Believe in Me: A Rosewood Novel (45 page)

O
WEN WRAPPED HIS HANDS
around the edges of the old stove. “Ready? On the count of three,” he said as with a strong push, he and Jesse tipped it backward so that Doug could slide the dolly beneath it. Setting it back down, he and Jesse stepped back.

“So how was your weekend, Owen?” Jesse asked, wiping his forehead with the bottom of his T-shirt. As Ned had predicted, the temperature had skyrocketed, and the kitchen was as hot as the oven they were removing.

“It was good,” Owen said. Damn good. Even with Jordan worried as hell about Jade, it had been near-perfect, but Owen didn’t want to go overboard in his response since Doug and Jesse had picked up on the fact that he and Jordan had a thing going on. “And yours?”

“Excellent. I hit this bar on the edge of town Friday night. Different kind of scene from your typical Warburg watering hole.”

“You mean you didn’t have to dig out your seersucker jacket to fit in?” Doug grinned.

“Didn’t have to flash my Amex gold card, either. So what surprised me was that some of the women there were extra fine, way above average. It’s too bad this job will be finished soon. I wouldn’t mind getting to know a few of them better.”

“Something tells me you’ll make the most of these last couple of weeks,” Owen said. He, too, felt a regret that he’d spent so many nights working like the devil on the
house. The renovation was wrapping up sooner than he wished.

“I’ll do my best.” Jesse grinned.

“So what time’s Jordan coming over?” Doug asked as he began rolling the stove toward the back door.

“In about an hour.” The jolt of anticipation that coursed through him was no less heady for being familiar. Owen had been with her practically all weekend, yet still couldn’t wait to see her.

“Good,” Doug grunted as they maneuvered the stove over the threshold. “We should be almost finished getting everything out of the kitchen by then and be set to pull up the flooring. Jordan’ll get a kick out of seeing the old wood exposed. The kids coming, too?”

“Yeah.” Owen didn’t even mind that. Being here this afternoon would provide a distraction for the kids, since Jade continued to refuse to give them riding lessons. Nothing bothered him about Jade’s acting out as much as this. Anything she dished out for Margot and Jordan, her primary targets, was okay. They could take it; they were grown-ups. But to drag the kids into her battle against the world was plain mean. Someone would have to give Jade a talking-to soon.

They worked steadily, dismantling the kitchen and carting the appliances and cabinets to the truck. The noise of their efforts masked that of Jordan’s arrival, so it wasn’t until he heard the stampede of little feet, Olivia’s high-pitched squeal, and Max’s signature “Hiya, Owen!” and “Hey, can I do that, too?” that he knew their peaceful grunt work was at an end.

Owen straightened and put his crowbar down. He gave Jordan a quick smile that didn’t come close to expressing how glad he was to see her before answering Max. “I think this cabinet might be a little heavy for you, Max.”

“I’m really strong.” Max came over and wrapped his hand about Owen’s crowbar and lifted it about an inch, his body wobbling with the effort. “See?”

“Yes, very impressive,” he said.

“Hey, Owen.” Jesse grinned, nodding at Olivia. “We didn’t know you had such a fan club.” Olivia had wrapped her arms about his leg as if she, well, Owen couldn’t figure out why she often did what she did, but as sweaty and hot as he was, what he did know was that he wasn’t going to make himself twice as hot by lifting her into his arms. But deciding that freeing his leg of Olivia was an exercise in futility, he let her be, ignoring Jesse’s wide grin.

“Olivia likes Owen a lot,” Jordan said. “We brought iced tea.”

“And cookies. We baked them after lunch,” Kate offered shyly.

Jordan was brilliant, Owen decided. After being in Jesse and Doug’s company these past weeks, she knew they liked sweets even more than Max did. And right now he could easily guzzle a half gallon of her iced tea. “That’s great. We’ll take a break once we’ve gotten this cabinet into the truck.”

“Can I help carry it?” Max asked, renewing his attempt to lift the crowbar.

“Wait until Owen and Jesse have gotten the cabinet onto the dolly, Max. Then maybe you can help push it outside. Olivia, you need to let go of Owen and come here. No, you’re too little to help. Kate, why don’t you hold the door open and then you can make sure Doug and Jesse are pushing the dolly up the truck ramp properly? Olivia and I will go get the cookies and the iced tea. And, Max, you have to listen and do what Owen says, or you won’t be able to help.”

