No Place Like Home (12 page)

Kaye started to correct her, to tell Nora that the chocolates were from Brendan. But he interrupted. “I cannot tell a lie, Nora,” he said lazily. “I told Kaye you liked them best.”

Can’t tell a lie, my foot,
Kaye thought. He had told the strictest sort of truth, but he had certainly managed to leave the impression that the chocolates had been all her idea! Well, perhaps it was easier for him that way, she thought. Nora might feel that she shouldn’t accept gifts every time he came.

Nora opened the box and solemnly offered it around.

Brendan crunched a chocolate-dipped almond and told Kaye, his eyes dancing, “These aren’t bad, you know. You have very good taste.”

“
I’ll think of you every time I eat one, Miss Reardon,” Nora said. She tucked the box under her pillow and sat primly on the edge of the bed. “I’m so glad you stopped by, Brendan. I hate to bother you on the telephone, but Alma Wiggens told me today that there was a window open on the sun porch. Some careless person who was looking at it left it open, no doubt. I’d have taken care of it myself if I could only get over there to do so, but with the cold—”

“
You stay right where you are,” Brendan said. “I’ll stop on my way home and close the window.”

“
I’d so like to see it again,” Nora said wistfully.

“
I’ll take you over some day next spring.”

Kaye was baffled.
I haven’t the vaguest idea what they’re talking about,
she thought,
and I don’t think I should ask.

“
You know how careful I always was of it, Brendan,” Nora went on.

There was a harsh knock at the bedroom door. “Mom says your dinner’s ready and to get rid of your company right now,” the teenager said.

Nora’s eyes flickered with pain, and then she drew herself up even straighter. Kaye wanted to give her a hug, but she knew any show of sympathy would make it even more difficult for Nora. Her dignity, Kaye thought, was her only defense.

Brendan’s jaw set hard, but he said, easily enough, “I’ll see you on Saturday, Nora.”

“
You won’t forget the window, will you?”

“
I’ll take care of it right now. You don’t mind, do you, Kaye?”

“
Of course not,” Kaye said, wondering what it was that she was agreeing to.

“
Thank you, dear.” Then Nora’s eyes shadowed again, and she asked, almost fearfully, “Have you had any luck with the platter, Brendan?”

“
Oh, I almost forgot about that.”

Kaye’s heart was in her throat. The bad news would be another blow to this gallant lady who had already absorbed so much, and she wished there was some way of shielding her from it.

Brendan reached for his wallet. “The owner of a little shop downtown said she’d never seen anything quite like it.” He pulled out two twenty-dollar bills and handed them to Nora.

Kaye’s mouth dropped open. She shut it and concentrated on admiring the way Brendan had gotten around that one without telling a lie.

Nora gave a long sigh, and then tried to smile. “I’m so pleased, really I am, my dear,” she said. “And of course I don’t need a platter any more. But—well, it’s hard to let go of things like that. I painted it myself when I was just a girl, and I did like it so.”

“
I’m sure the new owner will treasure it,” Kaye said gently. “May I come and visit you again?”

Nora’s eyes took on a watery glow. “I’d be so pleased. But no more chocolates, you hear? When I can’t even offer you a glass of water, you shouldn’t bring me expensive things.”

“
I’ll just bring myself,” Kaye promised solemnly. She bit her tongue till they were back in the car, and then she said casually, looking out the window, “Make sure you don’t forget to take that platter out of the back seat before Saturday night.”

“
I just couldn’t tell her,” Brendan said. He sounded half-shy, like a child making a confession.

“
For heaven’s sake, don’t be ashamed of yourself! It would have broken my heart if you’d told her the truth. Where are we going, anyway? What’s this about a window and a sun porch?”

“
Among the other things Nora lost when she had to give up her convalescent home was her house. She couldn’t keep up the mortgage payments, so the bank repossessed it.”

“
And she’s still trying to take care of it.”

“
That’s right. The bank has had it listed for sale with my company for eighteen months, so I’ve been keeping an eye on it.”

“
Isn’t that an awfully long time for something to be on the market?”

“
Not considering the condition of the house.”

The moon was full, and it was only a couple of miles in light traffic from Nora’s new house to her old one. They drove through the historic preservation district that included some of the grand old homes of Henderson’s history. “It’s in a good neighborhood, at least,” Kaye said.

Brendan shrugged. “The street she lived on isn’t actually in the preservation area. It could be added any time, or it could be a slum in twenty years.”

“
I suppose you’re right,” Kaye said reluctantly.

Brendan swung the car into a gravel driveway where the snow lay in a smooth blanket, unbroken even by footprints. “It will just take me a second to check the window. Why don’t you just wait in the car? No sense in getting out in the snow.”

Kaye looked up at the house, and thought about it. Nora’s house was a nineteenth-century Queen Anne, with a shingled tower on one corner and a bay window on the top floor. There were loose clapboards here and there, and the porch floor sagged out of line. It badly needed a coat of paint. And from what Brendan had said, the inside was in even worse condition.

“
I think I will,” Kaye said. “After some of the things I’ve seen this week, I don’t think I can bear to look at another run-down house.”

“
It’s unpleasant even to walk through it. I’ll be back in just a minute.”

It was considerably longer than a minute, and the cold wind seemed to rock the car and creep through the steel to settle in her bones. Kaye saw lights flash on and off in the house; Brendan, she thought, was certainly making a complete inspection.

She leaned back in her seat and studied the house through half-closed eyes, thinking about the preservation district. Last summer there had been a neighborhood celebration here, with walking tours and some of the houses open to visitors, so everyone could see the marvelous work that was going on in these historic old homes.

