What the Heart Wants

“So what was your plan? Originally, I mean?” he asked her, his eyes back on the heavy Victorian china cabinet, which was a good eight feet tall.

She walked over to stand beside him. Her hands, too, traced the smooth dark finish. Maybe it wasn’t to her taste, but she could admire the craftsmanship that some gifted cabinetmaker had poured into his labors, and she liked how Kyle could appreciate it, as well. “I didn’t think I had a prayer of moving it very far, but hoped that I could shift it enough to take the carpet off the nail strip behind it, cut the piece out, then move the cabinet back. Most things I can at least wiggle and wobble. But that critter? Uh-uh.”

“It’s not fastened to the wall, is it? For support?” Kyle bent to examine the rear panel.

“No. I know Gran has had it moved before—you know, for carpet cleaning. It was a bear then.”

He turned around, studied the room again and nodded slowly. “I think your plan is the best one. So how about this? Why don’t we start ripping up the carpet, get it all torn out except for under the cabinet, and then use a piece of the discard upside down to protect the floor? That will make the cabinet easier to shift into place, too.”

“Ahh.” Allison smiled in appreciation. “That’s a brilliant tweak to my plan. I was worried about scarring the floor. I have no idea what sort of shape it’s in, but I didn’t want to add work. However...”

“You see a problem?”

“I’m all for free labor, but you didn’t sign on to help me rip out carpet.”

“Hey, I’m curious. I want to see what that atrocious carpet is hiding. Unless...are you too tired? You’ve been moving all this furniture this morning. Maybe you want a break?”

Allison chuckled. “We Shepherd women never tire. We have Davinia’s blood in us. If you’re game, I’m game. It’s not often I get a sucker to help me out.”

Soon after cutting, yanking and tugging, they both oohed and ahhed as Allison rolled back a swath of the Mamie pink to reveal the heart pine floor.

“A good cleaning and a coat of wax, and this will be good as new,” Kyle said, clearly admiring the dusty but still intact planks.

“And nothing for Gran to trip over.” Allison knelt beside him and skimmed the satin smooth surface of the wood with her index finger. “It’s definitely pretty. The upstairs floors aren’t nearly in this good a shape.”

“This is the original? From when the house was built?” After her nod, he said in a low voice, “Almost a crime to have covered this up in the first place.”

She frowned and sat back. “I don’t think it’s so bad to make a house your own. I mean, like you said, in 1954 it was every woman’s dream color. Gran didn’t have her own house, and this was her way of making it hers and new and modern.”

“If you’d seen some of the hideous updates I’ve witnessed, you’d understand what I meant,” Kyle said. “At least this was carpet and not permanent. The worst I saw was when someone decided they didn’t like their oak because it wasn’t ‘uniform’ in color, so they poured concrete over it to transform it into a really bad do-it-yourself terrazzo. Didn’t even try to salvage the old floor. Awful.”

Irritation pulled at Allison. She tried to smother it, tried to attribute it to the fact that she’d been working like a dog almost the entire morning and was tired, hungry and dirty. Kyle was helping her. She shouldn’t be annoyed with him.

But then he added, “Yeah, people don’t know what they have with these old homes. They just don’t appreciate them properly.”

“Oh, really,” she snapped. “I know what I’ve got on my hands—a huge old place that’s two times the size Gran needs, filled with plumbing and wiring that are obsolete and that I can’t get anyone to work on.”

He held up both hands. “Easy, easy. I live in an old house myself—a Sears kit home built in 1926. So I know how aggravating living in an old house can be.”

She rolled her eyes. “Ha. You’ve got a house fifty years younger than this one...and think what technological innovations came in that half century. Electricity. Plumbing. Real, modern plumbing. And drywall. An amazing invention, drywall.”

“Okay. Truce. I can see you love the old place,” he said. “Now how about we finish this job?”

“Sorry. I get so frustrated with this house. I want it safe and nice for Gran. That’s all. And here I am, chewing on the nice guy who got roped into more than he offered.” She couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Gran would not have approved of how rude Allison had been. Even when her grandmother was telling someone off, she did it with impeccable manners.

Kyle laid a hand on her arm. “It’s okay. People are allowed one meltdown per afternoon when they’re renovating a house over a century old. And I’ll spot you a bonus daily mini-tantrum, since Belle Paix was built before the turn of the century.”

