Until He Met Rachel Page 3

  She opened the drawer enough to peek. Naughty, silly, funny shower gifts. The more over-the-top the better. Most were still in their original packaging. Trevor hadn’t been the sexually adventurous type. Rachel had hoped that would eventually change, but they hadn’t had time.

  A clutching sensation that usually meant tears started in her throat and began to migrate upward, but she refused to give in to it. Yes, she missed being married. Not the lies, the passive-aggressive manipulation or the drama that had surrounded their divorce. But she missed the sex—and the physical closeness of two bodies sharing the same bed, kissing good-morning, a stray hug or two during the day.

  Too bad we weren’t close emotionally. Impatient with herself for wallowing even momentarily in If-Only-Ville, she swallowed the lump in her throat and yanked open the drawer. She’d dump the entire thing in a box and worry about disposing of the contents later. Who knew when she might meet someone she liked enough to risk getting involved? If there was a shelf-life date on any of these things, she’d add them to the stuff going to Goodwill.

  She had her hand on a package of French ticklers when a voice asked, “When are they coming?”

  She spun around so fast, she nearly slid off the bare pillow-top mattress. “What? Who?”

  “The movers,” Jack said, his tone implying she was a little slow.

  Rachel used her foot to close the drawer. “Tomorrow afternoon. Why?”

  He patted the cell phone holster at his hip like a gunslinger checking his six-gun. “My escrow closes at four and I was thinking about heading back right away. I don’t want to leave you stranded if you get any legitimate offers on the Porsche.”

  She sighed. “I don’t see that happening anytime soon.” Sadly, the promising sale she’d been counting on had fallen through. Since then, the only responses to her online ad were from scam artists. “Unless I was dumb enough to take a foreign cashier’s check with extra money to cover the cost of overseas shipping,” she said, shaking her head. “Do they think everyone who is trying to sell a high value item is so desperate they’ll fall for that kind of crap?”

  Jack shrugged and shook his head. “Sometimes people believe what they want to be true. Given the market, maybe you’d be better off putting it in storage, too.”

  She’d considered the idea but that would mean taking out a loan to buy another vehicle. Something she was loath to do. “Maybe I should move in with Mom for a couple of months. Do some temping. Until I’ve saved enough to pay cash for a car.”

  Her brother crossed the room. “Listen, Rae, I know things are going to be tight for a while, but I really hate seeing you doubt yourself,” he said, resting his hand on her shoulder. “You need to make a clean break. I’ll loan you money if you need it.”

  She made a face. “You bought a new house and sank a bundle into remodeling. Plus, you’re getting married and opening a new business, Jack. I’m not about to ask anything from you. Except maybe a reference. From your wife-to-be.”

  He cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

  “I want Rufus Miller as my first client. Based on the two birdhouses I sold within hours of putting them in the window of Native Arts yesterday, I think the market is ripe for his kind of art—humble, hopeful and affordable. All he needs is the right Web site and a higher online profile. Which is where I come in.”

  Jack’s jaw dropped. “You met Rufus Miller? He spoke? Really? Kat made him sound like Howard Hughes.”

  “He struck me as shy and slightly mistrustful. But he seemed fond of Kat. Maybe she could put in a good word for me.”

  Jack thought for a moment. “I’m sure she would. But do you know if he can afford to hire you? You can’t build him a Web site for free, and is he even computer savvy enough to process orders and do all the peripheral stuff that comes with online sales?”

  Good questions she didn’t have answers for. But she planned to find out. “I don’t know. But I have another potential client in mind, too.” She grinned at him. “You.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. Your new dental clinic is going to need a Web site. I have some ideas about making it more interactive and drawing traffic. Would you like to hear them?”

  “Now? Shouldn’t I get the place open for business first?”

  She lightly touched his shoulder. “It’s never too soon to think about marketing.” She was only half-teasing. “But I didn’t bring it up before because I know how busy you’ve been.”

