emergency?”
“I’m in no position to give advice,” he said. A shadow crossed his face and she realized her request disturbed him more than he had let on. “Want to hand me those?” he said, indicating the dishes she’d let pile up while she talked.
She wanted to ask him about that, but he was sending out leave-it-alone signals like mad, so she stuck to the dishes, glancing at him now and then. He had such a strong face—straight nose, solid jaw and a great mouth, sensual and masculine. His hair brushed his collar, as if he’d been too busy for a haircut and he smelled of a lime aftershave with a hint of sandalwood.
His presence calmed her, as well as the slow, sure movements of his strong hands. He was so quiet. “If I didn’t talk, would you ever break the silence?” she finally said.
“Excuse me?” He stopped rinsing and looked at her.
“You hardly ever talk,” she said.
“When I need to, I do.”
“So is it that after all those years of listening to people bitch and moan, you’ve had enough?”
His mouth twitched. She’d amused him. That felt like a prize.
“Meanwhile, I hate silence. I say whatever comes into my head. I’m probably annoying the hell out of you, huh?”
“No. I enjoy you. Kitchen duty is flying by.”
“That’s flattering. I’m more amusing than greasy plates.”
He laughed, looking almost boyish. “I didn’t mean it quite like that, no.”
“You have a great laugh,” she said. “You should do it more.”
He pondered that. “You think I’m too serious?”
“At times, I guess. But I like how you are, Marcus.” She touched his forearm and felt another, stronger frisson of desire. “You’re…soothing.”
“I soothe you?” He lifted an eyebrow, looking wry. “That’s not exactly flattering, either.”
“Well, you have other effects on me, too,” she said softly, moving closer. “The opposite of soothing.”
“I see.” Heat sparked in his eyes, but only for an instant. Then his eyes went sad, almost haunted, and she sucked in a breath. Something awful had happened to Marcus. She wondered if she’d ever find out what it was.
CHAPTER FOUR
MARCUS LEFT THE KITCHEN as soon as the dishes were done, saying he needed to work on his book, but he was clearly avoiding more sexual byplay or, perhaps, thoughts of the old hurt he’d remembered. Possibly his ex-wife?
What if he withdrew altogether? Christine would hate that. He provided the only spice and spark to her time at Harmony House. Dammit. For all its thrills, sex could be such a pain. If she lost Marcus’s friendship because of her stupid libido…
What did he think about her anyway? Men were a puzzle to her. Maybe because she’d never really known her father and had only Harmony House’s hippies and drifters as examples of manhood. There was Bogie, of course, who was sweet, but mostly a ghost in her life.
Her first sex with Dylan had confused and kind of scared her. After that came Skip, a smooth operator who’d promised much and given little, then one, two, three more screwups before she finally learned her lesson—hold back her heart, stick with short-term fun and friendship.
She didn’t blame her past or anything. She’d screwed up all on her own. But she wished to hell she was better with men.
Christine closed the last cupboard and sighed. Time to try to talk with David.
Outside the front door, the porch smelled of sun-scorched wood, reminding her of summer, returning wet and shivery from a swim in the river to dig into a slice of watermelon warm from the garden, spitting seeds at the other kids, letting the juice run down her chin, not caring about being neat at all.
The porch, with its rockers, wooden swing and cable spool tables had always been a popular hangout for talk, cards, music or watching people play Frisbee or dance in the yard.
“Nice night.” Aurora’s voice, from a rocking chair, startled her out of her reverie.
“Yes, it is.”
“Where you headed?” her mother asked, sipping iced tea, the ice cubes rattling gently in her glass.
“To check on David. We had an argument.”
“I’d leave him be if I were you.”
Christine bit back a sharp response. Aurora had hardly been Parent of the Year and now she was dishing out advice? Christine forced down her spike of outrage and sank into the fabric hammock for a moment. Now was as good a time as any to update Aurora on the clay works.
Organizing her thoughts, she ran her hands over the colorful braids that formed the hammock. “I recognize this cloth. Where’s it from?”
“It used to be my bedspread. Bogie made the hammock. He can make you one if you like. He does that for people.”
“Maybe we could sell them. Handcrafted at a commune? I bet the gift shops where we’re placing our ceramics would buy tons.”
Her mother chuckled. “You are a slave to profit. David’s right.” She was in a good mood at least.
“We all have our gifts.” Christine fingered the familiar cloth, lost in memory for a moment. She’d loved her mother’s bed, the smell of vanilla and patchouli, the orange light through the Indian-print curtains on the window.
“I liked your waterbed…the way it jiggled. You used to tell me stories sometimes.” When Aurora allowed it, Christine would cuddle up to her, toying with her mother’s thick braid while Aurora talked and talked.
“You and your endless questions,” Aurora said. “You were relentless.”
“They were mostly about my father,” she said, remembering vividly. “You would never tell me much about him.”
“It wasn’t relevant.” She locked gazes with Christine. “Do you tell David all about Skip?”
“Skip is a train wreck. My father was a good man.” A police officer who died in the line of duty when Christine was three.
“I told you he loved you. That should have been enough.”
“I wanted to know everything.” She remembered the gold buttons on his blue uniform, and the smell of leather and aftershave. “You didn’t even save a picture.”
Aurora shrugged. That was that. End of topic.
Christine felt a stab of the helpless feeling she used to get over Aurora’s stubborn silences—wanting so much to know about her father and having Aurora lock him away and toss the key. At least Christine had grown out of that pointless pain.
All she wanted now was to keep this fragile peace with her mother until it was time to leave. They were too different, her mother too shut down for them to ever be close, which had been her old stupid fantasy.
“You went ahead and bought that computer, didn’t you?” Aurora said gruffly.
“It was a good price, so, yes.”
“But you didn’t clear it with me. We agreed—”
“It was the one you chose, Aurora, with the features you liked, remember?” Her mother had pored over the catalog Christine had searched out on her laptop. “Tomorrow I want to show you the draft of the Web site. Also the PayPal account.”
“PayPal? This is the first I’ve heard of that,” she snapped, eyes sparking in the dim light of the porch.
“You wanted something easy to manage, remember? Lucy and I worked out the details. If you don’t like