The Obsession

  She managed to nod. “I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name.”

  “Josh. Josh and Chuck.”

  “Josh. I’m fine. You were right. It’s a hell of a bed.”

  When they were done, she tipped them generously—the least she could do—and gave them more soft drinks for the road.

  When they left, she stood staring at the bed, at the way the early-evening light gleamed on the wood, on the details.

  “Some uncles you’ve got,” Xander commented.

  “Best ever.”

  “Need to cry it out?”

  She shook her head, pressed fingers to her eyes. “No. I hate to cry. So useless. I talked to them Sunday. They went right out and found this, then had it shipped all the way out here this way—along with sheets and pillows and bedding. And it’s just right, just exactly right. For me, for the room, for the house.”

  She pushed the threat of tears away. “I’m not going to cry. I’m going to cook. I still don’t have dishes or a table. But you can eat what I fix on paper plates outside on the deck. That’s your tip for helping set up the bed.”

  “I’ll take it. What’s for dinner?”

  “I don’t know yet. But I’m having wine. I’m feeling sentimental and a little homesick.”

  “Got beer?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “If you do, I’ll go for that.”

  “Okay.” She started out, glanced back at him. “I’m still not sleeping with you.”

  “Yet.” His smile was easy. And dangerous. “Beer and a dinner’s a start.”

  A finish, she thought as the dog trooped down with them.

  —

  He watched her cook. He’d never seen anybody cook by grabbing things, throwing this thing in a pan, that thing in a skillet. Chopping this up, stirring that in.

  The dog watched her, too, and wasn’t subtle about licking his muzzle when the scents started rising.

  “What are you making there?”

  “We’ll call it Pasta on the Fly.”

  She laid olives—fat ones—on a cutting board, smacked them with a flat of the knife she’d been wielding, and popped out the pits. Something else he’d never seen anyone do.

  “Don’t those just come in jars without pits?”

  “These are Kalamata olives, friend, and they’re worth the extra step. Anything I put in here you don’t like, you eat around.”

  “I’m not fussy.”

  “Good thing.”

  Now she took a hunk of cheese and worked it to a blur over a grater. He’d have asked why she didn’t buy it already grated but figured he knew the answer.

  She tossed little tomatoes in the pan, added some sort of herbs, and stirred—even while muttering how she wished the local produce ran to fresh basil.

  “I need to get good cookware before Harry sends me that, too.”

  “What’s wrong with what you’ve got? Looks like it’s working fine to me.”

  “Hardware store special. He’d be appalled. I’m a little appalled myself, actually. And I definitely need good knives. Something to add to the list.”

  He liked watching her—quick, sure movement. Liked listening to her—a voice that held just the right amount of smoke.

  “What else is on the list?”

  “Painting the guest rooms I have earmarked for my brother and for my uncles. The one for my grandparents. After that, I think I’ll retire my roller and pan. I don’t like painting.”

  “Have the painters paint.”

  “I need to buy decent cookware and knives—I can paint two more rooms in this ridiculously big house. And now I have to find furniture worthy of that bed, and so on.”

  She drained the pasta—the little tube sort—then added it to the skillet, along with the olives, the cheese. Tossed it all around.

  “Plates are in that cupboard there, such as they are, as are paper napkins and a box of plastic forks.”

  “Got it.”

  She tossed the stuff in the skillet a couple more times, then served it up on the paper plates and added wedges of Italian bread that she’d slathered with butter, sprinkled with herbs, and toasted.

  “That looks amazing.”

  “It would look better on the plates I ordered, but it’s good enough.” She handed him a plate, took one for herself, and then led the way out. Then she handed him her plate. “Hold this while I feed the dog.”

  The dog looked at the kibble she dumped in his bowl, then back at Xander with the two aromatic plates of pasta. His tail drooped, and Xander swore the dog sighed in disappointment.

  She sat, eyeing the dog, who eyed her. “This is mine, that’s yours. That’s how it goes.”

  “Hard-ass.”

  “Maybe.”

  Xander sat down and sampled what she’d thrown together magically and a little maniacally in about twenty minutes.

  “This is really good. Seriously good.”

