Mr. Fix-It (18 page)

His eyes lingered on hers, and the longer he looked into them, the more his face relaxed. Her familiar Carter had returned, and Khela almost smiled at the tenderness in his expression.

“There’s my darling beefcake,” she lovingly teased.

His face stiffened. “I gotta go, Khela.”

“Why?” she said, throwing her hands up in frustration.

“Because I’m disappointed, that’s why.”

Frozen in shock, Khela was still rooted to the carpet long after Carter had left without so much as a look back.

* * *

Carter walked home.

After leaving Khela, he took the stairs down to the lobby to avoid the wait for the elevator. Crossing the highly polished floor, he made a note to water the braided ficus trees flanking the heavy double doors, one of which he flung open. He took the wide, cement steps two at a time, pausing at the curb. Traffic never stopped on Commonwealth Avenue, so he waited for a lull before he trotted across the westbound side of the street, dodging the overly bright headlights of oncoming cars and buses.

The mall, the gorgeous, eight-acre park situated between the east- and westbound lanes of Commonwealth Avenue, was empty, but Carter didn’t dawdle as he crossed it. Traffic was heavier in the eastbound lanes, so he walked right into it, easily navigating his way past the slow-moving cars.

He walked two houses east to a five-story limestone townhouse and went up another steep flight of cement steps. He didn’t need a key to gain entry. Like every other resident, he had only to type his personal security code into the electronic keypad mounted on the mahogany door frame. Carter had considered installing a similar system in Khela’s building, but her brownstone was older, and it would have taxed the electrical system and compromised the integrity of the home’s design to an unacceptable degree.

The top-floor apartment of his Victorian Gothic townhouse had a bit less square footage than Khela’s, but it had finer architectural details—pointed arches and bay windows—characteristic of George H. Clough, the noted architect who designed Boston’s first police station. Carter used his keys to unlock the door of the rooftop unit; upon entering, his eyes landed on the one feature that had sold him on the entire building: the fireplace. The wide, deep, black marble cavity boasted a mantel made of Rosa Aurora marble, which had the unique characteristic of growing harder as it aged.

Carter took off his shoes in the foyer, leaving them and his duffel bag neatly by the door. He shuffled across the thick, dark carpeting and fell heavily onto the sofa. It was deep and wide, and he knew already that he would not be getting up anytime soon.

He smoothed his hands over the silky-soft black microfiber covering the cushions, then placed one of the throw pillows on one arm of the sofa and rested his head on it, staring at his fireplace. The back of the sofa faced a wall of tall, wide windows, through which lay all of moonlit Boston. In front of him Carter had a view of the cold hearth of a fireplace he hadn’t used in months.

So many times, he had started a fire and sat staring at it, wishing with his whole heart that he had someone, a very specific someone, to share it with. He closed his eyes and replayed his most well-worn fantasy.

Khela, her hair in its usual ponytail, her feet in white anklet pom pom socks, curled up on the sofa with Carter’s head in her lap. Her slim, elegant fingers stroked his hair, her touch igniting sparks hotter than the ones given off by the fire that would be burning in his fireplace. In this humble fantasy, they would have sat for hours talking, watching the flames dance to the music of the popping and crackling logs.

But Khela had gone and done him one better, allowing him more than the sweet fantasy of sharing a fire with her. She’d given him full access to her body and home, to her life, and after overhearing one comment, he’d walked out on it. And why?

In the solitude of his own home, in the quiet company of his innermost thoughts, he could freely admit why.

Because he was disappointed.

Khela was everything he’d ever wanted in a woman. She was independent, smart, knowledgeable—so knowledgeable that he often felt like a third-grader in her company. She was beautiful, loving, funny, attentive, alluring. There was nothing wrong with her.

Except for the way she made him feel. Or rather, the way he felt when he was with her.

“It’s just seems weird that a Boston University graduate would want to polish banisters all day,” he murmured, speaking aloud the words that had been playing on a loop in his head ever since he’d overhead Khela speaking them. He’d distilled only one meaning from them—that she believed him to be wasting his life.

