promised to help me carry in this lumber and my tools.” She hated having to ask.
“I’ll do it.”
“But you’ll get your nice white coat all dirty.”
“I wear the nice white coat so I don’t get my clothes dirty. That’s what lab coats are for.” He sat his coffee down on the porch railing and flexed his arms above his head.
Holy cow, did he have any idea what he was doing to her already messed-up hormones? The soft blue button-down shirt he wore stretched and strained against his chest, and he seemed oblivious to the stiff northern breeze that blew today, bringing a touch of winter to the Carolinas.
His attitude was hardly cheerful, but Susan wasn’t going to complain. He hadn’t fired her yet.
Rand wouldn’t hear of her carrying anything, even the smaller pieces of wood. Since he was writing the checks, she let him have the last word, but she wasn’t happy about it. She’d promised herself she would never, ever lean on a man again.
Phrases from Gary’s “Dear Jane” letter drifted into her consciousness: clinging vine…dependent…draining all my energy…parasite.
She would be the first to admit she’d been a little crazy when she’d lived with Gary. He’d met her at the hospital just minutes after she’d witnessed her father’s life slip away. She’d been distraught, unsure what to do next, and he’d simply taken her under his wing and made all her decisions for her.
What a relief it had been, after her father’s long illness and the money problems and business problems, to simply let go. Gary had wanted her to depend on him. Falling in love with him had been effortless—how could she not fall in love with a handsome white knight who was right there all the time to slay even her smallest dragons?
Unfortunately, she’d continued to lean on him long after the trauma of losing her father. He’d just made it so damn easy—he’d encouraged it. She thought that was what he wanted, and she wanted more than anything to make him happy after all he’d done for her.
Her devotion had backfired in a big way. She’d had no idea she was driving him crazy. Her first clue was when she’d come home from her doctor’s appointment and found the note.
She’d not seen him again. He’d disappeared like a soap bubble in the wind, completely ignorant of the fact that he would shortly be a father.
“I don’t want to make you late for work,” Susan said to Rand as she trotted after him on his third trip from the truck to the house. “I can take it from here.”
“I think I’ll stay home today. Now might be a good time to get some writing done.”
“While I’m working? I’ll be kicking up sawdust and making a lot of awful noise.”
“I’ve got to at least get the books out of your way so you have enough room to work,” Rand persisted.
Since this was true, she almost let it slide. Then something occurred to her. “You don’t trust me.”
“Of course I trust you,” he said easily as he reclaimed his coffee cup on their final trip.
“You don’t. You’re going to keep an eye on me and make sure I don’t mess up.”
“Not true. I need a day off.”
“Then take the day off! Go to the zoo or something.”
He didn’t go away. He lurked, he hovered, he tried to help her lift pieces of wood that a butterfly could have carried off.
“Did it ever occur to you,” she asked, “that I might enjoy the feeling of accomplishment I get from doing a job on my own?”
“You won’t like the feeling of a strained back,” he said. “You pull something out of whack now, you might not be able to pick up your own baby.”
All right, so he had a point. Though she was always careful—her father had suffered with numerous back problems and she didn’t want to end up like that—she should be taking extra precautions at this time. She let him pick up the blasted board and hold it in place.
After a while, it became easier to just let him do what he wanted. She would never get this job done if she argued with him every step of the way.
Besides, she sort of liked looking at him, especially later in the day when his sleeves were rolled up and his hair mussed, and she could detect the slight odor of hard work on a clean man.
RAND SPENT THE ENTIRE morning trying to find an excuse to fire Susan. He watched her every move, searching for some sign of incompetence—a corner that didn’t meet cleanly, a board that had been mismeasured, or holes that weren’t drilled in the exact right places. But he could find no fault in the woman’s work. She knew what she was doing.
He also looked for signs that this work was too hard for a pregnant woman. But Susan had endless stamina and energy to spare—and she seemed to enjoy her work. She often smiled while she worked, or whistled, or hummed. He liked that she didn’t fill the silence between them with useless prattle.
She didn’t talk endlessly about her pregnancy the way his sisters had. She didn’t probe into his personal life, but she did show an interest in his work.
Whether her fascination was genuine or merely polite, it flattered him. Most people groaned and changed the subject.
By the second day, Rand decided to ask a personal question of his own. She’d been evasive when he’d brought up the subject before, and he hadn’t pressed for more information. Now was a better time.
“What does your husband do?”
Susan nearly dropped her screwdriver. He’d evidently startled her. “He’s an engineer,” she answered, recovering her poise quickly, “but he left his job recently…” She shrugged, then returned her attention to the drawer she was building.
An engineer. Didn’t they make buckets of money? It sounded like maybe he’d been laid off and was unemployed. Surely he hadn’t voluntarily left a decent job when his wife was expecting a baby.
Clearly Susan didn’t want to talk about her husband, so Rand let it be. He hoped that, whatever her domestic problems were, they weren’t too serious. A new baby brought a lot of stress into a home even under the best conditions—and didn’t he know it. Still, it sounded as if Susan was underappreciated at home, at the very least. Hell, if she was his wife…
What a completely weird thought. If Susan’s husband had any idea Rand found her so alluring, he’d come over here and flatten Rand.
That night after she left, the house was incredibly quiet. No crying babies, no feminine chatter, no power tools, not even anyone puttering in the kitchen. Clark had just left for an early date with Dierdre.
A perfect time to start organizing those books, Rand thought. He and Susan had merely moved stacks from one side of the room to the other, then covered them with plastic.
Rand returned to the office and peeled back the plastic. He would put the medical texts in one area, organized by subject. Then the journals. He ought to get a file box for those untidy clippings and photocopies.
