for them. In the meantime he had to finish pulling the rest of the old roof off.
“You left,” Edie said.
“No. I went into town. Had to file permits, pick up materials.” He gave her his best sunny smile.
She still had her hands on her hips. “I thought you’d changed your mind and gone.”
He’d considered it. Half the night, which he’d spent either restlessly prowling the house or swimming laps in the damn pool to take the edge off his frustration, he’d thought about cutting his losses, packing his bags and hitting the road.
God knew he had plenty of other jobs he could be working on. He had commitments lined up for the next two years. He’d had to do some serious shuffling to fit Mona’s little ranch house in.
Which was why he was staying, he told himself. He’d said he would. But in fact he hadn’t told Mona yet. She was unreachable—off somewhere at the ends of the earth in Southeast Asia shooting a film. She wouldn’t even know he’d changed his mind until he was gone.
But he didn’t go—wasn’t going—because of the expressions on Edie’s face when she’d walked around the old adobe yesterday afternoon. He’d been examining the walls, the roof, the foundation. But even more, he’d been studying Edie.
Her face was such a mixture of wistfulness, yearning, happiness and sadness as she’d drifted through the rooms, run her fingers over the woodwork, stood staring out the windows, that he’d spent far less time going over the bones of the house and far more time watching her.
And last night after her “I’m not sleeping with you” announcement, after which he’d been ready to leave, he remembered the way she looked, and he couldn’t go.
Instead he’d gone downstairs and wandered around Mona’s house looking at all the photos on the piano, on the bookshelves, on the walls.
Mona had her share of fine paintings and prints by well-known and not-so-well-known artists. But by far the most numerous framed pieces were family photos. Not one of them was of Mona alone—they were all of her children, her spouses (Edie’s dad and the exes, he gathered) or family group shots.
There were a lot of Edie.
In the kitchen there were magnetic snapshots on the refrigerator—of all the kids, but he only noticed Edie. In one she was playing in the pool, her head thrown back as she laughed. In another she had her arms looped over the shoulders of a pair of identical redheaded young boys. They were freckled and gangly, but they had Edie’s eyes. In a third she was sitting on the patio with her arms around Roy. She was smiling, but the wistfulness was there in this one.
He found others as well. He looked at them all—Edie as a girl on a pony with a boy who had to be her older brother, Edie suited up to play volleyball at some high school, Edie and Rhiannon, Edie and another girl who was also probably a sister, more of Edie and the twins. Edie and a handsome young man with their arms around each other and expressions of pure delight on their faces. It had to be Edie and her husband.
He almost couldn’t look at that one, knowing what he knew. He wondered that she could. But there were several, including a larger more formal portrait that must have been taken on their wedding day. It was in pride of place on the piano. She must see it every single day.
He hadn’t looked at a photo of Amy in years.
The photos—and the memory of Edie’s face that afternoon—made him stay. She wanted the house salvaged. He could give her that.
Besides, he wasn’t a quitter.
If she thought she could just say no and make them both miserable—well, she was wrong. He’d leave when he was good and ready to leave, when he could turn his back and walk away, which he would.
Because, as he’d told her, love was a choice. And he’d done it once. He wasn’t doing it again. Ever. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t enjoy their time together.
He started off-loading the tiles. “You could help,” he suggested, slanting her a glance. “Or not.”
Edie didn’t move for a long moment, but then he heard her footsteps coming toward the truck. “Ten minutes,” she said. “Then I have to get back to work.”
He was staying?
Still poleaxed from his phone call, Edie stared after Nick as he carried an armful of tiles to a spot near the side of the house. She still felt as if the breath had been knocked right out of her. She was giddy and panicky and perversely elated. At the same time she was trying not to feel anything at all.
She knew what he was doing.
He was calling her bluff. He was going to make her prove she could resist him. She ground her teeth, glaring at his back. But then, having put down the tiles, he straightened and turned and looked right at her, and she felt the giddiness again, and hoped to goodness she could do what she’d told herself—and him—was necessary.
It was necessary!
She knew herself. She knew how invested she became in relationships. She knew the pain that her unrequited love for Kyle had caused her. Even having gone to bed with Nick once had undermined her ability to remain uninvolved. She had told herself she could—but in the end, she’d cared.
She hadn’t fallen in love. But she hadn’t been able to forget him, either.
Now once more she tried to imagine taking Nick to her bed for as long as he was here, then smiling and saying goodbye whenever the house was finished.
Or sooner.
There was no guarantee he wouldn’t get bored with her much sooner than it took him to finish the house!
He could share a bed with her once more or five times more and then decide it was time to move on, find another woman. He wouldn’t even have to flaunt her in front of Edie. He could simply find a new bedmate.
And she’d be left, gutted, heartbroken.
In the end Nick was right—it was simple.
But he was wrong, too. He might find it easy to choose where he loved. But could she?
Again the answer was simple: no.
So she turned her head, refused to let her gaze linger on his easy walk, his lean muscular body, his smile, the gleam in his eyes. She helped him move the tiles, and tried to think about something else.
And when they had the truck unloaded, she said, “Goodbye.”
“Au revoir,” Nick said cheerfully. “That means I’ll see you again.”
“I know what it means,” Edie said shortly. She felt like saying, Not if I see you first. “Come, Roy.”
But Roy, perversely, was too busy following Nick around, watching what he was doing, deftly catching the occasional treat Nick tossed his way.
“I saw that,” Edie accused him. “Roy, come on!”
But Roy only had eyes for Nick.
“He’s
