SEAL the Deal (15 page)

Her solarium.

Her solarium filled with toxic plants.

The timing couldn’t be worse.

Feeling deflated, she walked over to the
ominous hole in the wall and leaned against the side of it, ignored by the
workmen as they hauled away pieces of drywall and old insulation.

What if?
A little voice prodded in her brain, sounding scarily
like her grandmother. What if she were to put up solid walls around her
solarium? Solid walls instead of glass. And maybe skip the skylights—the
darn things just leaked all the time, anyway. Perhaps a set of paned windows
across the far wall.

It wouldn’t be a solarium, that’s for
certain. But a nice extra room. Small, but large enough for a crib, a changing
table, and a dresser. She could install one of those cute chandeliers with tiny
crystals and porcelain butterflies that she saw in that exclusive store in
upper Northwest DC.

She’d paint the room pink, of course. Perhaps
put a chair molding along the walls and do the lower side in a brighter hue.

Later, she could convert it into an
office. It would be nice to have a separate home office one day rather than
always using the kitchen table. She’d bet that would add more resale value to
her house than a solarium, and made a mental note to confirm that with Lacey.

A baby’s room. Could she make room for
that in her house? In her life? For a child who wasn’t even her own?

She eyed the foreman as he passed the
gaping hole. “Hey, Rob? Can I talk to you a minute?”

Mick had slept on piles of rubble. He had
marched across deserts in scorching heat carrying an eighty-pound rucksack on
his back, not knowing if the day might be his last. He had felt the burn of
shrapnel ripping into his flesh, and carried a near-dead body three miles over
his shoulder, even while his fatigues were drenched in blood.

But at this moment, wedged underneath a bathroom
sink with the base of the cabinet ramming mercilessly into his back and a drip
soaking his head, Mick couldn’t imagine anything less comfortable.

The plumber’s wrench slipped again against
the slick wet pipe, jamming his finger. He let out a salty curse more
appropriate on a ship, then remembered his manners. “Sorry, Mrs. B.”

“That’s quite all right, dear. But do
please give it up. I told you I was going to call a plumber.”

“No,” Mick said sharply. He had taken on
this task—this battle—and he was not about to let the leaky pipe
win.

“If you insist,” she sighed, sitting
alongside him on the toilet, top-down. “I certainly didn’t intend for you to
fix my leaky faucet when I invited you over for lunch.”

“I know,” he said through his clenched
teeth. “It should be a simple fix, though. Besides, that turkey club was worth
it.”

“I worry about you not eating well, Mick. You,
by yourself all the time. You should be settled down by now, eating a nice meal
with a family.”

The wrench slipped again, followed by the
necessary curses. This time, he felt less apologetic. “Sure, and probably
deciding how to drop the news that I’ll be gone to sea another six months, or
how to tell my wife that we have to pull the kids out of school and move to the
other side of the country. Yeah, not for me.”

“Other people do it.”

“Not me.”

“I see that,” Edith agreed, dropping the
subtlety. “And what about Lacey?”

“What about her?”

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with
her.”

“We’re just friends, Mrs. B. Neither of us
has interest in anything else. Well, not really, anyway.”

Edith lifted her eyebrows. “Not really?”

Mick remained silent, knowing it would be
in poor taste to tell a woman who was old enough to be his grandmother that he
was just looking for meaningless sex. Well, maybe not meaningless, but
certainly sex without complications. His friendship with Lacey had come to mean
too much to sacrifice it for a roll in the sack.

“Friends is fine, too, I suppose,” Edith
conceded. “Lacey’s such a dear. She’s been so helpful putting this fundraiser
together. I don’t know how I got along last year without her. I couldn’t help
hoping that there might have been a spark between you two.”

A spark?
Mick thought, frustrated. It was a lot more than a
spark. More like the Fourth of July fireworks display on the Mall in DC. But
with the wrong person at the wrong time for both of them.

“She’s the helpful sort,” he said with a
grunt, thinking how helpful it would be to have Lacey’s long legs wrapped
around him on a regular basis. Yep, he could use that kind of help. “Can you
hand me the towel there?”

“So long as you get along, Mick, because
I’ve come to treasure her friendship. In fact, since you do, would you mind
going to a tasting I set up for her?”

“A tasting?”

“At Eagle’s Point on the Bay where the fundraiser
will be. I have to decide which entrées I want served and the chef agreed to
fix up some samples for Lacey and me. But I’d much rather you went with Lacey
so that I could get a man’s perspective on the meal.”

 “A man’s perspective on the meal?” he
repeated back to her, skeptical.

“Well, yes. I’d like the men attending to
enjoy what they are eating. And if it was just Lacey and me selecting, then it
would probably end up being far too… feminine. Little quiches and finger
sandwiches. That sort of thing.”

“Then just serve up steak and potatoes. That’s
what the guys want.”

“Oh, Mick, don’t be so difficult. They
don’t serve simple steak and potatoes at a place like Eagle’s Point. If you saw
all the options that the chef is having us sample, you’d see why I need your
input. I haven’t asked you to do anything at all for me.”

“No, I’m just fixing your leaky sink,”
Mick grumbled, glaring at the old woman through the maze of pipes.

 “I meant for the fundraiser. And
I’ll remind you I never asked you to do this,” she finished, gently waving her
hand at the sink.

“Sounds like a set-up to me.” Mick enjoyed
Lacey’s company, but was happier in a group. The idea of sitting at a candlelit
table with her for an entire evening without Jack, Maeve, and Bess there to play
chaperone sounded like torture.

“Everything sounds like a set-up to you,
young man.” She slapped her hands down on her thighs. “Fine. I’ll ask some
other man to go with her.”

