Anything for Her(53)

The basketball hoop she’d heard about hung on the peak of the garage. Nolan had even painted a free-throw line and what she thought was a three-point line on his court. She parked carefully to one side. Nolan was walking toward her from the workshop as she got out.

He kissed her. “Tour first?” he asked, lifting his head.

“Are you kidding? I can hardly wait to see your lair.”

He laughed and said something she didn’t hear. All her attention was on the enormous stone figure that stood outside the door, guarding the entry. Allie walked forward slowly and stopped a few feet away, surveying the stone man, for surely that’s what he was.

He had to be granite, and not one of the beautiful colored ones she’d seen used as countertops. No, he made her think of the massive foundations of the old Carnegie buildings, gray and rough-hewn. He had to be eight feet tall and was, in his own way, massive. His features weren’t quite clear. Although crude, as it seemed he had to be, he was also powerful. It was as if he was becoming a man, born from the rock. He had presence.

Astonished, Allie turned to Nolan and found he was watching her, his expression rueful. “This was one of my first efforts.”

“Is he a self-portrait?” She didn’t know what made her think that, but saw a flash of emotion on his face that told her she was right.

“You know, I wouldn’t have said that, but...yeah. Maybe.” One side of his mouth tilted up. “He was supposed to be advertising. He’s on my business cards.”

“He’s stunning,” she said.

“Thank you.”

Nolan opened the door and Allie found herself in an entry that reminded her of a mudroom. It held a utility sink and had a row of hooks from which hung dusty coveralls, various pairs of goggles and...she wasn’t quite sure.

“Ear protection,” he told her, seeing where she was looking. “Cutting stone, especially when I’m not using water, is damn noisy.”

He led her into the workshop itself, a fascinating space nothing like she’d pictured. For one thing, even though it was scrupulously neat, it seemed as if a pale dust had colored most surfaces. Much of the back wall was glass, and enormous skylights ensured even on a gray day, like today, the room was bright. The amount of large and somewhat mysterious equipment surprised her, too. Somehow she’d imagined him with a chisel in hand, although she knew that was naive.

He showed her saws mounted on rails and explained that only diamonds were hard enough to cut granite. He had polishers and cutters, some that he used dry, some that sprayed water on the granite as he worked, then ran into a couple of floor drains. An enormous workbench ran the width of the space, drawers and racks holding tools, drill bits, saws, sandpaper and all kinds of odd things, including jars of some white powder that Nolan told her was used to rub stone by hand.

“I go through saws and bits like you wouldn’t believe. I can sharpen the blades a few times, but I don’t like to stop when I’m working, so I have backups. And I have to replace them constantly.”

She turned slowly in place. The other side of the workroom was where he kept his unworked stone. He’d designed and built bins for every size and shape. Mostly she saw slabs, presumably intended for countertops, floors and the like. But there were chunks, too, sized from a square foot to ones taller than her, all raw. The colors were dull and uninteresting. She couldn’t imagine how he saw the potential in each piece.

He only laughed when she said that. “Practice. Sometimes I’m disappointed when I start cutting. Sometimes I’m astounded. You have to understand, there are quarries around the world that produce certain granite or marble of known quality. I handpick the stone I buy.”

He had other stones besides granite, too, although fewer pieces—marble, limestone, sandstone and alabaster.

He showed her some countertops that were ready for delivery and she watched the way he slid his fingers over the surfaces. She had trouble looking away from his hands. She knew what they felt like on her body.

Nolan tipped his head then and saw her looking at him. His eyes narrowed and the blue seemed to darken. She’d have sworn a good deal of the air in the room had been sucked out, maybe by one of those compressors he’d showed her.

“Your sculptures.” Her voice came out a little high. “Will you show me what you’re working on?”

He seemed to bank some of that fire. With a nod, he took her to the far corner of the room. An astonishing finished piece stood beside the huge double doors. As she gaped at it, Nolan stood back.