Goddess of Light (Goddess Summoning #3)(94)

"You've already been all over this with Eddie. He totally refuses to let you leave this room to do more than to have dinner on the deck until Friday."

Apollo's annoyed response was interrupted by a knock at the door. Pamela opened it to find Eddie's bulk filling the doorway.

"I believe I have a compromise in which Phoebus will be interested." The author stepped aside and made an imperious gesture. Two men carried into the room a small drafting table, followed by the architect Apollo had been working with on the bathhouse. "Behold, if you cannot come to the mountain, the mountain will come to you!"

"Brad! Shouldn't you be at the villa?" Apollo said.

"I should, but so should you, except I hear that a snake decided to change our plans." The architect clapped him on the shoulder and then apologized when he saw Apollo grit his teeth against the pain the abrupt movement had caused. "Sorry, Phoebus. Rattlesnake bit my brother-in-law last year. He said it hurt like hell, and it put him flat on his back for a week." He glanced up at Eddie. "Maybe we should take up where we left off tomorrow."

"No! Whatever you have in mind, I can assure you that I am up for it." Apollo said hastily.

"Ah, but only if you promise that you will not literally be 'up' for it." Eddie stepped into the room. "Bradley has the blueprints of the bathhouse to finalize with your help - but only if you stay abed and continue to rest."

"You have my oath," Apollo said, already sitting up straighter, his attention caught by the long, slick papers Bradley was unrolling and laying out on the drafting table.

"Come, Pamela," Eddie said. "We shall leave the bathhouse to the experts. The goddess awaits us in the car."

As they left the room, Apollo's gruff "The car is something that I will not miss today..." followed them down the hallway.

"Thank you, Eddie," Pamela said, squeezing the big man's arm.

He smiled down at her. "You are quite welcome, my dear. Phoebus does not strike me as a man who is comfortable with inactivity."

"You're right about that. Actually you're right about more than just that."

His smile turned contemplative. "You look happy this morning, Pamela."

"Yes, I am. I have decided that Semele didn't regret her choice," she said softly.

Chapter 31

Pamela glanced at her watch and gasped, "Eddie! It's four! Didn't you say our dinner reservations are for six?"

"Quite right you are, Pamela!" Eddie bellowed from across the chaotic courtyard. He lurched up from his bench and lumbered over to stand behind Matthew, who was hastily putting the finishing strokes on the fountain sketch. Artemis stepped delicately from her perch and joined him. Pamela could hear them both congratulating Matthew on a job well done.

A job well done...

It was Friday afternoon, and this job was anything but done. How had two and a half days passed so quickly? Pamela ran a hand through her hair. She was exhausted and stressed beyond belief. Her days had been filled with the intricacies of designing Eddie's dream villa: juggling painters and stone layers, solving fixture problems and fabric glitches. Her nights had been filled with Apollo and the sun's love. She'd had very little sleep, and had been working her butt off. And they were still behind schedule.

She wouldn't have traded one single instant of it.

"Pamela, how is this for the faux design on the home theater room walls?" The faux finisher flamboyantly pointed the tip of his feathered pen at a mock-up board that had been covered with a deep burgundy paint marbled with delicate webs of onyx and gold.

"Absolutely perfect this time, Steve!" she said with relief. "This is the exact finish I meant for the room."

"Fabulous! It's going to be just fabulous, dahling." He waved the feather in triumph. "I'll start on it first thing Monday morning," Steve gushed.

"I'll be here," Pamela said.

Steve nodded and fluttered back into the house to happily clean up and leave for the weekend. Much more grimly, Pamela began arranging the day's notes neatly into her briefcase. She would be here Monday. In Las Vegas. The modern mortal world. And Apollo and Artemis would be in Olympus.

There would be no more dinners for them on the deck with the fantastically entertaining Eddie. No more late-night discussions with Apollo about the new marble that had just arrived for the master bathroom - and had been completely the wrong color. No more sketches that the two of them created together, which would soon become stone mosaics on the floors of Eddie's new bathhouse.

But still her lips tilted up in a secret smile as she thought about the past couple days. Besides working with the architect, in person and then later through the phone and a lovely little laptop Eddie had provided, which the god had taken to with remarkable ease, Apollo was becoming quite the movie buff. Ancient god or not, there were certain things that were very like a modern man about him. Like the way he enjoyed learning about electronics, and how he had taken to the remote control and channel surfing. When she came in from working at the villa last night, he had been totally engrossed in the second movie of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

"Aragon reminds me of Hector. And the little hobbit - the little hobbit has the heart of Achilles' faithful Patroclus."

"Frodo is like someone named Patroclus?" she'd asked.