Something Different/Pepper's Way (25 page)

In that moment Thor felt a curious need to reassure her. He didn’t know why, but the need rose with a certainty not to be questioned. And he didn’t question. He simply drew her closer, resting his chin against her hair and wrapping both arms around her. “You look like an angel,” he told her quietly. “I don’t expect you to be one. In fact, I wouldn’t know what to do with an angel.”

Pepper was surprised by his reaction to her plea, but warmed by it. She wanted him to think of her as a flesh-and-blood woman, not the china doll some men wanted her to be. A china doll was placed on a shelf and displayed proudly; it was rarely touched or even held. Pepper had discovered in the last few minutes just how much of a woman she was, and she didn’t want to risk the loss of Thor touching and holding her.

Wary again of being too serious, of delving into too many unfamiliar emotions, she tried to lighten the mood. “You said something about giving me the nickel tour,” she murmured, highly conscious of his big arms around her.

“It’s gone up to a dime,” he responded gravely. “Inflation, you know.”

“Really? Well, I guess it’ll be worth it.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“True.” She made an experimental attempt to remove herself from his lap, both relieved and disappointed when he allowed her to get up. “Lead on.”

Thor rose to his feet slowly and stood looking down at her for a moment. “I am flattered, you know,” he said suddenly.

Pepper was deliberately obtuse. “Just because I think the tour’ll be worth a dime?” she asked lightly.

“No.” He touched the tip of her nose with one finger. “Because I’m being chased.”

“It’s early days yet,” she told him wryly. “This time next week you may be running in fear for your very life.”

“Somehow I don’t think that’s likely. In the meantime, however… This, ma’am, is the den. And, if you’ll come this way…”

The house was beautiful. Downstairs was the living room, den, study, kitchen/breakfast nook, formal dining room, and one of the three bathrooms.

The rooms were spacious and airy, decorated—Pepper’s discerning eye for such things told her—professionally, but with instructions to lean toward comfort rather than style. The furniture was composed of sturdy woods and comfortable cushions, nothing delicate or spindly. Colors varied from room to room, mostly earth tones brightened by greens and blues.

The study held her interest the longest, particularly since she was looking for clues to the man himself, and experience had taught her that work areas in the home offered the most insight for those who cared to look.

It was carpeted in deep brown, paneled in birch, and filled with bookshelves that were filled, in turn, with books of every type. Pepper could find no preference that would aid in her deductions, except that he seemed to have a fondness for mysteries. The huge oak desk in one corner was neat; no clutter of papers or objects to indicate that work was done there.

Two high-backed chairs were grouped with a table and reading lamp in another corner. In the center of the large room was a game table, suitable for card games or jigsaw puzzles, or whatever. It was bare.

In the remaining corner was a baby grand piano. Gleaming a velvety black, its polished surface spoke of loving care, but whether that was due to Thor or his housekeeper, Pepper
couldn’t tell. She touched a sparkling ivory key with one finger and wondered silently.

“You play, I gather,” she said aloud.

“Indifferently. How about you?”

“When I get the chance.”

“Feel free.”

“Thanks; I just might take you up on that.”

They left the matter there and went on with the tour. The laundry room held no interest for Pepper, but a good-size room with a door through to the garage did. It was bare except for a storage cabinet and a large deep sink, and appeared not to be in use.

“What’s this?”

“In the plans it’s called a mudroom.”

“You don’t use it for anything?”

“No. Why?”

Pepper eyed the size of the room, paying close attention to the sink. “I was just wondering… well, if you don’t need it for anything, d’you mind if I use it while I’m here? I promise to leave it just as I found it.”

Thor looked at her curiously. He wondered why she needed a large bare room, but decided that the reason would become apparent in time. “I don’t mind. Help yourself.”

“Thanks.” Pepper smiled a little, wondering how he would react to the second invasion he would suffer shortly. She hoped it would be humorously; never before, she was reasonably sure, had a man been the victim of such an honestly declared and inwardly devious chase.

If nothing else, she thought with humor, her methods were original. She was being totally honest in her goal— permanence—and utterly absurd in her methods. One of them would win… or Thor would murder her, resulting in a sort of victory by default.

