Harlequin - Jennifer Greene (6 page)

“Yeah? So, are you married?”

She rolled her eyes with exasperation. “No, I’m not married—but for all you know I sleep with ten men a week—not that it matters either way. How on earth did we wander so far from the point? And the point, Fox, is whether you would or wouldn’t like another head rub. You’ve got another bad headache coming on, don’t you.”

Hell. He not only had a bad headache coming on; the buildup felt like the mother of all earthquakes warming up in his skull. But for an instant he’d almost forgotten. He’d almost forgotten his head, his injuries, his depression. That he was standing there naked except for a towel. That his brother was right behind her. That the life he’d once known seemed to have clicked its heels and taken off for Kansas, because he didn’t recognize himself or his life anymore.

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She’ddistracted him. Something about her seemed to reach in him like no one else had in a blue moon—and it shook him up good. He dropped the teasing tone and said quietly, “You’re right. I’ve got another headache coming on. But I don’t need anyone’s help to handle it.” And without skipping a beat he turned to his brother. “Bear, leave heralone. ”

He wasn’t exactly sure where that directive came from, except that both his brothers seemed unusually taken with Phoebe—not that he cared. But he just kept getting some instinct that she wasn’t as tough and full of pepper as she let on. On that first night she’d said something like, “Fox, I’m nobody. Nobody you need to worry about”—as if she thought of herself as no one consequential—and it had gnawed in his memory ever since. How ridiculous was that?

Hell, the thought that she needed protecting—that he could even consider himself a protector—boggled his mind. And his mind was already too damned shredded to need any more boggling.

Without another word he stalked down the hall to his bedroom, where he firmly closed the door. There was no lock, but there didn’t need to be.

No one called after him. No one tried to get in. He figured his rudeness got through…which was exactly what needed to happen. Fergus knew his brothers meant well. He knew his brothers were trying to help him—including their bringing in that little redhead.

He didn’t mean to—or like—taking his surliness out on her, but something about Phoebe really bugged him. Really, really got to him. The problem was weird and unsettling…but not complicated.

All he had to do was stay away from her. Piece of cake.

Phoebe barely glanced up at the rap on her door. Saturday mornings half the neighborhood popped over—a tradition she’d started when she first moved here, stemming from a trick her mom had taught her. She set a fresh-baked almond cinnamon coffee cake on the porch to cool.

That was it. The whole trick. Even the meanest neighbor or the shyest stranger couldn’t seem to resist the smell. Which was all well and good, but usually the group waited until eight before showing up. Her hair was still down, her feet still bare, her terry cloth shorts and tee on the ragged side of decent, when Gary stuck his head in.

“Hey, Phoebe.”

“Hey, you. Mary still sleeping in?”

“Yeah. It was the same when she was pregnant before. Sleeps like the dead.” He ambled over, plucked a fresh piece of coffee cake, no plate, no napkin, and then chose a place to sprawl. Her other neighbor, Fred, had already settled at the head of the table. Traditionally he galloped over with his walker at the first smell coming out of the oven.

“You’re going to burn your fingers,” she warned Gary.

“And this is news how?” The mutts immediately took root on laps—one on Fred’s, one on Gary’s.

Phoebe poured the boys coffee, but then went back to the counter where she was slicing a grapefruit.

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Her cooking specialty was the almond cinnamon coffee cake—and not that she was bragging, but it was even better than her mother’s, and her mom’s was the best in the universe. Unfortunately and ironically, she seemed to be a grapefruit addict herself—for which the neighbors teased her mercilessly.

The back door whooshed open again. “Hi, sweetie,” Barb greeted her. Within seconds she was battling with Gary for the coffee cake spatula. “Give it. My God, you guys already leveled a coffee cake on your own. How could you be so greedy?”

Phoebe ignored the fight and concentrated on her grapefruit. Her neighbors, thank God, could take anyone’s mind off their troubles. It was the first time in days she hadn’t thought about Fergus.

Barb seemed to relish the role of the neighborhood bawd. Even this early on a Saturday, she was wearing a low-dipping top, slick spandex pants, and a full arsenal of makeup. She’d been married to a plastic surgeon. It showed.

