Smitten

Two

Billy and Jason Kane had their noses pressed to the living room window when Elsie pulled up in her powder-blue '57 Cadillac.

"Holy cow," Jason said, "did you ever see a car like that? It's bigger than our garage. It's awesome."

Billy rolled his eyes back in his head. "Man, this is gonna be embarrassing."

Elsie parked in the driveway and shook her head at the house. Lizabeth was her favorite niece. She was bright and honest and tenderhearted to a fault. She was not especially practical, though. As a little girl she'd never allowed reality to get in the way of her imagination. And from the looks of her house, she hadn't changed much. The gray paint was peeling down to bare wood, and shutters hung at odd angles. One had fallen off completely and lay on the ground. Elsie looked up to the eaves, half expecting to see bats roosting. While she was studying the eaves, a squirrel jumped from a three-story oak tree onto the shake roof. Several pieces of the roof broke loose and came skittering down, crashing onto the ground. The squirrel slid along with the rotted cedar shakes until it reached the galvanized gutter, where it clung for dear life. The gutter broke loose from its moorings and swung free at one end, hurtling the squirrel into space for about twenty feet before it safely landed in an overgrown lilac bush. "Next time stay off of the roof," Elsie shouted at the squirrel. "Damn pea-brained rodent." She wrestled two huge suitcases out of the Caddy's backseat and headed for the front door.

"This is probably how you feel when you're in the water and you see Jaws coming," Jason said.

Billy opened the door and Elsie staggered in with the suitcases.

"Just because I'm having a time with these suitcases, don't for a minute think I'm some weak old lady," Elsie said.

Billy shook his head vigorously. "No ma'am. I didn't think that."

"And don't think I'm boring, either. I ever tell you about the time I caught a dope dealer practically single-handedly? Smacked right into him with that big old Cadillac. That was before I was married to Gus." She gave the living room a cursory glance and moved into the kitchen. "Too bad you kids never got to meet Gus. We were only married for two months when he had a heart attack." She opened the refrigerator and took stock. "You kids have lunch yet?"

"No," Jason said. "And I'm allergic to liver. It makes me throw up."

"Yeah," Elsie said, "I know what you mean. I was thinking more in the way of ice cream. How about we have ice cream for lunch." She set a half-gallon of chocolate ice cream on the table and found three spoons. "So what do you guys do for fun around here? You ever play bingo?"

Lizabeth watched Matt wipe the paint from the rim of the half-filled can and thump the lid secure with a hammer. She'd graduated magna cum laude from Amherst, but at the advanced age of thirty-two she didn't know the proper way to close up a can of paint. It was embarrassing. She hated being a helpless female.

Matt slid the can into a corner and turned to Lizabeth. "Now you know just about everything there is to know about painting."

She shook her head. "I don't know how to paint with a roller. After I learn how to use a roller I'm going to paint my living room."

"You don't need to learn how to paint with a roller. You go to a hardware store, and they'll give you a starter kit. It's easy." He saw the doubt on her face. "Didn't you ever help your husband paint?"

Lizabeth almost burst out laughing at the thought of Paul Kane with a paintbrush in his hand. "My husband never painted. He hired people to paint."

"How about your dad? Didn't he ever paint anything?"

"My father is Malcolm Slye. If you were from Virginia you'd know that name. He's a third-generation tobacco baron, and he was smart enough to diversify. He works very hard, but he doesn't paint."

"That's a shame," Matt said. "There's a lot of satisfaction to painting. One minute you've got a dirty, dreary wall and the next thing you know it's fresh and clean. Instant gratification." He unplugged the coffeepot and shut the basement lights off. "So you were the poor little rich girl, huh?"

"No. I was the rich little rich girl. I had a terrific childhood. I just never learned to paint."

"Uh-huh. What happened to Mister Wonderful, the guy who hired painters."

"You mean my ex-husband?" Her eyes narrowed slightly and the line of her mouth tightened. "It turned out we had different expectations about marriage. Paul expected me to close my eyes to constant indiscretions, and I expected him to be faithful to me."

"I'm sorry."

Lizabeth waved it away. "Actually, I could have lived with that. What finally drove me out of the marriage was when he insisted that the boys go to boarding school. Paul had political ambitions. He wanted me to be a perfect hostess. He found the children to be a burden."

"I don't think I like this guy."

"He was very charming," Lizabeth said. "But he was a jerk."

Matt studied her. She was okay. Really okay. She had strength. He grabbed her hand and led her up the stairs. "C'mon, I'm going to give you a ride home. And if you want I'll take a look at your house."