“Why the Mona Lisa smile?” Thor asked a bit uneasily.

“Oh—no reason. Is the tour taking us upstairs now, or shall I imagine the rest?”

“Heaven forbid. After you.” He gestured for her to precede him, still wondering about that smile but lacking the nerve to ask again.

They went up the staircase in the entranceway so she could view the four bedrooms. They were accompanied by Fifi— who’d been with them from the first of the tour, and by Brutus—who’d caught up with them in the kitchen. All the bedrooms were beautifully decorated, one containing a huge king-size waterbed. There was a central bathroom opening into the hall, and another off the master bedroom.

That room itself was the largest, and possessed a tremendous oak four-poster bed that Pepper would have needed a stool to climb onto. It looked like an antique, along with the long dresser and tall chest of drawers. The room also boasted a walk-in closet, and the bathroom contained a sunken bath deep enough to satisfy a giant.

Passing up the opportunity to call him a sybarite, Pepper made only one remark. “Awfully big house for only one person,” she murmured as they were going back down the stairs.

“Mmm. I like space.”

She considered his reply as they went back into the den. And a glance around at the room made her remember that she’d seen few indications of “personality” in the house. No clutter or mess, which merely indicated that he was either very neat or that his housekeeper was. More surprising—and perhaps more revealing—was the lack of personal touches.

The prints and paintings throughout the house were ambiguous as to taste, mostly landscapes and seascapes. No adventurous abstracts or romantic portraits, no favored artist. There were few ornaments, and what there was seemed more
the touch of a decorator than a declaration of personal taste. Where were the souvenirs of places visited? Photos of people related or known?

Pepper wondered just how often his job took him away from home. Now, she asked herself, which one of them was putting a puzzle together? She or Thor?

“Another drink?” he asked, pulling her from speculation.

“No, thanks.” She slid a hand into her pocket, absently retrieving a worry-stone and beginning to “worry” it rhythmically.

Thor watched her curiously for a moment, then stepped closer and caught her wrist. “What’s this?”

Realizing only then what she’d been doing, Pepper opened her hand and watched him lift the smooth stone to examine it. “It’s a worry-stone,” she said.

Thor turned the object in his fingers. It looked like quartz and was roughly two inches from end to end and about a quarter of an inch thick. Oval in shape and smoothly polished, it was flat on both sides and had a slight depression in one end which was, he saw, perfectly suited to be rubbed by a thumb.

He placed the stone back in her palm, his fingers lingering on hers. “Are you worried about something?”

Rather hastily Pepper slid the stone back into her pocket. “Of course not. I quit smoking a few years ago. Some people chew gum—I play with a worry-stone.”

“I see.” He didn’t look convinced.

Pepper decided to change the subject. “Look, it’s almost suppertime, according to my stomach’s clock. I think I’ll take advantage of those liberated tendencies you blanketed us females with and ask you to share my meal. I can bring some stuff over from the van, since your dining room’s larger than mine. Or else we can go somewhere. If you’re interested, that is.”

“I’m interested. But why don’t we just make do with whatever’s
in the kitchen here? Mrs. Small usually keeps the place stocked.”

“Fine with me. What were you planning to have tonight?”

“A TV dinner.”

Pepper lifted a brow at him. “Is that your usual fare?”

“On Mrs. Small’s day off it is.”

She shook her head mournfully. “It’s disgraceful to reach your advanced years without being able to cook.”

Thor decided to ignore the first part of her sentence. “Don’t expect me to be perfect. I suppose you can cook?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that was a flat answer.”

“You asked a flat question,” she reminded him.

“No modest disclaimers, huh?”

“We’re being honest.”

“So we are,” Thor said.

“Will Mrs. Small mind us invading her kitchen?”

“We just won’t ask her.”

“Devious man.”

The rest of the evening was companionable, and if they felt the undercurrents, neither mentioned it. They observed a tacit agreement not to delve any further into their sudden relationship, treading instead around lighter topics with the wariness of fencers. They talked casually about various subjects in the curious give-and-take probing of new acquaintances, neither giving much away.

