back, looking deeply into her eyes, melting her again with his soft gaze. After a second, which felt more like an hour—a blissful hour—he said, “Well. Ready to go check out your house?”

She blinked. “I—I should change first.” And she started looking around frantically, trying to figure out what to change into, hoping the bag that Trish had sent with Graham had something that would fit her—then she heard her father speak.

“Come on downstairs with me, Graham, while Emmaline gets ready. We’ll talk.”

Graham gave her a tiny desperate look, although he dutifully followed Bob out of the room. She waved and smiled. Graham raised an eyebrow as he shut the door behind him.

“Oh.”

It was all Emmie could manage to utter as she stared into her bedroom—or what was left of it—from the yard. Black, cracked timbers were all that stood between her and her charred bed, nightstand, antique linens trunk, dresser, and chest of drawers. Her round area rug was filthy and sodden, her framed prints were lying on the ground, the glass shattered. Heaps of swollen, soaked, and frozen drywall slouched where it had fallen. Emmie could barely take it all in. Her house—her
home
—the place she had worked so hard to make perfect, utterly ruined and open to the sky.