"I should warn you about my Aunt Elsie first," Lizabeth said. "Aunt Elsie is from my mother's side of the family. She's a little outspoken."

"I can handle it. I'm pretty brave when it comes to old ladies."

"You've never met an old lady like Aunt Elsie."

Matt could hear the affection in her voice. "She must be something special."

"She's… unique."

Ten minutes later they drove down Gainsborough and Matt parked his 4x4 Ford pickup in front of Lizabeth's house. The yard was tidy, and someone had planted clusters of flowers along the front porch, but the house itself was even worse than he'd remembered. His attention was distracted by the car in the driveway. "My God, what is that?"

"That's Elsie's car. If you see her on the road give her a wide berth. She didn't learn to drive until last year, and she doesn't have it perfected yet."

A small gray cat sat on the porch watching their approach.

"This is Bob the Cat. He adopted us about a week ago." She reached down and scratched the kitten's neck. The front door opened and two small boys tumbled out.

"Mom! We've had the most awesome day," Jason said. "Aunt Elsie's here. She took us for a ride in her car. It gets six miles to a gallon of gas. It's radical."

Billy was radiant. "She ran over the summer-school crossing guard's hat and got a ticket. And then she clipped a parking meter downtown. The meter had a big dent in it, but nothing happened to her car. Mom, that car is like a tank!"

"I heard that," Elsie said. "It wasn't my fault I ran over that policewoman's hat. She practically * threw it in the middle of the road, right in front of my car."

"Yeah," Billy said, "she got real flustered when she saw us barreling down on her in the Cadillac. She tried to jump out of the way and her hat flew off."

Lizabeth winced. "Elsie, you weren't speeding with the boys in the car, were you?"

"I don't think so, but sometimes my foot sticks on the floor mat…"

Billy rolled his eyes. "She wasn't speeding. She was barely moving. We never went over twenty-five. It was that she was driving down the middle of the road."

"It's that dang big car," Elsie said. "It don't fit in one lane. When I get some money I'm going to get myself one of them nice little Japanese cars." She noticed Matt standing to one side of the family group. "Who's this?"

"This is my boss, Matt Hallahan," Lizabeth said. "He's come over to take a look at the house for me. Matt, this is my aunt, Elsie Hawkins."

Elsie Hawkins had tightly curled steel-gray hair, sharp blue eyes, and an uncompromising mouth. She was dressed in support hose, tennis shoes, and a tailored blue shirtwaist dress that came to just below her knees. Matt thought she looked like she could wrestle alligators and win. Lizabeth affectionately ruffled Jason's hair. "And these are my sons, Jason and Billy."

Both boys had brown hair that had recently been cut. They were dressed in shorts and polo shirts and had skinned knees and quick smiles.

"Wow, he's got a tattoo," Jason said. "Neat!"

Elsie looked at the tattoo. "What's that funny writing on it?"

Matt felt his cheeks flush. He had mixed feelings about his tattoo. "It's Chinese. I joined the Navy right out of high school. We made a port call in Taiwan, and I got drunk and ended up with this tattoo."

"Pretty fancy," Elsie said. "What do those Chinese squiggles mean?"

"Uh…" He shifted from one foot to the other. "It's sort of a rhyme. It has to do with… sexual relations with a duck."

Elsie clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from giggling. "That's terrible," she said.

"I know what it is!" Jason said. "I heard it on cable television. It's…"

"Jason Kane!" Lizabeth said. "Don't you have a football to throw around?"

"Ferguson ate it."

"Ferguson's our dog," Lizabeth explained to Matt. "He eats things."

Matt grinned. The place was a loony bin. He loved it.

Lizabeth made an expansive gesture with her arms. "Well, what do you think of the house?"

He looked around critically. Even if he helped her, he doubted she could afford to do all the necessary work. His guess was she was trying to make it on her own, without her father's or her husband's money, and she was having a tough time of it. "Needs a little paint," he volunteered. "Maybe a few new shakes for the roof."

Elsie looked at him sideways. "Cut the baloney. What do you think it really needs?"

"A lot of paint. It has to be scraped and primed and then painted. It needs an entire new roof, new aluminum gutters, and all of the shutters need to be rehung."

"So, you're in the construction business," Elsie said. "I suppose you got ladders and paint scrapers and such. Why don't you stay for supper. We're having meat loaf."

Lizabeth groaned. "Aunt Elsie, that's not very subtle."

"I'm an old lady. I don't have to be subtle."

Matt grinned. "Meat loaf sounds great."

Elsie looked him over. "You a bachelor?"

