Falling For Zoe (The Camerons of Tide's Way #1) (7 page)

For reasons she didn’t totally think through, Zoe took the photo into the living room and set it on the mantle next to a wedding portrait of her parents and a group snapshot of her siblings, her sister-in-law, and her nephew taken the previous Christmas.

Zoe’s gaze lingered over the group photo, marveling for the zillionth time how beautiful both her sisters were and how different she was. Erin and Kelly had smooth ink-black hair and clear ivory complexions, while Zoe’s flaming red mop frizzed out of control and a thousand freckles marched across her face. She was definitely the changeling in the family. No wonder no man had ever looked at her with desire in his eyes.

With a sad snort of self-mockery, she returned her gaze to the young soldier.

“Are you Martin?” she asked the silent, solemn man. “Did you leave my doors open? Because if you did, I’d prefer you leave them shut. You can come and go any time you like, but if you don’t mind, could you please make sure to close the door after you?”

Zoe laughed out loud at her absurdity, and Jet tipped her head at the sound of Zoe’s voice.

“I know.” Zoe scratched Jet’s ears. “How dumb is that? Talking to a ghost. The picture of a ghost even!”

The following morning, the kitchen door was ajar.

Chapter 12

ZOE HAD JUST finished painting the cabinets a clean, crisp white when a soft knock came from outside her kitchen door. Scotch started barking. Hoover began to wag his tail, and Jet ran to find a toy. That meant friend, so Zoe hurried to open the door. Scotch dashed out and immediately began dancing around Jake’s legs. With a tool belt slung around his lean hips and a tank top that showcased his muscular torso, he looked wonderful. Zoe pushed the inevitable mop of escaping curls back into her elastic and wondered if he’d ever get a chance to see her at her best, rather than at her frumpiest. Then she noticed his eyes.

She stepped aside and invited him in. “Don’t tell me Celia’s ghost was haunting you, too?” Smudges of exhaustion colored the skin beneath his eyes.

“Martin wouldn’t bother me, even if I did believe in his ghost. This the door that’s giving you problems?”

“This is the one. Doesn’t want to stay shut, but you didn’t have to come over today to fix it. It could have waited.”

“Waited for what?” Jake’s eyebrows rose into questioning little arcs. “For someone to break in and rob you? Or worse?”

“I didn’t think this was that kind of neighborhood.”

“It isn’t, but a woman alone . . . I thought you’d want to know the doors could be secured. Besides, no point in putting it off.”

“But you look like you didn’t sleep much last night.”

“Got called out to a fire. I’m used to it.”

“Oh, my gosh. Was anyone hurt?”

“No, thank God. Someone left the burner on under the fryer at the Crab Shack down by the bridge. That place was a tinderbox. If you’d been awake, you’d have been able to see the glow in the sky. But we managed to contain it to just the one building. Place is a total loss, but no one was there at two in the morning, so no one got hurt.”

“And I never got to try the crab cakes. I heard they were the best.”

“They’ll rebuild. I’ll take you out to celebrate when they reopen. Now, what’s up with the door?”

Had Jake just asked her out for a date? Albeit, some unknown date in the future, but still . . . Her heart fluttered excitedly.

“The door?” Jake prompted, looking at her oddly.

Right!
The door was the real reason he’d come. Not to ask her out. “I—I thought maybe I just forgot to shut it the first time. But after Celia told me about Martin and how he leaves doors open all the time, I began to get a little spooked.” Zoe shrugged. “It just keeps happening. I push the door shut, and if I stand there long enough, it opens again all by itself.”

Zoe reached past Jake and shut the door firmly, then waited. A minute stretched into two, and then suddenly, with a faint click, the door popped open and began to swing inward.

“See? No ghost! But it beats me why it won’t stay shut.”

Jake hunkered down into a squat and began tinkering with the lock mechanism. Twice he pushed the door shut and waited until it popped open again. Jet sat next to him, all attention riveted on the door, and each time it opened, she swiveled her gaze to Jake as if making a point. Jake patted her head, then stood. “Don’t worry, girl. We’ll get it sorted out.”

“Just the house settling.” Jake turned his attention to Zoe. “I only wish my problems were as easy to solve as yours.”

“That’s what you said last time, but they don’t seem all that easy to me. When I bought this place, I never imagined all the things that could go wrong. Maybe I should have listened to my father after all.”

“What? And miss all the fun of home ownership? Think of it as an adventure.” Jake smiled, and some of the tiredness seemed to leave his eyes. “Besides, this house has history.”

