The Art of Love (The Windswept Saga) (16 page)

“I…”  She looked so d
elicate and vulnerable to his eyes, and he was immediately contrite for forcing her into physical contact.  She’d kissed back—that was for damned sure—but guilt clouded his mind.

“Taylor?”  He studied her face for a trace of anything, but she kept her visa
ge neutral and calm.

“I’ve got to go thank your sister,” she said quickly.  She pulled him in
to a hug, and he felt desire course through him when her arms wrapped under his and around to his back.  She backed away just as quickly.  “I’ll see you on Monday,” she replied.

“See you,” he said quietly, barely audible, as she disappeared into the house.  Dumbfounded by his own actions and her reactions, he silently cursed himself.  And in a movement of rare cowardice, he strolled to the other side of the porch, s
o that he was unable to see her when she departed a few minutes later.  He listened to the familiar closure of house and car doors, the grinding of gravel beneath tires, and wondered how in the hell he was going to face her on Monday morning.

Chapter 11

The porch was half-clean, bare wood naked to the sunlight, when Mark’s truck topped the horizon.  He scrubbed the posts and balustrades with sandpaper wrapped around a block; he’d been hard at work since just after sun-up, reveling in the sound of nothing but his own breathing in the cold, clean air.

“Miracle of miracles,” Mark
said hoarsely as he stepped from the truck.  “You finally decided to open the old place up.  I’d forgotten what a long drive it was out here.”

“Hey bud.  Yeah, I can’t believe you
rode out here on horseback that time.”

Mark nodded, walked toward him and rested the toe of his boot on the bottom step.  “You sleep here last night?”

Chandler sanded for a few more seconds before answering.  “No, in Mom’s office.”

“On the foldout couch?”

“Uh-huh.  Didn’t wanna disturb the youngsters.”

“Hmm.”  Mark shot him a hard glare.  “You could’ve stayed in our guest room.”

“No.  It’s not like you two get much alone time, and I wasn’t gonna impose.”

“Family doesn’t impose, man.  Much appreciated, thoug
h.”  Chandler looked up and found a broad, self-satisfied grin on his face.  There was no need to put that expression into words.

“Did you tell Christa about what happened last night?”

“What you told me?”  Chandler nodded.  “No, man, I didn’t tell her about the kiss.  That’s between you, Taylor, and the gatepost.”

“And you.”  He tossed Mark another wooden block and a piece of sandpaper.  He began scrubbing the other side of the porch. 

“You’re not planning to sand the whole house clean, are ya?  That might take a while, pal.”

“Just the porch,” Chandler assured him.  “The house I’m gonna keep white, but I think the porch will look better with a natural finish.”

Mark studied the intricately turned wooden posts, rails, and balusters for a moment.  “I agree.”  For a few minutes the only sound that either of them made was the gentle grinding of sand against wood.  When he’d gathered up the courage, he asked, “So do you regret it?”

Chandler turned to him and their eyes met.  He
squinted and frowned the way a man would if he was sucking on a lemon.  “I could have handled it better.  Kissing wasn’t the problem. It was the way I handled it.  I guess we could’ve analyzed my actions until the cows came home.  I just kind of slunk away like a scalded dog.”

Mark narrowed
his eyes.  “Wouldn’t a scalded dog run away?”

“Jerk,” Chandler said, a smile belying his epithet.

Mark looked down at the porch, examined that flat, unvarnished plane of wood.  “So how was it?”

Chandler lifted an eyebrow at him.  “The kiss?”

“Yeah, man, the kiss.  What’d you think I was asking about—the food?”

He laughed
, but Mark noticed that it sounded uneasy.  “It was good.  I mean, she kissed back.  What more can a man ask for?”

“Is that a rhetorical question?” Mark teased in an easy drawl.

Chandler rolled his eyes in mock derision.  “This is going to sound really, really lame, but when I look at her…I don’t know.  She just seems breakable…fragile…like if I touched her, she’d shatter into a thousand fragments of glass.”

