"Who lives like that?" He jerked a thumb back toward the house as he strode down to her. "The house is torn to pieces, you're down to a hot plate in the kitchen, and you're sleeping on the floor and living out of a cardboard box. What the h.e.l.l's wrong with you?"

"I'll take that one at a time. I live like this because I'm in the middle of a major project, which is why the house is torn up, though hardly to pieces. I'm down to a hot plate because I'm having the appliances rehabbed. I'm sleeping on an air mattress, not the floor, because I haven't decided what kind of bed I want. And there's nothing wrong with me."

"Go on up and get what you need. You'll take my spare room."

"I stopped taking orders a long time ago. From my mother, from agents, managers, directors, producers and all manner of others who decided they knew what was best for me, what I wanted, what I should do. I'm afraid you're too late."

"You're living like a squatter."

"I'm living as I choose."

He caught the flare of heat in the icy blue, but pushed anyway."There's a bedroom over there with a perfectly good bed, one with sheets."

"Oh, if it's got actual sheets ... no. Go away, Ford. My break's over."

"Your b.i.t.c.h of a boss'll have to give you another couple minutes. You can see this d.a.m.n place from mine, and you can walk over every morning in about ninety seconds-after you've had a decent night's sleep in an actual bed, and used a bathroom that isn't the black and blue of a psychedelic bruise, and about the size of a quarter."

For some reason his obvious fury banked any embers of her own. Amused now, she laughed outright. "The bathroom's hideous, I'll give you that. But doesn't persuade me to pull up stakes. I get the impression you're a lot more fastidious than I am."

"I'm not fastidious." Temper veered sharply into insult. "Old men in cardigans are fastidious. Wanting to sleep in a bed and p.i.s.s in a toilet that was manufactured sometime in the last half century doesn't make me fastidious. And your hand's bleeding."

She glanced down. "Must've sc.r.a.ped it." She wiped the shallow cut carelessly on her jeans.

He stared at her. "What the h.e.l.l's wrong with me ?" he wondered, and grabbed her.

He jerked her up to her toes. He wanted those ice-blue eyes level with his, wanted that gorgeous, tasty mouth lined right up. He didn't think any further than that before he swooped in and plundered.

She was sweaty, covered with sawdust and possibly had any number of screws loose. And he'd never, never wanted anyone more in his life.

He ignored her jump of shock. The bolt of l.u.s.t that slammed into him blasted away any thought of niceties. He wanted, he took. It was as elemental as that.

The water bottle slipped out of her hand and bounced on the ground. For the first time in too long to remember she'd been caught completely by surprise. She hadn't seen this move coming, and even the potency of the kiss they'd shared the evening before hadn't prepared her for the punch of this one.

It was raw, and it was randy, and plowed straight through her to leave her muscles quivering and nerve ends quaking. She wanted, for one mad moment, to be gulped down in one greedy swallow, wanted him to throw her over his shoulder and drag her off to some dark cave.

When he jerked her away again, her head actually spun.

"Fastidious, my a.s.s."

As she stared at Ford, she heard Buddy the plumber call her name from behind. "Don't mean to interrupt," he continued, "but you might take a look at what I'm fixing to do in this bathroom. When you get a minute."

She lifted a hand, wagged it vaguely in the air without looking around. "You're a dangerous man, Ford."

"Thanks."

"I don't know how I missed that. I'm usually good at spotting dangerous men."

"I guess I wear it well, since I've missed that my entire life myself. There's a lock on the spare bedroom. I can give you my word not to kick the door down, unless the house is on fire. Even then, since I've never kicked one down, you'd probably have plenty of warning."

"If and when I sleep at your house, it won't be in the spare room. But for now, I'm staying put. You're a dangerous man, Ford," she repeated before he could speak. "I'm a determined woman. I not only like living here, I need to. Otherwise, I'd be staying at the closest motel. Now, I've got to get inside. I'm putting in a basin-style sink with exposed pipes and wall-hung fixtures. Like you, Buddy doesn't understand my line of thinking."

He looked over her shoulder at the house, shook his head. "Right now, I'm not sure anyone understands your line but you."

"I'm used to that."