His whole life he had been told how attractive he was, going back to the embarrassing
Aren’t you the prettiest little boy?
from one of his grandmother’s church friends, to Khela’s
There’s my darling beefcake.
He had heard it all from female—and occasionally male—admirers of all ages, races and descriptions.

He had never thought of himself as better looking than anyone else, but he couldn’t deny the preferential treatment he had received throughout his life. Teachers had seemed kinder to him. Negotiating higher grades had always been a piece of cake for him. If not for football and baseball, he would have been obese in high school from all the free cookies, Rice Krispies treats, cake and ice cream the lunch ladies plied him with.

And girls—from his first day at kindergarten, when Elaine Sharp got into a hair-pulling match with CaraAnne Finley over who would be his Line Buddy for recess, to tonight, when Khela had called him her beefcake—they had always been drawn to him.

He had enjoyed the attention and had endured the razzing from his male friends. In college, modeling agency scouts had tried to recruit him with the same enthusiasm as football and baseball scouts. Using his face to earn a living had appealed to him even less than using his athletic skill, so he’d stayed in school and earned his degree with the intention of doing what most people did: to get a job, get married, buy a house and fill it with as many children as he could.

That plan fell apart when he discovered that his own fiancée wanted him for the only reason so many other women had—because he looked good. His love for her had not mattered, nor had his earning potential. She just wanted a hardy sire to continue her family’s line.

He needed Khela to see him differently than everyone else did, certainly more than Savannah did. And definitely as more than just someone who polishes banisters.

He’d done nothing to show her that there was more to him than home maintenance. Daphne had always been the one to call him, to stare at him under the pretense of making repairs. Khela had never invited him for coffee, or to lunch. His parting behavior tonight had probably done little more than reinforce what she likely believed about him. That his usefulness was limited to one thing, and that thing wasn’t something upon which lasting relationships were built. It wasn’t something upon which families or lifetimes were built.

He rolled off the sofa and went into his bedroom, going directly to the stack of Khela’s books atop one of his oak nightstands. He’d read them in order, starting with
Satin Whispers
, her first book, and ending with
Soul Surrender
, her latest.

He’d read them all in an attempt to learn how to be the kind of man she wanted, and he now realized that he’d overlooked one important characteristic shared by all of her heroes. None of them polished banisters for a living.

He pulled his favorite,
Sybarite Seeks Same
, from the stack and flopped down on the bed. Its hero, Collin Drew, was an executive with an affinity for the finer things in life, but he had a good heart and used his wealth to support causes he believed in. That was a quality Khela had given the character which she herself practiced.

The fictional Collin Drew was someone who commanded respect not just because he was attractive, but because he was confident, accomplished, successful and generous. There were qualities behind his pretty face that made him worth the love of a good woman.

“Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful,” Carter whispered, chuckling sadly. “Hate me because I’m useless.”

* * *

Daphne’s apartment, a two-bedroom walkup in the neighboring town of Cambridge, looked as if a tornado had blown through it. Half-filled boxes perched on her lopsided plaid sofa and clear storage bins full of books, clothing, bed and bath linen occupied most of the hardwood floor in the living room.

Wielding a fat black Sharpie, Daphne kneeled before a 35-gallon storage bin and neatly wrote the word COATS on the top and sides.

“There aren’t coats in this box,” Khela said, standing over it. “It’s full of blankets.”

“I’m trying to thwart thieves,” Daphne said, standing. “Most of this stuff is being put into storage. I’d rather have someone steal a box of blankets, thinking that they’re my coats, than have my coats stolen. I’ve got a vintage Halston that I got for ten dollars at an estate sale last spring. I’d die if it got stolen.”

“If it’s that important, you should take it to Great Britain with you,” Khela said, sitting on the sofa to tackle sweaters heaped on Daphne’s glass coffee table.

“I’m only planning to take what I’ll need after we get married,” Daphne said, resting her hands on her hips, her hair swinging as she turned her head to scan the room. “The rest of my things are going into storage until Lew and I send for them or come back to ship them. I have so much left to do. I don’t know how I’ll get it all done in the next few weeks. I didn’t realize I’d acquired so much stuff in the nine years I’ve lived here.”