  “It’s not bad. It’d be better with fresh herbs. I guess I’ll have to plant some.”

  It didn’t feel as odd as she’d expected, to sit there, eating pasta with him while the dog—who’d polished off his own bowl—watched them mournfully. Maybe it was the view—that soft hand of dusk gliding pale and purple over water and the green—maybe it was the wine. Either way, she needed to set the line.

  “Do you want to know why I’m not going to sleep with you?”

  “Yet,” he added. “Is there a list?”

  “We can call it that. You live here, and right now, so do I.”

  “Right now? You’ve got pots and pans for the right now, but have better ones on your list. It seems to me you’re looking at the down-the-road.”

  “Maybe. I’ve never lived in any one place for more than a few months since I left New York. I don’t know if this will stick. Maybe,” she said again, “because it feels right—right now. But in any case, you live here and you’re friends with Kevin and Jenny—long-term, serious friends. We start something—and I’m also not looking to start something—and it gets messed up, your friend and my contractor’s in the middle of it.”

  “That’s weak,” Xander said, and went back to the pasta.

  “Not from where I’m sitting, in the heart of a construction zone. Plus you’re the only local garage and mechanic, and I might need a mechanic.”

  Thoughtfully, he crunched into the bread. “Probably get the work done faster if we’re having sex.”

  She laughed, shook her head. “Not if we stop having it, and you’re pissed at me. There’s work, of which I have to do a lot to pay for this house, and everything that goes into it. I don’t have time for sex.”

  “There’s always time for sex. Next time, I’ll bring pizza and we can have sex in the time you spent making dinner.”

  And thoughtfully, Naomi ate pasta. “That doesn’t speak well of your . . . stamina.”

  “Just trying to work on your schedule.”

  “Considerate, but unnecessary as dinner tonight is a one-off. I don’t know you.”

  “That’s the only thing you’ve said so far that makes sense. But we can go back up your list and I can remind you I’m friends—serious, long-term—with Kev and Jenny. They’d warn you if I was a psychopath.”

  She kept her eye on the view. “People don’t always know people close to them the way they think they do.”

  There was a story, Xander thought. He could hear it murmuring under her words. Instead of pressing on that, he tried something else.

  He leaned over and took her face in his hand. Her mouth with his. Strong and hot and edging onto the fierce.

  He knew when a woman wanted—and she did. He knew it by the way her mouth responded, heard it in her throaty hum, felt it in the quick, sexy quiver.

  Another woman? All this heat, the mesh of needs would lead them straight up and into that excellent new bed.

  But she drew back. Still, she kept her eyes, that deep, fascinating green, on his.

  “You make an excellent point,” she said. “And I can�
��t argue it, but . . .” She looked directly into his eyes. “Like I told the dog, that’s how it goes.”

  “Tonight.”

  For the moment he contented himself with the food, the view, the mysteries of the woman beside him. Somebody handed him a puzzle, he thought, he just had to solve it. He’d figure her out, sooner or later.

  Ten

  She went back to work. Since work ranked high on her list of reasons not to sleep with Xander, she had to make her own point.

  When she went out to shoot in the morning, the dog tagged along. For a few days, if she headed into woods or along shorelines, she rigged the leash to her belt. They both disliked the solution intensely.

  After those few days, she realized the dog wasn’t going anywhere and usually left him off the leash. He explored nearby, chased squirrels, barked at birds, sniffed at deer tracks—and scat—while she composed studies of wildflowers, trees, long channels of water in sunlight and in shadow.

  And she ended up with an entire series of dog shots.

  He snoozed by the fireplace—gas logs installed and fabulous for cool, gloomy days—while she worked at her computer. Now and again, he’d go down, hang with the crew or with Molly if she’d come to visit, but he always came back in, gave her a long look as if checking if she’d finished. If she hadn’t, he curled up again, usually with something in his mouth.

  Sometimes the something was a stray work glove, and once it was a hammer.

  Steady, focused work paid off. She received a satisfying check from the gallery in New York, and watched her PayPal account blossom.

  People, it seemed, really liked pictures of dogs.

  Jenny stopped by, as promised, and took the tour. When they got to the master suite, Jenny sighed.

