Blue Heron: The Perfect Match Part 23

"With Dana, you mean?" He kept his eyes on the dog. Ratty had peed on his gym bag yesterday.

"Yes. I owe you."

"Do you?" He could think of a few ways she could repay him, starting with getting out of those boring clothes. Hopefully, she had s.l.u.tty underwear.

Not the line of thinking that was going to help.

The only reason Tom had any hope of this working, this marriage, was because he and Honor were a business arrangement. Love hadn't worked out for either of them, had it?

But when he'd heard that nasty little baggage laying into her, he'd wanted to...help. Laid on the British charm, played the part of the devoted fiance, pretended not to know about either Dana or Brighton.

And when he kissed her, it felt like a current jolted right through him. Not good. He wasn't up for having his heart skewered again. Melissa had done that so well, and her son was keeping up the tradition. But Honor was nice. Honor was pleasant. Nice and pleasant were about all he could handle these days, so electric jolts and the urge to pull a little white-knight action...not smart.

Honor was looking at him. Right. Because he was staring at her.

"Well," he said now. "I'm getting good at acting. As are you."

Something shut down in her eyes. "Yes. You are." She sat on the couch and slipped off her completely unimaginative shoes.

"By the way," he said. "I got you this today." He picked up the small velvet box and handed it to her.

It had taken a surprisingly long time to pick out a ring. He'd figured he'd go into the first store he saw, ask for a ring in his price range and wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, he'd be done. Instead, he'd looked at every d.a.m.n ring in the store before settling on this one.

Honor opened the box. "Oh," she breathed.

"Like it? If not, I'll return it, and you can pick out something more to your taste." Tom realized belatedly that he was holding his breath.

"No, no. This is...it's beautiful."

"It's an antique."

"Yes." She raised her eyes, and Tom glanced away from the soft, sweet emotion there and looked out the window instead. "Thank you," she said softly. "It wasn't necessary."

"Of course it was. If we're madly in love and getting married, you should have a ring." He finished his whiskey and stood up. "Glad you like it. I've got to correct papers. And I should call Charlie and listen to him breathe at me."

"Okay. Thank you again. For...you know. For everything."

b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. You'd best be careful, mate, his conscience warned him. Wouldn't want to hurt a nice girl like her. But she wasn't a girl. She knew what they were about. At least, she should.

With that, he went upstairs, leaving her sitting on the couch, looking at her ring.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

"IT'S NOT MY stuff that's cluttering up the house. It's his." Goggy folded her arms and glared.

Grandparenticide. It held more and more appeal these days. Honor sighed. Theoretically, she had better things to do on a Sat.u.r.day morning than try to declutter her grandparents' house. She could get another Pap smear, for example. It would be more fun than this. "Goggy, the two of you are this close to being h.o.a.rders."

"Oh, we are not. You kids. I have laundry to fold."

"I'll fold it! Goggy, you can't be going up and down the stairs so much. They're a death trap."

"How else will I get my exercise? Jeremy told me I should exercise. So I exercise." She gave Honor a triumphant look.

"Speaking of that, there's a gorgeous pool at Rus.h.i.+ng Creek."

"Where people drown," Goggy said.

"No one has ever drowned there."

"It's just a matter of time." Goggy turned her back and clumped up the narrow, dark, terrifying stairs of the Old House, one hand on the railing, one hand on the wall.

Faith had tried to help the cause last weekend, managing to sneak one of Goggy's more hideous cardigans out of the house, which, considering that Goggy could give Pharaoh a run for his money in the stubborn department, was pretty good. Prudence had been less successful; she'd pointed out that they really didn't need four rusty flour sifters, which had led to Goggy calling Williams-Sonoma, ordering two more and still refusing to part with the other four.

Maybe her grandfather would be more agreeable. He'd been sitting at the kitchen table, ignoring both females in favor of doing the crossword puzzle. "Okay, Pops, let's take a look and see what we can get rid of, okay?" She tugged on a kitchen drawer, which was stuffed full of c.r.a.p. Pointless c.r.a.p, she thought, groping around inside to clear the logjam. Took care not to catch her ring.

And what a ring it was.

Funny, how she thought she loved the stark simplicity of Dana's ring, that unadorned diamond flas.h.i.+ng for all to see. The ring Tom had chosen was an Art Deco style (original, she thought). A square diamond surrounded by two triangular diamonds, encased in engraved platinum...ornate and unusual and utterly, hypnotically beautiful.

The drawer jerked open with a clatter. "Good G.o.d."

"I need those," Pops said, not looking up from the paper.

"Pops. Come on. How many corkscrews do you need?"

"I'm a winemaker! I need a lot!"

"There are...what...two dozen corkscrews in here? Come on." She paused for a second, counting. "You don't need twenty-seven corkscrews."

"I know how many there are." The old man scowled at her.

"And you really need every single one?"

"Yes."

She squeezed the bridge of her nose. "Pops, wouldn't it be nice to live in a clean, sunny, organized place where you had more than one outlet per floor? Where you could use all the doors because you didn't have to nail one shut to cut down on drafts? Where you didn't have to worry about falling down the stairs and breaking your neck?"

"Your grandmother's the one who runs up and down those stairs fifty times a day. I never go up there."

"What if Goggy fell and broke her hip? How'd you feel then? Oh, stop. You'd be devastated." Surrept.i.tiously, she slipped a corkscrew out of the drawer. If she couldn't get Pops to agree to purge, she'd just steal all his c.r.a.p and bring it to Goodwill. Not that there was a booming market for used corkscrews. "Seriously, Pops. You can't be up on the ladder cleaning out gutters anymore. It's not safe, and it's not smart."