“Okay, Mommy.”

Her little boy was in seventh heaven, Jordan thought, as she watched Max take a place between Owen and Doug, his little hands flat against the side of the wooden cabinet, making very manly grunts as he and the men pushed it along the floor to where Kate was holding the back door
before rolling it over the plywood that had been laid over the ground.

When Max reached the truck’s ramp, Jordan told him to come away, which he did with the greatest reluctance. Fortunately, seeing the contents of the truck’s interior was sufficiently distracting. “What’s all that stuff doing in there?”

“Those are the appliances and countertops we removed from the kitchen and butler’s pantry to make room for what your mom ordered,” Owen said. “We don’t need these parts but other people might, so after work Doug’s going to drive the truck to a place near Washington where people can come and get them and install them in their own kitchens. That way these things don’t go to waste.” He paused and, evidently seeing that Max hadn’t quite grasped his explanation, added, “It’s kind of like recycling.”

“Oh, yeah,” Max said brightening. “We do that at school and at home. And I told my teacher, Miss Farber, that at the barn Tito puts the horse poop in a special place so that Patrick can use it for the flowers in our garden. She said that’s recycling, too. We have a lot of horse poop.”

“Horse poop happens,” Owen replied, hiding his grin somewhat more successfully than Jesse or Doug.

“Yeah,” said Max. When the cabinet was stowed in the truck’s belly, he asked, “So what do we now, Owen?”

“Well, right now I think we should drink something cold and then it’ll be time to pull up the flooring.”

“Neato.”

Owen felt another grin spread across his face. He had to hand it to Max. He definitely attacked life with gusto. There were few things didn’t strike him as “neato.” Even during the break they took outside, in the shade of a large copper beech, Max was a bubbling fountain of enthusiasm.

Circling its wide trunk with a cup of grape juice in one hand and a cookie in the other, he said, “That’s a really big tree,” thrusting his cookie at it for emphasis. “Have you climbed it, Owen?”

Owen glanced up at the tree. Max was right. The tree was big, with an impressive canopy and long limbs, the lowest about five feet off the ground. “No, I haven’t.”

“We could climb it.”

“I think we need to deal with the kitchen floor first. That’s going to be fun for your mom.” And he let his gaze stray to Jordan, something he’d been trying to limit doing with the kids and Doug and Jesse around. She was sitting with Olivia plunked in the middle of her lap and was showing her daughter the purplish gold of the beech leaf. Her reddish head was bent close to Olivia’s light blond one, and the sight did something strange to his heart. What was it that made her more beautiful to him than any other woman, even when she had a toddler planted in her lap?

“But after that we can climb the tree, right, Owen? I want to go really high up, okay?”

“Sure,” he said, his eyes never leaving Jordan.

The old linoleum was a bitch and half to pull up. There was no easy way to do it except with a scraper and warm sudsy water to loosen the adhesive. Luckily, Kate, Max, and even Olivia were more than happy to go back and forth from the buckets filled with warm water carrying dripping wet sponges to the areas Owen had peeled back, while Doug and Jesse went at the moistened glue with scrapers. Jordan, wielding a mop, cleaned up the excess water and picked up the pieces of lino, dropping them into a garbage bag.

Within minutes everyone was soaked, but Jesse and Doug didn’t seem to mind too much, probably because Jordan was so excited about the wide-planked floor that was slowly emerging.

“Gosh, it’s going to look superb when it’s sanded and finished,” she said happily.

“Can we help with that, too, Mommy?” Kate asked.

“No, that’s a messy job.”

“As opposed to this,” Owen grinned.

“As opposed to this,” Jordan echoed, returning his grin as she swiped the side of her face with her bare arm. With her hair in a ponytail she looked impossibly young, more like Kate’s older sister than her mother.

Having peeled up a long strip, Doug sat back on his haunches and took a gulp of his iced tea. “The next time we run into a lino floor, we’re definitely calling you guys. Right, Owen?”

“This job’s going faster than any I can remember.”

“Did you hear that, kids? Owen and Doug think you’re good workers.”

“I like working.” Max squeezed a large puddle of water onto the glue. “When we’re done, Owen and I are gonna climb that tree all the way to the top.”

They were tackling the remaining stretch of linoleum, near the kitchen’s back door, when Kate ran over to Jordan and whispered in her ear.

