“And I can.” He rose, paced. “It’s not a matter of feelings, but of being. I can’t and won’t be led. I care for you more than should be possible in this short a time.”
“And because of that you don’t trust what’s happened, what’s happening between us.” She nodded and, clipping the thread, set her needle aside. “That’s reasonable.”
“What do you know of reason?” he demanded. “You’re the damnedest, most irrational woman I’ve ever met.”
She smiled at that, quick and bright. “It’s so much easier to recognize reason when you have so little yourself.”
His lips twitched, but he sat down. “How can you be so calm in the middle of all this?”
“I’ve had the most amazing two days of my life, the most exciting, the most beautiful.” She spread her hands. “Nothing can ever take that away from me now that I’ve had it. And I’ll have one more. One more long and wonderful day. So…” She got to her feet, stretched. “I think I’ll get a glass of wine and go outside and watch the stars come out.”
“No.” He took her hand, rose. “I’ll get the wine.”
IT was a perfect night, the sky as clear as glass. The sea swept in, drew back, then burst again in a shower of water that caught those last shimmers of day and sparkled like jewels.
“You should have benches,” Allena began. “Here and here, with curved seats and high backs, in cedar that would go silver in the weather.”
He wondered why he hadn’t thought of it himself, for he loved to sit and watch the sea. “What else would you have, were you me?”
“Well, I’d put big pots near the benches and fill them with flowers that spilled out and spiked up. Dark blue crocks,” she decided, then slanted him a look. “You could make them.”
“I suppose I could. Flowerpots.” The idea was amusing. No one had ever expected flowerpots from him before. He skimmed a hand over her hair as he sipped his wine and realized he would enjoy making them for her, would like to see her pleasure in them.
“Dark blue,” she repeated, “to match the shutters when they’re fixed up with the paint I found in the laundry room.”
“Now I’m painting shutters?”
“No, no, no, your talents are much too lofty for such mundane chores. You make the pots, sturdy ones, and I’ll paint the shutters.”
“I know when someone’s laughing at me.”
She merely sent him a sly wink and walked down toward the water. “Do you know what I’m supposed to be doing tonight?”
“What would that be?”
“I should be manning the slide projector for Margaret’s after-dinner lecture on megalithic sites.”
“Well, then, you’ve had a narrow escape, haven’t you?”
“You’re telling me. Do you know what I’m going to do instead?”
“Ah, come back inside and make wild love with me?”
She laughed and spun in a circle. “I’m definitely putting that on the schedule. But first, I’m going to build a sand castle.”
“A sand castle, is it?”
“A grand one,” she claimed and plopped down on the beach to begin. “The construction of sand castles is one of my many talents. Of course, I’d do better work if I had a spade and a bucket. Both of which,” she added, looking up at him from under her lashes, “can be found in the laundry room.”
“And I suppose, as my talent for this particular art is in doubt, I’m delegated to fetch.”
“Your legs are longer, so you’ll get there and back faster.”
“Can’t argue with that.”
He brought back the garden spade and the mop bucket, along with the bottle of wine.
As the first bold stars came to life, he sat and watched her build her castle of sand.
“You need a tower on that end,” he told her. “You’ve left it undefended.”
“It’s a castle, not a fortress, and my little world here is at peace. However, I’d think a famous artist could manage to build a tower if he saw the need for one.”
He finished off his glass of wine, screwed the stem in the sand, and picked up the challenge.
She added more turrets, carefully shaping, then smoothing them with the edge of her spade. And driven by his obviously superior talent with his hands, began to add to the structure, elaborately.
“And what, I’d like to know, is that lump you’ve got there?”
“It’s the stables, or will be when I’m finished.”
“It’s out of proportion.” He started to reach over to show her, but she slapped his hand away. “As you like, but your horses would have to be the size of Hugh to fit in there.”