He groaned. "When you're my age, you won't want anyone telling you what to do, either, sweetheart. If I can't clean the gutters, what's next? I can't dress myself? I can't feed myself? This is my home. These are my things. Don't make me a helpless old man who sits around in diapers."

She felt a tug of sympathy. "No, Pops, that's not the point. But you have to be realistic. Your balance isn't great anymore, and it's way too easy to trip in here. Let alone fall off the ladder like you did last year."

"You might have a point. Probably not, but maybe. Now put that corkscrew back. That's my favorite one."

A knock came on the kitchen door, and Honor looked up.

It was Tom. And Charlie.

"Hallo," her fiance said. "Thought we'd lend a hand."

"Oh! That's...that's really nice of you." She'd mentioned where she was going this morning over breakfast. Hadn't expected him to turn up.

"Mr. Holland," Tom said to Pops. "You remember my stepson, don't you?" The boy sighed with gusto and rolled his eyes, apparently unable to summon the energy to correct Tom on the t.i.tle. "Charlie, say h.e.l.lo."

"Hi," Charlie said, shaking her grandfather's hand.

"h.e.l.lo, young man!" Pops said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Maybe you can be on my side and keep these marauding invaders out of my things."

Charlie's lips tugged, and Honor glanced at Tom.

His face was full of...yearning, like a dog at the pound who's been pa.s.sed over too many times but can't help p.r.i.c.king up his ears at the sound of footsteps just the same.

Then he saw her looking, and gave her a quick smile that covered up any hint of loneliness.

He was a tough one, Tom Barlow. She felt like she knew him less now instead of more.

"When are you two getting married, anyway?" Pops said.

"Um, soon," Honor said.

"We should take care of that, shouldn't we?" Tom murmured.

They should. Once they filed for a marriage license, they had sixty days to get married, or Tom would be deported. Which was exactly why she hadn't filed yet. What had seemed like a good plan now seemed as thin as March ice, and as sharply dangerous.

"Pops," she said, "Let's go down to the cellar. I know there's stuff we should throw out down there."

"I have to check the vines," Pops said.

"Don't run off, you coward. You said you'd tell me what I could throw away."

"Nothing. There. I made it easy for you."

Goggy reappeared in the kitchen, wearing a different dress and a little scarf, indicating that she was going out. "h.e.l.lo, boys! Give me a kiss! I never know when I'll get to kiss a handsome man, and here I have two!"

Tom obliged. Charlie did, too, and Goggy patted his cheek. Sweet, how she didn't berate him for his black eyeliner and earrings. If he was a Holland, he'd never hear the end of it.

"I have a church meeting," Goggy said. "There's a huge debate over whether or not to replace the altar cloth. That Cathy Kennedy gets downright vicious sometimes! See you later, dears! Don't touch anything upstairs, but by all means, get rid of some of your grandfather's junk."

"It's not junk, old woman," Pops retorted. She ignored him and left in a cloud of Jean Nate.

"I'm here," came a weary voice. "As ordered. Like I don't have better things to do on a Sat.u.r.day." Abby came in the back door. "Hi, guys," she said. "Oh, hey, Charlie. I didn't know you'd be here. Another slave for my aunt to boss around?"

Charlie's face flamed. "I guess," he mumbled. Ah, adolescence. Honor had been just as awkward around Brogan, come to think of it. Sigh.

"Let's get to work," Honor said. "Rubber gloves are under the sink, and I have plenty of trash bags, and stop glaring at me, Pops."

"This would be a great place to hide a body," Abby announced as they went down the warped cellar stairs. "Charlie, this place was built in-what, Pops?-1781?"

"That's right, sweetheart," he said. "The first Holland got this land as a reward for fighting against your people, Tom."

"Is that right?" Tom said. "Seems more of a punishment with this weather we've been having."

He had a point. The temperature had dropped to twenty last night.

"Okay," Honor said. "We can definitely get rid of some of this stuff." She reached for a likely candidate.

"Put that down," her grandfather said. "I need that."

"Pops, it's a moldy piece of cus.h.i.+on foam. And it's torn."

"So? I can wash it and use it for something."

"Like what? When would you need moldy torn cus.h.i.+on foam?"

"It's gross, Pops," Abby said.

"I'm not going to stand here and watch you make fun of my things," Pops said. "I have vines to check. Nice to see you, young man," he said to Charlie. "And you," he added to Tom. "Marry my granddaughter and make an honest woman out of her."

"Yes, sir." Tom shook his hand, and Pops clumped up the old wooden steps.

"He's gone. Maybe we can just burn the place down," Abby said.

For the next hour, they stuffed bags with Pops's precious belongings, which included a bent golf club, a broken mirror and newspapers from the 1960s. Abby talked almost nonstop, bless her, and Charlie answered, shyly at first, then with more confidence as their talk turned to music.

"And what have we here?" Tom asked from the far end of the bas.e.m.e.nt, bending down to examine something. "Hallo. These might be worth something." He looked up at Honor and grinned.

It was a pile of magazines. Men's magazines, to be specific.

Tom opened one up. "Miss September, 1972. Not bad." He straightened up. "Think we should check eBay and see what these are going for?"

"Oh, ick."

"Nothing ick about her. She's lovely."

"Shush. Just toss them." Man! There were dozens.

"Hopefully we don't read about a priceless collection of Playboys found at the dump later this week." He glanced across the cellar at Charlie. "You're right, though. Best get rid of these before the lad sees them. Hard enough being a p.u.b.escent boy without this kind of stimulation."

They shoveled the magazines into a black trash bag, and amid the smell of stone and old paper, Honor caught a hint of Tom's soap.