I’d love to do something like that,
Kaye thought.
And the houses are certainly big enough—maybe Graham would like something in this neighborhood. I wonder if Brendan has thought of that—

She was out of the car and plunging through the knee-deep snow before she stopped to think that she was being a little hasty. She could tell Brendan about her brainstorm five minutes from now, or tomorrow, just as well. But by then she had reached the front porch, so she went on to the front door. It was oak, with an oval panel of beveled glass, etched in an intricate pattern. Kaye ran an appreciative finger across it, and then went inside, laughing at herself for her own naive eagerness to tell Brendan her new idea.

He was coming down the stairs. “What are you doing in here?” he asked lightly. “You couldn’t stand being left out in the cold?”

She giggled and threw out her arms, matching his own teasing attitude. “Hi, honey, I’m home!” she caroled.

He stopped as if he had suddenly run into a transparent wall and looked down at her, and Kaye stopped breathing. His eyes had gone so suddenly dark that there was no blue left in them, and she had never seen quite the same look in another man’s face as she saw in Brendan’s then. He came down the last few stairs, and across the hall to her, and took her in his arms.

Her heart was madly skipping beats, and her brain was staggering from fear to ecstasy and back.

“
You’ve been asking for this for a week,” he said huskily.

And then there was no reason for her heart to beat, because the electric jolt of his kiss was enough to keep her blood flowing. And her brain refused to think at all, merely to feel, as he held her, his mouth alternately demanding and beseeching, seeking and caressing. It seemed to Kaye as if the world had twisted to some new and crazy angle, and the only thing that kept her from spinning out into space was Brendan, holding her crushed against his body, so closely that it seemed there was not room for a whisper between them...

CHAPTER SEVEN

SANITY returned slowly. “Good God!” she whispered finally, staring up at him in shock. “You shouldn’t have done that, Brendan.”

“
I shouldn’t?” He sounded a little vague, as if he hadn’t used his voice in a month or two. “You’re the one who was issuing the come-hither looks, Kaye. I only accepted the invitation.”

Fury bubbled up within her. “How dare you suggest that I asked for that sort of behavior!”

“
If it upsets you so much,” he suggested gently, “why don’t you slap my face and go running out to the car? It might make you feel better.”

Kaye realized that she was not only still in his arms, but still very comfortably pressed against his chest with her hands nestled into the soft tweed of his jacket—the same jacket that had absorbed her tears only a few hours before.

“
Look,” she said, “because I got upset this afternoon and cried all over you doesn’t mean that I wanted to be kissed, for heaven’s sake.” She pulled away from him, much more slowly than she had intended, and tugged her coat collar up around her throat in an attempt to hide a blush that threatened to consume her.

“
If you say so,” Brendan said. He was leaning against the newel post, watching her thoughtfully.

Kaye looked around, eager to find anything to comment about that might make him stop looking at her like that. She felt absolutely naked under that unblinking blue gaze, and it frightened her. “Would you stop making a criminal case of it?” she asked desperately. “It was only a kiss, after all.”

“
You’re not being very logical, Kaye. First you get upset with me for kissing you, and now you say it wasn’t any big deal. I wonder,” he added thoughtfully, “which way Graham would see it.”

Kaye’s heart settled into her toes with a thump. “You wouldn’t dare tell him,” she said in breathless horror, and then could have bitten her tongue off.

If she’d only had the presence of mind to pretend that it didn’t matter! Not that Graham would be angry, she told herself desperately, but if Brendan was doing the telling, she could imagine the way it would end up. It certainly wouldn’t appear as one innocent kiss, broken off the instant that she realized what she was doing.

No, if Brendan told the story, it would be both painstakingly truthful and absolutely misleading...

“
Besides,” she said firmly, “you’re the one who started it. I have no responsibility in the matter at all.”

“
And I suppose next you’ll say that you weren’t even cooperating? I’ve kissed a few women in my life, Kaye, and I know the difference between one who enjoys it and one who doesn’t. You enjoyed it.”

He pushed himself away from the newel post, and Kaye shrank back against the front door. What if he intended to try to prove his point? she wondered fear fully. She was alone and defenseless here, with no one to come to her aid.

“
I’d suggest you be more careful with the signals you send in the future,” he said roughly. “Nora’s window wasn’t just left open, by the way. It’s been broken. I’m going to the basement to look for something to block it up with. Will you be all right here, or do you want to come along and continue your explanation? It’s such a charming story.”

She was determined not to react to the sarcasm in his voice. “I’ll be fine here, thanks.”

It was warm in the house, at least, she told herself, and it was going to take a while to fix the window. There was no sense in freezing out in the car.

And there was also no sense in standing in the front hall like a hat rack, waiting for him to finish, she told herself. It might leave a wrong impression.

She wandered through the downstairs rooms. At first she scarcely saw them; she was still too upset by that kiss, and his accusation that she had invited it. But eventually the house began to impress itself on her, its elaborately carved woodwork darkened by age, the old and priceless murals water-damaged and hanging loose from the walls of a big sun-room, the carpets stained and splotched. The kitchen was the worst. The ceiling had fallen, and broken plaster lay in heaps over the floor, the old stove, and the sink.

Brendan was coming up the basement stairs with a scrap of lumber. Kaye picked her way through the plaster and stared up into the hole that had been the kitchen ceiling. What looked like new copper pipes spanned the gap.

“
What happened to this house?” she asked. “It looks like a bomb hit it.”

For a moment, she thought he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “That’s one way to put it. I’ve also been told that the only way to improve the decor is to bring a bulldozer through.”

There was still a slightly-biting tone in his voice, but at least it wasn’t directed at her any more, Kaye thought with relief. Everything had returned to normal. “Surely Nora didn’t live here like this.”

“
Oh, no. When she moved out, you could see yourself in the wax on the hardwood floors.”