"Yup."

"You could do worse," she said to Lizabeth.

Lizabeth glared a warning at Elsie. "He's my boss!"

"He make a pass at you yet?"

Lizabeth felt her ears burning.

"I knew it," Elsie said, turning back to the house. "Supper will be ready at five-thirty."

An hour later Matt sat on the porch steps and reviewed his findings with Lizabeth. "The toilets are easy and inexpensive to fix. You can do them right away. I have some rollers and brushes you can borrow, and for a relatively small amount of money you can paint the interior. You can do it one room at a time, if you want. The floors are going to need a professional. You have a new water heater and the furnace doesn't look half bad. That's on the plus side."

"Someday, this house is going to be beautiful," Lizabeth said. "I'm going to paint it yellow with white trim, and I'm going to plant flowers everywhere."

Matt leaned against the railing and closed his eyes. He was jealous of her, he realized. She had two kids and a wacky aunt, a dog, a cat, a house she loved. She had a future that was filled to the brim with life. Somehow, he hadn't fashioned that for himself. He lived in a rented town house, all alone. And he built houses for other people. It had always been enough, but right now it seemed de-pressingly deficient. "Lizabeth, your house is beautiful now. It will always be beautiful. It doesn't have anything to do with paint or plumbing or petunias. Your house is beautiful because you're beautiful."

It was a full minute before she could respond. No one had ever said anything like that to her before. It was the most perfect compliment she could imagine. Her eyes filled with tears, and she bit into her lower lip. "Thank you."

"Oh damn, you're not going to cry, are you?"

"I'm very emotional. It's one of my faults."

It was the sort of fault he could get used to, he thought. You would always know where you stood with her. She was guileless.

Jason ran across the lawn after a softball. He swept it up and threw it to his brother. "You want to play with us?" he asked Matt. "We need a pitcher."

"Do I get to bat?"

"Sure, you can be up first, but you'll never get anything off of Billy. He stinks as a pitcher."

Matt took the bat and knocked it against his rubber-soled boots a couple of times. He shuffled his feet and practiced his batter's stance. He looked Billy in the eye and set himself back for the pitch. "Okay, Billy Kane, give me your best shot," he said.

Billy slow-pitched him an underhand ball. Matt smiled and swung, enjoying the feel of connecting with the ball. It was a perfect line drive, fast and hard, and zoomed straight as an arrow to Elsie's Cadillac, where it shattered the passenger-side window.

There was a full minute of silence.

"You're a dead man," Billy said. "She's gonna kill you."

"Quick, get the baseball," Jason said. "Well tell her a meteor did it."

The screen door squeaked on its rusty hinges and Elsie stepped out onto the porch. "What was that crash?" There was an audible gasp when she saw her car, and then her false teeth came together with a sharp "click." She surveyed the group of bystanders with steely eyes and with her mouth drawn into a tight little line. Her eyes locked in on Matt, standing flat-footed, grinning his most endearing, sheepish grin, still holding the bat.

"Got good stuff on the ball?" she asked him.

"He's going to help us fix the toilets," Lizabeth said.

Elsie didn't blink. "The toilets, huh?"

"She doesn't look impressed," Matt whispered to Lizabeth. "Maybe we should up the ante. Tell her I'm going to paint the living room. Tell her I'll put a new floor in the bathroom."

"That isn't necessary," Lizabeth said. "It was an accident."

"I know that, and you know that, but Elsie looks like she's contemplating death by meat loaf." He looked over Lizabeth's shoulder at Elsie. "New bathroom floors," he called to her. "Ceramic tile."

That caught Elsie's attention. "Ceramic tile? Does that include new grout around the tub?"

Matt leaned into Lizabeth and murmured into her hair. "Everybody has his price."

The contact sent a rush of excitement skimming along Lizabeth's spine. She glanced at Matt from the corner of her eye. "Really? What's your price?"

"What do you want to buy?"

"What would you be willing to sell?"

The question hung in the air. He didn't know what he wanted to sell. He was afraid it might be everything. His heart, his soul, his chromosomes. He suspected that he offered to tile the bathroom not because he was afraid of Elsie, but because he wanted to impress Lizabeth. More than that, he wanted to do something nice for her. And he wanted to do something nice for the house. Now that he'd had a chance to see it up close, he realized it had wonderful potential. The basic structure was sound despite years of neglect. It was well laid out and had nice detail. Most important, it was the sort of house that grew on you. It had character. Just like Lizabeth.

When he didn't answer immediately Lizabeth's mouth curved into a grim smile. "Pretty scary question, huh?"

