Kitabı oku: «Secretly Yours», sayfa 3

3

ANNIE WAS AWARE that Trent didn’t spot her immediately. Focusing on Jamie, he motioned toward the miniature wooden rocker he had carried in. “I finished Abbie’s chair. I made it as tiltproof as possible, but teach her not to stand up in it.”

“I will. Oh, Trent, it’s perfect. She’ll love rocking in it while she watches cartoons.” She reached up to kiss his cheek, a gesture he accepted with a resignation that indicated he’d expected a reaction of that sort.

Just the thought of kissing Trent so casually made Annie’s mouth go dry. She told herself to quit being an idiot, but that seemed to be an impossible task when Trent McBride was around.

Jamie motioned for him to set the chair on the floor and turned to her little stepdaughter. “Abbie, come look at the chair Uncle Trent made for you. Isn’t it beautiful?”

Abbie promptly climbed onto the chair, plopping her bottom on the child-size seat. “Mine,” she said, beginning to rock with enthusiasm.

“She loves it.” Still smiling, Jamie motioned toward the table. “Annie and I are having coffee, Trent. Would you like to join us?”

Annie saw Trent’s startled reaction before he quickly masked it. She was surprised that he hadn’t already noticed her sitting there, but apparently he’d been concentrating on his niece. Pushing his glasses up on his nose, he turned to face her, his characteristically somber eyes searching her face in the way that always made her toes curl. You really are an idiot, Annie.

He greeted her curtly. “Hello.”

It was only further proof of the strange hold he had on her that the sound of his voice affected her so strongly every time she heard it. She couldn’t understand it. It was just a voice, after all—a deep, slightly rough-edged growl of a voice, but nothing special. Right?

She offered him an exaggeratedly airy smile. “Hello, Mr. McBride.”

Jamie rolled her eyes. “You call him ‘Mr. McBride’? Why? You two are the same age, for Pete’s sake, and you’ve known each other for—what?—six weeks? What’s with the formality?”

“I never asked her to call me ‘mister.”’ Trent sounded defensive.

He had never corrected her, either. Annie assumed he liked the professional distance the formality kept between them.

Still sitting in her chair, Abbie held up her cup, offering her uncle a drink. “Juice?”

He looked down at his niece, and his smile softened his stern face in a way that made Annie’s silly heart flutter. “I’ll have coffee, instead, but thanks, Abbie.”

Annie noticed that his voice was several degrees warmer when he talked to the child. There was genuine affection in his expression. As she had suspected all along, Trent wasn’t nearly as gruff and curmudgeonly as he liked to pretend.

Looking quite at home, he reached into a cabinet, pulled out a mug and poured himself a cup of coffee. Rather than joining Annie at the table, he leaned back against the counter to sip his drink. He made no effort to initiate conversation, but seemed to be waiting for Annie or Jamie to speak to him. Annie couldn’t think of a thing to say. Having Trent’s somber eyes on her completely cleared her mind.

Fortunately Sam chose that moment to join them. Carrying his music book, he moved to stand beside Annie, showing no surprise at seeing his uncle. “Hi, Uncle Trent. Ms. Stewart, is it okay if I try to play the next song in the book? This one called ‘Sleepy Lion’?”

Since that piece was clearly numbered and very similar to the ones he’d already played, Annie nodded, encouraging his enthusiasm and relieved to have something to distract her from the awkwardness of the situation. “Of course, Sam. Just remember that here and here, you play with your left hand—second finger—and the rest is with your right hand, fingers two, three and four. Okay?”

“Okay. Ms. Stewart gave me a piano lesson, Uncle Trent,” Sam said, eager to share his accomplishment. “I already learned two songs. Do you want to hear me play them?”

“Yeah, sure. I’d like to hear them sometime.”

“I’ll go practice.” Sam ran eagerly from the room.

“I hope he’ll always be that excited about practicing,” Jamie murmured.

Annie chuckled. “I can almost guarantee you that there will come a time when he’ll need a bit of prodding—but that’s true of nearly every child. I went through a stage when my father had to nag me almost every day to practice, but I’m glad now that he didn’t let me quit.”

