or maybe someone else.
Instead it was Howard who had died. Laurel had killed him, then withdrawn into guilty solitude. The reason, she knew, was not because she had cared so much, but because she hadn’t cared enough.
She was so tired. Tears rose, burning like acid as they squeezed from her eyes. She didn’t try to stop them.
What the hell was going on?
Alec slammed the lid on a paint can and hammered it down as he asked himself that question for at least the thousandth time.
He had expected to start over with Laurel, using all sorts of strategies to get her back out of the house. It hadn’t been necessary. She had greeted him with a bright smile when he showed up again, given him a list of about a million things to do, and disappeared into a shed at the back of the house. Emerging now and then, she pointed out any errors he had made or problems he needed to solve, then went away again.
She didn’t eat her lunch with him on the veranda, but showed up there to check on his progress as if he might not get anything done if she didn’t keep after him. She was polite but firm—the lady of the house—but any special courtesy or consideration was gone. She gave orders and expected him to obey. She didn’t look at him at all.
Alec had never worked so hard in his life, but he couldn’t seem to please her, no matter how he tried. He was tired of it, so tired.
At least the house was nearly painted. He had one more wall to do, then he could clean the sprayer and take down the paper covering the windows. After that, he was going to have a talk with Mrs. Bancroft.
He found her in the shed. The building, standing back behind the garage, dated from the same time period, as it was built from identical lumber. Construction was probably in the late twenties or early thirties, when whichever set of Bancrofts that owned Ivywild at the time had bought their first Model T. Lined with small-paned windows on three sides, floored with unpainted pine boards, it was fairly large.
The front wall supported a woodworking bench that was cluttered with carpenter’s tools, which must have belonged to her husband. The back wall was lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves crowded with bags and boxes of supplies. A big black ovenlike kiln occupied one corner. In the center was a potter’s wheel, over which Laurel was hovering with her hands deep in swirling clay.
As he appeared in the doorway, Sticks, lying beside her, lifted his massive head from his front legs and began to growl low in his throat. Alec stopped. It was the first time he had seen the dog in several days. Laurel must have been keeping him close again.
She looked up, staring at him as he lounged in the open doorway. Ordinarily, she called the dog off when he arrived. Sticks had learned to tolerate him as long as he was given an early-morning assurance that Alec was acceptable. This time Laurel didn’t open her mouth.
Sticks rose to his feet. With his ruff raised, he looked twice his normal size. He padded forward with his neck outstretched, snarling like a crosscut saw.
Alec held his ground. He had no particular fear of the dog, though he didn’t want to hurt him again while Laurel watched. Neither did he intend letting himself be mauled to protect her tender sensibilities.
Sticks came on, showing his canines, but easing lower. He stopped a few feet away, half crouching as his growl slowed. Alec held the dog’s gaze without moving. The dog growled once more, then looked away. He whimpered and dropped to the ground.
Alec hunkered down and put out his hand, letting the dog lick it. “Good boy,” he murmured, leaning to dig his fingers into the thick ruff and shake it before smoothing the fur down. “Good dog.”
The clay Laurel was forming collapsed abruptly. She squashed it onto the wheel with both hands, squeezing the slick, malleable mass with unnecessary force. In a chill voice she asked, “You wanted something?”
There were a lot of answers he could make, but he didn’t trust himself to keep them civil. He settled for neutrality. “I didn’t know you were a potter.”
“There are a lot of things you don’t know about me.”
“I’m learning.” That was too true. “What are you making?”
“A pot.”
That told him exactly nothing. He watched her for a long moment, his eyes on the expressive clarity of her face. What he saw there, he was fairly sure, was contempt.
“Okay,” he said on a tight breath as he rose to his feet and braced a hand on the doorjamb. “What did I do wrong?”
Her rich blue gaze was steady. “Nothing that I know of. Can you think of anything?”
“I’m sorry I didn’t turn the bike around when you asked me. I didn’t understand. Now I do, all right?”
Her smile was cool and brief, a meaningless movement of the lips. “Certainly. Don’t think of it again.”
Fat chance. “I didn’t mean to upset you or make you do anything you didn’t want.”
“You didn’t make me do a thing, Alec. I know my own mind.”
He should be happy that she had used his name. Instead, it made him feel like the hired help. Which was exactly what he was, he supposed. Voice grim, he said, “If everything is all right, then why did you stop working with me?”
“I had other things I would rather do.”
He had no right to complain; that was what galled him. He wanted the right. But if this was the way she preferred it, he could do that, too.
“I’ve finished the painting. Unless you have other ideas, I’d like to get started on the fountain.”
Without looking at him, she said, “I think the big pine next to the fence shades the garden too much for roses. You could cut it. That’s if you know how to do it without letting it fall on the house.”
She expected him to refuse. He wouldn’t give her that satisfaction. “No problem. I’ll need to take out the big limbs, then top it, so will have to have climbing gear.”
“My husband’s belt and spikes are around somewhere.”
“He worked in the woods?”
Her hands stilled, buried in the clay she was molding with quick, hard movements. “He was a lineman for the utility company—a good one.”
He’d had to ask, he thought with resignation. Changing the subject slightly, he inquired, “If he had the equipment, why didn’t he take the tree down?”
“He liked it there.” The look she gave him was brief. “You’ll have to ask Maisie about a saw. I think her husband keeps one for cutting firewood.”
Maisie’s old man was a mechanic, kept tools of all kinds, if he remembered right. “I’ll check it out. In the meantime, I can start gathering supplies for the fountain. I’ve run up quite a bill at the hardware already, but I’ll need plastic pipe, fittings, and so on. And I should lease a ditchdigger, or contract somebody to do the work.”
She squashed the clay flat again.
