Mr. Imperfect(6)

CHAPTER THREE




THE KITCHEN WAS an enormous, high-ceilinged room, gloomy even in  midsummer. Long, scratched stainless-steel benches and a large table in  the center of the room added to the barracks feel.

There were three women in the kitchen, aprons protecting their clothes,  one buttering slices of white bread, one mixing cake dough and the third  plating chicken pies, oven-bronzed and fragrant, doing their desperate  best to cheer the dank room. Déjà vu slammed Christian against the wall  and held him there.

"Are you all right?"

He couldn't answer, closing his eyes against the faintness stealing over  his senses. The scrape of a chair, then Kezia's hands forcing him to  sit, pushing his head down between his legs, the sharp exclamations of  anxious women.

By sheer force of will he sat up. "I'm fine now."

"Are you ill, son?" One of the woman asked, her white apron encasing her generous girth like an over-stuffed pillowcase.

Son. Christian closed his eyes again, racked by an old guilt. "Didn't  eat breakfast," he managed to say. It got the desired result.

He sensed movement as they hastened to gather food, releasing him from  scrutiny. He opened his eyes, his emotions unguarded and raw, and his  gaze collided with Kezia's. She still crouched anxiously in front of  him.

"Oh, my God, Christian." She reached for him as one would a child, to comfort and console.

He stopped her with a glance. "I need to get out of here."

"Fresh air will do you good," she agreed.

He pushed to his feet. "I mean, leave, Kez."

"Okay." But her dismayed expression made him understand that he couldn't do this to Muriel-or to her. He sat again.

"My mother worked here," he said in a low voice. She'd died of cancer  when he was twelve, well before Kezia's arrival at sixteen, and he'd  never talked about it. "I used to come here after school, eat the  leftovers and study at that table. I'd forgotten … until I walked in." He  dredged up a weak smile. "This place is caught in a time warp."

"We'll change the kitchen first," she said seriously.

"No, the public areas have precedence. Anyway, I'm over it now. Stupid to get a hit for someone twenty years dead."

Kezia frowned, but before she could say anything the coffee  arrived-steaming hot and so full of sugar he could smell it. With it  came a slice of bread, door-stop-thick and slathered with creamy butter.  "We're cooking you a decent meal, son," said the large woman. "You and  Kezia take yourself to the dining room and I'll bring it out."

"This will do fine," Christian answered. "Please don't put yourself to  further trouble-" he looked at her name tag "-Peach?" It suited her  round-cheeked abundance.

"We can't have you fading away or we'll have nothing to look at," said Peach.

"Just as long as I know what I'm here for."                       
       
           



       

Peach glanced at Kezia. "Oh, we can think of a few uses for you. I hear you two were sweethearts once."

"We're not talking about it," they said together.



SITTING IN THE DINING ROOM, watching Christian scan her summary report  while they waited for his meal, Kezia wondered how he did it. Ten  minutes ago he'd revealed a grief so deep she still ached to give him  sympathy. Now his self-possession was intimidating.

Peach arrived, carrying two plates piled high with bacon and eggs, hash  browns and toast. She forestalled Kezia. "No arguments. Coffee does not  count as breakfast."

"Just so we know who's in charge here," Kezia grumbled as she picked up her knife and fork.

"You are," said Peach. "Except when I am." She turned to Christian, her  face softening, and Kezia was torn between amusement and irritation. The  damn man exuded a potency that dazzled anyone with estrogen. Thank God  she'd been immunized. "She got skinny living away," Peach confided, "but  I'll fix that." On that ominous promise, she departed.

Christian put the report aside. "You moved out?"

Kezia stabbed at her bacon. "No, time stopped the day you left."

His blue eyes glinted across the table. "That sound patronizing?"

"Very." He waited and she added shortly, "Up until two months ago I  shared a town house in Everton with another teacher." In the district  hub, a township barely ten kilometers south of Waterview. "I hadn't  officially lived here for a couple of years although I came back to help  out most weekends."

"Tell me about your life, Kez." Christian picked up his cutlery and  attacked his heaped plate. "When I'd ask Muriel, she'd turn frosty and  say, 'Call and ask her yourself.'"

"Did she?" Kezia paused in her breakfast. "She told me the same thing."  She reached for the last piece of toast. "Of course, I have the  advantage, the tabloids had no such reticence."

He laughed at her, unrepentantly male. "So much for my hobbies. What about yours?"

She took her time applying butter. He lived his life on a big canvas and  could never appreciate the incidental pleasures of country life. But  not telling him meant his opinion mattered. "I taught primary school for  most of it, though it was always understood I'd eventually run the  family business. I'm also on the Waterview town council, I help out with  Age Assist once a week-"

"Those are duties, not hobbies. What do you do for fun?"

"Meetings can be very social." Kezia didn't like the defensiveness in  her voice. She had to lighten up. "Did I mention I'm a campanologist?"

That intrigued him. "You study camping?"

Kezia tsked. "And you with a college degree."

"I'm mortified." He looked no such thing. "Now explain."

"Some call me a swinger." She enjoyed the play of expressions on Christian's face.

"Baseball," he concluded.

Kezia made a moue of disappointment. "A man of the world not knowing what a swinger is? Pass the honey, please."

"You're pulling my leg."

"There is a lot of pulling involved," she allowed, "but not of legs. The honey?"

Christian handed it over, his gaze assessing, but Kezia kept a straight  face. "Come along to our next meeting, we're always looking for new  members." She put just the tiniest emphasis on the last word but the  gleam in his eye told her she'd overdone it. Fortunately, Peach arrived  and started clearing plates.

"Kez tells me she's a swinger," he said while his subject, unconcerned, applied honey to her toast.

"One of our best," said Peach proudly. "There's some that think giving  it a tug and setting up a racket is the go, but you need a light touch  to be any good at it."

For the first time Kezia saw Christian nonplussed. "You swing, too?" he asked carefully.

"No, but my husband does when his back isn't playing up." She turned  away with a stack of plates. "It's great to hear you laugh again,  Kezia," she called over her shoulder.

"Okay, put my imagination out of its misery," Christian demanded. "What the hell is campanology?"

"Church bell-ringing," she gasped. "Very difficult to do."

He evinced skepticism with one eyebrow. "Pulling a rope?"

"Knowing when to let it go takes more skill," she answered, regaining her composure. Campanologists were used to teasing.                       
       
           



       

"Sounds like it ranks with bungy-jumping for excitement."

"And danger," she added serenely.

"Rope burn?"

Kezia bit her lip, determined not to smile. "People have-"

"Gone deaf?"

"Died! The bells can weigh up to two tons a piece." Okay, those five  fatalities were probably spread over several hundred years, but no point  in spoiling a good story.

"I'm sure the insurance premiums are huge," he remarked, and she laughed  despite herself. Christian grinned back with a boyish charm that made  Kezia catch her breath. "You know," he said, "the biggest surprise for  me was finding you single. Somehow I expected you to be married with  lots of kids. You always wanted them."

Abruptly she changed the subject. "We should get back to work. Now that I've bought you up to date, what's your verdict?"

Shrugging, he reached for the report. "Please tell me you own that town  house in Everton, because we haven't a snowball's chance in hell with  the bank without some security or cash."

Kezia had known it would come to this. Still a miracle would have been  nice. "I don't own the town house but I do have something to sell-six  acres about two kilometers from here."