Allison smiled, warmed by his good nature, and patted his hand.

An hour later they returned from dumping the last section of carpet by the side street bin. Allison stood beside Kyle as they stared at the big china cabinet, still in its original place.

“Are you sure,” she asked, “you don’t have a bunch of historical committee buddies just like you? You know, with strong backs and accommodating ways regarding free labor?”

The corners of his mouth quirked. “Sorry, no. Looks like it’s just you and me.”

“Good thing we’ve got a great team approach going, then. Let’s do this.”

Allison watched, her breath catching, as the ropy muscles in Kyle’s arms flexed when he used the hand truck to lever up his end of the cabinet. Would they be able to move it?

“How am I doing?” he asked.

She pressed her hands against her side. “Good—careful! Careful! It’s wobbling—not so high!”

Kyle didn’t argue, but lowered it. “Better?”

“Yep! Thanks for not arguing—most guys would.”

His breath came in a grunt of effort as he walked the end of cabinet the few inches to the carpet strip. “No point. Saving. My. Breath.”

Finally, after a few more near misses, the cabinet was on the scrap of carpet. Allison knelt in the close confines between it and the wall to start the task of ripping up the last section. She jumped when Kyle squeezed by her.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you. Here, let me give you a hand.”

His nearness seemed to cause her fingers to slip. All she could focus on was his scent, clean and crisp and slightly citrusy. She stared down at the carpet and tried to smother a helpless little laugh at how such a small thing rattled her.

“Having trouble?” he asked. Without another word, he leaned over her to tackle the carpet edge. Of course, it came loose without any hesitation, and she felt her cheeks flare doubly hot. “I think I got lucky,” Kyle told her.

He was close enough that she could see a nick where he’d cut himself shaving that morning. Close enough to allow her to drink in that divine clean scent of his. Her pulse hammered in her throat.

“I’ll take this piece out,” she mumbled, and managed to move away to give him—and her stupidly sensitive nose—space.

A few minutes later, the carpet was cleared, and they tackled the china cabinet once more. It landed with a solid thunk where it belonged.

Her heart racing from exertion and stress, Allison wiped her sweaty palms on her jeans. “That thing can stay there for another hundred years as far as I’m concerned,” she commented.

“I’ll second that.” Kyle had collapsed on the floor, his formerly pristine T-shirt now as grimy as hers. “How they cleaned under that thing, I don’t know.”

“Oh! I forgot to wax the floor under it!”

Kyle lay back on the oak planks, his eyes closed. “I promise, if the floor police come put you in jail, I’ll bail you out. That thing is not moving. At least, not by my hands.”

“Well, it’s not like anybody will see under it. Okay.” She joined him lying on the floor, staring up at the coffered ceiling. “Thank you.”

They lay there, exhausted, quiet. Every muscle of Allison’s body was quivering with fatigue. She wondered if Kyle felt as weary as she did. Probably. He’d had the heavy end.

The clock in the hall let loose a mellifluous series of chimes. “Look at the time. I’ve got to get cleaned up to visit Gran.” Allison scrambled up, adrenaline coursing through her. “If I don’t hurry, she’ll be in physical therapy, and after that she’s too tired for a good visit.”

“Let me get out of your hair, then. That is, if I can manage to find as much pep as you have,” Kyle told her. “You’ve worn me out.”

She extended a hand down to him. “Least I can do is help you up,” she said.

His hand in hers felt strong and capable, but she knew that already from their work together. He certainly wasn’t the stuffed shirt she’d thought him, when he’d been on her sidewalk a million years ago this morning. Maybe she should offer him supper one night in appreciation.

Kyle stood, took in the windows and the expanse of the dining room. “I can imagine that I’m back in 1888, and this room is brand-new. Those windows...wow.”

“Yeah. Those windows. They’re going. I’m getting Gran some double-paned ones that won’t leak air like a sieve.”

He stared over his shoulder at her, his eyebrows drawn. “You can’t.”

“Yes, I can. I have the money. A window guy’s coming out next week.”

Kyle’s frown deepened, out of concern, not anger, she thought. “No. We have rules. Ordinances. Any exterior change to a house in the historic district has to be approved. By the historic preservation committee. Didn’t you know that?”