Mark eyes both sympathized and
admonished him.  “Did you touch her last night?”

“Barely.”

“Did she crack?  When she came back in the house she looked a little embarrassed but no worse for the wear.”

Chandler didn’t answer, and Mark didn’t press the issue.  They scrubbed and sanded until
little flecks of white paint lay around the porch’s three sides like solid snow and neither of them could feel their noses.  They stood back and admired their work for a moment, tossed the used sandpaper and wood blocks in a pail, and watched their breath escape and fog in the February air.

“Let’s head inside,” Chandler finally declared from the corner of his mouth.  Mark followed him onto the porch and across the threshold and closed the door behind them.  They removed their gloves, shoved them in their p
ockets, and walked toward the large kitchen at the back of the house.  The place was quiet, empty, still in need of some curtains, blinds, even a rug or two.

“I think there’s some furniture in storage,” Mark muttered.  He and Chandler pulled off their hats
, almost in tandem, and rested them atop the counter.

“Yeah,” Chandler said, running a hand along the outdated cooktop.  “I can bring what’s in my apartment and combine that with what we already have.”

“You wouldn’t want for much.”  Mark’s eyes drifted past the milky, dingy glass toward the large building behind the house.  He turned back toward Chandler.  “What about paint?”

Chandler shrugged.  “Ironically enough, I was thinking about doing all the rooms in white, except the library. Not very artsy.”

Mark shook his head, shoved a hand through his dark brown hair.  “No, man, I think that’s a good plan.  Let the moldings and wainscoting and wood floors speak for themselves.  Don’t try to overwhelm any of it.”

“You could’ve kept this house for yourself,” Ch
andler replied with a grin.  “Why didn’t you?”

“More house than I needed, for one.”  Mark’s eyes turned melancholy.  “And we’ve got too many memories attached to our house, Christa and me.  That’s where our boys were conceived.  That’s where we’ve built a
life.”

“So you didn’t contemplate it?  Not even for a little bit?”

“Just the amount of time it takes to blink an eye,” Mark expounded.  Chandler nodded in crystal-clear understanding, and pulled a pad of paper from his pocket. 

“Help me make a list of thi
ngs to prioritize,” he requested.

Mark tapped his fingers on the counter.  “Sure thing.” 

“The furnace should be number one,” Chandler figured.  “It’s working fine but it’s an older home.”

“Makes sense.”  Mark tilt
ed his head toward the fridge.  “New appliances in here,” he added. 

“Definitely.”

“What about the fireplace?”

Chandler snapped his fingers and pointed at Mark.  “Good man.  Anything else?”

“The windows.”

He groaned, but wrote it down.  “This place has a
lot of windows, doesn’t it?”

“A hellacious amount,” Mark agreed, “but nothing we can’t handle.”

Chandler looked around, and Mark watched as he studied the edge of the kitchen island for what seemed like an eternity.  “We need barstools,” he finally said.  “There’s no place to sit as things stand now.”

Mark laughed.  “Was that a really bad pun?”

He frowned until he couldn’t keep it together anymore.  Soon both men were laughing, the sound echoing through the empty space.  “I guess it was, man.  I guess it was.”

Afterward they made a circuit of the interior, looking behind every door, inspecting every closet, checking for broken or missing fixtures in the bathrooms.  They scavenged the outbuildings but didn’t find much of value; the previous owners had taken e
verything not nailed or tied down with them, which was fine with Chandler.  The house, he knew instinctively, was going to be well worth the trouble.

***

Taylor slept well, but awoke with a harsh realization:  she’d made a fool of herself last night, and offended her hosts.  At least that’s what her conscience was telling her loudly as she tried to argue a contrary position.  She decided to call Christa and apologize, but she didn’t make haste.  She dressed, had breakfast, and vacuumed the floor in her bedroom.  After tossing her curtains in the washing machine she gave up her stalling techniques—she was already scaring her mother by being so industrious on a Saturday morning—and settled in a chair to make her penitence.   