Trent was studying her even more closely now, making it difficult for her not to squirm in her seat. “You give piano lessons?”

She tried to speak lightly. “Sam’s my only student at the moment, but I have experience teaching piano.”

“Annie has a master’s degree in music,” Jamie said, moving beside Trent to refill her coffee cup.

Suppressing a wince, Annie wished she hadn’t mentioned her degree to Trevor. She hadn’t meant to—it had just sort of slipped out when they’d been making conversation as she’d cleaned his offices last week. While chatting about his children, Trevor had told her of Sam’s desire to learn to play piano and their futile search for a teacher. The next thing she’d known, Annie had divulged her degree and had mentioned that she’d taught piano while she attended college. She hadn’t added that she’d started teaching because she enjoyed working with children in music, not because she’d needed the money.

She had learned today that she could take just as much joy in teaching even though she was being paid for it.

“You have a master’s degree in music?” Trent sounded a little skeptical.

She nodded, bracing herself for the question that was sure to follow.

He reacted exactly as she had predicted. “Then how come you’re cleaning houses instead of doing something with your education?”

“Trent!” Though notably plainspoken herself, even Jamie seemed to think her brother-in-law had crossed the line with that blunt question.

Tact was not a word Annie had come to associate with Trent, which probably explained why she wasn’t particularly offended. “A music degree isn’t the most practical background for earning a living, but there always seems to be a demand for housekeeping services. I don’t mind cleaning, and it’s a job that lets me feel useful and still independent, so it seemed a logical way to support myself when I moved into the house my great-uncle left me. I like teaching piano, so I’m considering taking on more students, but I’ll keep my cleaning business going for now.”

“What made you decide to settle in Honoria, Annie?” Jamie seemed as curious as Trent, if considerably more subtle. “Was your great-uncle your only family?”

Since Annie didn’t want to talk about her estrangement from her parents, she chose to ignore the second question. “Actually, I needed to make a change in my life and the house my great-uncle left me appeared to be a good place to make a fresh start. When I came to look at it, I was taken with what a pretty and peaceful place Honoria seemed to be—exactly what I needed at the time. Everyone has been very kind to me here, and I’m building up a large clientele for my business, so I’ve decided to stay for a while.”

Jamie smiled. “I know what it’s like to start over. I did that when I left New York to come back here to teach. Of course, I had no idea quite how drastically my life would change. I came back single, with very little family, and now I have a husband, two children, nieces, nephews and assorted other in-laws,” she added, patting Trent’s cheek with a bold familiarity that Annie suspected only Jamie could carry off.

Trent merely gave his sister-in-law a look and set his now-empty cup in the sink. “Thanks for the coffee, Jamie. Tell Sam I’d like him to play for me next time I come by. Annie, I’ll see you in the morning.”

He glanced at her as he spoke, and their gazes locked for a moment. Annie felt her toes curl inside her sneakers—as they had a tendency to do every time Trent McBride looked at her this way.

“Trevor should be home soon, Trent,” Jamie said quickly. “Why don’t you stay for dinner?”

Breaking the visual contact with Annie, he shook his head. “Thanks, but I have other plans. See you later.”

He left then without looking back.

“But…” Jamie sighed as the door closed behind him. She turned back to Annie, her expression rueful. “I guess he was ready to leave.”

Dragging her gaze away from that closed door, Annie nodded, drawing her first full breath since her gaze had been captured by Trent’s. “Apparently he was.”

“He didn’t like us talking about making a new start with our lives, I suppose. That subject’s still too raw for Trent. I…um…assume you’ve heard that his air force career ended with a plane crash a little more than a year and a half ago.”

“Yes.”

“Of course you have. You’ve probably figured out by now that Honoria has the most efficient rumor mill in the world.”

“Well, yes, I…”

“Trent’s having trouble adjusting to the forced changes in his life. All he ever wanted to do was fly, and now that’s been taken from him. I didn’t know him very well before the crash—Trevor and I had only been dating a short while when it happened, and I hadn’t seen Trent since high school—but I understand he was very different before. Trevor said Trent’s always been moody, but before the crash he was more extroverted and jovial. He was cocky and self-confident and wisecracking, the life-of-the-party type. I guess that’s hard for you to believe.”