“But as long as they look right, I don’t really see a problem, do you? I mean, I’m not putting in art deco glass block windows. I’ll pick out good-looking ones. Maybe get vinyl-clad. Easier to take care of.”

“Whoa, no.” He shook his head, then held up a hand, as if what she’d just said pained him deeply. “No. You can’t do that. We have a list.”

“A list?”

“Yeah. Of manufacturers to provide historically accurate windows. And no double-paned ones. Plus, these look to be in pretty good shape, I’d advocate repairing them instead of replacing them.”

Allison crossed her arms over her T-shirt and surveyed him. “Whoa, yourself. You can’t tell me what I can do with my own home—well, Gran’s. This house has been here forever. Surely it’s grandfathered in.”

“These ordinances protect you, protect the value of your home. Trust me, you’d hate what the house looked like with modern windows.”

“I hate seeing the power bill every month, that’s what I hate. Do you know how drafty these things are?” Allison realized her hands had moved to her hips and her voice possessed an edge to it. She tried to drop the attitude raging through her. Still, Kyle’s know-it-all tone irked her.

“I hear that all the time. And my house is the same way. The price you pay for living in a place that has character.”

Allison took in the stubborn jut of his jaw. This guy wasn’t budging. Surely, though, these rules couldn’t be as cut-and-dried as he made them out to be. Surely she could figure out a compromise, a workable solution. The city couldn’t dictate that she remain in a house exactly as it was in 1888.

She decided to change the subject. No point arguing about this any longer, at least not today. “I appreciate your help, but I’ve got to get cleaned up and get out of here if I’m going be on time to visit Gran.”

“I’ll see myself out. Thanks for letting me help.” Kyle’s smile was easy, free from the momentary irritation she’d spotted earlier.

“Thank you. I couldn’t have managed without you.”

He was halfway up the hall, but called over his shoulder, “Sure you could—you’ve got Davinia’s blood running through you, right?”

“Right,” she said. The front door closed behind him, and through the beveled glass inset, Allison stared at Kyle’s departing back as he strode down the walkway toward the wrought-iron fence.

Well, blast. She was probably in for a fight with the historical committee if he was anything to go by. A guy who thought it was a crime to put down carpet on heart-pine flooring would definitely think vinyl siding—even the very high-end vinyl siding she’d been looking at—was a mortal sin.

CHAPTER THREE

AS USUAL, the old house showed her who was boss. By the time Allison managed to coax hot water out of a cantankerous set of hundred-year-old pipes for a bath in the claw-foot tub, she had managed to shift from on-time-just-barely to well-and-truly-late.

She rushed down the narrow back stairs to the kitchen, all the while making a blood oath to find a plumber. Somewhere, somehow, there had to be one insane enough or broke enough or some combination of both to tackle the old house’s hodgepodge of patched pipes, and yank that upstairs bath into the twenty-first century.

How had Gran survived? Allison hadn’t remembered the house being so...obstinate. Okay, she thought to herself as she pulled out of the drive and made the turn toward Gran’s rehab facility, so houses don’t have souls, exactly, but this one sure does have a cantankerous personality. In the rehab facility, way down the hall from the physical therapy suite, she could hear her grandmother—just as cranky and stubborn as those old pipes had been, Allison thought with a chuckle.

“Young man, in my day, people didn’t rush their elders, no sirree! I’m moving, yes, I am, but I don’t trust that contraption.”

Allison heard the poor physical therapist’s low, conciliatory mumble, and in response, her gran came roaring back with, “Why, yes, I do want to go home! I’m doing these exercises, aren’t I? My goodness, you are a strong fellow, aren’t you? Are you single? My granddaughter is in need of a good husband—but notice I said good, not just any old husband. A girl would do worse to have the wrong fellow than none at all, if you ask me.”

Allison paused outside the door to allow her cheeks to cool off from the embarrassment. Her grandmother, huffing and puffing from her exertion, spoke up again. “That girl is a hard worker—a nurse, so you two ought to have plenty to talk about, you being in the medical field. She’s given up a big career in Atlanta to come back to Lombard to live with me, so that I can go home. And that’s why I’m doing these ridiculous exercises! As if I need to be on a bicycle at my age! Do you know how old I am? I’m eighty-nine! And before I broke my hip, I lived by myself and drove myself and did all my shopping and housekeeping. Oh, but these old bones...What’s that? Save my breath?”