What emerged was that Thor preferred blue and enjoyed football and soft pop music and hated snails, while Pepper loved the color wine-red and also enjoyed football and pop music and could take or leave snails. Both agreed that Maine was a beautiful state and that the latest best-selling novel was fascinating and that neither nervous Dobermans nor inquisitive Chihuahuas belonged in kitchens.

After a totally deadpan preparation of hot dogs and French fries by Pepper and a joint clean-up in the kitchen, a murder mystery on television topped off the evening. Thor sided with the detective while Pepper seriously defended the murderer’s motivations.

Pepper firmly dissuaded him from walking out to the RV with her, refusing his offer to help in hooking up the vehicle to his electrical supply and condescending only to accept a flashlight. After a comically grave handshake she thanked him solemnly for the meal, the flashlight, and the place in which to park her van, gathered the dogs firmly to heel, and strolled off into the darkness.

A while later, as he was lying in bed and staring up at a darkness-distorted ceiling, Thor wondered how on earth such an emotional and challenging afternoon had turned into a disconcertingly calm and companionable evening. Questions floated around in his mind, their answers beyond his reach because he didn’t yet know Pepper well enough to even guess.

Was her honesty as real as it seemed? Had she indeed decided that he might be what she was looking for and, if so, how did he really feel about that? What had happened in her life to teach her that brute strength always wins in the end? Why the worry-stone? What events in her life had shaped a woman who could challenge a man with honesty and humor?

The last question occurred just as he was dropping off to sleep, and it bothered Thor more than all the others.

Why had she not invited him for a nickel tour of her own home? In fact, without being in the least rude, she had made certain that he had not seen the inside of the RV Was it because it contained some of the pieces he needed to put the puzzle together? And while Thor was suddenly, if sleepily, consumed with an intense desire to do so, he knew that he wouldn’t set foot inside the vehicle without Pepper’s invitation.

The thought followed him into dreams in which distorted RVs loomed mockingly and spewed forth countless jigsaw puzzle pieces while a cowardly Doberman looked at him with panicky brown eyes, a savage Chihuahua attempted to maul him, and the maniacal laughter of Odin fell derisively on the ears of a hapless, earthbound god of thunder….

Rising earlier than usual after a restless, disturbed night, Thor decided to take the coward’s way out and leave home before Mrs. Small arrived for the day. He would have dearly loved to be a fly on the wall during the meeting of his housekeeper and Pepper, Brutus, and Fifi; at the same time, the thought of likely chaos sent him out of the house after a breakfast of coffee.

Feeling both guilty and amused, he fed Lucifer and then cranked the Corvette as quietly as possible, noting that Pepper’s RV was hooked up to his garage and seeing no sign of the dogs. Presumably then, she was still asleep.

He’d given her a key to the house the night before and told her to treat it as her own, and her Mona Lisa smile of the day before came suddenly back to haunt him. What would he find when he returned?

Pushing the useless speculation from his mind, Thor backed the low-slung Corvette out of the driveway and headed toward town. He had errands to run, he assured himself silently. And he’d left Mrs. Small a note to explain Pepper’s presence. Sort of explain anyway.

“Coward,” he muttered aloud.

When Thor parked the Corvette in his driveway later that afternoon, he saw that the only difference in the appearance of his home was the presence of Mrs. Small’s little VW He felt relieved that she hadn’t, apparently, quit, but wondered what
kind of reception he would get from her. Steeling himself, he headed for the front door.

As the door swung inward he heard a deep-throated “Woof!” and saw Fifi disappearing in the direction of the kitchen. As he closed the door behind him, he saw Brutus sitting squarely in the middle of the entranceway and lifting a lip at him.

Thor stood staring down at the tiny dog. “Make up your mind, pal,” he told Brutus calmly. “Either you accept me or you don’t; we aren’t going through this little charade every time we see each other.”

The lip descended to cover pointed teeth, and Brutus returned the stare. Then he got up, wagged a tail, and trotted off after Fifi. Feeling mildly pleased with himself, Thor followed the canine parade.