“I just never appreciated what my father’s checkbook could do for getting stuff fixed.” And that was the humbling truth. Her father had warned her about the costs, but she’d ignored him, thinking she’d just take care of things herself. How hard could it be? At least that was the attitude she’d focused on as she’d cruised through the hardware store picking out tools she thought she might need. It had never occurred to her that she might not have a clue how to use the tools when problems arose.

Jake ducked outside and came back with a long wooden toolbox—the old-fashioned kind, open on top with a rod for a handle. Zoe noted two handsaws neatly lined up along one side, an enormous hammer and a smaller wooden mallet, a level, a plumber’s wrench, a cordless drill, several cans with screws of different sizes, and a miscellany of things she didn’t even know the names of, never mind their function. Her own shiny new tool kit seemed laughable now.

Jake rummaged around in the box and hauled out a tool that looked like an overgrown screwdriver. A very sharp one.

“What’s that?” Zoe gestured to the tool in Jake’s hand.

“You’ve never seen a chisel?”

Zoe made a face. “I’ve got a lot to learn, haven’t I?”

Jake pulled a screwdriver out of his tool belt and knelt by the doorjamb. “Well, if you live here long enough, you’ll get lots of opportunity. This house is over a hundred and fifty years old. You’re going to find things giving up the ghost on a regular basis.” He snickered. “Bad choice of words. I meant it’s to be expected that stuff will need fixing or replacing with frustrating regularity.”

He turned back to the jamb and began unscrewing the latch plate. Jet settled in to watch.

“So, how do you fix a sagging house?” Zoe bent down next to Jet to get a better view of the proceedings.

Jake tipped his head up to look at her, and her breath caught in her throat. His gray eyes were so incredibly dark in this light. And more than just tired, they looked haunted. Even if he didn’t believe in ghosts, something was bothering him. She wanted to put her arms around him and make whatever it was go away. She straightened abruptly. They hardly knew each other. What would he think of such a familiarity?

“I, ah . . . I need to wash my brushes before I can’t get the paint out.” She hurried to gather up her brushes and moved to the sink.

Jake didn’t appear to notice her hasty retreat. He set the plate and screws on the corner of the counter and then picked up the tool he called a chisel.

“The problem,” he explained as he worked, “is that houses tend to settle no matter how long they’ve been standing, and things get out of whack eventually. Right now, the latch plate on the doorjamb is off by a hair. So, when you shut the door, instead of the spring pushing the bolt all the way into the slot, it gets caught just part way in. Besides that, the door itself has warped a little and doesn’t want to stay shut. Eventually the tiny hold the bolt had when you first pushed it closed slips, and the door swings open again.”

Jake positioned the chisel and tapped it with the mallet. Tiny slivers of wood fell free. He tried shutting the door, then opened it and repeated the process. This time he sighed in satisfaction and began reassembling the latch.

As she ran hot water to wash her brushes, Zoe watched out of the corner of her eye. Absorbed in watching Jake work, it was several moments before she realized there was no hot water forthcoming. She turned the faucet full blast. Still no hot water.

“Rats!”

Jake whipped around to look at her, a frown creasing his brow. “You okay?”

“I’m fine. But apparently my hot water heater isn’t.” She began sloshing the brushes in cold water.

Jake piled his tools back into his box and tried the door again. This time it stayed put. “Well, I’ve settled this problem. Want me to take a look at the hot water heater? If it’s gas, maybe the pilot’s gone out.”

Zoe gazed at him, her shoulders slumping. “I hate to keep asking for favors, but I’m not sure I even know where to look for a pilot.”

“Not a problem,” Jake answered nonchalantly as he headed for the utility closet.

“Not a problem for you maybe,” Zoe muttered.

Maybe buying this lovely old house wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done. But no way was she ready to admit her father might have been right. She wasn’t going to throw in the towel that easily. She finished cleaning the brushes and laid them on a piece of old newspaper to dry out. Then she slumped onto a stool in front of the island to watch Jake.

He seemed to be taking a lot longer to re-light a pilot than Zoe thought it should. Not a good sign. After removing and replacing two panels and tinkering with some dials, Jake finally shut the closet door and settled onto a stool opposite Zoe.

“It’s electric, and you need new heating elements. I’d run up to the Home Depot in Wilmington and get you some right now, but I have to take the twins to a doctor’s appointment. I can pick them up on the way home and get them replaced either tonight or tomorrow after church.”

“Are the twins okay?” Zoe was instantly diverted from her own problems.

“Sure, it’s just a regular checkup. Doc Meredith knows some parents have a hard time getting their kids in on a weekday, so she has hours every third Saturday.”

“Oh. She’s their pediatrician?” Zoe made a mental note to look up Doctor Meredith. She wondered if that was the doctor’s first name or last. Zoe was going to need a good doctor for her baby.

