nodded. She could come up with a list for them in less than five seconds, she thought. Number One was paint everything. There was no Number Two.
While Libby worked on her list in the office, David walked around the shabby motel grounds once again, scowling, muttering under his breath, telling himself he must really be losing his grip. He’d just done one of the most stupid things in his life when he’d offered to help fix up the damnable place he had every intention of tearing down.
What was the old expression? Putting lipstick on a pig? He shook his head. There wasn’t enough lipstick in the world for this dilapidated pigsty.
On the other hand, his crew of painters were on the clock anyway in case of last-minute problems before the Marquis’ opening so this little detour across the highway wasn’t going to cost him all that much. It wasn’t about the money, though. It was more and more about the woman, the luscious little strawberry blond.
She’d already gotten under his skin just enough for him to fashion a lie about who he actually was. He’d introduced himself to her as the architect of the Marquis—an architect, for God’s sake—a mere hired hand instead of the Big Deal Boss. That alone was enough to make him question his sanity.
He hadn’t actually planned to do that or rehearsed any sort of deception, it had simply sprung forth somehow when she’d offered her soft, warm hand and then inquired, And you are? For a split second, while he held her hand in his, he hadn’t been quite sure who he was, where he was or what he was doing.
He wasn’t a liar, although he’d probably stretched or bent the truth a few times during business negotiations. But in his personal life, what little there was of it, particularly with women, he never lied and he never promised anything he didn’t follow through with from the moment he said hello to a woman to the moment he said goodbye. And he’d said a lot of goodbyes in his time.
He’d spent year after year watching female faces and their accompanying body language abruptly change when they heard the name David Halstrom. It was like going from Zorba the Greek to Aristotle Onassis in the blink of an eye, again and again, year after year, woman after woman. Women looked at Zorba with curiosity and pleasure and genuine affection. They looked at Onassis as if they were seeing their own reflections in the window of a bank.
He was thirty-six-years-old now, and he’d been a millionaire since he was twenty-one and a gazillionaire for most of the last decade. But until he’d laid eyes on Libby Jost, with her strawberry-blond hair and her light blue eyes and the nearly perfect curves of her body, David hadn’t realized just how much he’d truly yearned to be treated like a normal, everyday guy instead of a damn cash register.
So, what the hell. He’d be an architect for the next few weeks, and then he’d confess, and the fact that he had more money than God would go a long, long way in soothing Libby Jost’s hurt feelings at his deception.
In the meantime, he decided he’d better be going before the painters arrived and greeted him by his actual name. He stopped by the shabby little office to tell Libby goodbye and to give her his private number just in case she needed him, and it was only then, when he actually said the words to her, that David realized just how much he wanted her to need him.
The painting crew turned out to be four young men in their twenties or early thirties, all of them in paint-splattered coveralls, and all of them with long hair tied back in ponytails and piercings in one place or another. They looked more like a rock band than a team of professional painters. She hoped David knew what he was doing as she gave them her list, walked them around the place, then waited for the bad news she had begun to expect.
“So,” she asked when they’d completed their inspection of the place. “Can you do it? And for how much?”
She held her breath in anticipation of the bad news.
The tallest of the young men shrugged his shoulders and gave a little snort. “Well, it’s a challenge, ma’am, no doubt about that. But, sure we can do it. Hell, yes. As for how much, as far as I know right now, you’ll just have to pay for the paint. We’re all on the clock over at the Marquis, so we get paid one way or another. Over here. Over there. It doesn’t matter.”
Libby was still holding her breath, waiting for the bottom line.
“I’m guessing seven hundred dollars ought to cover the supplies,” he said. “Give or take a few bucks.”
Then he pulled a fold-out palette of paint colors from his back pocket. “If you want to choose the main color and the trim right now, ma’am, we can pick it up and get started after lunch.”
Libby was still a few beats behind him, still celebrating the seven hundred dollars, give or take, as if she’d just won the lottery. Things were suddenly, terrifically back on track, she thought, after this morning’s horrible derailment.
“Ma’am?” He fanned open the color chart in front of her.
“Oh. Sorry.” She looked at the chart. “Well, this won’t be too hard. I’ve had these colors in my head for weeks. I want a rich, creamy ivory for the walls. This one. Right here.” She pointed to a swatch. “And I want a deep, deep, wonderful green for the doors and the trim. There. That’s it exactly. It’s perfect.”
“Cool,” the painter said, then turned to his crew. “We’re all set. Mount up, boys. Let’s hit the road.”
Libby hit the road, too, right after her ever reliable front-desk replacement, Douglas Porter, arrived. She’d known him since she was two years old, and if her aunt Elizabeth was the mother figure in Libby’s life, then Doug was most definitely her stand-in father after all these years. His nearly religious attendance at dozens of school plays and concerts and teacher’s meetings, and his presence at every major event in her life more than qualified him for a special kind of parenthood. Plus, it was Doug who’d given her her very first camera on her tenth birthday, then spent hours showing her how to use it properly, not to mention forking over a small fortune for film, filters, lenses and often staggering developing costs.
But he wasn’t really her uncle. He’d been the best man at Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Joe’s wedding and after Uncle Joe went missing in Korea over half a century ago, Doug simply stayed around. It was clear to anyone with eyes that he loved her aunt, and it never failed to sadden Libby that the two of them hadn’t married.
“Elizabeth’s pretty chipper today, Lib,” he had announced when he entered the office. “You’ll be glad to see that, I know. So what’s going on around here? How many guests do we have?”
It had become a running joke between the two of them, about the guests, and she had offered the standard reply. “No more than you can handle, Doug.”
She’d paused on her way out the door. “Oh, I’m expecting some painters this afternoon. They know their way around so you won’t have to do anything.”
“Painters?” His white eyebrows climbed practically up to his scalp. “Why on earth…?”
“No big deal,” she said nonchalantly. “I’m just having them do a few touch-ups.”
As she closed the office door she could hear him muttering something about throwing good money after bad, silk purses and sows’ ears.
Libby was still smiling about that when she parked her car at the nursing home’s rehab facility and walked down the long glossy hallway to her aunt’s room. She