  “I don’t know which is more impressive, the view or the bed.”

  “I like having the view from the bed.”

  “It must be wonderful, waking up to that every morning. Xander said your uncles shipped the bed all the way across the country.”

  “They did. And if I don’t find some pieces to go in here, they’ll start finding them, and shipping them.”

  “Come shopping with me!” Bouncing on her toes, Jenny slapped her hands together. “Let’s go.”

  “What? Now?”

  “It’s my day off, kids in school. I’ve got . . .” She pulled out her phone to check the time. “Five hours before I have to pick up Maddy, then Ty. I know it’s a workday for you, but you have to have more furniture, and I know a couple of places—especially if you’re not afraid of refinishing or having something refinished—that should have pieces that will really suit that bed.”

  “I really . . .” She thought of the income she’d just banked, turned the automatic refusal on its ear. “Should do that.”

  “Yes! Maybe we can find your dishes.”

  “I ordered them. Wait. I’ll show you.”

  They both studied her computer screen as she brought them up. “They’re recycled glass, which appealed, and I went with some white serving pieces for the bump. I think—”

  “They’re wonderful. Perfect. Oh, they’re going to look fabulous in that kitchen. And on the table once you get a table.”

  “The table can wait awhile. Not planning any dinner parties. But I do need stools. Stools, and a dresser. It’d be nice to put my clothes in drawers rather than cardboard boxes.”

  “Let’s go bag one.”

  The dog came. Naomi had no intention of taking him, but he followed them out, hopped right in her car, then crawled into the back to sit, tongue hanging out in anticipation.

  “He’s so sweet. A dog’s a good thing to have living out here alone, and a sweet dog’s a good thing anywhere. Kevin says he and Molly get along fine. What’s his name?”

  “He doesn’t have one.”

  “Oh, Naomi, you have to name him.”

  “His owners could still—”

  “How long since you brought him home?”

  “We’re into week three.” Naomi sighed, rubbed the back of her neck. “He’s going in for neutering tomorrow. If you’re looking for a dog . . .”

  “We have one, thanks. We are thinking of a puppy, a friend for Molly. And we want the kids to have the experience. Besides, Naomi. That’s your dog.”

  Naomi looked in the rearview mirror, and the dog unquestionably smiled at her.

  “He’s just living here for now.”

  “Sure he is.”

  Naomi narrowed her eyes, put on her sunglasses. “Which way?”

  “Just head toward town, and I’ll guide you from there.”

  She couldn’t think of the last time she’d shopped with a friend—or allowed herself a friend. For the most part she didn’t go shopping so much as go, hunt up what she needed, buy it, and take it home. Which baffled and disappointed her uncles.

  Plus, she could hunt up and buy almost everything she needed online.

  But since she was out and about, she’d stop by the hardware and buy the paint for Mason’s room—a warm mossy green—on the way back.

  And she liked Jenny. She decided it was impossible not to like Jenny, who was cheerful and funny and didn’t ask probing questions.

  She decided she really liked Jenny when her new friend directed her to a huge barn a few miles inland.

  “I should’ve brought my camera.”

  But she opened the compartment between the seats and took out a case.

  “What’s that?”

  “Lenses and filters for my camera phone.”

  “Really? I didn’t know there were such things.”

  “Works well in a pinch. And that barn—the texture of the wood, the true barn red with the white trim, that old apple tree, the light. It’s good.”

  “Don’t you want to see what’s in the barn?”

  “Absolutely. This won’t take long.”

  She intended to leave the dog in the car. He had other ideas, so against her better judgment, Naomi pulled out the spare leash she’d stowed in the glove compartment.

  “If you go, you wear this.”

  He tried to stare her down. Failed.

  “I’ll hold on to him while you take pictures.”

  “Thanks. He hates the leash.”

  “Wouldn’t you? It’s all right, sweetheart. We’ll think of it as you leading me.”

  Perversely, the dog behaved perfectly for Jenny, walked happily beside her, sniffed his way to an appealing spot to lift his leg while Naomi composed shots, added lenses, adjusted filters.

  She’d come back with her equipment, she promised herself. She’d love a gloomy day, that barn under gloomy skies.