“Actually, she’s a GP. But she’s great with kids. The best around. The twins love her. So does Ava.” Jake slid off the stool and bent to pick up his toolbox. “Well, I’d better get going.” He was out the door before Zoe could offer another round of thank yous.

Then he stuck his head back in. “If you want to take a shower, feel free to come on over. Ava will be there. She’ll grab you a towel or anything else you might need.” Then he was gone.

ZOE FINISHED buttoning up one of her favorite oversized shirts. She opened the door, hoping to let the steam out of the small bathroom and clear the mirror so she could see her reflection and brush her hair. Ava, sitting on the edge of her bed sorting through a shoebox, looked up as Zoe appeared.

The bathroom had no door into the hall. Instead, it had two doors into the bedrooms on either side. One opened into Jake’s bedroom, and the other door led to Ava’s bedroom. It seemed like an odd arrangement, but Zoe decided that Ava’s small room might originally have been intended as a nursery, which would explain the unusual setup. The twins and Celia shared the other bathroom, which did open off the hall, but Celia had been using it when Zoe arrived.

“Can I use your mirror?” Zoe asked Ava. “I’ve steamed up the one in the bathroom, I’m afraid.”

“No problem. It’s been doing that lately. Daddy’s waiting for some part to come in so he can fix the fan in the vent.” Ava pushed the lid back on her shoebox and shoved it under her bed.

Zoe managed to get the tangles worked out and started to put her hair into a scrunchie. Then the elastic inside it snapped, and the scrunchie shot across to the far side of Ava’s dresser. Zoe grabbed for it and noticed a frame lying face down on the dresser. Without thinking, she picked it up and set it facing forward. Ava, much younger than she was now, sat on the lap of a stunningly beautiful woman with Jake posed behind them.

Zoe swallowed painfully. Jake’s wife had been drop-dead gorgeous. Zoe spoke without thinking. “She’s beautiful!”

Ava snatched the photo from Zoe’s hand, yanked open a drawer and shoved the frame under a pile of underwear, and then slammed the drawer shut. “Beauty is as beauty does. Isn’t that how the saying goes?” Ava’s face was a mixture of anger and longing.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“Not your fault. You didn’t know.”

Zoe watched the play of emotions on Ava’s face as she worked through whatever bad memories Zoe’s words had evoked.

“You should cut your hair.”

Startled by the abrupt change of topic, Zoe jerked back to look into the mirror. “Cut my hair?” Slowly she turned her head one way and then the other, studying her reflection with more care than she usually took. “I’ve never cut it. Not really.”

Ava stepped behind her and lifted the heavy, damp mass of Zoe’s hair and bunched it loosely behind her head. “It’d look really nice. You have such beautiful curls. If your hair was short, it would be perfect with your face.”

“You really think so?” Zoe had never thought about what she might look like with short hair. Her sisters wore their silky black hair long. They didn’t have Zoe’s curls or frizz to deal with, but Zoe had always considered long hair essential. Porter had told her he liked it long. Then again, the only time he’d said that was when she’d spent half a week’s paycheck getting it straightened and three hours at the salon before their date.

What would it be like to have short hair? She couldn’t even begin to picture how she would look with short hair, but the idea, once planted, began to sprout like Jack’s beanstalk.

“I could cut it for you, if you like.”

Zoe felt a momentary pang of apprehension. What if she didn’t like it? What if it came out horrible? “I—”
Why not?
She’d already considered the problems her hair would present once the baby was born. “Let’s do it!”

“You’re kidding, right?” Ava sounded totally taken aback by Zoe’s abrupt acquiescence. “You’d let me cut it off. Just like that?”

“If I hate it, it’ll grow out again. But on the other hand, you might be right, and I’ll love it.” Now that the decision had been made, Zoe was anxious to put it into action before she lost her nerve.
Just wait ’til Bree finds out!
Zoe had never done anything drastic without consulting Bree, but this time . . . Zoe smiled at herself in the mirror.

“Cool!” Ava continued to sound awed that Zoe was actually going to let her do something so radical, but she hurried into the bathroom, and Zoe heard her rummaging around in a drawer. When she returned, she pulled her desk chair out and directed Zoe to sit in it. She draped a sheet around Zoe’s shoulders. “Want to watch?”

So Zoe watched as twenty-seven years’ worth of hair fell in clumps to the floor. Her head felt lighter with each snip, and the transformation was astonishing. Suddenly Zoe could see the heart shape of her face softened by the loose curls rather than flattened the way it appeared when she pulled everything back into a ponytail or a braid or half hidden by an unruly tangle of frizz.