Was it her self-possession that somehow seemed to cause him to lose his?
He stumbled on. “The island is isolated. I know it is. But it’s phenomenal too.” He sat up straighter in bed against the headboard. “All my life I’ve been dragged around and shown places and people and things that were supposed to impress me. That impressed everybody. Big office buildings full of people toiling away who did my family’s bidding at the drop of a hat. Big mansions filled with doodads that cost more than most people made in a lifetime. Big…” He paused. This was stupid. He didn’t know what he was trying to say. But she was listening now, looking down at him, and he tried again. “They didn’t impress me. Nothing really impressed me.”
She nodded. “That’s understandable, Evan. You get used to it.”
“Until I made this doghouse.” Talk about blurting out. Doghouse? Christ. If she was as smart as she was reputed to be, Andrea Prentiss would make a quick getaway while she could. Instead she came closer and sat on the side of the bed, waiting.
“My grandfather had bought me this huge dog. It was like a horse it was so big. The thing had bloodlines back to the Russian czars or some crap. God knows how much it probably had cost. But anyway, our estate manager was put in charge of directing a whole construction crew to build this behemoth thing its own digs, out in a corner of our summer estate.”
“Your father’s Long Island estate?”
“No, no, it was an Evans estate, in California. I still own it…” His voice drifted off. “I think.”
“So you helped build the doghouse?”
“Oh no. That wasn’t allowed. I could’ve gotten a splinter, or picked up some bad grammar or something. No, the construction crew built the doghouse, which was more like a dog palace. But I watched.”
She laughed. “A dog palace?”
“Really, it was in Dog Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous or something like that. It was opulent, perfect and completely terrifying to this poor dog, who it turned out was like the cowardly lion in The Wizard of Oz. The thing was scared shitless by it. Wouldn’t even go in it. But my grandfather had gone to all this trouble and though he was usually a big softie, he could stick to his guns sometimes and he was mad at the dog for not appreciating all the trouble he, meaning his estate manager and construction crew, had gone to with the doghouse. So Grandpa wouldn’t let the dog sleep in the main house.”
She shrugged. “At least it was California, not some winter wonderland.”
“Maybe, but it was a particularly rainy season that year and, well, I was afraid the poor dog was going to catch pneumonia. So I snuck out one night and borrowed some of the crew’s tools and built this…well, it was really a little shack compared to the dog palace.”
“But it was a hit with your cowardly lion horse-dog?”
“A huge hit.” He grinned. “And for the first time, I was impressed by something. The god-awful little shack I’d built. I was fucking impressed by it and I was hooked.”
“How old were you?”
“I don’t know.” He did know actually. He was six years old. But he didn’t want to tell her that part for some reason. That wasn’t the point of the story. He didn’t want any oohs and ahhs about how cute he must have been with the oversized hammer, although Andrea Prentiss didn’t strike him as the oohing and ahhing type. But again, that wasn’t the point of the story. The point was… Actually, what the hell was the point? “What I mean is that I discovered with that doghouse that the only thing that impresses me is what I do with my own two hands and what God, or whoever runs the rest of everything—and contrary to popular belief, that’s not either Damien or Michael Reynolds—does with the rest of the planet.”
He was smiling at her, but she wasn’t smiling back, and consequently he lost his own. She watched him, carefully, quietly, and for one hopeful second, he thought she was going to climb back into bed with him, but she only reached one long delicate finger, perfectly manicured, along his jaw, saying nothing.
Finally he said, “Anyway, more information than you needed to know, but what I’m trying to say is I want to bring you back to Maine with me. I want to show you—”
She stood up abruptly. “I can’t. I have work to do.”
“Come on. You get a vacation, don’t you?”
“I don’t believe so.” She reclaimed her purse. “As a matter of fact, no.”
That stopped him.
“You’re kidding.”
“Well, there are times when Mr. Reynolds takes a vacation and I occasionally don’t go into the office then. Is that what you mean?”