Love Beyond Reason(7)
"Can I help?"
Katherine jumped as she heard the voice so close behind her. "W-what? Oh, no. What did you want? A Coke?"
"Yeah, that'd be nice." He hitched a thumb over his shoulder. "What do you call that color on the walls of the living room?"
She was nervously unscrewing the cap on a bottle of Coke she had found in the refrigerator. How long had it been there? What if it was flat? "The color? Oh, it's called terra cotta." She rattled the glass as she set it on the counter and reached for the ice in the freezer. The ice tray stuck and she almost broke a fingernail trying to pry it out.
"It's pretty. How'd you ever think of it? Isn't it a bit unusual?"
She laughed in spite of herself. "You should have seen my landlady's face when I asked permission to paint the room and showed her the sample. She thought I was crazy, but then finally agreed to it. You see, my sister Mary—" she broke off remembering suddenly who he was and why he was here.
He sensed her reticence and gently urged, "Yes? Your sister Mary..."
Katherine turned away from him and poured the Coke down the side of the ice-filled glass. "Mary was an artist. Sometimes for fun we'd plan rooms and imagine them in outlandish colors. One night she planned a room with orange walls, and surprisingly, we liked it. I've wanted to do a room like that ever since."
She extended the glass of Coke to him and he nodded his thanks. He moved aside and let her go before him back into the living room.
"Who's going to carry the firewood up the stairs?" he asked completely out of context.
His perception and keen observations were uncanny and disturbing. "Happy, my landlady, asked me the same thing. But I like fireplaces and hated seeing this one going to waste. A former tenant had bricked it in. I had it reopened. I guess I'll have to bring up the firewood one log at a time."
She stepped around the newspapers and the naked-looking chest of drawers. She had pulled out all the drawers for easier painting and stripped them of their hardware. He would think she was terribly messy. But why should his opinion of her matter?
"Please excuse this mess. I needed to do this on my day off, and I have to do it indoors so I'll be close to the baby." She could have bitten her tongue. Why did she make that reference to Allison? Somehow she hoped he would forget his objective and just go away. Did she want him to go away? Yes! she averred silently, but was not quite convinced.
He drained the Coke and put the glass on the coffee table after carefully taking a coaster out of its rack. Didn't he ever make a mistake, do anything wrong?
From the basket on the coffee table he picked up an orange spiked with whole cloves and sniffed it appreciatively. Replacing it, he reached for a bright green Granny Smith apple and gave it the same clinical analysis.
Katherine watched him warily as he crossed the room and stood in front of the large windows looking out over the tree- shaded yard. The white shutters had been pushed aside to allow Katherine a vista of the green expanse she loved.
Palms out, his hands slid into the back pockets of his jeans, and Katherine noticed that he could barely squeeze them between the layers of fabric which stretched so tightly across his slim hips.
The muscles of his shoulders and back stirred the cloth of his plaid cotton shirt. The cuffs had casually been rolled up to just under his elbows. She had never given such avid attention to a man before. But then had she ever seen legs so long and lean and—
"Nice trees," he observed. No comment was required, so she didn't offer one. Long moments of silence passed before he turned to her and asked softly, "Can I see the baby now?"
"She's sleeping," Katherine tried.
He didn't buy it. "I promise not to wake her."
She wanted to refuse him, but it would be useless. If he wanted to see the baby, she couldn't physically stop him. She sighed resignedly and indicated the room where Allison was taking her nap, completely unaware of the friction her existence generated between these two people.
Jace's large body seemed to fill the room as he bent over the crib and pulled back the light blanket.
Allison was in her usual sleeping position. She lay on her stomach, her head turned to one side, her knees drawn up under her tummy, her bottom stuck up in the air.
Katherine carefully watched Jace's reaction as he studied the baby whose gentle, rapid breath was the only sound in the close room. He reached out with one large brown hand and stroked the rosy cheek with his index finger.
"Hello, Allison," he whispered.
Katherine, who had been awed by the contrast of his hand against Allison's small head, turned quickly to look at him. "How did you know her name?" she asked. She had been mindful not to mention it to him thinking that the less of an individual the baby seemed to him, the less he would want her.
"The nurses at the hospital told me. When I started looking for you, that was the first place I went. They remembered Allison well. The circumstances of her birth and Mary's—" he broke off mid-sentence and looked at Katherine. Was it pain she saw in his eyes? "Anyway, they remembered her. And you."
"Me?"
"Oh, yes, I was told countless times how sweet and considerate you were. Not to mention how beautiful." His voice was a hoarse whisper, and Katherine avoided the blue eyes that looked at her from a face far too close to her own. She could feel his breath fanning her cheek.