  He nodded. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll give you free rein with my site if you promise to think about coming to work for me. You’d be great as my office manager. You’ll keep me profitable, and I’d like to do some pro bono work the way Dad did.” He winced slightly. “Only smarter. You know what I mean.”

  She did. Their father’s passion of helping underprivileged children made him an easy target for an unscrupulous family. The betrayal had hurt a thousand times more than the loss of business and damage to his reputation.

  “I do. That’s great. I’ll pitch in any way I can. And knowing I have a Plan B makes this whole move a little less terrifying. But I promised myself a fresh start doing something I think I might be pretty darn good at. If I don’t try, I’ll always regret it.”

  Jack looped one arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze. “I hear you. Now, let’s get this show on the road. What’s going with you and what’s going into the storage pod?”

  She looked around. “The moving company’s checklist recommended keeping out any personal items I can’t live without for three to six months.”

  “Then, you start sorting. I’ll—” He was interrupted by the jingle of the phone at his waist. He whipped it from the holster and put it to his ear. “Hello? Mac. What a surprise. What’s up?”

  Mac McGannon was Libby’s brother. Char had given Rachel the lowdown on all of her Sentinel Pass friends. Since Mac and his daughter, Megan, lived nearby Libby’s guesthouse, Rachel assumed they’d meet soon enough. She half listened as she dumped the contents of her bedside drawer into the open box. She’d left the tape downstairs so she folded the flaps inside one another to create a makeshift lock.

  “Really?” Jack exclaimed. “That’s great. Sure. Give him my number. I think she’ll be very interested. Thanks for thinking of us. And tell your sister I look forward to seeing her soon. ’Bye.”

  Jack flashed his big-brothers-rock grin and said, “Mac’s mechanic friend in Loveland has a car for sale. A four-wheel-drive Ford Explorer. Needs tires, but it’s in excellent shape and he’ll make you a great deal as a favor to Mac.”

  She pushed the box toward the center of the room, undecided about how to label it and whether or not it should go into long-term storage.

  “Are you interested?”

  “If I can afford it, yes. But I can’t do anything until I sell the Porsche.”

  Jack groaned. “Forget about the Porsche. It’s winter. Unless you can find a buyer in Florida, it’s going to be a tough sell. I’ll lend you the money. I know you’re good for it. If you like the Explorer when we look at it, we’ll give Mac’s friend cash.”

  “Are planning to rob a bank?”

  His grin was almost blinding. “No, dummy. I’m getting paid for my house today. Remember? So what do you think?”

  She smiled weakly. “I think it’s a good thing Mom is in Florida.”

  His laugh sounded wry and carefree. Far different from the Jack she’d known most of her life. The serious, almost dour orthodontist who never made a move without consulting his day planner.

  She wanted to drink from the same well of happiness, but his had a name: Kat. And making sure their wedding came off without a hitch was Rachel’s first order of business once she got settled in Sentinel Pass. Well, right after nailing Rufus as her client.

  Jack returned a moment later, a dozen flattened boxes under one arm, tape, scissors and a roll of newsprint in the other. “Ready?”

  She opened the double doors to the huge walk-in closet that was now half-
empty. She stood there a moment, remembering what it had been like to share space with another person. The man she thought she loved.

  Jack must have sensed her pain. He tousled her head in a big-brother gesture. “Forget the golf jerk. You’re moving to Sentinel Pass, the swoo center of the earth. If you’re open and receptive, the right person will find you.”

  Swoo. She’d heard Kat mention the word, but since love, lust and sex were not part of her current vocabulary, Rachel had put any thought about the future—beyond her business dream—out of her mind. Her lip curled in a snarl. “Well, thanks to Trevor, I’m currently closed and unreceptive. So, tell your swoo to stay the hell away from me.”

  She thought she came off sounding tough and belligerent, but Jack merely rolled his eyes. “Right. Like any of us has control over who we fall in love with.”