Annie thought of the emotional pain she’d sensed in Trent the first time she’d met him. She had no problem believing that his accident had changed him. She’d been changed by recent events herself. There’d been a time when she’d been blindly naive, dependent and pathetically eager to please. While she hoped she had avoided the bitterness Trent’s accident had left behind, she could identify well enough with his anger and regret. An airplane crash had altered Trent’s life; Preston Dixon, with his lies and empty promises, had changed hers.

Because she still didn’t feel comfortable talking about Trent behind his back, she changed the subject by glancing at her watch and rising to her feet. “I’d better go,” she said. “I have offices to clean.”

Jamie stood to escort her out. “I’ll see you next week for Sam’s lesson, if not before. Do you mind if I give your number to a couple of other parents who are looking for a piano teacher?”

“Not at all. I’ll find a way to work their students into my schedule if they’re interested.” Annie was actually pleased by the prospect of finally putting her education to use, something her father and her former fiancé had mockingly predicted she would never be able to do.

AS SOON AS Trent opened his door for her the following Friday morning, Annie could tell he was in a bad mood. His jaw was hard, his mouth set in a grim line. Though his head was lowered so she couldn’t meet his eyes, she thought she saw shadows of pain through the lenses of his glasses. “Are you all right?” she asked impulsively.

His chin lifted. “I’m fine. There are a couple loads of dirty laundry in the hamper. I could use some clean jeans if you have time to wash.”

“I’ll make time.” She watched as he moved toward the door. He was definitely walking stiffly, and she sensed that he was hurting. She also knew he was likely to bite her head off if she expressed concern or in any other way acknowledged that she had noticed his discomfort. Still, she felt the need to try. “You know there’s really not much more to do at my house, so if you’d like to take the day off…”

He looked at her then, his expression openly disbelieving. “Not much more to do? Have you actually looked at your house lately?”

She knew there was still plenty of work to be done, but she was trying to give him an excuse to rest a day. She should have known his stiff-necked pride would get in the way. “You’ve done so much for me already,” she offered weakly. “I feel as though I’m falling behind in repaying you.”

His eyebrows drew even more tightly together, and she almost sighed. She had handled this badly, letting her concern for him show through her usually carefully maintained professional distance. She knew he was oversensitive about his disabilities, whatever they were; she should have known he would not concede any sort of weakness in front of her. To the contrary, he was likely to try to do twice as much as usual just to prove he could.

And what was really bothering her was this feeling that she was beginning to know him so well, despite the very limited nature of the time they had spent together so far.

“We have an arrangement,” he said shortly. “You’ve been doing your part, and I intend to uphold mine.”

She caved. “All right. The knob on the medicine cabinet in my bathroom came off in my hand this morning. I tried to put it back on, but I think the screw is stripped.”

He nodded. “Anything else?”

“The window in the living room won’t open. It was so warm and pretty yesterday, I wanted to let some fresh air in, but it was stuck.”

“Is that it?”

“If you could just fix those two things today, I’d be grateful.” She figured neither task would demand too much from him physically—and maybe he would feel he’d done his part today if he accomplished at least that much. As she watched him cross the room and open the door, she wished she could make him understand that he’d already done so much more than she’d ever expected.

“Mule-headed male,” she muttered as the door closed behind him.

The door opened again. “I heard that,” Trent informed her. And then closed the door behind him with a snap.

Annie was startled into a laugh. Had she actually seen a glint of amusement in Trent’s usually grim blue eyes? Had that been a wry smile playing around the corners of his hard, straight mouth?

Her laughter fading, she groaned and rubbed her temples. She really didn’t want to make Trent smile. He had a strong enough effect on her when he was being rude and irritable.

IT TOOK Trent less than twenty minutes to replace the screw on Annie’s old-fashioned wooden medicine-cabinet door and reattach a round ceramic knob. The cabinet needed to be stripped, sanded and repainted, he noted. Actually, the whole place needed painting, inside and out. With spring weather just setting in, it was a good time to get started on that project. He’d have to figure out a way to ask Annie if she wanted to invest in paint.