“I remember when you picked out this apartment,” Khela said. “I still don’t know why you didn’t want to room with me when you moved here. It would have been just like in college.”

“That’s why,” Daphne said. “Because it would have been just like in college. I wanted to stand on my own two feet. And there was no way I could cover half the rent for your condo on what Houghton Mifflin was paying me.”

“I didn’t want you to pay rent,” Khela said, folding one of Daphne’s cashmere sweaters and placing it in a storage bin lined with thin cedar panels.

“You got me the editing job at Houghton,” Daphne said. “I didn’t want to take anything else from you.”

“
You
got that job,” Khela insisted. “All I did was tell the executive editor that you had edited all of my books.”

“Well, your endorsement got me in the door. I would still be writing resumes in Brentwood, Missouri, if you hadn’t recommended me to Houghton Mifflin.”

“So let me send one of your manuscripts to my editor at Cameo,” Khela offered. “All editors care about is a story that will sell. They don’t care how it got on their desks.”

“But I care.” Daphne, still on her knees from marking her bins, capped her pen and sat back on her heels to face Khela. “I want to make my own success as a writer. I don’t want it handed to me because some editor is afraid that Khela Halliday will leave Cameo if she doesn’t sign her friend Daphne Carr.”

“Do editors really think that way?”

“Some do,” Daphne answered. “I never did. I flew solo before I got to the point where I felt any kind of pressure to acquire manuscripts for my list for reasons other than because the story and writing were good.”

“One good thing about being a self-employed, in-demand editor is that you can do your job from anywhere,” Khela said with a sigh. “Even the United Kingdom.”

“It’s only a plane ride away,” Daphne said. She moved to sit beside Khela on the taupe corduroy sofa. “You’re in the UK at least once a year on book tours anyway.”

“I think I’ll be going more frequently now that I don’t have to worry about room and board,” Khela laughed.

“So you’re coming around? My whirlwind romance with Lew isn’t bothering you so much anymore?”

Khela slumped against the back of the sofa. “One of my books is about a woman who married a man three weeks after she met him. At least you’ve known Lew twice that long.”

“That doesn’t answer the question.”

Khela thought about her answer for a long while before she said, “I want you to be happy. And loved. And very well cared for. I think Lew can give those things to you.”

“I finally know what you know, Khela. I get it now.”

“Well, explain it to me,” Khela said, “because I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You capture the very meaning of romance in your books,” Daphne started. “Your characters are so human. They have faults and flaws, they have moods and quirks. But when you match them up, the most unlikely pairs find a common denominator that enables them to overcome any obstacle. That thing is a feeling. It’s love. No matter how different two people are, love can always bring them together. Your books illustrate that so beautifully. I know what that feels like now, because it’s what I have with Llewellyn. I can put it in my books now, to give them the depth they didn’t have before.”

“You make it all sound so wonderful,” Khela said wistfully.

Daphne leaned forward to fold a sweater, a furry hot pink rabbit fur. “You have the same thing with Carter, don’t you?” she asked. “You guys seemed so happy when we all had dinner.”

Khela left the sofa to go to Daphne’s small dining table, where she began wrapping a plate in old
Herald-Star
newspapers. She had wrapped three more plates before she could answer without bursting into tears.

“Carter walked out on me that night. I’m still not sure what happened. He said he was disappointed. I don’t know if he was disappointed in me, the evening, or what.”

Daphne rushed to Khela’s side. “You haven’t talked to him in all this time? It’s been almost three weeks!”

“I haven’t got the nerve to call him, and he certainly hasn’t called me.” Khela buried her face in her hands, smudging her cheeks and forehead with the cheap newsprint ink from her fingertips. “I don’t know what I did wrong. One minute he was making love to me, the next, something in his eyes died and he just took his things and left.”

Daphne stroked Khela’s arm. “That doesn’t really sound like Carter.”