  A swift jolt of panic grabbed her around the throat. “We do, Jack,” she insisted. “We must. I have to believe I’ve learned from my mistakes. Real love is slow and steady, not flashy and all for show. If it isn’t, I don’t want anything to do with it.” She gave him a stern look. “Now, can we drop the subject? New car. New business. Living out of a suitcase. Isn’t that enough for one person to handle at a time?”

  “I suppose. I just want you to be as happy as I am. If I see any opportunity to play matchmaker, I’ll take it.”

  She grabbed the scissors and carefully snipped a hunk of tape. “You might want to talk to Mom, first,” she said, eyes narrowing. “She tried picking my Mr. Perfect and we both know how well that turned out.”

  Her reply seemed to give him pause. “But Sentinel Pass doesn’t have a golf course. That has to count for something.”

  She laughed, of course. It was either that or cry. And she’d done enough of that after Trevor left. This was her fresh start and she planned to make the most of it.

  “YO, RUFUS. ARE you home?”

  A man’s voice was faintly audible over the din of barking. Rufus could go for days without hearing another human voice. He had his art, his music, his dogs. He didn’t need more. Or so he wished.

  “Damn,” he muttered, getting to his feet.

  His workbench was a mess, but the good, creative kind of clutter that often led to inspiration. He rarely cleaned it off for fear he might miss something.

  He hated to be interrupted and his dogs made sure nobody got close enough to sneak up on him. Clive, his regular letter carrier, had learned the hard way not to get out of his postal vehicle until Rufus was present. Rat-Girl, Chumley and Fred were shoulder-to-shoulder, barking incessantly when Rufus ducked through the door of his shop and started toward the center of the turnaround, where Clive was waiting.

  “What now?”

  Clive had been delivering to Rufus for years. He didn’t expect courtesy. Heck, in the early days, Rufus took his cues from Clive, who knew this country better than anyone. Clive was only a few years older than Rufus, but he seemed ancient and entrenched—two things that would have spelled death to the man Rufus used to be.

  “You gotta sign for this,” Clive said, holding a letter with a green label attached to it.

  Damn. Another one. The registered letters started arriving several months earlier when the genius behind Rufus’s carefully designed stock portfolio was arrested for running one of the largest Ponzi schemes in history. Rufus had realized in a heartbeat that his days of hiding in the mountains and living off his investments were over. If he didn’t start making money again, Stephen’s House would never be completed.

  He scribbled his name across the bottom of the form. The gesture reminded him of a time when he’d been asked to sign autographs by breathless young women who would have done anything he asked. Anything. And more often than not he did ask. Why not? he figured. “We all gotta die someday. So you might as well live it up while you have the chance,” he used to pompously spout.

  His unwritten credo. One he’d applied to the max—right up to the day his doctor said, “R.J., I hate to have to tell you this, but you have skin cancer.”

  Melanoma. An unremarkable word with remarkable power.

  “I heard you put some of your birdhouses down at Char’s place,” Clive said, ripping the green card off the envelope.

  “What about it?”

  “Nothin’. Just makin’ conversation. Heard she’s hooked up with a guy from the Rez.”

  Something in the man’s tone told Rufus the word was meant as a slight. Rufus didn’t like gossip—especially the narrow-minded judgmental kind.

  Before Rufus could say so, Clive added, “You know she went to California all of a sudden and put the sister of Kat’s new guy—the dentist—in charge of the store. Pretty crazy, don’t you think? Handing over your business to a stranger just like that?” He snapped his fingers for emphasis.

  The dogs started barking again.

  Clive clapped his hands over his ears. “Noisy bunch.”

  Rufus didn’t say anything more so the mail carrier shrugged and put his truck in gear.

  Once the man was out of sight, Rufus walked across the central square toward his house, which sat on a slight knoll. He’d planned to put in steps and maybe a sidewalk at one time, but then figured why bother? More to shovel in the winter.