He found himself chuckling softly as he moved into the living room to check the problem window she’d told him about. He was remembering her disgruntled summation of his character when he’d refused to take the day off. “Mule-headed male,” she’d called him.

His amusement faded when he considered why she’d been so determined to talk him out of working today. She’d obviously noticed that he was having one of his bad days—he’d woken up stiff and achy that morning, his back muscles in spasms—but he was still perfectly capable of putting in a couple of hours at her place.

He’d given their service-swapping arrangement a couple more weeks, but every time he thought about ending it, he found himself making excuses to prolong it. He’d tried to convince himself that he’d grown spoiled to having his house cleaned and his laundry done. He’d thought of all the repairs still waiting to be done on Annie’s house, and he’d told himself he was being noble and generous to help her out.

But the truth was, he thought as he studied the sticking window casing, he had needed this more than Annie did. From his initial evaluation of her house to the prioritizing and implementing of repairs, he had secretly relished the sense of purpose he’d found since he’d begun this project. For two mornings a week, he’d had a reason to get out of bed. Something to do besides sit alone in his house and brood about the loss of his dreams. Dreams he had shattered himself through his own recklessness.

Scowling, he gripped the window handles in both hands and jerked upward. Pain body-slammed him from behind, making him stagger and then go down to his knees. Breaking into a sick sweat, he tried to stand—only to be brought down again.

Maybe he would just stay right where he was for a little while, he thought grimly, lowering himself carefully to the floor and letting the waves of pain wash over him.

ANNIE USUALLY CLEANED another house on Friday after leaving Trent’s place, but because her client had canceled that day, she found herself with several free hours. She made a stop by Honoria’s only music store, placed an order for some piano-teaching supplies, then headed home for what she anticipated would be a rare few hours of leisure.

She assumed Trent would have already finished for the day. She certainly hadn’t expected to find him lying facedown on her living-room floor.

“Trent?” She knelt beside him, her heart in her throat. His eyes were closed, his glasses lying on the floor beside him. A sheen of perspiration covered his face, even though the room was cool.

She was relieved when his eyes opened, though the expression in them almost made her gulp. Trent was not happy to have been found this way by her. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Muscle spasms in my back. It’s no big deal. It happens sometimes.” His attempt at nonchalance didn’t exactly come off since the sentence ended in a gasp.

“How long have you been lying here?”

“Half an hour, maybe.”

“I’ll call an ambulance.”

“No. My cell phone’s in my pocket. If I’d wanted an ambulance, I’d have called one.”

“Can you stand up?”

“Of course I can stand.” He made an effort to rise, paled, and lowered himself carefully back down. “Just not right now.”

“All right, that’s it—I’m calling for help.”

“No!” He reached out to grab her wrist when she would have risen. For a man who couldn’t even stand, his grip was remarkably strong. “Don’t call anyone.”

“Trent, you need help. Just let me—”

“No.” He swallowed, then added. “Please.”

Apparently he’d swallowed a large amount of pride. Annie groaned, annoyed with herself for letting his plea affect her. “What am I supposed to do? Pretend you aren’t here? Just go about my business and step over you when I want to get to the other side of the room? Toss a throw rug over you, perhaps?”

His eyebrows dipped lower. “I never realized until today that you have such a smart mouth on you,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, well, you would try the patience of a saint. So what are we going to do, Trent?”

“I gave in and took a muscle relaxer a few minutes ago. When it kicks in, I’ll be able to get up and go home.”

“If it’s like any muscle relaxer I’ve ever taken, you won’t be able to drive when it takes effect. You’re already starting to float, aren’t you?”

He made a visible effort to focus on her face. She didn’t know how well he could see without his glasses, but she suspected the glazed look in his eyes had more to do with medication than myopia. “I can handle it,” he muttered.

She shook her head. “Do you ever ask for help, Trent McBride?”

“Do you?” he countered.

He had her there. “At least let me call your brother.”

He shook his head. “He’ll tell Mom, and she’ll freak out and start hovering. She and Dad are planning to leave for a month-long cruise in a few weeks, and I don’t want to give her reason to delay it again. They both need the vacation very badly after everything that’s happened in our family during the past couple of years.”