“So what’s new around here?” Barbara won the coffee cake piece she wanted, sashayed over to the coffee and then went prowling down the hall carrying her cup.

“Nothing,” Phoebe answered.

“Oh, yes, there is. I’ll find it. You’re always doing something new around here.” A moment later Barbara called back, “I’ll be damned. You cleaned.”

“I did not.” Phoebe was offended she’d been accused of such a thing.

“You did. There’s no dust.”

She’d only cleaned because she was worried about that damned man. That wasn’t the same as compulsive cleaning, now, was it? It was just something to do at two in the morning when she was pacing around, fretting whether that rock-headed jerk was in pain and alone. Before she could invent a respectable reason for the lack of mess and dust, though, Barbara let out a shriek from far down the hall.

“Oh, my God, what kind of gigantic construction project have you got going on in here?”

“What, what?” That got both Fred and Gary out of their chairs, Fred leading the charge with his walker through the house.

Phoebe sighed mightily and traipsed after them. It confounded her how such a private person—such as herself—could end up with such nosy neighbors. They seemed endlessly fascinated by everything she did to the house, partly because they thought she was unconventional and artistic.

That was hooey. Reality was that she’d only bought the house because she couldn’t find a rental that worked for her setup, and the only house she could swing had to be a major fixer-upper. The location was unbeatable, three blocks off Main Street, so it was an easy walk for customers. The structure was a basic two-story saltbox built in the sixties. There were balconies on both floors and no termites—those were the positives.

Then came the fixer-upper part. The windows hadn’t been caulked in a decade; the drive could have starred in a jungle movie, and the yard resembled a wildlife sanctuary. When she tried selling her neighbors the sanctuary theory, though, someone loaned her a lawn mower. Pretty clear what the neighborhood standard was, and weedy wasn’t it.

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The neighbors were more fascinated by what she did with the inside. From the beginning she realized the house was going to suck in millions to make it habitable—only she didn’t have millions. Cripes, she didn’t even have furniture. So she’d headed for Home Depot and bought paint. Lots of paint.

The kitchen cabinets were mint green, the walls a bright blue. Beyond the kitchen was a dining room she’d turned into an office, and painted those walls a light lavender. An arched doorway led into a long narrow vanilla-yellow living room. All in all, the downstairs pretty much covered every possible ice cream cone color.

In some rooms, she even had furniture now.

In the back of the house, where Barb hustled the breakfasters, was her business. Customers—usually moms—entered from the back door.

A bathroom and curtained-off changing area took up the north wall; the massage center dominated the room’s center. The counters, sink, stand-alone tub and massage tables were all white—not shiny, in-your-face white, but an ultrasoft clean white.

All, that is, except for one corner, where dusty bags of cement, heaped stacks of stones and long boxes of plumbing parts looked as out of place as mud in a hospital. Further, the sledgehammer in front of it at all was almost bigger than she was. She may have overbought there, just a tad.

“What in God’s name have you gotten yourself into, girl?” Gary questioned, hands on hips.

Phoebe was still carrying her bowl of grapefruit. It was impossible to explain that once she’d cleaned the place stem to stern—even the windows—she still couldn’t get her mind off the damn man. He was hurting, she just knew it. Not letting anyone help him, she knew that, too. But it wasn’t her problem—and wasn’t going to be her problem—so she’d searched for a project that would force her to think about something else.

“I’m going to build a waterfall,” she told the group.

“A waterfall,” Barb repeated. “Honey, you barely have a pot to pee in, and you give away half of what you do have. And you’re going to build a waterfall? Inside the house?”

“Now wait. Just wait. It’s not as impossible as it sounds. I saw it in a magazine…” And then she mentally pictured it. The south corner of this room really had nothing in it, so there’s where she wanted it—a sensual, warm, indoor waterfall at shower height, leading to a small pool surrounded by tropical plants. “If I used tile inside, stone outside, it would look almost like the real thing. And I could use it with the babies, either by sitting in there by myself, or just have the parent sit with their little one. It wouldn’t be too different from a hot tub, just more…sensual. And natural. And restful.”

