No Place Like Home (9 page)

“
Then take your foot out of the way,” she said. “If you think I’m going to invite you in for a glass of wine and a cozy chat, you’re wrong.”

“
I couldn’t stay to drink it, anyway,” he said. “I have a date tonight.”

“
Well, so do I.” Then she spoiled her unconcerned pose by asking, “Are you taking a lady out to dinner?”

He grinned suddenly, and it was like sunrise breaking over the lake. “I might. Who knows where we’ll end up? But I’m taking her to church first.”

“
What a novel idea,” Kaye said dryly. “I’ll bet you have a great success rate with that approach.”

“
It’s not bad.”

He looked very contented, and Kaye decided that there was no point in continuing that conversation; discussing his standard lines was obviously not going to disturb him. “Psychology,” she mused. “I’m not sure what you have in mind, but I know that I can’t afford to keep taking every afternoon off work while I look. House-hunting is getting to be an expensive hobby. What do you suggest?”

“
I’m not quite sure. Why don’t we both sleep on it, and talk about it tomorrow? We can set up our strategy over Sunday brunch. My place, ten o’clock. I’ll make waffles.”

“
But—”

“
The alternative,” he reminded, “is Andy Winchester.” He slid a card into her hand and removed his foot from the door so abruptly that her weight had pushed the panel shut before she even realized that he had moved.

She glanced at the address he’d scribbled on the back of his business card, and sighed. With Andy Winchester as an alternative, what real choice did she have?

“
Psychology,” she muttered as she turned back into her apartment. “Why do I feel as if I’ve just been on the receiving end of a whole load of it?”

*****

When she reached his apartment the next morning at two minutes to ten, there was no sign of life, and his car was nowhere to be seen. She checked his card; the number agreed with that on the porch post of the big, square, white-frame house. It wasn’t the kind of place where she had expected him to live; though it was on the fringes of a neighborhood of historic homes, this house had nothing particularly significant about it. It was simply one of the thousands of plain-styled square houses that had lined the middle-class streets of Henderson at the turn of the century, and which had now been divided into apartments. And there was no reason on earth, she told herself, why Brendan McKenna shouldn’t live there. Certainly the fact that she was disappointed wouldn’t weigh heavily with him.

And she shouldn’t be particularly surprised, either, she reflected. The rents in this district were low, and the man did have a brand-new car to pay for now.

She climbed the steps. She felt a little uneasy, as if she was being watched, and she almost laughed in relief when she saw a huge orange tomcat sitting silently in the shadow of the porch railing. “Were you what was making me feel creepy?” she asked. The cat watched thoughtfully as she rang the bell, and then he stood up, stretched, and came across to stand beside the door.

Nothing seemed to be stirring inside. Kaye snuggled her chin into the furry collar of her white coat and thought about what she should do now. She wondered for a moment if Brendan’s date the night before might have been more successful than he had anticipated. If so, the man might not even have come home yet.

The door swung silently wide, and the cat slid sinuously past Brendan’s feet and inside.

It was the first time she had seen him wearing casual clothes instead of a jacket and tie, and his intricately patterned dark blue wool sweater made his eyes look like reflecting pools. The sleeves were pushed up to show well-muscled forearms. His hair was just rumpled enough to make her want to comb it with her fingers, and she realized that she had never once seen him with every hair in place.

This man is really dangerously good-looking,
she thought.
If the woman he was with last night only wants to take him to church, she needs her head examined.

But that,
she reflected,
is her problem, and not mine.
“You have a visitor,” she said.

Brendan grinned. “I know,” he said. “And she looks wonderful in white fur, too.”

“
Not me, silly. The cat. Didn’t you see him sneak in? Or is he yours?”

“
That’s only Sultan. No one owns him; it’s more a matter of him owning the neighborhood. He’s been out all night with his harem, no doubt. Come in, it’s freezing.” He held the door wide.

She didn’t quite know what to expect—bare rooms? orange crates? stainless steel and glass?—but as soon as she stepped into his living-room, she relaxed. Of course, she thought. He had mentioned once that he was prejudiced about Victorian houses—that was why she had been disappointed that he didn’t live in one. Nevertheless, he had surrounded himself with bits of the elegance of that bygone era.

“
That’s a beautiful Eastlake table,” she said, running a gentle hand over its glossy marble top. “I’ve got one almost like it.”

“
I know. I spotted it the first time I was in your apartment.”

“
It was my grandmother’s—the only thing I have of hers.” Kaye’s voice was wistful. “If my father had ever found out what it was worth, he’d have sold that, too.”

“
You’re lucky, at that,” Brendan said. “I’ve had to collect mine at auctions, because my mother is still using all the family stuff.”

“
I’m surprised you live here. I don’t know what I expected—a Victorian, perhaps, or something thoroughly modern.”

“
I move around.”

She shivered at the memories which stirred in her, roused by the casualness of his tone. In just that way, her father had spoken of each new move, each new rainbow. Everything would be better this time, he seemed to be saying. Only somehow, it always got worse instead.

Brendan was looking at her oddly, she realized. But he only said, “Make yourself at home. I’ll go start the waffles.”

His apartment took up most of the first floor. She wandered around the living room, reading the titles on his bookshelves and touching the fine wood furniture with sensual pleasure. The place was so sparsely furnished that he might have just been moving in, but the antique pieces were beautiful ones.

She followed a heavenly aroma to the kitchen just as he put two plates, each bearing a perfect golden waffle, on the breakfast bar. In the corner, the orange cat was giving himself a bath beside a recently-emptied food dish.

