so what? She’d hired him anyway. Was Mrs. Hastings a snob, letting him know she wasn’t about to slum with a lowlife like him? Or was she basically cold? Was she one of those frigid, ungiving women? Or had she been hurt? Well, whatever the answer, she was easy on the eyes. He’d watch her.
He drove back to the Double C, borrowed a tool chest and post hole digger from the foreman, Ken Slattery, and swapped him the black truck for an older model. Grady hadn’t seen his father this morning, and there was no sign of him now. “Gone into town,” Ken said.
Grady went to the pink bedroom and found that Millie Gilligan had washed and ironed all his clothes, including the ones he’d thought had been clean. She’d even patched the knee of his oldest pair of Levi’s.
He’d awakened early this morning to shine his boots, but before he could get out the back door, she practically wrestled him down and stripped off his shirt so she could iron it. “I delight not in wrinkled raiment. Scabby donkeys scent each other over seven hills,” she’d muttered. She’d demanded to iron his good jeans, too. Then she’d scrambled him the most delicious eggs he’d ever eaten.
Now he went into the kitchen to thank her for doing his laundry. She only repeated her strange pronouncement. “I delight not in wrinkled raiment.”
He asked if he could make himself a sandwich. Her answer was sharp and to the point. “No. Sit.”
She said it with such authority, he sat. Without saying another word, she packed him a whole lunch in plastic things with lids and put them into a sack with a thermos of coffee and a bottle of spring water.
She was an odd little thing, but kindhearted in her way.
The kitchen was fragrant with the scent of freshly baked chocolate cookies; they smelled ambrosial. She wrapped a cookie and put it into the sack. She looked at him with glittering eyes.
“North, south, east, west. It’s not only the chick that needs his nest,” she murmured. “To take the woman by the heart, take the child by the hand.”
Startled, Grady said, “Say what?”
“I wasn’t talking to you,” she said, almost snappishly. “I was singing. An old, old song.”
GRADY GOT BACK TO TARA’S HOUSE before she returned from town. He looked more critically at the place. Jonah had said it was in rough shape. The kid had put it kindly.
Structurally the house seemed sound enough, but the place had an air of having been assaulted. He looked at the graffiti on the wall and garage doors with loathing. He’d get rid of that ugliness.
As for the other damage, porches had been ripped off, the patio torn up. An outdoor spigot dripped forlornly. Grady wasn’t a man who liked being idle. He found the water main, shut off the flow and hauled the toolbox out of the pickup.
Just as he was screwing the faucet handle back in place, a gray panel truck drove up. He stood up, a wrench in one hand, wiping his other on the thigh of his jeans.
Tara Hastings parked and got out. A little kid, thin and blond, hopped out on the other side. Except for his blond hair, he resembled his mother.
The kid acted shy at facing a stranger. He put his thumb into his mouth as if the act could somehow protect him. Grady had a gut instinct that the kid was deeply unhappy. He felt a surge of sympathy for him.
“Del, take your thumb out of your mouth.” Tara said it almost mechanically, as if she’d said it hundreds of times. Del pulled his thumb away. By his furtive glances at his mother, he seemed already planning on how he could slip it back.
Tara struggled to get paint cans out of the truck. Grady went to her side and took the heavy cans from her hands. His hard hand brushed her cool, smaller one. She didn’t blink or react in any way.
“Thank you.” Her voice was clipped.
“This your boy?” He nodded toward the child, who stared at him with wary eyes.
“Yes. Mr. McKinney, this is Del. Del, this is Mr. McKinney, the man I told you about. I hired him to help us.” She kept the same brisk tone. Hoisting an armful of hardware-store bags, she made her way up the back stairs and fumbled to get her key into the lock.
Grady took the key from her so smoothly that she didn’t have time to protest. With a flick of his wrist, he unlocked the door and swung it open for her. “I’ve had your water off,” he said. “To fix that spigot. It was leaking. I’ll turn it back on.”
“Thank you,” she said in that maddening cool way. “It seems like a sin to waste water in country like this.” She set her sacks on the counter and unpacked them with snappy efficiency.
The dog danced around them, and this time he didn’t bristle or bark at Grady. He sniffed at Grady’s boots, the legs of his jeans, then looked up at him, bright-eyed and wagging his tail.
“Hi, boy,” Grady said, and stooped to pet him. The dog fairly wriggled in delight. Grady scratched, petted and stroked him, but at the same time stole a look around the interior. The boy, Del, silently slipped into the living room and switched on the television. A video was already on the player, and the screen blazed into color with a ticking crocodile chasing Captain Hook.
Del sank down in a worn beanbag chair, gazing transfixed at the screen. He popped his thumb back into his mouth and sucked it solemnly. Grady rose, and Lono went to join the boy in the living room.
Grady put his hands into the back pockets of his jeans as he looked at the neglected living room. The woman and the kid were really camping in this house. No frills, no luxuries and the necessities were a hodgepodge of secondhand stuff.
Again she surprised him. Someone like her, living like this? It made no sense. She should be staying at a suite in a hotel, sending her pricey Austin decorator out to manage this mess.
She hadn’t dressed up or put on makeup to go to town. What you see is what you get, her bare face and plain clothes seemed to say. But she couldn’t disguise her natural grace.
“What do you want me to do first?” he asked, looking her up and down, trying to figure her out.
She gave him a perfunctory glance. Her eyes had long, sooty lashes, barely tinged with auburn. They seemed to look through him as if he were barely there. She started sorting the equipment on the counter.
“You said you could paint? I need my son’s room painted. That robin’s-egg-blue. With cream trim. It’s the first one down the hall. On the east side. There are tarps in the garage.”
He studied her profile. With her gaze downcast, her face seemed surprisingly delicate, almost vulnerable. His curiosity was growing.
“Those garage doors. I could cover up that spray paint first.”
“No. First, my son’s room. It’s most important.”
“All these walls look like they need cleaning,” he said. “It smells like mold. It leaked in here, right?”
She didn’t answer him directly. “I cleaned Del’s walls this morning. His room has the least damage. You’ll find a ladder in the garage, too.”
“If there’s