Allison covered her mouth to hold back her giggle. Poor fellow. Some people might call Gran standoffish, but once she decided she liked you, you couldn’t get her to hush.

Allison decided she’d better rescue the therapist. Sure enough, he looked as done in as Gran when she came in the room. Still, Allison was glad to see her tiny grandmother with her fluffy white hair, pink-cheeked and determined. That was Gran—a tiger when it came to any sort of goal.

I guess I got that honestly, huh?

The therapist called it quits soon after Allison had taken a seat near Gran’s stationary bike to cheer her on. “You’re doing good, ma’am,” he told her. “Let’s give you a chance to recover.”

“Now, I’m no wimp,” Gran assured him. “I’ve got Davinia Shepherd’s blood in my veins, I have. And I’ve got to get back on my feet. I am determined that I’m going to be strong enough to climb the stairs to my old bedroom. No more sleeping in the library for this old gal.”

It took the man another ten minutes to convince Gran of the law of diminishing returns, and that he wasn’t going easy on her because “you think I’m some frail old lady.” At that point, Allison helped her to her walker and assisted her down the hall.

Halfway to Gran’s room, Allison had to tactfully suggest that they take a seat.

“No, no, I’ll get there—”

“No, Gran, it’s not you. I’m tired out from working on the house this morning. Can’t I have a little bit of a break?” Allison didn’t like lying to her grandmother, but what choice did she have?

Gran gave her a sharp-eyed glance. “Well, maybe a few minutes. Help me to that bench over there.”

Allison noted how Gran blew out a long breath as she lowered herself onto the bench. Yes, the physical therapy had worn her out. Still, she gave Allison a beautiful smile and patted the seat beside her.

“Sit down and tell me what you’ve been doing to the old place. I can’t believe how much I miss it. How many days is it until I can go home?”

“Now, Gran,” she hedged. “You know the deal. You work hard on the therapy and I work hard on the house, and when both of us get done—”

“Pish-posh, that house has been standing since 1888. It’s tougher than I am. It doesn’t need much—just a good airing out, most likely.”

Allison rolled her eyes. “No, not much—just new wiring, a new heat pump, about four tons of insulation, and new windows. And a swimming pool’s worth of paint.”

“Now, did I raise you to be sarcastic? Oh, heavens, I guess I did. You have taken up my sharp tongue, haven’t you?” Gran folded her hand over Allison’s, and it shocked her afresh to see how thin her grandmother’s fingers were. Lillian Shepherd Bell Thomas had always seemed a force of nature. Now Allison could detect a new frailty—as though her grandmother’s eighty-nine years had caught up with her in two short months.

She’s much stronger than she was. I have to remember that. The rehab facility wouldn’t let her plan on going home unless they thought she would be well enough.

It was as if Gran had read her mind. “Not much longer until I can be home—and don’t you worry too much about fixing up that old white elephant of a house, Allison.”

She squeezed her grandmother’s hand. “I have to do some things, Gran. You fell because of that old place—”

“I fell because I was stupid and forgot about that ragged edge on that carpet. I knew it was there.”

Allison decided not to rile her with another debate about whether it was the carpet that had tripped her. “Never mind, I fixed it. That’s what I was doing this morning—ripping all that stuff out, and it’s down to the heart pine again.”

“Land sakes.” Gran shook her head. “It’s a wonder with all that fat light wood the place didn’t go up in smoke years ago. I’ll bet it looks pretty. Once I had the carpet installed, I never did like that old mess your Pops talked me into putting in. Too much vacuuming. But he teased me so much about the color, I didn’t want to let him know I regretted it.”

“It was a lovely shade of pink,” Allison observed in the mildest of tones, knowing what the comment would provoke.

Her grandmother harrumphed. “Whatever possessed me to think Mamie pink was the cat’s pajamas, I’ll never know! Thank goodness I didn’t have the money to redo the bathrooms then—else it would look like somebody had spilled Pepto-Bismol over everything.”

In a more serious tone, Allison broached the topic she knew they had to discuss. “Gran, another reason I was late was that I had to talk with the man about installing the chair lift. He came first thing this morning, and that put me behind.”