"The question's okay. It's the answer that's got me shaking in my boots."

Two days later Lizabeth looked at the can of paint Matt had set out for her and felt her temper kick in. "I've been on this job for three days and all I've done is paint trim. I'll admit I'm not too bright about construction work, but I'm smart enough to realize that trim does not ordinarily get four coats of paint."

Matt sighed. He didn't know what to do with her. He'd never had a woman on the job site before. Equal rights was fine in theory, but he didn't know how to go about putting it to work. He had some old-fashioned ideas about women. His natural instinct was to protect and pamper. Asking a woman to clean half a ton of construction debris from a basement made him feel like a brute. And to make matters even more complicated, he was in love. Flat out in love with Lizabeth Kane. Every day his feelings for her grew stronger. It had his stomach tied in knots. He'd asked her out, but she'd turned him down. Probably a weekend in Paris hadn't been a good choice for a first date. He'd gotten carried away, he admitted.

"I want to be treated like any trainee. I want to learn how to do carpenter things," Lizabeth said. "I've been watching the carpenters work on House Three, and most of what they're doing seems pretty straightforward."

"Lizabeth, it's ninety degrees outside, and it's only eight o'clock in the morning."

She crossed her arms over her chest and glared at him.

Matt made a frustrated gesture and kicked the can of paint into a corner. "You win. But you have to work with me. I want you where I can keep an eye on you."

"What kind of an attitude is that?"

"It's the best attitude I can manage right now."

Four hours later Lizabeth pushed her damp hair from her forehead and readjusted the baseball hat Matt had given her. She hadn't been more than three steps away from Matt all morning, hammering one nail for his twenty, and she was sure he was slowing his pace so he wouldn't embarrass her. He'd slathered suntan lotion on her fried neck, bandaged the bleeding blisters on her hands, and kicked a carpenter off the project for unnecessary cussing. He was driving her crazy.

He looked up when she paused in her hammering, and he smiled at her. "Want a soda?"

One more soda and she was sure she'd float away. He'd been pouring liquid into her since ten o'clock. Undoubtedly he knew what he was doing, but she couldn't take any more. "We have to talk."

Thank goodness. He didn't think he could endure another half hour of watching her work. She seemed so frail, with her curly hair tucked under the baseball cap and her yellow T-shirt clinging to her slim frame. Every time she picked up her hammer he felt his stomach tighten. He wanted to whisk her away to a cool restaurant. Get her all dressed up in something pretty and feed her strawberries dipped in chocolate. "We could take an early lunch break and talk in the shade, under the trees," he suggested hopefully.

"I don't want to take an early lunch break. I want to work like the rest of the men. I just don't want to work with you."

"Want to run that by me again?"

"You're overprotective. It's sweet of you to want to take care of me, but I need to stand on my own." She began to hammer while she talked. "I want to be accepted as an equal out here. That's never going to happen if you keep hovering over me like a mother hen."

He had a news flash for her. She was never going to be an equal. She was going to be the boss's wife. Equal that! "This is just your first day as a carpenter. You don't know anything."

"I know lots of things. I know how to hammer a nail. I can't hammer nails as fast as you can, but I can hammer them just as well. Look at this one. It's perfect."

Matt looked at the nail and agreed it was pretty good. "Okay, so you can hammer a nail, but you have no common sense. You let yourself get sunburned and blistered. And you try to carry things that are too heavy for you."

He was right. She'd been stupid. "I'll be better. Ill keep my hat on, and I'll wear gloves."

"What about the heavy stuff?"

"You'll have to settle for two out of three. I want to pull my weight."

Matt pressed his lips together. Damn stubborn female. She had him. There was no way he'd ever fire her as long as she wanted the job. And there was no way he could force her to obey his every command. He couldn't exactly duke it out with her if they had a disagreement. She'd never go out with him then. He took a deep breath and studied the toe of his work boot while he got his temper under control. "If you want to continue to work here you're going to have to work with me." He saw her nose belligerently tip up a fraction of an inch and he held up his hands. "However, I'll try to be less of a mother hen."

"I suppose that's an okay compromise." The truth is, she enjoyed being next to him. The shivery excitement was always there, but running parallel to that was a comfortable rapport. Matt Hallahan felt like a friend. Despite his tattoo, he felt like someone she'd known and liked for a very long time. And as long as she was being honest with herself, she had to admit that a part of her enjoyed being clucked over. It had been a lot of years since anyone had regarded her as fragile, probably because she wasn't, and while she couldn't let it interfere with learning her job, she secretly treasured the attention.