"Come on over when you're done, we'll check out that gym." He picked up his satchel and camera. Then the water bottle. "Your shoes are wet," he told her, then headed home.

Cilla looked down at her feet. d.a.m.ned if they weren't. She squished her way into the house to talk to Buddy.

CHAPTER SIX

Cilla spent the bulk of her afternoon looking at toilets. And choosing sinks. She debated the advantages of travertine tile and granite, limestone and ceramic. In her last incarnation of flipping houses, budget had been king. She'd learned to stick to one, to select the best value and look at the neighborhood as well as the house itself. Too much over, too much under, and profit would be sucked away like dust bunnies in a Dyson.

But this time things were different. While budget could never be ignored, she was making choices for home, not for resale. If she intended to live on the Little Farm, to build a life and a career there, she'd be the one living with those choices for a long time to come.

When she'd stumbled into the real estate game, she learned she had a good eye for potential, for color, texture, balance. And she discovered she was fussy. A slight difference in tone, shape or size in bathroom tile mattered in her world. She could spend hours deciding on the right drawer pull.

And she'd discovered doing so, and finding the right drawer pull, made her absurdly happy.

On her return to the now empty construction zone of a house, she grinned at the new planks of her veranda. She'd done that, just as she'd build the rail, the pickets, then paint it a fresh farmhouse white. Probably white, she corrected. Maybe cream. Possibly ivory.

The sound of her feet slapping down on those planks struck her like music.

She hauled the samples she'd brought with her up to the bathroom, spent time arranging, studying. And basking in her vision. Warm, charming, simple. Exactly right for a guest room bath.

The oil-rubbed bronze fixtures she'd already bought and had planned this room around would be wonderfully complemented by the subtle tones in the tile and old-fashioned vessel sink.

Buddy, she thought, would eat his words when this was done.

She left the samples where they were-she wanted to take another careful look at them in natural, morning light-then all but danced to the shower to wash off the day's work.

She sang, letting her voice boom and echo off the cracked, pitiful and soon to be demolished tiles of her own bathroom. No playback from a recording studio or soundstage had ever pleased her more.

WHEN FORD OPENED THE DOOR, Cilla held out the traveling bottle of cabernet. He took it, held it up and estimated there was nearly half a bottle left.

"You lush."

"I know. It's a problem. So how about a drink before we go scout out this gym?"

"Sure."

She'd left her hair down, he noted, so that it spilled, ruler straight, inches past her shoulders. Her scent brought a quick, vivid sensory memory of the night-blooming jasmine that rioted outside his grandmother's house in Georgia.

"You look good."

"I feel good. I bought three toilets today."

"Well, that certainly deserves a drink."

"I picked out bathroom tile," she continued as she followed him back to the kitchen, "cabinet k.n.o.bs, light fixtures and a tub. A really wonderful cla.s.sic slipper-style claw-foot tub. This is a big day. And I'm thinking of going Deco in the master bath."

"Deco?"

"I saw this fabulous sink today, and I thought, yeah, that's it. I could do a lot of chrome and pale blue gla.s.s in there. Black-and-white tiles- or maybe black and silver. A little metallic punch. Jazzy, retro. Indulgent. You'd be tempted to wear a silk robe with marabou feathers."

"I always am. As I've always wondered what is a marabou, and why does it have feathers?"

"I don't know, but I may buy that robe just to hang in there and finish it off. It's going to rock."

"All this from a sink?" He handed her a gla.s.s of wine.

"That's how it usually works for me. I'll see a piece, and it gives a tug, so I can see how the rest of the room might work around it. Anyway." She lifted her gla.s.s in toast. "I had a good day. How about you?"

She sparkled, he thought. A trip to Home Depot, or wherever she'd been, and she sparkled like sunlight. "Well, I didn't buy any toilets, but I can't complain. I've got a good handle on the book, the story line, and managed to put a lot of it on paper." He studied her as he sipped. "I guess I understand your sink, after all. I saw you, you gave a tug. And the rest works around you."

"Can I read it?"

"Sure. Once I get it smoothed out some."

"That's awfully normal and untemperamental. Most of the writers I've known fall into two camps. The ones who plead for you to read every word as it's written, and the ones who'd put out your eyes with a shrimp fork if you glimpsed a page of unpolished work."