“The chair lift?” Gran’s eyebrows skyrocketed. “We don’t need to bother with putting in that. These legs will do all the lifting I need.” She patted her thigh, which was much too bony to reassure Allison. “That’s money wasted. My grandmother never had to have a chair lift.”

Allison swallowed and prayed for some patience and more of that tact. “It’s not anything permanent, Gran. And we’ll put it on the back staircase, so it won’t be ugly, like you were afraid of. But it would mean you could come home sooner.”

Gran appeared appeased by this. “Well, now...”

“But...” Might as well say it. “The man told me the wiring needs to be updated before he could install it.”

“I’ll say. Not enough outlets in that house—never were. That’s going to be a bear of a job, sweetie, and pricey, even if you can find somebody willing to tackle it. Why, I’ve had electricians and plumbers not even get out of their trucks when they got a gander of the old place. They knew it was going to be a nightmare.”

“I have some money. And...Gran, I’d like to put in better windows...and maybe some siding.”

“Vinyl siding? Now that’s an idea. I’d looked at some—they got a kind that really looks good these days, made for old houses, not that stuff on double-wides. No more painting to have to contend with.”

Allison let out a breath. She had expected her to blow her top over the siding, but apparently pragmatism had won out. Sometimes Gran would surprise her like that.

Her grandmother’s expression soured and the lines in her face seemed to be etched more deeply.

“But it won’t get you too far,” she told Allison. “Not with the historical committee running roughshod over you, no sirree. Ha. More like the hysterical committee. Tried to tell ’em I needed to put siding on the house, to save on painting, but no-o-o. Got to have historically accurate paint, you do. Five colors!”

“I think the siding is probably doable—just a lot of paperwork, maybe talk to the committee members—” Allison stated, but her grandmother broke in.

“You’d better just skip all that, Allie, girl. Because that what’s-his-name—Mitchell? Some sort of professor, he is, but he’s the head honcho of that committee. He’s never going to approve any of that.”

“Kyle Mitchell? I met him today—”

“Well, then, you know what I mean, don’t you? Surprised he didn’t run off the chair lift guy, because they didn’t have such things in 1888. They didn’t have air-conditioning or penicillin back then, either, but I don’t imagine Kyle Mitchell would like to go back to those days, now would he?”

“I can’t believe the committee won’t see reason and use common sense,” Allison protested. “If I explain the situation—”

“Common sense? That’s why I call it the ‘hysterical committee.’ It doesn’t matter what the committee members think. It only matters what Kyle Mitchell tells ’em. Nope, I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you, not when dealing with that Kyle Mitchell.”

CHAPTER FOUR

KYLE RUBBED HIS eyes and groaned as he took in what had to be the most horrendous response to his essay question on the causes of the Boston Tea Party. “Because they were ‘tea’d’ off,” the freshman had scrawled. To better his chances at getting at least partial credit, he had doodled a drawing of a stick figure in a passable tricorne hat, shoving a crate.

Kyle squinted. Yep. That was steam coming out from under the brim.

The student wouldn’t remain a freshman for long with answers like that, Kyle thought. He riffled through the thick stack of exams and saw he still had at least two dozen left to go. If they were all like this one, at least grading them would be quicker than the first twenty-five test papers.

Just appreciate the fact that you’re not in Afghanistan like your big brother. Or even herding teenage football players around the state like your little brother. Teaching history is a lot cushier than either of those two jobs. Plus, you could have graded papers yesterday instead of volunteering free labor for Allison.

Ah, but then he wouldn’t have been granted admittance to the mysterious Belle Paix. And it was worth every sore muscle and the double dose of ibuprofen he’d gulped down this morning.

Beautiful.

For a flash, it wasn’t Belle Paix’s intact side hall with its intricate carved banister that came into his mind.

No. It was red hair. Yards of it. And the barest hint of freckles. And how her dimples danced when she smiled.

Kyle yanked his attention back to the next essay question. The hapless freshman had made a better stab at describing the opening battles of the American Revolution, but had still managed to make a total hash of it.

Unbidden, Allison ambushed Kyle’s thoughts again. He liked her. And that surprised him, because she didn’t seem to appreciate historical preservation in the slightest.