Gary and Fred took one look at the bags of cement and piles of stones and started guffawing.

“Hey. It can’t be that hard to find a mason who can show me how to mortar in the stones. And I figured the pipes for the sink are already here, so there has to be some way to tap into them for the water source. I mean, I know it’ll take some work—”

“Some work?” Gary hooted. “You’re going to need a crew of fifty to pull this off!”

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“So, it’ll take a lot of work. But I really think it’s a practical idea—” Since that sent Gary and Barb into new gales of laughter, she appealed to Fred. “Don’t you think it’d be beautiful?”

“I think you’re the prettiest thing this neighborhood has seen in decades, sugar. And if you want to build yourself a waterfall, then that’s what you should do.”

But then he caught Gary’s eye, and the two of them started cackling all over again.

At that precise moment she spotted the man in the doorway—notany man, but Fergus. Her Fergus Lockwood. He had his arm raised in a fist, as if he’d been knocking and was going to try yet again to gain someone’s attention.

The pups spotted him first and beelined straight for the newcomer. Her neighbors all spun around and gaped, then gaped back at Phoebe, then offered hellos and we’re just Phoebe’s neighbors and everybody was just leaving—although no one left.

Phoebe dropped her bowl of grapefruit. The bowl cracked. The grapefruit skittered across the tile floor, leaving seeds and grapefruit juice in its wake. Obviously the world as she knew it hadn’t suddenly ended, yet, for just a few seconds she couldn’t seem to move. Her heart went woosh, the way it had a nasty tendency to do around Fox the other two times she’d been near him—only it was worse this time.

It was all his fault she’d come up with this ridiculously impossible waterfall idea. All his fault she’d cleaned house. It was the woosh thing. His brothers were adorable, so at least if they caused that thigh-clenching heart-thumping response, she’d have understood it. She recognized those guys as hot, but not a problem.

Whydid she only feel that woosh and zing for the wrong guys? And, darn it, one short glance at his long, lean bones and her hormones were all a dazzle. Where was the fairness in life? The justice?

“Phoebe? I didn’t mean to barge in, but the bell didn’t seem to work, and no one seemed to hear me knocking. When I heard all the voices, I—”

“It’s okay,” she said swiftly, and zoomed forward—almost putting her bare foot in the broken porcelain but getting smart at the last second. A little smart, anyway. “These are my neighbors—Barb, Gary, Fred, this is Fergus—”

“We’re leaving,” Barb said again, as she pumped his hand. Fergus went rigid.

Phoebe saw his response and recognized that he was hurting. Thankfully that slapped a little sense in her head. “Y’all can take the rest of the coffee cake on your way out. And I’ll catch up with you later,” she said firmly.

It took a minute to clear them out, clean up the broken bowl, have a heart attack because she’d had no chance to brush her hair or put on makeup or real clothes, get Mop and Duster to quit behaving like puppies on speed, and then get back to him.

He was still standing exactly where she’d left him, looking around her massage room setup. “Phoebe, I really am sorry about interrupting you.”

“You didn’t. That was just a Saturday-morning neighborhood free-for-all. They eat me out of house and home. What’s wrong?”

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He answered her slowly, quietly, his gaze directly on hers. “I was rude before. I wanted to apologize.

When I go through one of my bad pain stretches, I can’t seem to…think. My foot was so deep in my mouth, I’m amazed I could even get it out again. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“You didn’t. And it’s not a worry. I understand about pain.” She cocked her head curiously. “But you could have called to say you were sorry. Instead…you’re here.”

He tugged on an ear. “Yeah, well. Nothing I tried ever helped those headaches. You did. And if you’d consider taking me and my sometimes big mouth on as a client, I’d appreciate it.”

He obviously hated eating crow. She couldn’t very well hold a grudge when she hated sucking up after making a mistake herself. “I take it you’re having one of those headaches right now?”

“I’ve got one coming,” he admitted. “But that’s not why I came now. The headache isn’t that bad. And I didn’t expect you’d be working on Saturdays. I just came to apologize, and I figured Saturday morning you might not have clients, so it’d be a good time to ask if you’d consider taking me on down the pike—”