“Of course, sweetie,” Jordan said. “And let’s bring Olivia, too. I think she could use a diaper change. Excuse us, gentlemen, we’re going to use the bathroom. Max, do you need to go?”

“No.” He shook his head vehemently even as he crossed his legs.

“Perhaps we better try anyway. And I want to show you the upstairs. You haven’t seen those rooms yet. Owen removed the wallpaper in the bedrooms and Doug and Jesse built really nice shelves for the closets. Then you can come back downstairs.” She held out her hand for Max, and the four of them went down the hall, the children chattering away.

“She’s got a nice way with her kids,” Doug said approvingly.

“Yes, she’s a great mother.” Jordan was great, period. Owen grabbed hold of a strip of saturated linoleum and pulled it back with a grunt.

“Jesus Christ, I’m soaked. I don’t know whether it’s from sweat because it’s hotter than Hades or because Olivia kept dribbling her sponge on me instead of the floor,” Jesse said.

“Olivia did pretty well for someone who’s not even two.” Owen was as surprised as Jesse to find himself defending her. Then, because Jesse was grinning at him as if he’d just announced that he liked postcards adorned with fuzzy kittens and koala bears, he said, “You guys both look somewhat worse for wear. Why don’t I finish scraping this last section myself?”

Doug checked his watch. “If we leave now, we can make it to the Habitat ReStore before closing time. What do you think, Jesse?”

“Are you asking me if I want to quit work early and take a ride in an air-conditioned cab? I am definitely up for that.” With a flourish he handed the scraper to Owen. “Have at it, boss.”

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”

“Bright and early. Say good-bye to Jordan for us.”

“And Olivia, too,” Jesse added with a laugh.

“Will do,” he replied, already bending over and beginning to scrape.

It seemed like only a minute later, Max literally jumped into his line of vision, his sneakers making a squishy landing inches from his scraper. “Hey, Owen, let’s go climb that tree now. I want to go as high as I can.”

“I’ll be with you in a minute, Max. I just have to finish this bit of the floor first. Why don’t you go find your mom?”

“Nah, she’s showing Kate and Wiv the bedrooms. I want to climb the tree.” His sneakers did a jig of impatience.

“We will. You just have to wait a little bit longer.” He drew out the final syllable in a growl of frustration as he applied his scraper more forcefully. But this patch hadn’t gotten as saturated as the rest of the floor. The lino wasn’t
budging. With a silent curse he reached for the sponge and squeezed some more water on it. “Hold on a few more minutes, Max,” he said, not looking up from the damned flooring.

Owen had no idea how much time elapsed while he battled with the remaining adhesive. Yet when he straightened he was abruptly aware of two things. One, Max was no longer in the kitchen and, two, Jordan was coming down the stairs with just the girls—if Max had been with them Owen would definitely have heard his voice.

The hair on the back of his neck rose as he was gripped by a sudden, terrible premonition. Jumping to his feet, he dropped the scraper onto the damp floor and sprinted out the door, shouting “Max!” at the top of his lungs.

The first thing he saw was that one of the folding chairs Doug and Jesse sat on at lunch had been dragged over to the base of the tree, just beneath the lowest branch. “Jesus, no. Please no,” his mind cried as again he shouted, “Max!”

Behind him Jordan’s anxious voice echoed his call.

Then came Max’s high-pitched voice. “Look at me, Owen! See how high I am? I’m really high!”

His heart leapt to his throat. Damn it, he couldn’t see through the dense foliage. “Don’t you move, Max!” he yelled hoarsely. “You wait till I get there!” The twenty feet remaining to the tree stretched like a football field before him.

Then Max’s voice came again, and to Owen’s panicked brain seemed to come from far too high above. “I think I wanna come down now.”

Terrified Owen tried to run faster. In the unfolding of this nightmarish scene, however, his legs seemed to have turned to lead, unable to close the distance. Jordan seemed similarly afflicted for she was still behind him. He could hear her harsh, ragged panting.

“Owen! I need help! Mommy!”

“Max!” they cried in unison.

Then Owen was at the tree, ducking under its broad canopy, but keeping his eyes fixed above, scanning the pewter limbs. To his right, on the other side of the tree, a good fifteen feet above his head, he heard the yelped cry of “Help!” that turned into a shriek of, “I’m fall—”

He lunged toward Max’s tumbling body. But too late.

Arms outflung, Max hit the twig and leaf-laden ground with a thud, followed by an agonized scream.