“Can’t complain,” he said, holding open the glass door for his daughter. “Got everything I need, right here at Rosewood Terrace.”
* * *
EVERY MUSCLE IN Hayden’s body ached from spending five days on the road. He’d logged in fifteen hundred miles and visited seven mills, talking with the employees, watching them at work, noting the condition of the equipment, stores of logs, contracts with logging companies and inventories of raw lumber. His had been a cursory scan at best, each individual sawmill would have to be reevaluated in depth. What he learned by talking to the men was their concerns of losing their jobs as there was less old-growth timber being cut due to dwindling resources, environmental concerns and government restrictions.
Most of the workers had been timber men for generations; their fathers and grandfathers had been part of a working tradition of men who had harvested trees and turned the forests into planed boards. The men knew only one craft.
Hayden climbed out of his Jeep and felt the weight of the world on his shoulders. Bradworth and Thomas Fitzpatrick had been right. People’s lives and livelihoods depended upon him and his decision. How many employees, men and women alike, had shaken his hand and smiled at him and mentioned that they were glad the mills were still in Monroe hands? He’d noticed their worries—the knit brows, the eyes that didn’t smile, the lips that pinched at the corners and he sensed the unasked questions of the workers: Will I be laid off? Will you shut the mills down? Will you sell the machinery off, bit by bit? What will I do if there’s no work? How will I feed my family, pay my bills, send my kids to college?
Leo bounded into the bushes, scar
ing up a winter bird as Hayden trudged to the back porch and wiggled off one shoe with the toe of his other.
He opened the back door and stopped dead in his tracks. The house smelled of oil and wax, and every surface gleamed. The chairs were pushed carefully around the kitchen table where a crystal vase was filled with several kinds of fragrant flowers. Brass fixtures sparkled and the old wood floor shone with a fresh coat of polish.
Nadine. He felt a hard knot tighten his gut as he walked through the place and saw traces of her work—special touches such as the rearranging of pictures on the mantle, a grouping of candles on a table, another vase filled with flowers.
What was she trying to do? She’d been hired to clean, for crying out loud, and now it seemed that she had put her special stamp on the house. Blankets had been folded and tossed over the arm of the old couch in the den. Dry logs and split kindling had been set in each fireplace.
He climbed the steps to the second floor and noticed that each bed was made with clean bedding. In the master bedroom, the king-size bed was freshly made, one window cracked open to let in clear mountain air, dry kindling stacked on polished andirons in the fireplace and a large glass bowl half filled with water and floating blossoms rested on the bureau.
He smiled despite himself. Maybe she’d forgiven him. Then he caught his image in the mirror—his dirty jeans, faded work shirt, sawdust-sprinkled hair and a stupid grin pinned to his face. Because of her. What a damned fool he was! Glowering at his reflection, he turned and walked briskly into the bathroom, intent on cleaning up and forgetting Nadine. Obviously she was through working here. The flowers had to be the last touch; so he didn’t have to worry about her again.
That particular thought was disturbing, though he didn’t stop to analyze why. Eyeing the tub where he’d found her ring, he noted a bowl of colored soap and matching towels placed carefully on the racks. He twisted on the shower spray, stripped and tried to wash the grime and dirt and aches from the last few days from his body. He’d kept himself so busy that he hadn’t had time to think about Nadine and whenever thoughts of her had crept into his mind, he’d stubbornly shoved them into a dark corner.
But now that he was back in Gold Creek, with only the choppy waters of Whitefire Lake separating them, he couldn’t easily drive his images of her away. He leaned against the tiles and let the water cascade over his body. The steamy jets felt good; the only thing that would’ve felt better was Nadine’s supple body lying underneath his. He remembered kissing her, touching her face, delving deep into the warmest part of her…
To his consternation, his thoughts had turned a certain part of his anatomy rock hard. Gritting his teeth, he twisted off the hot water spigot and sucked in his breath as the icy spray sent sharp little needles of frigid water against his skin. “Damn you,” he muttered, and he didn’t know if he was talking to himself or to Nadine.
* * *
NADINE CHECKED THE kitchen clock again and frowned to herself. Sam had promised to pick up the boys from basketball practice and drop them off. She dusted her hands on her apron, let her sauce simmer and told herself not to worry. They were less than an hour late; maybe Sam had decided the boys needed a little extra time to work on their shots. And yet…a niggle of doubt crawled through her mind. Sam knew that she was cooking dinner for her sons, that they’d both need a shower and they each had to tackle their homework assignments.
She glanced out the window and her eyes strayed to the lake and beyond to the thicket of trees she knew guarded Hayden’s house. Her heart nearly stopped when she saw the lights glowing softly through the winter-bare branches.
So he was back. Or if not Hayden, someone close to him. Though she had told herself that she didn’t care, that her job with him was nearly finished, that she had scrubbed her last cobweb out of the Monroe house and had composed a list of repairs that needed to be made, she felt her heart turn over. If only she could see him again. Maybe go over to the house for a final touch-up…. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Instead, she’d spend the time writing down the names of a few local handymen and send the list to Bradworth in San Francisco. The lawyer, or Hayden himself, could oversee the mending of the porch rail and replacement of the gutters and so on. As for Nadine, she was out of there.
She felt a deep loneliness when she thought of Hayden, but she told herself firmly that she was over him. She glanced at the clock again, and lines of worry furrowed her forehead. She turned down the burner where the hot water was boiling, just as she heard the sound of a car in the drive.
“What’s for dinner?” John demanded as he burst through the back door. Wrinkling his nose as he eyed the sauce, he sighed theatrically and rolled his eyes. “Stroganoff. Again!”
“I thought you liked Stroganoff.”
“Bobby likes it. I hate it. I like goulash.”
She could never seem to get this straight. “That’s right. Well,” she said, touching him fondly on the nose, “next time we’ll have goulash. Now go shower. When you get out, dinner will be done. And help your brother—” Glancing worriedly to the back door, she asked, “Where is he?”
Avoiding her gaze, John licked his lips nervously and shifted from one foot to the other. “Bobby fell asleep in the car.”
“But the school’s only ten minutes away.”
“Yeah, but…he was real tired.” Without any further explanation, he dashed through the living room. Nadine heard the bathroom door shut as Sam, hauling a dead-to-the-world Bobby, walked into the kitchen.
“What happened to him?” she asked, worried that Bobby was coming down with some virus. Usually after a practice he was so wound up that she had to calm him down. Tonight he was fast asleep.
“I guess practice just did him in.”
Nadine touched Bobby’s forehead. Her fingers came away cool.