  Always conscious of the position of the sun, he hurried to the roughly hewn steps of his front porch and sat, stretching out his legs. There were patches of snow under the trees and in the shade but his south-facing home was warm and pleasant. He scooted backward slightly so his face and hands, the only parts of his body not covered by clothing, were in the shade. His thick beard would protect his face, but the skin around his eyes was vulnerable, as were the backs of his hands.

  All three dogs looked at this proximity as a chance to vie for their master’s attention. He rubbed, hugged, patted and got licked more than he wanted. The smell of wet dog fur was strong, but it beat the contact high he sometimes got from the glue and sealer he used on his projects.

  He set the mail aside and hunched forward to scrape a spot of glue from his fingertip. After his encounter four days earlier with Rachel Grey—the woman he assumed Clive had been talking about—Rufus had returned home surprisingly energized. Her praise and enthusiasm for his work had been infectious. New ideas had flooded his brain and he’d worked almost nonstop, taking short naps on the sofa near the wood-burning stove in the shop.

  He hadn’t realized how much he needed to hear an outsider’s affirmation that his work had value. He was looking forward to showing her the new three-story model that he’d decorated for the holidays, using dried berries and garlands woven of pine needles.

  He’d stayed away from making any more of the freeform birdfeeders that Kat and Jenna Murphy had claimed carried sexual connotations.

  Yes, they’d sold well. But they weren’t his favorite to make. Each one required him to think back to a dark, turbulent time in his life when sex was his recreational drug of choice. His new life was far more subdued and—he believed—real.

  “Okay, guys,” he said to the dogs. “Break time is over. I’ve got three more houses to finish before tomorrow.”

  Because tomorrow he was meeting with Rachel Grey again. She’d sent word via an e-mail to Char that she would be in town by then and would he mind meeting her at Libby’s guest house? Char had given him the message when he returned to Native Arts to pick up his check for the two Dreamhouses, which had sold.

  Since Rufus didn’t have Internet service at his cabin, he’d gotten in the habit of checking his e-mail twice a week at the Sentinel Pass Civic Center. The producers of the TV show Sentinel Passtime had donated half a dozen computers for the townspeople to use. Rufus’s occasional sales through craigslist and eBay had doubled his contact with the human population, but he knew his exposure would be even greater if he agreed to hire Rachel.

  He was pretty sure no one would ever make the connection between R. J. Milne and Rufus Miller, a name that combined his maternal grandparents’ surname and his childhood dog’s moniker.
Enough time and distance separated his current life from the flash-in-the-pan fame that had burned brightly then disappeared from sight…and memory.

  He gave each dog one last pat on the head. “Whew, guys. Wet dog smell. It’s going to be a long winter if I have to share a bed with you.”

  Not that that was likely. His sleeping quarters were in the loft and, so far, none of his motley crew had learned to climb a spiral staircase. But the nights were getting longer and lonelier. Maybe he’d end up downstairs with them.

  The sad thought made him frown, but he quickly pushed it aside and took in a deep breath. Positive thoughts were good medicine. He’d learned that a long time ago and still believed it.

  He rubbed his hands together, partly to warm them up and partly in anticipation of starting his next Dreamhouse. He was pleased with his recent creative flow and wondered if Rachel would be impressed.

  “Whoa.” He stopped abruptly, causing Fred to plow into his leg, nose-first. The dog let out a yelp of protest that made Rufus kneel. “Sorry, buddy,” he said, rubbing the homely dog behind his wide square head. “I don’t know what got into me. Since when do we care what anybody thinks?”

  The answer was never. Giving a damn about other people’s opinions had nearly killed him. He’d made supreme efforts to get past that form of egoism.

  And he especially didn’t care about a woman whose agenda he didn’t completely trust. He’d meet with her. He’d listen to her business proposal. But he had no intention of trying to conform his work, his art or his very specific goal to her idea of success.

  R. J. Milne would have bent over backward to meet her needs—especially if those needs served his own—but Rufus hadn’t been that guy for a long, long time. Thank God.

  CHAPTER THREE

  RACHEL’S PULSE WAS