She was working on the second deck of the house, laying four-by-eight sections of three-quarter tongue-and-groove plywood. She stuck a nail into the wood and whacked it three times, driving it home. She moved over six inches and set another nail. She was beginning to understand why Matt liked building houses. Every hour you could stand back, look at your progress and know you were making something that would last a long, long time. Children would grow up in the house, they'd leave for college, get married, and return with children of their own-and still the house would remain. It was important that the house be built correctly, she decided. It wasn't just a matter of safety. It had to do with pride and creativity and immortality.

She stood up, took a step backward to admire her handiwork, and fell into the open stairwell. Benny Newfarmer, all two hundred and fifty-four pounds of him, was there to break her fall. He caught her square in the chest and crashed to the floor with a thud that carried the length of the cul-de-sac. Lizabeth sprawled across Newfarmer, stunned by the impact, and then rolled off his huge belly as if it were a giant beachball. "Sorry," she said to him. "Are you all right?"

Newfarmer stared unblinking into space, his breath coming in short gasps.

Bucky Moyer ambled over. "Cripes," he said, "I've never seen him flat on his back like this. He looks like a beached whale."

Lizabeth nervously cracked her knuckles. "Why isn't he saying anything? Why isn't he getting up? Maybe we should call an ambulance."

Bucky grinned. "Nah, he's okay. You just caught him by surprise. He's not used to women jumping on his body like that."

"Yeah, I'm okay," Newfarmer said, struggling to get up. "You just took me by surprise."

Lizabeth glanced over at Matt. He had his hands on his hips and his face looked as if it had been chiseled in granite. It was the sort of steely-eyed, hard-jawed look you get when you grit your teeth for a long time. She grimaced. "Are you mad at me?"

He unclenched his teeth and expelled a long breath. "No, I'm not mad at you. I'm just glad you didn't kill him. It would take a forklift to get him out of here." He unbuckled his carpenter's belt. "Lunch, everyone."

Matt sat back and waited until the men had dispersed. When he was alone with Lizabeth, he stared at her for a long time before speaking. He was torn between wanting to take her in his arms and hold her close, and wanting to shake her until her teeth rattled. "Lizabeth…"He was at a loss for words. What the hell was he supposed to say to her? He'd known her less than a week, and his heart had stopped when he saw her disappear down the stairwell. "Lizabeth, you really scared me." He gave a frustrated shake of his head, because what he'd said was so inadequate. If there had been more privacy he would have liked to make love to her. It was desire born of caring rather than passion. He wanted to join with her, share every intimacy, give her more pleasure than she'd ever imagined, let her see how precious she'd become to him. He pulled her to him and took her face in his hands while he slowly lowered his mouth to hers. He kissed her with infinite tenderness, slowly deepening the kiss while his hands roamed along her back, pressing her closer, needing to feel her soft warmth, needing to be reassured that she was all right… that she was his, at least for the moment.

Lizabeth tilted her head back so she could look at him. "That felt like a serious kiss."

"Mmmm. I'm having some pretty serious thoughts."

"I don't know if I'm ready for serious thoughts."

The pain went straight to his heart. He clapped a hand to his chest and grunted. "Boy, that hurts. The first time I have long-term plans for a relationship and look where it gets me. Heartbreak City."

He was a flirt, Lizabeth decided. The nicest man she'd ever met, and also the most outrageous. Long-term plans probably meant an hour and a half. She thought about his offer to take her to Paris and smiled, wondering what he would have done if she'd accepted.

"Sorry, I never get serious in the first four days."

"I suppose you're right," he admitted. "Four days isn't a lot of time. How long do you think it will take?"

'To get serious?" Lizabeth smiled. "I don't know. I don't mean to be insulting, but it's not high on my list of priorities. I have to find myself."

"I didn't know you were lost. Maybe you've been looking in the wrong places."

"Easy for you to joke about it," Lizabeth said. "You have a secure personality. You didn't grow up as 'Mac Slye's Kid.' And you didn't spend ten years as Paul Kane's wife and Jason and Billy Kane's mother. I used to buy T-shirts with my name written on them, hoping once in a while people would call me Lizabeth."

"You're exaggerating."

"Not by very much. I liked being a wife and mother, but when I got out on my own I realized my image had been much too closely tied to others."

"Seems to me you have a good grip on your image."

She studied his face, decided he meant it, and felt a rush of happiness. There were times, toward the end of her marriage, when she wasn't sure if there was any Lizabeth left at all. It was wonderful to know she'd survived.

"Well, we could be friends for a while," she said. "We could see how it turns out."