She didn’t know what had happened in his family, but it was an argument she couldn’t really refute. His concern for his parents obviously outweighed his own discomfort, and she wouldn’t have felt right going against his wishes. Painfully estranged from her own parents, she could only envy the close bonds she’d sensed in the McBride family. She could also identify with Trent’s need to prove himself independent of them.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked more gently. “Would a heating pad help?”

“Yeah.” He didn’t express his gratitude that she’d given up her insistence to call for help, but she saw it in his expression. “Thanks.”

“If I help you, can you make it to the couch?”

“I think so,” he answered cautiously.

“I’ll get the heating pad first. Don’t try to move—I’ll be right back.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” he muttered.

She hurried into the bedroom, still half convinced she should be calling an ambulance instead of trying to take care of him herself.

She should have known that Trent wouldn’t follow directions even when he was in terrible pain. She found him struggling to rise when she returned with the heating pad in hand. Making a sound of exasperation, she tossed the pad on the couch and moved to help him.

“You really are mule-headed, aren’t you?” she chided, bracing him with her shoulder. Her reaction to seeing his pallor and the pain in his eyes made her voice sharper than she had intended. “I told you to wait until I got back.”

“If I wanted to be lectured, I’d have called my mother,” he complained, his words slurred because he was forcing them through clenched teeth.

“Something we should probably be doing, anyway,” she retorted, all too aware of his body pressed full-length against hers. She had one arm around his waist, which confirmed her belief that he could stand to gain a few pounds. She could feel heat radiating through his washed-thin denim shirt. She pushed her instinctive feminine reactions to the back of her mind and concentrated on his welfare.

Lowering him to the couch was an ordeal in itself. She blinked back a film of sympathetic tears when a broken gasp escaped him. He was hurting so badly and she felt so helpless.

He barely fit on her secondhand couch. She slipped a throw pillow beneath his head and managed to position the heating pad at the small of his back, where he said the pain was most intense. She retrieved his glasses from the floor and set them on the coffee table within easy reach. “Can I get you anything?” she asked then, hovering beside the couch. “Something to drink? Soda? Hot tea, perhaps?”

“No, I’m okay for now. If you have houses to clean or something, feel free to go. I’ll just lie here a few minutes until the medication does its job, then I’ll head home.”

As anxious as he seemed to be for her to leave him to suffer in solitude, Annie had no intention of doing so. Nor did she intend to allow him to drive home. She wasn’t sure how she was going to accomplish that, exactly—whether it would involve calling his brother or simply threatening to do so—but she couldn’t stand back and let him do anything that foolish.

She would, however, refrain from hovering over him. “I have some things to do in the kitchen,” she told him. “Call out if you need me.”

He nodded, avoiding her eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

He wasn’t fine, of course. He looked miserable. Hurting, embarrassed, chagrined. As much as she hated leaving him, she knew he wanted privacy. Just to give herself something productive to do, she went into the kitchen and began to make lasagna, her hands busy but her thoughts focused on the man in the other room.

Everything she had heard about Trent McBride during the past couple of months reinforced her belief that he must hate being in this awkward situation. He’d apparently been accustomed to being treated like a local hero. Star athlete in school, extremely popular with the local girls, then on to the Air Force Academy, where he had excelled in his studies. She could imagine how dashing he must have looked in his pilot’s uniform.

It had to be galling for a man like that to be found on the floor, unable to walk even a few steps on his own.

She made herself wait twenty minutes before checking on him. He was asleep when she tiptoed into the living room. The pain medication he had taken must be strong, she thought, studying the hollows beneath his eyes. She wondered if he always carried it with him or if it had been a lucky coincidence that he’d had it today.

Funny how young he looked when he slept, she mused, unable to resist lingering another moment. She’d gotten into the habit of thinking of him as older than herself, when they were actually the same age. She realized now that the shallow lines around his eyes and mouth had been etched there by chronic pain. And even though she knew he would hate it, her heart twisted in sympathy.

He stirred restlessly against the throw pillow and she moved swiftly toward the door. She didn’t want him to wake up and find her watching him sleep. But as she returned to the kitchen, it occurred to her that she wouldn’t have minded standing there watching him a while longer.