Mick relaxed, picturing some ancient,
harmless hospital benefactor eating dinner with Lacey. That worked fine for
him.

Edith continued, “Come to think of it,
there’s a handsome young doctor who specifically mentioned how Lacey caught his
eye when she visited the hospital with me last week. Of course! I’m sure he’d
love the opportunity to go with Lacey.”

Mick’s blood simmered at the thought of some
slick doctor moving in on Lacey. He peered out from under the sink to see if
she was bluffing.

Edith wore the perfect poker face. “Or you
could indulge an old woman who simply wants to see you eat a nice meal in
exchange for your less-than-expert epicurean advice.”

Drying the pipe, Mick let out a slow
breath. “Can you turn the water on, please?”

“Of course.”

He held his breath as he waited to see if
the drip returned. It was uncomfortable enough laying beneath a leaky sink, but
being a captive audience for this conversation made it even worse.

After a minute, he breathed a sigh of
relief. “I think it’s fixed.” Just then, a drip landed in his eye. “Damn it!”

“Not fixed?”

“No.”

“Mick, please stop and let me call a
plumber. I have to run some errands now, anyway.”

“No,” Mick barked. “Not. Giving. Up. On. This.”
Each word was punctuated with a grunt as he tugged on the wrench.

“All right. But lock up behind you, dear.”

Mick grumbled again.

“And can I count on you for the tasting? Or
shall I call Richard?”

“Who’s Richard?”

“Dr. Richard Hunt. That doctor I was
telling you about. Heart surgeon at the hospital. Such a remarkable young man,”
she said, gently stressing the word “young.”

Richard Hunt, Mick thought, noting the
name and fully intending to Google him tonight and see if this was a bluff. “Okay.
I’ll go with Lacey. But I’m not eating anything that isn’t cooked or has a name
I don’t recognize.”

***

It was at least another hour before the
drain was fixed. But he won the battle. His back was sore and he had lost
feeling in one finger, but he won.

He mopped up the water under the sink for
the last time and headed into the garage to return the wrench to Doc’s old
toolbox.

Glancing at the clock, he opted to give
himself some recovery time and helped himself to one of the Sam Adams that Mrs.
B always had on hand for him. Throwing back a few refreshing gulps, he sat
appeased at the kitchen table, glad it was Saturday.

He had to admit, he was beginning to enjoy
the concept of weekends. Who would have thought? When he was deployed, there
was no time off. War doesn’t take a two-day break after five days. One day just
runs into another.

He had never minded because he loved his
work. But after being stationed here for a few months, he was starting to look
forward to time when he wasn’t accountable to anyone. He could sip a beer in
the middle of the afternoon and not worry about letting his guard down. He
could look forward to seeing Lacey tonight for pizza and Scrabble.

Whoever thought a guy like him would be
excited about playing board games?

If he had any sense, he’d be at O’Toole’s
looking for any halfway-hot single woman who was content in a
short-term-leading-nowhere relationship with an officer like himself. God knew
this was the longest he had ever gone without sex. Well, except when he was
living in a war zone.

Besides, it was just a matter of time
before she sold that waterfront house she listed. And if she intended to
celebrate her success in a carnal way, Mick was going to make sure he was the
one she celebrated with.

Certainly not some damn doctor, he
thought. Lacey was too trusting to be in the company of someone like that. He
envisioned a perfectly preened guy in his Armani suit spewing smooth lines that
he had perfected from years of picking up women. The guy probably waxed his
eyebrows.

Mick felt his grip on the bottle tighten. He
suddenly wanted to strangle the man for even looking at Lacey.

She was so unsuspecting. So honest, he
thought as he took another sip. Nothing hidden. With her straightforward
clothes and her light coat of makeup, Mick already could guess exactly what she
looked like in the morning.

Oh, how he wanted to be there in the
morning one day to see for himself.

His eyes wandered to the wedding photo
across the room. Doc and Mrs. B looked so content, so complete in each other’s
company. That had always been the way they seemed, complete. Mick had to admit,
it was a little like how he felt when Lacy walked into a room. It wasn’t just a
surge of testosterone that urged him to take her on any nearby solid surface. There
was a feeling of satisfaction, of wholeness, just knowing she was there.

Mick let out a groan, painfully aware of
where his mind was wandering…not too far from picket fences and babies and
establishing roots.

Feeling oddly unsettled, he tossed back
the last of his beer and put it in the recycling bin. A folder with a real
estate agency’s logo caught his eye. It was the same agency where Lacey worked,
Mick was pretty sure. Too comfortable in his surroundings to even consider it
wasn’t his business, he opened the folder.

He scanned it carelessly at first. Then,
his blood pressure rising with each page, he went over the contents with
greater care.

It was a proposal to sell Mrs. B’s house. Prepared
by Lacey.

He stared at it in utter disbelief.

Lacey knew what this house meant to him. She
knew how vulnerable Mrs. B was right now. Yet apparently she had no problem
moving in for the kill, probably eyeing the huge commission that Mick noticed
listed on page six.

His eyes darted around the room, slightly
panicked, imagining potential buyers marching through this house—a house
he cherished.

The heat of betrayal burned a hole in his
stomach. What a fool he was, thinking Lacy was such a straight-shooter while
meanwhile, she’s plotting to take advantage of a vulnerable old woman and sell
the only place Mick had ever thought of as “home.”

He stormed out the door, nearly forgetting
to lock it behind him.

***

Lacey sat at the front desk of the
downtown real estate office and willed the phone to ring. She shouldn’t mind
the responsibility of covering phones. As the newest agent, she was the low man
on the totem pole. But no one would call today. People were too busy picking
out pumpkins with their children or taking long drives in the nearby
countryside to witness the changing of the leaves.