"I bet most of the writers you've known are in Hollywood."

She considered a moment. "Your point," she conceded. "When I was acting, script pages could come flying at you while you were shooting the scene. I actually liked it that way. More spontaneous, keeps the energy up. But I used to think, how hard can it be? You just put the idea down in words on paper. I found out how hard it can be when I started to write a screenplay."

"You wrote a screenplay?"

"Started to write. About a woman who grows up in the business-an insider's view-the rise and the fall, the scrambling, the triumphs and humiliations. Write what you know, I thought, and boy, did I know. I only got about ten pages in."

"Why did you stop?"

"I failed to factor in one little element. I can't write." She laughed, shook back her hair. "Reading a million scripts doesn't mean you can write one. Even a bad one. And since of that million scripts I've read, I've read about nine hundred thousand bad ones, I knew a stinker. With acting, I had to believe-not make believe, but believe. Janet Hardy's Number One Rule. It struck me it's the same with writing. And I couldn't write so I could believe. You do."

"How do you know?"

"I could see it when you started telling me about this new idea, about this new character. And it shows in your work, the words and the art."

He pointed at her. "You read the book."

"I did. I confess I intended to flip through it, get the gist so I wouldn't fail the quiz if and when you asked me about it. But I got caught up. Your Seeker is flawed and dark and human. Even when he's in superhero mode, his humanity, his wounds show through. I guess that's the point."

"You'd guess right. You just earned yourself another drink."

"Better not." She put a hand over her gla.s.s when he reached for the wine. "Maybe later, over dinner. After you show me the gym. You said it was close."

"Yeah, it is. Come take a look at this."

He gestured, then opened a flat-panel cherry door she'd admired. Lower level, she a.s.sumed and, since touring houses always appealed, started down with him.

"Nice stairs again," she commented. "Whoever built this place really ... Oh. Man."

Struck with admiration and not a little envy, she stopped at the base. The slope of the hill opened the lower level to the rear of the house through wide gla.s.s doors and windows, and a small and pretty slate patio beyond, where the dog currently sprawled on his back, feet straight up, sleeping.

But inside, on safety mats over the wide-planked oak floor, stood the machines. In silence, she wandered, studying the elliptical trainer, the weight bench, the rack of weights, the rec.u.mbent bike, rowing machine.

Serious stuff, she mused.

An enormous flat-panel TV covered one wall. She noted the components tucked into a built-in, and the gla.s.s-front bar fridge holding bottles of water. And in the corner where the wood merged with slate rested a whirlpool tub in glossy black.

"Matt's work?"

"Yeah. Mostly."

"I'm more and more pleased with my instinct to hire him. You never have to leave here."

"That was sort of the idea. I like to hole up for long stretches. It was designed as a family room, but since my family doesn't live here, I figured why haul myself to a gym when I can bring the gym to me? And, hey, no membership fee. Of course, it cuts out being able to ogle toned and sweaty female bodies, but you've got to make some sacrifices."

"I have a bas.e.m.e.nt," Cilla mused. "An actual underground bas.e.m.e.nt, but it's big. I gave some thought to finishing it off eventually, but more for storage and utility. But with the right lighting ..."

"Until then, you're welcome to use this."

Frowning, she turned to look at him. "Why?"

"Why not?"

"Don't evade. Why?"

"That wasn't an evasion." And wasn't she an odd combination of caution and openness, he thought. "But if you need more specifics, I only use it a few hours a week. So you're welcome to use it a few hours a week, too. Call it Southern hospitality."

"When do you generally work out?"

"No set time, really. More when the mood strikes. I try to make sure the mood strikes five or six days a week anyway, otherwise I can start to resemble Skeletor."

"Who?"

"You know, Skeletor. Masters of the Universe? Archenemy of He-Man. And, no, you don't know. I'll get you a book. It doesn't fit anyway, because despite the name, Skeletor's ripped. Anyway, you can use those doors there, when your mood strikes. I won't even know you're here. And I might get lucky, have my mood match yours-then I'd be able to ogle a toned, sweaty female after all."