“Hello, Christa?” she responded
to the friendly voice on the other end.  Truthfully, Taylor thought she sounded a little too cheerful for a woman who worked full-time, had two children, and a devoted husband.  Then she realized it was those things that made her so joyful.

“Taylor,” she s
aid, delight mixed with concern coming across through her voice.  “I was hoping you would call.”

She pulled her hair behind her head in a loose braid.  “I didn’t catch you at a bad time?”

“Of course not.  Mom and Dad still have my boys, and Mark is out of the house.  It’s just me around here.”

“Oh.”  Taylor was suddenly unsure of why she’d called in the first place.

“You can speak freely,” Christa pointed out, inexplicably reading her thoughts.

“Oh,” she repeated.  “I’m sorry about last night.  I left in
such a rush that I must’ve seemed silly.”

Christa laughed softly.  “Don’t trouble yourself over it.  I don’t place constraints on my guests.  When they’re ready to leave, they’re free to go.”

“I just…I think I made Chandler uncomfortable.”

“My brother is t
oo serious for his own good,” she countered.  “Don’t apologize for that, either.”

Taylor psyched herself up before resuming the conversation.  “Did you…talk to him…I mean, I’m sure you talked after I left.”

“To be honest,” Christa replied, “we really didn’t.  He talked to Mark for a bit but that was outside.  He came in while I was cleaning up, thanked me, and said goodnight.”

“Did Mark share anything about their conversation?”

“Not really.  They’re usually pretty good at keeping each other’s confidence.”  She paused.  “Did something happen?  I know Chandler wouldn’t intentionally hurt you, but if he did, I’ll tear a strip of hide off his…”

“No!” Taylor practically shouted into the phone.  She closed her eyes and tried to reassemble her composure.  “We kisse
d.”

Christa was silent for such a long stretch of time that Taylor was certain they’d been disconnected.  When she finally spoke again, her words were clear and precise.  “I’m glad.  Are you happy about it?”

She chewed nervously on her lower lip.  “I’m not sure.  Maybe.  I don’t feel comfortable with this conversation.”

“My policy is this,” Christa explained.  “I will encourage and prod, but I won’t share secrets.  He is my brother, but we’re both women.  In this context, let’s consider that the stronger bo
nd.”  

Taylor wasn’t quite sure what to make of the promises made by both Alison and Christa, but she had no choice but to accept them on blind faith.  “Thank you,” she said, unsure of herself.  “Thank you for inviting me, and for being a friend.  I didn’
t realize how much I’d missed being around other people.”

“We’ll have to do it again soon,” Christa replied.  “But with the kids.  They make for a good buffer.” 

And Chandler is great with kids, and won’t have time to moon over you,
was the unspoken reply.  “I’d like that,” Taylor agreed.  “I should let you go, Christa.”

“Don’t be a stranger,” she nudged
.  “Call me anytime—if I don’t have a child around my ankle I’ll be happy to talk.”  They both laughed at the mental image and said their goodbyes.  Afterward she slid off the bed and found herself in front of Riley’s picture.  She picked it up carefully in both hands, angled it toward her.  “What am I going to do, baby boy?”  She shook her head and sighed.  “If you were still here, I wouldn’t be in this situation.  I’m scared, kid.  But that’s a foreign concept to you.  You were too young to ever be afraid.  You ran headlong at life, grabbed it with both hands, even though it wasn’t a long one.”  She returned the frame to its normal position and stared blankly at the wall.  “Maybe I should live more like that,” she declared flatly, in an unfamiliar voice.  “You’d want me to try.”

***

“I’m so lost, Chandler.”

“Don’t worry about it.  I made a study guide on my computer.”

“I’m so behind, I’ve missed so much school.  I’m never going to catch up.”