Brendan pulled out a high-backed wicker chair for her. “Since I don’t know what you like on your waffles,” he said, “we have a little of everything. Butter and maple syrup, cream cheese, marmalade, strawberries, whipped cream.”

“
Everything looks wonderful,” Kaye said. “I shouldn’t, of course. The calorie level must be incredible.”

“
If there is anything I detest,” Brendan said flatly, “it is a woman who fishes for compliments by complaining about a nonexistent weight problem.” He filled her coffee cup and sat down beside her.

Kaye was incensed. “I am not fishing for compliments!”

“
Yes, you are, and you’re not getting any from me. You know you look great just the way you are.”

No compliments, hmm?
she thought, and smiled. Not that it mattered what he thought of her. Still, it was nice to be appreciated.

“
Try the maple syrup,” he went on. “It’s the best there is. My mother smuggles it across the state line whenever she comes to visit.”

“
I didn’t know there were any restrictions on bringing food into Illinois.” The waffle was crisp and sizzling hot and delicious, and she was hungry.

“
There aren’t, but she persists in thinking it’s a foreign country. She’s a poet, and the people who love her have learned that it doesn’t pay to make a fuss when she’s a little vague on things like geography. She’s also convinced that her favorite son is going to starve down here.”

“
Down here?
Where does she live?”

“
Wisconsin. She’s forgotten that she taught me to cook, and I don’t disillusion her. I like getting care packages.”

“
She sounds wonderful,” Kaye mused. Her heart twisted just a little at the idea; no one ever fixed care packages for her, or wondered if she was getting the right things to eat.

“
Oh, she is. Would you like another waffle?”

“
Yes, please.”

“
Very good,” he applauded. “Not a bit of hesitation.”

“
You’re corrupting me. How do you think we should handle Graham?”

Brendan shook his head. “Food first, serious discussions later. How was your date last night?”

She watched as he poured waffle batter onto the griddle. It was apparent that he knew his way around a kitchen, she thought. She had been tempted last night when he started to talk about microwave ovens to ask what on earth he thought he knew about them, but now she was glad that she hadn’t made a fool of herself. His kitchen was tiny and compact, but it was obviously used.

“
Your mother was a good teacher,” she said.

“
It’s all in the wrist.” He spun the golden waffle on to her plate. His fingers were long and brown. They were poet’s hands, she thought, and she wondered if he looked like his mother.

“
It must have been an evening to remember,” he speculated.

“
What?”

“
Your date last night. You went off into a funk and forgot that you hadn’t answered my question.”

“
It really wasn’t much. Graham was entertaining the president of one of the big supermarket chains.”

Brendan nodded understanding. “They must buy a lot of baby food.”

“
Tons and tons of it. The supermarket mogul was all right, except that he kept making suggestive statements and then winking at me. His wife was a lady—I felt sorry for her.”

“
Where did you have dinner?”

“
Pompagno’s. I wish we’d gone to one of Graham’s clubs, instead. It would have been quieter.”

“
Just think.” Brendan put a fresh waffle on his plate. “As soon as we find you a house, you can entertain Graham’s buddies every evening, with all the privacy anyone could desire.”

“
They’re not his buddies, you know. I don’t expect to find many kindred souls among Graham’s business contacts.”

Brendan shrugged. “That’s life in the upper crust,” he said, with a notable lack of sympathy. “It all balances out in the end, I expect.”

Enough of that, Kaye thought. “How was your date? Did you and the lady have fun at church?”

“
Oh, yes,” he said airily. “I took your advice, by the way, and asked her out to dinner afterwards. Not that it did me any good. I was home in bed by midnight. Alone.”

Kaye devoured a strawberry. “Where did you take her? The Wolfpack?”

“
What’s wrong with the Wolfpack?”

“
Nothing. It’s just not very romantic.”

“
Did Graham have any better results last night than I did?”

Kaye was incensed. “If you mean did he stay overnight, no!”

His eyes started to sparkle dangerously, and she bit her tongue. “Then I saved a lot of money by not taking her to Pompagno’s,” he said gently.

She didn’t speak to him for a full minute after that. He just grinned at her and ate his waffle.

I don’t have to explain anything to him,
she told herself sternly.
It’s certainly none of his business whether I’m sleeping with Graham or not.
“Tell me about the rest of your family,” she said finally. That should be a safe enough subject, she thought.

Brendan shrugged. “My father teaches mathematics at the university in Lakemont. I have three brothers and a sister—”

“
Goodness,” Kaye said.

“
It certainly wasn’t my idea, but I got used to it. I remember that the four of us were disappointed when Anne came along—she’s the youngest, and we wanted another boy to complete our basketball team. She didn’t think much of the idea of four older brothers, either. I can’t think why.”

“
I would have given anything for one brother, older or younger,” Kaye mused. “Or a sister. You have no idea how much an only child misses.”

“
No wonder you want five bedrooms,” he teased. “Have you always lived here?”

“
No,” she said. “I figured out once that I moved thirty-two times as a teenager. Before that, I can’t remember how many places we lived.”

“
You said you lived with your father?”

Suddenly, she wanted to tell him about it. “Daddy was an entrepreneur,” she said, “which is a polite way of saying that he didn’t hold a regular job. He always had a new project, you see, and if he could only get the right backing to carry it out, we’d be millionaires. Of course, when it didn’t work, we moved on. Usually late at night, so the landlord couldn’t talk to us about the unpaid rent.”

There was a long silence. She bit her lip, feeling like an idiot for sharing this hidden side of her with a man like Brendan. She’d never even told Graham about her father.

“
That wasn’t much of a childhood,” he said. His voice was so gentle that she wanted to drown in it. There was no condemnation, no drawing back, just tenderness.